Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group has teamed up with Goldman Sachs to list the top 40 artificial intelligence and machine learning startups.
The firms are calling the list, released Monday, the Intelligent Applications Top 40, or IA40. Madrona, Goldman and the other judges put together an initial list of more than 220 candidates. The 40 judging firms then picked five companies per category, of which only two votes could be for a firm's portfolio companies.
"As early-stage investors, we have been partnering with intelligent application companies for years and watching their incredible impact on areas as diverse as finance, sales automation and life sciences," Matt McIlwain and Ishani Ummat of Madrona wrote in a blog post announcing the new list. "These applications will define the future of software and the next generation of computing, and we believe they deserve to be known and recognized."
Startups were placed in either the early stage (up to $30 million raised), mid stage (between $30 million and $200 million raised) or growth stage (at least $200 million raised). A fourth category called "enablers" cut across stages. Below are the four Seattle-area companies that made the list.
WellSaid Labs
Category: Early stage
Total funding: $12 million
HQ: Seattle
CEO: Matt Hocking
What the company does: Allows clients to convert text to speech with one click
Amperity
Category: Mid stage
Total funding: $187 million
HQ: Seattle
CEO: Kabir Shahani
What the company does: Helps clients use data to better understand their own customers
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SeekOut
Category: Mid stage
Total funding: $74 million
HQ: Redmond
CEO: Anoop Gupta
What the company does: Finds qualified job candidates for companies, pulling from a variety of sources, including public profiles and published papers
OctoML
Category: Enablers
Total funding: $133 million
HQ: Seattle
CEO: Luis Ceze
What the company does: Helps clients improve machine learning models and automates processes needed to deploy machine learning models
