🤖Physical Intelligence Seeks $300M at 💵 $2B Valuation to Build Robot Brains

🤖 Physical Intelligence Seeks 💰 $300M at 💵 $2B Valuation to Build Robot Brains

Physical Intelligence (Pi), a startup developing AI-powered robotics software, is currently in talks to raise significant new funding, demonstrating the growing investor interest in AI-driven physical automation.

Key Insights

Funding Round Details

• Pi is seeking to raise approximately $300 million in a new funding round

• The company is discussing a valuation of around $2 billion with potential investors

• This comes just months after Pi emerged from stealth with a $70 million seed round

 Previous Funding

• In their initial seed round, Pi raised $70 million

• This seed funding was led by Thrive Capital, with participation from Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, OpenAI, and Sequoia Capital

Company Vision

Pi aims to develop foundation models and learning algorithms that can power a wide range of robots and physically-actuated devices

Their goal is to create a universal model that can bring AI to the physical world, enabling robots to perform tasks across various applications

Market Context

The substantial valuation and funding discussions for Pi reflect the growing excitement around AI-powered robotics:

• Other companies in the space, like Figure AI, have also raised significant amounts (Figure AI recently secured $675 million) Lead investors being Intel Capital, Parkway Venture Capital, Brett Adcock and participation from Open AI, Microsoft, NVIDIA and others

• Investors seem to be betting on Pi's potential to revolutionize robotics across multiple industries, from manufacturing and logistics to healthcare

This funding activity highlights the race to develop sophisticated robotics software and the belief that AI can overcome longstanding challenges in physical automation. Pi's rapid progression from a $70 million seed round to discussions of a $2 billion valuation underscores the high expectations for their technology and team.

🎓 Berkeley's House Fund Quietly Beefs Up to Back Next AI Unicorns 🦄

The House Fund, a VC firm born out of UC Berkeley's startup ecosystem, is making waves in the AI investment landscape. In an exclusive reveal, we've learned that Zachary Hargreaves, formerly of Founders Fund, has joined as managing partner, significantly boosting the firm's firepower

Key Insights

1. The House Fund has deployed over $125 million in the last two years, with the ability to write checks up to $10 million

2. The firm has secured coveted spots on cap tables of hot AI startups like Perplexity (rumored $8B valuation) and Databricks ($43B valuation)

3. UC Berkeley leads all universities globally in producing VC-backed founders, outpacing even Stanford and MIT

4. With $330 million raised from backers including Berkeley's endowment, The House Fund is positioning itself as the go-to investor for Berkeley-born AI startups

This move signals The House Fund's ambition to dominate the Berkeley-affiliated startup scene, particularly in AI. As the AI boom continues, keep an eye on this firm – they might just be backing the next big thing in tech.

📈 Reddit's AI Power Play - CEO Huffman Declares ⚔️ "Arms Race" for Data Controlling

A bold move that's sending shockwaves through Silicon Valley, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has declared an "arms race" for AI training data, positioning the platform as a key player in the future of artificial intelligence.

Key Insights

1. Reddit's content is "among the world's best training data" for AI, according to Huffman

2. The company has inked major deals with Google ($60M/year) and OpenAI for data access

3. Reddit is actively blocking companies unwilling to pay for data, including Microsoft

4. Huffman hints at ongoing talks with "just about everybody" for data licensing

This aggressive stance comes as Reddit seeks to monetize its vast trove of user-generated content in the AI era. The platform's recent public offering and subsequent deals underscore its growing influence in the tech ecosystem.Related developments:

• Reddit recently announced plans to test AI-generated search summaries, further leveraging its data assets

• The platform has seen a 57% increase in user engagement over the past year, boasting 342.3 million weekly active users

• OpenAI's partnership with Reddit includes access to real-time content for products like ChatGPT

Huffman's declaration of an "arms race" signals a seismic shift in how online platforms view their data. As AI becomes increasingly central to tech innovation, Reddit's moves could set a precedent for other content-rich platforms.

💼Wall Street's AI Whisperers: How Goldman and Blackstone Are Cracking the Data Code 

In a groundbreaking move, Wall Street titans are weaponizing generative AI to crack one of their biggest challenges: making sense of their vast data troves. Goldman Sachs is leading the charge with its new Legend AI Query, a chat interface that's set to revolutionize how bankers access and utilize information.

Key Insights

• Goldman Sachs unveils Legend AI Query, allowing employees to dig up hidden insights using plain English queries.

• JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley are hot on Goldman's heels with their own AI-powered search initiatives.

• Blackstone spent 10 months perfecting permissions for its internal AI search engine, highlighting the complexity of the task.

• A new breed of fintech startups, including Rogo and Mako, are emerging to offer Wall Street AI-powered assistants for tasks ranging from deck creation to client prep.

• Balyasny Asset Management reports a 60% improvement in surfacing relevant documents after training AI models on financial jargon.

• The race to perfect AI-powered search isn't just about efficiency – it's about unlocking the next level of financial innovation. As Goldman's CDO Neema Raphael puts it, this tech gives bankers "information super intelligence."

With firms realizing that cracking search is the key to more advanced AI applications, the stakes couldn't be higher. Wall Street's data gold rush is on, and AI is the new pickaxe.

💰Major Funding Rounds

🇺🇸 Rogo secured $18.5 million in Series A funding led by Khosla Ventures to build Wall Street's first AI analyst

🇮🇳 Mumbai-based Neysa secures $30M Series A for AI cloud solutions. The round, co-led by NTTVC, Z47, and Nexus Venture Partners, will fuel Neysa's AI infrastructure expansion and R&D efforts as it prepares to launch its gen AI acceleration cloud service.

🇸🇬 NextGen.AI obtained S$450,000 ($343,534) in pre-seed investment from Asiawide Print Holdings to advance its AI-powered business solutions

🇵🇭 ADVANCE.AI's Credit Bureau Philippines (ADVANCE.CBP) secured $4 million in seed funding to launch credit bureau operations and enhance financial inclusion

💻 Tech Snapshots 📸

Musk's xAI Unleashes Grok API, Challenges AI Giants offering access to the "grok-beta" model at competitive rates, potentially shaking up the AI market dominated by OpenAI and Anthropic. While details are sparse, the API hints at advanced features like function calling and future vision capabilities

IBM Unleashes New AI Models, Heats Up Enterprise GenAI Race The new foundation models, including the 43-billion-parameter Granite series, targeting businesses with industry-specific AI solutions. This move intensifies competition in the enterprise AI market, as IBM leverages its vast corporate data resources to challenge rivals like Microsoft and Google in the race for AI dominance.

Singapore's top university and Vietnamese tech giant Vietnam FPT join forces in a groundbreaking $50 million partnership, establishing an AI Lab at NUS to drive innovation in machine learning and data analytics across key industries in the Asia-Pacific region.

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