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Microsoft faces EU scrutiny while startups tackle AI robots and chips

Author

Alex Wilhelm
June 25, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

Top News

  • Microsoft faces EU scrutiny: Microsoft’s multi-year effort to scale its Teams internal corporate chat tool worked. The company held off Slack, and its productivity business is huge, growing, and massively profitable. The European Commission thinks that Microsoft might have broken competition rules when fighting back its erstwhile rival, now part of Salesforce. Does Microsoft really care about a fine, though? It won.

  • Bright Machines’ massive round: Startup Bright Machines has a shiny new round to celebrate—a $106 million Series C raised from Nvidia, Microsoft, Eclipse Ventures, and others. The company builds robotics-focused AI hardware and software to scale manufacturing. Market optimism that new AI techniques and advances in robotics hardware will marry well and cooperate is running hot. Bring on the intelligent robots.

  • What about a single-model AI chip? ****The scrap to take on Nvidia in the AI chip war is frenetic. Startups galore are working on new silicon, hoping to snag a pinch of the GPU king’s market share and wealth. Etched is doing something notable, however, building AI-focused chips that “only run a single type of model,” TechCrunch reports, namely transformers. Recall that that bit of tech is key to LLMs. Etched is, therefore, a wager that transformers hold their central position in AI development.

TWiST500

TWiST’s news roundups continue tomorrow afternoon — meaning we’ll have new TWiST500 names to add shortly. Tune in live; we have a lot of fun!

Today, let’s check the tape and dig into the latest news from existing members:

  • Turo’s latest S-1/A filing: The car rental unicorn’s most recent SEC filing is its tenth update to its original IPO filing. According to the document, Turo’s revenues grew just under 12% in the first quarter to $202 million, leading to a net loss of $11.6 million. While its growth was modest compared to the year-ago period, the company did manage a greater than 50% reduction in its net losses compared to the first quarter of 2023.

    • Based in San Francisco, Turo has raised around $500 million, according to Crunchbase. The company was valued at $1 billion during its 2019-era Series E worth $250 million. Its prior lead investors include August Capital, IAC, and Kleiner Perkins.

  • Klarna is getting out of the checkout game. According to CityAM, Offloading its checkout business to “an investor consortium led by Kamjar Hajabdolahi” is worth about $514 million to the buy-now, pay-later giant. Recall that Klarna’s business has been on the upswing for a while now after a rough patch. More cash and less competition with partners—the stated reason for the divesture—should keep Klarna on the path toward an eventual IPO.

    • Based in Stockholm, Klarna has raised billions of dollars while private, including an $800 million round in mid-2022 that reduced its valuation to a mere $6.7 billion. The company counts Dragoneer, General Atlantic, and others among its prior lead investors and has made over a dozen acquisitions.

  • To close out our news updates, Kraken is the beneficiary of a recent German government seizure of Bitcoin. Bitcoin Magazine reports that the German Federal Criminal Police Office “seized almost 50,000 Bitcoin from a film piracy website.” Some went to Coinbase, some to Kraken. This is not a bad nod of approval for the yet-private crypto exchange that has IPO hopes.

    • Kraken: Unlike the above companies, Kraken has raised very little venture capital. Akin to Turo, however, it’s based in San Francisco.

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