- The Tech Buzz
- Posts
- 9/8/23
9/8/23
Alpha
September 08, 2023
∆ Tech in the News
AI in TIME - The first-ever Most Influential People in AI List spotlights 43 CEOs including Sam Altman and Elon Musk. A profile piece highlighting Musk’s AI vision and fears also ran this week.
Vast Pentagon AI Fleet - The Replicator initiative aims to deploy thousands of AI-powered air-, land- and sea-based AI weapons systems.
Political AI Transparency - From November, Google will require all political advertisers to clearly disclose AI-generated and altered content. More comprehensive FEC rules are expected by year-end.
IBM Rolls Out GenAI - The new features and models across its WatsonX data platform include data generation, a privacy and ethics toolkit and more. It will even reveal the data used to train its models.
Intuit's AI Assist - The new GenAI-powered digital assistant for small businesses being embedded across TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks and Mailchimp is a big development for bookkeeping and tax filings.
˚The hottest thing in tech this week
Apple may have missed a lot of the AI hype cycle so far, but don’t discount them. A history of visionary innovation and a massive distribution advantage (2B+ active devices globally) means they could leapfrog competitors to be a leader.
Apple’s work on conversational AI actually began four years ago giving them a significant head start in the LLM game. Meanwhile, they have been quietly funneling “Millions per day” and the personnel resources of four teams into working on language or image model-based features.
Apple plans to incorporate LLM’s into Siri to allow users to automate complex tasks using voice commands. They could also solve some of the privacy, cost and speed problems prevalent in today’s LLMs with their “edge AI” approach, eg face detection AI models running fully on iPhones rather than servers.
Finally, if Ajax GPT can be downsized to run on iPhones that could alleviate the ongoing shortage of AI chips and avoid some of the consumer pushback and copyright court battles other players like OpenAI will likely face in the near-term.
Apple’s LLM efforts should be taken seriously, as should its distribution advantage relative to other companies.
News Bytes
Deals We’re Watching
Founders to Watch and Opportunities to Catch
Closed Deals:
Decarbonizing Steel Manufacturing - Global metal tech startup Boston Metals closed a $262M Series C led by ArcelorMittal with Breakthrough Energy, Aramco, and BHP Ventures backing.
Consolidation in Biometric IDs - Acquiring Infinite ID for $41M cash expands employment screening and verification company, First Advantage’s service provider network, and could generate $10M in ARR.
SaaS and Device Mgmt Platform - Josys closed a $93M Series B to accelerate its managed service provider network.
Advancing Novel Therapeutics - Biotech startup Star Therapeutics closed its oversubscribed Series C at $90M.
AI-Powered Drug Discovery - Noetik’s $14M Seed Round led by DCVC will advance its AI-driven approach to drug discovery and expand its expert team.
Companies to Watch:
d-Matrix NextGen AI Chips - The startup designs GenAI-optimized and energy-efficient chips and expects $70M+ in ARR and break-even in 2 years. A $110M Series B was just backed by Temasek, Playground Global and Microsoft.
The AI-Driven Industrial Revolution - Mujin’s industrial automation software has been adopted by major robotics manufacturers, doubling productivity and reducing labor by up to 90%. An $85M Series C attracted some notable VCs.
Story Protocol Open-Sources IP - The startup enlisted filmmaker David Goyer as an adviser on their blockchain IP and revenue-sharing platform. a16Z led a $54M round backed by Samsung, TPG’s David Bonderman, and Paris Hilton.
Automat’s Seamless Shopping Tools - The YC-backed AI-powered retail automation startup was acquired by Salesfloor in Jan 2022. A new $3.75M round will help grow their AI-sales tools available to 50k+ Salesfloor associates globally.
TinyTap’s Game-changing EdTech AI - The Animoca subsidiary’s "Prompt-to-Game" educational game, content, and NFT building tools are now available via Open Campus Protocol through a partnership.
Open Deals:
VCs Back Midjourney Killer - Pika is a text-to-AI image startup with a Stanford AI PHD founder and backing from Nat Friedman and other VCs. They have raised $21M in 5 months and are now in talks with Lightspeed to lead a new round.
EagleView For Sale? - The aerial imagery and data analytics provider heavily used by insurers is said to be up for grabs at a valuation of ~$2B. The company generates $300M in revenue and has 12-month EBITDA of $165M.
Making Learning Exciting - Langly is the first storytelling game for adult English learners based on the Oxford English Course. It has 20K+ MAU and a 30% growth rate. Contact the TechBuzz for more details on this opportunity.
Tools
HubSpot AI - E-marketing tools include content assistants, AI agents, AI insights, and ChatSpot bot to interact with content stored in HubSpot.
Facet - Personalized and affordable financial advice for all aspects of life on a subscription basis.
Reverie - An AI tool for Unreal Engine 5 that provides automated world creation based on images, including lighting, visual effects, and soundscape.
What's your vibe on this week's deals? |
Thanks again for joining us for another impactful week. We are always ramping up our deal flow and will keep you informed of the latest updates in this space.
If you have a deal or company that you would like to host on our next issue, drop us a line at @ [email protected].
Thanks for connecting with us.
The Tech Buzz Team
*Returns quoted are the annualized internal rate of return net of all fees and costs, calculated from the offering closing date to the date the sale is consummated. IRR may not be indicative of Masterworks paintings not yet sold and past performance is not indicative of future results. See important Regulation A disclosures at masterworks.com/cd.