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Meta Releases it's biggest "open" AI model yet & Former Tesla humanoid head Launches Robotics Startup

Meta Releases it's biggest "open" AI model yet & Former Tesla humanoid head Launches Robotics Startup

Venture Daily Digest - 24/07/2024

Venture Daily Digest
July 24, 2024

☕Hey there, Welcome to today's quick rundown in the Venture Daily Digest Newsletter. We've got the scoop on startup fundraising, VC funds, and some cool tech – all in just 5 minutes!

Top News

Former Tesla humanoid head Chris Walti launches Mytra, a robotics startup focused on warehouse automation, with $78 million in total funding from Garry Tan, Lachy Groom and other investors.

Meta has released Llama 3.1 405B, its largest open-source AI model to date with 405 billion parameters, trained on 15 trillion tokens of data up to 2024. The model, along with smaller versions Llama 3.1 8B and 70B, features a 128,000-token context window and can perform tasks like coding, math, and multilingual summarization.

Other Major News

Venture Curator Hub: Get Access To 10000+ investors' email contact database & more. (Scroll Down)
Alphabet will invest up to $5 billion in Autonomous car technology company Waymo. (Scroll To Startup News)
Alexa is losing Amazon billions of dollars. (Scroll To Tech News)
Why Are Consumer Product Metrics Often Disappointing, and How Should Founders Interpret Them? By a16z (Scroll To Featured Article)

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Startup Funding Updates

Vitable Health, a Philadelphia, PA-based provider of healthcare plans for hourly and uninsured workers, raised $16m in Series A funding. The round was led by Cherryrock Capital with participation from Newark Venture Partners, Citi Impact Fund, First Round Capital, Commerce Ventures, and Y Combinator. More Here

Posh, an event startup focusing on intimate gatherings, has raised $22 million in Series A funding led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from FirstMark Capital, Companyon Ventures, and Epic Ventures. More Here

OurRitual, a NYC-based platform focused on helping and healing the relationships of everyday couples through its network of professional experts and digital tools, raised $5.2m in seed funding. The round was led by Venrex with participation from FJ Labs, Active Partners, GroundUp Ventures, 97212 Ventures, and angel investors including David Siegel (former CEO of MeetUp) and Michelle Kennedy (CEO of Peanut, and board advisor/director of Bumble). More Here

Noded AI, a startup emerging from stealth, aims to revolutionize note-taking by integrating work tools and eliminating task switching through AI and automation. Noded AI has raised $4 million in funding led by Boldstart Ventures, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, 20VC, First Hand Ventures, and notable angel investors including Slack and Okta co-founders. More Here

Igloo, Inc., a Miami, FL-based collection of companies and Pudgy Penguins’ parent company, raised $11M+ funding. The round was led by Founders Fund with participation from Fenbushi Capital, 1kx, Everest Ventures Group, and Selini Capital. More Here

TeachMe.To, a San Diego, CA-based hub for finding and booking local in-person lessons, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Bling Capital with participation from Marketplace Capital, 20Growth, and Gokul Rajaram, as well as existing fund and angel investors, including 1984, Alumni Ventures, Deb Liu, and Brent Turner. More Here

Harvey, a San Francisco-based startup develops an AI-powered "copilot" for lawyers that can answer legal questions, extract information from documents, and generate draft filings. It has raised $100 million in a Series C round led by GV, OpenAI, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil, and SV Angel. More Here

Cypris, a NYC-based provider of an AI research platform for R&D teams, raised $5.3M in funding. The round was led by Vocap Partners, with co-investors Activate Venture Partners and BlueTree Capital, with participation from York IE and K20 Fund. More Here

Strive, a Columbus, OH-based financial services company providing an asset management platform focused on optimizing long-run returns for investors, raised $30M in Series B funding. The round was led by Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. Deason Capital Services, who led the Series A round, Narya Capital, and others. More Here

Osheru, a Bend, Oregon, Canada-based medical device company, raised $4.7M in Seed funding. The round was led by individuals and family offices, including investment from Nike Co-Founder Phil Knight. More Here

RxDiet, a NYC-based company focused on food as medicine, raised $3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Giant Ventures, with participation from Better Ventures, Form Life, and angel investors including Immad Akhund (Mercury Bank). More Here

Code Metal, a Boston, MA-based company which specializes in AI-powered development workflows for the edge, raised $16.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Shield Capital. More Here

W, a Miami, FL-based men’s personal care brand, raised $14M in Seed funding. The round was led by Shrug Capital and Anti Fund, Range Group, 305 Ventures, Uphonest Capital, Quiet Capital, Palm Tree Crew, and individuals including Celsius’ CEO John Fieldly, Fanatic’s CEO Michael Rubin, Lil Durk, Nick Kyrgios, Naomi Osaka, Carter Reum and Paris Hilton. More Here

Brenig Therapeutics, a Dover, DE-based neurology-focused drug development company utilizing an AI/ML-based discovery platform, raised $65M in Series A funding. The round was led by NEA, with participation from OrbiMed, Torrey Pines Investments and BioGeneration Ventures. In connection with the financing, Ed Mathers, Partner at NEA, will join the Board of Directors. More Here

Headway, a NYC-based company building a mental healthcare system, raised $100M in Series D funding. The round was led by Spark Capital, with participation from existing investors Thrive Capital, Accel and a16z, and new investor Forerunner Ventures. More Here

Momentum, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a customer intelligence platform that enables enterprise listening and automation, raised $13M in Series A funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $18M, was led by FirstMark Capital with participation from Stage 2 Capital, and existing investors including Basis Set Ventures and Leadout Capital. More Here

QA Wolf, a Seattle, WA-based results-based end-to-end test automation company, raised $36M in Series B funding. The round was led by Scale Venture Partners with participation from Threshold Ventures and Ventureforgood, and existing investors Inspired Capital and Notation Capital. More Here

Third Arc Bio, a Boston, MA-based biotech company developing multifunctional antibodies, raised $165M in Series A funding. The round was led by Vida Ventures and Cormorant Asset Management and Hillhouse Investment. More Here

Magenta Medical, a Kadima, Israel-based company dedicated to the development of miniaturized blood pumps, raised $105M in funding. The round was led by Novo Holdings. New investors Viking Global Investors and RA Capital Management, and existing investors OrbiMed, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), JVC Investment Partners, and ALIVE – Israel HealthTech Fund, also participated. More Here

Clio, a NYC-based company which specializes in legal technology, raised US$900M in Series F funding, at US $3 Billion valuation. The round was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Other investors included Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Sixth Street Growth, CapitalG, Tidemark, TCV, JMI Equity, T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and by T. Rowe Price Investment Management, Inc., respectively, and OMERS. More Here

Bitlayer Labs, a Singapore-based Bitcoin Layer 2 based on the BitVM paradigm, raised $11M in Series A funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $16M, was led by Franklin Templeton and ABCDE. More Here

CarbonBlue, a Haifa, Israel-based climate-tech startup, completed a seed funding round, bringing the funding raised by the company to $10m. The round was led by Ibex Investors and FreshFund, joined by strategic investors Engie New Ventures, and ZIM Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of ZIM Integrated Shipping Services, and included participation from existing investors Jibe Ventures, MoreVC and Secret Chord Ventures. More Here

Gcore, a Luxembourg-based edge AI, cloud, network, and security solutions provider, raised $60M in Series A funding. The round was led by Wargaming, and with participation from Constructor Capital and Han River Partners. More Here

NPC Labs, an Elizabeth, NJ-based developer of gaming technologies for blockchain networks, raised $18m in seed funding. The round was led by Pantera Capital with participation from Makers Fund, Hashed, Collab+Currency, Sfermion, Mirana Ventures, Bitscale Capital, and Mantle EcoFund. More Here

Venture Capital Updates

Bregal Sagemount, a NYC-based growth-focused private equity firm, closed its inaugural small-cap fund, Bregal Sagemount Basecamp I, at $500M. The Fund closed at its target and hard cap, inclusive of support from existing Limited Partners, a handful of new institutional investors, and a significant GP commitment. More Here

NewSpring, a Radnor, PA-based family of private equity strategies, raised $390M for its fifth mezzanine fund. The fund received support from existing and new investors, including a diverse group of banks, insurers, public plans, financial institutions, and individuals. More Here

Featured Article

Why Are Consumer Product Metrics Often Disappointing, and How Should Founders Interpret Them?

Recently Andrew Chen, Partner at a16z published an article on “Consumer Product Metrics” where he mentioned that -

“Consumer product metrics often seem terrible to entrepreneurs. Sign-up rates, retention rates, and user engagement are typically low across the board. For most products, over 90% of users refuse to sign up, and of those who do, over 90% become inactive over time.

Signup rates can be as low as 1%, especially for SEO-driven content pages. Homepage signup rates are better, sometimes reaching 10-20%. Over 95% of users are inactive on any given day, with retention curves showing steep drop-offs in the first weeks.

Getting 10% of total users to return daily is considered a success.

Social graph density is another challenge. Often, 50% or more of users don't connect with anyone else on the platform. Even Instagram, during its explosive growth, had 65% of users effectively following no one.

These metrics aren't an excuse for mediocrity but reflect the reality of consumer disinterest and impatience. The tech industry seeks unicorns with exceptional metrics, like WhatsApp's 70% DAU/MAU ratio. However, successful businesses can still be built on small percentages of engaged or paying users.

Entrepreneurs should understand these baseline metrics to plan better and have more options for their Plan B. The goal is to build great products that stand out from the average, despite the uphill battle in engaging and retaining users.

Previously we have shared this in our Venture Curator Newsletter.

Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Going Public

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has acquired True North Solutions, a Calgary, Canada-based provider of industrial engineering solutions. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. More Here

Zeitview, a Los Angeles, CA-based company providing automated inspection solutions, acquired all of the assets of Clearsight, which specializes in transmission, distribution and substation inspections with integrated AI and analytics. More Here

Layoffs & Bankruptcy

Byju's, once India's biggest startup, faces insolvency proceedings over a $19 million debt to the cricket board. CEO Raveendran warns of potential service shutdown and mass employee exits in a court filing. The ed-tech giant, valued at $22 billion at its peak, has suffered recent setbacks including job cuts and investor accusations of governance lapses. More Here

Startups & People

India's federal government has abolished the controversial angel tax, for all classes of investors, a move long sought by the country's startup ecosystem with 2 million registered users. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the decision in her budget speech, aiming to boost entrepreneurship and innovation.

Alphabet will invest up to $5 billion in Waymo. During Alphabet’s earnings call on Tuesday, CFO Ruth Porat said the company will “commit to a new multi-year investment of $5 billion” into Waymo, which has launched its robotaxi service in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.

Amazon plans to launch a paid version of Alexa to address the over $25 billion losses incurred by its devices business from 2017 to 2021, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. The enhanced Alexa, which may cost up to $10 per month, is expected to be released soon, though employees have concerns about whether the technology is ready. The new Alexa, featuring generative AI for improved conversational abilities, faces technical delays and competition from free AI assistants, raising doubts about customers' willingness to pay for it.

Latest In Emerging Tech

Meta claims Llama 3.1 405B is competitive with leading proprietary models like GPT-4 and Claude 3.5 Sonnet in some areas, though it has weaker multilingual capabilities. The company is also developing multimodal capabilities for future models, including image, video, and speech understanding.

Elon Musk's xAI has started training its AI models using over 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs at a new supercomputing facility in Memphis, Tennessee, described as the most powerful AI training cluster globally. This facility, known as the "Gigafactory of Compute," is built in a former manufacturing site, and xAI secured $6 billion in funding, creating jobs for roles like fiber foreman, network engineer, and project manager.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions AI-powered bots that capture creators' personalities and business objectives, allowing them to offload community outreach and free up time. However, Meta's AI bots have faced issues with hallucinations and mistakes, raising concerns about their reliability for creator-audience interactions. While Meta claims its AI is improving with models like Llama 3.1, the company acknowledges the need to mitigate concerns and win user trust in its generative AI applications.

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