I had a wonderful time speaking at Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal this past week! I always enjoy visiting Lisbon, and Web Summit is even bigger than when I last spoke there in 2022.

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

💰 It’s ‘Liquidity, Stupid’ — It’s a tough time for the venture capital industry right now! A dearth of blockbuster IPO and M&A activity has sucked liquidity dry from the market, while buzzy AI startups dominate attention. Read my comment on CNBC & watch the video of my talk at Web Summit 2024.

📺 US, China's AI Codependency — My partner, Alfred Chuang discusses the potential impact of tariffs and trade wars on the AI industry under the new administration, AI codependency, and a Databricks IPO. He joins Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow to discuss on Bloomberg Technology. Watch on Bloomberg.

🎤 Roadmap: Voice AI — Voice AI isn’t just an upgrade to software’s UI. The future of voice AI will depend on multimodal or speech-native models that can process audio natively without needing a back-and-forth transcription between text and audio. A must read for anyone working or investing in Voice AI. Read this great article by BVP. Alongside OpenAI’s Realtime API, which supports Speech-to-Speech (STS) interactions via GPT-4o, other notable examples include Kyutai’s open-source Moshi model, Alibaba’s two open-source foundational speech models, SenseVoice and CosyVoice, Hume’s voice-to-voice Empathetic Voice Interface, Play.ai voice interface and among many others.

💰 Why Economists Hate Trump's Tariff Plan - Many economists believe tariffs are a very expensive job creation program. Will the new administration really impose a 60% tariff on China? How would steel, aluminum, auto, military equipment, and AI industries be impacted? Watch this WSJ Video.

⚔️ What Elon Musk Wants From Donald Trump - Elon is the defacto Vice President of the United States. This Bloomberg Original introduced a new term which I never thought would exist in the Western World - the new American Oligarch. The old rule the describes “conflict of interest” is now out the window. Watch this Bloomberg video.

P.S. You can also listen to this newsletter.

Last week a total of 12 startups raised $508.8M in funding, 1 Exits:

• $203M goes to 2 Enterprise startups

• $40M goes to 1 Web3/Crypto startup

• $15.5M goes to 1 Healthcare startup

• $205M goes to 4 BioTech startups

• $19M goes to 1 Travel startup

• $12M goes to 1 Marketplace startup

• $14.3M goes to 2 Construction startups

If you love this newsletter, forward it to someone who would also enjoy it and have them subscribe.

Edith
X, LinkedIn

Funding (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)

Enterprise

• Writer (full-stack generative AI platform) raised $200M Series C led by ICONIQ Growth, Premji lnvest, Radical Ventures

• Athina AI (collaborative AI development platform) raised $3M Seed from Kleiner Perkins Scout Fund, Y Combinator

Web3/Crypto

• 0G Labs (decentralized AI operating system) raised $40M Seed

Healthcare

• Medeloop (medical research platform) raised $15.5M Series A led by Inovia Capital

BioTech

• Trace Neuroscience (genomic-based therapies for ALS) raised $101M Series A led by Third Rock Ventures

• TRex Bio (human tissue immunology) raised $84M Series B led by Delos Capital

• Shiru (AI-powered ingredient discovery platform) raised $16M Series B led by S2G Ventures

• Anthrogen (carbon-negative chemicals) raised $4M Seed led by BoxGroup, ReGen Ventures

Travel

• Bounce (global luggage storage network) raised $19M Series B led by Sapphire Sport

Marketplace

• Leland (coaching marketplace) raised $12M Series A led by Forerunner

Construction

• Outbuild (construction scheduling and planning software) raised $11M Series A led by Sway Ventures

• OneCrew Software (business management platform for concrete pavers) raised $3.3M Seed led by Entourage & Bienville Capital

IPO & M&A (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)  

• Coinbase acquired Utopia Labs (on-chain payment solutions)