The report titled 'Emerging Landscape of AI and Generative AI Startups in 2024' examines the major developments, key players, and evolving market trends in the AI and generative AI landscape as of 2024. It highlights substantial investments, technological advancements, and the rise of innovative startups positively impacting sectors such as healthcare, gaming, and content creation. Key players like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Microsoft are reviewed for their contributions alongside startups like Perplexity AI and Robin AI, illustrating a field rich with diversity and rapid growth. The report also discusses notable technology launches like Intel Articul8 AI, Google's Bard Advanced, and OpenAI's GPT Store, illustrating the wide-ranging applications and advancements in AI and generative AI technologies.
Intel, under CEO Pat Gelsinger, launched a new AI firm named Articul8 AI, which operates independently from its core operations. Developed with Boston Consulting Group, Articul8 AI utilizes Intel's generative AI technology to process text and images. Although the financial details were not disclosed, the spinout aligns with Intel's strategy of external funding for its divisions, indicating significant investment in the generative AI space.
Robin AI, a UK-based startup, secured $26 million in Series B funding, raising its total funding to nearly $43 million. The funds will support the expansion of its AI legal copilot, which uses Anthropic PBC’s Claude LLM fine-tuned with over 2 million contracts. This technology significantly reduces contract review time and costs, with major clients like PepsiCo and PwC already using it.
Perplexity, an emerging AI search startup, raised $74 million in a funding round, achieving a valuation of $520 million. This milestone attracted notable investors including Jeff Bezos and former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. Perplexity's innovative 'answer engine' has rapidly gained user traction, serving 10 million monthly users and witnessing website visits soar from 2.2 million in December 2022 to 53 million by November.
Google is reportedly developing 'Bard Advanced,' a new premium version of its Bard AI powered by its most powerful language model, Gemini Ultra. This enhanced version aims to provide superior skills in complex mathematical and logical reasoning, including features for bespoke bot creation and tool enhancements, although these updates are still pending official confirmation.
OpenAI is set to launch its GPT Store, a platform allowing users to share and monetize custom AI agents created using OpenAI’s GPT-4 language model. This launch is exclusively available for ChatGPT Plus and enterprise members, marking a significant advancement in user-driven AI applications, although details regarding monetization for creators remain undisclosed.
Perplexity AI, founded in 2022 and located in San Francisco, California, has seen an impressive 99-fold growth over the past five years. The company has raised a total of $165.3 million in a Series B funding round. Perplexity AI has developed a free AI search engine that provides users with conversational responses similar to a chatbot, utilizing a combination of various large language models (LLMs) including OpenAI's GPT-4 and Google DeepMind's Gemini. In April 2024, Perplexity launched its first B2B product, Enterprise Pro, which includes features for user management, single sign-on integration, SOC2 certification, and enhanced data privacy and security measures. The company recently attained unicorn status with a valuation of $1.04 billion, raising $62.7 million in its last funding round.
FlutterFlow, established in 2020 by former Google engineers, is based in Mountain View, California. The company has experienced a staggering 99-fold growth in its search interest over the last five years and has secured $30 million in Series A funding. FlutterFlow provides a no-code platform for users to build mobile applications for both Android and iOS utilizing Google's Flutter open-source UI toolkit. As of January 2024, the platform boasts over 1.25 million users.
Founded in 2021 and based in San Francisco, WriteSonic has grown by 6,400% over the last five years. The startup has raised $2.6 million in seed funding. WriteSonic specializes in AI-powered copywriting, helping businesses and individuals generate high-quality content for various purposes including website copy and marketing emails. The tool also features generative capabilities like a conversational chatbot and an art generator, reaching over 5 million users across 100 countries.
Beehiiv, based in New York and founded in 2020, has also seen a significant growth rate of 99 times over the past five years and has raised $49.7 million in Series B funding. This platform enables users to build and monetize newsletters, managing email lists and engaging with their audience effectively. As of April 2024, Beehiiv supports 20,000 active newsletters and delivers around 1 billion emails each month.
Founded in 2019 in Paris, France, Photoroom has achieved an extraordinary growth rate of 9,400% over the last five years and has raised a total of $62.1 million in Series B funding. The AI photo editing application allows users to effortlessly remove backgrounds and objects from their images. Photoroom's technology continues to evolve with the introduction of features for batch photo editing and smart resizing. The app has been downloaded 150 million times globally and currently processes over 5 billion images annually.
OpenAI and Google DeepMind are two leading organizations in the field of artificial intelligence, each with distinct focuses and goals. OpenAI is committed to developing safe and beneficial AI technologies with an emphasis on transparency and accessibility. Founded as a nonprofit in December 2015, OpenAI aims to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits humanity broadly. In contrast, Google DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet, concentrates on creating AI that mimics human learning and reasoning, leveraging its significant resources for groundbreaking applications. This distinction in focus highlights the differing approaches these organizations take towards the advancement of AI.
Both OpenAI and Google DeepMind have made substantial contributions to AI technology. OpenAI's notable advancements include the development of the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) series, particularly GPT-3, which can generate human-like text and perform complex language tasks, showcasing its 175 billion parameters. Additionally, OpenAI has achieved success in reinforcement learning, notably in training AI agents for complex games. On the other hand, Google DeepMind is recognized for its significant milestones, including AlphaGo, which defeated the world champion in Go, and advancements like AlphaFold in 2020, which revolutionized protein folding predictions and transformed biological research.
The IA contributions of OpenAI and Google DeepMind have significantly impacted various industries. OpenAI's technologies, particularly the GPT series, have transformed natural language processing, influencing sectors like customer support and content creation. ChatGPT and DALL-E are widely used in business applications, enhancing productivity and creativity. Conversely, Google DeepMind's applications have made notable strides in healthcare, particularly through AI algorithms that assist in diagnosing complex medical conditions. DeepMind’s achievements also extend to AI applications in games, data center operations, and energy efficiency, showcasing the versatile applications of their innovations across diverse fields.
As of 2024, several startups have made a significant impact in the generative AI landscape. OpenAI stands out as a leading player with its advanced language models, including GPT-4 and applications like ChatGPT. Founded in 2015, it has become a multi-billion dollar company, known for innovative solutions such as Sora, a text-to-video tool. Anthropic, founded in 2021, offers its Claude platform with capabilities for content generation and conversational AI, emphasizing customizability. Cohere, established in 2019, focuses on natural language processing solutions that enhance business operations through conversational AI. Stability AI, known for its Stable Diffusion technology, specializes in content generation, despite facing some controversy over copyright issues. Together, these startups represent a diverse range of applications, from language modeling to image and audio generation.
Generative AI startups are leveraging technology for various distinct use cases across industries. Language modeling is prominently showcased by OpenAI and Anthropic, both developing powerful models for text generation and conversational interfaces. Content generation tools from startups like Jasper and Stability AI facilitate the creation of marketing materials and visual content. In the realm of enterprise search, Glean utilizes deep-learning to provide contextual information retrieval, enhancing knowledge management for organizations. These startups not only focus on generating content but also improving search and data management processes, showcasing the versatility of generative AI solutions.
Cohere is an AI startup founded in 2019 and based in San Francisco, California. It focuses on building multilingual large language models (LLMs) aimed at enterprise businesses to help streamline various tasks. As of June 2023, Cohere had successfully raised $434.9 million in funding, resulting in a valuation of between $2.1 billion and $2.2 billion. The company has seen a remarkable growth in searches, with a 913% increase over the past five years.
Founded in 2016 and located in New York, New York, Hugging Face has become a collaborative AI community that provides tools for developers. It offers over 61,000 pre-trained models and 7,000 datasets that significantly enhance the speed of building generative AI and machine learning models. Hugging Face raised $235 million in Series D funding in August 2023, reaching a valuation of $4.5 billion. Notably, this company has experienced an astounding 8,700% growth in searches over the last five years.
AssemblyAI, founded in 2017 in San Francisco, California, is an AI-as-a-service company specializing in automated speech transcription, topic detection, and advanced content moderation. It supports APIs in 80 different languages. The startup has raised $158.1 million across several funding rounds, including a $50 million round led by Accel in December 2023. AssemblyAI has also experienced a notable 760% increase in search growth over the last five years.
Founded in 2017 and based in London, England, Synthesia is a generative AI video maker that allows users to create AI-generated videos by simply uploading text. The platform supports 120 languages and offers 125 different AI avatars for video creation. As of recent data, Synthesia has secured $156.6 million in funding through Series C rounds. The company has seen a search growth of 148% over the past five years.
Midjourney, created in 2022 in San Francisco, California, is a generative AI image generator. It requires users to join its Discord channel to generate images, currently serving over 15 million users. The platform has reached significant revenue milestones without external investments, expecting to exceed $200 million in 2023. Meanwhile, Promptbase, also established in 2022 in London, serves as a marketplace for buying and selling generative AI prompts. It has experienced a search growth of 228% in the last five years.
Google AI is the artificial intelligence division of Google and has made significant contributions to AI technology. It developed TensorFlow, an open-source machine learning framework, and advanced natural language processing technologies, including BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers). These contributions have aided various sectors by improving efficiency and accuracy in tasks related to machine learning and language understanding.
IBM Watson, named after IBM’s founder, has been a pioneer in cognitive computing since its spotlight victory on the quiz show Jeopardy! in 2011. Watson provides tools like Watson Studio and Watson Natural Language Understanding, aimed at analyzing vast datasets, particularly in industries such as healthcare where it assists oncologists with treatment recommendations by analyzing medical literature and patient data.
Microsoft Azure AI offers a comprehensive suite of AI tools as part of Microsoft’s cloud platform. It includes Azure Machine Learning for building and deploying machine learning models and Cognitive Services that provide image and language processing capabilities. These integrated tools significantly enhance the ability of businesses to implement AI solutions effectively and at scale.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides a robust set of AI and machine learning services, enabling seamless integration of AI capabilities into various applications. Key services include Amazon SageMaker for model development and training, AWS Rekognition for image and video analysis, and AWS Comprehend for natural language processing. AWS AI's scalable infrastructure allows businesses to adopt and deploy machine learning solutions conveniently.
OpenAI is a well-known organization with a reputation for pioneering research in artificial intelligence. It has made significant advancements in natural language processing, computer vision, and robotics. Its contributions to deep learning technologies, particularly through the GPT series, have had a substantial impact on various industries.
DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., is renowned for its pivotal role in AI advancements, especially in deep learning and reinforcement learning. The organization is celebrated for developing advanced algorithms and has significantly influenced healthcare, energy, and gaming sectors. DeepMind promotes ethical and responsible AI use, which has garnered respect in the scientific community.
IBM Watson is highly regarded for its advanced cognitive computing capabilities, including natural language processing, machine learning, and data analytics. These technologies allow it to analyze vast amounts of complex data and provide valuable insights, making it a preferred platform for businesses across various industries such as healthcare, finance, and education.
Microsoft offers comprehensive AI tools and services via Azure AI, including Azure Machine Learning for building and deploying machine learning models. Furthermore, Microsoft provides cognitive services that equip applications with pre-built AI functionalities, demonstrating its commitment to making AI accessible to businesses for innovation and growth.
NVIDIA specializes in developing graphics processing units (GPUs) optimized for deep learning applications and offers various AI software platforms like CUDA and cuDNN, enabling developers to enhance their deep learning workloads. Meanwhile, Intel provides CPUs designed for AI applications and software tools, such as the OpenVINO toolkit, focusing on simplifying the development of AI applications.
In September 2023, Amazon made a significant investment of $4 billion in Anthropic, a company focused on developing large language models (LLMs) to compete with ChatGPT. This investment highlights the growing interest of venture capitalists in generative AI startups, which has seen a notable increase over the past three years. Search interest for Anthropic has surged by more than 2,850% since 2019.
The agricultural technology (agtech) sector has embraced AI, focusing on precision agriculture and farm data management. Currently, there are nearly 300 AI-focused agtech startups in the US, amid a total of approximately 1,400 agtech startups globally. Additionally, significant investments in climate tech have been recorded, particularly in carbon and emissions reduction technologies. For example, VC investment in climate tech startups hit a record high of $7.6 billion in Q3 2023, even as overall investment in this sector faced a decline.
Despite the robust growth in investments for AI startups, several challenges persist. The shortage of high-powered chips has been particularly severe, leading to the emergence of black markets. Furthermore, economic uncertainty has made many investors cautious, with surveys indicating that only 21% of Americans have used an AI program in the past six months, reflecting a potential lack of consumer interest.
Flock Safety, founded in 2017 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, has developed an advanced camera system powered by AI capable of identifying a vehicle’s fingerprint. The system is designed to detect stolen cars entering an area and promptly notifies law enforcement and local residents. Flock Safety's technology is currently utilized in over 2,000 cities across 42 states, showcasing a significant impact on crime prevention. The startup has successfully raised a total of $380.6 million in Series E funding, and its five-year search growth is reported at 1,900%, indicating explosive interest.
Established in 2001 and based in Shanghai, China, UNISOC specializes in utilizing AI to enhance and streamline chip production processes. The company has garnered substantial funding, totaling $1.6 billion in Series C rounds, and boasts an estimated annual revenue of $1 billion with a net profit margin of 3.49%. Currently, UNISOC serves over 500 clients across more than 133 countries, including notable brands such as Samsung, Hisense, and vivo. Their five-year search growth has reached 3,950%, highlighting significant industry performance.
Founded in 2020 and located in Bengaluru, India, MedPay operates a sophisticated platform that connects healthcare professionals with insurance agencies utilizing a smart, algorithm-driven payment system. Over 47,000 pharmacies and 20,000 doctors from 650 cities are currently using this platform, underscoring its broad adoption across the healthcare sector. The startup has secured $1.2 million in Seed funding, with a search growth of 65% over the last five years.
RepVue, founded in 2018 and based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, specializes in tracking real-time sales compensation data across various organizations. Using its proprietary algorithm, RepVue rates the compensation practices of over 1,200 companies based on established criteria. The startup has raised a total of $6 million in Seed funding, with an impressive five-year search growth of 9,800%, indicating strong market traction.
Scale AI, established in 2017 in Hong Kong, focuses on providing essential training data for machine learning and AI applications across multiple sectors, including self-driving cars, robotics, and AR/VR. With a reported revenue exceeding $200 million in 2023 and a customer base of over 1,000, Scale AI is a significant player in the data provision market. The company is reportedly close to concluding a new funding round that could elevate its valuation to $13 billion. Scale AI's five-year search growth is marked at 1,214%, illustrating its increasing prominence in the tech landscape.
Reclaim.ai is an AI-powered startup that offers a smart calendar app that optimizes schedules for busy professionals. The company aims to prioritize essential tasks over random meetings, allowing users to save up to 40% of their workweek. They are currently seeking skilled Senior Java Engineers to contribute to their conversational scheduling experience and backend development. Reclaim.ai operates with a remote work policy, offers full health benefits, a 401k plan, and unlimited PTO. The salary range for positions is between $140k and $220k.
OpenAI is a research organization founded in 2015 by notable tech leaders like Elon Musk and Sam Altman, dedicated to advancing AI systems safely and beneficially. Their prominent product, ChatGPT, has rapidly gained traction, reaching over 100 million monthly active users within two months. OpenAI is hiring for various roles, including engineering and operations, with a hybrid work policy. They provide full benefits, 401k matching, and unlimited PTO. Salaries range from $130k to $450k.
Anthropic, founded by AI safety experts with a focus on creating interpretable AI systems, gained attention with their launch of Claude, an advanced AI assistant. They are in a significant growth phase, supported by investments from tech giants. The company has openings in engineering, operations, and research, and offers hybrid work options along with full health benefits, a 401k plan with matching, and unlimited PTO. The salary range is from $115k to $600k.
Grammarly provides an online writing tool powered by AI to enhance users' writing skills. The company has grown significantly, reaching 30 million monthly users and seeks new talent across various roles. They offer a remote-first work environment, full health benefits, a 401k program, and 20 vacation days. Salaries range from $160k to $300k.
Hive specializes in cloud-based AI solutions and provides pre-trained models for content understanding. The company has received substantial funding and is expanding its team. Hive requires engineers and offers onsite positions along with full health benefits. The salary range is approximately $90k to $300k.
Sanctuary aims to develop general-purpose robots with human-like intelligence. They are recruiting top AI and ML engineers, offering flexible work arrangements, full health benefits, and paid time off. Salaries range from $80k to $185k.
Lambda provides GPU hardware access for deep learning and supports many Fortune 500 companies. They are looking for engineers and offer both remote and onsite positions, with a salary range of $100k to $250k.
Dataiku provides an AI and machine learning platform that enables organizations to deploy predictive models. The company, founded in 2013 and backed by significant investors, is actively hiring. They offer flexible work policies and salaries between $80k and $200k.
Amazon heavily invests in AI and needs talented software engineers and product managers. They provide full health benefits, a 401k plan, and salaries ranging from $110k to $350k.
NVIDIA focuses on GPUs for AI applications and is actively recruiting both engineering and research talent. They offer comprehensive benefits and salaries usually from $150k to $300k.
IBM develops various AI products and seeks talent in many roles. The company provides a flexible work environment, full health benefits, and salaries between $100k and $250k.
Alphabet focuses on AI development through collaborations and is hiring broadly across departments. They offer robust benefits packages and salaries from $100k to $300k.
Microsoft is heavily investing in AI and actively recruiting across various positions. They provide generous benefits and competitive salaries ranging from $100k to $350k.
Accenture is investing significantly in AI services and is hiring across multiple disciplines. They provide flexible work options and competitive PTO, with salaries varying based on the role.
Prompt AI is an AI startup based in San Francisco, California, that focuses on computer vision. The company has secured $5 million in seed funding and aims to democratize access to advanced computer vision technologies through the use of large language models. The mission of Prompt AI is to empower users to solve impactful problems related to their personal media. By leveraging large language models, Prompt AI intends to make computer vision accessible to individuals with varying degrees of technical expertise.
Rephrase.ai is located in San Francisco, California, and has raised $12.2 million in Series A funding. The startup specializes in revolutionizing the video production process through its text-to-video generation platform. Users can easily create professional-looking videos by selecting digital avatars, adding messages, and rendering the final output. This platform serves a wide range of users, including brands, agencies, influencers, and celebrities, and simplifies the process of video creation.
Sudowrite, based in San Francisco, has raised $3 million in seed funding and offers a unique writing assistant targeted at authors, journalists, and content creators. The platform includes tools for brainstorming, writing, and editing, utilizing a 'Story Engine' that provides personalized feedback and automated ideas. Inworld AI, located in Mountain View, California, has secured $125.7 million in funding. The startup focuses on integrating AI-powered characters into video games, creating dynamic characters that simulate human behavior. This advanced technology enhances player engagement and transforms gameplay experiences. Jasper AI, a Montreal-based startup, has evolved from a writing assistant into a comprehensive content creation platform, backed by $131 million in Series A funding. The platform utilizes advanced generative AI models to help businesses scale their marketing content, facilitating tasks such as producing blog articles and social media posts.
Frame AI, situated in New York City, has raised $17.9 million in Series B funding for its AI-powered customer success platform. The platform uses proprietary STAG-based AI technology to help businesses detect customer trends and enhance operational efficiency. Uizard, a startup based in Copenhagen, has secured $18.6 million in Series A funding. The AI-powered platform assists product teams in streamlining their design workflow, allowing them to quickly transform screenshots into wireframes and sketches into mock-ups, which enhances the UI design process.
Cohere, headquartered in San Francisco, has raised $445 million in Series C funding, focusing on developing multilingual large language models for enterprise needs. This technology aims to improve critical tasks such as chatbots and search solutions for businesses. Hugging Face, based in New York, has achieved $395.2 million in Series D funding. The company provides a large repository of pre-trained models and datasets, facilitating innovation in machine learning. Hugging Face emphasizes open-source development and offers both free and enterprise-grade solutions to accelerate machine learning projects.
The report provides an in-depth analysis of the rapidly evolving AI and generative AI startup ecosystem, emphasizing the significant investments and technological innovations from leading companies like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Microsoft. These developments are reshaping multiple industries by enhancing operations and creating new opportunities. While key findings highlight the positive impact and potential of AI technologies, there are ongoing challenges such as chip shortages and economic uncertainties that need attention. Future research should delve into detailed case studies to better understand the long-term impacts and practical applications of these technologies. The outlook for AI and generative AI remains promising, with continuous advancements expected to drive further growth and transformation across global markets.
OpenAI is a pioneering research organization in artificial intelligence, known for its GPT series which excels in natural language processing. It aims to create safe and beneficial AI technologies for widespread use, with significant contributions influencing various industries.
Google DeepMind, a part of Alphabet, focuses on mimicking human reasoning through advanced AI research. It achieved breakthroughs with AI applications in game-playing and healthcare, such as AlphaGo and AlphaFold.
Perplexity AI specializes in a conversational AI search engine, offering innovative solutions in the AI-driven search sector, with significant funding to enhance its capabilities.
Intel's Articul8 AI focuses on generative text and image processing, marking a significant advancement in AI technology launched on January 5th.
Google's Bard Advanced leverages AI for complex reasoning, representing the company's continued innovation in AI technology to enhance user experience.
OpenAI's GPT Store allows sharing and monetizing custom AI agents, providing a platform for developers and businesses to distribute their AI solutions.