Sparrho combines human and artificial intelligence to help research professionals and layman users stay up-to-date with new scientific publications and patents.[2] Sparrho's recommendation engine provides personalized scientific news-feeds by using proprietary machine learning algorithms to "aggregate, distill and recommend" relevant content.[3] The platform aims to complement traditional methods of finding relevant academic material such as Google Scholar, and PubMed with a system which enables the serendipitous discovery of content and across relevant scientific fields.[4]
Recommendation engine
Sparrho uses a "three-pronged approach" to content recommendation. Firstly, "data-data analysis" is tackled using techniques such as natural language processing to provide appropriate research based on data provided by users.[5] Secondly, "user-user interactions" are utilized to propose a wider range of potentially relevant subject areas to users with similar interests.[6] Finally, "user-data interactions" such as labeling articles as "relevant" or "irrelevant" within a particular scientific field allows Sparrho to personalize user newsfeeds.[7]
History
Sparrho was founded in 2013 by Vivian Chan and Nilu Satharasinghe as a solution to issues Chan encountered over the course of her biochemistry PhD at the University of Cambridge, especially in staying up to date with scientific literature [8][9][10] Initially established at Ideaspace in West Cambridge, and moving subsequently to Camden Collective[11] and the Ministry of Startups[12] in London, the company is now based in the data science hub SHACK15 in Shoreditch, London.[13]
In 2014, Chan was a semi-finalist for the 2014 Duke of York New Entrepreneur of the Year Award,[14][15] and in 2015, Chan was included on the 35 Women Under 35 list compiled by Management Today.[16] In 2016, Sparrho was a semi-finalist in Pitch@Palace 5.0.[17]
As of July 2017, Sparrho has raised $3 million from investors including White Cloud Capital, AllBright, and Beast Ventures.[18]
Competitors
Sparrho's primary competitors are PubChase and Scizzle,[10][19] though both PubChase and Scizzle are targeted towards biomedical sciences and solely recommend academic journal papers.[20][21]
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