Artificial Intelligence? Start Investing Now, Says Foundation Group

When it comes to artificial intelligence, the most important thing is to start investing now, says W.K. Kellogg Foundation's investments director, Neal Graziano. And that's exactly what his organization is doing, along with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, institutional investor network Trusted Insight, and European family offices. Together, the groups have directed a $27 million investment, announced last week, into a German venture capital firm that seeds machine learning companies. Founded in 2016, the Berlin-based Merantix is a lean operation. But it has already built three European companies, including Vara, which is Germany's first approved AI software for cancer screening and is touted to have a better accuracy rate than radiology.