Being AI co-investment to form AI startup, Tymestack

10 June 2024

NZX Lim it e d
AU C KLAN D

Being AI Group announce co-investment to form AI startup, Tymestack

Introduction to TymeStack
In order to access emerging opportunities across the AI landscape, Being AI Group operates three divisions –
Being Labs, Being Consultants, and Being Ventures.

Today we announce that we have co-invested into one such emerging opportunity – Tymestack.ai Pty Limited
(“TymeStack”), an Australian company headquartered in Melbourne Australia, by taking a 50% equity position
in TymeStack.

David McDonald, Group CEO of Being AI elaborates on the announcement.

“Being Labs develops patentable AI technologies and incubates advanced technology startups. Our
Labs team have been working on this opportunity for some time, and so today, we are pleased to
announce our co-investment into Tymestack. Tymestack offers a unique approach to AI-driven price
optimisation engine that reduces and even eliminates gross margin losses in retail price markdowns
while simultaneously accelerating sales and reducing waste.”

The problem seems simple. Some retailers over-discount, offering a 30% discount to clear stock when a lesser
discount would suffice, while others under-discount or discount at the wrong times. Tymestack optimises the
depth and timing of discounts to maximise profits.

Despite the widespread adoption of AI in pricing solutions, a s u rve y b y IHL Gro u p
1
projects that overstocking
costs $562 Billion for retailers globally in 2023. This stark reality underscores the urgent need for improvement
in in d u s t ry-standard solutions. Tymestack is committed to transforming this lost opportunity into a profit
generator, leveraging advanced AI technologies to optimize pricing strategies. Some might argue that this is
solely an inventory optimization problem, contending that with careful planning, markdowns could be avoided
altogether. While meticulous planning is indeed crucial, it's important to acknowledge the reality that demand
is often influenced by short-term, unpredictable factors like supply chain disruptions and pandemics. We're
living in an era where predictability is increasingly erratic. Therefore, our solutions must not only be
meticulously planned but also be reactive to uncertainties in the market landscape.

The origins of Tymestack bega n o ve r fou r years ago. Having undertaken a forecasting and optimisation project
for a la rge-scale retailer, Abishek Sriramulu, the founder and co-investor of Tymestack, realised that existing
price o p t im is a t io n algorithms could be vastly improved. The project solution showed a significant recorded
uplift in revenues during an A/B test but Abishek believed he could deliver more.


1
The Good, The Bad, The Ugly of Retail Inventory Distortion (ihlservices.com)

“Despite the massive direct positive impact that the earlier forecasting and optimisation project
generated for the proprietor of that project, I was dissatisfied with the limitations of the solution. This
dissatisfaction led me to leave and start my PhD, embarking on a journey to find a better solution.” says
Abishek Sriramulu.

As part of his PhD in Temporal Analytics at Monash University, Abishek Sriramulu worked with Being AI CTO,
and founder of Being Labs, Dr Nicolas Fourrier co-publishing papers to further research into areas such as
graph neural network based forecasting methods.

With all the academic & business knowledge gained over four years, the Tymestack algorithm is patent-
pending and has been tested, refined, and validated as a superior AI-driven approach to price optimisation –
achieving up to 20% better results than existing AI price optimisation methodologies, in testing undertaken to
date. For large-scale international retailers, this could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars in additional
margin and savings.

Abishek Sriramulu continues –
“The algorithm applies a specialised area of forecasting mathematics to
overcome issues with static and heuristic price elasticity estimations. Despite the algorithm’s
complexity, Tymestack’s UX is designed to be simple and easy to use, providing the flexibility and
simplicity that real-world applications demand.”

Being Labs incubation team will support Tymestack’s launch and growth to traction with technical, financial,
legal, marketing, and sales support. This incubation effort is spearheaded by Dr. Nicolas Fourrier.

“We are all looking forward to bringing the Tymestack difference to market. Our initial focus is to work
with large, often multinational or e-commerce retailers with the revenue and SKU scale that makes
markdown price optimisation a valuable problem to solve.” Says Dr Fourrier.


Abishek Sriramulu concludes
“After years of work, it’s truly exciting to witness first-time reactions to Tymestack
as well as to partner with the Being AI team to accelerate Tymestack’s journey.”

Terms of our deal
Today we finalised the contractual arrangements to document our co-investment in TymeStack. The principal
terms of our investment is as follows:

• We have subscribed for new shares in TymeStack, representing 50% of the total shares on issue.
• The aggregate cost of our investment is AUD$1.5 million.
• We will be satisfying the payment of our investment progressively by contributing a combination of
cash, and the provision of our own professional services to TymeStack.
• Be in g AI’s C TO, Dr. Nic ola s Fourrie r, will be appointed to the Tymestack Board.

Optimisation and forecasting some of the highest value areas is where AI will have an impact across every
industry, investing in technology that is already proven to be market leading in this space is a clear indicator of
where Being AI is going.

For more information contact:

David McDonald
Gro u p CEO, Be in g AI Lim it e d
Mobile: +64 27 239 7000
Em a il: d a vid @b e in ga i.gro u p
Website: b e in ga i.gro u p
https://www.linkedin.com/company/beingaigroup


Ab is h e k Srira m u lu
CEO, Tymestack.a i Pt y Lim it e d
Mo b il e : 434 960 044+61
Em a il: ab@tymestack.com

Website: tymestack.com