Riiid named to the 2021 CB Insights AI 100 list of most innovative AI startups

NEW YORK, April 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- CB Insights named Riiid, a member company of Born2Global Centre, to the fifth annual AI 100 ranking, showcasing the 100 most promising private artificial intelligence companies in the world.

"This is the fifth year CB Insights has recognized the most promising private artificial intelligence companies with the AI 100, and this is one of the most global groups we've ever seen. This year's cohort spans 18 industries, and is working on everything from climate risk to accelerating drug R&D," said CB Insights CEO Anand Sanwal. "Last year's AI 100 companies had a remarkable run after being named to the list, with more than 50% going on to raise additional financing (totaling $5.2B), including 16 $100 million+ mega-rounds. Many also went on to exit via M&A, SPAC or IPO. As industry after industry adopts AI, we expect this year's class will see similar levels of interest from investors, acquirers and customers."

"Riiid's inclusion on the list validates our drive to apply AI to create a personalized learning experience and empower global education players to rethink traditional instruction," said YJ Jang, co-founder and CEO of Riiid. "We were founded to make exponential changes in education and we are indeed pioneering a new paradigm. The coronavirus pandemic created a perfect storm for Riiid to provide its proprietary AI technologies to meet the demand for the highest quality remote learning solution."    

Through an evidence-based approach, the CB Insights research team selected the AI 100 from a pool of over 6,000 companies based on several factors including patent activity, investor quality, news sentiment analysis, proprietary Mosaic scores, market potential, partnerships, competitive landscape, team strength, and tech novelty. The Mosaic Score, based on CB Insights' algorithm, measures the overall health and growth potential of private companies to help predict a company's momentum. 

Riiid, based in South Korea, features AI technology that analyzes student data and content, predicts scores and user behavior, and recommends personalized study plans in real-time to help students achieve their learning potential. Riiid offers a mobile test prep app for a popular English proficiency exam that is used by more than two million students in Korea and Japan and reached No. 1 in sales among education apps in those markets. In addition, Riiid Labs, the company's global arm based in Silicon Valley, has partnered with education companies including Kaplan, ConnecME, Grupo INICIE, and Casa Grande to combine Riiid's AI technology and the content provided by those companies, creating personalized learning mobile apps in Korea, Egypt, UAE, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Brazil, Colombia, and Puerto Rico. 

To generate research and attract top AI talent to education, last year Riiid successfully launched the inaugural Riiid AIEd Challenge, carried out on Google's Kaggle platform. More than 3,390 teams from 90 countries participated -- the most of any 2020 Kaggle algorithm competition hosted by a business entity. Riiid also hosted an AI in education workshop at the 35th annual AAAI conference with speakers including Thomas Frey, DaVinci Institute; Elizabeth Bailey Kozleski, Stanford Graduate School of Education; Martha Kanter, CEO of College Promise and former U.S. Under Secretary of Education for the Obama Administration; and Kumar Garg, Schmidt Futures Foundation. 

Quick facts on the 2021 AI 100:

• Equity funding and deals: Since 2010, the AI 100 2021 cohort has raised over $11.7B in equity funding across 370+ deals from more than 700 investors.
• 12 unicorns: Companies with $1B+ valuations on the list span applications as varied as data annotation, cybersecurity, sales & CRM platforms, and enterprise search. 
• Geographic distribution: 64% of the selected companies are headquartered in the US. Eight of the winners are based in the UK, followed by six each in China and Israel, and five in Canada. Other countries represented in this year's list include Japan, Denmark, Czech Republic, France, Poland, Germany, and South Korea.

About CB Insights

CB Insights (www.cbinsights.com) builds software that enables the world's best companies to discover, understand and make technology decisions with confidence. By marrying data, expert insights and work management tools, clients manage their end-to-end technology making process on CB Insights.

About Riiid 

Riiid (www.riiid.co) is a global leader in AI solutions for education, backed by more than $70 million (USD) in funding. The company is driving a paradigm shift in education with technology that personalizes instruction for all students, with the aim of democratizing quality education anywhere in the world. Riiid launched its first AI tutor solution based on deep learning algorithms in 2017, quickly rising to number one in education app sales in Korea and Japan with more than two million users. The app, called Santa, uses AI to help students prepare for the English language competency exam TOEIC. As a leading force in AI technology, Riiid has published research papers at top AI conferences including NeurIPS and CSEDU. The company has applied for more than 98 patents, 27 of which are registered. In 2020, Riiid established Riiid Labs (www.riiidlabs.ai), the company's global arm based in Silicon Valley, California, to expand its business across the U.S., South America, Middle East and beyond. Riiid also offers Santa for SAT, Santa Realtor to prepare real estate agents for certification and provides its proprietary AI tutor module as a B2B solution to enterprises.

About Born2Global Centre

Born2Global Centre (www.born2global.com) is a full-cycle service platform for global expansion. Since inception in 2013, Born2Global has been setting the standard for successful startup ecosystem as the main Korean government agency under the Ministry of Science and ICT. Born2Global has expanded and transformed startups to be engaged, equipped and be connected with the global market.

Media Contact  

Riiid: [email protected]
Born2Global Centre: [email protected]

SOURCE Born2Global Centre