ChatGPT Voice Creator Raises Millions & OpenAI Startup Fund raises $44M in its largest SPV yet

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☕ Good Tuesday Morning. Welcome to today's quick rundown in the Venture Daily Digest Newsletter.

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• The creator of ChatGPT’s voice wants to build the tech from ‘Her,’ minus the dystopia.

• Google breaks quantum computing record.

• OpenAI Startup Fund raises $44M in its largest SPV yet.

• China's market regulator has launched a probe into Nvidia's $7 billion Mellanox acquisition from 2019.

Fresh from the analyst desk: Jason Cohen's got the real scoop on turning startup battle scars into wins, Microsoft's dropping mind-blowing numbers on global AI adoption (spoiler: US is playing catch-up), and Anthropic's cooking up a fresh way to feed your chatbot data. Bonus: Finally, a board management guide that doesn't put you to sleep. Hot VC and startup gigs just dropped!

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Startup Funding Updates

The creator of ChatGPT's voice, Alexis Conneau, inspired by the movie "Her," has launched WaveForms AI with $40 million in seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz, aiming to create advanced AI voice technology that processes audio directly through tokens. Unlike his previous work on ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode at OpenAI, Conneau wants to avoid a dystopian future where AI replaces human relationships, instead focusing on developing "horizontal" AI audio products that will compete with OpenAI and Google in 2025, making AI more personable rather than smarter.

Provarity, a Pleasanton, CA-based provider of a presales platform that delivers real-time data and actionable insights to optimize sales engineering (SE) performance, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Cheyenne Ventures, with participation from Crosslink Capital, Illuminate Ventures, and Rembrandt Venture Partners.

Abselion, a Cambridge, UK-based company which specializes in automated analytical instrumentation that simplifies at-line protein quantification, raised £6.6M in Series A funding. The round was led by M Ventures, with participation from new investors BioProcess 360 Partners and Untitled Ventures, along with BGF, R42 and other existing investors.

Cyder, a Toronto, Canada-based loyalty platform for credit unions, raised CAD $1.5 in pre-seed funding. The pre-seed round included investments from MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund (IAF), Desjardins, Aperture Group, and investor and Dragons’ Den star Arlene Dickinson along multiple other angel investors.

Greenie Energy, a Mumbai, India-based EV charging technology startup, raised $600K in Seed funding. The round was led by Rajesh Advani, Managing Director of Sun-N-Sand Hotels and included contributions from AIC Pinnacle Entrepreneurship Forum, Ashwin Ramesh (Co-Founder, Primary Advisors) and Rajaram Ajgaonkar (R M Ajgaonkar and Associates, Chartered Accountants).

NAO, a Berlin, Germany-based provider of a co-investment platform, raised €3.4M in Seed funding. The round was led by a family office of a Swiss private investor with participation from other family offices and private investors alongside existing investors such as Zeitgeist X Ventures.

Haven1, a Zug, Switzerland-based developer of an EVM multi-app blockchain, raised $4.6M in funding. Backers included Animoca Brands, KuCoin Ventures, Taisu Ventures, Kronos Research, IBC Group, among others. The funding round also included support from high-profile angel investors from Uniswap, SNACKCLUB, Nansen, and others.

Citryll, an Oss, The Netherlands-based biotech company developing a new approach to treating immune-mediated inflammatory diseases by targeting Neutrophil Extracellular Traps (NETs), raised €85M in Series B funding. The round was led by Johnson & Johnson, Forbion and Novartis Venture Fund, with participation form Pureos Bioventures, alongside existing investors BioGeneration Ventures, Seventure Partners, BOM, Curie Capital, and Citryll’s founders.

Pixxel, a Bengaluru, India-based space technology company, raised $24M in additional Series B funding. The round, which brought the Series B total amount to $60M, saw participation from M&G Catalyst and Glade Brook Capital Partners, who joined existing backers Google, Radical Ventures, Lightspeed, and others.

Cala Health, a San Mateo, CA-based non-invasive bioelectronic medicine company, raised $50M in funding. The round was led by Vertex Growth Fund and Nexus NeuroTech Ventures.  Existing investors participated in the round, including Action Potential, Johnson & Johnson, Lightstone, Lux, GV (Google Ventures), OSF Ventures, Ascension Ventures, TriVentures, Reimagined Ventures, Peak6 and Fiscus.

Prima, a Mexico City, Mexico-based technology-first manufacturing and supply chain integrator creating a reliable procurement experience for North American companies, raised raised USD $23m in funding. The round brought total funding in previously-undisclosed rounds to USD $42.5m. Backers included Acrew, Quona Capital, Nazca, Greenoaks, Canary, NXTP, Picus Capital, Endeavor, Fluent Ventures, K50 Ventures, Marathon Ventures, Box Group and WTI.

Rowan, a Boston, MA-based company building molecular design and simulation tools for scientists, raised $2.1M in Pre-Seed funding. Backers included Pillar VC and AI Grant, and angel investors.

Evidently, a Palo Alto, CA-based provider of an AI platform for healthcare workflows, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by DN Capital with participation from FRAMEWORK, Clear Ventures, and Fellows Fund. As part of the investment, Gulsah Wilke, Partner at DN Capital, will join Evidently’s board of directors.

Truss, a London, UK-based resale fashion tech startup, received a £300k investment from FIGR Ventures.

Nscale, a Lodnon, UK-based AI hyperscaler, raised $155M in Series A funding. The round was led by Sandton Capital Partners, with participation from Kestrel, Bluesky Asset Management, and Florence Capital.

CAT Labs, a Miami, FL-based company building tools to fight the misuse and abuse of emerging technologies like Crypto and AI, raised $5.4M in Seed funding. The round was led by M13. Existing Pre-Seed investors Castle Island Ventures, CMT Digital and Hash3 also participated.

On Me, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a personalized digital gifting platform, raised $1.7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Lerer Hippeau and Focal.VC.

Wanda Health, a Bristol, UK-based provider of a platform for remote patient monitoring and virtual care, raised £1M in funding. The round was led by EMV Capital Partners Limited.

MaxHome, a San Francisco, CA-based company providing an AI-native platform for real estate agents and brokerages, raised $2M in Pre-Seed Funding. The round was led by BBG Ventures, with participation from Power of N and Fortitude Ventures.

Nectir, a Los Angeles, CA-based startup giving students a personalized AI learning partner, raised $6.3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Long Journey Ventures along with Entrada Ventures, Precursor Ventures, and Behind Genius Ventures.

Spexi, a Vancouver, Canada-based earth imagery company, raised $11.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Blockchange Ventures.

Element451, a Raleigh, NC-based provider of an AI-first student engagement platform, received a $175M investment from PSG.

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Venture Capital Updates

The OpenAI Startup Fund, which operates independently from OpenAI despite using its name, has raised $44.2 million for its fifth Special Purpose Vehicle, bringing its total SPV funding to $114.2 million in 2024 alone. While the fund remains quiet about specific purposes, it has invested in notable startups like Harvey, Mem, Thrive Health, and Anysphere's Cursor, with these SPVs complementing its original $175.25 million capital from 2021.

Dimension Capital, a unique VC firm focused on the intersection of life sciences and technology, has raised an oversubscribed $500 million second fund, surpassing its $400 million target less than two years after its $350 million inaugural fund. Led by former Lux Capital and Obvious Ventures partners, the firm has invested in about 20 companies including Chai Discovery and Enveda Biosciences, with a distinctive approach of requiring portfolio companies to have significant computational biology talent, marking its success in the growing AI-driven drug discovery sector.

Latest In Tech

Google has introduced Willow, a new quantum computing chip that marks a significant advancement in the field. Willow tackles a 30-year-old challenge by reducing errors as more qubits are added. In testing, it completed a computation in under five minutes that would otherwise take an immense amount of time for a classical supercomputer. However, practical applications like cracking Bitcoin's encryption are still far off due to the need for many more qubits and further development in quantum error correction.

Other News

China's market regulator has launched a probe into Nvidia's $7 billion Mellanox acquisition from 2019, investigating whether the company honored its commitments to share product information with rivals and allow Chinese chipmakers to test their products. This investigation comes amid escalating US-China tech tensions, with Nvidia facing restrictions on selling advanced AI chips to China, while simultaneously driving significant tech sector growth as analysts project the company will account for 15% of top tech companies' profit growth in 2025.

In-Depth Insights

• Startup Scars: Lessons from the Trenches Jason Cohen explores the hidden lessons startups learn from their toughest challenges, helping founders turn scars into growth strategies.

• These are the countries where workers are most likely to use generative AI—and the U.S. is lagging behind the leaders Generative AI may not be coming for your job, but it’s certainly coming to your job. Worldwide, 75% of knowledge workers now use gen AI in their work, according to a recent Microsoft survey.

• Anthropic proposes a new way to connect data to AI chatbots Anthropic introduces the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a standard to enable AI assistants to access and use data from diverse sources like business tools and repositories.
  

• Organizing Your Board Framework A comprehensive guide for startups on structuring and managing a board, ensuring alignment and strategic execution.

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