Bain & Company partners with seven venture capital firms

Bain & Company announced a partnership with seven venture capital firms to connect startup innovators with corporate leaders who were seeking to explore Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology.

The announcement said the evolution of AI technology and an increase in capital funding within the startup ecosystem made it important for corporations to stay current on technology; the seven venture firms cited collectively held about $190 billion in assets under management and 290 unicorns across more than 2,000 active portfolio companies.

The firm described its Venture Ecosystem as a global team that connected clients to venture capitalists, startups, and corporate leaders, and it said the program had delivered more than 250 executive immersions and facilitated over 3,000 connections since launching in 2017. Bain's AI, Insights, and Solutions practice includes more than 1,500 AI, data, analytics, architecture, and engineering experts and integrates with the firm's industry and capability practices.

The partnership named Bain Capital Ventures, Battery Ventures, ICONIQ, Insight Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, and NEA; the release added that these firms have collectively been early backers of OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, Databricks, and others.

“We're excited to partner with these leading venture capitalists who are backing the most innovative companies in the world,” said Rishi Roongta, Partner at Bain & Company and founder of the firm's Venture Ecosystem.

The companies described plans to expand Bain & Company's digital teams within its AI, Insights, and Solutions practice and to extend partnerships with OpenAI, Microsoft, AWS, Google, Situational Awareness Platform (SAP), Salesforce, IBM, and Palantir.