Sepanta signs seven enterprise deals as AI growth shifts

SEPANTA has signed seven new enterprise contracts in the past month, including one six-figure deal.

The contracts come as the UK artificial intelligence company argues that demand for AI in large businesses is shifting beyond cost reduction towards revenue growth and new product development.

That view sits within a broader market debate over how companies are using AI. Bain & Company has estimated that USD $4.7 trillion of global business profit is at stake from AI between 2025 and 2035, with only USD $1.1 trillion linked to productivity gains. The rest would come from innovation and shifts in market share.

Other research suggests many businesses remain focused on efficiency. McKinsey's latest State of AI survey found about 80% of organisations are pursuing efficiency gains from AI, while the 6% it classifies as high performers are also using the technology to pursue growth or innovation. In the UK, Office for National Statistics data shows that improving business operations is the most common use of AI among larger businesses.

SEPANTA said its recent order intake reflects a change in customer priorities, with clients using AI not only to automate tasks but also to identify new commercial opportunities across business units, teams and data sources.

Global spending on AI continues to rise. Gartner has forecast worldwide AI spending will reach USD $2.67 trillion in 2026, up 49.5% from the previous year, while spending on AI agents and assistants is expected to more than double in 2027 to USD $65.5 billion.

Growth debate

Omid Pakseresht, Chief Executive Officer of SEPANTA, said the company sees a gap between how boards often assess AI and where the larger financial opportunity may lie.

"The dominant AI narrative is cost-cutting and headcount reduction, but SEPANTA stands for the opposite outcome: new revenue lines, new products, new markets, new roles.

"Efficiency is the floor, growth is the point. What we are seeing from corporate teams is demand to free up time, connection and bandwidth, and that is a different purchase from a cost programme. It is also a harder one to buy, because you cannot show it on a headcount line.

The question a board should be asking has changed. It is no longer about which tasks can be automated. It is which parts of the business are currently invisible to the systems that run it," said Omid Pakseresht, Chief Executive Officer of SEPANTA.

His comments reflect a wider shift in how some AI vendors are positioning themselves as companies seek returns beyond operational savings. Early enterprise AI projects often centred on chatbots, coding assistants and workflow automation. Suppliers are now increasingly arguing that the next phase will depend on connecting fragmented business systems and uncovering commercial patterns that existing software cannot see.

SEPANTA describes itself as focused on enterprise growth. It said it has generated more than GBP £1 million in revenue to date and expanded without institutional venture capital, relying instead on customer revenue, angel investment and three crowdfunding rounds.

Funding route

That approach stands out in a sector where many AI groups have prioritised venture funding to scale quickly. Investors have poured money into AI infrastructure, foundation models and enterprise software in the past two years, but some smaller companies are trying to show that recurring customer income can support growth without a traditional venture capital structure.

Omid Pakseresht said that model has shaped the business from the start.

"Growing on revenue is not the modest option. A funding round is one verdict from one room, delivered once. Revenue is a verdict customers re-run every month, and they can withdraw it. We have built against that from the beginning.

We have raised from the crowd three times, and each time we chose the timing and the terms rather than taking what was on offer. A crowd tells you plainly what it does not believe yet, which is more useful than a polite no," said Pakseresht.

Dr Nima Pakseresht, Co-Founder and CPTO at SEPANTA, said many organisations have accumulated multiple AI tools without integrating them into a coherent operating model.

"Every organisation now has a dozen AI tools and no system. None of them understands how the business actually runs, and the gaps between them are where the value leaks out.

We go beyond the organisational chart by bridging the gap between external teams and data. The next frontier is not another tool. It is the layer that makes the others worth having," said Pakseresht.