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How big a deal is the latest technology coming out of OpenAI? We're excited to talk more about this with CEO Sam Altman next month at our first StrictlyVC event of the year; in the meantime, we explored some of the possible implications of its latest release with one of the company's critics for this week's StrictlyVC Download: economist, VC, and MIT fellow Paul Kedrosky. (You can also read excerpts from that chat below.) Whether or not you think Kedrosky is overreacting to OpenAI's advancements, we think you'll enjoy this one.
Enormous thanks to Context Ventures for sponsoring this week's episode. If you are a U.S. veteran or married to one or you're a civilian, you might check out the Military Veteran Startup Conference hosted by Context on February 2nd and 3rd in San Francisco. Context calls it the "densest gathering of military veteran talent in the early-stage ecosystem." You can learn more and register here.
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FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried said on Twitter today that he would testify next week before Congress, setting up a high-profile discussion with lawmakers he sought to court before his crypto exchange collapsed into bankruptcy. The WSJ has more here.
In related news: U.S. prosecutors, laying the groundwork for a potential fraud case against Bankman-Fried and others involved in the collapse of FTX, are scrutinizing how funds held by the crypto exchange moved outside the US as it was hurtling toward bankruptcy, reports Bloomberg. More here.
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Affinity, the relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers, recently launched a report analyzing investment trends that point toward future unicorn status. While the impact of an economic downturn can’t easily be predicted, deal activity trends can help us better understand current conditions and future outlooks. In this U.S. vs. European Unicorn report, Affinity takes a comparative look at global investment data to understand how the landscape for investors and hopeful unicorns has evolved against economic challenges and
the role relationship intelligence plays in these transactions. Read the report.
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| Is ChatGPT a "Virus That Has Been Released in the Wild?" |
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More than three years ago, this editor sat down with Sam Altman for a small event in San Francisco soon after he’d left his role as the president of Y Combinator to become CEO of the AI company he co-founded in 2015 with Elon Musk and others, OpenAI.
At the time, Altman described OpenAI’s potential in language that sounded outlandish to some. Altman said, for example, that the opportunity with artificial general intelligence — machine intelligence that can solve problems as well as a human — is so great that if OpenAI managed to crack it, the outfit could “maybe capture the light cone of all future value in the universe.” He said that the company was “going to have to not release research” because it was so powerful. Asked if OpenAI was guilty of fear-mongering — Musk has repeatedly called all organizations developing AI to be regulated — Altman talked about dangers of not thinking about “societal consequences” when “you’re building something on an exponential curve.”
The audience laughed at various points of the conversation, not certain how seriously to take Altman. No one is laughing now, however. While machines are not yet as intelligent as people, the tech that OpenAI has since released is taking many aback (including Musk), with some critics fearful that it could be our undoing, especially with more sophisticated tech reportedly coming soon.
Indeed, though heavy users insist it’s not so smart, the ChatGPT model that OpenAI made available to the general public last week is so capable of answering questions like a person that
professionals across a range of industries are trying to process the implications. Educators, for example, wonder how they’ll be able to distinguish original writing from the algorithmically generated essays they are bound to receive — and that can evade anti-plagiarism software.
Paul Kedrosky isn’t an educator per se. He’s an economist, venture capitalist and MIT fellow who calls himself a “frustrated normal with a penchant for thinking about risks and unintended consequences in complex systems.” But he is among those who are suddenly worried about our collective future, tweeting yesterday: “[S]hame on OpenAI for launching this pocket nuclear bomb without restrictions into an unprepared society.” Wrote Kedrosky, “I obviously feel ChatGPT (and its ilk) should be withdrawn immediately. And, if
ever re-introduced, only with tight restrictions.”
We talked with him yesterday about some of his concerns, and why he thinks OpenAI is driving what he believes is the “most disruptive change the U.S. economy has seen in 100 years,” and not in a good way.
More here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Bitwave, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that has built a crypto accounting, tax, and compliance platform, raised a $15 million Series A round co-led by Hack VC and Blockchain Capital, with SignalFire, Valor Equity Partners, Arca, Pulsar Trading, and Alumni Ventures Blockchain Fund also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $22.3 million. The Block has more here.
Cardiosense, a two-year-old Chicago startup that is building a physiological waveform AI platform to develop predictive biomarkers to detect and manage cardiac disease, raised a $15.1m Series A round co-led by Broadview Ventures and Hatteras Venture Partners, with participation from Laerdal Million Lives Fund, OSF Ventures, UnityPoint Health Ventures, and Portal Innovations. Crain's Chicago Business has more here.
Sonde Health, a seven-year-old Boston startup that uses patented voice technology to detect various health conditions from biomarkers in a person's voice, including analyzing respiratory fitness and detecting depression and anxiety, raised a $19.25 million Series B round led by Partners Investment, with additional participation from NEOM Investment Fund, KT Corp., and previous investors PureTech Health, M Ventures, MP Healthcare Venture Management, Neoteny, and Evidity Health Capital. MobiHealthNews has more here.
Ubie, a five-year-old Tokyo startup that providing an AI-powered symptom checker app and hospital SaaS products, raised a $19 million Series C extension, increasing the total size of the round to $45.2 million. Investors included Sogo Medical, AAIC Investment, Japan Impact Investment, Rakuten Capital, Shoko Chukin Bank, Japan Finance Corporation, and Mizuho Bank. The company has raised a total of $77.7 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Vevo Therapeutics, a San Francisco startup founded this year that is using its in vivo drug discovery platform and AI models to discover new drugs, raised a $12 million seed round co-led by Wing Venture Capital and General Catalyst, with Mubadala Capital, AIX Ventures, and Camford Capital also taking part. More here.
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Earn Alliance, a Hong Kong startup founded this year that has built a web3 game community platform, raised a $4.75 million seed round co-led by CoinFund and Fabric Ventures. Other backers in the round included Blockchain Coinvestors, Animoca Brands, Stake Capital, Athena Ventures, NLS Ventures, MAD World Ventures, and Guild Alliance. More here.
Interpres Security, a startup based in Charleston, SC, that provides tailored mitigation, data collection, and detection recommendations based on which attackers are most likely to target an organization, the prevalence of the attacks, and the malware and techniques used, raised an $8.5 million seed round led by Ten Eleven Ventures. SecurityWeek has more here.
Komi, a three-year-old London startup that has built a personalized website page builder tool for influencers and celebrities to create and customize a landing page to promote their projects, raised a $5 million seed round led by Contour Venture Partners. The company has raised a total of $5.6 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Shibuya, a New York startup that allows viewers of its content to purchase NFTs that both fund new content and give them the ability to vote on the story’s direction across chapters, raised a $6.9 million seed round co-led by Variant and Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from basketball star Kevin Durant and entertainer Paris Hilton. Decrypt has more here.
Syncfy, a six-year-old Austin startup that says it allows customers to access data from more than 125 different banks, digital wallets, tax authorities, utility providers, crypto exchanges, and blockchains across Latin America, as well as internationally, raised a $10 million seed round. Point72 Ventures was the deal lead; JAM Fund, Ausum Ventures, Avalancha Ventures, FJ Labs, Mantis VC, and XBTO Humla Ventures also participated. More here.
Teamed, a four-year-old London startup that is building a jobs matchmaking service for remote employees, raised a $3 million seed round led by Blackfinch Group, with Nexus Investments and 1818 Venture Capital also chipping in. More here.
Uplinq, a two-year-old Scottsdale, Az., startup that has built a bookkeeping and analysis platform for SMBs, raised a $5.6 million seed round led by AZ-VC, with participation from Live Oak Ventures, Merus Capital, and members of the Kuwaiti royal family. PYMNTS has more here.
WeWALK, a three-year-old London startup that is developing a “smart cane” for visually impaired people, raised a $2.45 million round led by Nesta Impact Investments; additional investors included KHP Ventures, APY Ventures, and Vestel Ventures. The company has raised a total of $9.1 million. TechCrunch has more here.
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Consolidation in the fast-delivery sector continues. Getir, the Istanbul-based online grocery start-up, has closed its acquisition of German rival Gorillas in a deal that values the combined group at $10 billion, the FT reported this morning. The deal values Gorillas at $1.2 billion, down from the $3 billion valuation its private investors assigned it in September 2021. More here.
A little afield, but: Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment, the 22-year-old Hollywood production company behind “Moonlight” and “The Big Short,” has been bought by France’s Mediawan in deal that values the U.S. group at more than $300 million in cash and shares. Pitt talks with the FT about the deal here.
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The 12-year-old, car-sharing company Getaround made its public market debut today through a merger with blank-check company InterPrivate II Acquisition Corp. But the company subsequently saw its share value drop more than 65%, reflecting the chilly environment for both SPACs and ride-sharing companies. CNBC has more here.
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Former Apple executive Tony Blevins says the company made a mistake in firing him this fall after a TikTok video surfaced in which Blevins referenced the bawdy 1981 comedy “Arthur.” Blevins, who spent 22 years at Apple, says he was not given any severance, either. ("I tried to be the most loyal person." ) More here.
Zach Cohen has joined Andreessen Horowitz as an investor on its consumer team. Cohen had joined General Atlantic as an analyst last year. More here.
CEO Kris Marszalek wants everyone to know that his company, Crypto.com, is safe and in good hands. But Marszalek’s business history is replete with red flags, observes CNBC. More here.
Michael McCaffrey, CEO of the four-year-old crypto news outlet The Block, resigned today after it was reported by Axios that Sam Bankman-Fried's cryptocurrency trading firm, Alameda Research, has been secretly funding the organization for more than a year by funneling money to McCaffrey. The outlet's employees say they were previously unaware of the arrangement, which saw some funds used to purchase of apartment in the Bahamas for McCaffrey, says Axios. More here.
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Inside the frantic texts exchanged by crypto executives as FTX collapsed.
How CoinDesk lit the fuse that blew up crypto -- and might singe its owner next.
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