Why not all VCs are ready to embrace AI-powered investment tools

AI’s strength lies in its predictive prowess. Fed enough data, the conventional thinking goes, a machine learning algorithm can predict just about anything — for example, which word will appear next in a sentence. Given that potential, it’s not surprising that enterprising investment firms have looked to leverage AI to inform their decision-making.

There’s certainly plenty of data that one might use to train an AI-powered due diligence or investment recommendation tool, including sources like LinkedIn, PitchBook, Crunchbase, Owler and other third-party data marketplaces. With it, AI-driven financial research platforms claim to be able to predict the ability of a startup to attract investments, and there might be some truth to this. One study of hedge fund performance found that AI-driven funds generated higher average monthly returns over a 15-year period than their human-guided counterparts.