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☆ The hottest AI startups are raising back-to-back funding rounds. Suddenly, it's feeling very 2021 in Silicon Valley for a chosen few.
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-20 | by ( Ben Bergman | Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Read previewIn February, Glean announced a $200 million funding round valuing the AI enterprise software startup at $2.2 billion. AdvertisementThe transaction is the latest in a string of dizzying back-to-back funding rounds at ever-higher valuations for a handful of AI startups that stand in stark contrast to the doldrums of the overall market for startups. Earlier this year, Sakana raised $30 million in a seed funding round led by Lux Capital. Slingshot AI, which has built an automated mental health counselor, also raised separate rounds of funding just months apart. Advertisement"VCs are increasingly faced with frequent requests from their hot AI companies to follow on or double down on investments," said Iris Sun, an investor at 500 Global.

Persons: —, Glean, Arvind Jain's inbox, Jain, Steve Brotman, Perplexity, SoftBank, Sakana, Gregg Hill, that's, Matt Murphy, Dario Amodei, Kimberly White, Murphy, I'd, I've, Jenny Chang, Rodriguez, Jai Das, Rajeev Dham, couldn't, Das, Sapphire, Uber, Iris Sun, Chandrasekar Organizations: Service, Business, DST Global, Alpha Partners, Bloomberg, Google, New Enterprise Associates, Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, Parkway Venture Capital, Menlo Ventures, Getty, Sapphire Ventures, Investments Locations: Tokyo

☆ An ex-Googler reveals why she's selling her construction startup to a Saudi company with still a year of runway in the bank
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-02 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

She's now selling her startup to WakeCap, a Saudi Arabia-based company that has contracts with many of the kingdom's construction megaprojects such as "desert cities." Instead, Eisnor exited early, selling her startup to help it scale faster. WakeCapBuilt toughFor nine years, Eisnor had a front-row seat at a tech rocketship, Waze, the Israeli-born maps and navigation company. "There is a reality in construction software that a lot of the names that you might know, they're going to be hovering around, say, $10 million in ARR. Eisnor is staying on as chief strategy officer, and Crews by Core's chief technology officer, Gene Gutnik, now leads tech for the combined company.

Persons: Ann Eisnor, Crews, Eisnor, I'm, Caterina Fake's, Hassan Albalawi, Albalawi, Kajima, —, WakeCap's Albalawi, they're, Gene Gutnik, WakeCap Organizations: Service, Business, NFX, GV, Google, McKinsey & Company, Autodesk, Core, Core's Locations: Saudi Arabia, United States, Saudi, Silicon, Silicon Valley, Israeli, hyperscale, WeWork

☆ Four Astronauts, Including Turkey's First, Arrive at Space Station
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-20 | by ( Jan. | At A.M. | ) www.usnews.com time to read: +3 min

By Steve Gorman(Reuters) - A four-man crew including Turkey's first astronaut arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) early on Saturday for a two-week stay in the latest such mission arranged entirely at commercial expense by Texas-based startup company Axiom Space. The rendezvous came about 37 hours after the Axiom quartet's Thursday evening liftoff in a rocketship from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Once the astronauts reach the space station, they fall under the responsibility of NASA's mission control operation in Houston. The multinational team was led by Michael López-Alegría, 65, a Spanish-born retired NASA astronaut and Axiom executive making his sixth flight to the space station. Axiom also is one of a handful of companies building a commercial space station of its own intended to eventually replace the ISS, which NASA expects to retire around 2030.

Persons: Steve Gorman, Turkey's, NASA's, Michael López, Axiom's, Walter Villadei, Marcus Wandt, Alper Gezeravcı, David Evans Organizations: Reuters, Space, NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Elon, SpaceX, NASA, Italian Air Force, European Space Agency, Turkish Air Force, ISS Locations: Texas, Cape Canaveral , Florida, Houston, Spanish, Japan, Denmark, U.S, Canada, Los Angeles

But the rocket's Super Heavy first stage booster, though it appeared to achieve a crucial maneuver to separate with its core Starship stage, exploded over the Gulf of Mexico shortly after detaching, a SpaceX webcast showed. Meanwhile, the core Starship booster carried further toward space, but a few minutes later a company broadcaster said that SpaceX mission control suddenly lost contact with the vehicle. "We have lost the data from the second stage... we think we may have lost the second stage," SpaceX's livestream host John Insprucker said. About eight minutes into the test mission, a camera view tracking the Starship booster appeared to show an explosion that would suggest the vehicle failed at that time. SpaceX in a post on social media platform X said the core Starship stage's engines "fired for several minutes on its way to space."

Persons: SpaceX's, Joe Skipper, rocketship, John Insprucker, Artemis, Musk, Joey Roulette, Steve Gorman, Will Dunham, Ros Russell Organizations: Boca Chica, REUTERS, Elon Musk, SpaceX, U.S . Federal Aviation Administration, Super, NASA, Boca, Thomson Locations: Brownsville , Texas, U.S, CHICA , Texas, Boca Chica, Texas, of Mexico, Hawaii's, Gulf, Mexico, Boca Chica , Texas, Washington, Los Angeles

SpaceX aimed for a second test flight of its mega rocket Starship on Saturday, counting down to a morning liftoff from South Texas. The first test flight in April ended in an explosion shortly after liftoff. The goal is to send the rocketship around the world before ditching it in the ocean near Hawaii. SpaceX spent the past several months making improvements to both the rocket and launch pad, located at the southern tip of Texas near the Mexico border. The nearly 400-foot (121-meter) Starship is the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket.

Persons: Elon Musk Organizations: SpaceX, Federal Aviation Administration, Atlantic, Associated Press Health, Science Department, Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science, Educational Media Group, AP Locations: South Texas, Hawaii, Texas, Mexico, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific

☆ Google is shaking up its sales strategy to push its most important AI-powered product to more advertisers
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-24 | by ( Hugh Langley | Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

These smaller advertisers work with the Google Customer Solutions (GCS) team and spend between $250,000 to $2 million per quarter, according to a Google source. An official restructure of the sales team hasn't been announced internally but the recent sales moves reflect this broader trend, those sources said. "Performance Max has been around for three years, keeps getting better and drives increased performance for advertisers ," a Google spokesperson said. Agency executives have also noticed Google sales people trying to push Performance Max to mid-sized advertisers. However, some people familiar with the product are skeptical of Google's sales strategy.

Persons: –, hasn't, Max, there's, We're, Sellers, We've Organizations: Google, YouTube, " Agency, Gmail, Meta

☆ What Grayscale’s bitcoin ETF victory over the SEC means for the cryptocurrency and an exhausted market
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-30 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Bitcoin jumped 7% on investor hopes that the ruling will pave the way for approval of one or more spot bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco and others. Yet the SEC's commitment to regulation by enforcement under Gensler, rather than laying out clear rules, has left companies struggling and hindered new bitcoin investors. If Tuesday's ruling does open the door to the first spot bitcoin ETF in the U.S., that could eventually push crypto prices higher. Owen Lau, an analyst at Oppenheimer, cautioned that Grayscale's court victory "doesn't necessarily mean the SEC will approve Grayscale's conversion, or that there will be a floodgate of spot bitcoin ETF approvals in the near term." Regardless, Tuesday's court decision "is not enough" to bust the market out of its summer stupor, Lau added.

Persons: Bitcoin, it's, Ric Edelman, Gary Gensler, Edelman, Owen Lau, Oppenheimer, Lau Organizations: SEC, ., Appeals, Securities and Exchange Commission, Fidelity, Digital Assets, Financial Professionals Locations: BlackRock, U.S

☆ AI investment is booming. How much is hype?
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-23 | by ( Anna Cooban | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

The investment into Mistral AI is just one of many this year by venture capitalists jostling for a seat aboard the AI rocketship. In the first six months of 2023, they plowed $15.2 billion into generative AI companies globally, according to Pitchbook data. The bulk of this sum comes from Microsoft (MSFT)’s $10 billion investment, announced in January, in OpenAI, the developer of popular generative AI chatbot ChatGPT. But even excluding Microsoft’s bumper deal, the value of VC investments in generative AI was up by almost 58% compared with the same period in 2022. “Buying a ‘dot-ai’ domain, and claiming to be an AI company… doesn’t really make you an AI company,” Jacobs told CNN.

Persons: Antoine Moyroud, wasn’t, ”, Arthur Mensch, Nathan Laine, hasn’t, ” Mostaque, jostling, Moyroud, ’, ’ “, “, ” Moyroud, It’s, Jaap Arriens, Goldman Sachs, Stocks, Mike Reynolds, Reynolds, —, “ It’s, ” Reynolds, ” Jordan Jacobs, … doesn’t, ” Jacobs Organizations: London CNN, Lightspeed Venture Partners, CNN, Mistral, Viva Tech, Bloomberg, Getty, Stability, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, Nasdaq, Cisco, Radical Ventures Locations: French, Paris, California, OpenAI, —, Toronto

☆ School's out for summer, and if ChatGPT usage is falling because students are off, that's a bad sign for OpenAI
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-14 | by ( Alistair Barr | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

ChatGPT usage recently fell. If that's the reason, it's a bad sign for OpenAI and AI-powered chatbots. ChatGPT usage has fallen. Churn rates, which measure the percentage of users who stop engaging with a service, have also spiked into the 20% range for ChatGPT, according to Bernstein Research. "This idea that if the ChatGPT drop-off is due to students on summer break, that implies a narrower audience and fewer use cases."

Persons: ChatGPT Bernstein, ChatGPT, Mark Shmulik, Bernstein, Shmulik, It's, chatbots, OpenAI, Garry Tan Organizations: Morning, Bernstein Research, ChatGPT Bernstein Research, Microsoft, Enterprise, insider.com Locations: OpenAI, Silicon Valley

The flight marks a decisive moment for Virgin Galactic Holding Inc (SPCE.N), the space tourism venture founded by British billionaire Richard Branson in 2004, as it inaugurates commercial service following several years fraught with development setbacks. Rounding out the crew was their Virgin Galactic trainer, Colin Bennett, the company's lead "astronaut instructor," and Unity's two pilots, Michael Masucci and Nicola Pecile. A final crewed test flight to space was conducted with little fanfare five weeks ago. Virgin Galactic has said it has already booked a backlog of some 800 customers, charging from $250,000 to $450,000 per seat, and envisions eventually building a large enough fleet to accommodate 400 flights annually. An earlier prototype of the Virgin Galactic rocket plane crashed during a test flight over California's Mojave Desert in 2014, killing one pilot and seriously injuring another.

Persons: Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos's, Elon Musk's, Walter Villadei, Angelo Landolfi, Pantaleone, Colin Bennett, Michael Masucci, Nicola Pecile, Branson, Bezos, Shepard rocketship, Jose Luis Gonzalez, Steve Gorman, Will Dunham Organizations: Virgin Galactic, National Research Council, Italy, Virgin Galactic Holding Inc, Virgin, Elon Musk's SpaceX, Italian Air Force, VSS Unity, International Space, Air Force, America, Unity, NASA, U.S . Air Force, Thomson Locations: New Mexico, Italy, British, Italian, Los Angeles

Virgin Galactic leases part of the facility. The flight marked a long-delayed breakthrough for Virgin Galactic Holding Inc (SPCE.N), finally inaugurating commercial service after nearly 20 years of fraught by development setbacks. Rounding out the crew was their Virgin Galactic trainer, Colin Bennett, the company's lead "astronaut instructor," and Unity's two pilots, Michael Masucci and Nicola Pecile. Virgin Galactic said Unity topped out its flight at an altitude of nearly 52.9 miles (85.1 km). An earlier prototype of the Virgin Galactic rocket plane crashed during a test flight over California's Mojave Desert in 2014, killing one pilot and seriously injuring another.

Persons: Richard Branson, Joe, Branson, Burt Rutan, Jeff Bezos's, Elon Musk's, Walter Villadei, Angelo Landolfi, Pantaleone, Colin Bennett, Michael Masucci, Nicola Pecile, Bezos, Shepard rocketship, Jose Luis Gonzalez, Steve Gorman, Will Dunham, Nick Zieminski Organizations: Virgin, REUTERS, Virgin Galactic, National Research Council, VSS Unity, America, Galactic, Virgin Galactic Holding Inc, . Virgin, Elon Musk's SpaceX, Italian Air Force, International Space, Air Force, Unity, NASA, U.S . Air Force, Thomson Locations: New Mexico, U.S, Italy, Mexico, Italian, Los Angeles

Virgin Galactic leases part of the facility. The flight marked a long-delayed breakthrough for Virgin Galactic Holding Inc (SPCE.N), finally inaugurating commercial service after nearly 20 years fraught by development setbacks. Virgin Galactic said Unity topped out its flight at an altitude of nearly 52.9 miles (85.1 km). A final crewed test flight to space was conducted with little fanfare five weeks ago. An earlier prototype of the Virgin Galactic rocket plane crashed during a test flight over California's Mojave Desert in 2014, killing one pilot and seriously injuring another.

The flight, dubbed Galactic 01, comes two years after Branson himself rode along with five other Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc (SPCE.N) personnel for the company's first fully crewed test spaceflight of its rocket plane, VSS Unity. Back then, Virgin Galactic officials said they expected to begin regular commercial operations in 2022 following additional test flights. Virgin Galactic had projected booking its first 1,000 paying customers, charging about $250,000 per seat, by the time commercial service opened. An earlier prototype of Virgin Galactic's rocket plane crashed during a test flight over California's Mojave Desert in 2014, killing one pilot and seriously injuring another. Billionaire rival Jeff Bezos, whose astro-tourist venture Blue Origin has already flown several commercial passenger flights, has disparaged Virgin Galactic as falling short of a true spaceflight experience.

Persons: Richard Branson, Joe Skipper, Branson, Walter Villadei, Angelo Landolfi, Pantaleone, Colin Bennett, Michael Masucci, Nicola Pecile, Branson's, Jeff Bezos, Virgin, Shepard rocketship, Jose Luis Gonzalez, Steve Gorman, Will Dunham Organizations: Virgin, Unity, REUTERS, Virgin Galactic, National Research Council, Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc, VSS, Galactic, SpaceX, Origin, Italian Air Force, International Space, Air Force, . Air Force, America, Corporate, NASA, U.S . Air Force, Thomson Locations: New Mexico, U.S, Italy, Mexico, Italian, Branson, Bezos, Los Angeles

☆ 6 years ago, AI startup MindsDB was an open source project that few took seriously. Now it's worth $160 million and on a growth rocketship.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Vishal Persaud | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

MindsDB helps developers apply machine learning to their data to build AI applications. Founded in 2017, the startup began as an AI open source project that some doubted in its early days. But six years ago, MindsDB was just an abstraction and later an open source AI project that few paid attention to. "'You're going to be able to automate the work of a machine learning engineer? "After YC, we became an actual company," Torres said.

Persons: MindsDB, Jorge Torres, he's, Torres, cofound, Adam Carrigan, Aneesh Chopra, Barack Obama, Carrigan, Michael Seibel, Y, Seibel, Luck, There's, It's Organizations: Mayfield Fund, Benchmark, Forbes, Investors, CareJourney, Mayfield Locations: London

REUTERS/Go NakamuraBOCA CHICA, Texas, April 20 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's SpaceX aimed on Thursday to launch the company's next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket for the first time, on a highly anticipated but brief uncrewed test flight from the Gulf Coast of Texas. A successful flight would instantly rank the Starship system as the most powerful launch vehicle on Earth. In February, SpaceX conducted a test-firing of the Super Heavy, igniting 31 of its 33 engines for roughly 10 seconds with the rocket bolted in place vertically atop a platform. The Federal Aviation Administration last Friday granted a license for the first test flight of the fully stacked rocket system, clearing a final regulatory hurdle for the long-awaited launch. After separating from the Starship, the Super Heavy booster is expected to execute the beginnings of a controlled return flight before plunging into the Gulf.

BOCA CHICA, Texas, April 17 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's SpaceX called off the highly anticipated debut launch of its newly-combined Starship cruise vessel and Super Heavy rocket in the final minutes of countdown due to a frozen valve, delaying the uncrewed test flight for at least two days. But the California-based space company announced in a live webcast that it was scrubbing the planned 90-minute flight into space for a minimum of 48 hours, citing a frozen pressurization valve in the lower-stage rocket booster. A successful debut flight would also instantly rank the Starship system as the most powerful launch vehicle on Earth. But neither stage would be recovered for the expendable first test flight to space. After separating from the Starship, the Super Heavy booster is expected to execute the beginnings of a controlled return flight before plunging into the Gulf of Mexico.

REUTERS/Gene BlevinsBOCA CHICA, Texas, April 17 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's SpaceX made final preparations early on Monday to launch its powerful new Starship rocket system to space for the first time, on a brief but highly anticipated uncrewed test flight from the Gulf Coast of Texas. But neither stage will be recovered for the expendable first test flight to space, expected to last no more than 90 minutes. The Federal Aviation Administration just last Friday granted a license for what would be the first test flight of the fully stacked rocket system, clearing a final regulatory hurdle for the long-awaited launch. As designed, the Starship rocket is nearly two times more powerful than NASA's own Space Launch System (SLS), which made its debut uncrewed flight to orbit in November, sending a NASA cruise vessel called Orion on a 10-day voyage around the moon and back. Reporting by Joe Skipper in Boca Chica, Texas, and Joey Roulette in Denver; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Clarence FernandezOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ After driving 25 electric vehicles, these are my 7 favorites
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-01 | by ( Tim Levin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

I've tested 25 electric cars from Tesla, Mercedes, Hyundai, Ford, and more. Picking an absolute favorite is tough, since I've had so many memorable experiences with so many interesting vehicles. Pininfarina BattistaThe Pininfarina Battista. The Battista has four motors (most electric cars have one or two) and cranks out a certifiably bonkers 1,900 horsepower. The Pininfarina Battista.

Companies JPMorgan Chase & Co FollowJan 12 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) on Thursday shut down the website of Frank, a college financial planning platform it acquired in 2021, after suing the startup's founder Charlie Javice and Chief Growth Officer Olivier Amar for creating nearly 4 million fake customer accounts. The largest U.S. bank by assets had paid $175 million for Frank in a bid to deepen its ties with students. The bank said it was led to believe more than 4.25 million students had created accounts on Frank. However, when JPMorgan sent marketing test emails to a list of Frank's customers that the company had provided, only 28% of them were delivered, the bank alleged. JPMorgan said it generally sees a delivery rate of 99% with similar campaigns.

☆ JPMorgan sues the founder of the college financial-planning website it acquired, alleging she falsely inflated its user numbers
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

JPMorgan alleged that college financial-planning website Frank lied about its growth and users. JPMorgan's suit accused Frank's founder Charlie Javice and its former chief growth officer Olivier Amar of being in on a scheme to juice its user numbers. The pair used that list to make the inflated user numbers seem credible. The bank claimed that the startup provided the false user numbers while it was conducting due diligence when looking into acquiring the company. As of Thursday morning, JPMorgan had closed down Frank's website, a representative for the bank confirmed to Insider.

About 90 minutes later, the rocket's upper stage propelled the Orion capsule out of Earth orbit and on its trajectory to the moon, NASA said. And it was quite a sight," Artemis mission manager Mike Sarafin told a post-launch NASA briefing, using words from biblical scripture. LAUNCH PAD HEROICSWednesday's launch was not without its own drama. [1/2] NASA's next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion crew capsule, lifts off from launch complex 39-B on the unmanned Artemis 1 mission to the moon, seen from Sebastian, Florida, U.S. November 16, 2022. It was so bright, so loud, you could feel it," said NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, an Artemis crew candidate.

☆ NASA looks to launch Artemis lunar test flight again on Nov. 14
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Steve Gorman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Oct 12 (Reuters) - NASA has targeted Nov. 14 for a third attempt to launch its big, next-generation rocketship, the U.S. space agency said on Wednesday, after weeks of technical setbacks and foul weather delayed the uncrewed inaugural Artemis mission to the moon. Plans call for rolling the 32-story-tall Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its Orion capsule back out to Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, as early as Friday, Nov. 4 to renew final flight preparations. The newly targeted 69-minute launch window for the Artemis I mission on Nov. 14 opens at 12:07 a.m. EST (0407 GMT), with backup launch opportunities of two hours each set for Nov. 16 and Nov. 19, NASA said. Artemis I, aimed at launching the Orion capsule on an uncrewed test flight to the moon and back, would mark the debut voyage of both the SLS rocket and Orion a half century after the final lunar mission of Apollo, forerunner of the Artemis program. NASA ultimately plans to establish a long-term lunar base of operations as a stepping stone to even more ambitious human voyages to Mars.

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