SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Madrona today announced the Intelligent Applications 40, a list of the top 40 private companies building applications and infrastructure leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning. This year, the winning companies were selected by venture investors, from 380 nominations from more than 54 top-tier venture and corporate investment firms. Pitchbook’s data and algorithm-driven scoring helped to determine the final 40 winners and 5 rising stars.
The list is being released in advance of the Intelligent Applications Summit, taking place in Seattle October 1 and 2. Hosted in partnership with AWS, Microsoft, Delta, NYSE, Morgan Stanley, and McKinsey & Company, the summit brings together leaders in AI, founders, investors, and researchers. To learn more about the IA Summit and request an invite visit https://www.ia40.com/summit
The key trends in the 2024 IA40 and the 5 Rising Stars are:
Generative-native AI companies continue to see high growth, particularly in enterprise productivity.
Gen-native applications — those built on top of foundation models from the start —applied to knowledge search and management, workflow acceleration, or assisting with team-based GenAI content creation continue to see success with enterprise customers. AI application companies such as Glean, Writer, Read AI, and Hebbia have integrated their products with enterprise systems as powerful AI partners. Early stage gen-native AI companies, such as Yurts, are also exploring the market for enterprise efficiency while addressing adjacent markets, such as government agencies that could benefit from similar solutions. The list also highlights vertically focused productivity solutions that address customer problems tailored to specific industries, such as healthcare (Tennr), software development (Codium), and sales (Clay). The Madrona team expects winners in the enterprise productivity AI space to more clearly emerge in the next couple years.
Gen-enhanced applications persist in their ability to deliver value-add AI capabilities for their customers.
In 2023, we noted that gen-enhanced companies — those that did not begin as AI companies but have integrated AI into their offerings, such as the raft of co-pilot applications — have advantages over the newer companies. They benefit from an existing customer base and established brands. Companies like Canva and Figma continue to excel at enhancing their existing workflows and offerings, helping their customers extract more value. These companies have demonstrated they can quickly adapt to compete with gen-native applications. This is “as predicted” last year, and Madrona believes that gen-enhanced companies can emerge as truly disruptive category definers and winners in the medium term.
Companies are exploring new autonomous capabilities of AI to take on tasks.
Improvements in models and platform infrastructure (e.g., frameworks like LangChain) have made it possible for companies to more actively pursue the development of autonomous AI agents. These agents are designed to tackle a wide range of tasks. MultiOn is creating AI agents capable of performing diverse online tasks, while Factory aims to transform software engineering by automating functions such as writing tests and documentation to streamline the development lifecycle. Dropzone is developing AI agents to autonomously investigate security alerts and generate comprehensive reports. As the AI agent space continues to emerge, we expect ongoing innovation across the stack to support new autonomous developments.
Capital for AI Companies Continues to Grow
The 2024 IA40 winners have raised a total of $45.3B from inception to August 15, 2024 — the cut-off for tabulation. Nearly half, or $22B, was raised in the last 12 months alone, which includes a whopping $7.2B and $8.6B from Anthropic and CoreWeave, respectively. Even excluding these two large rounds, 2024 IA40 winners still raised an impressive $6.2B in the past year. Fundraising remains strong for prior IA40 cohorts as well, with 2023 IA40 winners raising $11.3B in the last 12 months.
For more in-depth insights, visit our blog at https://www.madrona.com/intelligent-applications-40-2024/ and view the 2024 list at www.ia40.com
About Madrona
Madrona (www.madrona.com) is a Seattle-based venture capital firm with nearly 30 years of experience investing in early-stage technology companies. Madrona partners with founders from day one, providing long-term support to build innovative, industry-leading businesses for the long run. The firm has more than $3 billion under management, and was an early investor in companies such as Amazon, Snowflake, UIPath, Rover, Redfin, and Smartsheet. Rooted in the Pacific Northwest, Madrona also backs companies across the country, focusing on sectors such as AI, intelligent applications, and life sciences.