Allen Institute for AI
Facts
- HQ
- Seattle
- Sectors
- Research, Artificial Intelligence
- Founded
- 2014
Kirby Winfield, ex-founder and exec, raises $15M for Ascend.vc to back Pacific Northwest early-stage startups
Kirby Winfield, a longtime Seattle startup leader who experienced burnout after multiple exits, founded Ascend.vc to invest in early-stage Pacific Northwest tech companies and raised a $15 million first fund after recovering his health and shifting from founder roles to venture investing.
Yoodli unveils AI speech-coaching platform, opens beta waitlist and raises $1M pre-seed from AI2 and Madrona
Seattle startup Yoodli launched an AI-enabled platform that analyzes users' speech delivery and offers improvement tips, and is opening a beta waitlist while announcing a $1 million pre-seed round. The spinout from AI2 is founded by Ehsan Hoque, Esha Joshi and Varun Puri, who aim to help people communicate more effectively and access opportunities.
AI2 Adds Bioengineer Jenny Cronin to Incubator; Icosavax Names Bekiroglu, Russo and Two Board Members; Proprio’s CMO Browd Expands Role
AI2 hired bioengineer Jenny Cronin as a principal for its startup incubator, bringing experience from s2s Public Relations, NanoString, and a UW bioengineering Ph.D.; AI2 has incubated startups like Ozette, Modulus and MajorBoost. Seattle biotech Icosavax named Elizabeth Bekiroglu general counsel, Thomas Russo CFO, and added Heidi Kunz and Ann Veneman to its board; pediatric neurosurgeon Samuel Browd is taking partial leave from UW/Seattle Children’s to expand as CMO of surgical tech startup Proprio.
AI2 spinout MajorBoost raises $350,000 pre-seed to automate insurance calls for medical providers
MajorBoost, an AI2 spinout founded by Lekshmi Venu, Ben Hesketh and Andrew Palmer, uses AI to automate insurance phone calls for medical providers to reduce time lost to eligibility and claim inquiries; it received $350,000 in pre-seed funding from AI2 and is preparing a seed round while running private beta customers.
Modulus Therapeutics, spun out of the Allen Institute for AI, raises $3.5M to engineer enhanced NK cell therapies
Modulus Therapeutics, a Seattle cell-therapy startup spun out of the Allen Institute for AI, raised $3.5 million in seed funding to use lab research and machine learning to engineer enhanced natural killer (NK) cells for anti-tumor therapies. Founders Max Darnell and Bryce Daines aim to develop a discovery platform to generate NK cell product candidates for larger cellular therapy companies.
WellSaid Labs raises $10M Series A led by Fuse to expand AI text-to-speech platform
Seattle-based WellSaid Labs raised $10 million in a Series A round led by Fuse to expand its AI-driven text-to-speech platform, building on a $2 million 2019 seed and backing from investors including Voyager Capital, Qualcomm Ventures and Good Friends. The funding will support research, product hires and sales expansion to scale the startup’s natural-sounding synthetic voice offerings.
Khosla Ventures leads $11M Series A for Seattle AI contract startup Lexion as revenue quadruples
Seattle startup Lexion, which uses AI to parse contracts and create searchable repositories, has quadrupled revenue and added 50 customers in four months. The 30-person company raised an $11 million Series A led by Khosla Ventures to expand from reporting into workflow features and accelerate growth.
GeekWire opens voting for 2021 Startup CEO of the Year with five finalists including OctoML, Syndio and WhyLabs
GeekWire is running community voting for its 13th annual GeekWire Awards, featuring five finalists for Startup CEO of the Year: Luis Ceze (OctoML), Maria Colacurcio (Syndio), Mike McSherry (Xealth), Ray Meiring (Qorus Software) and Alessya Visnjic (WhyLabs); voting closes April 30 and winners are announced May 20 at a virtual event.
GeekWire Names Common Room, Ozette, SeekOut, Shelf Engine and Strike Graph as 2024 Startup of the Year Finalists; Voting Open
GeekWire has announced five finalists for Startup of the Year — Common Room, Ozette, SeekOut, Shelf Engine, and Strike Graph — highlighting Seattle and Pacific Northwest entrepreneurship; community voting runs through April 30 and winners will be revealed May 20 at the virtual GeekWire Awards.
Ozette, a Fred Hutch spinout incubated at AI2, raises $6M seed to scale AI immune-monitoring platform
Ozette, a Seattle biotech spun out of Fred Hutch and incubated at AI2, raised a $6 million seed round to scale its eight-person team and commercialize an AI-driven Immune Monitoring Platform that analyzes high-dimensional single-cell protein data, initially focused on cancer. The founders say the platform automates analysis of billions-to-trillions of protein-expression combinations and increases usable information from roughly 10% to 100% of study data.
Madrona Venture Group Raises $345M for 8th Fund and $161M for 2nd Later-Stage Fund in Largest Ever $500M Capital Raise
Madrona Venture Group raised over $500 million for its largest fundraise ever, including $345 million for an eighth early-stage fund targeting 35-40 Pacific Northwest startups and $161 million for a second later-stage Acceleration Fund. The firm continues to focus on supporting the Pacific Northwest tech ecosystem while also backing later-stage companies across North America.
WhyLabs, AI2 Spinout Led by Ex-Amazon Engineers, Raises $4M from Madrona, Bezos Expeditions and Others
WhyLabs, an AI monitoring startup spun out of the Allen Institute for AI, emerged from stealth after raising $4 million from investors including Madrona, Defy Partners, Bezos Expeditions and Ascend VC to commercialize a platform for monitoring ML data and models. The company is led by CEO Alessya Visnjic, joined by former Amazon ML engineers Andy Dang and Sam Gracie plus ex-Madrona principal Maria Karaivanova.
Panda AI, spun out of AI2, raises $3.3M with AI2 as first investor from its new pre-seed fund
Panda AI, a stealth startup spun out of the Allen Institute for AI (AI2), raised $3.3 million in a round led by PSL Ventures with participation from AI2 and others; it is the first company to receive funding from AI2’s new pre-seed fund.
Ignition Partners investors spin out Fuse Venture Partners led by Kellan Carter, Cameron Borumand and Seahawks star Bobby Wagner
A group of investors from Seattle VC firm Ignition Partners, including managing partner John Connors, have launched a spinoff called Fuse Venture Partners led by general partners Kellan Carter and Cameron Borumand and featuring Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner as a venture partner. Ignite will sunset its brand while Fuse focuses on doubling down in Seattle and managing new investments, with Wagner committing to active involvement.
GeekWire Awards 2020 Goes Virtual; Ally Wins Startup of the Year as Bill Gates and Celebrities Celebrate
GeekWire held a virtual GeekWire Awards livestream honoring top Pacific Northwest tech companies and leaders across 12 categories, with winners accepting via Zoom and special video messages from figures like Bill Gates. Seattle startup Ally won Startup of the Year, and the event included entertainment such as The Drunken Tenorperforming an "Opera di Zoom."
Seattle rises three spots to crack Startup Genome’s global top 10, backed by $3.59B in 2019 VC funding
Seattle climbed three places into Startup Genome’s global top 10 startup ecosystems, driven by strengths in AI, big data, analytics, life sciences and a strong startup genealogy from Microsoft, Amazon and the University of Washington. Venture funding reached a Seattle-area record of $3.59 billion in 2019, and the city ranks highly on performance, funding, market reach, talent, connectedness, knowledge and infrastructure.
AI2 spinout Lexion launches Slack chatbot to instantly locate legal contracts; raised $4.2M seed
Lexion, an AI2 spinout in Seattle, launched a Slack chatbot that instantly finds legal contracts based on team viewing permissions, aiming to save in-house legal teams hours—CEO Gaurav Oberoi said it's especially useful for remote work. The company raised a $4.2M seed round last year and was named to CB Insights' list of 100 promising AI startups.
Panda AI launches inside AI2 in Seattle, led by CEO Aaron Goldfeder and CTO Yue Ning in stealth mode
Panda AI is a stealth B2B startup launched inside the Allen Institute for AI (AI2) in Seattle, led by CEO Aaron Goldfeder and CTO Yue Ning, both former AI2 entrepreneurs-in-residence. The company — currently two employees with early access interest and Smartsheet co-founder Eric Browne as product advisor — aims to build next-generation tools for knowledge workers using recent AI breakthroughs.
OctoML raises $15M from Amplify and Madrona to scale TVM-based ML deployment tools
Seattle startup OctoML, spun out of the University of Washington and led by Apache TVM creators, raised $15 million from investors including Amplify and Madrona to expand its ML deployment software. The company, which launched a TVM-based SaaS called Octomizer, will use the funding to grow hiring and scale its optimizer for edge and cloud model deployment.
Apple acquires Xnor.ai; Microsoft's bold climate plan; Seattle startup trivia
Apple doubled down on artificial intelligence and boosted its presence in Seattle with the acquisition of Xnor.ai, an Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence spinout with roots at the University of Washington, as first reported by GeekWire this week. It was a win for those institutions, and investors including Seattle's Madrona Venture Group, but it's also an example of an ambitious startup selling to a tech giant before it has the chance to become one itself. So how should we look at deals like this? Plus, Microsoft's ambitious plan to go "carbon negative" puts the tech company at the forefront of…
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Oren Etzioni Founder, Founder and CEO, Former CEO
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Ali Farhadi Executive, Former CEO, Chief Executive Officer
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Etzioni AI Researcher
