MLconf
MLconf is a privately held event-driven community company that organizes single-day machine learning conferences in four US cities, complemented by webinars, podcasts, a job board, and a newsletter, serving ML practitioners and data scientists from leading technology and Fortune 500 enterprises.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2012
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B and B2C
- OfferingServices
What MLconf does
MLconf (legally The Machine Learning Conference) is a privately held, event-driven media and community company founded in 2012 as a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University's GraphLab team and led by CEO Richard Rivera. The company organizes single-day, single-track machine learning conferences in four US cities — San Francisco, New York City, Atlanta, and Seattle — featuring 14 to 16 presentations averaging 25 minutes each, with an upcoming MLconf NYC 2025 scheduled for March 27, 2025. Over 13 years, MLconf has hosted 339 speakers delivering 403 talks, deliberately positioning itself as agnostic of any specific tool, platform, or vendor, which has helped attract a broad speaker roster spanning Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Netflix, Spotify, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and dozens of additional enterprises across financial services, healthcare, retail, and autonomous vehicles.
The core product is the in-person conference format, designed so attendees leave with practical tips, cited papers, and code samples applicable to production ML work. Supporting products extend engagement between conferences and include webinars, podcasts, a free job board for ML/AI hiring (with paid posting fees), a guest blog platform, free community meetups, and a bi-monthly newsletter. The underlying technology is a standard conference and webinar platform — there is no proprietary AI/ML product, no patents, and no SDK/API surface disclosed.
Revenue is generated through four streams: event ticket sales (including discounted student tickets), corporate event sponsorships, paid job board postings, and a newsletter subscription. The company employs 1–10 people, is privately held with no disclosed external institutional investment or funding rounds, and reports no public revenue figures. Distribution is multi-channel, combining self-serve ticket registration through mlconf.com, on-site registration at city-based conferences, virtual events, and free on-demand content via YouTube and SlideShare.
MLconf firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- MLconf
- Legal name
- The Machine Learning Conference
- Website
- https://mlconf.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2012
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- MLconf is a privately held event-driven community company that organizes single-day machine learning conferences in four US cities, complemented by webinars, podcasts, a job board, and a newsletter, serving ML practitioners and data scientists from leading technology and Fortune 500 enterprises.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
MLconf industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Professional Conferences
- NAICS
- Convention and Trade Show Organizers (56192), Convention and Trade Show Organizers (561920), Professional and Management Development Training (611430)
- SIC
- Services-Educational Services (8200)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Professional & Association Conferences (MPAGAGAB)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Academic & Education Conference Organizers (THAHACAE), Training, Workshops & Certification Events (MPAGAGAJ)
Keywords
Where MLconf is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices4 records
Markets served
MLconf business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B and B2C
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Operations, Marketing or Sales, Personnel, Technology or R&D, Others
Revenue model
- Event Tickets: Revenue generated from selling tickets to MLconf in-person conferences and virtual events. Student tickets are offered at reduced pricing with limited availability.
- Event Sponsorships: Corporate sponsors sponsor MLconf events, providing revenue while gaining visibility among ML practitioners from leading tech companies.
- Job Board Posting Fees: Companies pay to post job listings on the MLconf job board, a free service for job seekers in the ML/AI space.
- Newsletter Subscription: Bi-monthly newsletter providing updates on ML events, blog posts, and community information.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Pay-as-you-go | Standard conference tickets for ML practitioners |
| Subscription | Pay-as-you-go | Reduced pricing for students |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels11 records
MLconf product offering
Product offeringCore offering
MLconf organizes and sells tickets to single-day, single-track machine learning conferences hosted in major US cities (San Francisco, NYC, Atlanta, Seattle), featuring 14-16 technical presentations focused on practical ML applications. Revenue is supplemented by corporate event sponsorships, paid job board postings from ML employers, and a recurring bi-monthly newsletter subscription.
Product overview
MLconf (The Machine Learning Conference) is an event-based company that organizes in-person conferences, webinars, podcasts, and maintains a job board and blog for the machine learning community. Since its founding in 2012, MLconf has grown from a single partnership with Carnegie Mellon University's GraphLab team to hosting events in San Francisco, New York City, Atlanta, and Seattle. The core offering consists of single-day, single-track conferences featuring 14-16 technical presentations focused on practical ML applications. Supporting products include a free job board, bi-monthly newsletter, guest blog posts, webinars, podcasts, and community meetups that extend engagement beyond the live events.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- MLconf Events
- MLconf Event Sponsorships
- MLconf Job Board
Quantifiable outcome
- 339 speakers have presented 403 talks since 2012
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use MLconf
Customer profileNamed customers29 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles2 records
MLconf technology and API
TechnologyAPI detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
MLconf partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
One partnership is on record.
- Carnegie Mellon University - GraphLabcoreMLconf began in 2012 as a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University's GraphLab team to gather thought leaders in Machine Learning, specifically Graph Databases. This founding partnership established MLconf's origin in the academic ML community.
Scale indicators3 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
MLconf competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- ODSC (Open Data Science Conference): ODSC runs a multi-city conference series focused on data science, machine learning, and AI practitioners. Directly comparable to MLconf in audience (ML engineers, data scientists), event format, and monetization (tickets + sponsorships).
- RE•WORK (Deep Learning Summit): RE•WORK runs AI and deep learning summits globally with a practitioner focus comparable to MLconf. Targets a similar ML/AI audience with corporate sponsorship and ticketing monetization.
- Data Science Conference: A practitioner-focused data science and ML conference series targeting a similar engineer and data scientist audience. Comparable in scale, format, and monetization approach to MLconf.
Broad incumbents
- Strata Data Conference (O'Reilly Media): O'Reilly's Strata is a larger, more established data/ML conference with a broader scope and institutional backing. Competes for the same enterprise sponsors and practitioner attendees but offers a multi-day, multi-track format.
- The AI Conference (O'Reilly): O'Reilly's AI-focused conference overlaps MLconf's audience of ML/AI engineers and researchers. Backed by a larger content and event platform with deeper sponsor relationships.
- NVIDIA GTC: NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference is a major AI/ML event that attracts overlapping corporate sponsors and practitioners. Significantly larger scale, but ML positioning is part of a broader GPU/platform narrative rather than a pure community focus.
- KDD (ACM SIGKDD): ACM's KDD conference is a leading academic data mining and ML conference. Comparable in bringing together ML practitioners and researchers, but skewed more academic with peer-reviewed papers.
- NeurIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems): NeurIPS is the largest ML research conference globally. While more academic in format, it competes for the same practitioner and sponsor audience at the high end of the ML ecosystem.
- ICML (International Conference on Machine Learning): ICML is a flagship academic ML conference attracting top researchers and a growing industry audience. Competes with MLconf for sponsorship and speaker mindshare from leading ML organizations.
Emerging players
- PyData (NumFOCUS): PyData organizes community-driven conferences focused on Python-based data science and ML. Comparable community-led, open-source ethos and practitioner audience, though structured around local chapters rather than fixed multi-city events.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
MLconf social profiles
Digital presenceMLconf financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
MLconf leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles4 records
MLconf funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
MLconf M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about MLconf
What does MLconf do?
MLconf organizes and sells tickets to single-day, single-track machine learning conferences hosted in major US cities (San Francisco, NYC, Atlanta, Seattle), featuring 14-16 technical presentations focused on practical ML applications. Revenue is supplemented by corporate event sponsorships, paid job board postings from ML employers, and a recurring bi-monthly newsletter subscription.
Is MLconf a public or private company?
MLconf is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was MLconf founded?
MLconf was founded in 2012. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is MLconf based?
MLconf is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does MLconf make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Event Tickets are the primary driver. The others are event Sponsorships, job Board Posting Fees and newsletter Subscription.
Who are MLconf's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are ODSC (Open Data Science Conference), RE•WORK (Deep Learning Summit) and Data Science Conference. Broad incumbents are Strata Data Conference (O'Reilly Media), The AI Conference (O'Reilly), NVIDIA GTC, KDD (ACM SIGKDD), NeurIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems) and ICML (International Conference on Machine Learning). PyData (NumFOCUS) is listed as an emerging player.
Does MLconf have an API?
No public API is recorded for MLconf.
What industry is MLconf in?
MLconf's product category is Professional Conferences. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPAGAGAB, Professional & Association Conferences, with a secondary code of THAHACAE, Academic & Education Conference Organizers. Its NAICS code is 56192 and its SIC code is 8200.