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May 1 (Reuters) - Longtime Kleiner Perkins partner Wen Hsieh is leaving the Silicon Valley venture capital establishment to start a fund with backing from the firm and Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC (2330.TW), sources told Reuters. Hsieh is in advanced talks to raise $200 million from limited partners including Kleiner Perkins and TSMC for the new fund called Matter Ventures. A Kleiner Perkins spokesperson confirmed Hsieh's departure and the firm's participation in the fund. Hsieh, with two PhDs from the California Institute of Technology, has worked at Kleiner Perkins for 17 years, leading investments in Chinese drone maker DJI and 3D printing company Desktop Medal (DM.N). He will remain on the boards of companies he invested in at Kleiner Perkins, including orthodontic brackets maker LightForce.

☆ Generative AI startup Synthesia in talks with US fund Accel to raise funds in a deal that could value it at around $1 billion, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Generative AI startup Synthesia is in talks to raise funds from US firm Accel, sources say. A deal could value the startup at around $1 billion, according to those familiar with the discussions. It is the latest AI startup to benefit from the immense demand from VCs to invest in the sector. AI startup Synthesia is in talks to raise funds in a deal that could value it at around $1 billion as investor demand for the sector continues to intensify, sources say. Fellow London startup ElevenLabs raised $100 million last month while the likes of Fetch.ai and Iris Audio raised $40 million and $7 million respectively.

☆ Dozens of AI enthusiasts gathered in San Francisco's Cerebral Valley for a summit on Thursday. Here are the top 3 takeaways from the event.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Dozens of AI enthusiasts gathered in SF's Cerebral Valley on Thursday for Eric Newcomer's AI summit. The handful of streets between San Francisco's Fillmore and Mission neighborhoods have been called a variety of names in recent times — Cerebral Valley, Bayes Valley, Hayes Valley — but on a Thursday morning in March, they were the home for dozens of AI enthusiasts, founders, and VCs looking to learn more about the space at independent journalist Eric Newcomer's Cerebral Valley AI Summit. The model to rule them allWith representation from several OpenAI competitors, including Anthropic, Adept, and Stability AI, a common question during panels was how the landscape of AI model providers would shake out. Others, like Stability AI founder and CEO Emad Mostaque, claimed that the question of AI models went beyond performance or cost to issues around transparency and accessibility. The future of codingWith the recent AI boom, a flock of startups have emerged to help developers build AI and non-AI applications.

☆ Venture Capital Investors Are Trying to Take Over Pandemic Response
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +19 min

Private capital has been eyeing public health for years. Several founders and investors told me that the failure of Kleiner's fund made Silicon Valley wary of investing in pandemic preparedness. Venture investors love that kind of thing. Public health and private industryWhen COVID hit, Charity Dean was the assistant director of the California Department of Public Health. In the end, almost every pandemic-related product created by Silicon Valley will ultimately require the government as a primary customer.

☆ More than 110 VC firms, led by General Catalyst, are banding together in support of Silicon Valley Bank
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

More than 110 venture capital firms have signed a statement in support of Silicon Valley Bank. "Silicon Valley Bank has been a trusted and long-time partner to the venture capital industry and our founders," a joint statement from more than 110 firms reads. Hemant Taneja, the CEO of the VC firm General Catalyst, which led the effort to organize support for SVB, tweeted the statement on Friday evening. Alongside General Catalyst, 12 other firms signed the initial statement, including Accel, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Upfront Ventures. Some VC firms, including Founders Fund, Y Combinator, and Union Square Ventures, advised their portfolio companies to pull the bulk of their funds out of the bank.

☆ Inside climate tech's record-breaking year where the energy crisis, new regulation, and a maturing debt market helped European startups raise $17.5 billion
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Climate tech was a clear green shoot in a tumultuous 2022 but there will be a delayed correction. But there has been one green shoot: Climate tech. "We've just gotten started when it comes to climate tech," Emitwise's Cozzi said. Many climate tech companies have raised at high valuations, said Magda Lukaszewicz, principal at Balderton Capital. Energy and infrastructure companies are tipped as winners, while pure software plays may see some consolidation, climate tech investors and founders said.

☆ Wells Fargo faces another setback with $1.7 billion penalty
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

But first, Wells Fargo heads to the penalty box, again. Wells Fargo faces the music. The regulators have once again come knocking at Wells Fargo, and it ain't pretty. Wells Fargo was ordered to pay $2 billion back to customers and pay a $1.7 billion civil penalty by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for illegal activity involving auto loans, mortgages, and deposit accounts that impacted over 16 million accounts. "Wells Fargo is a corporate recidivist," CFPB Director Rohit Chopra told reporters on a call Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal, adding that the settlement "should not be read as a sign that Wells Fargo has moved past its longstanding problems."

☆ Tom Brady's NFT company, Autograph, has laid off dozens of people after severing ties with board member Sam Bankman-Fried
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Tom Brady cofounded Autograph at the height of the NFT sports boom. Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried joined the board of the company last year. Insider has learned the company has laid off dozens of employee and cut ties with Bankman-Fried. Autograph, the buzzy NFT platform cofounded by NFL star Tom Brady, has laid off dozens of staffers after separately severing ties with former board member Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of FTX, Insider has learned. Bankman-Fried joined the board of directors last year several months after Brady and his then wife, Gisele Bundchen, invested in FTX.

☆ Arun Majumdar's mom cooked over a coal stove on the floor, and now he's the first leader of Stanford's new climate school — here is his story
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

Building a successful climate school that both educates people and scales up technological solutions in its accelerator arm requires thinking beyond the bubble of Silicon Valley. Majumdar's understanding of the importance of a global perspective for the climate school is also personally informed. He was also a professor, did research, and worked at Google for a stint before eventually getting the opportunity to lead the launch of the Stanford climate school. The lessons he learned at ARPA-E are helping form the foundation for the accelerator arm at the Stanford climate school. Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability Photo courtesy Cat Clifford, CNBCSo far, the sustainability school at Stanford seems to be popular with students.

☆ The rise of Snowflake created a hole in Salesforce's long-dominant ecosystem, and now startups are rushing in to seize the opportunity
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Matthew Lynley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

A new category called "reverse ETL" is emerging as startups race to fill a gap created by Snowflake. But in recent years, a substantial shift has emerged in the way companies manage their data, dovetailing with the rise of cloud providers like Snowflake and Databricks. How reverse ETL was born to fill a hole that Salesforce left wide openThe notion of a reverse-ETL pipeline isn't necessarily new. The future of reverse ETL might not be where it startedMany investors who did not invest in reverse ETL who spoke with Insider said they were surprised the friction was so large that it was able to support a single company, much less three. "We partner with great tools like Hightouch and Census for reverse ETL to SaaS applications."

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

Former Motorola and Jawbone executive Anand Janefalker founded UJET to transform the customer experience, applying AI and data analytics to a world in which brands are increasingly relying on technology to make omnichannel service faster and more efficient. Instacart, PayPal's Zettle, Wag!, Money Lion, Turo and Atom Tickets are among clients using UJET across voice, digital and in-app platforms. Investors include some of Silicon Valley's elite, such as Kleiner Perkins and GV (formerly Google Ventures). 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.

☆ Startups, Investors Bet on Remote Work Future
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Angus Loten | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

Even as more employers signal an end to remote work, tech startups and their investors are betting that it is here to stay, offering a range of digital tools designed to support a permanent workforce outside of the office. “Investors are super-pumped on remote,” Mr. Salam said. “Remote work is a durable phenomenon,” said Ravi Gupta, a partner at Sequoia who led the firm’s investment in Remote. Mr. Riggs said Frameable currently has hundreds of commercial customers, who rent its software with rates varying by the number of users. “I may be a bit biased, but I absolutely believe remote work is here to stay,” said Remote’s Mr. van der Voort.

☆ Investor Vinod Khosla says focusing on 2030 climate targets is the wrong approach
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Why Khosla thinks short-term goals are a mistakeFocusing on "short term goals will force us to deploy suboptimal technology," Khosla told CNBC. And if it doesn't do that, it's the wrong technology," Khosla told CNBC. Nuclear fusion is one example of the kind of breakthrough technology Khosla considers critical, but which will not be commercialized by 2030. "But I'm not interested in today's geothermal, because it is such a niche — it doesn't scale," Khosla told CNBC. And that's what we need," Khosla said.

☆ Silicon Valley's not-so-secret thing for turning everyone into millionaires is angel investing. Here's how they do it.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Once only for the superrich, angel investing is now open to anyone with a few thousand dollars. With an estimated 360,000 active angel investors, it's become a favorite pastime in Silicon Valley. "It felt like gambling," David Spreng, a veteran venture-debt investor who's been angel investing as a side hustle for more than a decade, said. He wrote his first angel check shortly thereafter, a $1,000 investment in an electric-aircraft maker. The currency of Silicon Valley"Your currency, for lack of a better term, in Silicon Valley is you either started a company or you angel invest, right?"

☆ Meet Dylan Field, the 30-year-old college dropout who built Figma, one of Silicon Valley's most beloved companies, and is set to become a billionaire when it sells for $20 billion to Adobe
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Paayal Zaveri | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Adobe's $20 billion bid to buy Figma makes CEO Dylan Field's stake worth $2 billion. When the design-software startup Figma was just starting out, Dylan Field, its cofounder and CEO, and his colleagues would pitch prospective customers' design teams, but they struggled with one major problem. While customers were excited about Figma's product, they hesitated to switch from existing tools. Now, Adobe's $20 billion bid to buy Figma makes Field's stake in the company worth $2 billion. Field's rise to successEvan Wallace and Dylan Field are the cofounders of Figma.

☆ Meet Dylan Field, the 30-year-old college dropout who built Figma, one of Silicon Valley's most beloved companies, and then will become a billionaire when it sells for $20 billion to Adobe
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Paayal Zaveri | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

When design-software startup Figma had just started out, cofounder and CEO Dylan Field and his colleagues would pitch potential customers' design teams, but they struggled with one major problem. While customers were excited about Figma's product, they hesitated to switch from existing tools. Now, Adobe's $20 billion bid to buy the design software startup makes Field's stake in the company worth $2 billion. Field's rise to successEvan Wallace and Dylan Field are the cofounders of Figma. After taking time off to do a product design internship at news-sharing service Flipboard, he decided not to return to school.

☆ The quiet success of Tecton, a $900 million startup, has turned rivals Snowflake and Databricks into co-investors — and fanned a fierce debate over the future of AI
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Matthew Lynley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Tecton, which specializes in a technology called feature stores, was a more divisive subject among industry insiders. Both Databricks and Snowflake have invested heavily in real-time data pipelines, including in Tecton's latest funding round. But it was hardly alone among machine-learning startups in commanding a high valuation with nominal revenue. Many investors wondered whether Tecton's feature stores were "a feature, not a product," as Steve Jobs famously called Dropbox. That skepticism remains, and some insiders expect a roll-up of overvalued machine-learning startups that attack one piece of the workflow, including Tecton.

☆ Adobe's $20 billion deal to buy Figma is one of the biggest ever for a venture-backed startup. Early VC investors like Index Ventures, Greylock, and Kleiner Perkins stand to win big.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-15 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Adobe is buying the design-software startup Figma for $20 billion. Its early backers, including Index Ventures and Greylock, are likely to see big returns as a result. In a sleepy period for initial public offerings and blockbuster acquisitions, Adobe's $20 billion deal to acquire the design-software company Figma stands out. The acquisition is likely to be a sweet deal for early investors such as Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures, and Greylock Partners. And now, Adobe is paying $20 billion, a combination of cash and stock, which is twice Figma's last known valuation.

☆ Upcoming live events at Insider
▼ + stars: | 2022-01-19 | by ( Business Insider | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Below is a list of our upcoming in-person and virtual events, including exclusive fireside chats, compelling panels, and reporter Q&As. Featured Events for Sustainability & Climate ActionInsider Introducing the Optimist's Destination for Climate ActionApril 10, 2023 | 3 PM ETDetails to come! InsiderFor a Better Future: Bridging Culture, Business, and ClimatePresented by DeloitteApril 25, 2023 | 12 PM ETDetails to come! Panelists from Tinuiti, Jungle Scout, Bobsled Marketing, and Cure Hydration will discuss what this trend means — watch hereHow advertisers can navigate the death of the third-party cookie. To submit a potential speaker for an upcoming event, please complete this form.

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