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Thrive AI Health says hello, a new GPU cluster, and Spotify’s podcast focus

Author

Alex Wilhelm
July 09, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Top News

  • Meet ThriveAI Health: What happens if you fuse OpenAI’s tech and Thrive Global’s corporate healthcare business? Thrive AI Health. Sam Altman (OpenAI) and Arianna Huffington (Thrive Global) announced the news in a co-authored Time article. Vertical AI? Lots of smart folks think it’s the way forward.

  • a16z builds GPU cluster: How do you get into hot AI deals if your competition is literally every other venture capital firm? a16z is testing a somewhat novel approach — building its own GPU cluster and renting it to portfolio companies. Move over HR or customer acquisition help, GPUs are in and may be helping the well-known firm ensure it’s name is at the top of AI founders’ lists.

  • Spotify’s podcast push continues: Spotify’s not giving up on the podcast front, this time taking a page from YouTube and building out a commenting system inside its app. By the way, did you know that you can watch TWiST on Spotify today instead of just listening? Check it out!

TWiST500

The two numbers that matter for TWiST500 fans today are $300 million and $1.5 billion. That’s the dollar amount that Skild AI just raised and the valuation it earned in the process.

Why do we care about Skild? It’s building — in its own words — a “scalable foundation model for robotics.” Earlier today, Jason and Alex went over the latest additions to the TWiST500 on the podcast [airing soon!]. Focused on robotics startups, the two talked about funding and watched clips from each company. What did most share? A focus on building a robot that could, in theory, tackle an array of tasks.

The great hope is that modern LLM technology will unlock a more general-purpose set of capabilities for human robots. And while Figure et al seem to be making their own software for their in-house hardware, more names in the game is a win for us, the consumer.

As we say, more competition is better. Lightspeed, Coatue, SoftBank, and Jeff Bezos led the round.

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This Week in Startups

E1976: AI with Sunny returns, featuring data concerning the current venture capital fundraising market and what to make of ‘AI native” workers. On the demo side of the fence, Sunny and Jason looked at Luna Labs, Kling, Qwen, Cartesia AI, and more. This is a must-watch if you want to keep tabs on the latest from the world of artificial intelligence.

E1975: In the latest Liquidity Podcast, David Weisburd and Jason spoke with Logan Allin (Fin Capital) and Neil Datta (NKD Advisory) about AI, AI regulation, exit pacing, and immigration policy. The group also dug into Carta data detailing longer periods between rounds for startups, which Neil predicated on the non-ZIRP environment that startups and their backers are operating in today.

E1974: A news roundtable to start the week saw Jason and Alex digging into the DEI v MEI debate, with a side order of media economics and norms. From there, the pair dug into Amazon’s recent AI not-acquisition and what to make of Chime and Salt Labs teaming up. The latter startup was new, making its nine-figure exit all the more interesting to unpack.

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