Top News
Anthropic files to go public: The TWiST 500 is about to lose one of its most prominent, headline-grabbing members: Claude maker Anthropic. The AI company confidentially filed to go IPO on Monday, joining SpaceX and OpenAI as one of the three largest and highest-profile private companies in history to make the switch this year. This continues Anthropic’s closely-watched, industry-defining rivalry with OpenAI, which also has an IPO brewing, and which is just surpassed in valuation while taking on $65 billion in new financing last week. (Anthropic is now valued at $900 billion, rocketing ahead of OpenAI’s $730 billion.) No details yet on the specific timing or exact size of this mega-offering; Anthropic suggests it will “depend on market conditions” among other factors. Look for it on stock exchanges (and maybe your retirement portfolio) starting in the fall.
Mecka joins the “robot surveillance training” trend: Seems like not a day goes by any longer when we don’t hear about a startup using surveillance videos of humans to train robots. The latest is Mecka, a New York startup that reportedly just raised $60 million in Series A and follow-on investments. They’re using a combination of techniques — including human workers wearing “body sensors” and recording themselves on iPhones — to collect data for robot training. Co-founder and CEO Josh Gao says that, unlike so many other AI companies collecting training data, Mecka hopes to also work on the “front lines” of the robotics industry, actually applying the data to fine-tune and deploy in physical space.
Sen. Bernie Sanders wants the public to own AI: In a new op-ed for the New York Times, the Vermont independent suggests that it’s a foregone conclusion that AI will change the world, and the question that remains is: “Who will own and control that future?” He suggests the answer is “everyone” as opposed to “a handful of billionaires,” and further posits that AI’s current level of innovation is only possible because the models have been trained on the “learnings of humanity” and our “collective experience [and] knowledge.” Therefore, Sen. Sanders calls for the passage of an American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund bill, which would tax 50% of the stock of OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and other major industry players, then distribute the shares to the public via a sovereign wealth fund. Sen. Sanders also notes that a number of AI executives have made similar, though less specific, calls to nationalize AI profits in the past. He cites quotes from Anthopic’s own blog and xAI chief Elon Musk about creating national AI sovereign wealth funds or distributing “universal high income checks” to every American. Will these and other AI leaders be enthusiastic about what’s now transitioned from an abstract concept into a specific legislative proposal? Time will tell.
TWiST 500
I always enjoy writing about the TWiST 500 companies that get less daily coverage than OpenAI and Anthropic, and we’ve got two solid updates today.
Strava: The social networking and community app for cyclists, runners, and other fitness enthusiasts is tired of having its data scraped by AI companies for training, and they’re taking steps to do something about it. The startup introduced new blockers that require authentication before viewing certain categories of data. This will have some impact on everyday users: details about public figures and real-world establishments (like gyms and fitness clubs) now require a log-in to view.
As well, developers hoping to work in the Strava ecosystem have to pay $11.99 per month or more (depending on geography) rather than applying through a free, tiered access program. To help offset the new obstacles to developing for Strava, the company is adding support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP) standard, allowing the app to play nice with AI assistants and agents, while giving the company as much control as possible over what gets shared.
Runway: The American AI company is headed to London, and plans to invest more than $200 million into the UK ecosystem by the end of next year. Co-founder and CEO Anastasis Germanidis told CNBC that the goal is not only closer proximity to the company’s significant European customer base, but also an “exceptional” London talent pool.
Runway is perhaps best known for its text-to-video models, which are already routinely used by editors as part of the post-production and visual effects process in Hollywood and beyond. They’re also developing fresh research into world models, which — unlike LLMs — train on and generate outputs modeling the physical three-dimensional world. – Lon
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This Week in Startups
E2294: It’s an all Ask Jason TWiST special, in which JCal responds to the best user queries submitted in our new X super-fan group chats. (Want to join? Follow us on X and let us know why you belong in there in the DMs.) Discussions include how you should approach your seed round funnel, why investors are more open to hardware concepts than ever before, how to differentiate your startup when you’re competing with frontier labs, and the possibilities for “Founder Community College.” PLUS highlights from Lon’s extended trip to Italy and Greece!
E2293: The "Ryanair of drone delivery" just raised $50 million and plans to bring its technology from Europe to the United States. Manna founder Bobby Healy explains to TWiST how his Dublin-based company completed 300,000 deliveries while some rivals are still publishing blog posts, and why low-cost airline economics will decide who wins the autonomous skies. Sticking to the drone theme, TWiST welcomed Theseus co-founder Ian Laffey, who called in from Kyiv to tell us about his company’s drone guidance system. It runs off a simple camera and Google Maps. The technology could rewrite the modern, GPS-jammed battlefield, and bring more firepower to smaller nations fending off larger foes.
E2292: Jason and Lon start off the episode with Divergent Technologies’ co-founder and CEO Lukas Czinger. He tells us about their proprietary 3D printing component platform, which interconnects AI-powered design and in-house 3D printers with computer vision-enabled robotic assembly systems. The company has shifted from a focus on luxury vehicle components to parts for the defense and aerospace industries. Then, Brendan Goode and Dr. Mark Horowitz of Outro Health join the show. They’re helping patients wean themselves off of anti-depressants using a “hyperbolic tapering” method.
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