One of Canada’s biggest banks has purchased a promising artificial intelligence, or AI, startup that was co-founded by two U of T alumni and a local lawyer and entrepreneur – further evidence of how big corporations are eager to scoop up the country's top AI talent.

TD Bank said this week that it has agreed to buy Layer 6 for an undisclosed sum, although the Globe and Mailcites sources who say the price tag was in excess of $100 million when retention payments to employees are included.

Layer 6 uses machine learning technologies to help businesses better anticipate their customers’ needs, and won an international competition for best recommendation system last summer. The startup was co-founded in 2016 by Jordan Jacobs and U of T alumni Tomi Poutanen, who holds both a master's in applied science and an MBA from U of T, as well as computer science alumnus Maksims Volkovs (PhD 2013), whose graduate research was part of the machine learning group under the supervision of Professor Richard Zemel.

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