Welcome to our inaugural list of AI-powered Data-First business applications and its associated report. The report highlights 50 innovative venture-backed startups in America using a powerful combination of data-centric strategies and artificial intelligence to reinvent business software.

At Wing, we are hugely excited about the potential of advances in genomics and data science to produce innovative startups. In a recent article in TechCrunch, I and Mahni Ghorashi of Clear Labs explored the changes driving the Genomics Intelligence Revolution.

Next-generation ambient IT infrastructure—and the ability to use it without the cognitive burden of having to understand how it works—will bring a whole new dynamic range to the creation and dissemination of ideas.

We are on the cusp of an upheaval in software applications for businesses that will put billions of dollars of IT spending up for grabs. A new generation of “data-first” applications will give companies a distinct advantage over competitors still using the prior generation of services.

As the New Year approaches, the team here at Wing has highlighted some of the most important trends we think will shape the enterprise tech landscape in 2016. 

Countless initiatives to integrate technology into the physical retail environment have failed over the years. Most of these did not work because they failed to tangibly help customers do precisely what they came to a store to do--discover and experience products. That is why we are excited to announce Wing's investment in Oak Labs. Oak combines the best of the consumer web with physical retail, creating a seamless in-store experience that customers want to use.

Jut plays a key role in Data-First operations. It is an Operations Data Hub, where the data being generated by your infrastructure, applications and users is collected and made available for holistic analysis and visualization. If you believe my argument about operations data becoming a critical strategic asset in the new software-centric enterprise, then this is an important role indeed. The more your company lives and dies by its software, the more it will benefit from Jut.

The Snowflake team has brought focus, and a very fresh approach, to reinventing the data warehouse. It had a unique starting point: founders Benoit Dageville, Thierry Cruanes and Marcin Zukowski had helped lead the prior generation of data warehousing developments.

Mohit Aron, Cohesity's founder, is leading a firm that will transform the way in which companies manage, store and learn from their data. Wing first invested in Cohesity in 2013 and we are proud to be part of its latest financing round.

Every decade or so a new computing platform takes the industry by storm. The latest is the Distributed Computing Fabric, with Hadoop in particular generating intense interest.

Once thought to be only legend, rogue waves occur when previously distinct waves merge to form a new one of unprecedented scale. As far as technology shifts go, DMC is a rogue wave.

We are at a nexus of change in business markets that will likely take 15 years to play out, and be at least an order of magnitude greater than any that has come before.

Looking at the history of our industry, we notice a pattern of transformations every 15 years or so. Each time, the number of computing devices within the new model increases by an order of magnitude,…

Our investment in Moogsoft was announced on July 31, and I’d like to share some perspective on it. This investment is entirely on-strategy for Wing in two ways, and off-strategy in one.