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☆ There's a wave of pre-IPO startups with pandemic-era price tags stuck in limbo right now
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

There is a wave of pandemic-era startups stuck in limbo right now. The days of seeing 80% to 100% year-on-year revenue growth are gone, Hussein Kanji from early-stage fund Hoxton Ventures told Business Insider. Hoxton Ventures' Hussein Kanji said the days of companies racking up 100% year-on-year revenue growth are over. Investors tend to assess whether a company is IPO-ready on the rule of 40, which is revenue growth plus EBIT margin. Kanji added: "This is a lesson for a lot of people – if the IPO window opens up, take the company public."

Persons: they're, James Ulan, Klarna, Ulan, Karna's, Hussein Kanji, Morgan Stanley, Kanji, Kamil Mieczakowski, Fabian Heilemann, Graphcore Organizations: Business, Hoxton Ventures, Hoxton, Nvidia, Sequoia Locations: Ulan

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attends an in-conversation event with Tesla and SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk in London, Britain, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. Risks around rapidly-developing AI have been an increasingly high priority for policymakers since Microsoft-backed Open AI (MSFT.O) released ChatGPT to the public last year. "It was fascinating that just as we announced our AI safety institute, the Americans announced theirs," said attendee Nigel Toon, CEO of British AI firm Graphcore. China’s vice minister of science and technology said the country was willing to work with all sides on AI governance. Yoshua Bengio, an AI pioneer appointed to lead a "state of the science" report commissioned as part of the Bletchley Declaration, told Reuters the risks of open-source AI were a high priority.

Persons: Rishi Sunak, Tesla, Elon Musk, Kirsty Wigglesworth, Sam Altman, Kamala Harris, Ursula von der Leyen, China –, Sunak, Finance Bruno Le Maire, Vera Jourova, Jourova, Harris, Nigel Toon, Wu Zhaohui, Musk, you’ve, Martin Coulter, Paul Sandle, Matt Scuffham, Louise Heavens Organizations: British, Elon, U.S, European Commission, Microsoft, of, Finance, EU, Reuters, Thomson Locations: London, Britain, China, Bletchley, U.S, South Korea, France, United States

Not every AI company is hot right now. While European and US tech investors are throwing funding at startups that look like the next Nvidia or ChatGPT, they're less optimistic about one big player: British AI chip company Graphcore. The UK tech industry is small, and Insider granted anonymity to these people to avoid jeopardizing their professional relationships. One founder operating in the same space as the AI chip firm speculated that Arm could be a leading contender to acquire Graphcore. In September, Toon pitched Graphcore in an interview with Insider as a viable rival to Nvidia, which holds around 70% of the AI chip market, per Omdia analysis.

Persons: Graphcore, Baillie Gifford, it's, Nigel Toon's, Toon, we'll, Rishi Sunak Organizations: Nvidia, Graphcore, Insider, Sequoia Capital, Bloomberg, UK, China Locations: British, Europe

☆ Graphcore, which wants to be an AI chip rival to Nvidia, has shut offices and needs more investor cash
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-06 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

It's boom times for pretty much every business in artificial intelligence or chips — but not for British firm Graphcore. Graphcore, founded out of Bristol in 2016, develops specialized hardware for AI and machine-learning applications. Graphcore stated in its filing that it was in discussions with investors but had yet to agree a deal. Insider reported in October that existing investor Sequoia had written down its stake in Graphcore. In his September interview, Toon said Graphcore was at an "expensive" incubation phase as customers test out its processors.

Persons: Nigel Toon, Graphcore, Toon Organizations: Nvidia, Sequoia, Microsoft Locations: Bristol, Norway, Japan, South Korea, Graphcore

☆ Losses widen, cash needed at chip startup Graphcore, an Nvidia rival, filing shows
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-05 | by ( Max A. Cherney | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Graphcore produces AI chips called intelligence processor units (IPUs) that aim to take on Nvidia. It reported pre-tax losses widened 11% to $204.6 million, according to a filing of its 2022 financial statements filed Wednesday. According to a forecast the company made through 2027, Graphcore will need to raise more cash to break even, the filing said. The chipmaker closed operations in Norway, Japan, and South Korea and scaled back operations in other countries, according to the filing. Graphcore has raised $711.8 million at a $2.77 billion valuation, according to PitchBook data.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Graphcore, We're, Iain Mackenzie, headcount, Max A Organizations: REUTERS, Nvidia, Revenue, Thomson Locations: Norway, Japan, South Korea, San Francisco

☆ SoftBank seeks OpenAI tie-up as Son plans deal spree after Arm IPO, Financial Times reports
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsSept 16 (Reuters) - SoftBank (9984.T) is looking for deals in artificial intelligence (AI), including a potential investment in OpenAI, after the blockbuster listing of its Arm unit, the Financial Times reported on Saturday. Son said in June that his tech investing conglomerate planned to shift its stance to "offence mode" amid excitement over advances in AI. The Japanese tech investment company could also look to strike a broad strategic partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, FT said. Son has expressed excitement about AI technology, adding he is a "heavy user" of ChatGPT, the AI-powered chatbot from Microsoft-backed (MSFT.O) startup OpenAI. SoftBank is looking at a range of alternatives to OpenAI as well, including a preliminary approach to buy Graphcore, a UK-based AI chipmaker, the report added.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Masayoshi, Son, Sam Altman, SoftBank, Graphcore, OpenAI, Arm, Lavanya, Kanjyik Ghosh, William Mallard, Mark Potter Organizations: REUTERS, Financial Times, Microsoft, Reuters, Vision Fund, Thomson Locations: OpenAI, Bengaluru, Bangalore

☆ Nvidia has a stranglehold on AI companies as a chip shortage begins to bite. This rival CEO is eager to offer an alternative.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-15 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Nvidia's GPUs have become a vital resource in the race to develop AI models like GPT-4. Huge demand for GPUs has created a shortage that risks stunting AI development. In other words, Nvidia has a stranglehold on companies looking to accelerate the development of their AI models in ways that could revolutionize how the entire economy operates. AdvertisementAdvertisementHaving a more advanced bit of hardware isn't enough to pry companies away from Nvidia. It's also working on its own software, known as Poplar, to offer that same kind of plug-and-play usability as Nvidia.

Persons: Nigel Toon, Google's Bard, Jensen Huang, Graphcore, Toon, It's, we'll, they'll Organizations: Service, Nvidia, Sequoia Locations: Wall, Silicon, Graphcore, China

☆ 'Red-hot upside': This global high-growth tech fund's stock could rise by 180%, says Berenberg
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-17 | by ( Ganesh Rao | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Shares of Molten Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on technology, could rise by more than 180%, according to Berenberg. Berenberg said Molten is currently trading at a 67% discount to its last-reported net asset value (NAV). This should, in turn, result in a substantial increase in Molten's share price. Aujla's note said that most of this decrease occurred in the first half of the year when the gross portfolio value (GPV) declined by 17% due to falling valuations. However, the analyst pointed out that Molten's investment strategy should provide protection against significant portfolio value decreases.

Persons: Draper Espirit, Berenberg, Kurran, Goodbody's Gerry Nennigan, Peel Hunt Organizations: Molten Ventures, British, Nasdaq, Numis Securities Locations: Berenberg . London, U.S

OAKLAND, California, June 13(Reuters) - Silicon Valley-based AI chip startup SiMa.ai on Tuesday said it raised an additional $13 million from investors including a key fund in Taiwan called VentureTech Alliance, which has a strong strategic partnership with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (2330.TW). This is at least the third investment in U.S. chip startups by VentureTech Alliance in the past month. British AI chip unicorn Graphcore's struggles have been widely reported. Rangasayee also pointed to one recent benchmark testing result by SiMa.ai that beat AI chip giant Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) in performance and power of chips used on devices like cameras, drones and robots. The testing data is published by MLCommons, an engineering consortium that maintains testing benchmarks widely used in the AI chip industry.

Persons: VentureTech, Ethernovia, SiMa.ai, Navin Chaddha, Mayfield, Chaddha, they're, Moshe Gavrielov, Krishna Rangasayee, MLCommons, it's, David, Goliath, Jane Lanhee Lee, Lisa Shumaker Organizations: VentureTech, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, VentureTech Alliance, Ayar Labs, Nvidia Corp, Nvidia, Thomson Locations: OAKLAND, California, Taiwan, British

☆ European startup funding to drop a further 39% this year as tech rout continues
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Investment into European tech startups is set to fall another 39% this year, according to data from venture capital firm Atomico, as the pain in global tech continues. Funding for Europe's venture-backed startups is forecast to decline from $83 billion in 2022 to $51 billion in 2023, Atomico said. The report is a scaled down, mid-year update from the London-headquartered fund, which has backed companies including Stripe, Klarna and Graphcore. Once richly-valued technology companies have seen their shares come under pressure from global factors, including Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and tighter monetary policy. That's prompted investors to reassess their positions on lossmaking tech companies, whose values typically rest on the expectation of future cash flows.

Persons: Atomico Organizations: Investment, Technology, Federal Reserve Locations: Atomico, U.S, Europe, London, Ukraine

☆ Meta Platforms scoops up AI networking chip team from Graphcore
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Katie Paul | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

May 5 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) has hired an Oslo-based team that until late last year was building artificial-intelligence networking technology at British chip unicorn Graphcore. "We recently welcomed a number of highly-specialized engineers in Oslo to our infrastructure team at Meta. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has become increasingly reliant on AI technology to target advertising, select posts for its apps' feeds and purge banned content from its platforms. The 10 employees' job descriptions on LinkedIn indicated the team had worked on AI-specific networking technology at Graphcore, which develops computer chips and systems optimized for AI work. A new category of network chip has emerged to help keep data moving smoothly within those computing clusters.

☆ Meta Platforms scoops up A.I. networking chip team from Graphcore
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Meta Platforms Inc. has hired an Oslo-based team that until late last year was building artificial-intelligence networking technology at British chip unicorn Graphcore. "We recently welcomed a number of highly-specialized engineers in Oslo to our infrastructure team at Meta. They bring deep expertise in the design and development of supercomputing systems to support AI and machine learning at scale in Meta's data centers," said Jon Carvill, the Meta spokesperson. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has become increasingly reliant on AI technology to target advertising, select posts for its apps' feeds and purge banned content from its platforms. The 10 employees' job descriptions on LinkedIn indicated the team had worked on AI-specific networking technology at Graphcore, which develops computer chips and systems optimized for AI work.

☆ In the Whirl of ChatGPT, Startups See an Opening for Their AI Chips
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Isabelle Bousquette | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

Generative AI and large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT require massive amounts of computing power to run, and typically rely on chips like Nvidia’s graphics-processing units, or GPUs, that are specialized for these types of calculations. Graphcore sells primarily to AI startups looking to build and train models at lower cost, he said, and the company is benefiting from the proliferation of those startups. Shane Rau, who leads International Data Corp.’s semiconductor research, said chip startups are increasingly pivoting to focus their products on supporting large language models. Still, he added, “you’re going to see a combination of real adaptation and marketing.”“There will be the pressure to say: ‘Hey, we’re already relevant, our AI chip technology’s already relevant to generative AI’,” said Mr. Rau. Some chip makers say they expect yet another surge in demand once businesses more widely adopt generative AI.

☆ U.S. Argonne National Lab scales up startup SambaNova's latest AI system
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Jane Lanhee Lee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Nov 14 (Reuters) - Silicon Valley artificial intelligence (AI) computing startup SambaNova Systems said on Monday it delivered eight units of its latest AI system to the U.S. Argonne National Laboratory, which is expanding its AI offering to researchers. With AI work taking center stage in research, Argonne National Laboratory has been testing out various AI chips and systems, Rick Stevens, associate lab director for computing, environment and life sciences at Argonne lab told Reuters. In addition to SambaNova, AI systems from startups including Cerebras Systems, Groq Inc, Graphcore, and Intel Corp (INTC.O) owned Habana Labs have been tested. "We're working with new emerging AI hardware architectures, and we get early hardware and then we play with it, we use it on our science applications," said Stevens. Steven said the lab was evaluating AI hardware for its next supercomputer to see if SambaNova and others can be included.

☆ VC firm Molten Ventures cuts portfolio value after tech sell-off
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LONDON, Nov 2 (Reuters) - European tech venture capital firm Molten Ventures (GROW.L) cut the value of its portfolio by about 17%, measured in constant currency, on Wednesday to reflect the drop in public markets such as Nasdaq. However, he said the strength of the dollar had provided a tailwind of around 5%, which meant the overall portfolio was down 12%, a "relatively modest drop". He said demand for the technology and services it backed remained strong, with revenue growing at an average rate of more than 60% in its core portfolio this year and forecast growth of 70% next year. "As a result the revenue of our companies have remained pretty stable." Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Sarah YoungOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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