Apple Intelligence: Apple Reveals AI Plans, Cisco Launches $1B AI Fund, and Mistral Secures €600M in Funding
Artificial Intelligence news, week 24/2024
Happy Friday everyone!
I'm Rubén Colomer, GP at Next Tier Ventures and this is AI Weekly Digest, a weekly roundup of the latest news, funding rounds, tools, interesting reads, events, and jobs related to Artificial Intelligence.
News 🗞️📰
Tech giant Cisco launches $1B AI fund to power innovative solutions. Cisco has already committed nearly $200m to the fund, with strategic investments in Cohere, Mistral AI, and Scale AI serving as early examples.
Mistral secures €600M funding as valuation soars to almost €6B. Just a year ago, raised €105M at a pre-money valuation of €135m.
Apple Intelligence: Everything to know about Apple's AI features coming to iPhones, Macs, and iPads. Check out the coolest things Apple's AI can do.
Elon Musk drops lawsuit against OpenAI, which he filed in March, arguing that the company had shifted focus from benefiting humanity to making money.
Microsoft said Monday that it would invest $3.2B over two years in cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure in Sweden.
Google’s new startup program focuses on bringing AI to public infrastructure.
Intel announced new AI chips to challenge Nvidia's dominance.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveils Meta AI expansion and new WhatsApp Business features at Conversations 2024.
Shutterstock Made $104 Million Licensing Assets to AI Devs Last Year
Funding 💼💸
AI Startup Harvey Targets $2 Billion Valuation and aims to raise $600 million, potentially using the funds to acquire vLex, which had previously purchased Quolaw, a startup I invested in.
Cognigy, a global leader in AI-first customer service automation, has raised €93M in Series C funding. The round was led by Eurazeo Growth, with participation from existing investors Insight Partners, DTCP and DN Capital and others.
CaseMark Raises $1.7M led by Gradient Ventures to Empower Attorneys with AI.
Brightwave Secures $6 Million Seed Round to Launch AI-Powered Financial Research Assistant led by Decibel and Point72 Ventures.
Astrocade AI Lands $12 Million Seed Round to Empower Everyone to Create Games with AI; Investors include AME Cloud Ventures, NVIDIA Ventures, Eric Schmidt, and Niccolo De Masi.
UK firm Human Native AI, The fair AI data marketplace, has bagged $3.6M led by investors LocalGlobe and Mercuri.
Arya, an AI-driven sexual wellness platform for couples, has secured $7.5 million in a seed funding round co-led by Patron and Play Ventures.
Particle raises $10.9M in a Series A to accelerate development of AI-powered news app, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Linq raises $6.6M to use AI to make research easier for financial analysts led by InterVest and Atinum, with participation from TechStars, Kakao Ventures, Smilegate Investment and Yellowdog.
M&A 💰
SAP Acquires WalkMe To Bolster Its Business AI and CX Offerings. This transaction values WalkMe at approximately $1.5 billion.
HEALWELL AI Acquires VeroSource for $24.5M to Bolster AI-Powered Preventative Care Platform.
New World Solutions announce the successful acquisition of Panyo AI that marks a significant expansion of New World Solutions' portfolio by enhancing its presence in the electric vehicle (EV) sharing market.
Vertex Acquires Artificial Intelligence Sales Tax Capabilities from Ryan, LLC.
Seattle startup Flyhomes is beefing up its real estate search capabilities with the acquisition of technology from ZeroDown, a San Francisco startup backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Interesting Reads 💡🤔
Here are the 10 most active VC investors in generative AI since 2019, according to PitchBook data.
The Forrester Wave™: AI Foundation Models For Language, Q2 2024. The 10 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
Gen AI: Opportunities in M&A (McKinsey)
Midjourney has released a new feature called "Model Personalization." This update allows users to personalize the way the system interprets their prompts. (see video)
Leadership in the Age of AI | Paul Hudson and Lindsay Levin | TED (video)
Tech 🤖💻
Google has launched a new large language model (LLM) designed to analyze and understand health data and questions. This AI aims to enhance personal health and wellness by providing expert-level insights and human-quality recommendations.
How AI Image Models Work. An entirely non-technical explanation of image generators.
New Method Enhances Test-Time Adaptation with Synthetic Data Alignment
Researchers have developed a Synthetic-Domain Alignment (SDA) framework to improve test-time adaptation (TTA) of models on new domains.
Benedict Evans, former partner at Andreessen Horowitz, explores how to build mass-market AI products around technology that sometimes gets things 'wrong
Tools 🧰🛠️
Galileo.ai: Go from idea → design → code in under a minute. The fastest way to bring your ideas to life.
Namify: AI-powered business name generator. Build a memorable brand with Namify’s.
Hadana: Plan your trips based on your budget, days, activities and more.
GoPeek.ai: Workspace that automatically organizes and summarizes your browser tabs using AI
Solo: Instantly create a beautiful website so you can grow your business.
BrowseAi: The easiest way to extract and monitor data from any website
Photoroom: Create professional images for free with AI, from mobile and desktop.
Munch: Extract the most engaging and impactful clips from your long-form videos
Events 🪩🎉
VDS (October 23-24) - Valencia, Spain *SPONSOR*
Valencia Digital Summit is a major technology event that gathers innovators, entrepreneurs, and business leaders from around the world to discuss the latest trends and advancements in digital technology. This year, artificial intelligence will be a fundamental focus, with dedicated sessions exploring its transformative impact across various industries. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage with AI experts, participate in workshops, and discover innovative AI applications that drive business growth and societal advancement.
You can get tickets here, become a sponsor or exhibitor, submit a call for speakers, or join the startup competition.
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) (August 3-9) - Jeju-si, South Korea
A prominent event in the field of AI, bringing together researchers and professionals to discuss the latest advancements in artificial intelligence.EAI Africatek - EAI International Conference on Emerging Technologies for Developing Countries (August 6-8) - Ilorin, Nigeria
This conference focuses on sustainable development through the utilization of artificial intelligence and innovative technologies.International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Control Engineering (August 7-9) - Xi'an, China
Explore advancements in robotics, artificial intelligence, and control engineering.Ai4 2024 (August 12-14) - Las Vegas, NV, USA
The world’s largest gathering of AI business leaders, featuring over 350 speakers and thousands of attendees.Generative AI Summit 2024 (August 13-15) - Sydney, Australia
Australia’s largest event dedicated to generative AI, offering case studies and practical examples on AI implementation.
AI Jobs 👩💻👨💻
Here is a list of job opportunities at Mistral.ai:
Account Executive, Enterprise (USA) - San Francisco
Account Executive, Mid-Market (USA) - San Francisco
Revenue Development Representative (US Market) - San Francisco
Senior Contract Counsel, US - SF / NYC
Backend Developer - Paris/London
DevOps Engineer - Paris
Front-end Developer - Paris/London
Full-stack Developer - Paris/London
Inference/C++ Backend Engineer - Paris/London