8/4/23

∆ Tech in the News

The Biggest Update to Search in History! - Google adds AI-generated images and video in summaries to its Search Generative Experience.

Front Runners in the AI Talent Race - American banks are investing in companies and talent in the space with JP Morgan leading the charge.

NASA Launches New Foundational LLM Model with IBM - This model signals the latest advancements in climate change tracking and will empower scientists with 250,000 terabytes of data by 2024.

Alibaba Cloud’s New Open-Sourced ChatGPT-like LLMs - Free for commercial use for companies with less than 100 million monthly active users.

AI Mammograms Beat Radiologists by 20% - AI-supported cancer screening proves safe, more effective and efficient for radiologists in a study of 80,000 women.

˚The hottest thing in tech this week

DataDog First to Market on AI DevOps Efficiency for Enterprise

Datadog announced it is the first to bring monitoring of LLMs to enterprise apps, letting businesses efficiently track and eliminate AI issues like drift and hallucinations. The company's new observability features empower developers to easily integrate and monitor GenAI apps fast.

Datadog's digital assistant “Bits”, powered by ChatGPT, was also announced giving teams real-time recommendations to resolve monitoring problems and optimize AI systems. Now anyone can integrate Datadog to gain greater control over LLMs integrated into their organization.

It's like a set of X-Ray Goggles for AI, a potential solution to the “black box” problem.

Deals We’re Watching

Founders to Watch and Opportunities to Catch

Closed Deals:

Inworld and A16z Lead AI Gaming - Gen. AI platform closed a $50M venture round to create realistic in-game NPCs.

Stripe for the Insurance sector - Lula secures $35.5M series B co-led by NextView and Khosla.

Endor Labs Revamping App Security - The startup raised a $70M Series A to automate app security testing and integrate with the development process.

Hybar Takes On Sustainable Steel - a $700M debt and equity round will see Hybar build a world-first Climate Bond-certified rebar upcycling mill.

LightForce Bites Off Funds - Ally Bridge Group led an $80M Series D to support the growth of this innovative 3D-printed orthodontics operation.

Companies to Watch:

Tenstorrent Ready to Go Another Round - Jim Keller is expected to raise equity again in 2024 after the industry veteran brings in $100M.

A16z Unveils a $75M, 10-week ‘Speedrun’ accelerator to back the next up-and-coming pre-seed startups in focusing on AI and NPCs.

Pinecone Makes GenAI Apps Scalable and Reliable - The vector database company’s new integration with Datadog signals substantial traction after a recent Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz.

IPO Watch

Stripe Now Ready for a Long-Awaited IPO? - The payments Unicorn names Steffan Tomlinson as its new CFO after a 6-month search.

Chip Designer Arm Ltd Eyes $10B IPO - The SoftBank-owned UK company’s tech underpins the semiconductor industry, positioning it for a valuation between $60B - $70B next month.

Know of an AI startup on the rise or leading the way? Clue us in and we'll spotlight them in our next issue.

Thanks for tuning in.

The Tech Buzz Team