Silicon Valley Funding News - Week of November 6, 2023. Anthropic Raised up to $2B led by Google

Hello from Hong Kong supporting Hong Kong Fintech Week last week! I will be back this Thursday to San Francisco =)

Here are a few great reads, watch, etc for this week:

• 👂 Charlie Munger - As Charlie Munger would say "Almost everyone who is super successful has three things: 1) They are very intelligent. 2) They worked very hard.  3) They were very lucky. I love listening to the 99 year old Charlie =) Listen on Acquired 
• 🏠 Can ChatGPT Save San Francisco Real Estate? San Francisco's commercial real estate sees a surge in subleasing deals as startups like OpenAI and Anthropic secure larger spaces in central areas at competitive rates. With 35% vacancy, the city anticipates tech companies leading a recovery, driven by the appeal of more spacious, central offices amid a shift to in-person work. The trend suggests a potential turning point in the city's real estate landscape. Read more
• ✍️ Silicon Valley's AI Letter to President Biden - Silicon Valley sent open letter to President Biden to argue that Executive Orders and regulations of AI should promote open source AI platforms, and certainly not hinder them. Without these mandated disclosures for AI and algorithmic systems, governments will fail to regulate what they don’t understand. Read more
• 💰 Google and Amazon Don't Really Care about Valuation - Google has agreed to invest up to $2 billion into OpenAI competitor Anthropic, including $500 million upfront. This comes just months after Amazon agreed to invest up to $4 billion. Google and Amazon have insatiable appetite when it comes to generative AI to fight against Microsoft. All 3 of them benefit from OpenAI and Anthropic paying for the expensive cloud services needed to run their products.  This also means it will be very tough for venture investors to participate. Can their revenue live up to their valuation?  Only time can tell..  Read more
• 🏴‍☠️ Memeland on the Boat - My friend Ray Chan had a big Memeand launch in Hong Kong this past week. Memeland is a web3-focused venture studio created by the 9GAG team (a 500 and YC company). They raised $10M in minutes with with thousands of supporters. I also went on a the Memeland pirate boat on Victoria Harbor for a pitch event. I am truly impressed.

This week a total of 16 startups raised $2.7B in funding, 2 M&As:

• $2.07B goes to 5 Enterprise startups
• $6.3M goes to 1 Crypto startup
• $23M goes to 1 HR startup
• $25M goes to 1 InsurTech startup
• $70M goes to 1 Hospitality startup
• $5M goes to 1 Comics startup
• $24M goes to 1 Robotics startup
• $503M goes to 5 BioTech startups