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☆ VCs are 'hedging their bets,' backing competing LLMs like Anthropic and OpenAI, breaking a long-standing venture taboo
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-26 | by ( Ben Bergman | Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Venture firms are increasingly investing in competing LLM startups like OpenAI and xAI. Some VCs argue investing in multiple LLMs is strategic, while others see it as unethical. AdvertisementWhen venture firms pull out their checkbooks, there has traditionally been an unspoken rule: Do not back a competitor. Sound Ventures and Wisdom Ventures backed both OpenAI and Anthropic. There is also the matter of money, with only a handful of firms capable of writing the colossal checks required to fund LLM companies.

Persons: VCs, —, Joe Aaron, — Sheel, Andreessen Horowitz, Elon Musk's XAI, Ilya Sutskever, Umesh Padval, Padval, Anthropic, OpenAI, Gregg Hill, they've Organizations: Service, Sequoia Capital, Fidelity, Ark Invest, Sound Ventures, Wisdom Ventures, Thomvest Ventures, Parkway Venture, Madrona Ventures, NASDAQ Locations: OpenAI, Canadian

☆ AI startups should brace for a wave of down rounds, investors say. Here's how it might play out.
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-24 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Read previewDown rounds and flat rounds for VC-backed startups have hit an all-time high this year since 2014. And AI startups, which have been the darlings of the tech ecosystem since late 2022, aren't exempt from the trend. The deal was seen by some investors as an omen for a wider phenomenon in the AI ecosystem — an impending wave of flat rounds and down rounds. "Investors went crazy for AI startups with zero revenue, at higher valuations, which will be an issue," said Umesh Padval, managing director at Thomvest Ventures. Down rounds are on the riseIn 2022, 90.2% of AI startups in the US raised up rounds, while 6.5% raised down rounds, according to PitchBook data.

Persons: —, we've, Andreas Riegler, Umesh Padval, Padval, Francesco Ricciuti Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Business, Big Tech, APEX Ventures, Jasper, Google, Thomvest Ventures, Runa Locations: London

For Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, being almost the only game in town for AI chips isn't enough. AdvertisementThe company also runs Nvidia Inception, an incubator and venture network that counts more than 20,000 early-stage companies among its membership. "I think it's crazy," said another founder whose company received investment from NVentures, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Any company trying to do anything major in AI has spent the past two years buying them by the truckload. AdvertisementHe says he's received personal calls from Huang in which the Nvidia CEO weighs in on company decisions or expresses disapproval of his public statements.

Persons: Jensen Huang, Chris Brown, Brown, Huang, Vishal Bhagwati, Sid Siddeek, Jensen, Umesh, Padval, Uber, Nvidia's, Lisa Su, he's, there's Organizations: Service, Nvidia, Business, Corporate, Cohere's, Google, AMD Locations: Silicon Valley, New York, NVentures, OpenAI

☆ Nvidia's moat will be tested by a potential AI chip IPO
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-26 | by ( Emma Cosgrove | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Cerebras Systems, a startup trying to challenge Nvidia on the AI chip battlefield, is reportedly headed for an IPO toward the end of 2024. This is one of the primary elements holding back even some AWS customers from using Amazon's AI chips. But, most AI developers must go through gnarly work to change their software if they want to change their hardware. His startup Vimaan is building tech for a future "dark warehouse" that requires no humans to operate. Advertisement"Am I gonna take a chance to switch out a whole infrastructure that we've built on the Nvidia platform?"

Persons: —, Lior Susan, Susan, CUDA, Thomvest, they're, He's, Padval, Jensen Huang, Thomas Sohmers, Ganapathi, Vimaan, Pavdal Organizations: Service, Cerebras Systems, Nvidia, Eclipse Ventures, Business, CUDA, NVIDIA CUDA, AMD, Qualcomm, Google, Intel, UXL Foundation, Amazon's Industrial Innovation Fund Locations: CUDA

☆ Meta's unique approach to developing AI puzzles Wall Street, but techies love it
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-16 | by ( Jonathan Vanian | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +18 min

If the world's leading AI researchers use Llama, Meta could have an easier time hiring skilled technologists who understand the company's approach to development. Spisak helped oversee PyTorch and other open source AI projects when he worked at Meta from 2018 until January 2023. Although a number of open source LLMs are available, Lambert said Llama 2 is by far the most popular. "Facebook was not and that's sort of how they move forward and democratizing this, giving sort of broad access to open source. However, open source doesn't always win, and Padval acknowledged that "in this case, I don't know how it's going to evolve."

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, Josh Edelson, Mark Zuckerberg's multibillion, Joseph Spisak, that's, Zuckerberg, Meta, Andrew Bosworth, Yann LeCun, isn't, Susan Li, Spisak, Cai GoGwilt, GoGwilt, OpenAI's, Ahmad Al, Dahle, he's, Jim Fan, Arjun Bansal, Jensen Huang, Nathan Lambert, Lambert, Critics, Umesh Padval, " Lambert, Nvidia's, Fan, Meta's, Taka Ariga, Ariga, Claude, Elon Musk, Tesla, Nur Hamdan, OpenAI's GPT, Sam Altman, Guido Appenzeller, Thomvest's Padval, Padval Organizations: Meta, AFP, Getty, Microsoft, Industry, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Facebook, Twitter, Finance, Google, AI Research, FAIR, Apple, Nvidia, Web Services, Thomvest Ventures, TC Cowen, United, United Arab Emirates, U.S, Government, AWS, Bloomberg, Amazon, VMware, Intel, Red Hat Locations: Menlo Park , California, Taiwan, United Arab, Washington, Elon, Hamadan, Seoul, South Korea

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