Silicon Valley Funding News - Week of March 4, 2024. Glean Raised $200M Series D

Happy Monday from the rainy San Francisco! 

So awesome to see so many applications to Topline - my summer accelerator program focusing on revenue growth. This week, both Holly Chen (former VP of Marketing at Loom and Slack) and Gallant Chen (former VP of Digital Marketing at Zendesk, advisor to Intercom and Docusign) both committed to join Race Capital’s amazing roster of mentors, along with experienced operators from JP Morgan, Google, Oracle, ServiceNow, Caterpillar, Morrison Forrester and many more.  Apply to join us!

Here are a few great things to read/watch this week:

• 😲 What Sequoia Thinks about Europe - Great Sequoia report on European talent. Not that I don’t think Europe has great talent pool, but I am surprised and impressed by the following findings: 
  • Dublin, Ireland ranked first in per-capita density for AI, data science, Dev Ops, finance and security.
  • Europe has a standout concentration of dedicated AI practitioners relative to its total engineering talent pool: 30% higher than in the U.S. and three times as high as in China.
  • The large majority of Ukrainian software developers continue to work full time, despite most having had to relocate.
• 😨 Sam Altman's Broken Promises to Elon Musk -  This past week, Elon Musk filed to sue OpenAI and Sam Altman for their breach of contract.  In Sam's 2015 email to Elon, Sam pitched him “AI safety would be a first-class requirement” and “ongoing conversation about what work should be open-sourced and what shouldn’t.”  Instead, OpenAI has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of Microsoft (which I agree that it is) according to the lawsuit filing. Perhaps it's not too late for OpenAI to open sourcing everything?  Meanwhile, Digital Media Outlets filed lawsuits against OpenAI, SEC started their investigation whether OpenAI investors were misled and Microsoft announced their Plan B with Mistral.
• 💰 AI Hype is Slowly Dying Down for VC - Will VC funding continue to stay dry in 2024?  Check out Alfred's comment last week at Web Summit Qatar. Meanwhile, I was in Upfront Summit LA this week and watched Lady Gaga and Katy Perry pitching their startup brands. Also super interesting to hear the different GPs perspective towards AI:
  • General Catalyst is doubling down on health AI and bought a hospital.
  • Founders Fund’s Brian Singerman wants to focus on anything but AI.
  • Lightspeed thinks AI will NOT replace Hollywood. It will be copilot for Hollywood.
  • From my perspective, the biggest winner with this AI wave is Nvidia and Microsoft. Does it make sense for big tech to invest in AI startups? Absolutely, 100%!  Most of the venture dollars are going straight back to buy their chipset and compute. Does it make sense for all VC's to continue to pour money into expensive AI startups and contribute to the Magnificent 7's revenues? I personally don't think so.
  • Check out my photos of the event here.
• 💰 Mark Cuban's Masterclass on Winning Big in Business - I really enjoyed watching Mark Cuban's latest masterclass on building startups. My favorite quote "Raising money is not an accomplishment. That’s an obligation." Click here to watch the trailer.
• 🎉 March 27 - 28, 2024 - If you are in Hong Kong at the end of March, join me, Xiaomi’s KK Wong, Wattpad’s Allen Lau and more at FoundersHK Week.

This week a total of 11 startups raised $402M in funding, 0 M&As:

• $213.5M goes to 3 Enterprise startups
• $4.5M goes to 1 FinTech startup
• $100M goes to 1 BioTech startup
• $37M goes to 1 Publishing startup
• $10M goes to 1 Interior Design startup
• $11.5M goes to 1 Construction startup
• $2M goes to 1 Pet Care startup
• $20M goes to 1 Renewable Energy startup
• $3.5M goes to 1 Geospacial startup