Take time to Reflect on your models

Top News

• Reflection raising $2.5 billion: The TWiST 500 AI concern is hard at work on a network of open-source AI models, which enterprises, universities, AI labs, and others can use to spin up their own agents and tools. They’re one of a number of open source AI model companies being backed by chip giant Nvidia. And while JPMorgan Chase is leading the latest round — valuing the company at $25 billion — Nvidia is ALL IN on Reflection, having sunk $800 million into a previous raise. Though Reflection does not have meaningful revenue to speak up yet, there are some interesting projects in the works, including a deal with Shinsegae Group to build a local data center powering models customized for the Korean language. This deal could become a model for “sovereign clouds” operated by US allies around the globe, which helps to explain Nvidia’s interest. More open models means more demand for GPUs.

• Google moves up “Q Day” expectations: What is “Q Day”? It’s the looming moment when quantum computers advance sufficiently to break public-key cryptography algorithms. This is the tech that’s currently used for security across HTTPS, SSH, email, cryptocurrencies, and other basic internet protocols. Essentially, as Ars Technica explains, these algorithms secure “decades’ worth of secrets belonging to militaries, banks, governments, and nearly every individual on earth.” Eep. In a blog post published this week, Google announced that it’s giving itself until 2029 to prepare for this potential privacy cataclysm, and recommends that other organizations do the same. The plan: adopt Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), which will at least theoretically render private systems quantum-resistant.

• Wikipedia bans AI writers: Under a newly-announced policy, Wikipedia editors are barred from writing or rewriting articles with AI. The reasoning: AI written articles often violate the site’s “core content policies.” AI tools are still permitted in certain scenarios, such as using LLMs to translate articles into English, or to suggest edits for human-generated writing (so long as the AI model doesn’t introduce content of its own). Interestingly, the article also cautions editors to use restraint when identifying and removing allegedly AI-generated writing, noting that many people “have similar writing styles to LLMs.” Editors are asked to provide concrete justification, and consider the text’s compliance with the aforementioned “core content policies,” before removing submissions.

TWiST 500

A grab bag of updates from TWiST 500 players we haven’t checked in with in a bit. Let’s get right into it.

• Cohere: The Toronto-based company builds LLMs and AI products for large enterprises, in heavily regulated industries like healthcare, finance, and manufacturing. They’ve just released Transcribe, an open source speech recognition model designed for note-taking, speech analysis, and similar applications. It supports 14 languages, but at just 2B parameters, it’s small enough to run on a consumer-grade GPU. The company claims the model hits an average word error rate (or WER) of 5.42, lower than competitive models from ElevenLabs and Alibaba.

• Mistral: Speaking of speech models, France’s Mistral released a new open source text-to-speech model of their own, Voxtral TTS. Their variation on the theme is designed to power both AI assistants and enterprises uses (like call centers). They’re also aiming for size and speed: Voxtral TTS is small enough to run on a smartwatch or a laptop. Another big selling point: the model can swap between nine languages without losing vocal inflections and personality, making it particularly useful for translation and dubbing.

• Shield AI: Shield makes autonomous drones and vehicles for militaries. They’ve raised a new $2 billion round at a valuation of $12.7 billion, more than double their value from just one year ago. Shield is using a chunk of the cash to buy another defense tech startup, Aechelon Technology, which provides image generators, sensors, and 3D models for use in realistic visual and field simulations. Interesting side note: Shield was founded by former Navy SEAL Brandon Tseng! – Lon

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This Week in Startups

E2267: We’ve caught Subnet Fever on TWiST, so Lon and Alex welcome three sets of subnet founders to take a look at what they’re building on the TAO blockchain. The list includes MetaNova, which runs developer competitions to uncover molecular candidates that could one day lead to new drug treatments for major diseases. Plus there’s the Bitcast Network, which uses Bittensor to create a marketplace between brands and YouTube content creators. Finally, we’ve got Score, which uses a subnet model to generate small but highly specialized computer vision models.

E2266: Jason’s exploring the controversy surrounding compliance startup Delve with special guests Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund and Ryan Mahdavi from Ceel (another compliance startup, and a Delve competitor). Is Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” culture to blame? And why did Ryan always have deep suspicions about the once promising Y Combinator-backed company? PLUS two more demos from data center energy savers Brick and Bittensor Subnet 71, lead generation service LeadPoet.

E2265: In our LaunchFest grand finale, Jason’s joined by Zipline founder Keller Cliffton, who shares his company’s journey from transporting life-saving blood donations to Rwandan hospitals through scaling up to 8 countries and deliveries of all kinds. Plus we’ve got Rahul Vohra from Superhuman sharing his own entrepreneurial backstory, from launching Rapportive while living in Cambridge through his latest startup’s merger with Grammarly.

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• Every.io: For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit every.io.

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