Montezuma.ai - leading the charge in favor of value-focused AI
The future belongs to those who embrace new technology. Our featured company of the month, Montezuma.ai, has been spearheading the move to value-focused AI and machine learning technology for the customers of their products and services.
The avant-garde tech experts at MZ (as they call Montezuma) have pioneered techniques in deploying AI/ML-based products in industries as far-ranging as retail, hospitality, and defence.
The story of Montezuma goes years back, and its origins are decades old. The company was initially founded in 2011, a collaboration between friends in the hope of making the world better with technology.
Their passion for technology led them to incorporate Montezuma in 2014. Since its debut, they have helped a vast number of clients solve massive, complex business problems through their unique “systems thinking” approach to problem-solving.
Today, Montezuma narrates its own growth tale through its impressive portfolio. The company has a plethora of satisfied global clients, mostly from the US and India, 3 SaaS products, 25+ employees, and offices and development centers in two continents.
In their journey, they have strived to help founders and managers of different businesses harness the power of artificial intelligence with minimal investment.
From their first year, Montezuma has been profitable. Until 2016, they were primarily serving Indian customers and won their first international client in 2017.
They made a move to being a product company in 2021, and launched two more products this year. Their growth story is perhaps best seen in their revenues - they’ve grown at an 85% CAGR since inception. Montezuma has filed for three patents in 2022.
Montezuma has been offering end-to-end tech stack management capabilities from inception, letting clients focus on their core competencies without distractions.
Montezuma covers all tech aspects of their client’s business, from infrastructure to more complex business needs (e.g. SaaSification of existing revenue streams, API integrations, custom hardware development, as well as bespoke, use-case-specific solutions).
Secondly, VR/AR technology has been one of the company’s strongholds. It has worked with all major VR/AR Development platforms such as Unity and ARKit to ARCore to create iOS and Android apps across industries.
Montezuma also specializes in Shopify implementations. This includes purpose-built JavaScript-based integrations and extensions for attribution, analytics, and optimization. The company also helps its clients optimize their web presence and nurture customer relationships.
Perhaps most importantly, Montezuma has the expertise to deploy advanced AI/ML algorithms (e.g. classification, clustering, predictive analytics, neural networks) to solve customer problems thay directly impact to the customers’ bottom line.
As an example, MZ recently launched an AI-powered virtual assistant for restaurants. “Pam”, this assistant, can take orders, follow up on customer requests, book tables, and even run custom marketing campaigns.
· Pam can support interactions over tens of platforms, from plain old telephone all the way to Twitter and Facebook Messenger. A high-level diagram of how Pam works is included here - the product relies on layers of very sophisticated natural language processing and builds a knowledge base of its interpretations and actual outcomes. It analyzes its own responses and actually grows smarter and more human with each interaction.
· MZ estimates this offering to save US-based restaurants at least $30-45,000 annually, per location. The company has deployed this at tens of restaurants in the US, and will look to scale this product in the second half of this year.
Another example of value-focused machine learning is the history-based delivery time estimation algorithm that MZ recently productized.
This algorithm uses a combination of past delivery times, geographical distances, and population distribution to continually refine estimates of delivery times that eCommerce websites can leverage for their shoppers.
It was observed that including this feature led to as much as an 80% increase in the purchasing funnel conversion rate. Montezuma recently applied for a patent for this algorithm.
Originated in 2011, Montezuma was founded in 2014 by Mr. Chinmay S. Borkar, Mr. Sagar Deshmukh, and another co-founder who later exited the company.
Mr. Borkar is the Co-founder, Board Member, and former Chief Product Officer of Montezuma. He has a demonstrated history of designing, shipping, and growing products in different geographies and industries.
In the past, he has worked with companies like McKinsey & Company and Deutsche Bank. Currently, he works as a Senior Product Manager with Microsoft. Academically, he holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and degrees from IIM Indore and the University of Pune.
On the other hand, Mr Sagar Deshmukh is the other co-founder, a board member, and the CEO of Montezuma. As a lifelong entrepreneur, Mr Sagar started his first company at 22.
His passion for using technology to solve complex business problems helped him start and design large businesses with scalable systems. Before starting on his entrepreneurial journey, Sagar had completed a Master’s degree from IIT Madras and graduated from the University of Pune.
Montezuma prides itself on being outcome-driven, and cares deeply about and the value it can bring to customers through its products and services. They are strict about measuring their results in direct, quantifiable ROI.
The founders stated a deep belief in Occam’s Razor, eschewing complexity and effort in favor of simplicity and result. Putting their client’s interests over their own, Montezuma offers complete transparency - their customers stated that the company acts more like a trusted advisor than a vendor.
Montezuma has 6 new products that are waiting in the line-up to be launched, accompanied by 15 new patents by 2025. They will also be doubling up their employee strength every year until then and will be expanding their office footprint.
Montezuma is also working on creating a strategic partnership with a US-based customer to white-label their existing solutions, and planning to raise VC funding by 2023.
Given their recent successes and strong focus on values, we are sure that this is a company to watch out for in the near future!
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