The 10 Hottest AI And Machine Learning Startups Of 2019

From Cerebras Systems to SparkCognition, CRN looks at the 10 hottest startups of 2019 that are developing new offerings for artificial intelligence and machine learning.

AI Startup Funding In 2019 Set To Outpace Previous Year

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Investors just can't get enough of artificial intelligence and machine-learning startups—if the latest data on venture capital funding is any indication.

Total funding for AI and machine-learning startups for the first three quarters of 2019 was $12.1 billion, surpassing last year's total of $10.2 billion, according to the PwC and CB Insights' MoneyTree report.

With global spending on AI systems set to grow 28.4 percent annually to $97.9 billion, according to research firm IDC, these startups see an opportunity to build new hardware and software innovations that can fundamentally change the way we work and live.

What follows is a look at the 10 hottest AI and machine-learning startups of 2019, whose products range from new AI hardware and open-source platforms to AI-powered sales applications.

Cerebras Systems

CEO: Andrew Feldman

Cerebras Systems is shaking up the artificial intelligence chip market with its Wafer Scale Engine chip, what it says is the only trillion transistor wafer-scale processor in the world.

The Los Altos, Calif.-based startup revealed its Wafer Scale Engine-based CS-1 system in November at the Supercomputing conference in Denver. Calling it "the world's fastest AI computer," the startup said the system takes up only one-third of a standard data center rack while replacing the need for hundreds of thousands of space- and power-hungry GPUs.

The startup has raised more than $200 million from investors, most recently with an $88 million Series D funding round from Sequoia Capital, Foundation Capital, Benchmark and Altimeter Capital.

Clari

CEO: Andy Byrne

Clari aims to help companies streamline their sales forecast process and predict deal outcomes with its AI-powered Connected Revenue Operations platform.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based startup raised a $60 million Series D funding round in October that was led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from Madrona Venture Group and other investors, bringing the startup's total funding to $135 million.

The startup said its Revenue Operations Platform has processed more than $300 billion in deal pipeline over the past 12 month and is used by more than 50,000 sales, marketing, customer success and go-to-market professionals across 170 countries.

DataRobot

CEO: Jeremy Achin

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

The Boston-based startup raised a $206 million Series E funding round at a reported valuation of more than $1 billion in September that was led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation by Intel Capital and other investors, bringing the company's total funding to $431 million.

Earlier in the year, the startup acquired data collaboration platform Cursor and machine-learning operations platform ParallelM to flesh out its platform offerings.

H2O.ai

CEO: SriSatish Ambati

H2O.ai aims to democratize artificial intelligence with its open-source machine-learning platform that cuts down the complexity and repetition associated with developing models.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based startup raised a $72.5 million Series D round in August that was led by Goldman Sachs and the Ping An Global Voyager Fund, with participation from Barclays, Capital One and Nvidia GPU Ventures, among other investors.

The startup said its platform is used by nearly half of Fortune 500 companies, more than 18,000 organizations and hundreds of thousands of data scientists worldwide.

Moveworks

CEO: Bhavin Shah

Moveworks is automating IT support workflows with its platform, thanks to natural language understanding, machine learning and conversational artificial intelligence.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based startup raised a $75 million Series B funding round in November that was led by Iconiq Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Sapphire Ventures, with participation from Microsoft Chairman John W. Thompson and other investors.

The startup said its platform helps some of the world's leading CIOs resolve 30 percent to 40 percent of their daily IT support issues autonomously, which helped increase the company's annual sales by 300 percent.

Nightfall AI

CEO: Isaac Madan

Nightfall is using machine learning and natural language processing to help organizations discover and protect their most sensitive information with the startup's cloud-native data loss protection platform.

The San Francisco-based startup launched out of stealth mode in November with $20.3 million in funding led by Bain Capital Ventures and Venrock, with participation from Atlassian CTO Sri Viswanath and New York Jets offensive tackle Kelvin Beachum, among other investors.

The startup's platform supports integrations with Slack to protect sensitive data shared in chat and with GitHub to protect sensitive keys and credentials in code.

Ordr

CEO: Greg Murphy

Ordr is taking network security to a new level with its Order Systems Control Engine that uses machine learning to continuously track the behavior of every device on the network for vulnerabilities.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based startup launched out of stealth mode in February with $16.5 million in funding from investors and a leadership team fleshed out by former Aruba Networks executives, with Dominic Orr as chairman and Greg Murphy as CEO.

The startup said its software architecture is unique in its ability to process enormous quantities of data in real time while using sophisticated AI to deliver closed-loop security as well as generating and implementing policies directly through existing multivendor network and security infrastructure.

People.ai

CEO: Oleg Rogynskyy

People.ai is bringing automation and artificial intelligence to sales, marketing and customer success professionals with its Revenue Intelligence System that provides recommendations to improve sales.

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

Most recently, the startup released new capabilities for intelligent forecasting and prospecting as well as a way to keep track of previous buyers. The startup has also launched joint offerings with Zoom and 6sense, allowing People.ai to integrate partner data into its system.

Sight Machine

CEO: Jon Sobel

Sight Machine wants to become the "SAP of industrial data" with its artificial intelligence-based digital manufacturing platform, which can create a digital twin of the entire manufacturing process.

After raising a $29.4 million Series C round led by South Korean conglomerate LS Group, the San Francisco-based startup attracted an extra seven-figure investment from Sony Corp.'s venture capital arm, the Sony Innovation Fund, which is investing in IoT and artificial intelligence startups.

By taking hundreds of structured and unstructured data sources from the plant floor and turning them into digital twins, Sight Machine's platform can enable manufacturers to quickly create customized analytics and applications for things like predictive maintenance and root cause analysis.

SparkCognition

CEO: Amir Husain

SparkCognition is a developer of artificial intelligence technology that spans applications for predictive maintenance, endpoint security, natural language processing and machine learning model development.

The Austin, Texas-based startup raised a $100 million Series C funding round in October that was led by March Capital Partners, with participation from former Cisco CEO John Chambers, former Cisco executive Pankaj Patel, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and other investors.

The company's AI product portfolio consists of the Darwin automated model building software, the DeepArmor machine-learning-based cybersecurity offering, the SparkPredict predictive analytics offering and the DeepNLP natural language processing offering.