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☆ How Bloomberg Beta's James Cham finds the tech founders making a 'dent in the universe'
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-06 | by ( Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Cham ended up writing one of the first checks to Weights & Biases after he was convinced Biewald fulfilled his lofty criteria for backing founders. "I am looking for people who are trying to make a dent in the universe," Cham said. Instead of asking founders how they plan to make that dent, Cham prefers to spend lots of time observing them to see what makes them tick. Cham began making his own dent in the world after majoring in computer science at Harvard and becoming a consultant at Accenture. "The reality that the money that we make goes towards Bloomberg Philanthropies is something founders oftentimes find appealing," Cham said.

Persons: James Cham, Lukas Biewald, Cham, Biewald, Jeff Lawson, It's, Bloomberg Philanthropies, who've, James, Shreya Rajpal, who's, Rajpal Organizations: Bloomberg Beta, Business, Harvard, Accenture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bessemer Venture Partners, Trinity Ventures, Bloomberg

☆ '2024 will be the year of the zombie VC reckoning.' The first wave of walking-dead venture firms is here and it's already causing headaches for tech founders.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Unlike other businesses, venture firms do not suddenly go out of business. Limited partners such as pensions and endowments that fund venture firms have been choosier, cutting off capital to firms that have not generated acceptable returns. Why it is so difficult to spot a dying fundOpenView Venture Partners announced in December that it was suspending new investments and laying off staff. In a written statement, he later explained that Sinai Ventures has been rebranded to Sinai Capital Partners. Do you know of a venture firm no longer actively investing?

Persons: VCs, Anna Barber, they'll, they're, Roy Bahat, Brian Brackeen, Brackeen, they're reallocating, Beezer Clarkson, Clarkson, Jake Saper, Bahat, Jordan Fudge, Zachary White, Carlos Adame —, Fudge, We're, Paul Weinstein, Weinstein, Ryan Swager, Brandon Zeuner, Alsop Louie, Alsop Louie Partners, Gilman Louie, Stewart Alsop, Jason Preston, Tyler Peterson, Mike Morgan, Robert Patterson, DEFTA, George Hara, Martin Gedalin, Kevin Ober, Divergent's, Hone, Ben Bergman Organizations: Business, Bloomberg Beta, Lightship Capital, Sapphire Partners, BI, Venture Partners, Foundry Group, Sinai Ventures, Sinai Capital Partners, Capital, San, Alsop Louie Partners, Partners, Ventures Peninsula Ventures, LinkedIn Locations: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Alto , California, San Mateo , California, Lumia, Seattle, bbergman@insider.com

☆ '2024 will be the year of the zombie VC reckoning.' The first wave of dying venture firms is here and it's already causing headaches for tech founders.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

AdvertisementUnlike other businesses, venture firms do not suddenly go out of business. Why it is so difficult to spot a dying fundOpenView Venture Partners announced in December it was suspending new investments and laying off staff. With the help of Pitchbook, BI looked through data for hundreds of venture firms. Hinge last raised a $19 million fund in 2021 but has not made an investment since November 2022, according to Pitchbook. Do you know of a venture firm no longer actively investing?

Persons: —, VCs, Anna Barber, they'll, they're, Roy Bahat, Brian Brackeen, they're reallocating, Beezer Clarkson, Clarkson, Jake Saper, Bahat, Jordan Fudge, Zachary White, Carlos Adame, Fudge, We're, Paul Weinstein, Weinstein, Cofounders Ryan Swager, Brandon Zeuner, Louie, Alsop Louie Partners, Partners Gilman Louie, Stewart Alsop, Jason Preston, Partners Tyler Peterson, Mike Morgan, Robert Patterson, DEFTA, George Hara, Martin Gedalin, Kevin Ober, Hone, Ben Bergman Organizations: Service, Business, Bloomberg Beta, Lightship, Sapphire Partners, BI, Sapphire Ventures, Venture Partners, Foundry Group, Sinai Ventures, Sinai Capital Partners, Capital, San, Louie Partners, Partners, Ventures Peninsula Ventures, LinkedIn Locations: Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Mateo , California, Seattle, Alto, bbergman@insider.com

☆ 'The scholar, the pragmatist, and the rainmaker:' How three Bloomberg Beta VCs bet on AI before it became a buzzword
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-18 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Bahat brings this same radical directness to Bloomberg Beta, the early-stage venture capital fund housed within the larger Bloomberg empire that he's run for the past decade. And Bloomberg Beta was making investments in generative AI as far back as 2015, before the term "generative AI" even existed. "It felt like we were just waiting for the right moment," said Cham, Bloomberg Beta partner and de-facto chief technologist, "where the rest of the world would see it." Bloomberg Beta made the decision early on to publish its entire operating manual on GitHub, including sensitive information about average check size and investment criteria. Kieran Snyder, the founder of generative AI startup Textio which Bloomberg Beta invested in in 2015, has a shorthand for describing the role of Beta's three partners.

Persons: Roy Bahat's, Bahat, James Cham, Karin Klein, Shivon Zillis, Elon Musk's, Cham, ChatGPT, VCs, Bloomberg Beta, Dan Doctoroff, Mike Bloomberg, Doctoroff, Bahat's chutzpah, Bloomberg —, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Tade Oyerinde, Sam Altman, Peter Thiel's Founder's, Roy didn't, Oyerinde, Kieran Snyder, who's, Apple Lisa, Klein, Karen, Snyder, Roy, Zilis Organizations: Port Authority, World Trade Center, IGN, Bloomberg Beta, Bloomberg, LinkedIn, Elon, Beta, Apple, New Locations: New York, Silicon Valley, East, California

☆ Insider Today: Tech's biggest lie
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-18 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

In recent years, some members of Congress have lacked a basic understanding of technology, let alone something as complex as generative AI. Marc Benioff spent much of the annual Dreamforce conference sounding the alarms on how untrustworthy generative AI is right now. Marc Benioff spent much of the annual Dreamforce conference sounding the alarms on how untrustworthy generative AI is right now. It's International Equal Pay Day. The UN General Assembly created this day in 2019 with "equal pay for work of equal value" in mind.

Persons: Mark Sumersett, isn't, Simon Simard, Daron Acemoglu, Insider's Aki Ito, Acemoglu, hasn't, Aki, It's, Nat Friedman, Rebecca Zisser, Peter Brown, Marc Benioff, Salesforce, Greg Johnson, Gary Reyes, Janette Beckman, Getty, Johnny Nunez, Lynn Goldsmith, Dakarai Akil, Tupac, Akon, Sean Kingston, Gucci Mane, There's, Carly Pearce, Valter Longo, Dan DeFrancesco, Naga Siu, Hallam Bullock, Lisa Ryan Organizations: Service, MIT, Renaissance Technologies, Bloomberg Beta, McAfee, Oakland Tribune Staff, Interscope Records, Academy of Country, FOX, UN, Assembly, Getty Locations: Wall, Silicon, New York City, San Diego, London, New York

☆ Customer data, transactions, financials: Still reeling from the market implosion, VCs are demanding to see numbers to back up founder pitches
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Founders say VCs are increasingly demanding detailed data and visibility into their startups before considering a deal. But some in the industry say that for early stage startups, a reliance on data can create an illusion of certainty. Half a dozen early stage startup founders tell Insider that gone are the days when a good idea and flashy pitch deck were enough to close a deal. He described it as looking for "the golden playbook for investing in early stage startups." For his part Hasan says that when speaking to potential investors, he views an obsession with financials and data as a red flag.

Persons: Miguel Guerrero, Guerrero, He's, Fahad Hassan, Hasan, Keyvan Firouzi, Firouzi, Jason Calacanis, it's, Dorothee Grant, Avante Price, James Cham, Cham, Hassan Organizations: IRL, Activant, Stanford, Carta, Investors, Bloomberg Beta Locations: New York

Shivon Zilis was pictured alongside Elon Musk and their twins for the first time on Wednesday. Insider first reported that Musk quietly fathered twins with Zilis, a director at Neuralink, in 2021. AdvertisementAdvertisementGrimes, whose legal name is Claire Boucher, said on X that communication about Zilis' twins "wasn't handled super well." Last week, in a since-deleted post on X Grimes accused Zilis of blocking her on social media. The Neuralink director has also taken to posting about her children in recent months.

Persons: Shivon Zilis, Elon Musk, Musk, Zilis, Elon Musk's, Walter Isaacson, —, Isaacson, Musk wasn't, Justine, Grimes, He's, he's, Tesla, Justin Sullivan, Ray Kurzweil, I've, Sam Altman, OpenAI's, Jonathan Raa, Neuralink, Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, ck Elon Musk, Gonzalez, Austin Zilis, Claire Boucher, wasn't, Musk's, X Grimes, Tau, ftw Organizations: Service, Yale University, Yale, IBM, Bloomberg Beta, Forbes, Canadian, Conference, Neuralink, Getty, Food and Drug Administration, California, Twitter, SpaceX Locations: Zilis, Wall, Silicon, Austin, Ontario, Canada, Markham , Ontario, California, Texas, Boca Chica, South Texas

☆ Vector database Chroma scored $18 million in seed funding at a $75 million valuation. Here's why its technology is key to helping generative AI startups.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Chroma helps manage vector embeddings, or numerical representations of data AI models can process. The startup raised $18 million in seed funding at a $75 million valuation led by Quiet Capital. The company recently closed a $18 million seed round led by Quiet Capital at a $75 million valuation. Originally, Chroma's tech aimed to serve machine learning engineers who were training and deploying AI models. Because this limits the model's context window, this approach tends to prevent hallucinations, or confident but incorrect responses from AI, Troynikov told Insider.

☆ Creator startup Pico has rebranded as Hype and closed $10M in Series A funding. Here's the 13-page pitch deck cofounder Nick Chen used to attract investors.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Shriya Bhattacharya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Cofounder Nick Chen said VCs told him to make the first few pitch deck slides very objective. Here's the exact 13-page pitch deck he created to attract investors like Bloomberg Beta. Creator startup Hype, formerly known as Pico, closed a $10 million Series A funding round led by King River Capital, the company announced on Wednesday. "I stayed in touch with Megan [Guy] from King River Capital for about a year, meeting up whenever she was in New York. Here's the exact 13-page pitch deck that Hype used to raise funds from investors that include Bullpen Capital, Precursor Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Tapestry VC, and Sterling Road:

☆ Check out the pitch deck AI-video startup Capsule used to raise $4.75 million in seed funding
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Video-AI startup Capsule this month raised $4.75 million in seed funding. Check out the pitch deck that encouraged VCs including Bloomberg Beta and Array Ventures to participate. Capsule, a tech startup that uses artificial intelligence to help its large-business clients create and distribute video content raised $4.75 million in seed financing this month. The seed round was led by Bloomberg Beta and Array Ventures, with participation from other investors including Swift Ventures, Clark Valberg's Tiferes Ventures, and Behind Genius Ventures. Check out Capsule's seed financing pitch deck below

☆ The ChatGPT and generative AI 'gold rush' has founders flocking to San Francisco's 'Cerebral Valley'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Thomas Maxwell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Because of pandemic-era closings, San Francisco became somewhat of a ghost town for two years. Now, a race to succeed in the fledgling space of generative AI has founders flocking back. Generative AI takes training data — for instance, a vast corpus of written text — and teaches itself how to produce completely new, unique works. After giving New York a try for several weeks, the generative AI boom picked up. Thomas Maxwell/InsiderPerez said that the sense of urgency to get working on building better AI models comes from how generative AI improves with more data.

Shivon Zilis was pictured for the first time alongside Elon Musk and their twins on Wednesday. Musk quietly fathered twins with Zilis, a director at Neuralink, in 2021. She has a high-level role at NeuralinkIn 2017, Zilis joined Neuralink, the futuristic brain microchip company also co-founded by Musk. Tesla's new Gigafactory is located near Austin, and court documents obtained by Insider show list Musk and Zilis as residents of that address. Zilis and Musk's twins were born in November, a few weeks before Musk and the musician Grimes had their second child via surrogate.

Persons: Shivon Zilis, Elon Musk, Musk, Zilis, Elon Musk's, Walter Isaacson, —, Isaacson, Musk wasn't, Twitter —, Justine, Grimes, he's, Ray Kurzweil, I've, Sam Altman, Neuralink, Tesla, Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, ck Elon Musk, Gonzalez, Austin Zilis Organizations: Elon, Service, SpaceX, Twitter, Yale University, Yale, IBM, Bloomberg Beta, Forbes, Canadian, Conference, Neuralink, California Locations: Zilis, Wall, Silicon, Austin, Ontario, Canada, Markham , Ontario, California, Texas, Boca Chica, South Texas

☆ U.S. tech execs hone approach to counter unions amid growing worker interest
▼ + stars: | 2021-11-24 | by ( Julia Love | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Mapbox's response offers a window into how tech companies are pushing back as unions seek to bring workers into the fold. The CWA also formed the Alphabet Workers Union, a so-called minority union that does not have collective bargaining rights. For many tech workers, the promise of a generous payday is no longer enough. They also want sound working conditions and assurances that the products they are building will not harm society, tech employees and organizers say. On their website, members of the Mapbox Workers Union wrote that they banded together "to build a lasting, accountable, inclusive Mapbox."

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