Strictly VC - AI all the time beep bop boop

Snapchat is releasing its own AI chatbot powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT. "While ChatGPT has quickly become a productivity tool, Snap’s implementation treats generative AI more like a persona," observes The Verge.

In a Facebook post today, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote that the company will create a new product group inside the company focused on generative AI. The unit will combine several teams across Meta, he wrote, adding that the new group will be organized under current Chief Product Officer Chris Cox. CNBC has more here.

Elon Musk has reportedly approached artificial intelligence researchers in recent weeks about forming a new research lab to develop an alternative to ChatGPT, including trying to recruit Igor Babuschkin, a researcher who recently left Alphabet’s DeepMind AI unit and specializes in the kind of machine-learning models that power chatbots like ChatGPT. The Information has more here.

How will venture capital handle the headwinds of 2023? Hear from Sean Park of First Republic Bank and other industry experts in Juniper Square’s State of Venture Capital webinar. Watch now.

Chris Rock is a widely beloved comic; he’s also a savvy entrepreneur. Though Rock might have talked with media outlets about being assaulted by actor-producer Will Smith last March during the Academy Awards — he could have also chosen to sue Smith — he instead stayed mum, turning “the slap” into material for his first tour in five years.

Now, Rock is taking that material to a much broader audience courtesy of Netflix, which is airing Rock’s newest set live from the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore this coming Saturday, March 4, at 10 pm Eastern time.

It’s a big deal for both Rock and Netflix. 

Netflix, which began experimenting with an ad-supported tier in November and began cracking down on shared password use earlier this month, has a lot riding on the evening, given it will be the first live-streaming event in its 25-year history. (Netflix confirmed in May of last year that it would roll out a live-streaming capability that center on unscripted content, competition shows, reality reunion specials, live comedy shows and a future “Netflix is a Joke” festival.)

Little surprise that in addition to Rock, the streaming giant also just announced live pre-and post-shows to bookend his performance.

More here.

Astroscale, a 10-year-old Tokyo company that is developing equipment to service satellites and space stations in space, raised a $76 million Series G round, with Mitsubishi Electric investing $25 million. Other investors in the deal included billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, Mitsubishi Corp., Development Bank of Japan, and FEL Corp. The company has raised a total of $389.2 million. SpaceNews has more here.

Fulfil Solutions, a six-year-old startup based in Mountain View, Ca., that builds picking and packing robots for online grocery stores, raised a $60 million Series B round led by Eclipse Ventures, with Khosla Ventures and DCVC also contributing. More here.

Skydio, a nearly nine-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based maker of autonomous drones that it sells to the Department of Defense, has raised $230 million in Series E funding led by Linse Capital, with participation from earlier investors Andreessen Horowitz, Next47, IVP, DoCoMo, NVIDIA, the Walton Family Foundation, and UP.Partners. Hercules Capital and Axon, the company behind the Taser and police body cameras, also invested in Skydio. TechCrunch has more here.

Typeface, a 10-month-old, San Francisco-based generative AI application for enterprise content creation, launched publicly today with a $65 million round. Investors in the deal include Lightspeed Venture Partners, GV, M12, and Menlo Ventures. Typeface is led by former CTO of Adobe, Abhay Parasnis; Crunchbase News has more here.

Wiz, a three-year-old New York startup that analyzes infrastructure hosted in public cloud services for risk factors that could allow hackers to gain control of assets and obtain sensitive customer data, raised a $300 million Series D round at an approximate post-money valuation of at around $10 billion. The deal was co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Greenoaks Capital Partners, with addittional participation from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and French business magnate Bernard Arnault. The company has raised a total of $900 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Andrena, a 6.5-year-old, New York-based company that says it provides high-speed residential and commercial internet at a fraction of the cost of other providers, just raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Dragonfly Capital. Earlier backers Afore Capital, FJ Labs, Castle Island Ventures, Chaos Ventures, KohFounders, and J Ventures also joined the round, along with some other new investors, including Blockchange Ventures, Moonshot Research, and EV3. More here.

Aquafortus, a seven-year-old startup based in Auckland, New Zealand, that aims to build more efficient waste recovery systems for oil and gas companies, raised a $17 million Series A1 round led by DCVC and Novo Holdings; additional investors included Universal Materials Incubator, Intrepid Financial Partners, Envisioning Partners, Burnt Island Ventures, K1W1, and NZGCP. More here.

Flock, a five-year-old British startup that claims to use uses real-time data to insure car fleets, raised a $38 million Series B round led by Octopus Ventures, with CommerzVentures and previous investors Social Capital, Dig Ventures, and Foresight Ventures also chipping in. The company has raised over $56 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

SepPure, a 4.5-year-old, Singapore-based outfit that says it has created a sustainable chemical-resistant nano-filtration technology to replace the  chemical separation processes in multiple industries, including vegetable oil, pharmaceutical, petrochemical and oil industries, has attracted $12 million in a new funding round. SOSV led the round, joined by Anji Microelectronics, Real Tech Fund, Seeds Capital, EPS Ventures, and others. The company previously raised $2.5 million in 2019. TechCrunch has more here. 

Pagos, a 19-month-old, Los Angeles-based based payment intelligence startup that says it can help businesses optimize their digital payment infrastructure and maximize revenue, lower payments costs, and reduce fraud, has raised $34 million in Series A funding led by Arbor Ventures. Additional participants in the round include Point 72 Ventures, Infinity Ventures and Underscore VC, which led the company’s $10 million seed round in 2021. TechCrunch has more here.

Champions Round, a five-year-old Los Angeles startup that has launched a fantasy league catering to Gen Z sports fans, raised a $7 million Series A round co-led by Point72 Ventures and Goodwater Capital, with Pipeline Capital, Quest Venture Partners, Mana Ventures, Band of Angels, and Gaingels also anteing up. TechCrunch has more here.

CollX, a two-year-old startup based in Haddonfield, NJ, whose app enables trading card enthusiasts to scan their cards and assess their value, raised a $5.5 million seed round led by Brand Foundry Ventures; Next Coast Ventures, FJ Labs, 114 Ventures, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, and Morrison Seger Venture Capital Partners also participated. The company has raised a total of $6 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Domatic, a 3.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that aims to make every fixture intelligent and to simplify their installation and operation via low-voltage wiring (the outfit was founded by former Apple and Cisco engineers), has raised $4 million in seed funding. Brick & Mortar Ventures led the round, joined by Catapult VC, Alchemist, and Third Sphere. Business Insider has more here.

Limbiq.com, a three-year-old German startup that is developing software to automate complex supply chains, raised a $1 million round led by Motion Ventures. More here.

Spade, a two-year-old Vancouver startup that cleans and enriches transaction data so that companies can get a full picture of their purchases, raised a $5.5 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with additional participation from Y Combinator, Gradient Ventures, and Dash Fund. The company has raised a total of $6.1 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Vend Park, a three-year-old Boston startup whose software automates parking garage operations, raised a $3.8 million seed round led by Floating Point Advisors, with Crossbeam Venture Partners, APA Venture Partners, and Alumni Ventures also pitching in. More here.

Vouched, a Seattle startup whose software analyzes images of photo identity documents including passports and driver’s licenses and compares these images against a user’s selfie in order to confirm their identity, raised a $6.3 million round. BHG VC and SpringRock Ventures were the co-leads, while Zulily co-founders Darrell Cavens and Mark Vadon also took part. Geekwire has more here.

XL Batteries, a four-year-old startup based in Marlborough, Ma., that is developing organic flow battery technology, raised a $10 million "seed-2" round led by Catalus Capital and including Xerox Ventures and SIP Global. More here.

The era of the one-day close is over, and more firms are chasing deals with revenue traction and clear paths to profitability. For three ways to find those deals before your competition, check out Affinity’s latest infographic.

New Form Capital, a four-year-old, New York-based venture firm, has garnered more than $70 million in capital commitments for its second fund, per an SEC filing. The outfit, which says it invests in teams that are "building at the intersection of blockchain technology, financial markets, and data at the earliest stages," was founded by Alex Marinier, who previously was a venture investor with the cross-border firm DCM Ventures for three years, an analyst at Blackstone Group for two years, and a credit analyst at Angelo Gordon for less than a year. More here.

Cisco announced over the weekend that it intends to acquire Valtix, a two-year-old startup that helps companies secure their environments across multiple clouds and that had raised more than $26 million from investors, per Crunchbase. Among these, participating in Valtix's $12.5 million Series A in 2021, was Cisco Investments. TechCrunch has more here.

Esther Crawford, chief executive of Twitter Payments, was let go by the company over the weekend, as first reported by Platformer. Around 200 other Twitter employees were also laid off on Saturday night, says the New York Times. 

The moves (above) have led to speculation that Twitter owner Elon Musk is about to install a new regime at the company. In fact, according to Platformer, Steve Davis, who began working at SpaceX in 2003 and is currently CEO of The Boring Company, is rumored to be first in line as Twitter's next CEO after loaning himself out to Twitter last year, cutting close to $1 billion in costs at social media company, and even sleeping at Twitter's San Francisco headquarters with his partner and their newborn child to be more available to Musk. More here.

Speaking of Elon Musk, he has regained his spot as the world’s richest person after briefly losing the title to France’s Bernard Arnault. Bloomberg has more here.

China Renaissance said its missing founder Bao Fan was “co-operating in an investigation” with Chinese authorities, more than a week after the investment bank disclosed it had been unable to contact him. "The disappearance of Bao, a former Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse banker famed for wheeling and dealing on behalf of the most powerful corporate groups in China’s technology sector, has cast a pall over the industry just as Beijing appeared set to draw a line under a protracted regulatory crackdown," observes the FT.

"The robots will need to get a lot more neurotic if they ever hope to become true writers." —Brad Stone

When it comes to current large language models driving chatbots like ChatGPT, we're in "terra incognita,” says Terry Sejnowski, a neuroscientist, psychologist and computer scientist who helped lay the intellectual and technical groundwork for modern artificial intelligence. “Humans have never experienced this before.”

The Information also dives into Josh Kushner's budding empire.

"Keep your AI claims in check."

"The Stakeout."

The trailer for season three of "Ted Lasso."

These bananas are perfect for making banana bread, so I will toss them in the freezer for a few months until I’m ready to pull them out and throw them straight into the trash can.

Ukraine Banksy postage stamps. (You can buy them here.)

Therabody SmartGoggles.

A $75 million spec house whose amenities will include a lazy river, Himalayan salt sauna, and even a metaverse room.

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