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☆ 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

☆ 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

☆ 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

☆ 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

☆ Orchid tests embryos for genetic diseases. It just raised $12 million with this 11-slide pitch deck.
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-05 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Orchid, a startup that tests embryos for genetic diseases, has just raised $12 million. "The way that IVF and embryo screening works today is the amount of information available is really limited," Orchid CEO and cofounder Noor Siddiqui said. Genetic testing has been around for years, but it has been usually limited in the diseases it can identify, which include cystic fibrosis, Bloomberg reported. Orchid produces reports with two types of genetic testing: monogenic and polygenic. The cost of the test depends on the number of embryos that Orchid tests.

Persons: Noor Siddiqui, Siddiqui, Orchid, Dylan, Anne Wojcicki, Fidji Simo, Peter Kraft Organizations: Business, Bloomberg, Prometheus Fund, Starbloom Capital, One Ventures, Los Angeles Times Locations: San Francisco, Pebblebed

☆ Layla uses short-form videos to help tourists plan their trips. It just raised $3 million with this 8-slide pitch deck.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Layla has raised $3 million from the cofounders of Booking.com and Skyscanner. The Berlin-based startup uses AI and short-form videos to help people find and organize holidays. Check out the 8-slide pitch deck used to close the round also backed by Paris Hilton. A startup that uses short-form video and AI to help users find and book holidays has raised a $3 million seed round. The startup's goal is to create a platform for users to find their next holiday destination, and plan their trip itinerary.

Persons: Layla, Paris Hilton, Jeremy Jauncey, Saad Saeed Organizations: Paris, Business Locations: Berlin

☆ Cradle uses generative AI to design proteins more efficiently. See the 17-slide deck it used to secure $24 million from Index Ventures.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-28 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Biotech startup Cradle, which uses AI to design proteins, emerged from stealth last year. The Dutch startup has now secured $24 million from Index Ventures. See the 17-slide pitch deck and messaging used to raise the fresh funding. Cradle, a startup that uses generative AI to help design proteins more efficiently, just raised a $24 million Series A from Index Ventures. It has also trained its generative AI models on proprietary data generated in its wet lab, as well as billions of protein sequences.

Organizations: Biotech, Ventures, Index Ventures, Business

☆ Sam Altman enters his power era
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-25 | by ( Michael Cogley | Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

A failed coup at OpenAI saw Sam Altman return as CEO and stronger than ever. The botched coup of OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has seemingly reinforced his power. Even more astonishingly, Altman lacks the one obvious lever of power that keeps founder-CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg in power: controlling shares in his company. "He's really, really, really good at both being understood, but also understanding and asking thoughtful questions." They acted in their best interest," one OpenAI staffer posted on Blind, a social network site where employees can post anonymously.

Persons: Sam Altman, Altman, —, Mark Zuckerberg, Eduard Cristea, — Mira Murati, Satya Nadella, Greg Brockman, Vinod Khosla, Dan Siroker, Paul Graham, Holofy's, Cristea, Sam, OpenAI, would've, Altman OpenAI, Ilya Sutskever, we've, — Ilya Sutskever, Sutskever, Ilya, we'd, it's Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Stanford, New York Times Locations: OpenAI, Silicon Valley, Silicon

☆ 'The gorilla is gone for the moment': OpenAI's rivals see ways to profit from a Silicon Valley drama
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

An in-demand talent pool"Many previously poorly understood secrets will be more widely disseminated across the ecosystem," one European AI founder who spoke on the condition of anonymity said. But European competitors can still benefit from OpenAI's implosion. The startup had been on an uninterrupted run for the past year, said EarlyBird VC partner and Aleph Alpha investor Andre Retterath. The turmoil at OpenAI has also galvanized both AI founders and investors in Europe. The company's top expenditure, besides employee salaries, is manually cleaning and sourcing the data they use to train their models, a European VC said.

Persons: Sam Altman, unseats, Nathan Benaich, Altman, Marc Benioff, Salesforce, Silvio Savarese, Einstein, 1RXoc9ekeo, Benaich, Alpha, EarlyBird, Andre Retterath, Retterath, Mariam Pettit, they've, OpenAI, Andrew Scott, 7percent, David Grimm, Grimm, Rebecca Gorman Organizations: Air Street Capital, Business, Aleph Alpha, Microsoft, Google, Alpha, Global Founders Capital, Albion Locations: Europe, OpenAI

☆ Check out the pitch decks AI startups Viso, Weav.ai, Dashtoon, and Frenetic used to raise a collective $31.2 million
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-15 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Four AI startups in the form of Weav.AI, Dashtoon, Frenetic, and Viso recently raised a combined $31.2 million in early-stage funding. All four startups, working in sectors ranging from computer vision to AI-driven illustration, shared their pitch decks with Insider. Viso raises round led by Spotify-backer AccelIn October, Swiss startup Viso secured $9.2 million from venture capital giant Accel. Developing computer vision applications is a timely and complex task, and scaling this technology usually "requires significant infrastructure," the startup said. Its platform allows clients — from construction companies to logistics enterprises and city councils — to manage and deploy these computer vision tools from one workspace.

Persons: Viso, DeepMind's Mehdi Ghissassi, Gaudenz Boesch, Slack, Mehdi Ghissassi, Mihai Faur Organizations: Accel, Sierra Ventures, Business, Spotify Locations: Swiss, —

☆ Voice cloning AI startup ElevenLabs was worth $100 million five months ago. Now, sources say it's about to hit $1 billion.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-08 | by ( Callum Burroughs | Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

ElevenLabs, a generative AI startup focused on voice, is in talks to raise capital in a deal that would catapult its valuation to $1 billion. It is unclear as yet whether Sequoia would invest alongside Andreessen Horowitz or if they are competing with one another. Five months on, the prospective new round will increase that valuation 10 times over to $1 billion, three sources said. ElevenLabs and Andreessen Horowitz did not respond to a request for comment. Bruce Reed, President Biden's AI chief, said that voice cloning "keeps me up at night," in an interview with Politico.

Persons: Andreessen Horowitz, Joe Rogan, Emma Watson, Gizmodo, ElevenLabs, Sequoia, OpenAI's ChatGPT, FOMO, Mati Staniszewski, Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, Eric Adams, Adams, Bruce Reed, Biden's, Meta Organizations: Google, VC, Sequoia, Meta, Britain's Companies, Concept Ventures, New York City, White, Politico Locations: London, New York

☆ Here's what Britain's venture capital limited partners are backing: men
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-07 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The institutional investors plying Britain's venture capital sector with cash have a penchant for backing funds owned entirely by men. All-male-owned firms raised 10 times more capital than funds owned by their female counterparts between 2017 and 2023, according to a report by impact fund Ada Ventures. A similar disparity was found among mixed-gender funds, which raised almost five times less than the male-owned funds. Those firms raised around 6.6 billion pounds during that period. Venture capital's diversity issues are well documented but there has been a slew of women leaving the industry this year.

Persons: VCs, Ekaterina Alamasque, Warner, Alamasque Organizations: Ada Ventures, Diversity, Google, Venture, Partners, Women

☆ Polimorphic uses AI to cut down on admin faced by local governments. Check out the 16-slide deck it used to raise $5.6 million.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-06 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Polimorphic, a startup using AI to help improve governmental workflows, has raised $5.6 million from early-stage fund M13. "A lot of services require you to either come in person or mail in PDFs or checks. "We're really focused on helping make that customer service easier, more efficient, but then also magical for constituents," he said. "So when you think about the opportunities AI provides, is the opportunity for governments to be able to provide critical services," he said. Check out the 16-slide pitch deck used to secure the fresh funding.

Persons: it's, Parth Shah, Shah, Latif Peracha, Polimorphic Organizations: Shine Locations: New York

☆ OpenAI just taught little-guy developers an ugly lesson
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-03 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

One founder building ChatGPT add-ons says he's "bracing" for other changes from OpenAI. Little-guy developers building complementary services to OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot have just found this out the hard way. As several techies noticed, that's pretty much killed off a bunch of startups that build "ChatGPT wrapper" apps that did precisely that. Other wrapper apps can create ad copy, sales materials, and social media posts. As one anonymous venture capitalist, who has backed a ChatGPT wrapper startup put it to Insider: "Just wait until ChatGPT has an outage and see which emperors have no clothes."

Persons: —, Sam Altman, Kevin Dietsch, Dominik Lohle, Joel Liu, Liu, Claude, Damon Chen, PDF.ai, h9KnROaWtI — Damon Chen, Nvidia's, Jin Fan, ChatGPT Organizations: Service, Google, Boston, Microsoft

☆ 'Bracing for the impact': Founders who built on ChatGPT find out the hard way Big Tech can torpedo their work
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-03 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Mistral, a tiny AI startup that aims to be Europe's answer to OpenAI, is in discussions to raise a major round of funding that could push its valuation above $2 billion. Its cofounders are in talks with venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz to raise further funds, seven sources familiar with proceedings told Insider. Mistral is set to raise around $400 million at a valuation of at least $2 billion, which could rise to as high as $2.5 billion, three sources said. The deal is not yet finalized and the round size, valuation figures, and participants could still change. Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Mistral, Abstract Ventures, and Bezos Expeditions did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

Persons: Andreessen Horowitz, Catalyst, Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample, Timothée Lacroix, Jeff Bezos, Xavier Niel Organizations: Mistral, Meta, DeepMind, Bezos Expeditions, Amazon, Catalyst, Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners Locations: Paris

☆ This Yahoo spinout uses AI to help companies store and search data instantly. Check out the 12-slide pitch deck Vespa.ai used to raise $31 million.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-01 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Vespa.ai, a startup that spun out of Yahoo last month, has raised $31 million in Series A funding from Blossom Capital. The Norway-based startup has created an AI-powered platform that gives companies access to its search engine and vector database. A key problem that many companies face is having the infrastructure to store extensive amounts of data, and accessing it efficiently. The startup's cloud service and search platform can tap into this data in real time, giving companies responses or decisions almost immediately after a query has been put in. With the cash injection, the startup will ramp up its engineering functions, as well as its cloud services.

Persons: Jon Bratseth, We've Organizations: Yahoo, Blossom Capital, Fortune, Spotify Locations: Norway, London, Blossom

☆ How generative AI's uncomfortable relationship with copyright law will determine the future of the industry
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-01 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Rights holders argue that AI using their work without a license should be considered "unauthorized derivative work" — an infringement of copyright law. Meanwhile, AI startups insist that their models comply with fair-use doctrine, which grants them some leeway to others' works. This month, Universal Music Group sued the AI startup Athropic for circulating copyrighted lyrics. He believes that future regulations may explicitly forbid AI data scraping. "They can train models on data that's not universally available to customers, and tell them it's licensed and compliant."

Persons: Eva Toorenent, who's, that's, Simon Menashy, Menashy, Ekaterina Almasque, OpenOcean Almasque, Getty, Sunny Dhillon, Harvey, Horowitz, Andre Retterath, GDPR, CCPA, Taylor, Swift Organizations: Universal Music Group, Getty, Harvard Business, MMC Ventures, Kyber Knight Capital, Nvidia, Earlybird Venture Locations: what's, Europe

☆ 'They're not reaching out to us': How the Israel-Hamas war demolished Gaza's struggling tech economy
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-31 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Palestinian tech workers in the Gaza Strip and West Bank are struggling to operate in the crossfire. AdvertisementAdvertisementPalestinian tech workers have comparatively fewer resources (namely internet connectivity and cash) at their disposal and tend to be reliant on outsourced work. This affects remote workers, freelancers, tech workers, and students who "won't be able to pursue their duties," Shtaya added. It was already difficult to import hardware and other equipment, the West Bank consultant said. Nvidia hired 100 engineers in the West Bank, and Apple also has a presence, TechCrunch reported.

Persons: —, Ryan Sturgill, TechCrunch, Avi Hasson, Israel, Mona Shtaya, Shtaya, PayPal doesn't Organizations: Hamas, West Bank, Service, Aqsa University, Google, Microsoft, TechCrunch, Mercy Corps, Israel Innovation Authority, Nation Central, Gaza Health Ministry, Gaza, Institute, Middle East, Bank, Israel, Wired, PayPal, Tech, Nvidia, Apple Locations: Gaza, Palestinian, Al, Israel, Hamas, Egypt, Europe, Persian

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

☆ GoStudent, the $3 billion edtech darling, scaled fast and partied hard. The result was a mess.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-24 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +23 min

These people were employees of GoStudent, an Austria-based online-tutoring startup that had quickly become the darling of the European tech scene. But 28 current and former GoStudent employees and tutors said they experienced a poorly run organization with clumsy management. Edtech companies "rarely have any major competitive advantage other than scale," a European venture capitalist who's not affiliated with GoStudent said. A GoStudent employee threatened to track down the petition's author using tutors' IP addresses, according to the German publication Handelsblatt. According to public documents updated in December 2022, GoStudent had shrunk to 15 markets and 1,500 employees, including its acquisitions.

Persons: Felix Ohswald, Gregor Müller, GoStudent, who'd, I'm, Heinz, Peter Meidinger, cofounders, Ferdinand von Hagen, Prada, GoStudent's, Dave Benett, Müller, —, Ohswald, Anthony Canavan, Canavan, Brutkasten, Norbert Wess, Harry Murphy, Duncan McIntyre, McIntyre, Neel Gupta, Anna Tuchy, Patrick Nadler, Nadler, Sarah Heuberger, Ross Slater Organizations: German Teachers ' Association, Employees, GoStudent, Conseil, prud'hommes, DBS, Safety Officers, Web, Getty, JP Morgan, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, TechCrunch, Organisation for Economic Cooperation Locations: Vienna, Austria, Silicon Valley, North America, South America, Europe, London, France, Soho , London, Dock, DACH, Germany, Switzerland, Spanish, Sweden, Swedish, GoStudent, Ukraine, Ibiza, GoStudent's, Deliveroo

☆ HealthCaters enables people to screen themselves at home for preventable diseases. Check out the 14-slide pitch deck it used to raise $1.2 million.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-19 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A startup that offers personalized health screenings for individuals and employees has just raised $1.2 million in fresh funds. Berlin-based HealthCaters, which was founded three years ago, has developed a home-testing kit so that users can screen themselves for preventable diseases. The startup's app, which is also powered by AI, then suggests personalized health guidelines based on the results of these screenings. Based on these results, medical coaches at the startup create an individual health plan for patients. With the fresh funding, HealthCaters will double down on its business-to-business offerings, and eye a launch in the UK market.

Persons: Tatyana Eliseeva, aren't, Daniel Ek, Dr, Lilia Kruse, HealthCaters Organizations: IBM, DvH Ventures Locations: Berlin, HealthCaters, Germany, Europe

☆ Aindo uses generative AI to develop synthetic data. Check out the 13-slide pitch deck used to secured $6 million.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-18 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A startup that uses generative AI to create synthetic data has just nabbed $6 million in Series A funding from United Ventures. Italian startup Aindo, which launched in 2018, has developed and patented a technology which can generate artificial data, which mimics the characteristics and patterns of the original dataset. This can then be used to train AI models across a range of industries. IBy 2024, 60% of the data used for AI will be synthetic, according to estimates from Gartner. Europe's data protection laws also mean that acquiring certain data points – such as medical records or patient details — is difficult.

Persons: Daniele Panfilo, Panfilo, Aindo's, Aindo Organizations: United Ventures, Gartner

☆ A lot of 2023's new unicorns have been generative AI startups. Here's what to expect from the sector next year, according to Accel.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-17 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Generative AI startups have made up a lot of the world's new unicorns this year. High-profile investors have jostled to back, in some cases, weeks-old startups like Mistral as the hype around generative AI intensified. Both regions also tout a batch of promising unicorns across the generative AI stack. Generative AI will become a run-of-the-mill tool"Generative AI will unlock new verticalised applications built with smaller and dedicated models and industry-specific workflows," the Accel report said. Enterprises will also jump to incorporate generative AI more seamlessly into their automation tools, per the report.

Persons: —, Phillipe Botteri, Harvey Organizations: Venture, Mistral, US, Accel Partners, Runway, Accel, EU, Stanford University, Enterprises, Big Tech, Microsoft Locations: Europe, Israel, Jasper, France, EU

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