๐ ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐๐๐ค๐ฐ๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐๐ฌ๐ฌ: ๐๐๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ฌ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐ก๐ซ๐จ๐ฎ๐ ๐ก ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ค
Week 46 | July 1 - 6 | AI is so Kyut right now ๐จ
Industry:
๐จ French AI lab Kyutai ("Cute-AI" get it?) releases Moshi AI (who came up with these names??), a voice assistant that is similar to GPT-4o, Alexa and Google Assistant. Moshi's development consisted of fine-tuning over 100k synthetic dialogues using TTS. Kyutai has put an impressive team of AI advisors that include Yann LeCun and Yejin Choi. (https://lnkd.in/gNuqcWjQ) Also, the company is a privately funded nonprofit that has raised ~$330M. (https://lnkd.in/gHP5N4pM)
๐จ Figma introduces Figma AI, a new suite of AI-powered tools such as search and text/image editing. One of the most difficult part in building an AI startup today is overcoming the distribution advantages that incumbents have. This is an example of that. (https://www.figma.com/ai/)
๐จPerplexity upgrades Pro Search, which can perform more complex tasks and deliver more thorough answers.(https://lnkd.in/gEuKAe2u?)
Financing and M&A:
๐จFounders Funds leads a $85m seed investment in open source AI platform Sentient. Sentient is an open platform to help establish property rights for AGI development. (https://lnkd.in/gxZX8CTP)
๐จAdept Co-founders and some team members are joining Amazon. Amazon is also licensing Adept's agent technology, models, and datasets. Zack Brock, Head of Engineering will take over as Adept's CEO. (https://lnkd.in/g-UMTb_2)
๐จPersona Ai, a company founded by the former CTO of Figure, emerges from Stealth. Persona will go after the large but very crowded humanoid market. (https://lnkd.in/gWg7ifXH?)
๐จMagic, an AI research and code gen company, is in talks to raise $200M+ at a $1.5B valuation. Magic has previously raised $145M. (https://lnkd.in/gU2ruJAw?)
๐จAI infra company Lambda is currently in talk to raise $800m (https://lnkd.in/gVUBAh4R?)
๐จAI-video company Runway is in talks to raise $450M at a valuation of $4B (https://lnkd.in/g54PcePC)
๐จLegal AI startup Harvey is expecting to raise $100M in a round led by Google Ventures (https://lnkd.in/gaRJsH66)
Research & Development:
๐จMeta introduces Meta 3D Gen, a new SOTA pipeline for text-to-3D asset generation (https://lnkd.in/gTypc7U8?)
Interesting Resources:
๐จ Very good report from Goldman Sachs on GenAI, especially related to AI infrastructure and data centers. Read the exec summary on pg. 3 if you're short on time. (https://lnkd.in/gaHZaci8)
๐จ "Why AI startups are so difficult to build" by John Hwang. https://lnkd.in/gPt_-vC8?