DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Anthropic-backer Menlo Ventures is preparing for a 'gold rush' of AI infrastructure startups. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-18 | by ( Samantha Stokes | Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Menlo Ventures has been an early backer of AI powerhouses including security startup Abnormal, LLM developer Anthropic, and vector database Pinecone. "AI itself is not new, I think it's just how mainstream it's become," Matt Murphy, a Menlo Ventures partner who invests in SaaS and robotics startups, told Business Insider in an interview. AI's "picks and shovels"Murphy and fellow Menlo Ventures partner Tim Tully say that 2024 will be a big year for the "picks and shovels" of AI. There's room in the game for more LLMsSam Altman's OpenAI has been at the forefront of the generative AI revolution. Other vector database startups including Chorma and Weaviate have also raised millions from VCs.

Persons: —, Siri, Warby Parker, Matt Murphy, OpenAI, AI's, Murphy, Tim Tully, Tully —, Sana, Lindy, we've, Tully, Sam Altman's OpenAI, it's Organizations: Service, Valley's, Menlo Ventures, Business, Menlo, Cisco, Oracle, Meta, Google Locations: Snowflake, Anthropic

☆ EV boat maker Arc debuts a premium wake sport model for $258,000
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-21 | by ( Lora Kolodny | In Lorakolodny | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Arc Boat Company's fully electric Arc Sport model gets four to six hours of typical use on a single charge. Arc Boat Company began sales of its second electric boat model in just three years this week. The new $258,000 Arc Sport was designed for wake sports enthusiasts and follows the company's earlier Arc One, a limited-edition luxury cruiser. The 23-foot Arc Sport can carry up to 15 people at a time. Arc plans to begin deliveries of its new battery electric Arc Sport to customers this year.

Persons: Mitch Lee, Ryan Cook, Arc, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Will Smith, Andreessen Horowitz, Lee, Rivian Organizations: Boat Company, GM, Sacramento –, SpaceX, EV, Eclipse Ventures, Menlo Ventures Locations: Malibu, Stockholm, Sacramento – San Joaquin, Stockton , California, Lyft, Brunswick, MarineMax

☆ Inside the Funding Frenzy at Anthropic, One of A.I.’s Hottest Start-Ups
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-20 | by ( Erin Griffith | Cade Metz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Last May, Anthropic, one of the world’s hottest artificial intelligence start-ups, raised $450 million from investors including Google and Salesforce. By August, Anthropic had landed $100 million from two Asian telecoms. Then Amazon committed $4 billion to it, followed by $2 billion more from Google. This month, the venture capital firm Menlo Ventures closed a deal to invest $750 million in Anthropic. Its five funding deals stood out not just for their speed and size, but for their unusual structures.

Persons: Anthropic Organizations: Google, Menlo Ventures Locations: Anthropic

☆ Meet the OpenAI mafia: These 19 former employees left the AI juggernaut and founded startups that have collectively raised nearly $8 billion
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-22 | by ( Samantha Stokes | Riddhi Kanetkar | Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, Tom Brown, Jack Clark, Jared Kaplan, and Sam McCandlish, cofounders of AnthropicAnthropic's Dario Amodei, Jack Clark, and Daniela Amodei. Since then, the company has received billions in funding from both Google and Amazon in what some have termed an "AI arms race." CEO Dario Amodei, a former Google Brain researcher with a Ph.D. in computational neuroscience, has been writing about the cataclysmic potential of AI since 2016. Constitutional AI is partly the brainchild of two other OpenAI alums and Anthropic cofounders, Tom Brown and Jared Kaplan. Both Kaplan and Brown have worked on Anthropic's efforts to "red team" the company's flagship language model, Claude, probing for misuse possibilities.

Persons: Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, Tom Brown, Jack Clark, Jared Kaplan, Sam McCandlish, Anthropic Anthropic's Dario Amodei, Menlo Ventures Anthropic, Amodei's, Anthropic, —, Anthropic cofounders, Brown, Kaplan, Johns Hopkins, Claude, AGI, I'm Organizations: Google, Menlo Ventures, Bloomberg, Johns, OpenAI Locations: OpenAI, GPT

☆ OpenAI shakeup drama: What you need to know
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | 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 EmailOpenAI shakeup drama: What you need to knowSteve Sloane, partner at Menlo Ventures, and CNBC's Steve Kovach join 'The Exchange' to discuss whether Sam Altman will go to Microsoft or OpenAI, Anthropic's relationship with OpenAI, and more.

Persons: Steve Sloane, Steve Kovach, Sam Altman, OpenAI Organizations: Menlo Ventures, Microsoft

☆ AMD to acquire AI software startup as it seeks to catch up with Nvidia
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-10 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Advanced Micro Devices announced Tuesday it will acquire Nod.AI, an open-source artificial intelligence software startup, to expand the chipmaker's AI software operations. Nod.AI, or Nod Labs, builds open-source technologies "for future AI systems," according to the startup, and it mainly specializes in reinforcement learning, a type of system that "learns" via trial and error. During the same period, AMD reported a revenue decline of 18% but still beat analysts' estimates for sales and profit. Prior to founding Nod in 2013, Anush Elangovan, the startup's CEO, was part of the first Chromebooks team at Google and a lead engineer at Cisco. AMD and Nod.AI did not respond to CNBC's request for comment.

Persons: Boppana, Anush Elangovan, Harsh Menon, Nod's, Kitty Hawk, Larry Page Organizations: Micro Devices, Nod, Nvidia, AMD, Nod.ai, Google, Cisco, Nod Labs, Bluetooth, Menlo Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Apple, Samsung

June 29 (Reuters) - Typeface, a generative AI platform for enterprise content creation, said on Thursday that it was valued at $1 billion after an oversubscribed Series B funding round led by Salesforce's (CRM.N) global investment arm, bringing the total capital raised to $165 million. The $100 million round also saw participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Madrona, GV (Google Ventures), Menlo Ventures, and M12, Microsoft's Venture Fund, the company said. In February, Lightspeed Venture Partners, GV, Menlo Ventures, and M12 invested $65 million when Typeface emerged from stealth and launched publicly. AI startups have emerged as a bright spot for investments this year amid a wider slowdown in funding caused by rising interest rates and high inflation. Editing by Gerry DoyleOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Salesforce's, Gokul, Krystal Hu, Gerry Doyle Organizations: Lightspeed Venture Partners, GV, Google Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Microsoft's Venture Fund, Google, Thomson Locations: Bengaluru, Toronto

☆ AI startup cloud deals by Microsoft, Google and Amazon ring 'accounting alarm bells' across Silicon Valley over revenue 'round-tripping'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Eugene Kim | Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Some investors question whether these arrangements are artificially juicing cloud revenue growth. When Microsoft announced a multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI earlier this year, the deal made Azure the ChatGPT-maker's "exclusive cloud provider." There's another deal in the works with similar attributes involving Runway AI and a major cloud company. But they are drawing more scrutiny lately because they could artificially inflate cloud revenue, a key driver of growth for Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, according to Ted Mortonson, managing director of financial-services firm Baird. Is OpenAI a regular cloud customer that is getting no investment money from Microsoft?

☆ Dedrone: 2023 CNBC Disruptor 50
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Cnbc.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Dedrone, a Sterling, Virginia.-based airspace security specialist, is on the frontlines of this battle, detecting and countering opposition drones. In the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, military drones are seen as a super weapon, increasingly being used to detect threats in conflict zones. Ramping up, Dedrone and several rivals, including DroneShield, D Fend Solution and 2023 No. In the fast-escalating and consolidating commercial market, Dedrone sealed a partnership with building smart-tech maker Johnson Controls to detect unauthorized drones. Dedrone also partnered with security technology solutions maker Axis Communications to integrate its surveillance cameras.

☆ Everyone was wrong about how the pandemic would change shopping — here's how experts are betting on e-commerce now
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Emma Cosgrove | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The idea that e-commerce will keep growing forever, and betting on it will lead to an almost inevitable rising tide, didn't survive the pandemic. Public flame-outs of entire categories of startups, like ultra-fast deliveries and Amazon seller aggregators, have further demonstrated the boom-and-bust nature of pandemic e-commerce investing. Apple's recent moves to give consumers more online privacy has had ripples through the e-commerce ecosystem, leading investors to take a beat. E-commerce logistics — fulfillment and last-mile delivery — said Sloane is fairly well-saturated at this point, he said. For many retailers, the pandemic offered a harsh lesson in how integrated their stores and their websites weren't, she said.

☆ Exclusive: Google to win EU antitrust okay for maths app deal, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Foo Yun Chee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BRUSSELS, March 22 (Reuters) - Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google is set to gain unconditional EU antitrust clearance for its acquisition of Croatian maths app Photomath, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. Investors in the Croatian company include Menlo Ventures, LearnCapital, Goodwater Capital, GSV Ventures and Cherubic. The European Commission, which is scheduled to decide on the deal by March 28, and Google declined to comment. The app has been downloaded more than 300 million times worldwide and is available in more than 30 languages. Reporting by Foo Yun Chee Editing by David Goodman, Elaine HardcastleOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ 9 startup founders who banked with Silicon Valley Bank share where they're moving their money: 'We will not get caught like this again'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Samantha Stokes | Stephanie Palazzolo | Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Silicon Valley Bank's failure has left startup founders scrambling for a new home for their money. Last Friday morning, the startup founder Mang-Git Ng zipped up the interstate before sunrise to a Silicon Valley Bank branch in St. Helena, in California's wine country. Ng's plight is similar to countless other founders following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, who waited with bated breath over the weekend on whether they'd ever get their money back. DiversificationSilicon Valley Bank's collapse could forever change how startups stash their cash, at least two investors told Insider. Silicon Valley Bank had exclusivity clauses with some of its clients, according to a CNBC report, forcing them to use the firm for most or all of their banking services.

☆ This HR startup just raised $40 million in a round led by General Catalyst and Menlo Ventures. Check out the 12-slide pitch deck Finch used to raise the funds.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The startup's API works to collect employment data from fragmented sources for companies. Check out the 12-slide pitch deck Finch used to raise the Series B round. A startup that aims to streamline HR functions like onboarding and payroll has raised $40 million in fresh funds. San Francisco-based Finch, founded in 2020, provides APIs in a bid to simplify the fragmented world of employment data. The Series B funding round was led by General Catalyst and Menlo Ventures, who led Finch's Series A round in June 2022.

☆ EU antitrust regulators to decide on Google's maths app buy by March 28
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BRUSSELS, Feb 22 (Reuters) - EU antitrust regulators have set a March 28 deadline for their decision on Alphabet (GOOGL.O) unit Google's acquisition of Croatian maths app Photomath, according to a European Commission filing on Wednesday. "We can confirm that we entered into an agreement to acquire Photomath in May 2022, subject to regulatory review," a Google spokesperson said. "Photomath's technology will help Google to enhance its ability to provide better math learning experiences to students, helping to build out Google's homework help offerings for users." Photomath's app uses a smartphone's camera or scientific calculator to recognize and explain symbolic math problems. Menlo Ventures, LearnCapital, Goodwater Capital, GSV Ventures and Cherubic are investors in the company.

☆ Exclusive: 3 of Carta's top executives filed complaints about gender discrimination and retaliation in a matter of months
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Three former employees filed complaints alleging gender discrimination at Carta. In a statement she told Insider that she was not fired and did not leave the company due to any gender discrimination issues. "I do not feel that I experienced any gender discrimination or any unfair or sexist treatment during my employment at Carta," she said in the statement. Shortly after Johnson's firing, Carta's chief technology officer, Jerry Talton, filed a complaint with Carta's board expressing concerns about her termination and about larger issues of gender discrimination and retaliation at the company. Carta's internal investigationFollowing Talton's complaint, Carta hired the white-shoe law firm Paul, Weiss to investigate the claims, a person familiar with the matter said.

☆ How a recession could be a huge opportunity for 'upstream' startups
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Emma Cosgrove | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

But the end of the boom times could spell opportunity for industrial or "upstream" startups. The startups working upstream are rarely household names, and likely never will be. But upstream startups today have an advantage even over their counterparts trying to raise funding in past recession: two years of supply chain pain. But dismissing upstream startups as too niche is short-sighted, said Menlo Ventures partner Steve Sloane, who's led investments in warehousing and robotics startups. Supply chain tech startups raised $41.3 billion in 2021 — a 120% increase in funding for the category since 2019.

☆ 3 VCs share their best advice for startup founders as the tech industry heads for a historic slump and thousands of workers lose their jobs
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

And startup founders, too, are feeling the heat. Three VCs at 7wire, Interplay, and Menlo tell Insider their best advice for founders right now. Startup founders, too, are feeling the heat: fintech Stripe slashed 14% of its workforce while neobank Chime laid off 160 people. Buzzy NFT startup Dapper Labs let go of 22% of its employees, while resale marketplace StockX cut less than 80 jobs. Here's their advice for founders right now:

☆ Why tech layoffs are happening all at once — and why the next few weeks could be the worst of them
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Avery Hartmans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Industry experts say the next few weeks are critical, as holiday layoffs could hurt morale and future hiring. And with economic forecasts looking dire, tech firms are starting to tighten the belt — starting with cutting their workforces to shave salary costs. Which means that in the weeks ahead, thousands of tech workers may be out of a job. How did we get hereAs Big Tech companies reported less-then-stellar earnings over the past few weeks, they also also flashed warning signs about the months ahead. Tech companies are coming off a period of outsized growth, spurred on by the pandemic.

☆ Abnormal Security: 2022 Top Startups for the Enterprise
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Cnbc.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Compromised business email remains one of the top cybersecurity threats with an estimated $43 billion in losses exposed since June 2016, according to the FBI. Abnormal Security, founded in 2018, uses an AI-based cloud-native email security platform that leans on behavioral data science to stop socially engineered and other unique email attacks that can evade traditional secure email gateways. The company, which closed a $210 million Series C round of financing in May led by Insight Partners and included Greylock Partners and Menlo Ventures, says it protects more than 5% of the Fortune 1000 including Xerox , Urban Outfitters , Groupon and Royal Caribbean . The 2022 Top Startups for the Enterprise list is powered and inspired by the members of CNBC's Technology Executive Council (TEC). Learn more about CNBC Councils.

☆ Thousands of workers were laid off this week as tech companies and startups brace for an economic crash. Investors, founders, and recruiters explain why this is just the beginning.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( Rob Price | Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Amid growing economic uncertainty, layoffs in the technology industry, both for public companies and for startups, have been escalating this Fall. While plenty of tech companies were still flying high in early 2022, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February accelerated global economic turmoil. More than 17,000 tech workers lost their jobs in both May and June, while July and August saw another 29,000 cuts, according to layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi. Davis, the VC at Interplay, explained that cost-cutting and layoffs are happening across the board, not just in the tech industry. But public tech companies as well as early- and growth-stage startups will face additional challenges, he said.

☆ How AI service startup Aisera is helping companies embrace machine learning to automate tasks
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Emilia David | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

His startup, Aisera, uses machine learning and natural language processing to resolve customer service, IT, sales, and operations problems by integrating with a host of enterprise applications like Zendesk, Salesforce, Amazon Web Services, and ServiceNow. The startup also offers a conversational AI service, or a chat service, in multiple languages that is meant to quickly resolve certain issues. Funding for AI, machine learning, and data analysis grew to $115 billion in 2021, according to PitchBook data. For example, Dave uses Aisera's conversational AI for its around-the-clock customer service, allowing the startup to resolve customer questions before handing off to a human if the question is more complicated. "Thanks to Shelly, Chegg's global service desk technicians can better focus on solving complex issues and proactive support."

☆ Credit Suisse bankers are preparing for 'Uli the Knife' to carve up the investment bank.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Aaron Weinman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

It's a tense time for many insiders at Credit Suisse. One person told me it's a case of "rinse and repeat," as Credit Suisse undergoes its second strategic review in less than a year. Law firm sued Credit Suisse over claims it misled investors on business dealings related to Russian oligarchs. Among the plans reported to be under consideration are a three-way split of the investment bank, according to the Financial Times. Under Chief Executive Ulrich Körner, Credit Suisse wants to transform its investment bank into a "capital-light, advisory-led banking business."

Search resuls for: "Menlo Ventures"

22 mentions found