Brainworks
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2017
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Brainworks does
Brainworks is a private AI-native venture studio and venture capital firm founded in 2017 by Dr. Phillip Alvelda, headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. The company operates four interconnected divisions: Brainworks Ventures, a $50M AI-native venture capital fund that invests $500K-$3M checks in seed and Series A AI-native startups across AI applications, infrastructure, healthcare, enterprise productivity, and education; Brainworks Research, which delivers living AI-powered intelligence briefings that process 21-31+ institutional data sources simultaneously and model 10,000+ Monte Carlo paths, distributed via tiered subscriptions (Explorer, Professional, Institutional) with embedded conversational AI analysts; Brainworks Foundry, an autonomous AI app portfolio that uses AI agents to identify market gaps, build, launch, and operate 100% AI-operated consumer apps across at least 16 verticals including FlyOnTime, StraightFacts, Alexandria, VitalMe, Cyrano, Passage, Reclaim Health, Tally, Rebuild, Counselor, The Cabinet, and Pantheon; and Catalyst Democracy Operations (CDO), an AI-native political campaign operating system with 74 AI endpoints and 12 campaign functions that replaces 15-20 legacy campaign tools with 85%+ cost reduction. The firm also offers a Blue Wave Intelligence Platform API for programmatic access to political intelligence data across 94 competitive federal races.
The underlying technology stack relies heavily on autonomous agent networks, Monte Carlo simulation modeling, natural language interrogation, and multi-source data fusion from APIs including OpenFEC, L2 Data (190M+ voter records), Catalist, Emerson College polling, Cook Political Report, Census ACS, GDELT 2.0, Reddit JSON, and Google Trends. Dr. Alvelda, who holds 30+ patents and led AI programs at DARPA's Biological Technologies Office (catalyzing the Brain-Machine Interface industry), MIT's AI Laboratory, and NASA JPL, leads a deliberately lean team of 1-10 employees augmented by AI agents that the firm claims produces output equivalent to a 30-person traditional consulting firm at 143x productivity and $0.15/hour effective labor cost. The business model combines venture fund management fees and carried interest, subscription research revenue, consumer app monetization, and enterprise licensing across political and policy verticals, with the firm explicitly positioning itself as an 'entirely new type of VC entity' purpose-built to leverage new AI economics.
The company's go-to-market is hybrid: enterprise field sales for political campaigns (60-minute live demonstrations to senior Democratic operatives), self-serve tiered subscriptions for research, marketplace/app store distribution for Foundry apps, and direct investment for the venture fund. Earlier spinoffs include Medio Labs (2020, AI-enabled molecular diagnostics for COVID testing) and Infinite Entertainment (2020, AI-powered virtual production studio). With 1-10 total employees, recent $50M fund close (December 2025), and product launches spanning 2024-2026, Brainworks is positioned at an early commercialization stage with rapid product surface expansion but limited disclosed revenue traction.
Brainworks firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Brainworks
- Legal name
- Brainworks, Inc.
- Website
- https://brainworks.ai
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2017
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Brainworks industry classification
Industry- Product category
- AI Venture Studio and Investment Platform
- NAICS
- Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Other Financial Vehicles (525990)
- SIC
- Investment Advice (6282), Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Agents & Autonomous Workflows (Tool Use, Planning, Multi-Agent) (HDAAACAF)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- AI Application Enablement Platforms (Copilot/Agent Frameworks, SDKs) (HDAEANAJ), End-to-End Enterprise AI Platforms (MLOps & Model Lifecycle Management) (HDAEANAA)
Keywords
Where Brainworks is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Brainworks business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Venture Capital Fund Management: Brainworks Ventures operates a $50M AI-native venture capital fund investing in AI-native startups. Revenue generated through management fees and carried interest on successful investments. The fund targets seed and Series A stage companies with typical check sizes of $500K to $3M, focused on AI applications, infrastructure, healthcare, enterprise productivity, and education.
- AI Research Subscriptions: Brainworks Research sells tiered subscription access to AI-powered research reports and intelligence briefings. Tiers include Explorer, Professional, and Institutional. Each report includes unlimited access to chapters, interactive exhibits, and AI analyst conversations. Living documents update continuously with new data.
- Autonomous AI App Portfolio: The Brainworks Foundry builds and operates consumer-facing AI apps (FlyOnTime, Cyrano, StraightFacts, VitalMe, etc.) that generate revenue through various mechanisms including subscriptions, advertising, and transactions. Revenue is compounded as AI gets smarter and learnings from each app fund improvements.
- Political Intelligence Platform Licensing: Catalyst Democracy Operations provides an AI-native campaign operating system to political campaigns and organizations. The platform is sold through direct sales with 60-minute live demonstrations for senior operatives. Replaces $200K-$800K in legacy point solutions with a single unified platform.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Multi-year contract | Seed and Series A investments from $500K to $3M for AI-native startups |
| Subscription | Annual | Tiered research subscription with Explorer, Professional, and Institutional levels |
| Subscription | Annual | CDO platform replaces 15-20 legacy campaign tools ($200K-$800K/year) with single unified platform |
Go-to-market motion4 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels7 records
Brainworks product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Brainworks is an AI-native venture studio and venture capital firm operating four interconnected product lines: (1) Brainworks Ventures, a $50M AI-native VC fund investing $500K-$3M in AI-native startups at seed and Series A; (2) Brainworks Research, a living AI-powered intelligence briefings platform processing 21-31+ data sources with conversational AI analysts; (3) Brainworks Foundry, an autonomous AI app portfolio builder creating and operating 16+ consumer AI applications with 100% AI-operated development; and (4) Catalyst Democracy Operations, an AI-native political campaign operating system replacing 15-20 legacy tools with 74 AI endpoints for fundraising, field, GOTV, compliance and analytics.
Product overview
Brainworks is an AI-native venture studio and venture capital firm operating across three interconnected divisions: (1) Brainworks Ventures, a $50M AI-native VC fund investing in AI-native startups at seed and Series A stages ($500K-$3M checks) across AI applications, infrastructure, healthcare, enterprise productivity, and education; (2) Brainworks Foundry, an autonomous AI app portfolio builder that creates and operates 100% AI-operated products across 16+ verticals (travel, entertainment, health, legal, finance, education, spirituality) from signal to deployment in days; and (3) Brainworks Research, delivering living AI-powered intelligence briefings with 21-31+ data sources and conversational AI analysts. The company also operates Catalyst Democracy Operations (CDO), an AI-native political campaign operating system replacing 15-20 point solutions with one unified platform (74 endpoints, 85% cost reduction). The portfolio includes sub-brands like FlyOnTime, Infinite Entertainment, StraightFacts, Alexandria, VitalMe, Cyrano, Passage, Reclaim Health, Tally, Rebuild, Counselor, The Cabinet, and Pantheon, plus the Blue Wave Intelligence Platform API for programmatic access to political intelligence data.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Brainworks Ventures $50 million AI-native venture capital fund investing in AI-native startups at seed and Series A stages with $500K-$3M check sizes across AI applications, infrastructure, healthcare, enterprise productivity, and education. Targeted at AI-native startup founders.
- Brainworks Research Platform AI-enhanced research platform delivering living intelligence briefings with 21-31+ data sources, Monte Carlo simulations (10,000 paths), and conversational AI analysts embedded in every model for real-time interrogation and analysis. Targeted at policymakers, analysts, and institutional subscribers via tiered Explorer, Professional, and Institutional subscriptions.
- Brainworks Foundry Autonomous AI app portfolio builder that creates AI-native startups from signal identification to deployment in days, with 100% AI-operated development cycles and near-zero ongoing human intervention required. Portfolio includes FlyOnTime, Cyrano, StraightFacts, VitalMe, Alexandria, Passage, Reclaim Health, Tally, Rebuild, Counselor, The Cabinet, Pantheon, and Infinite Entertainment.
Quantifiable outcome
- 143x productivity multiplier: 2-person team + AI produces output equivalent to 30-person traditional consulting firm at $0.15/hr effective labor cost
- +4 more outcomes
Companies that use Brainworks
Customer profileNamed customers6 records
Segments8 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
Brainworks technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability11 records
Feature6 records
Brainworks partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
15 partnerships are on record, tiered core and supporting.
- L2 DatacoreCDO platform sources 190M+ voter records from L2 Data national voter file for targeting and analysis. L2 coverage ceiling is described as 'almost 300 million individual cases.' This data enables voter identification, voter registration tracking, and political targeting across 94 competitive federal races.
- Emerson College PollingcoreCDO platform integrates Emerson College polling data (graded A/B) for electoral modeling and race intelligence. Emerson polling anchors multiple Senate races including GA-SEN (Ossoff +3), with PollScore-weighted averages and confidence bands calculated using Emerson data.
- Cook Political ReportcoreCDO platform uses Cook Political Report race ratings for competitive race classification. Toss-up districts and lean/likely ratings from Cook inform the 71 competitive districts tracked. Cook ratings sourced at cookpolitical.com and updated regularly.
- Federal Election Commission (FEC)coreCDO platform pulls live FEC data through OpenFEC API for continuous fundraising monitoring. Every filing processed within minutes. Fundraising shifts flagged before morning briefings. FEC data anchors candidate cash on hand figures across all competitive races.
- GDELT 2.0supportingCDO platform uses GDELT 2.0 DOC API for real-time narrative monitoring and news coverage analysis. Measures mention velocity and share-of-voice in global news for political intelligence and sentiment analysis.
- Reddit JSON APIsupportingCDO platform uses Reddit JSON API for community sentiment analysis across r/politics, r/democrats, and r/Conservative. Cross-subreddit upvote ratio used in composite candidate sentiment profiles.
- Google TrendssupportingCDO platform uses Google Trends (pytrends API) for search interest analysis on political candidates. Weekly normalized search interest data anchors narrative intelligence and story spread analysis.
- Cornell UniversitysupportingDr. Phillip Alvelda graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor's degree in Physics. His first job was developing spacecraft sensors for interplanetary spacecraft at NASA. This educational background underpins Brainworks' technical foundation in AI and neural computation architectures.
- MIT Artificial Intelligence LaboratorycoreDr. Alvelda earned his Masters and PhD degrees at MIT's AI Laboratory. His dissertation focused on exploiting computational properties of designed materials to create ultra-low power intelligent machines. MicroDisplay Corporation was spun out from MIT based on one chapter of his dissertation. This deep MIT AI Lab connection is foundational to Brainworks' technical capabilities.
- NASA Jet Propulsion LaboratorysupportingDr. Alvelda was NASA's first technical staff member working on neural computation inspired AI architectures. He developed AI-enhanced spacecraft sensors for Space Shuttle, Galileo, Magellan and Cassini missions at JPL. This foundational work in AI architectures informed his subsequent doctoral work at MIT.
- DARPA Biological Technologies OfficecoreDr. Alvelda was recruited by President Obama's Department of Defense to lead efforts in DARPA's new Biological Technology Office, connecting AI-enabled electronics to the human cortex for brain-machine interface development. This catalyzed the entire Brain-Machine Interface industry and led directly to founding Brainworks to transition DARPA discoveries to solve global challenges.
- GooglesupportingMicroDisplay Corporation technology was licensed by Google as the foundational enabling component of Google Glass. The miniature display technology was invented by Dr. Alvelda at MIT and spun out into MicroDisplay in 1995.
- OpenMontagesupportingInfinite Entertainment (Brainworks portfolio company) is built on OpenMontage infrastructure for AI-powered virtual production. OpenMontage provides the technical foundation for compressing film and TV production timelines.
- CatalistsupportingCDO platform uses Catalist data for demographic analysis and bloc overlay modeling. Catalist 2024 data combined with Census ACS 2023 for district-level demographic intelligence.
- Census Bureau (ACS)supportingCDO platform uses Census American Community Survey (ACS) 2023 5-year data for district-level demographic analysis. Hispanic/Latino share, bachelor's degree share, and rural population data sourced from ACS for competitive race analysis.
Scale indicators12 records
Recent moves11 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Brainworks competitors and assessment
Company assessmentEmerging players
- Hebbia: Hebbia is an AI knowledge-worker platform that ingests large institutional document sets and produces analyst-grade outputs — closely comparable to Brainworks Research's living intelligence approach for institutional customers.
- Adept AI: Adept builds AI agents that take actions across enterprise software tools — directly comparable to the autonomous agent philosophy underlying Brainworks Foundry's app-building and CDO's workflow automation.
Broad incumbents
- Palantir Technologies: Palantir provides enterprise data integration and analytics platforms used across government, healthcare, and finance — overlapping with Brainworks' cross-data-source AI synthesis at enterprise scale and serving similar institutional customers.
- Andreessen Horowitz (a16z): a16z is a large, established venture firm with significant AI, infrastructure, and bio/health funds that competes directly with Brainworks Ventures for AI-native founder deal flow at seed and Series A.
- Anthropic: Anthropic develops foundation models and AI agent capabilities increasingly targeted at enterprise workflows and autonomous agent use cases — a foundational infrastructure competitor and potential ecosystem partner for Brainworks' agent-driven products.
Direct peers
- Betaworks: Betaworks is a long-running venture studio that builds and invests in applied-AI and consumer technology companies, with a model centered on a small in-house team plus a portfolio of independent startups — directly comparable to Brainworks Foundry + Ventures structure.
- NGP VAN: NGP VAN is the dominant incumbent provider of campaign technology, fundraising, and organizing software for Democratic campaigns and progressive organizations — the legacy stack that CDO explicitly positions itself as replacing.
- Lux Capital: Lux Capital is a deep-tech and AI-focused venture capital firm investing at seed through growth stages with technical-founder orientation — a comparable AI-native VC competitor targeting the same seed/Series A AI founder pool.
- AlphaSense: AlphaSense is an AI-powered market and competitive intelligence platform with tiered enterprise subscriptions that deliver synthesized research across large document corpora — closely paralleling Brainworks Research's living intelligence subscription model.
- Catalist: Catalist provides the progressive movement's voter file, demographic data, and targeting analytics for political campaigns — overlapping directly with the voter-data and bloc-modeling components of CDO and used as a supporting integration.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Brainworks social profiles
Digital presenceBrainworks financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Brainworks leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles3 records
Brainworks subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries5 records
Brainworks funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Brainworks 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 Brainworks
What does Brainworks do?
Brainworks is an AI-native venture studio and venture capital firm operating four interconnected product lines: (1) Brainworks Ventures, a $50M AI-native VC fund investing $500K-$3M in AI-native startups at seed and Series A; (2) Brainworks Research, a living AI-powered intelligence briefings platform processing 21-31+ data sources with conversational AI analysts; (3) Brainworks Foundry, an autonomous AI app portfolio builder creating and operating 16+ consumer AI applications with 100% AI-operated development; and (4) Catalyst Democracy Operations, an AI-native political campaign operating system replacing 15-20 legacy tools with 74 AI endpoints for fundraising, field, GOTV, compliance and analytics.
Is Brainworks a public or private company?
Brainworks is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was Brainworks founded?
Brainworks was founded in 2017. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Brainworks based?
Brainworks is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does Brainworks make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Venture Capital Fund Management is the primary driver. The others are AI Research Subscriptions, autonomous AI App Portfolio and political Intelligence Platform Licensing.
Who are Brainworks's main competitors?
Emerging players on record are Hebbia and Adept AI. Broad incumbents are Palantir Technologies, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Anthropic. Direct peers are Betaworks, NGP VAN, Lux Capital, AlphaSense and Catalist.
Does Brainworks have an API?
Yes. Blue Wave Intelligence Platform API for accessing live competitive intelligence, polling data, fundraising data, sentiment analysis, and narrative trending. Provides programmatic access to race intelligence, campaign analytics, FEC data integration, and cross-signal synthesis across 94 competitive federal races. Supports real-time data on Senate and House races including polling averages, fundraising totals, demographic analysis, and electoral modeling. Developer documentation is at fleet.brainworks.ai/blue-wave-api/docs.
What industry is Brainworks in?
Brainworks's product category is AI Venture Studio and Investment Platform. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAAACAF, Agents & Autonomous Workflows (Tool Use, Planning, Multi-Agent), with a secondary code of HDAEANAJ, AI Application Enablement Platforms (Copilot/Agent Frameworks, SDKs). Its NAICS code is 54151 and its SIC code is 6282.