- Navin Chaddha is managing partner at Mayfield, a venture capital firm.
- Mayfield has announced the $250 million Mayfield AI Start, a dedicated seed vehicle to support AI-native founders.
- Mayfield is sharing five pieces of company-building advice with AI-native founders.
- The advice includes focusing on dominating a new tech stack layer, providing a painkiller rather than a vitamin, and understanding the market dynamics.
- Mayfield highlights the importance of building a strong team and having a clear go-to-market strategy.
- The firm also emphasizes the need for founders to have a long-term vision and to be adaptable to changes in the AI landscape.
- The venture capital landscape for AI startups has become more focused and selective.
- Investors are starting to gain confidence and make choices in picking platforms for their future investments.
- There is a debate between buying or building AI solutions, with some seeing value in large companies building their own AI properties.
- With the proliferation of AI startups, venture capitalists are finding it harder to choose which ones to invest in.
- Startups that can deliver real, measurable impact and have a working product are more likely to attract investors.
Main topic: Generative AI startups and their funding in Europe.
Key points:
1. Generative AI startups in Europe have raised a record $620m this year.
2. Investors are showing a strong interest in these startups, with FOMO-driven deal-making.
3. Some notable generative AI startups in Europe include Charm Therapeutics, Nanograb, Dust, ElevenLabs, DeepSearch Labs, IOMED, Lucinity, Auto-Pilot, Gladia, PhotoRoom, Cradle, Orbital Materials, Sereact, Beam AI, Qdrant, QuantPi, Humanloop, Co:Helm, Briink, Eilla, and Embedd.
Main topic: IVIX, a Tel Aviv-based startup, uses AI to help government entities combat tax evasion and other financial crimes.
Key points:
1. The U.S. loses $1 trillion a year due to tax evasion alone, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
2. IVIX utilizes AI, machine learning, and public databases to identify tax noncompliance and other financial crimes.
3. The startup has secured government contracts with federal agencies, hired notable individuals, and raised a $12.5 million Series A funding round led by Insight Partners.
The main topic is the AI startup Elemental Cognition, founded by David Ferrucci, the former leader of the IBM Watson team.
Key points:
1. Elemental Cognition has raised nearly $60 million in funding.
2. The company aims to develop AI that "thinks before it talks" and offers chatbot products for various industries.
3. Elemental's standout offering is its hybrid AI platform that combines large language models with an AI-powered reasoning engine.
Main Topic: Elemental Cognition's AI startup, led by David Ferrucci, secures nearly $60 million in funding.
Key Points:
1. David Ferrucci, former IBM Watson team leader, has raised $59.95 million in equity sales from 17 investors.
2. Elemental Cognition aims to create AI with advanced reasoning capabilities and offers two chatbot solutions, Cogent and Cora, for various applications.
3. The company's hybrid AI platform integrates large language models with an AI-driven reasoning engine for precise and controlled responses.
The main topic is David Ferrucci's AI startup called Elemental Cognition, which has raised nearly $60 million in funding.
Key points:
1. Elemental Cognition seeks to develop AI that "thinks before it talks" and offers two enterprise chatbot products.
2. The company's leadership team includes former IBM and Bridgewater Associates executives.
3. Elemental differentiates itself by combining large language models with an AI-powered reasoning engine for better responses.
Main topic: Genesis Therapeutics' $200 million Series B funding round for its AI-powered drug discovery platform in the biotech sector.
Key points:
1. Genesis Therapeutics closed a $200 million Series B funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz Bio + Health and an unnamed U.S.-based life-sciences-focused investor.
2. New investors in the round included Fidelity Management & Research Co., BlackRock, and Nvidia’s venture arm NVentures.
3. Genesis Therapeutics plans to use the funding to evolve into a clinical stage company, invest in its AI platform, and expand its discovery pipeline.
iManage has introduced iManage AI, an AI search engine integrated into its cloud platform, that allows legal professionals to search and access specific knowledge assets, improve productivity, and enhance data security.
Film and television studios, including Disney, Netflix, Sony, and NBCUniversal, are actively hiring artificial intelligence (AI) experts for positions paying over $200,000 per year, despite ongoing strikes by writers and actors over concerns about the use of AI in the industry.
Main topic: AI startup Hugging Face raising $200 million funding round at a $4 billion valuation.
Key points:
1. Hugging Face is raising approximately $200 million in funding.
2. The funding round is led by Salesforce Ventures at a valuation of $4 billion.
3. Hugging Face allows companies to store and use AI software and hosts open-source AI models for developers.
Paris-based startup Poolside AI has raised $126 million in a seed round led by French billionaire Xavier Niel and US VC Felicis, to develop an AI model that can write software code and eventually enable users to create applications without coding experience, with the company also opening a French subsidiary and relocating its HQ to Paris in a boost to the country's AI ambitions.
Main topic: Aily Labs, an AI-for-enterprise startup, raises €19m in funding to expand its team and further develop its AI models for productivity and efficiency in various industries.
Key points:
1. Aily Labs uses AI models to create products that increase productivity, efficiency, and cost-savings for clients, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry.
2. The startup differentiates itself by leveraging existing open-source AI models and utilizing a combination of machine learning approaches, including classification and regression models.
3. With the funding, Aily Labs plans to expand its GenAI team, diversify its client base beyond pharmaceutical companies, and enhance its capabilities in text generation and competitive intelligence.
Main topic: AI startup Hugging Face's $4.5 billion valuation in a $235 million funding round.
Key points:
1. Hugging Face's funding round is supported by major tech players, including Salesforce, Google, and Nvidia.
2. The rapid growth of AI adoption and investments in AI startups indicate its potential as the next technology frontier.
3. Hugging Face plans to use the funds to expand its team and invest in technology, with revenue projected to increase fivefold this year.
The most promising AI startups in 2023, according to top venture capitalists, include Adept, AlphaSense, Captions, CentML, Character.AI, Durable, Entos, Foundry, GPTZero, Hugging Face, LangChain, Leena AI, LlamaIndex, Luma AI, Lumachain, Magic, Mezli, Mindee, Next Insurance, Orby AI, Pinecone, Poly, Predibase, Replicant, Replicate, Run:ai, SaaS Labs, Secureframe, Treat, Twelve Labs.
ControlRooms.ai, an AI-powered analytics startup, has raised $10 million in a Series A round to automate the industrial troubleshooting process and minimize downtime for heavy industries like chemical and energy plants. The platform predicts manufacturing plant behavior and detects potential problems before they are noticed by engineers or operators.
AI21 Labs, a text-generating AI startup, has raised $155 million in a Series C funding round, bringing its total raised to $283 million and valuing the company at $1.4 billion, with plans to expand its workforce and accelerate its R&D efforts.
AI has garnered immense investment from venture capitalists, with over $40 billion poured into AI startups in the first half of 2023, raising concerns about who will benefit financially from its potential impact.
AI In brief X, formerly known as Twitter, has updated its privacy policy to state that it may train its AI models on user posts, with the policy change expected to take effect on September 29; however, CEO Elon Musk has clarified that private data, such as text in direct messages, will not be used to train the models.
Doug Lenat, a prominent figure in the field of AI, has passed away, leaving behind a legacy of pioneering work in neurosymbolic systems and machine reasoning.
AI21 Labs, an Israeli startup, has raised $155 million in its Series C round, with a valuation of $1.4 billion; the company offers API access to its language models and tools designed for various tasks like summarization and question answering.
US newspaper chain Gannett has temporarily halted the publication of AI-generated sports articles after the machine-written pieces received criticism for their errors and poor writing quality.
Apple is investing heavily in artificial intelligence, with multiple AI models being developed across various teams, including a conversational AI unit called "Foundational Models" led by John Giannandrea, Apple's head of AI, and other teams working on image generation and multimodal AI.
Despite the hype around AI-focused companies, many venture-backed startups in the AI space have experienced financial struggles and failed to maintain high valuations, including examples like Babylon Health, BuzzFeed, Metromile, AppHarvest, Embark Technology, and Berkshire Grey. These cases highlight that an AI focus alone does not guarantee success in the market.
Cathie Wood's Ark Invest predicts that AI software revenue will reach $14 trillion by 2030, and believes that Salesforce and The Trade Desk are attractive investments due to their potential in the AI market and their current valuations.
European AI startup Druid has raised $30 million in a Series B funding round to support its U.S. growth, which currently accounts for the majority of its revenue, as it expands its conversational business applications powered by generative AI.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is predicted to generate a $14 trillion annual revenue opportunity by 2030, causing billionaires like Seth Klarman and Ken Griffin to buy stocks in AI companies such as Amazon and Microsoft, respectively.
The United States and China lead in AI investment, with the U.S. having invested nearly $250 billion in 4,643 AI startups since 2013, according to a report.
Ernst & Young has invested $1.4 billion in AI technologies and launched a new AI-powered platform, EY.ai, to help organizations adopt AI and unlock economic value responsibly.
SoftBank is reportedly seeking AI deals, including a potential investment in OpenAI, after the successful IPO of its Arm unit, with the company's founder and CEO, Masayoshi Son, planning to invest billions of dollars in AI technology.
Full-stack generative AI platform, Writer, has secured $100 million in a Series B funding round led by ICONIQ Growth, with participation from WndrCo, Balderton Capital, and Insight Partners, as well as Writer customers Accenture and Vanguard; the funding will be used to invest in industry-specific language models and add capabilities to its models, enabling organizations to accelerate growth, increase productivity, and ensure governance.
AI startup Darrow has raised $35 million in funding for its AI-powered data engine that searches for class action litigation potential, with active cases resulting from its insights currently totaling around $10 billion in claims, and plans to use the funding to expand its team, add new legal domains to its tools, and invest in technology assets.
Writer, a generative AI startup, has raised $100 million in a Series B funding round to develop industry-specific text-generating AI models, bringing its total raised to $126 million and valuing the company at between $500 million and $750 million post-money.
Real estate developer Gary Dillabough is pursuing the creation of an artificial intelligence incubator in downtown San Jose, with potential plans to bring in 40 or 50 AI startups, which could significantly boost the city's economy and establish it as a hub for AI development.
Amazon will invest up to $4 billion in the AI startup Anthropic, using the startup's models and software across its business and signaling a renewed focus on generative AI.
Infosys and Microsoft have partnered to develop AI solutions using services like Infosys Topaz and Microsoft Azure, French billionaire Xavier Niel plans to invest $212 million in AI to retain French talent, AppyHigh has launched an AI-powered app bundle, former DeepMind researcher Vishal Maini has raised $14 million for his new AI venture fund, and Wishpond has unveiled Sales Email AI to streamline sales communications.
European AI startups, including Mistral, ElevenLabs, and Synthesia, have attracted significant investment from venture capitalists, with investors pouring $51.9 billion into AI startups in 2023, surpassing the $65.5 billion invested in the sector in 2022. Notable investors in the European AI startup scene include Simon Menashy of MMC Ventures, Amelia Armour of Amadeus Capital, Mish Mashkautsan of Phoenix Court, and Remy Minute of Ascension.
AI-based market intelligence platform AlphaSense has raised $150 million in a Series E funding round led by Bond Capital, boosting its valuation to $2.5 billion, with plans to expand its content collection and pursue strategic acquisitions.
Apple's former design guru Jony Ive is reportedly in talks with OpenAI and SoftBank to create the "iPhone of artificial intelligence," a consumer device that aims to revolutionize the way people interact with AI. The project could be funded by SoftBank with $1 billion.
Character.AI, a startup specializing in chatbots capable of impersonating anyone or anything, is reportedly in talks to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding, potentially valuing the company at over $5 billion.
AI Clearing, an AI-powered platform, has raised $14 million in a Series A funding round led by Prudence to expand its construction progress tracking and quality control technology for large infrastructure projects.
Induced AI, a startup founded by teenagers, has raised $2.3 million in seed funding to develop a platform that automates workflows by converting plain English instructions into pseudo-code and utilizing browser automation to complete tasks previously handled by back offices. The platform allows for bi-directional interaction and can handle complex processes, making it distinct from existing models in the industry.
Iambic Therapeutics has closed a $100 million Series B financing round to advance its AI-driven drug discovery platform, with the funds being used to advance multiple candidates into clinical development and expand its pipeline.
