Epic's layoffs, Palantir's big deal, and a deep dive into Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's leather jacket

This is amazing. 🤯

According to a report from Bloomberg, back in 2020, Microsoft tried to sell Bing to Apple. But Apple passed and likely never truly given much thought to replacing Google's search engine as the default on iPhones, Mikhail Parakhin, Microsoft’s chief of advertising and web services, testified yesterday in the Google antitrust trial. Instead, believes Microsoft, Apple raised the possibility of purchasing Bing to extract more money from Google. “It is no secret that Apple is making more money on Bing existing than Bing does,’’ Parakhin said.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed suit against Tesla for “severe or pervasive racial harassment” of its Black employees. 

The WSJ is reporting that French authorities launched a dawn raid on Nvidia's offices this week in an apparent attempt to gather evidence that the chipmaker is engaging in anti-competitive practices. 

Focus on adding value beyond fund performance and returns. Even though VC fundraising activity has fallen dramatically and the market is seeking its elusive “new normal,” venture capitalists are still going about their business. We recently spoke with Jake Fingert, managing partner at Camber Creek, and Abubakr “Mali” Malida, investor relations and operations manager at Alpha Partners, to discuss how firms can succeed at fundraising in this uncertain environment, along with what LPs are looking for and how best to serve them. Read the takeaways here.

If you haven’t noticed, a growing amount of code that’s being generated today is “AI-assisted.” In fact, Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of Cloud and AI, estimated back in March that upwards of 40% the code that developers were uploading to the AI developer tool GitHub Copilot was both “AI-generated and unmodified.”

Now, the trend is giving rise to startups that promise to keep AI-augmented code from mucking up the works — and investors are taking notice.

Earlier this week, an Israel-based startup, Digma, announced $6 million in seed funding for a continuous feedback platform that runs locally on developers’ machines and helps them analyze their code — including generative AI-created code — to identify issues. Yesterday, a San Francisco-based testing platform called Kolena announced its own funding — $15 million — to build tools to test, benchmark and validate the performance of AI models.

Today, a months-old, four-person, Bay Area-startup called Braintrust is taking the wraps off its own fresh funding round of $3 million. According to co-founder and CEO Ankur Goyal, Braintrust is like an “operating system for engineers building AI software,” one that helps them avoid bad results from AI models. Developers building customer support chatbots, for example, might use Braintrust’s tech to ensure that their chatbot answers questions accurately rather than hallucinating false information.

Like many startups promising the ability to build more reliable AI software, Braintrust has savvy backers. Renowned angel investor Elad Gil is among its investors and helped incubate Braintrust’s initial product. (Gil flagged the round for us, calling the six-week-old outfit “a good one.”) Others of its notable investors include Adam D’Angelo of Quora; Clem Delangue of the buzzy AI outfit HuggingFace; and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman.

Whether an impressive investing syndicate can help push Braintrust to the front of the pack is an open question. In the meantime, ensuring that AI code doesn’t break a company’s workflow is something Goyal says he was practically born to solve.

The child of doctors, Goyal grew up in Pittsburgh and thought he’d become a doctor, too. “Super nerdy” as a teenager, he says a linear algebra class in high school where he learned about Google’s PageRank algorithm would change his life. (“I get goosebumps just talking about it,” he says.) He moved on from biology, studied computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, then “out of extreme boredom” dropped out his junior year to build a relational database system at MemSQL, an early Y Combinator alum. More than five years later, Goyal co-founded his own company, Impira, and when Figma acquired the company late last year, Goyal became the head of its machine learning platform.

It was a good gig. It also gave Goyal even more insight into the growing challenge of building high-quality software products in this new age of AI everything. So late this past summer, he left to start Braintrust.

More here.

AlphaSense, a 15-year-old New York company that uses AI to collect market intelligence for clients such as Google and Microsoft, and J.P. Morgan, raised a $150 million Series E round at a $2.5 billion valuation, a 39% increase in valuation from the $100 million Series D extension round just five months ago. The deal lead was Bond, with additional participation from CapitalG, Viking Global, BAM Elevate, and Goldman Sachs. TechCrunch has more here.

Character.AI, a two-year-old startup based in Menlo Park, Ca., that develops chatbots that impersonate people or things, is reportedly in the market to raise "hundreds of millions of dollars" at a $5+ billion valuation, a 5x valuation jump from its last round. Bloomberg has the scoop here.

Harbinger Health, a five-year-old startup based in Cambridge, Ma., that is developing a suite of liquid biopsy tests to detect cancer, raised a $140 million Series B round from Flagship Pioneering (which incubated the company), Pictet, Partners Investment, and Catalyst. FierceBiotech has more here.

Nord Security, an 11-year-old company based in Vilnius, Lithuania, that operates a VPN service, password manager, and cloud storage service, raised a $100 million round at a $3 billion valuation, nearly double its assigned value of $1.6 billion when it raised a $100 million infusion last year. Warburg Pincus led the transaction. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Transfr, a startup creating VR tools for training and career development, today announced that it raised $40 million in a Series C round led by ABS Capital with participation from JPMorgan Chase Impact Finance, Advisory, Lumos Capital Group, Akkadian Ventures, Spring Tide Capital, Firework Ventures and Album. The round brings Transfr’s total raised to $90 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Apron, a one-year-old London startup that helps small business owners sort, pay, and reconcile invoices, raised a $15 million Series A round led by Index Ventures, with Bessemer Venture Partners and Visionaries Club also anteing up. PYMNTS has more here.

Atlas Materials, a two-year-old London startup that enables the processing of low-grade nickel for use in electric vehicle batteries, raised a $27 million Series A round. Investors included Grantham Environmental Trust and Voyager Ventures. The company has raised a total of $33 million. Mining Technology has more here.

Canvs AI, an eight-year-old New York startup that uses AI to analyze customer surveys and social media and online comments for brands like CVS, Disney, and Netflix, raised a $15 million round led by Fulcrum Equity Partners and including Engage. More here.

League One Volleyball, a three-year-old Los Angeles startup that is launching a professional volleyball league, raised a $35 million Series B round led by Left Lane Capital, with additional funds provided by Ares Management Funds, as well as skier Lindsey Vonn, comedian Amy Schumer, and NBA star Jason Tatum. The company has raised a total of $57.1 million. Sports Business Journal has more here.

Midi Health, a two-year-old startup based in Los Altos, Ca., that has built a virtual clinic delivering insurance-covered care for women experiencing perimenopause and menopause, raised a $25 million Series A round led by GV, with previous investors Felicis, Semper Virens, Icon, 25M, and Operator Collective also taking part. The company has raised a total of $40 million. Fierce Healthcare has more here.

PortX, a one-year-old startup based on Mercer Island, Wa., that sells embedded banking-as-a-service to community banks, credit unions, and fintech companies, raised a $16.5 million Series B round co-led by FUSE and Curql, with BankTech Ventures, EJF Capital, and the Btech Consortium also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $26.5 million. GeekWire has more here.

TravelLocal.com, a UK startup that develops sustainable travel itineraries with the help of local experts, raised a $10.3 million Series B round led by Puma Private Equity, with participation from existing investors Active Partners and Gresham House Ventures. PhocusWire has more here.

Aug X Labs, a one-year-old New York startup that uses AI to create videos from content such as prompts, scripts, narrations, or recordings, raised a $3.1 million round led by Unlock Venture Partners, with Dropbox Ventures, Flying Fish Ventures, and Hyde Park Venture Partners also joining in. VentureBeat has more here.

Boisson, a two-year-old New York startup that makes non-alcoholic beverages, raised a $5 million round. Convivialité Ventures and Connect Ventures co-led the deal. FoodBev Media has more here.

Breezit, a Los Angeles startup that plans to use AI to help engaged couples plan their weddings, raised a $2 million pre-seed round led by Practica Capital led the round. Tech Funding News has more here.

Cognota, a seven-year-old Toronto startup that makes corporate training software for clients such as General Mills, Americo, EY, and Comerica Bank, raised a $5.5 million Series A round led by Grotech Ventures, with IDEA Fund Partners, BDC Capital, Generation Ventures, CEAS Investments, and Tyton Partners also piling on. The company has raised a total of $12.6 million. BetaKit has more here.

Eturnity, a Swiss company that helps solar installers sell, design, and install projects while keeping in contact with manufacturers and distributors, raised an $8.7 million round from Junction Growth Investors and Alantra. Silicon Canals has more here.

Fhenix, a Tel Aviv startup founded this year that is building a confidential smart contract platform using fully homomorphic encryption, raised a $7 million seed round co-led by Multicoin Capital and Collider Ventures and joined by Node Capital, Bankless, HackVC, TaneLabs, Metaplanet, and Robot Ventures. CTech has more here.

Invoke AI, an Atlanta startup founded this year that has created an open-source generative AI platform for artists and creative teams, raised a $3.75 million seed round led by Storm Ventures, with SignalFire and Universe Software also stepping up. CityBiz has more here.

Novo, a Berlin startup that is building technology designed to automate and speed up the process of decarbonizing buildings, raised a $1.1 million pre-seed round co-led by Citizen Capital and 2bX, with Antler also contributing. Tech.eu has more here.

Rayon, a two-year-old Paris startup that has developed a browser-based design tool for architects and designers, raised a $4.2 million seed round co-led by Northzone and existing investor Foundamental. The company has raised a total of $6.2 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Scentian Bio, a startup based in Auckland, New Zealand, that's building biosensors with potential applications ranging from food quality control to tuberculosis testing, raised a $2.1 million seed round co-led by Finistere Ventures and Toyota Ventures and including Icehouse Ventures and Our Crowd. AgFunder News has more here

UnitX, a five-year-old startup based in San Jose, Ca., that is building AI vision systems for the manufacturing industry, raised a $5 million round from SE Ventures and Schneider Electric. More here.

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Ryan Cohen, the billionaire founder of Chewy and GameStop's largest investor, has taken over GameStop's CEO spot; Cohen, who owns 12.1% of the company, was already its executive chair.

Aaron Rodericks, the head of the unit at X that fights disinformation and misinformation, has been fired along with four other members of his team just months before the U.S. election season begins. "Oh you mean the 'Election Integrity' Team that was undermining election integrity?" Elon Musk tweeted yesterday. "Yeah, they’re gone."

Linda Yaccarino is next week planning to meet the long-suffering seven banks that helped bankroll Elon Musk’s takeover of X to lay out her plan to revive the struggling social media company, reports the FT.

Afield but interesting: Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor Group, Fenway Sports Group, and KKR cofounder Henry Kravis are among a syndicate of U.S. investors currently exploring investing in the PGA Tour -- and providing a possible alternative transaction to a pending deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

More than you ever wanted to know about Jensen Huang's ubiquitous leather jacket.

Bloomberg reported earlier today that Fortnite developer Epic Games is expected to lay off 16% of its workforce. In a memo to employees obtained afterward by the outlet, Epic confirmed the layoffs will impact around 830 employees. Founder Tim Sweeney wrote in the memo that Epic intends to sell Bandcamp — an independent music storefront company Epic acquired just last year — to music licensing platform Songtradr and spin off SuperAwesome, a “kid-tech” company that specializes in creating safe online experiences for kids. He said the layoffs are a result of the company “spending way more money than we earn."

More than 2,000 people on Apple’s community forum have now complained that the latest iPhone models are overheating, just one week after they debuted with cutting-edge chips. “I just got the iPhone 15 Pro today and it’s so hot I can’t even hold it for very long!” wrote one commenter.

A new report warns that videos on TikTok are promoting steroid use to teens.

Palantir has won a three-year $250 million contract with the US Defense Department to research and develop AI and machine learning technology.

Jodie Foster stars in the new season of True Detective. Check out the first trailer here.

Just kidding! The evolutionary roots of playful teasing.

The geriatric pregnancy hero's journey.

Eggo Brunch in a Jar, a gift for that special someone in your life with a fondness for alcohol and also brunch. (It's a cream liqueur that "combines the flavors of buttered and toasted Eggo waffles, savory bacon slices, and a drizzle of maple syrup.")

Costco is now selling gold bars, and the company's CFO told analysts on an earnings call Tuesday that they “are in hot demand and don’t last long when in stock.”

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