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Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recapitulation of everything you ca n’t miss from the universe of startup . Want it in your inbox every Friday?Sign up here .
This week we are looking at AI founders who are playing melodic chair , a massive defense technical school investment , and more consequence at Techstars . Let ’s get into it .
Most interesting startup stories from the week
founder and older executives of the hot AI startups have been leaping around this week .
OpenAI shuffling : John Schulman , one of the carbon monoxide - founders of OpenAI , leave the party for rival AI startup Anthropic , following in the stride of Ilya Sutskever , the former OpenAI primary scientist who left the company in May and launched anew startupa calendar month later on . In the lag , OpenAI Chief Executive and co - beginner Greg Brockman announced this week that he decided not to find a fresh “ president , ” prefer to take an elongated leave to “ unbend and reload ” from his duty at the AI giant . Read more
Character ontogenesis : Founders of Character . AI also did some seat switching this workweek . The a16z chatbot startup ’s CEO , Noam Shazeer , has returned to Google to conjoin the tech giant ’s DeepMind team . eccentric . AI Centennial State - father Daniel De Freitas is also joining Google with some other employees . In a deal that resemble a pseudo - acquirement similar to the oneMicrosoft scratch with Inflectionin March , Google agreed to apply Character . AI ’s technology on a non - exclusive foundation . show more
Mega ammunition : Defense tech inauguration Anduril has arm itself with $ 1.5 million in tonic uppercase at a massive $ 14 billion rating . The 7 - yr - old company , build autonomous military system , has its sight set on becoming a top - grade defense contractor , rivaling the likes of Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics . The passel was co - lead by return backers Founders Fund and Sands Capital and was joined by new participants , including Fidelity Management & Research Company and Baillie Gifford . learn more
GrubMarket cracks Good Eggs : B2B bring out and logistics company GrubMarket , which is now valuate at $ 3.5 billion , has acquired 13 - year - old Good Eggs , a fresh food delivery startup that was esteem at $ 365 million in 2020 . But the high - end grocery delivery startup that was backed by top investor , include Benchmark , Sequoia and Thrive , was mark down by 94 % to $ 22 million after COVID-19 tailwinds fleet . study more
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Most interesting fundraises this week
cut off away : Groq , a startup that is manufacture fries for running AI modeling , has promote $ 640 million at a $ 2.8 billion valuation from investors , include BlackRock , Neuberger Berman and Cisco . The 8 - year - quondam party competes with Nvidia , which is estimated to see to it 70 % to 95 % of the AI flake manufacturing market , as well as Amazon , Google and Microsoft , all of which are working on develop their own AI flake . Read more
Location , location , a bump in valuation : The 13 - year - old fix analytics startup Placer.ai show that knowing where the customer are is still very valuable for retailers , money box and healthcare fellowship . Placer quietly batten an additional $ 75 million in backing , prize the troupe at $ 1.45 billion , a 50 % increase from its previous rating of $ 1 billion just 18 months ago . study more
why ? ! not : Maya Watson and Lexi Nisita , who met while working at Netflix and later moved to Clubhouse , where they were employees 13 and 20 , decide that the world need another societal networking startup to serve hoi polloi battle aloneness . The duo started a new app call why ? ! that ’s part conversation app , part networking app and part dating app . why ? ! grow $ 1.65 million in a pre - seed round , lead by Charles Hudson , managing partner and beginner of Precursor Ventures . Read more
AI for trivial ones : hackneyed of your child tap you to watch another cartoon ? Perhaps you could interest them in playing with an AI bot instead . Heeyo , a inauguration that offers children between the ages of 3 and 11 an AI chatbot that put up over 2,000 interactive game and activities , has just raised a $ 3.5 million seed circle from OpenAI Startup Fund , Alexa Fund , Pear VC and other investors . TechCrunch reporter Rebecca Bellan tried out Heeyo and found it to be perfectly good for kids . Read more
Most interesting VC and fund news this week
Falling stars : Techstars has been glow less brightly recently . The world inauguration accelerator lay off 17 % of its men this hebdomad . Techstars will also wander down its $ 80 million Advancing Cities program by the death of the twelvemonth . Launched in 2022 with J.P. Morgan ’s backing , the program aimed to support diverse founders in urban center like Oakland , New York , Miami , and Washington , D.C. , through accelerator programs . Read more
Flint Capital sparks support : Boston - free-base Flint Capital has raised a $ 160 million third investment company . The 11 - twelvemonth - honest-to-god firm ’s limited married person include primarily tech enterpriser , including successful founders that Flint backed previously . Flint ’s investments includeidentity substantiation startup Socure , last valued at $ 4.5 billion , and Flo Health , which was recently valued at $ 1 billion . register more
Last but not least
Funding may still be hard to secure , especially for late - degree startups , but it does n’t mean investor are n’t coin new unicorn . In fact , we counted 38 new ones that were create this twelvemonth . ascertain out who grew a motor horn in 2024 .
