No surprise to me that many of TechCrunch's most disruptive startups of 2024 hail from the American Heartland. These startups are succeeding not despite their geography, but because of it. Drawing on the article, here's short profiles of the Heartland-based startups on the list. Most are in big cities in the Midwest and South that enjoy density of talent and relevant legacy industries, while some are located in smaller college towns or micropolitans that offer land and air space to test new technologies. My book "Reinventing the Heartland" (https://lnkd.in/gJE5nsjC) makes the case for why the Heartland is key to America's tech future, and these startups prove my point:
Abridge (Pittsburgh, PA) uses AI to transcribe doctor-patient interactions and generates medical notes for electronic health records (EHR).
Fervo Energy (Houston, TX) repurposes oil and gas drilling technologies to produce clean power.
Hermeus (Atlanta, GA) builds hypersonic aircraft for commercial and defense uses.
Island (Dallas, TX) creates a secure enterprise browser.
Saronic Technologies (Austin, TX) builds autonomous ships for defense purposes.
Spawning (Minneapolis, MN) allows creators to opt out of the training datasets for several art-generating AI models.
Tennibot (Auburn, AL) makes a robot that picks up tennis balls.
Whisper Aero (Crossville, TN) develops an ultra-quiet electric propulsor that can be scaled up to drones and aircraft and down to leaf blowers.
Thanks for flagging, Sarah Bard.
#tech #innovation #startups #heartland #econdev #inclusivegrowth #cities #urbanism #venturecapital #vc
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