AI is Coming to Your Phone

∆ Tech in the News

To Handle Bank Runs - Top U.S. banking regulator, Michael Hsu (acting Comptroller of the Currency) has called for new liquidity rules to help lenders respond to SVB-like runs by depositors.

Meta’s AI Ambitions - Zuck declares that Meta’s long-term goal is to build and open-source AGI. Meta also plans to fuse its Fundamental AI and GenAI Research teams to bring AI closer to human-like intelligence.

AI Meets Academia - Arizona State University partners with OpenAI, incorporating AI into their educational and organizational processes and becoming the first university to have this kind of partnership.

Go Figure! - BMW will deploy robotics startup Figure’s humanoid robots in its South Carolina factory’s body shop, sheet metal facility, and warehouse.

Reddit IPO - Reddit seeks to launch its IPO, selling 10% of its shares in March - the first IPO by a major social media company since Pinterest in 2019.

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˚The Hottest Thing in Tech this Week

AI and Web3… Meet Smartphones

If 2023 was the year GenAI exploded into mainstream awareness, 2024 could be the year it becomes part of our lives, via that most ubiquitous device, the phone. Samsung’s latest flagship Galaxy S24 Android phones feature “Galaxy AI” tools like instant phone call translation, new Google search, and advanced image and video-editing features. Having just lost the top phone seller spot to Apple, Samsung seems to be betting on AI to help them make up ground. Of note also that Google and Samsung appear to becoming even closer collaborators thanks to Google’s investment in its multimodular Gemini Nano AI model that runs natively on devices. This makes some sense since Samsung sells far more Android phones than Google. The Pixel 8 Pro also featured AI tools late last year, but the features on offer were less exciting than those Samsung just revealed.

The iPhone 16 is due in September, giving the Android field a window to make the most of this lead before we see what Apple’s “millions of dollars a day” spend on AI yields. We got hints when Apple claimed their Ajax-GPT model outdoes ChatGPT-3.5, or when it published a ML framework to build models that run well on Apple, or news it is working to optimize the ability to run LLMs on phones. We also got news of plans for an improved Siri with AI-focused features.

While it’s not a phone itself, the Rabbit R1 was CES 2024’s surprise hit, the gadget connects to your phone’s apps and accounts and you verbally give it tasks to complete. Rabbit may well be obsolete once the phones can do this themselves, but it hints at how popular an AI agent for smartphones will be. Rabbit also just partnered with Google challenger Perplexity AI.

In other mobile news, Vodafone just inked a $1.5B deal with Microsoft to enhance its services with genAI, cloud, and IoT technologies, showing how the worlds of AI, industry and mobile tech are further blurring together. Finally, this week Solana Mobile saw 30,000 preorders in the first 30 hours for its second-gen phone, “Chapter 2”. This Web3-ready phone will likely soon incorporate AI features as there is significant interest in AI amongst Solana founders and a lot of AI activity on the blockchain already.

Reach out if you would like to be in the know on any exclusive releases / deals that include smartphones: [email protected].

Deals We’re Watching

Founders to Watch and Opportunities to Catch

Open Deals:

Raising for your startup? Send us your Open Round —> [email protected]

Kinfolk - an investment evaluation platform facilitating in-depth analysis of business plans, management teams, tech, and market potential. Seeking strategic capital.

Illuminate - VC firm specializing in seed-stage investments in Enterprise/B2B software. $40M allocated to 30 companies, 2 IPOs and 7 M&A exits. $4.5B in follow-on capital from major VCs like Insight Partners, NEA, and Sequoia.

Sentiero - A VC fund led by experienced entrepreneurs. Focused on investing in early-stage software innovators addressing real business challenges through AI. Offers access to the multi-trillion-dollar AI market.

Looking to invest? Let us know if you want a warm intro —> [email protected] 

Closed Deals:

Build a Rocket Boy - Gaming Studio by an ex-GTA developer raised a $110M Series D to help fund new games including a Roblox rival.

Androids To Benefit Society - 1X raised $100M from Samsung Next, EQT and others to build humanoid robots to meet labor demands.

Compassionate Care - Forta, a startup that uses AI to offer family-based healthcare programs for autism, closed a $55M Series A led by Insight Partners.

Salesforce Backed - Oleria, an adaptive and autonomous identity security firm closed a $33.1M Series A led by Evolution Equity Partners with Tapestry VC, and Zscaler.

AI vs. SaaS - High growth (7x ARR growth in ‘23) startup Vertice raised $25M to use AI to help customers save on overall software spends.

Briq In The Wall - Briq’s AI to automate construction finances saw 40% growth in ’23 and has raised an $8M Series B extension at a flat $150M valuation from Tiger Global and others.

Companies to Watch:

Cambridge/Honeywell Spinout - Quantum computing startup Quantinuum raised $300M led by JPMorgan Chase at a PMV of $5B with input from Amgen and Mitsui.

Living Vicarius-ly - Cybersecurity pioneer Vicarius saw 5x growth since 2022 and 40+ clients incl. PepsiCo, HPE, Bupa,& Equinix, and just landed a $30M Series B led by Bright Pixel.

AI-Assistants For All - Serial entrepreneur Fritz Brumder’s new AI assistant startup, WiseOx has 60 existing clients, including one senior living organization.

Electric Ferry - Startup Navier will run a pilot shuttling Stripe’s employees to its office in its six-passenger N30 hydrofoiling electric boat.

The Funding Buzz

M12 - Microsoft allocated $275M to its VC arm from its 2024 balance sheet. M12 will focus on investing in startups that align closely with Microsoft's strategic priorities of AI, cloud infrastructure, and cybersecurity.

Top Tier Capital - The SF-based VC has raised $1.05B in commitments to invest with global venture funds and tech companies.

Inception Capital - The Web3 fund closed $30M for its inaugural ‘fund of funds’ offering ‘diversified’ exposure to early-stage crypto venture deals.

Saudi Aramco - Saudi Arabia's state-run oil company funded its VC division with an additional $4B to invest in global startups to diversify away from oil.

Tools and Buzzy Tech

Copilot Chat - ChatGPT- style chatbot can mesh with your word files and emails

Amazon - Unveiled a voice-activated AI Art Generator for Fire TV via Alexa.

Google - New AI features for Android Auto for interactive driving experience.

DeepMind - AlphaGeometry system solves geometry at Olympiad-level.

Adobe - AI-powered Premiere Pro tool eradicates boring audio editing tasks

Alphabet - New Wing drone can lift five pounds and fly 65 MPH.

Mini-Robots - Insect-like bots may be the smallest, lightest, and fastest yet.

Nuclear Battery - A Chinese Company may launch tiny nuclear power cells.

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It’s a new year, new Buzz! Stay tuned for more of our latest releases and don’t forget to check out Fantasy Buzz if you have not done so already! And be sure to check out our year-end stories for 2023 to recap what you missed last year and our tech to watch in 2024!

1. AI recap of 2023 

2. Your Top Stories of 2023

3. 5 Tech Trends to Watch in 2024

Stay buzzy and Happy New Year!

The Tech Buzz Team