OpenAI Signed a LOI to Spend $51M on Brain-Inspired Chips, Meta Announces Seamless Communication

Top News

OpenAI signed a letter of intent to spend $51M on brain-inspired chips developed by startup Rain AI, supported by a million-dollar boost from Sam Altman. - Link

— Jason refers to these as letters of nothing.

Meta announces Seamless Communication, a suite of AI translation models that aim to enable more natural and authentic communication across languages. - Link

US regulators are proposing a labeling system for AI healthcare apps, including requiring disclosure of how the tools are trained and how they perform. Link

Paris-based Capsule launched a product that curates the news via AI and human editors, aiming to create "Spotify for News." - Link

ByteDance plans to release a “bot development platform” in beta by the end of December to let users create their own AI chatbots. - Link

Startup Funding

ArmorCode, a cybersecurity platform that gathers vulnerable data from connected apps and consolidates it to a single location, raised $40M led by HighlandX with participation from NGP Capital, Ballistic Ventures, Sierra Ventures, and Cervin. The company was founded in 2020 by Nikhil Gupta and Anant Misra. - Link

Kognitos, which helps companies automate transcriptions, data visualizations, and back-office tasks, raised $20M led by Khosla Ventures, taking its total funding to $30M. The company was founded in 2021 by Binny Gill. - Link

Gravel, a Jakarta-based construction labor marketplace, raised $14M for global expansion. Investors include New Enterprise Associate (NEA), SMDV, East Ventures, and other strategic investors. The company was founded in 2019 by Fredy Yanto and Georgi Putra. - Link

Product Demo & Launches

iMean Shopping is an AI-powered copilot with full web operation capability. It automates your shopping process: find discounts and deals, compare product prices across platforms, and extract key product data for refined planning and analysis!

Swifty is an autonomous AI tool for the travel industry: “Auto-GPT for travel.” Swifty autonomously handles planning, booking flights and hotels, payment, and invoicing - all in one place!

D-ID’s Creative Reality™ studio app brings a new era of AI videos to your fingertips. The app enables users to create customized digital humans that look, sound, and speak like real people!

Top Founder Story/Advice of the Day

How to Use Distribution Arbitrage for Product Growth

A 2014 lecture from David Sacks explores how to use distribution arbitrage for product growth. David highlights the evolving landscape of startup growth strategies. Pointing out that once-effective distribution methods, like SEO and social media virality, lose efficacy as they become oversaturated. Sacks advises startups to continually innovate in their distribution approaches, not solely relying on product development. Some ideas for underpriced distribution channels today might include micro-influencers, video content on X & LinkedIn, podcast partnerships, and creating micro-communities. - Link

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This Week in Startups

E1856: David Heinemeier Hansson discusses the launch of his new project, Once.com, which offers a unique alternative to traditional SaaS by charging a one-time fee instead of a recurring subscription, and shares his views on various topics including copyright, the changing nature of remote work, internal culture challenges at Basecamp, the pace of AI development, and the importance of embracing hardship to build resilience and grit. - Watch

E1855: This episode dives into the rapid evolution of AI and the prospect of achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), featuring insights from Adept CEO David Luan. It's a must-watch for understanding how AI shapes our future and data's role in this transformation. - Watch

E1854: Aryan Sharma from Induced AI discusses the development and impact of 24/7 autonomous agents on various sectors. This episode is crucial for grasping the breadth of AI applications and how they're revolutionizing everyday tasks and industries. - Watch

E1853: This episode showcases AI advancements with live demonstrations of Bard's YouTube summarizer and Stability's image editing tools, among others. It's an engaging watch for those interested in the practical applications of AI in content creation and editing. - Watch

E1852: Sunny Madra and David Sacks join the discussion on the ongoing developments and challenges within OpenAI. This episode offers valuable insights into the internal dynamics of AI organizations and the industry's future direction. - Watch

Startup Partners

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