China releases updated AI regulations & Microsoft bought nearly 500K Nvidia Hopper chips this year.

STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

Startup Funding Updates

AI-Powered Search Engine Firm Raises $500 M

• Perplexity, an AI-driven search engine and answer engine company, raised $500M in its fourth funding round, tripling its valuation to $9B.

• The round was led by IVP (Institutional Venture Partners), following previous investments including a SoftBank Group Vision Fund 2 investment of $10-20M in June that had valued the company at $3B. The company was valued at $1B in April.

Financial Infrastructure for AI Computing Firm Raises $5M

• GAIB, a Singapore-based provider of a platform creating financial infrastructure for AI computing, raised $5M in Pre-Seed funding.

• The round was led by Hack VC, Faction, and Hashed, alongside strategic investments from groups including Spartan, CMCC, L2IV, Animoca Brands, IVC, MH Ventures, Presto, J17, IDG Capital, 280 Capital, Aethir, and Near Foundation, as well as angel investors.

AI and Quantum Techniques Solution Firm Raises $5.3M

• SandboxAQ, a Palo Alto, CA-based company delivering solutions at the intersection of AI and quantum techniques, raised more that $300M in funding.

• The round, which valued the company at $5.3 billion on a pre-money basis, was led by Fred Alger Management, LLC, T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Mumtalakat, Parkway Venture Capital, Breyer Capital, Rizvi Traverse, S32, US Innovative Technology Fund, Ava Investments, Eric Schmidt, Marc Benioff, David Siegel, Yann LeCun, IQT, and other investors.

AI-Powered Real Estate Marketplace Raises $9.8 M

• Jome, an Austin, TX-based AI-powered real estate marketplace that helps buyers find, compare, and purchase new construction homes, raised $9.8M in Series A funding.

• The round was led by Geek Ventures with participation from investors U.Ventures, Toloka VC, and Forefront VP.

AI Voice Agent Firm Raises $3.8 M

• Hamming.ai, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an AI voice agent reliability platform, raised $3.8M in Seed funding.

• The round was led by Mischief, with participation from YCombinator, AI Grant, Pioneer, Coalition Operators, Coughdrop and angels including Hiten Shah, Ran Makavy, Max Kolysh, Richard Aberman and Kulveer Taggar.

AI Workflow Orchestration Firm Raises $3 M

• Salt AI, a Los Angeles, CA-based AI workflow orchestration company, raised $3M in Seed funding.

• The round was led by Morpheus Ventures with participation from Struck Capital, and Irregular Expressions.

AI-Powered Tax Research Firm Raises Undisclosed Amount

• Blue J, a Toronto, Canada-based provider of generative AI-powered tax research to accounting and tax professionals, raised an undisclosed amount in Series C funding.

• The round was led by Ten Coves Capital. Dan Kittredge, Managing Partner at Ten Coves Capital, will join Blue J’s Board of Directors.

KEY AI STORIES

What Companies Are Doing With AI

OpenAI may pay nonprofit arm ‘billions’ in conversion to for-profit.

• OpenAI is reportedly in talks to pay its nonprofit board billions of dollars to cede control of the company, according to The New York Times.

• The discussions come as OpenAI faces pressure to restructure within two years or risk converting its recent $6.6 billion funding to debt.

Microsoft bought nearly 500K Nvidia Hopper chips this year.

• Microsoft purchased 485,000 Nvidia Hopper chips in 2024, more than doubling the purchases of its next closest rival Meta (224,000 chips).

• The news, reported by the Financial Times using data from consultancy firm Omdia, shows Microsoft's significant investment in AI infrastructure, with the company tripling its Nvidia chip purchases compared to 2023.

Intel finally notches a GPU win.

• Intel's Arc B580 "Battlemage" GPU has been highly praised, quickly selling out upon release, and Intel is working to replenish inventory weekly to meet high demand.

• The Arc B580 has received positive reviews for being an outstanding budget GPU option, outperforming competitors like the RTX 4060 and AMD RX 7600 in various aspects including price and performance.

• Despite rapid sellouts, the supply of the Arc B580 is considered substantial, and restocks are expected soon through major retailers, with additional models priced at both $250 and higher.

OpenAI's o1 model now available for developers.

• OpenAI has given API developers complete access to the latest o1 model, replacing the previous o1-preview version, as part of several new updates available starting today.

• The updated o1 model reinstates key features such as developer messages and a "reasoning effort" parameter, allowing for more tailored chatbot interactions and efficient handling of queries.

• The new model delivers results faster and more cost-effectively with enhanced accuracy, using 60% fewer thinking tokens and improving accuracy by 25 to 35 percentage points on various benchmarks.

NVIDIA’s latest compact generative AI supercomputer is also its cheapest..

• NVIDIA has launched the Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit, a palm-sized AI supercomputer that offers 68 TOPS performance and 70% better performance than its predecessor, with improved generative AI capabilities and bandwidth.

• The new kit is available for $249, half the price of the previous model, and comes with software updates that can also enhance the performance of the original Jetson Orin Nano.

Meta updates its smart glasses with real-time AI video

• Meta is enhancing its Ray-Ban smart glasses by integrating live AI that does not require a wake word, allowing for hands-free operation like asking questions or getting assistance while multitasking.

• The updated glasses will also feature live translation capabilities for several languages including French, Italian, and Spanish, providing either audio translation or text transcripts through the Meta View app.

• With the new Shazam integration, users can conveniently identify any song playing in their vicinity by simply asking the smart glasses, similar to using the Shazam app on a smartphone.

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Revv Invest is an investment platform that aims to help users discover and analyze stocks in emerging technology sectors.

PUBLISHED PAPERS AND ARTICLES

Something is cooking in AI Industry

a16z request for AI Founders

Recently a16z published an article where they request upcoming founders to work on some of few ideas like: advanced, personalized memory bank, enabling real-time collaboration, specialized video generation, integrated qualitative and quantitative analysis, and the emergence of autonomous chatbots operating in decentralized networks.

Ilya Sutskever talk at NeurIPS 2024 in Vancouver, Canada

In recent talk, Ilya (Former Cofounder Open AI) declares we've reached "peak data" for AI training, comparing internet data to fossil fuels - a finite resource that's running out. Highly recommend video to watch.

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