Universities and legacy industries are giving rise to the Midwest’s AI startups
24 Oct 2018
Even as artificial intelligence promises to transform many facets of life, the majority of AI companies in the U.S. are still concentrated in traditional tech hubs. According to a Glassdoor analysis from November, 30 percent of open jobs that included the words “artificial intelligence, “AI,” or “deep learning” in their title were located in San Jose, with another 18 percent in San Francisco.
VentureBeat decided to take a look at what kinds of AI startups are forming in the Midwest — an area venture capitalists have traditionally overlooked — and see what problems these companies are tackling. Using data from research firms CB Insights and Crunchbase, we looked for Midwestern startups with unique machine learning or artificial intelligence platforms that have raised significant amounts of venture capital. We also spoke with two Midwestern venture capitalists about which startups are worth watching.
Chris Olsen, a partner at Columbus, Ohio VC firm Drive Capital is bullish on the Midwest’s ability to produce game-changing AI startups.