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Cogna
Hyper-customised software defined by you, delivered by AI.
Cogna is the AI-powered factory that creates custom software for industry. We create custom software-as-a-service for people and problems in the world’s most ambitious companies. Power is now in the hands of individuals: Cogna means they can deliver on their decision-making at a fraction of the time and cost.
Ben Peters and Lars Mennen are the driving forces behind Cogna. They have been friends and colleagues for nearly 7 years and their motivation to found a company together is rooted in a shared ambition: harnessing the world's top talent to tackle the most intricate software challenges for the benefit of the world. Their combined expertise forms the foundation of Cogna's approach.
Ben Peters
,
CEO
Ben's extensive experience in product and business management has been instrumental in shaping Cogna's product strategy. As the Co-founder and VP Product at Five, a self-driving car startup acquired by Bosch in 2022, he played a pivotal role in product development and market positioning, and was key to a successful exit. Ben led the development platform efforts at Five, building a large-scale SaaS platform to extract requirements from driving logs and run millions of driving simulations every day. He played a key role in assembling the team and in raising nearly $70m in venture capital. During his tenure at Neul, which Huawei acquired in 2015, and before that at NXP Semiconductors in Germany, Ben honed his skills in team building, product management and marketing.
With an MBA from Warwick and a background in Electronic Engineering from Brighton, Ben possesses both the technical know-how and business management skills essential for Cogna's growth. His track record includes two successful startup exits and multiple equity fundraisings.
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Lars Mennen
,
CTO
Lars's expertise in software engineering, machine learning and AI form the technical backbone of Cogna. He joined Cresta, a startup in the Bay Area valued at $1.6 billion, at Series A, building real-time AI-first SaaS for Fortune 500 customers. Most recently, he ran all AI-related efforts at Cresta: production AI infrastructure, human-in-the-loop labeling & QA platform, NLP modeling, various AI product features, and fine tuning LLMs. At Five, as the inaugural hire, Lars built a large part of the initial self-driving stack and collaborated closely with the founders to build the initial team and develop the technical processes and architecture. His academic credentials, a Masters in Mathematics from Cambridge, underpin his technical contributions.
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