- 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.
### Summary
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is allocating $130 million to purchase computer chips to power artificial intelligence and build an "AI Research Resource" in the United Kingdom.
### Facts
- 🧪 The United Kingdom plans to establish an "AI Research Resource" by mid-2024 to become an AI tech hub.
- 💻 The government is sourcing chips from NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD and has ordered 5,000 NVIDIA graphic processing units (GPUs).
- 💰 The allocated $130 million may not be sufficient to match the ambition of the AI hub, leading to a potential request for more funding.
- 🌍 A recent report highlighted that many companies face challenges deploying AI due to limited resources and technical obstacles.
- 👥 In a survey conducted by S&P Global, firms reported insufficient computing power as a major obstacle to supporting AI projects.
- 🤖 The ability to support AI workloads will play a crucial role in determining who leads in the AI space.
### Summary
Investors are waiting for Arm's Nasdaq IPO filing to determine if the chip designer will experience "exponential growth" due to the AI boom, as CEO Masayoshi Son claims.
### Facts
- 📈 SoftBank, the owner of Arm, has positioned the chip designer as a key asset for the conglomerate's AI-related companies.
- 💰 SoftBank valued Arm at $64 billion, but analysts value it around $47 billion.
- 💻 Arm does not sit at the center of the AI boom but is more AI-adjacent.
- 💡 Arm specializes in energy-efficient central processing units (CPUs) that can complement Nvidia's advanced semiconductors.
- 🌐 Arm's opportunity lies in providing intellectual property for AI and machine learning in devices used by end users.
- ❓ Analysts question whether 85% of SoftBank's portfolio companies can truly be described as AI-related.
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.
Hugging Face, an AI startup, has raised $235 million in a Series D funding round, with participation from tech giants such as Google, Amazon, Nvidia, and IBM, and now has a valuation of $4.5 billion, signaling the growing demand for AI platforms and tools.
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.
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.
Nvidia predicts a $600 billion AI market opportunity driven by accelerated computing, with $300 billion in chips and systems, $150 billion in generative AI software, and $150 billion in omniverse enterprise software.
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.
AI presents a significant growth opportunity for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) stock, with the company increasing its investments in AI-related R&D and expanding its ecosystem of AI partners, leading to a Strong Buy consensus rating from analysts.
The global AI market is projected to reach $2 trillion by 2030, with companies like Amazon and Meta Platforms making significant investments in AI to drive growth and diversify their offerings.
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.
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.
Nvidia's head of enterprise computing, Manuvir Das, believes that the artificial intelligence (AI) market presents a $600 billion opportunity for the company, as demand for AI technology continues to fuel its growth, leading analysts to overlook its undervalued shares and potential for exceptional growth in the years to come.
The growing demand for inferencing in artificial intelligence (AI) technology could have significant implications for AI stocks such as Nvidia, with analysts forecasting a shift from AI systems for training to those for inferencing. This could open up opportunities for other companies like Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) to gain a foothold in the market.
Amazon has agreed to invest up to $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic, aiming to enhance its rivalry with Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Nvidia in the rapidly growing AI sector.
The hype around artificial intelligence (AI) may be overdone, as traffic declines for AI chatbots and rumors circulate about Microsoft cutting orders for AI chips, suggesting that widespread adoption of AI may take more time. Despite this, there is still demand for AI infrastructure, as evidenced by Nvidia's significant revenue growth. Investors should resist the hype, diversify, consider valuations, and be patient when investing in the AI sector.
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.
AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su believes that the field of artificial intelligence (AI) is moving too quickly for competitive moats to be effective, emphasizing the importance of an open approach and collaboration within the ecosystem to take advantage of AI advancements. While Nvidia currently dominates the AI market, Su suggests that the next 10 years will bring significant changes and opportunities for other companies.
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.
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.
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.
