Annette Tonti, CEO and co-founder of The Innovation Scout, likens the dance between startups and the corporations who want to work with them to dating.
There are thousands of fish in the sea, all offering different things, and connecting with the right — er, fish — is increasingly difficult. However, machine learning comes on the scene, enterprising folks developed the likes of Match.com, and romance blossoms between pairs that would otherwise still be pining.
If this avenue worked for those looking for dates, why then couldn’t it do the same for businesses looking for their startup soulmates?
It was this line of thinking that inspired The Innovation Scout, a Rhode Island corporation that debuted its platform in May of this year at the Chief Innovation Summit in San Francisco.
For serial entrepreneur Tonti, its mission is as unique as it is simple: “How do I help corporations and how do I help startups? That’s the equation,” she said. “I don’t know of anyone using artificial intelligence to solve this problem.”
And solid meet-cutes are indeed a problem, Tonti said. Corporations have an increasingly intense focus on using startups as a leg-up on the innovation front. “All the disruption, and I mean that in a good way, mainly happens in the startup,” she said. “They have the ability to go fast, ability to make mistakes; they don’t have Wall Street to contend with. If I would want to talk innovation, I need to look at the world of startups.”
Businesses know this (or have learned the hard way), and as such, many corporations are creating venture groups and teaming up with accelerators to fund a cohort for their companies — and to find relevant startups that will eventually supplement their work.
Then, there are startups themselves who are expending too much effort on the road to finding a partner, because there’s no “discovery platform,” Tonti said. Oftentimes, connections between corporations and smaller enterprises “happens so serendipitously,” often because of somebody knowing the right people. “That doesn’t seem right to me,” she said.
That’s what The Innovation Scout wants to change with its platform and services, which rely on machine learning and big data to make the right connections between the two groups. Buying into the platform means that companies have help building their “Innovation Profile” so they can begin finding relevant startups in database of more than 300,000. The platform even ranks results, allowing users to connect with the founders behind each enterprise. For the sophisticated program, Tonti credits University of Rhode Island professor Dr. Lutz Hamel, instrumental in getting the machine learning element of the company just right.
The Innovation Scout’s biggest customers have been pharmaceutical, health care and insurance corporations. So far, it’s groups like these that are The IS’s bread and butter. “We’re going to big companies first because they’re already [trying to work with startups],” Tonti said. “I believe as time goes on, we’ll reach out to companies out of the Fortune 100s and other smaller companies who want to know what’s going on in innovation.”
“How do I help corporations and how do I help startups? That’s the equation."
Considering different customers isn’t the only thing that Tonti and co-founder Vernon Rauch have on their plate for the future. The goal is to eventually have a sort of recommendation scheme like Netflix, she told me; “based on your preferences, user from company A, we think you’ll enjoy what startup B has to offer.”
Then, there’s hope to develop the assessment element — “to distribute the list [of recommendations] you have created,” Tonti continued. “[There should be a] process that winnows that down to 20 companies and get [corporations] into pitch mode.” Tonti added that there’s a chance that The IS could run an accelerator online, “taking the cost out” of the experience.
For Tonti, The IS is the culmination of a career full of considerable experience working with innovators, companies and startups alike. While she’s started her own companies before, The Innovation Scout is her “baby,” and it has her “living kind of like the 21-year-old college student living on soup, with what I’m doing now.” But, she added, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
