The AI 50 2024
KENRICK CAI
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y spring of 2023, the massive popularity of apps like ChatGPT had prompted a mass scramble among businesses trying to implement the latest advances in generative artificial intelligence.One year later, the craze continues.In turn, a new tech economy has emerged to help businesses develop and deploy AI-powered apps.That’s reflected by the makeup of Forbes’ sixth annual AI 50, produced in partnership with Sequoia and Meritech Capital, which recognizes the most promising privately-held artificial intelligence companies.
The use cases are wide-ranging and far-reaching, as immediately evident from the three largest companies on the list in terms of valuation.
Model maker OpenAI ($86 billion) counts customers from Morgan Stanley to the government of Iceland, while its rival Anthropic ($18.4 billion, as Forbes reported) is used by Bridgewater and the Boston Consulting Group.Databricks ($43 billion) sells its data analytics and AI deployment software to Shell and the United States Postal Service.For the startups on AI 50, the technology has evolved from capturing customers’ imaginations to capturing billions of dollars in collective revenue.
They have also captured the attention of Silicon Valley investors at a time when the fundraising market continues to pose difficulty for other once-hot sectors.The companies on this year’s AI 50 have raised a total of $34.7 billion in funding.
Nearly one-third of that total comes from OpenAI, thanks to some $10 billion from Microsoft.Much more comes from other ascendant AI research firms like Anthropic ($7.7 billion raised), Cohere ($445 million) and Mistral AI ($528 million).Underlying them are a slew of infrastructure tools that are helping companies to implement the technology.Many, like Baseten, LangChain and Unstructured, make their debuts on AI 50 after celebrating booming growth metrics in 2023.
Other forms of AI development are seeing traction too.Take Anduril, which has raised $2.8 billion for defense tech; Insitro, which stockpiled a $643 million cash pile for drug discovery; or Figure AI, which raised $754 million to create humanoid robots.Then, there are companies that are seamlessly layering the latest advances in AI into their own apps.
Abridge uses voice recognition and language summarization to deliver automated documentation of your visit to the doctor’s office.Notion is making inroads into uprooting Google Workspace or Microsoft Office, while Perplexity wants to reinvent the search engine.(Read more about Notion and Perplexity in our accompanying feature stories.)
The artificial intelligence sector has never been more competitive.Forbes received some 1,900 submissions this year, more than double last year’s count.Applicants do not pay a fee to be considered and are judged for their business promise and technical usage of AI through a quantitative algorithm and qualitative judging panels.Companies are encouraged to share data on diversity, and our list aims to promote a more equitable startup ecosystem.But disparities remain sharp in the industry.
Only 12 companies have women cofounders, five of whom serve as CEO, the same count as last year.For more, see our full package of coverage, including a detailed explanation of the list methodology, videos and analyses on trends in AI.
In rare instances where the company did not disclose information, Forbes uses data provided by PitchBook and Crunchbase.
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Operational Lead: Elisabeth Brier
Reporters: Rashi Shrivastava, Lauren Orsini and Leah Rosenbaum.
Data Partners: Konstantine Buhler (Sequoia), Rob Ward (Meritech) and Dan Knight (Meritech).
Disclosure: The 2024 AI 50 includes companies that have taken investment from Sequoia, which helped create this list.Sequoia has publicly disclosed investments in Cresta, ElevenLabs, Glean, Harvey, Hugging Face, Kumo.AI, LangChain, Notion, OpenAI, Replicate and Sierra; Meritech is not an investor of any companies on the list.
Dr.
Rao, a practicing cardiologist, founded Abridge to free clinicians from the time-sucking paperwork that’s required after they see patients: jotting down detailed notes for their medical records.Abridge records their conversations with patients and uses AI to summarize them.Ten thousand clinicians are already using it, and the startup is worth $850 million after raising more than $200 million in venture funding.View Profile
Abridge
– HQ: PENNSYLVANIA
– CEO: SHIV RAO
– FUNDING: $212.5 MIL
– FUNDED: 2018
Harvey caters to the needs of more than 10,000 time-pressed lawyers, helping them research cases, draft and review contracts and find legal precedents.Roommates Weinberg and Gabriel Pereyra cofounded the startup in 2022 to offload legal drudgery, and their AI tech is already used by elite law firms like British barristers Allen & Overy and Macfarlanes.
The startup has raised over $100 million in venture capital, $80 million of which it scooped up at a $715 million valuation in late 2023 from prominent tech investors Elad Gil, Kleiner Perkins, the OpenAI Startup Fund and Sequoia.View Profile
Harvey
– HQ: CALIFORNIA
– CEO: WINSTON WEINBERG
– FUNDING: $106 MIL
– FUNDED: 2022
Widely considered the European rival to OpenAI, Mistral develops mostly free-of-charge open-source AI models.The startup, less than a year old, is valued at $2 billion, per PitchBook, with more than $500 million in venture capital from blue-chip shops like Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners.Microsoft, Nvidia and Salesforce all have smaller stakes.Mistral differentiates itself by developing smaller models that are less compute-intensive.In February, it debuted its ChatGPT alternative, a chatbot called “Le Chat.”View Profile
Mistral AI
– HQ: FRANCE
– CEO: ARTHUR MENSCH
– FUNDING: $527.8 MIL
– FUNDED: 2023
With a few clicks, anyone can create videos of scuba divers exploring underwater sea life or a tiger prowling through a lush Indian forest using Pika’s generative AI software.Founded by two Stanford Ph.D.students in April 2023, Pika has already been used to make 35 million videos on the back of $55 million in funding from notable angels like former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Quora cofounder and CEO Adam D’Angelo.
The nascent startup, with a 13-person, mostly female team, is valued at $250 million.View Profile
Pika
– HQ: CALIFORNIA
– CEO: DEMI GUO
– FUNDING: $55 MIL
– FUNDED: 2023
– NAMEWHAT IT DOESFUNDINGYEAR FOUNDEDHEADQUARTERSAbridgeMedical conversation documentation$213 M2018Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United StatesAdeptAI model developer$415 M2022San Francisco, California, United StatesAnduril IndustriesDefense software and hardware$2.8 B2017Costa Mesa, California, United StatesAnthropicAI model developer$7.7 B2020San Francisco, California, United StatesAnyscaleAI app deployment software$259 M2019San Francisco, California, United StatesAssemblyAISpeech transcription tooling provider$115 M2017San Francisco, California, United StatesBasetenAI app deployment software$60 M2019San Francisco, California, United StatesCerebras SystemsComputer chip maker$720 M2016Sunnyvale, California, United StatesCharacter.AIConsumer chatbot app$193 M2021Menlo Park, California, United StatesCleanlabError detection for data$30 M2021San Francisco, California, United StatesCodeiumCoding autocompletion app$93 M2021Mountain View, California, United StatesCohereAI model developer$445 M2019Toronto, Ontario, CanadaCradleProtein design for drug discovery$33 M2021Amsterdam, NetherlandsCrestaCall center agent assistance$152 M2017Palo Alto, California, United StatesDatabricksData storage and analytics$4 B2013San Francisco, California, United StatesDeepLLanguage translation service$100 M2017Cologne, GermanyElevenLabsVoice generation software$101 M2022London, United KingdomFigure AIAutnomous humanoid robots$754 M2022Sunnyvale, California, United StatesGleanEnterprise search engine$360 M2019Palo Alto, California, United StatesHarveyAI models for law firms$106 M2022San Francisco, California, United StatesHebbiaEnterprise search engine$30 M2020New York, New York, United StatesHugging FaceLibrary for AI models and datasets$395 M2016New York, New York, United StatesInsitroDrug discovery and development$643 M2018San Francisco, California, United StatesKumo.AIData analytics software$37 M2021Mountain View, California, United StatesLangChainAI app development tools$35 M2023San Francisco, California, United StatesLeonardo.AIImage generation service$31 M2022Sydney, AustraliaMidjourneyImage generation service$0 M2021San Francisco, California, United StatesMistral AIOpen-source AI model research$528 M2023Paris, FranceNotionProductivity software$330 M2013San Francisco, California, United StatesOpenAIAI model developer$11.3 B2015San Francisco, California, United StatesOwkinDrug discovery and development$304 M2016New York, New York, United StatesPerplexityGeneral purpose search app$102 M2022San Francisco, California, United StatesPhotoroomPhoto editing app$64 M2019Paris, FrancePikaVideo generation service$55 M2023Palo Alto, California, United StatesPineconeDatabase software$138 M2019New York, New York, United StatesReplicateAI app deployment software$60 M2019San Francisco, California, United StatesRosebud AIVideo game design software$10 M2019San Francisco, California, United StatesRunwayImage and video editing software$237 M2018New York, New York, United StatesSanaEnterprise learning and search$82 M2016Stockholm, SwedenScale AIData labeling and software$600 M2016San Francisco, California, United StatesSierraCustomer service software$110 M2023San Francisco, California, United StatesSynthesiaAI avatar and video generator$157 M2017London, United KingdomTogether AIAI model development tools$229 M2022San Francisco, California, United StatesTomePresentation creation software$81 M2020San Francisco, California, United StatesTractianIndustrial machine maintenance$65 M2019Atlanta, Georgia, United StatesUnstructuredAI app development tools$65 M2022Sacramento, California, United StatesVannevar LabsDefense intelligence software$87 M2019Palo Alto, California, United StatesWaabiAutonomous trucking technology$84 M2021Toronto, Ontario, CanadaWeaviateDatabase software$68 M2019Amsterdam, NetherlandsWriterEnterprise generative AI software$126 M2020San Francisco, California, United States.
