Jeff Knox is an Associate at InnoSpark Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund based in Boston that focuses on investments in data science AI, and machine learning, primarily at the pre-seed and seed stages. He spoke with MFN about how Innospark has maintained a consistent interest in innovative AI applications and supports startups using AI for positive impacts.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Jeff Knox: Hi, my name is Jeff Knox. I’m an Associate at Innospark Ventures, and we are an early-stage venture capital fund based in Boston. The fund, as some of you may know, focuses on applications of data science AI, and machine learning. The fund works in very early stages, so we do primarily pre-seed and seed investment that has ended up putting us as people’s first institutional check after their friends and family and whatnot. In many cases, we do some series A as well, but in all cases working with very early-stage companies, we’ve been at it for about five, or six years now, really just trying to help support other entrepreneurs who are trying to put AI to work for good.
MFN: You folks have been investing in AI companies before the advent of ChatGPT, to my understanding. Has your model changed over time? How has that affected deal flow? Can you explain a little bit?
Jeff Knox: Over the time that the fund has been around, we’ve kept the same focus on interesting applications of AI and people using AI for good. I think what we’ve seen is, in the last few years, there’s really been a lot more focus on this space. But to our mind, there’s been a focus on sort of one part of the space. Our general partner with the PhD in AI will be the first to tell you that AI means a whole category of different types of computational intelligence. Large language models and neural networks are not the only way we program computers to do tasks in the world. And so at Innospark, we’re really interested in people who are using the right AI tool for the job, not necessarily the most complex or the most in vogue, or, you know, the one that’s most recently covered in your local paper.
But very often, the companies that we’re working with are building other layers into what they are offering. I think one of the things that we try to emphasize while we are very excited about, you know, the rise of language models and the potential that they have, there’s really a wide world of AI out there and all of it we find very exciting.
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