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Venture studio High Alpha and fellow Indianapolis firm Engineered Innovation Group have formed a partnership whose goals include helping High Alpha more quickly integrate artificial intelligence into its portfolio companies.
As part of the partnership, which was announced this week, High Alpha is making what it describes as a “strategic investment” into EIG, although both firms declined to reveal the amount of that investment. This represents the first outside investment for EIG, which until now has been self-financed.
EIG is a software development and consulting firm launched by Jake Miller, a former software engineer at ExactTarget and Salesforce. After leaving Salesforce in 2018, Miller worked with fellow ExactTarget/Salesforce alum and tech entrepreneur Scott McCorkle to launch MetaCX, a tech startup that now does business as MetaImpact.
Miller left MetaCX in late 2021 to launch EIG. The firm currently has 34 employees, half Indianapolis-based and half remote, and has another seven open positions for which it’s actively recruiting. To date, EIG has served 20 clients, including a number of High Alpha’s portfolio companies.
EIG designs, builds and deploys business-to-business software products for its clients, and the firm has particular expertise in emerging technologies such as AI. High Alpha’s expertise is in conceiving, funding, launching and growing business-to-business software firms.
By working together, EIG and High Alpha say they can combine their areas of expertise and potentially speed up the process of launching new startups.
Through its work with clients, Miller said, EIG routinely uncovers new business ideas that it can now bring to High Alpha. EIG also offers the expertise in designing and building business-to-business software—a product that is at the heart of all High Alpha’s portfolio companies. For its part, High Alpha has the capital and the expertise it takes to build and launch startups.
“It just makes sense for us to bring those two [areas of expertise] together, sort of like the end-to-end experience of starting a company,” Miller said.
High Alpha Partner Eric Tobias offered a similar take, telling IBJ via email that the partnership “… provides High Alpha with access to remarkable technical acumen and a pipeline of new venture opportunities to explore.”
Tobias said EIG can also help High Alpha’s existing portfolio companies accelerate their adoption of AI and the other emerging technologies in which EIG has expertise.
As part of the partnership, Tobias will also join EIG’s board of directors; and EIG will become a High Alpha Studio portfolio company, giving it access to the sales, marketing, design and other services High Alpha offers to its portfolio companies.
EIG remains an independent company, and Miller will remain its CEO.
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