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AI big shot Andrew Ng ’s AI Fund , a inauguration brooder that backs small teams of experts look to solve primal problems using AI , design to kindle up of $ 120 million for its second effort .
Afilingwith the SEC shows that the AI Fund ’s second fund , AI Venture Fund II , has so far amassed $ 69.75 million from 13 partners — leaving around $ 50 million to be enthrone . The AI Fund ’s praseodymium declined to notice .
Ng , the founder of the Google Brain deep learning project , co - founder of Coursera , andrecent Amazon board appointee , was one of the most placeable name in the AI community when he became Baidu ’s main scientist in 2014 . He left Baidu in 2017 to jumpstart a number of AI ventures , include theDeepLearning.aicourse andLanding AI , a inauguration developing AI tool point manufacturing companies .
Nglaunchedthe AI Fund in 2018 with $ 175 million , dish as the brooder ’s GP and leading its direction . ( On the aforesaid SEC filing , he ’s named as the “ wangle member of the ecumenical partner ” for AI Venture Fund II . ) The idea was to provide funding at the seed and Series A degree of a company ’s life bicycle , let teams to function in relative stealth until they were ready — and connecting them with Ng ’s broad professional internet .
Greylock Partners , New Enterprise Associates , Sequoia Capital and SoftBank Group were among the AI Fund ’s initial backer . Crunchbaselists38 portfolio company , including AI observability platformWhyLabs , Ng ’s own Landing AI , and AI app - construction toolBaseten .
At $ 120 million , AI Venture Fund II would be considerably smaller than the first AI Fund fomite . Still , it ’s more than double what Ngreportedlyoriginally hop to raise — $ 50 million — for the AI Fund ’s follow - up .
Take it as another potential mansion that the AI bubble — peculiarly the buzzy generative AI section within it — may be deflate .
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PitchBook recentlyreportedthat , for two consecutive quarters , generative AI dealmaking at the earliest stage has declined , plummeting 76 % from its Q3 2023 peak . VC hatful economic value for pre - seed and seed - stagecoach deals fall in Q1 2024 to $ 122.9 million , down from Q3 ’s high of $ 517.7 million .
Enterprise reluctance could be to blame .
In apair of late surveys fromBoston Consulting Group , about one-half of the respondents — all C - suite executives — say that they do n’t wait generative AI to bring about substantial productiveness gain and that they ’re upset about the potential for mistake and data compromises arising from generative AI - powered shaft . As my fellow Ron Millerwrote last workweek , businesses are finding that productive AI is harder to implement at scale than they once assumed — and that White House are exercise caution .
