Institute of AI

  Fundbox  Headquarters:  San Francisco Founders : Eyal Shinar (CEO), Tomer Michaeli, Yuval Ariav Funding:  $140 million  Valuation:  $750 million Fundbox has a data-driven take on lending that facilitates loans to small businesses rather than regular people. Founder Eyal Shinar says that seeing his mother, who ran a staffing agency, struggle with cash flow inspired the idea of advancing customers for outstanding invoices. A company that wants a loan through Fundbox connects their existing finance tools to its platform, which then uses these data streams to assess risk and either approve the loan or not. Shinar says that process can take as little as three minutes. 

  Bright Machines  Headquarters:  San Francisco  Founder : Amar Hanspal (CEO), Tzahi Rodrig, Lior Susan  Funding : $200 million    Valuation : $679 million, via Pitchbook While factories have become increasingly automated over recent decades, Bright Machines believes that robotic systems are finally ready for primetime deployment. “Until now, the most complex operations in manufacturing have been too difficult for blind and dumb robots to perform with the same precision and fidelity as humans,” says CEO Amar Hanspal, adding that advances in computer vision and machine learning have changed the game. The company just released its first product in June: So-called “microfactories,” or closed systems with robotic arms that can complete tasks like inserting chips in a circuit board. 

  Verkada Headquarters:  San Mateo, CA Founders : Filip Kaliszan (CEO), Hans Robertson, James Ren, Benjamin Bercovitz Funding:  $59 million Valuation:  $540 million  Verkada  has only been selling its products for two years, but it has already boomed to a $540 million valuation and more than 1,200 customers. A lineup of cloud-connected security cameras equipped with AI-driven features like object and movement detection has driven growth at Verkada, whose cofounders are three Stanford computer science graduates and the cofounder of enterprise cloud company Meraki, which sold to Cisco for more than $1 billion. Among the company’s wide-ranging list of clients are fitness club Equinox, the $1.1 billion Vancouver Mall and more than 500 school districts, which use the cameras for anything from monitoring student safety to tracking food deliveries. It earned a spot on  Forbes’  list of  Next Billion-Dollar Startups earlier this year .

Standard Cognition  Headquarters: San Francisco  Founders: Jordan Fisher (CEO), Michael Suswal, David Valdman, John Novack, Brandon Ogle, Dan Fischetti, TJ Lutz  Funding: $86 million  Valuation: $535 million Goodbye, cashiers. Hello, cameras. Standard Cognition is working on an autonomous checkout system where shoppers can wander through a store, picking out goods and pay without scanning their items or interacting with an employee. Its overhead cameras track individuals and items continuously (notably, its so-called entity cohesion doesn’t rely on facial recognition, which it says gives shoppers more privacy). “We have essentially created autonomous checkout for everyone who is not Amazon,” the company says. Standard Cognition has opened a pop-up in San Francisco to show off its tech and says that it’s in “shadow mode” testing in several stores in North America. 

  People.ai   Oleg Rogynskyy of People Ai Headquarters:  San Francisco Founder : Oleg Rogynskyy (CEO) Funding:  $100 million Valuation:  $500 million, via Pitchbook People.ai CEO Oleg Rogynskyy says he’ll never forget the moment he realized how much time salespeople spend doing nonsales things. At the time, he was an early employee at a company called Nstein Technologies. “The COO of Nstein grounded the whole sales team for a week in a sweaty, windowless conference room to go and clean up our Salesforce,” Rogynskyy recalls. That week inspired him to address “bad” customer relationship management data head-on, he says. In 2016, Rogynskyy founded People.ai, which integrates into CRM systems like Salesforce and automatically inputs relevant data from email, calendars, Slack chats and more, and advises salespeople on the “best” tasks to focus on. VMware, Zoom, New Relic and Lyft are all customers. 

  Matterport Headquarters:  Sunnyvale, CA Founders : Matt Bell, David Gausebeck, Michael Beebe (no longer active employee) - (CEO: RJ Pittman) Funding:  $115 million, via Pitchbook Valuation:  $355 million, via Pitchbook Matterport makes hardware and software for creating realistic 3D models. Its image processing technology, called Cortex, works with its own 3D camera, as well as a selection of cheaper 360-degree cameras, to let users create virtual versions of their space. The company’s leaning into the real estate market,  showcasing how agents can use it to give 3D tours.  

  Brain Corp. Headquarters:  San Diego Founders : Eugene Izhikevich (CEO), Allen Gruber Funding:  $125 million Valuation:  $240 million via Pitchbook Brain Corp. aims to upgrade dumb machinery with robotic software. It’s tackling the world of floor-cleaning equipment first, partnering with manufacturers to make their machines better at avoiding obstacles in busy environments. Walmart announced earlier this year that nearly 2,000 stores will be humming with BrainOS-powered cleaners by the end of 2019. “I have always dreamed of building artificial brains,” says neurobiology researcher and CEO Eugene Izhikevich. “Starting Brain Corp. gave me this opportunity.”