StarApple Analytics, Jamaica’s first data science and artificial intelligence (AI) company, is positioning itself for a possible IPO within the next two years. 

Founded in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, StarApple uses data analytics and research to help companies understand their customer base and make decisions.

“We ensure companies know what’s going to happen before it happens and allow them to make the best decisions to capitalize on that future knowledge,” said CEO Adrian Dunkley in an interview on Taking Stock with Kalilah Reynolds. 

“Think about when you talk to Alexa, or when you go on Neflix and it has a movie that you like. The idea is they’re using machine learning, AI, in the background to figure out what you like and then using that to predict what you’re gonna do and what you’re gonna like before it happens,” he added.

Dunkley said he saw a need for a Jamaican-led AI initiative as many larger, more international forms of AI can not understand all the nuances of Caribbean languages.

Despite the company’s youth, the CEO said it has already secured collaboration with several well-established companies such as the RJRGleaner Communications Group and KPMG, to name a few. Dunkley also noted that RJRGleaner Group was one of its first equity investors and currently owns 15% of StarApple. 

“The cash helped, the operational support is helping, the expertise is very big and also having a very experienced board is help helpful,” he said.

StarApple is on track to earn US$500,000 in revenues by the end of its financial year, with a profit margin above 50%, Dunkley said.

He added that the company has worked in several areas such as sales/marketing, customer service, finance and political science.

He said the company is looking to branch out into other areas such as sports, art and crime.

According to Dunkley, expansion would help to boost the company’s revenues as well as profitability. 

StarApple currently has an office in Florida in the United States, where the company has been able to employ members of the diaspora to assist with data analytics for companies in the area.

Dunkley said that the company is also looking into expanding to Canada, Africa and several other locations.

“My appetite is bigger than my mouth at this point. The idea is we want to expand into all of these areas so quickly that we’re gonna need to figure out how to fund it,” he said. 

He noted that funding is not just limited to physical office space, but wages as well as people with a higher skill level. 

“The expansion in the US is going pretty well and the whole point of an IPO is to support further expansion. So, we’re trying to gauge the initial success and see exactly how much funds we would actually need to get,” he noted.

The CEO noted that he is not afraid of failure and the company is ready to deal with any potential losses, recover and move on to the next idea.