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☆ Some hear echoes of the Web3 frenzy around generative AI. But its future is likely to play out very differently.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-19 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Mariam Pettit, partner at Global Founders Capital, said the rush toward AI was in part driven by investor FOMO. While investors and industry insiders don't anticipate the same fate for generative AI startups, many see the parallels between the two industries. Indeed, VCs are paying premiums and pre-empting rounds into hot AI startups in a bid to get a place on the cap table. AI founders are aware that they need to differentiate themselves in order to survive, at the very least. "And with vertical AI startups, it's much clearer that all the data we have is approved by the creator of that data."

Persons: Marc Andreessen, ChatGPT, Mariam Pettit, FOMO, Rainer Haeckl Web3, Sam Bankman Fried, Ash Arora, LocalGlobe, Arora, Sam Altman, Andreessen Horowitz, Ayman Fadil, Fadil, Pettit, Devang Agarwal Organizations: Business, Alpha, Global Founders Capital, Investors, Tech, Talis Locations: German, London, Web3, LocalGlobe, Jasper

The proposal to classify AI systems by four levels of risk — from minimal to unacceptable — was essentially intended as product safety legislation. That changed with the boom in generative AI, which sparked wonder by composing music, creating images and writing essays resembling human work. Foundation models give generative AI systems such as ChatGPT the ability to create something new, unlike traditional AI, which processes data and completes tasks using predetermined rules. Resistance to government rules for these AI systems came from an unlikely place: France, Germany and Italy. “The race should be for the best AI regulations, not the first AI regulations."

Persons: —, Bard chatbot, “ Rather, won’t, ”, Nick Reiners, “ there’s, Reiners, Sam Altman, Thierry Breton, ” Reiners, Kent Walker, Iverna McGowan, McGowan, Altman, OpenAI, Alpha, it's, ” Dragos, “, “ We’re Organizations: European Union, Eurasia Group, European Commission, Microsoft, Mistral, Elon, Center for Democracy and Technology, EU Locations: European, U.S, China, Brussels, France, Germany, Italy, Europe, German, Romanian

☆ 2023 has been an AI feeding frenzy, here are the startups that attracted the most investment this year
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-04 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Despite an overall slump in startup funding, 2023 saw a scramble among investors to pour money into AI and machine learning startups. And the company's star still appears to be rising, despite a messy leadership struggle that recently spilled into public view. Meanwhile OpenAI's perennial rival Anthropic attracted multi-billion dollar investments from both Google and Amazon to fund a competing AI model known as Claude. At the same time legacy companies from John Deere to accounting firm PwC played up their AI bona fides to capitalize on the hype. The list doesn't include startups who have not publicly released the amount of their funding rounds.

Persons: OpenAI, Anthropic, Claude, Databricks, John Deere, PwC, Fresh Organizations: Microsoft, Google, Alpha, Technology, Monogram, Sigma, Lambda, Helsing, Metals, Eagle Eye, Amelia, Asimov, Farmers Business, Harbinger, Prins, Silo, Mistral, Alto, AMP, Management Software, Universal, Coro, Kodiak Robotics, Aerospace, Defense, Sana, Corti, Kyte, Mitra, Tech, Boss Digital Technology, Halcyon, & $ Locations: PitchBook

Foundation models like the one built by Microsoft (MSFT.O)-backed OpenAI are AI systems trained on large sets of data, with the ability to learn from new data to perform various tasks. In a meeting of the countries' economy ministers on Oct. 30 in Rome, France persuaded Italy and Germany to support a proposal, sources told Reuters. Until then, negotiations had gone smoothly, with lawmakers making compromises across several other conflict areas such as regulating high-risk AI, sources said. France-based AI company Mistral and Germany's Aleph Alpha have criticised the tiered approach to regulating foundation models, winning support from their respective countries. Other pending issues in the talks include definition of AI, fundamental rights impact assessment, law enforcement exceptions and national security exceptions, sources told Reuters.

Persons: Carlos Barria, Thierry Breton, Geoffrey Hinton, Alpha, Mistral, Mark Brakel, Supantha Mukherjee, Josephine Mason, Alexander Smith Organizations: Technology, Intelligence, REUTERS, Rights, Reuters, Foundation, Microsoft, European Commission, Mistral, Lawmakers, Life Institute, Thomson Locations: San Francisco, California, U.S, Rights STOCKHOLM, BRUSSELS, LONDON, France, Germany, Italy, Rome, Spain, Belgium, Stockholm

☆ 'The gorilla is gone for the moment': OpenAI's rivals see ways to profit from a Silicon Valley drama
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

An in-demand talent pool"Many previously poorly understood secrets will be more widely disseminated across the ecosystem," one European AI founder who spoke on the condition of anonymity said. But European competitors can still benefit from OpenAI's implosion. The startup had been on an uninterrupted run for the past year, said EarlyBird VC partner and Aleph Alpha investor Andre Retterath. The turmoil at OpenAI has also galvanized both AI founders and investors in Europe. The company's top expenditure, besides employee salaries, is manually cleaning and sourcing the data they use to train their models, a European VC said.

Persons: Sam Altman, unseats, Nathan Benaich, Altman, Marc Benioff, Salesforce, Silvio Savarese, Einstein, 1RXoc9ekeo, Benaich, Alpha, EarlyBird, Andre Retterath, Retterath, Mariam Pettit, they've, OpenAI, Andrew Scott, 7percent, David Grimm, Grimm, Rebecca Gorman Organizations: Air Street Capital, Business, Aleph Alpha, Microsoft, Google, Alpha, Global Founders Capital, Albion Locations: Europe, OpenAI

☆ Bosch, SAP and others back Europe's answer to OpenAI with $500 million of fresh funds
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-06 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

GPT-4 sign on website displayed on a laptop screen and OpenAI logo displayed on a phone screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Poland on March 14, 2023. Aleph Alpha, a German startup taking on Microsoft-backed artificial intelligence firm OpenAI, said Monday it had raised $500 million in a funding round backed by the likes of Bosch, SAP and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The company, which has built its own large language models, raised the fresh cash in a series B round, the company's second major funding round. It is an unusually large sum of cash for a series B investment round. Aleph Alpha will use the fresh funds to invest in research on foundation models, advanced product capabilities and commercialization of its software, the company said in a statement Monday.

Persons: Alpha, Jonas Andrulis Organizations: Microsoft, Bosch, SAP, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Schwarz Group, Christ & Company Consulting, Artificial Intelligence, Investments, Aleph, Alpha Locations: Poland

☆ German antitrust head warns AI may boost Big Tech's dominance
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-09 | by ( Hakan Ersen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google and Microsoft (MSFT.O) have recently become rivals in artificial intelligence (AI), with the latter investing heavily in OpenAI and the former building the Bard AI chatbot among other investments. The surge in AI popularity has prompted governments around the world to try to impose rules on the use of the technology, with the European Union in a race to adopt its landmark AI rules by the end of the year. "The danger is very great because you need two things above all for AI, powerful servers and vast amounts of data. Mundt said the field was still open to competition but regulators need to ensure it remains so. "Both developments are possible, and as an authority we have to be careful that any competitive potential is not buried from the outset."

Persons: Andreas Mundt, Wolfgang Rattay, Mundt, Foo Yun, Mark Potter Organizations: Federal, Office, REUTERS, Alpha, Big, Google, Microsoft, European Union, Reuters, Thomson Locations: Bonn, Germany, FRANKFURT, OpenAI

☆ Aleph Alpha CEO on AI regulation, competition, and investments
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailAleph Alpha CEO on AI regulation, competition, and investmentsJonas Andrulis, Aleph Alpha Founder and CEO, discusses the outlook for artificial intelligence amid ongoing calls for regulation.

Persons: Jonas Andrulis Organizations: Aleph Alpha, Alpha

☆ The FOMO is real for venture capitalists paying big premiums to invest in AI startups right now
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Callum Burroughs | Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Investors plowed about $25 billion into AI companies in the first three months of 2023. Other US generative AI startups including Adept, Inflection AI, Pinecone and Runway have all raised major rounds in the last few months. AI is minting unicorn-valued companies even in the tech downturnFunding into AI startups was down slightly for the full-year in 2022, matching a broader downturn in tech funding. And VC funding to generative AI startups specifically, many of which are very early-stage businesses, topped $1.7 billion in Q1 2023, per Pitchbook. "No one wants to invest in AI that's going to wipe out humanity," said AlbionVC's Grimm.

Persons: Warren Buffett, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Imran Ghory, Meta, Little, ChatGPT, David Grimm, Nathan Benaich, Benaich, VCs, Geoffrey Hinton, AlbionVC's Grimm Organizations: Blossom, Google, Facebook, Air Street Capital, Investors, EU, Stanford University, Venture Locations: OpenAI, London, Europe, French

☆ Microsoft's $13 billion bet on OpenAI carries huge potential along with plenty of uncertainty
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-08 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

Microsoft's cumulative investment in OpenAI has reportedly swelled to $13 billion and the startup's valuation has hit roughly $29 billion. What does that mean for Microsoft's investment and broader arrangement? The structure changed in 2019, when two top executives published a blog post announcing the formation of a "capped-profit" entity called OpenAI LP. Microsoft has an exclusive license on GPT-4 and all other OpenAI models, the OpenAI spokesperson said. When considering potential exits for OpenAI, Microsoft — which does not hold an OpenAI board seat — would be the natural acquirer given its close entanglement.

☆ AI is so hot that top-tier funds are fighting to back tiny seed-stage startup ElevenLabs at valuation of around $100 million, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A16z is among a raft of top-tier funds battling to invest in a tiny British AI startup, sources say. London-based ElevenLabs closed a $2 million pre-seed round two months ago but is set to raise again. The deal is testament to the hype that surrounds AI startups following the release of ChatGPT last year. Andreessen Horowitz is among a raft of top-tier investors fighting to lead a round into a tiny AI startup that will value it at around $100 million as investor hype around the technology intensifies, sources say. Now, the startup is set to raise new funds again, in part due to its rapid growth in revenue, three London-based investors said.

☆ Aleph Alpha, a European rival to OpenAI, is in talks amid AI boom to raise up to $100 million in new funding, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Generative-AI startup Aleph Alpha is in talks with investors over a new funding round, sources said. Aleph Alpha, a German generative AI startup, is in talks with investors over a new funding round, Insider has learned. Founded in 2019 by CEO Jonas Andrulis, a former machine-learning engineer at Apple, and Samuel Weinbach, Aleph Alpha researches and develops AI systems with a focus on enterprise customers. Aleph Alpha declined to comment. Aleph Alpha has a chatbot called Lumi which is built on top of its language-learning model Luminous.

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