Capital One acquires Va. machine learning firm

Financial giant Capital One said Friday that it acquired a Richmond, Va.–based data consulting company.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The 16 employees of Notch will join Capital One’s Center for Machine Learning, according to the companies. Tysons Corner, Va.–based Capital One created the in-house consultancy in 2016 to focus on developing products across the corporation. The former Notch team will continue to be based in Capital One offices in Richmond.

Notch cofounder Paul Hurlocker posted about the deal on Medium, saying his company started working with the in-house consultancy where he is now employed about a year ago.

https://twitter.com/notch_io/status/949339723901886464

“We’ve seen first-hand how Capital One’s transformative data and machine learning journey has established a foundation upon which we felt our team could make a significant impact,” Hurlocker wrote.

He and David Der founded the company in 2014, and have since worked with clients ranging from startups to large companies.

The move comes at an interesting time for Capital One’s evolving tech efforts. While Capital One has been pursuing digital development for a few years, the company is increasingly focused on data and machine learning with moves lately. Along with the opening the center that Notch joined, the company also recently announced a new location at University of Maryland College Park that will focus on education, as well as pair company engineers and researchers.