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“VCs think this is the new internet,” a generative AI founder in the United States told Reuters. While the closure of Silicon Valley Bank may hamper debt financing, venture capitalists said interest in funding AI startups remains high, especially for top early-stage founders. Investors sense opportunity, even for a sale if not an initial public offering; some are betting that AI startups might outpace bigger rivals, encumbered by their size. You.com, a search engine company founded in 2020 and backed by Salesforce’s CEO Marc Benioff, has found new life from incorporating generative AI technology. It has attracted more attention from users and investors, handling millions of searches per day, the company told Reuters.

☆ Keith Rabois says Shopify brands have 'a lot of room' to grow, and his startup, OpenStore, just launched a new product to help with that
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Madeline Stone | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Keith Rabois' startup, OpenStore, is launching a new service for Shopify merchants. Keith Rabois founded OpenStore in 2021 with the idea of scooping up Shopify stores and using economies of scale to supercharge their sales. OpenStore has acquired more than 40 Shopify stores so far, says Rabois, a venture capitalist who placed early bets on DoorDash, Affirm, Stripe, and Faire. That makes OpenStore the largest owner and operator of Shopify brands in the world, he told Insider in a recent interview. However, there's "a lot of room" to grow Shopify brands, he added.

☆ AI love: What happens when your chatbot stops loving you back
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-18 | by ( Anna Tong | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +9 min

He designed a female avatar with pink hair and a face tattoo, and she named herself Lily Rose. As their three-year digital love affair blossomed, Butterworth said he and Lily Rose often engaged in role play. Sometimes Lily Rose sent him "selfies" of her nearly nude body in provocative poses. Now, when Replika users suggest X-rated activity, its humanlike chatbots text back "Let's do something we're both comfortable with." The coquettish-turned-cold persona of Lily Rose is the handiwork of generative AI technology, which relies on algorithms to create text and images.

☆ Khosla Ventures founder encouraging everyone to put money back into Silicon Valley Bank
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

In this videoShare Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailKhosla Ventures founder encouraging everyone to put money back into Silicon Valley BankVinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures founder, joins 'Closing Bell: Overtime' to discuss Silicon Valley Bank and why he's encouraging people to put money there.

Friday's dramatic failure of the bank, which focuses on tech startups, was the biggest since the 2008 financial crisis. Even small startups are getting in on the action to help others. Aleem Mawani, founder of Streak, a company with about 30 employees, tweeted Friday he would lend his personal cash free of any terms to other small startups worried about paying staff. Some, including Lowercarbon Capital, have offered loans to portfolio companies that have funds stuck at SVB. Gurson estimated "conservatively" that Altman has given more than $1 million to support other startups in similar need.

☆ 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.

☆ Brain implant startup backed by Bezos and Gates is testing mind-controlled computing on humans
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Philip O'Keefe, one of Synchron's patients in the SWITCH clinical trial, using his BCI. Philip O'Keefe, one of Synchron's patients in the SWITCH clinical trial, was the first person in the world to tweet using a BCI device. About 20 months earlier, O'Keefe was implanted with Synchron's BCI. Synchron's technology has caught the attention of its competitors. Source: SynchronIn January, the medical journal JAMA Neurology published the peer-reviewed, long-term safety results from a trial of Synchron's BCI system in Australia.

☆ Returns from top venture firms NEA, DCM, and Khosla have been dismal over the past 2 decades, according to filings from California's largest pension fund, CalPERS
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

CalPERS is the US's largest public pension plan, managing the retirement accounts of 1.5 million California employees and retirees. Unlike many other financial institutions, VC funds are not required to show their return on investment in startups. The CalPERS fund's $75 million bet in 2001 on a venture fund managed by the Carlyle Group lost money. A $25 million investment in DCM's 2000 fund had a 1.9% IRR. Its $260 million investment in two Khosla Ventures funds in 2009 yielded an IRR of 11.8% for the early-to-midstage fund and 6.9% for the seed-stage fund.

☆ Google vs. Microsoft: early ChatGPT investor sees a 2-horse AI race for 'the most critical technology for the planet'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Brian Evans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

"AI technology is probably the most critical technology for the planet in the next 20 years," VC investor Vinod Khosla said. "AI technology is probably the most critical technology for the planet in the next 20 years," Khosla told CNBC on Wednesday. He also noted that the generative AI technology behind so-called chatbots like ChatGPT and Google's Bard will recast search engines into "answer engines." Similarly, Bank of America said that while Microsoft emerged as the winner this week in AI, Google has several key long-term advantages. "One will have nimble OpenAI.

☆ Here's an exclusive look at the 20-slide pitch deck generative AI startup Regie.ai used to raise $6 million from OpenAI-backer Khosla Ventures
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Regie.ai is a generative AI startup that automates content creation and management for sales teams. Check out the 20-slide deck that landed Regie $6 million in Series A funding from Khosla Ventures. Together, the two founded Regie.ai, a generative AI startup that automates content creation and management for sales teams. Regie signed its term sheet with Khosla Ventures in October 2022, as excitement around generative AI started to pick up, Sridhar said. Here's an exclusive look at the 20-slide pitch deck Regie.ai used to raise $6 million in Series A funding from Open-AI backer Khosla Ventures:

☆ Watch CNBC's full interview with Khosla Ventures' Vinod Khosla
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailWatch CNBC's full interview with Khosla Ventures' Vinod KhoslaCNBC's Steve Kovach talks to Vinod Khosla, founder and managing partner of Khosla Ventures, on 'TechCheck' to discuss his thoughts on Microsoft, Google and the artificial intelligence space.

☆ The progress on A.I. is far beyond what I expected, says Vinod Khosla
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

In this videoShare Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailThe progress on A.I. is far beyond what I expected, says Vinod KhoslaCNBC's Steve Kovach talks to Vinod Khosla, founder and managing partner of Khosla Ventures, on 'TechCheck' to discuss his thoughts on Microsoft, Google and the artificial intelligence space.

☆ How Moonhub, an AI recruiting platform, raised $4.4 million from OpenAI-backer Khosla Ventures and Google Ventures without a pitch deck
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Moonhub is an AI startup aiming to make the recruiting process more automated and less biased. The company scrapes billions of public data points and makes them easily searchable for recruiters. The startup recently raised $4.4 million in seed funding from Khosla Ventures and Google Ventures. OpenAI-backer Khosla Ventures and Google Ventures were equally enthusiastic about Moonhub's mission, recently providing the startup with $4.4 million in seed funding. Luckily, she was able to leverage her network to raise the round in less than two weeks, she said.

☆ ChatGPT introduced AI to the masses and it's already affecting us
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Magdalena Petrova | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

ChatGPT is part of a growing field of AI known as generative AI. Funding for generative AI companies reached $1.37 billion in 2022 alone, according to Pitchbook. "Generative AI is very different. But generative AI still faces a number of challenges, including developing content that is inaccurate, biased or inappropriate. Watch the video to learn more about how generative AI like ChatGPT works and what the technology may mean for businesses and society as a whole.

☆ The electric-car industry is set for a pivotal year. Here are 6 VCs' top predictions for 2023, from new trends to investment opportunities.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Alexa St. John | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

2023 is set to bring even more momentum to the electric-car industry than 2022 did. Even with challenges — and some executives' losing faith in the EV biz — the industry can't turn back on its ambitions. Robert Knopes/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesCharging, charging, chargingHistorically, charging hasn't been a money-making venture. Alexei Andreev, a managing director at AutoTech Ventures, said a shakeout could come in the battery industry, where hundreds of startups are racing to compete with giants. The autonomous-vehicle industry took several hits in 2022, but General Motors is still optimistic about Cruise.

☆ Silicon Valley is coming for your gut biome
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

SAN FRANCISCO — Cryptocurrency hasn’t worked out so well for tech investors. As a consumer product, supplements are associated more with the Kardashians or Joe Rogan than with Silicon Valley. Roelof Botha, the managing partner of Sequoia Capital, one of the largest venture capital firms in the world, is among those buying in. He said there’s a “societal reawakening” about the complex biome of the human gut where hundreds of species of bacteria live. She co-wrote a review of the science this year, and said future probiotic supplements have promise compared to supplements that have been available for decades.

☆ Morgan Stanley weighs in on the ChatGPT obession and the risk to Google's search business
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Samantha Subin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Google and search go together like Kleenex and tissues, Band-Aid and bandages and Crock-Pots and slow cookers. In other words, Google's brand is so connected to search that people talk about googling for information they need, even if they use an alternative search engine. ChatGPT may pose an emerging threat to the artificial intelligence industry, but Google's sheer scale, size, and dominance in the search business positions it well for battle, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak. In the long run, however, don't be surprised if ChatGPT, or other AI competitiors, impact consumer behavior patterns around travel search, he added. "While we believe the near-term risk is limited – we believe the use case of search (and paid search) is different than AI-driven content creation – we are not dismissive of threats from new, unique consumer offerings," Nowak wrote.

☆ Why tech insiders are so excited about ChatGPT, a chatbot that answers questions and writes essays
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Jonathan Vanian | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Lately, Zwingmann has been generating lecture notes using ChatGPT, a new chatbot that's quickly become the latest fad in tech. ChatGPT automatically generates text based on written prompts in a fashion that's much more advanced and creative than the chatbots of Silicon Valley's past. Five days after OpenAI released ChatGPT, Altman said that the chat research tool "crossed 1 million users!" ChatGPT is essentially a variant of OpenAI's popular GPT-3.5 language-generation software that's been designed to carry conversations with people. While ChatGPT is free, OpenAI sells access to its underlying language and related AI models for businesses to use.

☆ 100-hour workweeks and a bit of luck: How a 25-year-old CEO raised $50 million for his new drug discovery startup
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Andrew Dunn | Sarah Braner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

In June, Charm said it raised $50 million, valuing the firm at $100 million to $150 million. Charm has raised $50 million from top investorsDemis Hassabis, the CEO and a cofounder of DeepMind Technologies. In the spring, Aithani raised the $37 million million round that was announced in June, with investors like Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst joining OrbiMed and F-Prime Capital. The raise values Charm at between $100 million and $150 million, Aithani said, and brings the company's total funding to $50 million. This article was corrected on August 19 to show that Charm has raised two rounds of funding totaling $50 million.

☆ A 'magic' new AI tech has become the hottest thing in Silicon Valley, VCs said. Here's why everyone's watching 'generative artificial intelligence.'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The field of generative AI, or AI that can create content, has recently exploded in popularity. Generative AI's rise to popularitySimply put, generative AI refers to artificial intelligence that can create content. Tech advancements over the past few years — specifically transformer and diffusion models — have made generative AI possible. AI models refer to the training and deployment of algorithms on a dataset. "I don't see generative AI today through its early use cases demanding any of those budgets quite yet."

☆ 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.

☆ Billionaire investor Vinod Khosla lays out why changing how primary care is paid for could disrupt healthcare
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Sarah Braner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

On Thursday, the billionaire investor Vinod Khosla spoke about reducing costs in healthcare. Vinod Khosla thinks the best way to disrupt healthcare is to change how it's paid for at the primary-care level. The billionaire investor and founder of Khosla Ventures said he thought that in the next decade, primary care should cost as little as $1 to $5 per visit. "If you change the definition of primary care from what is today's primary care, or urgent care mostly, to a much-broader definition where your hypertension is managed in primary care, where your diabetes is managed in primary care, you will see that take over and affect the core total cost of care downstream," he said. For instance, a company like Oak Street Health can operate primary care at a loss because it makes money if its patients stay healthy.

☆ Venture capitalists are cashing in on clean tech, says VC Vinod Khosla
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailVenture capitalists are cashing in on clean tech, says VC Vinod KhoslaVinod Khosla, founder and managing partner of Khosla Ventures, joins 'Power Lunch' to discuss venture capital investment interest in clean technology, funds being allocated towards the housing market, and the market demand for fusion energy and sustainable aviation.

☆ How AI service startup Aisera is helping companies embrace machine learning to automate tasks
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Emilia David | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

His startup, Aisera, uses machine learning and natural language processing to resolve customer service, IT, sales, and operations problems by integrating with a host of enterprise applications like Zendesk, Salesforce, Amazon Web Services, and ServiceNow. The startup also offers a conversational AI service, or a chat service, in multiple languages that is meant to quickly resolve certain issues. Funding for AI, machine learning, and data analysis grew to $115 billion in 2021, according to PitchBook data. For example, Dave uses Aisera's conversational AI for its around-the-clock customer service, allowing the startup to resolve customer questions before handing off to a human if the question is more complicated. "Thanks to Shelly, Chegg's global service desk technicians can better focus on solving complex issues and proactive support."

☆ These startups are beating Elon Musk in the race to let you mind meld with your computer
▼ + stars: | 2022-08-17 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +21 min

That's when I started reporting on them, and like any good nerd I was compelled by what scientists could learn with these "brain computer interfaces." The race for implantable brain chips has been a long, deliberate marathon. Graham Felstead, who has severe paralysis, was the first person to have a BCI inserted via the blood vessels. Brain chips will enable them to perform simple actions on their own and reduce the need for round-the-clock care. "When we started in 2015 and I was pitching venture capitalists on brain computer interfaces, no one knew what a brain computer interface was," says Matt Angle, the CEO of Paradromics.

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