From CB Insights, December 10, 2019:
In February 2019, CB Insights announced our third annual AI 100 — a list of the 100 most promising AI startups across the globe. We take a look at where these companies are now.
In 2019, companies from 3 continents and 18 industries made it to the CB Insights AI 100. They were selected from a pool of 3K+ companies based on a range of criteria, including patent activity, investor profile, news sentiment analysis, market potential, partnerships, competitive landscape, team strength, tech novelty, and more.
Since announcing our list, 9 of these startups have been snapped up by major corporations, 4 went on to become unicorns, and several have entered into partnerships with corporations like Microsoft, Oracle, HSBC, and General Electric.
Below, we take a closer look at how these companies have grown in the last year.
Acquisitions: Tesla, Uber, Apple, & Others acquire AI 100 startups
Nine startups named to the AI 100 2019 have been acquired. Acquired companies have focused on AI-driven solutions across hardware, cybersecurity, telecom, transportation, and computer vision.
Autonomous driving has been a prominent theme here. Apple acquired the talent of Drive.ai, an autonomous driving shuttle provider. In the same week, Uber acquired computer vision startup Mighty AI, which works with autonomous vehicle developers to help train vehicles in object recognition. The startup was integrated into Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group.
Tesla later acquired DeepScale, a Mountain View-based startup developing computer vision software for autonomous vehicle systems.
Unicorns: 4 startups Earned $1B+ valuations Four AI 100 2019 startups have achieved $1B+ valuations since February 2019. Eleven startups were unicorns prior to joining the list.
Horizon Robotics is a China-based startup developing edge AI chips for autonomous driving, smart city traffic surveillance, and in-store cameras for retail analytics. The company raised a $600M Series B funding led by SK China in February 2019, valuing the company at $3B.....MUCH MORE
Nuro, a Mountain View, California-based startup developing autonomous vehicles for last-mile delivery, raised a $940M Series B from SoftBank Group (also in February 2019). The deal valued the company at $2.7B.
Shape Security’s $51M Series F in September 2019 valued the company at $1B. The California-based startup uses artificial intelligence to differentiate between ordinary customers and imitation hackers on mobile and web apps.
DataRobot’s $200M Series E in July 2019 valued the company at $1B. The Boston-based startup’s platform ingests datasets and automatically creates predictive models for enterprises in banking, healthcare, insurance and other industries.....
