15 Emerging AI Startups (for Good) You Need to Know in 2023

The Omdena “AI Adoption Leaders Series” comprises game-changing startups, stories, and thought-leadership pieces from leading impact ventures solving real-world problems using AI.

The below list shows uprising early-stage AI Startups for Good. 

Impact investing market is growing 

As the world bounces back to a post-COVID pandemic, 2021 sees more action on the startup front. Impact investing is showing an upward trend, and the human and economic toll from the pandemic has boosted the innovative startup culture.

As per a 2020  report, IFC pegged the size of the impact investing market at about $2 trillion, including development-finance institutions. But IFC estimates the market could grow to $26 trillion if the right opportunities were available. 

Over the past decade, we have seen impact investing getting popular as an investment strategy to generate financial returns and create a positive environmental or social impact.

Overcoming fear-driven AI  

Much news coverage on AI is still fear-driven. Instead, it should be value and safety-driven. While there are very relevant and meaningful discussions on AI bias and job automation, there is another side.

Many initiatives like the AI for Good conference seek to highlight potential AI innovations to help humanity on issues like health care and climate change, and we at Omdena focus on this, too.

Top 15 early-stage AI startups to watch in 2023

The below list is an example of the other side; startups working on realizing the true potential of leveraging AI for Good. 

1. Somatix

The Somatix product platform offers a wearable-enabled RPM (Remote Patient Monitoring) software platform for healthcare. The AI-based platform provides powerful clinical insights and predictive analytics on user health, safety, and well-being. The company raised $4.5M in funding in 2020 for its wearable solutions out of a total $7M funding amount.

Related: 14 Top HealthTech Startups Revolutionizing Healthcare with AI

2. Positive Carbon

Positive Carbon is an early-stage AI startup that provides completely automated premium quality food waste monitoring and reporting tools. The tools, designed for restaurants, hotels, and cities, use patented sensors to detect pending food waste. Positive Carbon aims to develop efficient waste reduction strategies, and such strategies are instrumental in increasing the gross profits of food operations by 2-8%.

3. Habits AI

Habits AI is a community well-being platform that utilizes 24 AI products and services to modify behavior (about healthy habits and lifestyles) and improve the well-being of employees in a scalable manner. This company raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a non-assistance equity round on July 2, 2021.

Related: Top 34 Innovative Mental Health Startups and Companies Transforming Healthcare

4. togetherAI

Together AI utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning to protect kids online (especially from bullying). Parents use the Together Ai app for monitoring their children’s activity online, and children use the app to communicate with an AI companion about their mental health struggles. Together AI raised $700,000 and $3M in funding in pre-seed and seed funding rounds, respectively, in 2021.

5. mistEO

misTEO is a platform focused on climate resilience. It provides climate change adaptation technologies to governments and private enterprises to overcome the costs associated with climate change. The services provided by misTEO include geospatial and weather AI, climate token, catastrophe risk modeling, computational sustainability, and climate cover insurance. The platform also provides early warning signs.

Related: 50 Innovative Climate Tech Companies to Watch

6. Zzapp Malaria

Zzapp Malaria is a company that specializes in the development and utilization of technological tools for malaria eradication. Therefore, Zzapp Malaria develops and uses AI products and services for eliminating malaria. ZZapp Malaria is a part of the Omdena AI incubator. Zzapp Malaria’s mobile application guides workers through the various stages of larviciding and home spraying operations. In 2021, Zzapp Malaria won the 5$M XPRIZE Competition. $5M IBM 

Related: Omdena Startup Partner Zzapp Malaria Wins $5M IBM Watson AI XPrize Competition

7. Viebeg

Viebeg is a medical equipment manufacturing company aiming to optimize medical supply through their AI-powered Inventory Management System and Procurement System in hospitals to make healthcare services more affordable and accessible. Viebeg has raised $1.32M in funding through 2 funding rounds, one in September 2019 and another in October 2019.

Related: 66 Innovative Medical Imaging Companies to Follow

8. The Newsroom

Founded in 2021, The Newsroom is an early-stage AI startup that uses explainable AI to evaluate and authenticate the trustworthiness of online articles at scale and deliver context to the news that people read online. The primary mission of The Newsroom is to prevent and combat misinformation online and foster plurality. The Newsroom was selected as one of the Top 15 social enterprises in Europe through the Social Innovation Tournament by the European Investment Bank Institute. In addition, The Newsroom has also been selected for the Omdena AI Incubator.

Related: Top 12 Rising AI Startups Fighting Fake News and Misinformation

9. Dryad

Based in Berlin-Brandenburg, Dryad is an IoT environmental startup. This company aims to develop a large-scale IoT network that enables individuals to analyze, protect, and monitor the world’s most remote and most extensive forests. Dryad is a part of the Omdena AI incubator. Dryad Networks has raised $4M in funding through 2 Seed rounds in 2020 and one Grant round in March 2021. 

Related: Series A Startup Dryad Networks Leverages Omdena Top Talent AI Teams to Advance Early Wildfire Detection

10. MedAnswers

A health tech company founded in 2016 disrupts how people struggling with infertility get access to specialty fertility care through the best infertility specialists and experts with on-demand questions and answers. Backed by venture capital, it has a total funding amount of $5.1M.

11. Logically

Logically develops the latest in AI technologies to tackle misinformation, information overload, fake news & other types of harmful content. It has an award-winning international team of data scientists and engineers. It has total funding of  $12.7M and raised an undisclosed amount in April 2020.

12. Beereaders

Beereaders, founded in 2020, is an Austin headquartered education company that redefines what’s possible for Spanish speakers by advancing their reading comprehension by creating literacy solutions for K-12 Spanish-speaking students worldwide. It has total funding of $1.7M and has won multiple awards, including Academics’ Choice Award™ Winner.

Related: 50 Innovative Edtech Startups And Organizations Revolutionizing the Education Industry

13. Stability AI 

Founded in 2019, Stability AI is an AI company that develops generative models for image and text generation. By using AI, data science, and machine learning, Stability AI creates and trains generative models on extensive datasets of images and text. These models allow for the creation of new images, text, and other creative content. Stability AI has raised $10 million in funding.

14. Send

Send is an insurtech company based in San Francisco, California, that offers commercial insurance software solutions. The company utilizes AI, data science, and machine learning to develop these solutions. The primary goal of these solutions is to assist insurance companies in automating their workflows, enhancing their decision-making processes, and lowering their costs. Send has raised $100 million in funding.

Related: Top 40 Inclusive Insurance Companies Utilizing Insurtech Innovations

15. Solvo.ai

Founded in 2021 by Gaurav Bajaj and Akhil Jain, Solvo.ai is an early-stage AI startup with the potential to revolutionize the way businesses manage their supply chains. Solvo.ai utilizes machine learning to optimize supply chains. Their technology is trained on real-world data and can assist businesses in making better decisions about aspects such as pricing, routing, and inventory management. Solvo.ai has raised $4 million in seed funding.