The Emergent List: 29 Seed-Stage AI Startups to Watch

Identifying the most interesting early-stage startups is as much an art as it is a science, demanding an intuition for the technology, the people, and the market opportunity when few figures are available.

The list, created in partnership with Felicis, features seed-stage or earlier companies nominated by current and former founder speakers. Each company has not raised more than a seed round. The selections are accompanied by a blurb from the nominating founder explaining the company’s exceptional potential, citing factors like the brilliance of the founder, the intrigue of the technology, or the market opportunity.

The Emergent List: A Founder-Generated Selection

The Emergent list originates from a process in which Newcomer and Felicis invited current and former founder speakers to nominate seed-stage (or earlier) companies on the verge of greatness. The 29 companies on the list were nominated by one or more of their peers as possessing the potential to become a generational startup. The companies are presented with a blurb from the established founder who nominated them, detailing why they possessed exceptional potential. Some highlight the brilliance of the founder, others outline what’s compelling about the tech, or the market opportunity, and together they offer a revealing glimpse into how founders view their peers.

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Key Themes Among the Startups

The biggest group of startups on the list is building the tools to run and control agents. Hardware is also a prominent theme. A dedication to open source is a recurring theme, serving either as a primary method for reducing expenses or for executing queries locally on smaller devices like phones and laptops. AI-native services and support companies have been a major theme with investors this year and are well-represented on the list.

Examples from the List

The list includes companies like Agentcard, which is building payment systems for AI agents, nominated by Guillermo Rauch, Founder & CEO of Vercel. Agrippa, which is building the future of US maritime logistics, was nominated by Alex Ratner, Founder & CEO of Snorkel AI. Alljoined, which is working on non-invasive hardware that decodes brain activity, was nominated by Cristóbal Valenzuela, Founder & CEO of Runway. Almanac, which is applying AI to healthcare by grounding it in reliable medical evidence, was nominated by Arvind Jain, Founder & CEO of Glean. Ampersand, which is enabling the era of autonomous enterprises, was nominated by an unnamed source.

Many of the founders on the Emergent list will be attending the upcoming Cerebral Valley AI Summit next Thursday, November 12 in San Francisco.

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