AI Voice Tools: Innovation or Invasion?

∆ Tech in the News

Sam's Silicon Sideshow - The OpenAI CEO seeks $8B-$10B from Abu Dhabi’s G42, SoftBank Group, for his startup building a global network of AI chip fabrication plants to reduce reliance on Nvidia and prevent future shortages. 

xAI's Fictional Funding - Elon Musk denies Bloomberg's report that his xAI startup has already secured $500M in committed capital towards its $1B target.

S&P Soars - The S&P 500 posted an all-time-high close on Friday for the first time in two years, after a rally in chipmakers and others fueled by AI optimism.

Cuts Continue - The tech world was hit with another wave of layoffs last week, with Amazon and YouTube making cuts and Google laying off 1k+ staff, including from its ‘X’ tech innovation lab.

Headset Hopes - Apple's Vision Pro headset sold ~18k in presales, and is expected to generate $1.75B/yr, while Meta’s cheaper headsets sold only $1.55B last year, showing Apple is likely beating Meta in the AR/VR market.

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˚The Hottest Thing in Tech this Week

AI Voice Cloning Tools: Innovation or Invasion?

AI-powered voice cloning startup ElevenLabs just became the newest AI unicorn after raising an $80M Series B round at a $1B+ valuation from notable backers like a16z, Sequoia Capital, and former Github-CEO, Nat Friedman. ElevenLabs’s customer base includes Storytel, Paradox Interactive, and The Washington Post. While this in itself is hot, AI voice cloning and generation also raises huge ethical issues from actors’ rights to politics. 

ElevenLabs and other innovators in this field continue to face regulatory issues as users leverage their AI systems to impersonate others without consent. Voice actors are increasingly pressured to sign away their voice rights so clients can generate synthetic versions to replace them, often without due compensation.

ElevenLabs’ rival Replica Studios recently agreed with SAG-AFTRA to license digital replicas of union members’ voices under “fair” and “ethical” terms and conditions, even though many members were not aligned. ElevenLabs’ solution is a decentralized marketplace in which original voice owners retain “control over their voice’s availability and compensation terms.” It’s still in Beta and unclear whether it will solve the issues discussed. 

In politics, New Hampshire's AG is today investigating an AI-generated robocall mimicking Pres. Biden allegedly urging Dems not to vote in the state's primary, in an apparent “illegal attempt” to disrupt the primary and suppress state voters. Meanwhile, last week, a super PAC linked to OpenAI’s Sam Altman reportedly launched a Voice-cloned AI chatbot supporting Congressman Dean Phillips' bid against Biden. Ironically, OpenAI has now suspended the bot’s developer (who happened to be an ex-OpenAI Chief of Staff) in response to what it sees as a “misuse of its AI tools in a political campaign”, in the first enforcement of the political campaigns policy it updated just last week. You couldn’t write this stuff. 

One other related area is the emergence of real-time AI voice translation. Last week, translation tool Heygen went viral after a real-time translation of a speech by Argentinian President Javier Milei at the WEF Davos summit was streamed live. The video got 50M views on X and was shared by Elon Musk! Also last week Samsung launched its new flagship phone, the Galaxy S24 featuring Galaxy AI. They showcased a live AI real-time call translation tool powered by Google's Gemini Nano AI model on-device. This feature lets Galaxy users securely translate in real-time on-device (not via cloud servers) from and to multiple languages regardless of the type of phone at the other end including landlines.

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Deals We’re Watching

Founders to Watch and Opportunities to Catch

Open Deals:

Raising for your startup? Send us your Open Round —> [email protected]

Ending Snoring - A contactless AI anti-snoring device. Voted #1 solution by various media platforms, with >100k customers & strong revenue over 5 years. Self-funded and seeking $5M from strategic partners for first equity raise ever.

EV Charging Infrastructure OS - Trusted by Cruise, GM, Hitachi, and more. Notable Angels include Tesla’s ex-Fast Charging head and Mercedes’ NA CEO, Auto Ventures, Connect Ventures, and more. Seeking $500K.

Drone SaaS platform - Lets enterprises automate missions, manage pilots and data. Techstars portfolio company, raised $200K so far. Founder built Midwest Aerial Productions. Seeking investment to push drone operations further.

Looking to invest? Let us know if you want a warm intro —> [email protected] 

Closed Deals:

Digital Onboarding - A Boston startup whose platform helps banks improve customer engagement by creating microsites and targeted comms, raised $58M. 

Electric RVs - Lightship raised a $34M Series B round co-led by Obvious Ventures and Prelude Ventures to build its all-electric travel trailers with their own motors and batteries from its new Colorado factory.

Kashable - The employment-based lending startup raised a $25.6M Series B co-led by Revolution Ventures and Moneta Ventures taking it to $220M total debt and equity raised. 

Coupled Up - Couples’ financial management app Tandem secured $3.7M in seed funding led by Corazon Capital.

Biodegradable Materials- Lululemon and Toyota Ventures backed ZymoChem’s $21M Series A round to help them use fermentation to produce “the world’s most carbon-efficient bio-manufacturing platform”.

Companies to Watch:

Flexing - Logistics startup Flexport looks to revive itself with $260M from Shopify, one of its biggest shareholders. Also laid off its staff and CEO after burning cash last year and may take on more capital from Amazon. Pre-IPO?

Cohere - Toronto-based AI startup Cohere, which builds LLMs, is in talks to raise a $500M-$1B Series D funding round as it looks to compete with more prominent US models for enterprise clients.

Holistic - Two Google DeepMind scientists are in talks with investors about raising $217.8M for a new AI startup, possibly building a new AI model.

The Funding Buzz

ArcTern - Raised $355M in commitments for a new climate tech fund to invest in startups that can show quick returns with scalable tech.

Act One Ventures - An LA venture firm has raised $73M in capital commitments for a third fund focused on business software companies.

Mirae Asset Capital Life Science - The U.S. VC arm of the Korea-based financial group has launched with $50M committed to invest in U.S. biotechs.

Paper Ventures - A new VC fund for blockchain startups launches with a $25M inaugural fund with a strategic focus on early-stage projects where the founders can provide maximum value with both capital and mentoring.

Tools and Buzzy Tech

Land of Rising Moon - A Japanese lunar lander, SLIM touched down on the moon, making Japan the 5th country to achieve the feat behind India in 2023. 

Tesla - Full self-driving beta v12 update runs on end-to-end neural networks.

Samsung - Teases Galaxy Ring to empower people to manage their health.

Disney - Unveils HoloTile VR pad that lets you to walk while staying in place.

TikTok - Testing "AI Song," a generative music tool with lyrics and pre-set music.

Mobile ALOHA - A $32k-build wheeled robot that can cook shrimp, and clean.

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It’s a new year, new Buzz! Stay tuned for more of our latest releases and don’t forget to check out Fantasy Buzz if you have not done so already! And be sure to check out our year-end stories for 2023 to recap what you missed last year and our tech to watch in 2024!

1. AI recap of 2023 

2. Your Top Stories of 2023

3. 5 Tech Trends to Watch in 2024

Stay buzzy!

The Tech Buzz Team