New seed funds pursue AI, hard tech and the Midwest

Joanna Glasner is a reporter for Crunchbase. Stories about seed funding often contain sappy metaphors about planting seedlings and nurturing them to maturity. In reality, it's a brutally Darwinian business: most companies fail, successful ones get diluted and exits commonly take a decade or more. That said, seed also has the highest potential returns of any investment stage. Unlike most VCs, seed and angel investors can do a lot of deals with a few million dollars.