Grimes tells fans to create new music with her AI-generated voice, startup down rounds hit 5-year high in Q4

Pop artist Grimes tweeted, "Feel free to use my voice without penalty." and that she would split 50% of royalties with any fan that created new music using her AI-generated vocals - Link

Prequin data: In Q4 2022, the percentage of startup down rounds hit a 5-year high at almost 11%; via PitchBook, 400+ unicorns have not raised money since 2021 - Link

A potential landmark case for digital assets is set to begin this week, with former OpenSea employee Nathaniel Chastain being accused of insider trading for front-running NFT drops; Chastain's lawyers indicated their defense would center around NFTs not being securities - Link

Bloomberg sources: President Biden will sign an EO limiting investment from US entities in parts of China's economy like semiconductors, AI, and quantum computing; the EO will be signed around this year's G-7 summit on May 19 - Link

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Jason recaps SpaceX's Starship rocket launch (2:06) and discusses BuzzFeed's 15% RIF and Fox News settling its Dominion lawsuit (9:11). He also covers Reddit's plans to charge AI companies for using its data and Tiger Global's $12.7B fund markdown (19:40), before ending with some Ask Jason questions (34:41). - Link

Super.com (fka Snapcommerce), a consumer finance app that helps ~5M users save money and build credit, raised $85M ($60M in equity and $25M in a credit facility) led by Inovia Capital - Link

Volumez, a Boston-based cloud infrastructure startup with R&D ops in Israel, raised a $20M Series A led by Koch Disruptive Technologies; the company will use the funds to expand business ops in the US - Link

Pew survey of ~11K US adults: 71% oppose the use of AI in final hiring decisions, 62% think AI will have a major impact on workers over the next 20 years, 70% oppose using AI and facial recognition to analyze employees' facial expressions - Link

Nielsen data: Netflix accounts for 7-8% of all US TV viewership per month and ~70-80% of the top 10 most-watched US shows each week - Link

This Week in Startups

E1726: SpaceX's Starship launch, Tiger Global's 20% markdown + Ask Jason!

E1725: Startup pitch competition: Jason invests 25K

E1724: Building the future of VFX and video editing with Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela

E1723: Google’s search engine “panic,” AI-generated hits, Coinbase considers leaving US market

E1722: Uizard’s Tony Beltramelli on text-to-UI & PMF + building a Notion CRM w/ Kelly Schricker

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