Northwestern Mutual Announces Winner Of Second Reverse Pitch MKE Event

Pythonic AI selected to receive a seed investment of up to $85,000 from Northwestern Mutual's Cream City Venture Capital

News provided by

Northwestern Mutual

Apr 23, 2019, 10:00 ET

MILWAUKEE, April 23, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Northwestern Mutual today announced that Pythonic AI, an artificial intelligence startup in the medical records space, is the winner of its second Reverse Pitch MKE event. On March 18, seven teams of entrepreneurs pitched their creative business solutions to company executives with the winning team earning a seed investment up to $85,000.

In addition to funding, Pythonic AI will receive access to corporate mentors and networks, as well as working space in Cream City Labs, which opened in Northwestern Mutual's downtown Milwaukee headquarters in October 2018.

"We'd like to congratulate the Pythonic AI team for their innovative solution and the strong entrepreneurial spirit and talent of all seven participating startup teams," said Karl Gouverneur, vice president of digital workplace, corporate solutions and head of digital innovation at Northwestern Mutual. "At Northwestern Mutual, we believe the technology startup ecosystem must be nurtured in order to evolve and thrive. Reverse Pitch MKE allows us to support startups with funding and resources at the earliest stages of their business development through the launch of a potential product of their own."

Last fall, Northwestern Mutual executives pitched three business challenges the company is looking to solve to more than 100 entrepreneurs from across the country focused on:

Securing Payments – seeking an automated and secure way to conduct high volume, high dollar, business to business financial transactions (i.e. wire transfers).
Streamlining Medical Record Review – seeking to reduce the amount of human review required to analyze PDF medical records in underwriting an insurance policy or evaluating a claim.
Evaluating Inclusion – seeking to determine the impact of efforts to create and maintain a diverse and inclusive work environment.

Sixteen teams submitted ideas with seven teams invited back to the company's downtown headquarters to present their creative business solutions at the March 18 event. Pythonic AI addressed the Streamlining Medical Record Review business challenge with a creative solution that uses machine learning and natural language processing to automate aspects of medical records review.

"The Pythonic AI team appreciates the opportunity and wants to recognize Northwestern Mutual as an invaluable partner and champion of growing the startup ecosystem. They've been engaged with us from the concept development of our artificial intelligence medical records product through the presentation process," said Baoqiang Cao, co-founder of Pythonic AI. "We are looking forward to our continued relationship and expect this partnership will accelerate our time to launch."

In 2017, Socialeads, a platform that analyzes social networks to keep financial advisors up-to-date on client milestones, was selected as Reverse Pitch MKE's first investment recipient. The company is now based out of Cream City Labs and is working with Northwestern Mutual on an initial deployment.

To learn more about Reverse Pitch MKE, please follow this link.

About Northwestern Mutual
Northwestern Mutual has been helping families and businesses achieve financial security for more than 160 years. Through a distinctive, whole-picture planning approach, we empower our clients to make the most of every single day and plan for important moments in their future. We combine the expertise of our financial professionals with a personalized digital experience to help our clients navigate their financial lives every day. With $272.2 billion in assets, $28.5 billion in revenues, and $1.8 trillion worth of life insurance protection in force, Northwestern Mutual delivers financial security to more than 4.5 million people who rely on us for life, disability income and long-term care insurance, annuities, and brokerage and advisory services. The company manages $128 billion of investments owned by our clients and held or managed through our wealth management and investment services businesses. Northwestern Mutual ranks 104 on the 2018 FORTUNE 500 and is recognized by FORTUNE^® as one of the "World's Most Admired" life insurance companies in 2019.

Northwestern Mutual is the marketing name for The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company (NM), Milwaukee, WI (life and disability insurance, annuities, and life insurance with long-term care benefits) and its subsidiaries. Northwestern Mutual and its subsidiaries offer a comprehensive approach to financial security solutions including: life insurance, long-term care insurance, disability income insurance, annuities, life insurance with long-term care benefits, investment products, and advisory products and services. Subsidiaries include Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC (NMIS) (securities), broker-dealer, registered investment adviser, member FINRA and SIPC; the Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company® (NMWMC) (fiduciary and fee-based financial planning services), federal savings bank; and Northwestern Long Term Care Insurance Company (NLTC) (long-term care insurance).

SOURCE Northwestern Mutual