Sourcery ☀️ AI's threat to humanity? US Oil Production ATH
(11/20-11/24) Privy, Medmo, Share Health, LucidLink, Vandelux, Inclusively, Relay, Munch, Craftwerk, Ingenious.Build, Coherent, Osium AI; Leeds United, Truff, Petal
Short VC deals, long AI.
Cerebral Valley AI Summit
Summit opened up with a conversation between Ali Ghodsi, CEO of Databricks (recently raised $500M at a $43B valuation ..yes, it’s still private) and Naveen Rao, founder of MosaicML (Databricks acquired for $1.3B back in June 2023). Moderated by , the three started with Ghodsi sharing his serendipitous discovery of MosaicML at the Summit last year.. leading to a massive acquisition not long after. Oh, and they also discuss the future of AI, a debate on open-source models, real potential threats, and the ‘BS’ safety predictions.→ Watch the full 20min talk here
Shoutout to Eric, Riley + the rest of the Newcomer team for this intimate, yet super high-profile event. Still a bit blown away. Best summit I’ve been to since the Upfront Summit 2023.
Link to Xeet with pictures + an AI chart from Coatue
It’s a fight for GTM hustle
Earlier-stage companies like Writer.ai are focused on servicing their customers, flying all around the globe to host workshops and teach teams about their solutions, shipping products, understanding use cases, and getting solutions deployed. Emphasized building trusted long-term relationships, showing customers the vision of what they can create for them now & in the future, while bringing them along for the journey as a strongly positioned ‘emerging leader’ in the space.
Also stressed that they’re not tangled in the chaos of trying to be on the most updated model, their GPT3.5 plus RAG works just fine, and is better than messing with the latest versions. (learn more about the difference between RAG & fine-tuning here)
The obvious macro
“Public interest” is shifting from hyping generalist models (ie ChatGPT for consumers/masses, but not yet built for sensitive environments like enterprises that need accuracy, security, encryption) to looking for more specialized native-built LLMs for specific use cases, with real intelligence/weights behind them (ie PhDs, Drs, Execs, Lawyers) for sensitive environments and datasets.
AI players to watch
Salesforce AI (AI for sales teams)
Like Writer, they’re traveling around the world helping their curious enterprise customers make more efficient workflows/services for their customer support/sales reps, leading to more efficiency, time-back, and more human-driven relationships/selling, building direct use cases in real-time (even if one-off/custom)
Imbue (AI agents)
Emphasized building their own LLM for accuracy, raised $200M at a $1B valuation in September by Astera Institute, NVIDIA, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt, Notion co-founder Simon Last, and others.
Poolside (AI for writing code)
Moved its HQ from SF to France? Not sure how that’ll fare with EU regulations in the long run? Seems like an early limiting constraint. But it’s clear there is a lot of talent originating from the region.. and Mistral is based in France.
Stealthy, founded by former GitHub CTO, Jason Warner, & recently raised a mammoth $126M seed round, mostly from French investors.
Writer.ai (marketing agents)
They’ll win if/by first mover advantage, sweat equity, maintaining close relationships, and augmenting the highest quality models for their use cases/customers.
Recently raised a $100M Series B funding round led by ICONIQ Growth with participation from WndrCo, Balderton Capital and Insight Partners, Aspect Ventures and Writer customers Accenture and Vanguard.
Debate on Open Source (OS) Models
VCs and Tech Companies at Odds Over AI Regulation, The Information
Reid Hoffman
Conservative, wants safety, and along with 50 other investors signed the ‘controversial’ Responsible AI Commitments for startups and their investors.
Vinod Khosla
Refreshingly direct, opposed most of Reid’s softer political views. Thinks TikTok should be banned (agreed, delete the app people), but also thinks OS should be constrained to block off China & others so the US can get at least a 6-12 month headstart (also reasoning I can get behind). Vinod is a real one.
Musings
Macro
Stripe launched a live view into their black friday cyber monday transactions.. with 200M+ total transactions, 19k+ per minute, & $16.7B+ in volume.. they’re not too bad. Consumers are certainly getting their savings in while they can. Thank you to the dev who created this dashboard, & the Irish brothers for the API.
AI
OpenAI Made an AI Breakthrough Before Altman Firing, Stoking Excitement, and Concern, Jon Victor & Amir Efrati @ The Information
In the following months, senior OpenAI researchers used the innovation to build systems that could solve basic math problems, a difficult task for existing AI models. Jakub Pachocki and Szymon Sidor, two top researchers, used Sutskever’s work to build a model called Q* (pronounced “Q-Star”) that was able to solve math problems that it hadn’t seen before, an important technical milestone. A demo of the model circulated within OpenAI in recent weeks, and the pace of development alarmed some researchers focused on AI safety.
AI x Music, Alex Pall (Mantis VC/Chainsmokers), Emily Warren (legendary songwriter), Meng Kuok (BandLab), & Ed Newton-Rex (prev Audio @ Stability AI)
AI: Grappling with a New Kind of Intelligence, Sébastien Bubeck (MSFT), Tristan Harris (CHT), Yann LeCun (Meta)
If you don’t know Yann LeCun, you must be living under a rock. He is the goat.. & also Chief AI Scientist at Meta - here’s a short clip of his opinion on AI’s threat to humanity here
How long can NVIDIA keep this up? Is this sustainable? Brad Gerstner @ Altimeter
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Last Week (11/20-11/24):
Relevant deals include the 60+ deals across stages below.
I've categorized the deals below into five categories, FinTech, Care, Enterprise & Consumer, HardTech, and Sustainability, and ordered from later-stage rounds to early-stage rounds. Highlighted deals include Privy, Medmo, Share Health, LucidLink, Vandelux, Inclusively, Relay, Munch, Craftwerk, Ingenious.Build, Coherent, Osium AI; Leeds United, Truff, Petal
Final numbers on US Producing 13.2M Barrels of Crude Oil per Day..🤯 at the bottom.
Deals
Fintech:
- Privy, a New York City-based developer of tools designed for companies to integrate blockchain features into their apps, raised $18 million in Series A funding. Paradigm led the round and was joined by existing investors Sequoia Capital, BlueYard Capital, Archetype, and others.
. . .
Care:
- Medmo, a New York City-based medical imaging company, raised $9 million in funding. Lerer Hippeau led the round and was joined by Jerusalem Venture Partners, C2 Ventures, Stone IsraVentures, and others.
- Phare Health, a London, U.K.-based developer of AI products designed to help hospitals track cash flows and better understand their finances, raised £2.5 million ($3.1 million) in seed funding. General Catalyst led the round and was joined by KHP Ventures and Bertelsmann Investments.
. . .
Enterprise & Consumer:
- LucidLink, a San Francisco-based storage collaboration platform designed for remote teams to connect and collaborate on files, raised $75 million in Series C funding. Brighton Park Capital led the round and was joined by Headline, Baseline Ventures, and Adobe Ventures.
- A121 Labs, an Israeli developer of generative AI products, raised $53m in Series C extension funding from Intel Capital and Comcast Ventures. https://axios.link/40SOn1R
- Ninety, an Atlanta, Ga.-based performance and business management platform, raised $35 million in Series B funding. Blue Cloud Ventures led the round and was joined by Catalyst Investors and Insight Partners.
- Vendelux, a New York City-based AI-powered data insight platform for event marketers and event organizers, raised $14 million in Series A funding. FirstMark Capital led the round and was joined by Cervin Ventures and others.
- Inclusively, a New Orleans-based workforce inclusion platform, raised $13m in Series A funding. Firework Ventures led, and was joined by Benson Capital. https://axios.link/3SNjE4k
- Malou, a Paris, France-based AI tool designed to help restaurants improve their online reputation, visibility, and customer engagement, raised $10.9 million in funding from henQ, Bleu Capital, Bertrand Jelensperger, and others.
- Relay, a German local delivery startup, raised $10m in seed funding co-led by Project A Ventures and Prologis Ventures. https://axios.link/3STIBev
- Munch, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based AI tool designed to autonomously cut long video content into marketable clips for social media, raised $7.2 million in seed funding. A* Capital led the round and was joined by Liquid2, Cardumen Capital, and Reimagine Ventures.
- Craftwerk, a Charlotte, N.C.-based home services platform, raised $6m in seed funding led by Forerunner Ventures. https://axios.link/47nbGn5
- Layer AI, a San Francisco-based tool for professional video game art creation, raised $1.8 million in seed funding from The Games Fund, Laton Ventures, GFR Fund, and others.
. . .
HardTech:
- Ingenious.Build, a Nashville, Tenn.-based developer of project management software for real estate and construction companies, raised $37 million in Series A funding. Morpheus Ventures, Navitas Capital, and Koch Real Estate Investments led the round and were joined by American Family Ventures, JLL Spark Global Ventures, and Crow Holdings.
- Vizcab, a Lyon, France-based platform designed to help those in the construction industry develop net-zero building strategies, raised €5 million ($5.5 million) in Series A funding. KOMPAS VC led the round and was joined by Rise PropTech Fund, Cemex Ventures, and others.
- Quoherent, a Huntsville, Ala.-based developer of quantum computing processors, raised $4.7 million in seed funding. Morpheus Ventures led the round and were joined by Draper Associates, Khosla Ventures, and Alpha Edison.
- Osium AI, a French AI startup focused on material sciences R&D, raised $2.6m in seed funding from YC, Kima Ventures, Singular, Collaborative Fund and Raise Phiture. https://axios.link/3RkGyPD
Acquisitions & PE:
- Ackerly Partners acquired a minority stake in Leeds United, a Leeds, U.K.-based soccer club, per Bloomberg. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- SKYY Partners agreed to acquire a minority stake in TRUFF, a Los Angeles-based brand of truffle-infused products and sauces. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Petal, a New York-based credit card startup valued by VCs like Valar Ventures at $800m in 2022, is seeking a buyer, per Fortune. https://axios.link/3SPUt1c
Funds:
- LG Technology Ventures, the corporate VC arm of South Korea's LG Group, formed a new $309m fund focused on AI, batteries and mobility startups. https://axios.link/46rdObY
Barrels beyond belief
The US is producing more oil than ever before. That’s according to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration, which revealed that the nation’s crude oil production hit 13.2 million barrels per day, surpassing the pre-Covid peak.
After relying on imported oil from around the world for decades, the US has turned its energy dependence around in recent years. Domestic oil production has more than doubled since 2012 — which has made the US the world's leading producer, after beating Russia for the top spot in 2018.
Lone star: producing star
As of last year, the US accounted for nearly 15% of the world's crude oil production, with Texas alone contributing more than 40% of that. Indeed, if Texas were a nation, it would be the fourth-largest producer, eclipsing the entire European continent and the UAE, which had reportedly planned to use the upcoming COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai to vie for fossil fuel deals.
Current projections indicate that the planet is on track to warm by 2.5-2.9°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100 — a modest improvement from the 3°C estimate at COP21 in 2015, but still significantly worse than the agreed-upon target of 1.5°C. Even so, for its part, the US has pledged to achieve "net zero" by 2050.
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The material presented on Molly O’Shea’s website are my opinions only and are provided for informational purposes and should not be construed as investment advice. It is not a recommendation of, or an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy, any particular security, strategy, or investment product. Any analysis or discussion of investments, sectors or the market generally are based on current information, including from public sources, that I consider reliable, but I do not represent that any research or the information provided is accurate or complete, and it should not be relied on as such. My views and opinions expressed in any website content are current at the time of publication and are subject to change. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Team Vinod #banTikTok