This AI helps find great startups before the world discovers them

At a meeting in Berlin with venture lead Ashley Lundström, Anydesk cofounder Philipp Weiser learned about Motherbrain, a machine learning system EQT Ventures built to find under-the-radar startups. "She told us we were among the first companies that were discovered by this software," says Weiser. In May, AnyDesk, which sells remote desktop software powered by a proprietary compression system, closed a funding round of $7.6 million with EQT Ventures. Whether the money EQT is putting into Anydesk will turn into a success story remains to be seen. But the firm has applied the Motherbrain algorithm to historical data and shown that it would have identified some of today's highest-flying tech companies as promising investment candidates before they became phenoms.