Panasonic's Smart Home Innovations

∆ Tech in the News

AI Takeover at Davos - AI is a major focus of this week's WEF meeting in Switzerland, with over 24 events mentioning it, more than any other topic.

Election Safeguards - OpenAI says it will release AI citation and image safeguards ahead of a series of major 2024 global elections.

Artifact is Shutting Down - Instagram founder Kevin Systrom on the fall of his AI-curated personalized news app: "the market opportunity isn't big enough."

LLMs Passed a Turing Test - Google's new medical LLM, AMIE beat human doctors the quality of care as rated by 150 actors playing patients.

Number One at Last - Global smartphone shipments are down overall, but Apple is now the biggest global seller for the first time ever.

"Semiconductor Mega Cluster" - South Korea revealed a $470B vision for the world’s largest chipmaking hub in Seoul by 2047.

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˚The Hottest Thing in Tech this Week

Panasonic Unveils Strategic Alliances and Cross-Industry Innovations

Panasonic’s announcements at CES show the company is still a major force to watch closely in consumer tech. As well as unveiling a major circular economy focus and a patented bioplastic material, it announced a range of major partnerships. Most importantly, Panasonic showed it is still an innovator, weaving horizontal tech like AI throughout its newly released 2024 product line.

Smart Home Devices

One example is the partnership with smart kitchen company Fresco on an AI-powered cooking assistant to be included in the HomeCHEF 4-in-1 multi-oven. This AI customizes recipes to preferences, makes ingredient substitutions based on what it detects in the pantry, & adjusts servings or cooking settings to suit.

Panasonic also partnered with Amazon so its new flagship OLED TVs will come with Amazon Fire TV built-in, offering a personalized home screen for streaming services, apps, live channels, and recommendations. The TVs will also offer Matter casting support integrating with all compatible smart home devices.

Automotive and EV Advancements

Panasonic’s Neuron high-performance compute (HPC) is an advanced "cloud-native.” software-defined vehicle framework. Neuron will future-proof vehicles with software and hardware upgradeability, unlocking self-driving, remote driving and much more. It integrates specialized AI and GPU processors into a centralized unit, then distributes it across the vehicle system as needed.

Panasonic Automotive, Klipsch Audio and INFINITI have also partnered on a high-performing, powerful audio system for the next INFINITI flagship SUV. The 2025 Infiniti QX80 will offer surround sound, headrest speakers, roof-mounted speakers, and super customizable audio control features.

Panasonic Energy even plans to build a third EV battery plant in the U.S. showing its commitment to the market and to the ‘circular economy’ vision outlined at CES.

Panasonic is a household name and making moves across the industry. Reach out if you would like to be in the know on any exclusive releases / deals that include Panasonic: [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]

CorralData - Securely and accurately use AI to drive insights from company data. Current customers incl. Pfizer, Lacoste, & Hotel Engine, $1M in ARR, 7x growth in ’23. Closing out their Seed Round after previously raising $1.5M from known angels.

Kismet Health - Unlocking quality care for families via the first pediatric LLM and proprietary collaborative care tech. Open SAFE round to unlock a $100M DHA contract.

“Watch Ads. Get Paid.” - Fabric eliminates middlemen in programmatic ads creating an ‘opt-in’ marketplace for users and advertisers. Seeking 1-2 strategic investors before launching their Series A later this year.

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

Closed Deals:

Over The Moon - Popular vacation home fintech Overmoon raised $80M in debt and equity funding led by NFX to launch their tech-enabled solution.

Battling Moore's Law - Chip design firm Synopsys will acquire simulation and analysis firm Ansys for $35B creating a silicon-to-systems design powerhouse.

Inspired By Fish - Japanese startup Sakana AI raised $30M in seed funding at a valuation of $200M to develop smaller, efficient AI models inspired by natural swarm intelligence

‘Smart’ Waves - Weavix raised $23.6M in a round led by Insight Partners to develop its ‘smart’ radio tech for frontline workers

Cloud-Native InsurTech - NY Startup Korr raised a $3.2M Seed round led by Motive Ventures for its tech to migrate legacy systems to the cloud.

Companies to Watch:

OpenChat Goes Beyond - The company claims its advanced open-source 7B LLM surpassed both ChatGPT and Grok-1 across multiple benchmarks.

In-Synk - Dev-focused security company, Snyk has acquired Helios to bolster its new AppRisk application security play.

Space Defense - Sierra Space joined Rocket Lab as a VC-backed space company to land a major military satellite deal with a share of a $2.5B Space Development Agency (SDA) contract alongside Lockheed Martin and others.

The Funding Buzz

Thomvest Ventures - The VC has a fresh fund of $250M committed to deploy in fintech, PropTech, cybersecurity, cloud and AI/data infrastructure.

Darkmode Ventures - ex Twitter exec, Amir Shevat’s early-stage VC firm has raised a $5M fund to primarily invest in 35 software startups in Israel. The firm has invested in 12 startups to date including Tabnine, and Bluesky.

Zeal Capital Partners - The VC appointed Stafanie Thomas as its managing director to lead the company's Inclusive Investing initiative, which started with the Barclays Black Formation Investments (BBFI) program.

Tools and Buzzy Tech

Robo-Maid - Tesla’s Optimus robot was shown folding a shirt. However, Elon Musk noted the actions were programmed rather than AI-driven at this stage.

Lithium Saved - AI came up with a battery design that uses 70% less lithium.

AI ‘Smart Grills’ - This CES 2024 launched product uses AI, sensors, and generative assistants to grill perfect steaks.

Johns Hopkins - A study found AI eye exams for diabetes-related eye disease in youth increased screening rates to 100% vs just 22% for standard exams.

Stability AI - releases Stable Code 3B, an AI code generation tool that runs locally on laptops without dedicated GPUs but remains competitive.

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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