AI 100: The most promising artificial intelligence startups of 2023

CB Insights has released its annual AI 100 for 2023, showcasing the 100 most promising private AI companies worldwide. This year’s winners stand out for their work on a range of innovative technologies, including generative AI infrastructure, emotion analytics, general-purpose humanoids, and more.

Using the CB Insights platform, our research team picked these 100 private market vendors from a pool of nearly 9K companies, including applicants and nominees. They were chosen based on CB Insights datasets — including R&D activity, proprietary Mosaic scores, business relationships, Yardstiq transcripts, investor profiles, news sentiment analysis, competitive landscape, and team strength — and criteria such as tech novelty and market potential. The research team also reviewed thousands of Analyst Briefings submitted by applicants.

CB Insights

Our analysis will focus on examining the naming and domain strategies of the top AI companies featured in this year’s list.

Namepicks

Anthropic

Anthropic is an AI safety and research company. Founded in 2021 by Daniela Amodei and Dario Amodei, former senior members of OpenAI, Anthropic has experienced rapid growth, attracting significant investments from tech giants such as Google, Salesforce, and Amazon. The company’s flagship product is Claude, a next-generation AI assistant based on Anthropic’s research into training helpful, honest, and harmless AI systems. 

By July 2023, Anthropic had raised $1.5 billion in funding, a clear testament to its potential in the AI industry. In September 2023, Amazon announced an investment of up to $4 billion, initially contributing $1.25 billion and then an additional $2.75 billion in March 2024. Following Amazon’s lead, In October 2023, Google invested $2 billion in Anthropic.

We believe AI will have a vast impact on the world. Anthropic is dedicated to building systems that people can rely on and generating research about the opportunities and risks of AI.

Anthropic

The word “Anthropic” originates from the Ancient Greek word ‘ánthrōpikós'(ἄνθρωπικός), meaning ‘human.’ It signifies things related to human beings or the period of their existence on earth.

Anthropic owns the exact brand match domain name, Anthropic.com. Securing a short and memorable .com domain, especially one that’s a dictionary word, is an essential initial move in establishing a global brand presence.

Cohere

Cohere is a leading AI platform for enterprise. The company was founded in 2019 by Aidan Gomez, Ivan Zhang, and Nick Frosst. Cohere specialises in building large language models that enable AI to learn from new data and can be tailored for a range of applications, including the development of chatbots, search engines, copywriting tools, and various other AI-driven products.

Cohere’s cutting-edge large language models are built on Transformer architecture and trained on supercomputers, providing NLP solutions that don’t need expensive ML development. With a world-class team of experts, we’re dedicated to helping companies revolutionize their operations and maximize potential in real-world business applications.

Cohere

The word “cohere” is derived from the prefix “co-“, meaning “together/joint”, and “here”, originating from the Latin word “haerēre,” which means “to stick.” Collectively, it conveys the idea of uniting or holding together as a unit.

Cohere initially chose a domain with the .ai extension, popular among tech companies for its connotation with Artificial Intelligence and its broader availability compared to .com domains. However, this extension, which is actually a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Anguilla, can come with specific risks and constraints, especially as businesses grow. To align with its rapid expansion and solidify its status as a global player, Cohere upgraded its domain name to Cohere.com.

Zilliz

Zilliz, a leading vector database company for enterprise-grade AI, was founded by the engineers behind Milvus,  the world’s most popular open-source vector database. Zilliz specialises in developing advanced database technologies, simplifying the creation of AI applications for organisations.

The company offers technologies and products that assist over 5,000 organisations globally in effortlessly creating AI applications across various fields. These include computer vision, image retrieval, video analysis, natural language processing (NLP), recommendation engines, targeted advertising, customised search, intelligent chatbots, fraud detection, network security, new drug discovery, and much more.

During an interview, Frank Liu from Zilliz revealed that the choice of the brand name “Zilliz” draws inspiration from “zillion,” which represents a huge amount of data that the company hopes to handle. The name is also a palindrome, lending it the quality of being read identically forwards and backwards.

Zilliz operates on the exact brand match domain Zilliz.com, which boosts its global recognition and reinforces its professional image.

Ello

Ello is transforming the approach to teaching children how to read by integrating real books with artificial intelligence technology, effectively providing each child with their own expert teacher. Utilising evidence-based reading instruction, Ello assists children when they encounter difficulties and employs behavioural psychology to keep them motivated and engaged in their learning journey.

Ello is the patient reading companion that every parent wishes they could be — even in those moments of frustration.

Dr Elizabeth Adams, Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer for TechCrunch

Founded in 2019 by Catalin Voss, Elizabeth Adams, and Tom Sayer, the company initially named Trustle rebranded itself as Ello. Adopting personal names as brand names, as seen with Ello, offers significant advantages such as fostering trust and establishing a more personal connection with customers. This is particularly effective in Ello’s case, where it aligns with the company’s role as a teacher for children, making the name easy for young learners to remember and trust. As highlighted in our recent report, this branding strategy has proven successful for numerous businesses over time, demonstrating its effectiveness in building strong brand identities.

Following its rebrand, the company initially used the domain HelloEllo.com but later upgraded to the exact brand match domain Εllo.com. Startups often add extra words to their domain names when the exact match isn’t available, but this can sometimes cause customer confusion or result in lost traffic and emails. Switching to an EBM domain like Ello.com can bring considerable benefits, helping the business to establish a stronger online presence and improve its reputation.

Replicate 

Replicate provides a platform where software developers can easily run open-source AI  with an API. The company was founded in 2019 by Ben Firshman, previously a director of product management at Docker, and Andreas Jansson, a former machine learning engineer at Spotify.

AI is currently too hard to use for software engineers and you have to be a machine learning engineer to use it. Companies and the industry as a whole is being held back by the lack of machine learning experts. We’re making it possible for software engineers to use machine learning with zero experience, with just a few lines of code, so they can build products with AI and apply it to business problems.

Ben Firshman, Co-Founder and CEO of Replicate, in an interview for TechCrunch

Owning a dictionary word .com domain such as Replicate.com is a powerful element of the company’s branding strategy. This choice reflects simplicity, authority, and ease of access, which are vital in building consumer trust and brand recognition. Such a domain is considered a strategic asset, enhancing the brand’s visibility and credibility worldwide.

Figure

Figure is an innovative AI Robotics company founded in 2022 by entrepreneur Brett Adcock. It specialises in developing autonomous, general-purpose humanoid robots. These robots are designed for workforce deployment, particularly in areas experiencing labour shortages, in undesirable or unsafe jobs, and to bolster global supply chain efficiency.

Before establishing Figure, Brett Adcock was a co-founder of Archer Aviation, a company focused on building electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, which went public with a valuation of $2.7 billion. He also founded Vettery, an AI-driven marketplace, which was acquired for $110 million.

As a seasoned entrepreneur, Brett Adcock shares valuable advice on effective company naming. It emphasises the need for a name to be unique in its industry to build strong brand recognition. He suggests choosing names that could be used as verbs. The name also should be short, ideally with few syllables to make it easy for people to remember and pronounce.

Great company names are worth millions. Choosing a name is one of the most important decisions you will make as an entrepreneur. 

Brett Adcock

Figure operates under the domain Figure.ai, while Figure.com is owned by another company also named Figure, which is a non-bank home equity line of credit (HELOC) lender.

Brett Adcock owns his name as a domain name, BrettAdcock.com, where he offers valuable insights and updates about his projects, sharing his experiences in building successful companies.

Highlights

Of the companies listed, 52 use the .com domain extension. Customers worldwide naturally tend to trust .com as it has been dominating the internet for decades.

Among the AI startups on our list, 38 have opted for the .ai domain extension. This extension, while linked in perception to artificial intelligence due to its initials, is actually the country code top-level domain for Anguilla. While such domain choices offer freedom of choice, they may not be optimal for global business scalability. As a result, it’s common for companies to upgrade to the globally recognised domain extension .com as they establish themselves and expand their reach.

46 startups on the list secured exact brand match domain names for their online presence online. Having an EBM domain name is a great approach to building trust and credibility online, which are essential for making lasting connections with customers and gaining an edge over the competition.

No company on the list has a hyphen in its domain name, possibly due to the downside that hyphens can complicate typing and accessing the website.

While we make every effort to ensure the data on our site is accurate, complete, and up-to-date, we cannot guarantee its reliability. Our data is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or other advice. We strongly recommend that you independently verify any information before relying on it.

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