AI21 Labs joins unicorn club, raising $155M at $1.4B valuation
Bay Area Times
August 31, 2023
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Top stories today:
- AI21 Labs raises $155M at $1.4B valuation
- Cohere AI hires JPM, Goldman to raise at likely $3B+
- Startup trade discount to last funding valuation at -58%
- Consumer gaming expected to be flat in 2023 at $198B
- Twitter to launch audio, video calls, no phone number required
0. Data and calendar
All values as of 6 AM ET / 3 AM PT, other than S&P500 close (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT).
All times are ET.
1. AI21 Labs joins unicorn club, raising $155M at $1.4B valuation
2 major products:
Wordtune, a Chrome extension that helps users improve their writing and also summarizes page content.
AI21 studio, their LLM API. - Techcrunch
Our view: it is hard to see how AI21 Labs can compete with OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, etc.
AI21's competitors are years ahead and literally have billions of dollars more.
AI21's LLM is likely worse than OpenAI's GPT-4, Anthropic's Claude, and Meta's Llama, given AI21 has not provided a technical comparison, which top performers typically do.
2. Cohere AI, positioning as “enterprise LLM” hires JPM, Goldman to raise round at likely $3B+ valuation
Cohere positions itself as the “enterprise LLM”, but actual differentiation from OpenAI and others is unclear.
June: Cohere raised $270M at $2.2B valuation, backed by NVIDIA, Oracle.
August: Tiger sold shares at ~$3B valuation. - Bloomberg
Cohere previously denied an investment from AWS, who also missed the opportunity to invest in OpenAI in 2018. - The Information
Our view: competition is getting tougher for smaller players like Cohere, especially with ChatGPT Enterprise
Cohere needs to identify a moat fast, otherwise, they will be trampled by the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, xAI, etc.
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4. Startup trade discount to last funding valuation at -58%, near May low of -61%
5. Global consumer gaming spending expected to be flat in 2023, at $198B
Mobile gaming represents 55% of total consumer gaming spend:
6. Twitter to launch audio, video calls with no phone number required
Twitter: Elon Musk.
Our view: if these calls are E2E-encrypted, Twitter could become the leader in private communications
All major competitors require phone number verification (e.g. Signal, Whatsapp), which increases privacy risk, especially in countries with authoritarian governments.
7. Valor Equity's VC funds have IRRs of 9-11%, even with investments in Tesla, SpaceX
Now raising a $2B fund, of which it has raised $1.5B already. - The Information
8. IMAX revenues expected to return to 2019 levels after Oppenheimer
9. Interesting tweets, memes, and videos
10. Other headlines
AI
OpenAI files motion to dismiss in copyright lawsuit.
U.S. extends AI chip curbs to some countries in Middle East.
Runway CEO interview: AI could usher in “golden era” of cinema.
Meta adds partial opt out of having user data used for AI training.
Baidu, SenseTime get China approval for AI models.
Google Search Experience rolls out in Japan, India.
Tech
Apple tests 3D printer to make Watches.
Microsoft to discontinue Visual Studio for Mac, recommends Windows.
Windows asks Chrome users to switch to Bing.
Instagram Reels could become up to 10min long.
Tesla investigated by DOJ for secret Elon glass house.
Reid Hoffman to scale back involvement at Greylock to focus on AI.
Twitter to collect biometric, employment data.
Shein: 16 state AGs want to delay IPO as forced labor probe continues.
Teams to be unbundled in EU, cost €24/year.
Biotech
Ozempic: longevity drug?
AgeX, Serina merge after AgeX's repeated failures.
Intermittent fasting improves Alzheimer's condition in mice.
Diabetes: open-source automatic insulin pump used by ~30K patients.
Metagenomi prepares to go public, in potential IPO season restart.
Business
UBS profits $29B in Q2 due to CS takeover.
Barstool Sports lays off 25%, 100 workers.
Salesforce revenue +11% YoY to $8.6B in Q2.
Klarna losses -67% in H1, still -$844M.
Crowdstrike revenue +37% YoY to $732M in Q2, citing AI.
Crypto
SBF lawyers may ask postponement of Oct. 3 trial.
Gemini opposes Genesis’s bankruptcy plan.
NFTs being used to prove luxury products are real.
Vivek praises Grayscale win vs. SEC, promises deep regulation cuts.
U.S. politics
McConnell again freezes for 30 seconds, still plans to serve his term.
Trump asks to dismiss suit saying he inflated property values by $2.2B.
Blake Masters plans another Arizona Senate bid in 2024.
Giuliani ordered to pay $130K in Georgia defamation suit.
World
Xi likely to skip G20 meeting in India, preventing a Biden meetup.
Taiwan: new U.S. military aid reserved for sovereign states approved.
Prigozhin used $10M Embraer Legacy 600 to evade sanctions.
Saudi man sentenced to death over social media activity.
Syria sees rare protests.
Japan seeks $53B military budget, 13% higher than last week.
North Korea, Russia “actively advanced” military partnership.
North Korea launches nuclear ballistic missiles toward sea.
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