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The battle for AI training data, new models, and encryption is once again safe

Author

Alex Wilhelm
June 20, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Top News

  • AI companies struggle to pay for training data: When in doubt, run your own tests. That’s the lesson from a recent Wired article digging into AI search company Perplexity’s operations. After Perplexity came under fire (including legal scrutiny) for alleged plagiarism, Wired set out to figure out what was what. After building and employing test websites, the publication writes that it appears “Perplexity is scraping websites without permission.” Thankfully, Perplexity has raised around $165 million, so it should be able to pay for the material it is feeding its customers.

  • Encryption is safe (for now): A vote in the EU was shelved this week, ending the risk — for now — that secure chat apps would be forced “to scan all images and links to find [to] report child abuse material,” Politico reports. As always with debates of this sort, the issue came down to ‘do we break encryption to protect the kids,’ and once again, the ‘breaking encryption is a very bad idea that would ruin the Web’ perspective is (correctly) winning out.

  • New AI models raise the state-of-the-art: AI model company Anthropic released Claude 3.5 Sonnet today, what it calls the “first release in the forthcoming Claude 3.5 model family.” It’s often better than Claude Opus, the company’s flagship model, and faster to boot. It’s also cheaper. Anthropic claims that Sonnet can beat OpenAI’s latest — GPT 4o — in several tests. The AI gauntlet has now been tossed back into Sam Altman’s lap.

TWiST500

Today we’re breaking down a few of the recent TWiST500 members, focusing on those that are earlier stage. The TWiST500 website (twist500.com) now points to the database of member companies and will see further upgrades in the coming days!

  • Incorporated: 2021

  • Raised to date: $125 million, including a $35 million round earlier this year. After its prior round, the company was worth $179 million per PitchBook

  • Employee count: <100

  • 2023 revenue: Unknown, likely very low

  • Business model: Cloud-delivered high-resolution Earth and thermal imaging via satellites. (Presumably, this will be offered on a subscription basis with various add-ons for more, faster queries of the dataset that Albedo satellites eventually collect. Its first launch is scheduled for next year.)

  • Founders: Topher Haddad and Winston Tri

  • Incorporated: 2017

  • Raised to date: $18.6 million known, though that figure is likely low

  • Employee count: >130

  • 2023 revenue: Unknown, but with 76 of its satellite thrusters in space, we can presume that it generated material top line last year

  • Business model: Dawn has a current business and a future business. Today, it sells satellite propulsion systems for machines from 30kg to more than 500. That’s what the company is best known for and where it earns its bread and butter today. The company is also working on launch technologies using reusable rocket planes. The company’s current model (the Mk-II) is currently undergoing testing. In the future, Dawn’s Mk-III will fly high and fast and then release an “orbital stage” to continue on to orbit. The goal is quick, cheap orbital insertion. How does that make money? Just ask SpaceX.

  • Founders: Stefan Powell, Jeroen Wink, James Powell, Tobias Knop and Robert Werner

  • Incorporated: 2013

  • Raised to date: $482 million, including two rounds worth $267 million in 2021, giving the company a $4.6 billion post-money valuation

  • Employee count: 500-600

  • 2023 revenue: Unknown

  • Business model: Color has several different businesses. It offers genomics services, including “clinical-grade genetic testing services.” It also offers a cancer-focused service that screens for cancer earlier and works with employers of workers with cancer to simplify the care process. Most recently, Color announced a deal with OpenAI to build a copilot to bring oncologist knowledge to primary care providers.

  • Founders: Othman Laraki (CEO), Elad Gil (board member), Taylor Sittler (left in 2017), Nish Bhat (left in 2020),

  • Incorporated: 2021

  • Raised to date: $413 million, including a $200 million round in 2024 at a $3.1 billion post-money valuation

  • Employee count: ~150

  • 2023 revenue: Unknown, but when it raised earlier in 2024 the company said that its “annualized member spend [was] nearing $20 billion” and that it was EBITDA profitable last year.

  • Business model: Consumer rewards on rent payments. A deal with its backer, Wells Fargo, recently came under scrutiny when it was reported that the bank was losing as much as $10 million per month on the partnership. Wells Fargo figured that Bilt card users would carry balances, generating more interest income than it spent paying for the rewards that those same customers would earn. That isn’t bearing out thus far, with Bilt customers paying off their balances and avoiding interest payments while hoovering up rewards.

  • Founders: Ankur Jain

A message from Vanta:

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This Week in Startups

Stay tuned for a fascinating interview that will be out on all podcast platforms + YouTube later today.

E1968: Jason and Alex discuss Nvidia's ascent to becoming the most valuable company and insights into Eli Lilly and the GLP-1 phenomenon. The conversation shifts to the future of telehealth and its evolving landscape. They also cover the FTC's lawsuit against Adobe and introduce new companies in the TWIST500!

E1967: Jason and Alex dug into how Google Maps handles design decisions, Bilt’s relationship with Wells Fargo, AI progress in both China and Japan, and AI regulation. The pair also took audience questions at the end of the show, and touched on how we might define AGI.

TWiST Partner Offers

  • Compliance and security shouldn't be a deal-breaker for startups to win new business. Vanta makes it easy for companies to get a SOC 2 report fast. Get $1,000 off for a limited time at http://www.vanta.com/twist.

  • Don’t miss the “Jam Session with JCal” contest! To apply for a chance to pitch JCal on This Week in Startups go to https://jamwithjcal.tech - brought to you by .tech domains.

  • Hire pre-vetted remote developers and get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist.

The TWiST500 newsletter is the new, updated, and improved TWiST Ticker.