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Perplexity AI could be worth up to $3B. Here’s why
Thursday - April 24 - 2024
Perplexity AI‘s latest, large fundraising event could be quickly superseded by another, even larger chunk of capital, TechCrunch reports.
Yes, the $62.7 million that the startup raised at just over a $1 billion valuation could be quickly stomped on by a raise of as much as $250 million at a valuation that is up to 2.5 to 3x larger.
Nvidia is acquiring Run:ai, a Tel Aviv-based company that makes it easier for developers and operations teams to manage and optimize their AI hardware infrastructure.
Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed publicly, but two sources close to the matter tell TechCrunch that the price tag was $700 million.
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Today’s newsletter :
Perplexity AI could be worth up to $3B. Here’s why
The TikTok ban clears key hurdle while Perplexity AI continues to shake up search
Nvidia acquires AI workload management startup Run:ai for $700M, sources say
Why code-testing startup Nova AI uses open source LLMs more than OpenAI
Microsoft unveils Phi-3 family of compact language models
This tiny chip can safeguard user data while enabling efficient computing on a smartphone
Mapping the brain pathways of visual memorability
A National Security Insider Does the Math on the Dangers of AI
Rabbit’s AI Assistant Is Here. And Soon a Camera Wearable Will Be Too
Perplexity AI‘s latest, large fundraising event could be quickly superseded by another, even larger chunk of capital, TechCrunch reports.
Yes, the $62.7 million that the startup raised at just over a $1 billion valuation could be quickly stomped on by a raise of as much as $250 million at a valuation that is up to 2.5 to 3x larger.
What’s going on? Quick revenue growth at the company that has reportedly reached around $20 million worth of annual recurring revenue.
Sure at $1 billion that’s a 50x revenue multiple, but if the company is on a quick enough growth pace, investors paying up to 150x for its current ARR might not be as insane as it looks on paper, even if similarly priced bets back in the 2021-era often struggled.
The hype around Perplexity is a big deal, because it shows that some startups are doing well enough to attract outsized venture investment.
Good. A concern that I have had for some time is that the AI boom would wind up merely enriching incumbents and not lifting enough startups up to create a new class of tech giants; my view is that having a permanent class of tech gods is not the best way to drive long-term innovation.
And I think that search, in general, is a good indication of what happens when technology giants fail to meaningfully compete with one another.
Nvidia is acquiring Run:ai, a Tel Aviv-based company that makes it easier for developers and operations teams to manage and optimize their AI hardware infrastructure.
Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed publicly, but two sources close to the matter tell TechCrunch that the price tag was $700 million.
CTech reported earlier this morning the companies were in “advanced negotiations” that could see Nvidia pay upwards of $1 billion for Run:ai.
Evidently, the negotiations went off without a hitch, apart from a possible price change.
Nvidia says that it’ll continue to offer Run:ai’s products “under the same business model” and invest in Run:ai’s product roadmap as part of Nvidia’s DGX Cloud AI platform, which gives enterprise customers access to compute infrastructure and software that they can use to train models for generative and other forms of AI.
Nvidia DGX server and workstation and DGX Cloud customers will also gain access to Run:ai’s capabilities for their AI workloads, Nvidia says — particularly for generative AI deployments running across multiple data center locations.
Well, if you are a big TikTok fan and live in the United States, I have some bad news for you: A bill that would force a sale of TikTok or ban it in the United States passed the Senate. And the president is expected to sign it. Given that China has made noise that it will not allow a sale of the social media company that is headquartered in Singapore, but is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, it’s not looking good for TikTok in the States.
But if that has you bummed out, don’t worry, we have lots of pretty positive news to discuss as well. News like two AI startups in Europe that are making a bit of noise that caught our attention. There’s a lot more AI in Europe than just Mistral, of course.
And we had to discuss the latest from Perplexity AI, which just raised money and is shaking up its operating plans by raising even more money. It’s a good time to be an AI startup.
Not that that is the only thing going on. The Framework laptops folks just raised more capital, Pony.AI is considering a U.S. IPO and Volition Capital is expanding. Hit play, and let’s have a chat!
It is a universal truth of human nature that the developers who build the code should not be the ones to test it.
First of all, most of them pretty much detest that task. Second, like any good auditing protocol, those who do the work should not be the ones who verify it.
Not surprisingly, then, code testing in all its forms – usability, language- or task-specific tests, end-to-end testing – has been a focus of a growing cadre of generative AI startups.
Every week, TechCrunch covers another one like Antithesis (raised $47 million); CodiumAI (raised $11 million) QA Wolf (raised $20 million).
And new ones are emerging all the time, like new Y Combinator graduate Momentic.
Another is year-old startup Nova AI, an Unusual Academy accelerator grad that’s raised a $1 million pre-seed round.
It is attempting to best its competitors with its end-to-end testing tools by breaking many of the Silicon Valley rules of how startups should operate, founder CEO Zach Smith tells TechCrunch.
Microsoft has announced the Phi-3 family of open small language models (SLMs), touting them as the most capable and cost-effective of their size available.
The innovative training approach developed by Microsoft researchers has allowed the Phi-3 models to outperform larger models on language, coding, and math benchmarks.
“What we’re going to start to see is not a shift from large to small, but a shift from a singular category of models to a portfolio of models where customers get the ability to make a decision on what is the best model for their scenario,” said Sonali Yadav, Principal Product Manager for Generative AI at Microsoft.
The first Phi-3 model, Phi-3-mini at 3.8 billion parameters, is now publicly available in Azure AI Model Catalog, Hugging Face, Ollama, and as an NVIDIA NIM microservice.
Despite its compact size, Phi-3-mini outperforms models twice its size. Additional Phi-3 models like Phi-3-small (7B parameters) and Phi-3-medium (14B parameters) will follow soon.
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However, these apps can be slow and energy-inefficient because the vast machine-learning models that power them must be shuttled between a smartphone and a central memory server.
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For nearly a decade, a team of MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researchers have been seeking to uncover why certain images persist in a people's minds, while many others fade.
A National Security Insider Does the Math on the Dangers of AI
Now CEO and president of Rand Corporation, Matheny has built a career out of thinking about such gloomy scenarios.
An economist by training with a focus on public health, he dived into the worlds of pharmaceutical development and cultivated meat before turning his attention to national security.
Rabbit’s AI Assistant Is Here. And Soon a Camera Wearable Will Be Too
The pathway leading into Rabbit's venue for the launch event of the R1, an artificial-intelligence-powered device announced at CES 2024, was paved with gadgets from the past.
First was the orange JVC Videosphere, then the Sony Walkman, a Tamagotchi, a transparent Game Boy Color—heck, even the original Pokédex toy from 1998.
At the very end of the hall was Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operator, and across from it, a few concept prototypes of the Rabbit R1.
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