OpenAI losing millions on $200 ChatGPT pro plan & Nvidia and Apple Vision Pro team up to teach humanoid robotics skills.

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💰 STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

Startup Funding Updates

General Proximity, a San Francisco, CA-based biotech platform company, raised $16M in funding. The round was led by Aydin Senkut at Felicis. Other investors included Y Combinator, age1, Modi Ventures, Wilson Sonsini, as well as a number of angel investors including Jeff Dean (Head of Google AI), Uri Lopatin (Khosla, YC, Pardes), Ben Mann (Co-Author GPT-3, Co-Founder Anthropic), Alec Nielsen (CEO Asimov), Trevor Martin (CEO Mammoth), Juan Benet (Founder Filecoin), Nish Bhat (Co-Founder Color Health), Jim Dahl(Rock Creek Capital), and De Thompson V (Legends Capital).

Arcuro Medical, a Misgav, Israel-based company developing the SuperBall™ Meniscal Repair System, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding. The round was led by Varana Capital. Other investors included Trendlines and Consensus Business Group.

RoboForce, a Milpitas, CA-based “Robo-Labor” provider, raised $10M in early stage funding. Backers included Nobel Laureate Myron Scholes, co-founder of Softbank VC (SBVC) Gary Rieschel, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Aptitude Medical Systems, a Goleta, CA-based multiple conditions testing solutions company, raised $10M+ from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

PBS Biotech, a Camarillo, CA-based provider of single-use bioreactor systems and bioprocess development services, raised $17M in Growth funding. Backers included Avego Management, and BroadOak Capital Partners.

Orbis Medicines, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based oral macrocycle drug discovery company, raised €90M in Series A funding. The round was led by NEA with participation from new investors including Eli Lilly and Company, Cormorant, the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark and founding investors Novo Holdings and Forbion.

Renais, a London, UK-based luxury gin brand, raised £4.95M in funding. The round was led by InvestBev and Jean-Sebastien Robicquet of Maison Villevert.

JAN3, an El Salvador-based digital infrastructure company, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Fulgur Ventures, with participation from Grupo Salinas, Tether, Lightning Ventures, East Ventures, Plan B Fund, Bitcoin Opportunity Fund, and NYDIG.

Consist.AI, India-based GenAI driven healthcare insurance fraud and risk management company, raised $600K in Seed funding. The round was led by Equanimity Ventures and Seafund.

Swave Photonics, a Leuven, Belgium-based holographic display company, raised €27M in Series A funding. The round was led by imec.xpand and SFPIM Relaunch, with participation from new investors EIC Fund, IAG Capital Partners, and Murata Electronics North America, Inc., as well as existing investors Qbic Fund, PMV, imec, and Luminate.

Soul Parking, a Jakarta, Indonesia-based parking tech company, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding. The round was led by AppWorks and AC Ventures, followed by Taiwan Mobile, USPACE, and Wavemaker Ventures, the early-stage fund of Wavemaker Partners.

BountyBay, a San Jose, CA-based provider of a PayFi infrastructure and decentralized P2P trading platform for products & services, received an investment from Animoca Brands. The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

🏦 NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

Venture Capital Updates

Trucks Venture Capital, SF based VC fund raised a $70M fund, its largest yet, to back 30 early-stage startups in transportation, writing $500K–$2M seed checks for ~10% stakes. Recent investments include EV charger installer Treehouse, zero-emissions jet firm JetZero, and AI mechanic tool Carvis. Trucks focuses on backing great founders over specific sectors, with past successes like Bear Flag Robotics (acquired by John Deere) and Joby Aviation.

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📜 KEY STORIES IN TECH

Latest In Tech

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that the $200/month ChatGPT Pro plan is losing money due to higher-than-expected usage. ChatGPT Pro offers enhanced access to tools like the o1 pro mode and the Sora video generator but was priced arbitrarily without detailed studies. OpenAI, facing projected losses of $5 billion against $3.7 billion revenue last year, is exploring higher subscription prices and usage-based pricing to reach profitability. The company aims for $11.6 billion in revenue this year and $100 billion by 2029.

At CES 2025 in Las Vegas, Nvidia unveiled Project Digits, a compact “personal AI supercomputer” featuring the GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip, capable of running AI models up to 200 billion parameters. Designed for AI researchers and students, it offers 128GB memory, up to 4TB storage, and starts at $3,000 in May. Two units can link to handle 405-billion-parameter models, delivering high performance for prototyping and fine-tuning AI. Nvidia aims to make advanced AI tools accessible to millions of developers worldwide.

Nvidia unveiled Blueprint, part of its GR00T robotics platform, enabling robots to learn skills via imitation learning. Using Apple Vision Pro, users can digitize actions into a "digital twin" for robots to replicate in simulation, ideal for humanoids in factories and warehouses. Blueprint integrates teleoperation for remote teaching, advancing Nvidia’s robotics innovation. Robotics remain central to Nvidia’s growth strategy.

Nvidia unveiled Cosmos World Foundation Models (Cosmos WFM) at CES 2025, offering physics-aware video generation for various applications. These models, ranging from Nano to Ultra sizes, are designed for tasks like autonomous vehicle development and robotics, with fine-tuning options available. They can generate high-quality synthetic data from text, video, and sensor inputs. While not fully open source, Nvidia offers them under a permissive license for commercial use, aiming to accelerate AI in physical systems. (World Model: AI models that take inspiration from the mental models of the world that humans develop naturally.)

Google is forming a new team within DeepMind to develop AI models that simulate the physical world, led by Tim Brooks, former co-lead of OpenAI's Sora. This team will work on scaling world models for real-time interactive generation, building on Google's existing Gemini, Veo, and Genie teams. The goal is to create models that could power real-time simulations, visual reasoning, and entertainment. Despite the promise of world models in fields like gaming and robotics, there are concerns about AI's impact on jobs in creative industries and potential copyright issues with training data.

☕ LAST COFFEE SIP

Other News

Bluesky’s growth slowed in December 2024, with U.S. web visits up 9.6% and daily app users up 12%, compared to 189% and 284% growth in November. It now has 26.44M users, surpassing Threads’ growth but facing challenges like moderation protests and bot issues. Despite the slowdown, Bluesky saw a massive 930% global growth year-over-year.

Microsoft has redesigned its Bing search results to closely resemble Google's interface when users search for Google without signing into a Microsoft account. This design changes include a Google-like search bar, an image resembling a Google Doodle, and text under the search bar, while slightly hiding Bing's own search bar. Microsoft has a history of using various tactics to retain users on Bing and Edge, such as modifying download sites and using pop-up ads, unlike Google's less aggressive notifications.

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