Microsoft is moving some of its best AI researchers out of China

Friday! It was hectic around here all of today so we have a shortie for you, along with a podcast with featured guest Miles Grimshaw of Benchmark Grimshaw. As some of you will know, Grimshaw joined the storied venture firm in 2020 after spending more than seven years at Thrive Capital in New York, and it's no surprise he felt like a natural fit to the team, given they kept investing in the same deals, including Airtable, Supergreat, and Benchling. We talked with Grimshaw about a range of things, including how he finds companies, whether live shopping will ever take off in the U.S., and how some of the startups he likes the most are using AI to their advantage. We ran excerpts of that chat earlier this week but you can catch the full download here.

Giant thanks to this week's podcast sponsor, Finley, a debt capital management platform for startups. Founded by a former Goldman Sachs debt investor, Finley says its software helps startups manage their borrowing bases, financial covenants, and other debt capital must-haves. For a free debt capital consultation, check it out.

Microsoft is moving some of its best artificial intelligence researchers from China to Canada in a move that threatens to gut an essential training ground for the Asian country’s tech talent, says the Financial Times. Sources tell the FT the so-called “Vancouver Plan” is a response to heightened political tensions between the U.S. and China, as well as a defensive maneuver to prevent top talent from being poached by domestic tech groups desperate for AI researchers.

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Upstream Bio, a startup based in Waltham, Ma., that
focuses on developing therapies for inflammatory and allergic diseases, raised a $200 million Series B round co-led by Enavate Sciences and Venrock, with Bain Capital Life Sciences, Wellington Management, and previous investors OrbiMed, Access Biotechnology, Decheng Capital, Altshuler Shaham Provident Funds, TCG X, HBM Healthcare Investments, Omega Funds, and Samsara BioCapital also participating. BioPharma Dive has more here.

Carta Healthcare, a six-year-old Palo Alto startup that helps healthcare providers analyze their data, raised a $25 million Series B round. Backers included previous investors Memorial Hermann Health System and UnityPoint Health. The company has raised a total of $42.3 million. Hospital Management has more here.

HyperPlay, a startup founded last year that styles itself as an App Store for web3 games, raised a $12 million Series A round co-led by Griffin Gaming Partners and Bitkraft Ventures. Decrypt has more here.

Lens Protocol, a one-year-old web3 startup that plans to build a decentralized social networking ecosystem, raised a $15 million round led by IDEO CoLab Ventures, with additional funds provided by General Catalyst, Variant, and Blockchain Capital as well as DAOs like Flamingo DAO, DAOJones, Punk DAO, DAO5, and Global Coin Research. TechCrunch has more here.

Parallax, a four-year-old Minneapolis startup that helps businesses forecast their growth and manage their resources, raised a $12 million Series B round led by Baird Capital, with Rally Ventures and Grotech also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $24.5 million. Twin Cities Business has more here.

Uncommon, a six-year-old startup based in Cambridge, U.K., that is focused on developing lab-grown bacon and pork belly products, raised a $30 million Series A round co-led by Balderton Capital and Lowercarbon, with Red Alpine, East Alpha, and Max and Sam Altman also contributing. TechCrunch has more here.

Driver Technologies, a five-year-old New York startup whose mobile app transforms a driver’s phone into a dash cam, raised a $6 million round co-led by IA Capital and CT Innovations, with participation from Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures and State Auto Labs/Rev 1. The company has raised a total of $16 million. More here.

Monster API, a Palo Alto startup whose mission is to leverage the unused computing power of millions of decentralized crypto and gaming computers worldwide, optimize them for machine learning, and provide a computing platform for generative AI, raised a $1.1 million pre-seed round led by Carya Ventures and including Rebright Partners. More here.

Smiler, a three-year-old Amsterdam startup that connects photographers with visitors at popular tourist locations and hotspots, raised an $8.5 million round. Octopus Ventures was the deal lead. The company has raised a total of $14.9 million. EU-Startups has more here.

How is technology transforming dealmaking? With Affinity, BDC Capital has a secure, automated, and centralized system that democratizes its business network, enabling everyone to share contact information and contextualize that information across teams. Data that previously went unrecorded is now captured automatically and universally. Learn more about how BDC Capital is modernizing the VC tech stack in this short video.

The usual suspects are returning to Sun Valley next month for Allen & Co's big annual retreat. Among those expected, says Variety, are OpenAI's Sam Altman, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Ted Sarandos of Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery honcho David Zaslav, Paramount Global chair Shari Redstone, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, among others. More here. 

The implosion of Three Arrows Capital, a cryptocurrency hedge fund, devastated the industry. Its two founders spent the next year surfing, meditating and traveling the world. Neither is willing to apologize.

And in case you missed this (we had): The AI founder taking credit for Stable Diffusion’s success has a history of exaggeration. Forbes dives into the many claims of Emad Mostaque.

“I’ve been around finance for four decades,” SEC Chief Gary Gensler said in an interview with the WSJ this week about his agency's enforcement actions against both Binance and Coinbase. “I’ve never seen so much just noncompliance and hype masquerading as reality as I’ve seen in this field.”

Reddit’s unpopular decision to revise its API pricing -- a move that’s forcing third-party apps out of business -- has taken a weird turn.

Netflix's crackdown on passwords is paying off.

Where Earth got its water.

How the data compression that drives the internet works.

Looks like he made it.

The immortal Mel Brooks.

Man Crates.

Resort wear.

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