Engage, the Atlanta corporate venture platform that pairs early-stage startups with large enterprises, announced its 17th cohort on September 23, 2026. Engage is based in Atlanta in Fulton County, and the eight selected companies come from across the United States and Mexico.
The Engage team said the group reflects rising corporate demand for AI and security products. Archive, led by chief executive Paul Ben, sells AI software that tracks brand mentions, identifies creators and measures the return on creator marketing programs, and the company says more than 1,000 brands use it. HiveWatch, based in El Segundo, California, runs a cloud platform that applies AI automation to corporate security operations centers.
Retina Robotics of Chicago builds a compact device that mounts on forklifts and uses computer vision and AI to track inventory with or without labels. Levangie Laboratories in San Francisco develops robotic systems for daily use. Nicklpass of Philadelphia tracks company spending on software subscriptions, and The Cyber Health Company in New York provides personal cybersecurity and privacy support for high-risk individuals. PartRunner, based in Mexico City, runs a logistics marketplace for large and bulky freight.
The only Atlanta company in the group is 4Earth, led by Jahanzeb Khan, which builds water reuse technology and AI-powered factory intelligence for industrial, commercial and infrastructure clients.
Akshita Iyer, corporate insights lead at Engage, told Hypepotamus that corporate partners now treat AI as infrastructure and want tools that learn how a business operates. She also said protection against AI-powered threats has become as urgent for those partners as adopting AI tools.
Source: Hypepotamus - https://www.hypepotamus.com/engage-cohort-17-startups-atlanta/