7/18/23

🚀 Weekly Tech Highlights

SEC Sounds the Alarm on Threat of Market Crash + LLM HacksNews - Gensler points out AI risks of chatbots and groupthink in remarks towards the national press on Monday; meanwhile criminals using LLMs to launch more sophisticated cyber attacks over the weekend.

Official launch of CCIP a Pivotal Messaging Solution - Chainlink launches the long awaited interoperability tech for communication and secure connections between blockchains and the real world with first use cases being Swift network.

Hollywood strike raises concerns among Generative AI - Actors and writers are striking for equitable wages and rights over image and likeness, sending an early warning for other industries.

Meta announces open-sourced LLM in an effort to compete - Meta opens it’s Llama LLM to the public as well as releasing CM3leon, enabling both text-to-image and image-to-text, as it looks to take market share back in the generative landscape.

Threads starts rate limiting, unable to compete with the spam bots - In a move similar to Twitter’s a few weeks ago, Threads deployed rate limits to reduce spam attacks, just after the app got to 150M downloads within the 6 day mark.

🧠The hottest thing in tech this week

Intel's Follow-On Investment Fuels Figure's Humanoid Robotics Journey

The company is trailblazing a path to a future where AI-powered humanoids work harmoniously alongside humanity, addressing the critical labor shortage and contributing to a safer, more efficient work environment. Figure's vision stretches beyond traditional robotics applications, aiming to penetrate varied sectors, ranging from logistics to manufacturing.

Under Brett Adcock's leadership, Figure looks to bridge the labor shortage gap across various sectors at a time of increasing layoffs, making it the hottest tech phenomenon this week.

🔓Deals Unlocked

Founders to Watch and Opportunities to Catch

Closed Deals:

1. Turning Returns into Revenue - With $16M from lead investors Javelin Venture Partners and Climatic VC, Arrive Recommerce, a US startup provides a sustainable solution to retail returns, enabling resales at an average of 60% of the original price.

2. Intel Backs Figure's Robotic Vision - The Bay Area-based robotics firm garnered a $9M investment from Intel Capital, to drive the development and scalability of multipurpose humanoid robots within months of a $70M round.

3. Runway's Flight Plan to Power Financial Forecasts - San Fran startup Runway bags $27.5M in a series A funding round led by Initialized Capital to bolster its AI-driven financial planning platform, promising data-driven insights for businesses.

Companies on the rise:

1. [Open Round] Bansal on a Fundraising Spree - a leading figure in Indian e-commerce and fitness, is in talks to secure over $100 million in new funding for his innovative tech foundry initiative.

2. Transforming Unstructured Data [Extend] - A pre-seed start-up on the rise with tools for streamlining unstructured data for enterprises after a successful YC S23.

3. Self-Custody Solution [Gnosis] - Enabling seamless payments with Visa cards for self-custodial wallets soon after a massive growth round.

4. [Open Round] Character.AI in Funding Hunt to Stay Ahead of Tech Giants - In talks to secure further funding, as it faces competition in keeping its millions of users captivated.

5. Construction Game Changer [Trunk Tools] - A comprehensive platform that allows construction workers daily access to their earnings and productivity tools.

Based on overwhelming interest, we are now accepting deals and portfolio company news at this FORM.

We will continue to work tirelessly to find the latest and best tech news and deals and welcome your support and feedback.

Here's to a fresh week filled with curiosity, discovery, and the thrill of tech innovations shaping our everyday lives. Dive headfirst with us into these new opportunities, keep learning with us, and continue exploring the latest trends.

The Tech Buzz Team

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