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☆ Qureight uses AI to help speed up drug development. Check out the 11-slide pitch deck it used to raise $8.5 million.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-16 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

British techbio startup Qureight has secured $8.5 million in an oversubscribed Series A round. Launched in 2018, Qureight wants to simplify how pharma companies deal with the complex datasets often used during clinical trials. "For example, we can start to structure images of lungs using AI," said cofounder and CEO Muhunthan Thillai. The startup primarily works with pharmaceutical companies, including heavyweights such as AstraZeneca, as well as hospitals and clinical research organizations. Check out the 11-slide pitch deck used to secure the fresh funding.

Persons: Qureight, Muhunthan Thillai, Thillai, Hargreave Hale Organizations: pharma, Business, AstraZeneca, Hargreave Hale AIM VCT, XTX Ventures, Guinness Ventures, Playfair, Fund, Cambridge Angels Locations: Cambridge, Meltwind

☆ These are the 11 startups most likely to IPO this year, according to analysts.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-11 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Rising interest rates and limited VC funding have slowed IPOs in the tech sector. With Instacart, Arm, and Klaviyo going public, the IPO market could be reviving this year. BI profiled 11 startups that are expected to IPO, according to PitchBook's Exit Predictor. Initial public offerings (IPOs) have slumped since the record-breaking 2021, when the the likes of likes of Roblox, UiPath, and Rivian listed. The market hasn't been helped by rising interest rates and a slump in venture capital funding, which has slowed down activity in late-stage startups.

Persons: —, It's Organizations: Service, Business

☆ AI startup Kaikaku has launched a robot-powered restaurant. Check out the 12-slide pitch deck it used to raise $1.8 million.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-08 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

London-based startup Kaikaku has secured $1.8 million for its automated food assembly robot. Kaikaku has now launched London's first robot-powered restaurant, which runs on its technology. We got an exclusive look at the 12-slide pitch deck it used to secure the fresh funding. A startup that has developed an automated robotics platform for restaurants has just secured $1.8 million. London-based Kaikaku, which launched just 10 months ago, has also opened London's first robotics-driven restaurant which is powered by its own tech.

Persons: Kaikaku, Josef Chen Organizations: Business Locations: London

☆ Wirecard tried to destroy its whistleblower. Now, he's founded a startup to protect others who speak out.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-29 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Read previewBeing a whistleblower was antithetical to everything Pav Gill had done during his nine-year stint as a corporate lawyer. When Wirecard headhunted the Singaporean native to be its head of legal, Gill took up the position enthusiastically. Despite the fruitful outcome, the experience of being a whistleblower traumatized Gill. AdvertisementThis realization was the driving force behind Gill setting up his startup — Confide — a platform for 'internal whistleblowers' to raise issues within their organizations. AdvertisementGill anticipates that this model will work best for companies with over 50 employees, and ideally above 250 employees.

Persons: —, Pav Gill, Gill, foraying, Wirecard, Gill's, don't, " Gill, they're Organizations: Service, Allen, Business, Financial, Directive, EU Locations: Wirecard, Asia, Singapore, ESG

☆ Metyos has developed a wearable to monitor chronic kidney disease. Check out the 8-slide pitch deck it used to raise $2.5 million.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Paris-based Metyos has secured $2.5 million in pre-seed funding from Cenitz. The startup is developing a wearable device for patients to manage their chronic kidney disease. Check out the 8-slide pitch deck it used to raise the funding. AdvertisementMedtech startup Metyos has secured $2.5 million in pre-seed funding from French investor Cenitz. The Paris-based startup, which launched in 2021, is creating a remote biosensor that patients can use to track their chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Persons: Metyos, —, Cenitz Organizations: Service, Business Locations: Paris, Cenitz

☆ 900.care wants to make refillable consumer products the norm. Check out the 16-slide deck it used to raise $22.7 million.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Currently, many personal-use products in supermarkets, such as body wash, conditioners, and other hygiene products, use a lot of single-use plastics. "It creates so much plastic waste, and shipping water for these products also creates a lot of CO2 emissions," Grange told Business Insider. This reduces water waste, which would otherwise be required to manufacture and transport these products. Amid a tougher funding environment for D2C startups in the past two years, Grange told BI that 900.care's "growth economics and product-market fit" helped them to secure funding. Check out the 16-slide pitch deck used to secure the fresh funding.

Persons: Aymeric Grange, Grange Organizations: Lombard Odier, White Star Capital, Business, Grange, Lombard Locations: Paris, Lombard, France

☆ This ex-Googler's startup makes implementing AI simpler. Check out the 9-slide pitch deck RapidCanvas used to raise $7.5 million.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-13 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Texas-based startup RapidCanvas has emerged from stealth with a $7.5 million seed round. A startup that helps businesses to use AI more efficiently has just emerged from stealth with a $7.5 million seed round. Texas-based RapidCanvas bills itself as "an AI platform built for business professionals," said cofounder and CEO Rahul Pangam. Often, businesses assign the task of operating AI platforms to data analysts or engineers, who have some technical understanding of AI. RapidCanvas has developed an AI platform that automates the use of such AI tools — especially those that are more complex — so more business professionals can adopt them.

Persons: Rahul Pangam, RapidCanvas Organizations: Business Locations: Texas

☆ Check out the 13-slide pitch deck VR training startup Moonhub used to raise $1.4 million
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-29 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Virtual reality startup Moonhub has raised $1.4 million in funding. Moonhub offers immersive, on-the-job training to companies through its VR platform. AdvertisementVirtual reality training startup Moonhub has raised $1.4 million from Unconventional Ventures, taking its total funding to $4.5 million. The London-based startup, which was founded in 2016, offers immersive training to a range of companies through its VR platform. "We allow people to learn on the job, and also complete any corporate training, through VR," said cofounder and CEO Dami Hastrup.

Persons: —, Dami Organizations: Service, Unconventional Ventures, VR, Business Locations: London

Energy startup Axle is in talks to raise a round backed by VC fund Accel, BI understands. The year-old company could raise around $6 million in capital as part of the deal, sources say. The energy tech startup uses electric vehicles and home energy assets to help balance grids. Energy software startup Axle Energy is in talks to raise fresh funding in a round backed by venture capital fund Accel, Business Insider understands. The London-based company, founded in 2023, connects electric vehicles and batteries to energy grids to help solve the intermittency of renewables.

Organizations: Energy, Accel, BI, Business Locations: London, Europe

☆ Character.ai is in talks to raise around $200 million in a deal backed by Google, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-23 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

Character.ai is in talks to raise around $200 million in a round backed by Google, BI understands. The startup allows users to create AI-generated characters that function as chatbots. AI startup Character.ai is in talks to raise around $200 million in a round backed by Google, Business Insider understands. Reuters first reported that the startup was in talks with Google to raise “hundreds of millions of dollars” in November 2023. The round is set to be near the $200 million mark, three sources familiar with the matter told BI.

Persons: Character.ai Organizations: Google, Business, Reuters Locations: San Francisco

☆ This startup uses AI to help fashion companies cut waste. Check out the 9-slide pitch deck Hakio used to raise $4.3 million.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-22 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Danish startup Hakio has raised $4.3 million in seed funding. Hakio's AI-based software helps fashion companies to avoid overproduction, and reduce waste. Check out the 9-slide pitch deck the startup used to secure the fresh funds. AdvertisementA Danish startup that uses AI to help fashion companies reduce waste has just raised $4.3 million in seed funding. Launched in 2022, Hakio has developed a software tool that allows fashion companies to forecast customer shopping patterns and macroeconomic trends.

Persons: —, Hakio Organizations: Service, Business

☆ Tailored dog food supplier Tails.com is planning to cut up to 55 roles, leaked documents show
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-20 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Tails.com, a dog-food supplier owned by Nestlé Purina PetCare, is planning to cut up to 55 roles, Business Insider has learned. In January, the company announced internally that it planned to commence a round of layoffs that could affect up to 55 staffers in the UK, per documents seen by BI. Per UK employment law, the company is required to offer a statutory redundancy package to those affected by the layoffs. While the company documents acknowledged that it had hired 22 new roles in the past six months, they also said hiring for any non-critical business roles had been paused since November 2023. Unlike previous rounds of layoffs, these ones are happening while many tech companies are producing good financial results .

Persons: Nestlé Purina, PetCare, Tails.com, ‘ we’re, Nestlé, “ Organizations: Octopus Ventures, Nestlé, Business, BI, Tech, Microsoft, Google Locations: London

☆ 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

☆ AI isn't energy efficient right now. This ex-Arm VP has joined a new startup to try change that.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-16 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

"We're the first company to launch off the back of what is a Tsetlin machine," Hurley told Business Insider. "We are looking at processes which are 10,000 times more efficient than neural networks when we add hardware acceleration," he said. Literal Labs' technology is developed from Yakovlev and Shafik's patents. While this process requires less energy than neural networks, the wider market has yet to catch up with alternatives. And everyone is just so sucked into neural networks that nobody has been thinking about some of the other techniques."

Persons: Noel Hurley, Hurley, Mignon, it's, Alex Yakovlev, Rishad Organizations: Cambridge, Labs, Newcastle University, Business, Yakovlev, Literal Labs

☆ This stealth startup wants to digitize the experience economy. Check out the 17-slide deck Holdbar used to raise $3.5 million.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-09 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Danish startup Holdbar has come out of stealth mode with a $3.5 million seed round. The startup has designed a software platform for companies offering experiences and activities. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . AdvertisementA startup that has built a software platform for the experience economy has emerged from stealth with a $3.5 million seed round. Holdbar wants to consolidate everything from marketing and booking to payments and customer service into a single platform for experience-based companies.

Persons: —, Holdbar Organizations: Service, Business Locations: Denmark

☆ Unfabled wants to close the gender health gap. Check out the 10-slide pitch deck it used to raise $1.6 million from Morgan Stanley.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-06 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

London-based Unfabled, which launched in 2021, has developed a data-driven health platform for women. A key issue that Samano wanted to tackle was the wide gender health gap in the UK, which currently has the largest health gap between genders in the G20, and the twelfth largest globally, a study by men's health platform Manual found. "Another major cause of the gender health gap is the lack of sex-aggregated data, which creates a lack of insight and understanding across women's health," Samano told Business Insider. "Alongside our consumer platform, our data science is helping to fill in a lot of the blanks that currently exist in women's health." With the fresh funding, Unfabled will grow its consumer offerings, and also double down on its data-driven recommendations for women's health.

Persons: Morgan Stanley, Hannah Samano, Samano Organizations: Business, Exceptional Ventures Locations: London

☆ Salary data revealed: Here's how much 16 top US and European AI startups like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Hugging Face are paying staffers
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | Tasmin Lockwood | Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

AI talent is very much in demand, with some staffers from the likes of Stripe, Amazon, and Google making the switch to smaller upstarts. AI companies are using some of those funds to shell out on sizable salary packages to attract talent, according to data obtained by Business Insider. While salary transparency remains a problem in both Europe and the US, the latter has taken more steps to make salary data visible to employees and candidates. With considerable research prowess, Europe has become a hotbed for producing AI talent. Business Insider has pulled together salary data from some of the most in-demand AI companies that have published H1B salary data, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Midjourney.

Persons: Sam Altman, queued, chunky, DeepMind's, Mustafa Suleyman Organizations: Google, Business, Mistral, Companies Locations: Europe, Atomico

☆ SoftBank-backed education startup GoStudent conducts another round of layoffs
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-31 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

SoftBank-backed education startup GoStudent has initiated another round of layoffs, affecting over 100 people, Business Insider understands. Austrian company GoStudent, billed as Europe's first edtech unicorn, offers one-to-one video tutoring. GoStudent did not confirm the scale of the layoffs when approached for comment by BI. The business and strategy adjustments aim to make GoStudent fully profitable and cashflow positive "as quickly as possible," he said. The fresh round of layoffs is GoStudent's third following cuts in September and December of 2022, all previously reported by BI .

Persons: GoStudent, Felix Ohswald, I've, Ohswald, Studienkreis Organizations: Business, LinkedIn, BI Locations: Austrian, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, DACH

☆ Wondercraft wants to be the AI-driven 'Canva of audio.' Check out the 9-slide pitch deck it used to raise $3 million.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-29 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

An AI audio startup founded by former Palantir and Acast staffers has raised $3 million in a seed round backed by investors, including Y Combinator and Diary of a CEO host Steven Bartlett. London-based Wondercraft, founded in 2022, aims to become the "Canva of audio." Nikolaou said he likened the startup to Canva because he wanted to "empower everyone to be an audio creator." With the fresh funding, Wondercraft will develop the platform further and extend a wider range of features to its users. Check out the 9-slide deck used to raise the fresh funds:

Persons: Y Combinator, Steven Bartlett, Dimitris Nikolaou, Youssef Rizk, Oskar Serrander, Nikolaou, Serrander, Wondercraft Organizations: Business, Will Ventures Locations: London, Boston

☆ Tiger Global-backed Productboard conducts third round of layoffs in two years, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-26 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

download the appSign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Now, Productboard has begun another round of layoffs, the scale of which is unknown as yet, the former staffers said. Startups and Big Tech companies alike have slashed their wage bills as the high-interest rate environment encourages businesses to prioritize sustainability over growth. AdvertisementIn January alone, 76 tech companies have laid off 21,370 employees, according to tracker site Layoffs.fyi.

Persons: —, Productboard, Daniel Hejl, Hubert Palan, Kleiner Perkins, Palan, Productboard's headcount Organizations: Service, Business, Tiger Global, Dragoneer, Microsoft, Volkswagen, Sequoia, Bessemer Venture Partners, Index Ventures, Big Tech, Bloomberg, LinkedIn Locations: San Francisco, Czech Republic, Silicon Valley, Sequoia Capital, Productboard

☆ RagaAI tests AI models. Check out the 10-slide pitch deck it used to raise $4.7 million.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-24 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

A startup that has developed an automated platform to test AI models has just secured $4.7 million in fresh funding. RagaAI has developed a way to gauge the safety and reliability of AI models, and diagnose any issues instantly. Its platform screens AI issues across large language models (LLMs), videos, and audio to structured data. An example use case included a product team using Raga's tool to identify hallucinations in its chatbot. The round was led by early-stage venture capital firm Pi Ventures, with additional participation from Anorak Ventures, TenOneTen Ventures, Arka Ventures, and Mana Ventures.

Persons: Gaurav Agarwal, Ola, RagaAI, Agarwal Organizations: San, Nvidia, Business, Pi Ventures, Anorak Ventures, TenOneTen Ventures, Arka Ventures, Mana Ventures Locations: San Francisco

☆ AI voice cloning startup ElevenLabs confirms $1.1 billion valuation after it closes third funding round in year
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-22 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Read previewElevenLabs, an early-stage AI startup that has captured the attention of some of the world's biggest investors, has raised its third funding round in a year. The Series B round values the business at over $1 billion, confirming Business Insider's earlier reporting from November. ElevenLabs last raised a funding round in June, when it tapped up investors for $19 million at a $100 million valuation. It has also released a new AI Speech Classifier tool, which lets anyone detect if an uploaded sample contains AI-generated audio from ElevenLabs. ElevenLabs now aims to expand its Classifier tool to other AI voice models in the coming year.

Persons: —, ElevenLabs, Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman, Uber, Daniel Gross, Piotr Dabkowski, Mati Staniszewski Organizations: Service, Business, Google, Github Locations: London, New York, Sequoia

☆ 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

☆ Stability AI: Cofounder Sues Startup Behind Stable Diffusion for up to $300 Million
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-17 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Tayab Waseem claims that he was a cofounder in Stability AI and that the company has reneged on its promise of a 10% stake in the London-based AI startup. Stability AI rose to prominence in 2022 when users flooded its Stable Diffusion program, generating images of everything from hyperrealistic portraits to fantasy landscapes. Stability AI raised an undisclosed amount from Intel in October 2023. Waseem joined Stability AI when the cofounders, Mostaque and Hodes, were launching a project called CAIAC, which used AI to combat COVID-19, Waseem told BI. AdvertisementAccording to the filing, Stability AI had not paid him a formal salary due to cash flow problems, instead promising him 10% in equity interest.

Persons: —, Tayab Waseem, Emad Mostaque, Cyrus Hodes, Mostaque, Mike Bloomberg, Waseem Organizations: Service, Business, Intel, Getty Images, Bloomberg, Court, Eastern, of Locations: London

☆ Ovom uses AI to increase the chance of successful fertility treatments. Check out the 11-slide pitch deck it used to raise $1.4 million.
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-19 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

download the appSign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read previewA startup that uses AI to increase the likelihood of successful fertility treatments has just secured $1.4 million from AI investment platform Merantix. The startup also helps patients plan other procedures such as egg freezing or IVF treatments, with in-house consultations and diagnostics support. With the fresh funding, Ovom will focus on developing its technology so it can better hone its fertility treatments, and enable underserved demographics to conceive. Check out the 11-slide pitch deck used to secure the fresh funding.

Persons: —, Felicia von Reden, von Reden, Merantix Organizations: Service, Business Locations: Berlin

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