10/24/23

∆ Tech in the News

'Investing in America' - Biden unveils 31 Tech Hubs across the US focused on AI, quantum computing, clean energy and more to maintain tech leader status.

AI-first PCs - Nvidia plans to join Microsoft, Apple, & AMD in designing its own CPUs for PCs using Arm technology, challenging Intel's market dominance.

Department of Probes - The Justice Dept. is investigating Tesla over the company’s FSD and Autopilot products as well as several other matters

"Smartest AI Phones Ever" - Samsung aims for an AI-centric experience with its Galaxy S24 potentially offering text and image AI generation via Google Bard.

AI Vs. Fake News - Adobe filed a patent for “fact correction of natural language sentences” using multiple AI models to analyze sentence accuracy.

WikiAI - A study claims AI can improve the reliability of Wikipedia entries by analyzing reference source content and suggesting alternatives if needed.

˚The hottest thing in tech this week

Apple’s $1B a-year AI Plans

Apple is allocating around $1B annually to accelerate its genAI features after being caught off-guard by the explosion of genAI in 2022 per Bloomberg. This work includes various new AI features including integrating AI into:

• A smarter Siri version powered by an LLM for launch in early 2024.

• The next iOS version, to improve answers to questions and auto-complete suggestions offered by Siri and Messages.

• "As many apps as possible", including spotify-like AI playlists in Apple Music, and Generative slide decks in Keynote like Canva.

• Development tools like Xcode to compete with Microsoft's GitHub Copilot, Google’s Codey, or Meta’s Code Llama.

Apple has already developed its own Ajax LLM framework and chatbot Apple GPT, but neither have been integrated into any consumer products yet. Why? Internal concerns remain over whether Apple's AI tech can match the strengths of models like ChatGPT, LaMDA, and Claude. Apple is also still mulling tradeoffs over how to deliver these different features, either on-device (faster and more privacy) versus cloud processing (better services and flexibility). It’s likely they will use a combination depending on the needs of each feature.

Is Apple too late to the party or is it just heating up?

News Bytes

• Microsoft to spend $3.2b charming Australia as AI regulation looms

• New Nvidia AI breakthrough will help to teach robots complex skills

• Elon Musk: X to introduce two new ad-free premium subscription tiers

Deals We’re Watching

Founders to Watch and Opportunities to Catch

Open Deals:

GetMotivatedBuddies - Mental Health Tech Startup. Think Duolingo but for motivation in people with ADHD and Mood disorders. Speak with CEO Michael Goldstrom to learn more.

Tape It - This free, AI-powered, background noise reduction web app with 10K monthly active users is currently exploring funding options.

Closed Deals:

Not So Boring - Shares in Elon Musk’s Tunneling startup Boring Co. rose by 22%+ in an employee share sale giving it an implied valuation of over $7B

More Sources - Analytics startup Databricks aims to acquire data tech provider Arcion Labs for $100M to enable data access from multiple sources natively.

Valuation Up 15% - Chromium-based enterprise browser startup Island’s valuation increased to $1.5B on closing its $100M Series C round led by Prysm.

DTCC Digital Assets - DTCC acquired blockchain startup Securrency for approximately $50M which will enable DTCC to offer blockchain tech services.

Physics-based Combat - Utah indie game developer Noodle Cat raised a $12M round led by Hiro Capital with input from Sony Ventures.

Companies to Watch:

Win Defies Chip Wars - Alibaba and Tencent have backed Zhipu AI's $340M raise as they debut their ChatGLM-6B AI model aiming to rival OpenAI.

AI Protects Nature - OverStory fights wildfires with AI, safeguarding 2M acres and $6B in utility assets. A $25M series A will expand this protection further.

Digital Personal Finance - Credit Genie’s platform has served 1M+ with AI for risk mgmt, budgeting, and insights. A $10M raise brings their total to $21M.

WhatsApp Chatbot Expansion - Spanish Whatsapp-based Chatbot Startup Luzia has 17M users and closed a $10M Series A for US and LATAM Expansion

The Funding Beat (New)

New Partner - Lightspeed Venture Partners has hired Aaron Frank, the founder behind the Apple Card tech, to seek out payments and lending deals.

Vista's $4B Power Play - Vista Equity Partners paid $4B for a 65% stake in payments tech giant EngageSmart giving investors a 23% premium.

Tools

Habitat 3.0 - Meta's advanced AI simulation environment teaches robots real-world interactions.

Classroom Magic - Canva’s new AI tool suite to assist educators.

AudioSep - A model that isolates sounds from a noisy background via NLQ.

DataGPT - Ask any question and get data analyst-grade answers in seconds.

If you have a deal or company that you would like to host on our next issue, drop us a line at @ [email protected].

Thanks for connecting with us.

The Tech Buzz Team