The 10 Coolest Machine-Learning And AI Startups Of 2019 (So Far)

As artificial intelligence startup funding reaches an all-time high, CRN looks at this year's coolest machine-learning and AI startups that are making moves relevant to the channel.

AI Startup Funding Reaches Fever Pitch

See the latest entry: THE 10 HOTTEST AI STARTUPS OF 2022 (SO FAR)

Venture funding for artificial intelligence startups reached an all-time high last year at $9.33 billion, according to the PwC MoneyTree Report, showing that interest in early stage companies tackling inferencing, training and other AI processes is as strong as ever.

These startups are tackling AI and machine learning in a variety of ways, from providing new hardware components to accelerate training and inference workloads to building new software platforms that leverage AI to improve business processes.

What follows is an overview of the 10 coolest machine-learning and AI startups of 2019 that the channel needs to pay attention to.

Clari

CEO: Andy Byrne

Clari provides a Connected Revenue Operations platform that uses artificial intelligence and automation to help companies streamline the sales forecast process and predict deal outcomes.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based startup raised $35 million in a Series A funding round last year, bringing its total to $61 million from investors, which include Bain Capital Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Tenaya Capital.

The company's Connected Revenue Operations platform, which launched earlier this year, comes with new tools for marketers and customer success professionals who can provide additional visibility and insight into customer life cycles.

DataRobot

CEO: Jeremy Achin

DataRobot provides an automated machine-learning platform that makes it easy for companies to build and deploy models for advanced artificial intelligence applications.

After raising a $100 million Series D funding round in 2018, the Boston-based startup has made two acquisitions this year. The company bought Cursor, a data collaboration platform, in February and then acquired ParallelM, a machine-learning operations platform, in June.

With a total of $225 million raised from investors, the machine-learning startup has secured several major enterprises as customers, including Accenture, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kroger and Lenovo.

FogHorn

CEO: David King

FogHorn provides an edge computing platform that can run machine-learning applications in edge gateways and mobile devices.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based startup most recently announced Lightning Mobile, an edge computing offering that brings its machine-learning and streaming analytics capabilities to ruggedized Android smartphones and tablets for the industrial market.

The company has built out more than 50 partnerships with industrial solution providers, global systems integrators, OEMs and gateway providers, including Accenture, Cisco Systems, Dell Technologies, Honeywell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Habana Labs

CEO: David Dahan

Habana Labs is a fabless semiconductor company that makes artificial intelligence processors for inference and training applications.

The Tel Aviv-based startup recently launched its Gaudi AI training processor, which the company says can outperform GPU training workloads nearly four times over.

The company, which launched its Goya inference processor last year, has raised a total of $120 million from investors, including Intel Capital.

Loom Systems

CEO: Gabby Menachem

Loom Systems provides an artificial intelligence operations platform called Sophie that uses AI and machine learning to monitor IT environments going through cloud migration.

The San Francisco-based startup recently said that it has earned co-sell status in the Microsoft for Startups program so that the two companies can work on joint sales and go-to-market efforts.

The company said its AI operations platform can predict IT issues before they become a problem for customers.

People.ai

CEO: Oleg Rogynskyy

People.ai's Revenue Intelligence System uses automaton and artificial intelligence to provide sales, marketing and customer success professionals with recommendations to improve sales cycles.

The San Francisco-based startup recently raised a $60 million Series C funding round led by Iconic Capital, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator and other investors.

The company said its platform has trained its AI on 500 million sales activities, nearly 40 million contacts, $1 trillion in deal pipeline and more than $100 billion in closed deals.

Sight Machine

CEO: Job Sobel

Sight Machine provides an artificial intelligence-powered digital manufacturing platform that is unique in its ability to create a digital twin of the entire manufacturing process.

The San Francisco-based startup recently raised a $29.4 million Series C funding round led by South Korean conglomerate LS Group, bringing its total funding to roughly $85 million.

The company's platform allows manufacturers to quickly create customized analytics and applications from a diverse variety of data sources on the factory floor.

Splice Machine

CEO: Monte Zweben

Splice Machine provides a big data platform that can perform operational artificial intelligence tasks for mission-critical business applications and digital transformation initiatives.

The San Francisco-based startup most recently raised a $16 million Series B funding round that included Accenture Ventures as a strategic investor, bringing its total funding to $58 million.

The company's SQL-based hybrid relational database serves as the core for its big data platform, which can be used to run predictive applications that manage IoT networks, machine learning and other things.

Sumo Logic

CEO: Ramin Sayar

Sumo Logic provides a machine data analytics platform that helps companies address modern operational, security and business requirements as they undergo multi-cloud and hybrid cloud efforts.

The Redwood City, Calif.-based startup recently raised a $100 million funding round at a valuation of more than $1 billion, bringing total funding to $345 million.

Since its last funding round in June 2017, the company has launched a beta cloud SIEM offering for security analytics across IT and cloud models as well as the Global Intelligence Service for extending machine learning and benchmarking data to new teams and use cases.

Wave Computing

CEO: Art Swift

Wave Computing is an artificial intelligence hardware provider for training and inference workloads in the data center and at the edge.

The Campbell, Calif.-based startup most recently launched its TritonAI 64 platform, which provides 8- to 32-bit integer-based support for high-performance AI inferencing at the edge, with support for edge training in the future.

The TritonAI 64 platform and the company's naming of Art Swift as its CEO comes after Wave Computing raised an $86 million funding round from investors last fall, bringing total funding to $205 million.