Sainaptic raises £1 million to develop AI marking tools
The UK start-up is partnering with Skilltech Solutions on apprenticeship portfolio assessment, with a joint offering expected in the first quarter of 2027.
Sainaptic, a UK education technology start-up, has raised £1 million in a round jointly led by Ufi Ventures and Cornerstone VC. Brighteye Ventures and Elm Venture Partners also invested. The funding will support development of its AI-assisted marking tools and expansion of its engineering, product and sales teams.
The business plans to add analytics, personalised assessments and quality assurance to its existing marking and feedback products. Its tools are designed for exam boards and training providers assessing vocational and professional qualifications.
Separately, a partnership with assessment software provider Skilltech Solutions will integrate Sainaptic’s AI models into Skilltech’s platform. The first offering will cover portfolio evaluation for selected apprenticeship standards, with qualified assessors retaining responsibility for final decisions.
Participating apprenticeship assessment organisations are expected to gain access during the first quarter of 2027. The partnership could subsequently cover wider assessment processes and quality assurance.
Sainaptic says marking for some qualifications has fallen to eight seconds from 45 minutes using its models, which are trained on domain-specific data. It puts potential annual savings at up to £150,000 and reports a deviation of less than 1 per cent against expert assessors, as well as near-perfect grading accuracy for work-based skills assessments.
The founders, Kavitha Ravindran and Rajeshwari Iyer, are educators and data scientists trained at Cambridge.
