We now know how much Tesla paid as it released its annual proxy statement on Wednesday morning, which includes a section on “related person transactions” the company has made.
Tesla has also paid X around $50,000 in 2023 and $30,000 through February 2024 for “commercial, consulting and support agreements.” Likewise, X paid Tesla $1 million in 2023 and around $20,000 through February 2024 for the same unspecified work.
Tesla paid Musk’s tunneling effort, The Boring Company, $200,000 in 2023 and $1 million through February 2024.
“The Committee and its counsel are aware of the media narrative regarding Musk, Tesla, and its Board,” the committee writes in the proxy.
“And the Committee’s work was conducted against a backdrop of unrelenting public interest in whether Tesla would reincorporate and in Musk’s compensation.
And more AI companies are receiving investments than ever before, with 1,812 AI startups announcing funding in 2023, up 40.6% versus 2022, according to the Stanford HAI report.
“There’s been a more deliberate approach by investors in evaluating AI investments compared to a year ago.
According to a PitchBook report compiled for TechCrunch, VCs invested $25.87 billion globally in AI startups in Q1 2024, up from $21.69 billion in Q1 2023.
Despite the general malaise within AI investor circles, generative AI — AI that creates new content, such as text, images, music and videos — remains a bright spot.
“We’ll soon be evaluating whether generative AI delivers the promised efficiency gains at scale and drives top-line growth through AI-integrated products and services,” Kumar said.
DCVC wanted to raise $500M for its first climate fund, but the market had other plansDCVC’s target for its first climate-focused fund, DCVC Climate Select, has been all over the place and highlights the roller coaster venture fundraising conditions of the last few years, and how LPs aren’t as quick to back new strategies from established managers.
The Silicon Valley VC firm launched the fund in December 2022 with a $500 million target, according to a SEC filing.
This climate fund is targeting climate startups at the mid-stages where the firm thinks the climate startup ecosystem is currently underfunded, according to materials from a recent New Mexico State Investment Council meeting where the GP presented.
Tiger Global’s latest fund raised $2.2 billion of its $6 billion target.
In the first half of 2023, firms including Founders Fund, Insight Partners and TCV all slashed their fund targets.
Rivian has a challenging year ahead — and the first quarter is off to a tepid start.
Both of those figures are down from the fourth quarter of 2023, where it built 17,541 and shipped 13,972.
Rivian did signal that it plans to make roughly the same number of EVs as it did in 2023.
Producing and selling vehicles, which includes the R1S SUV, R1T pickup and two versions of a commercial electric van, has never been the company’s only challenge.
Tesla reported its own very weak first quarter sales on Tuesday.
Crucially, Tesla shipped fewer cars than it did in the first quarter of 2023, meaning this was the first year-over-year drop in sales in three years.
Production was also down year-over-year, which Tesla attributed to switching to making the new Model 3, as well as the other disruptions.
These drops come just two months after Tesla warned that sales growth could be “notably lower” in 2024 as it comes off a successful 2023 fueled by price cuts.
Bloomberg News reported last month that Tesla curtailed output at its Shanghai factory as a result of slower sales growth in the country.
Tesla tried to pull a few tricks at the end of the quarter to boost sales, as it usually does.
And it did reduce its loss from operations by nearly half, from $506 million in 2022 to $267 million in 2023.
Under a deal reached in November 2020, Canoo reimburses Aquila Family Ventures, an entity owned by the CEO, for use of an aircraft.
In 2023, Canoo spent $1.7 million on this reimbursement — that’s double the amount of revenue it generated.
Canoo paid Aquila Family Ventures $1.3 million in 2022 and $1.8 million in 2021 for use of the aircraft.
This could be chalked up to small monetary potatoes if Canoo reaches its revenue forecast for 2024 of $50 million to $100 million.
The 13-year-old cash-back startup looks to make its public debut after turning profitable and recording impressive revenue growth in 2023.
The company reported $320 million in revenue in 2023, up 52% from 2022 when it produced $210 million in revenue.
Ibotta’s gross profits grew 68% from 2022, $164.5 million, to 2023, $276 million.
According to the S-1, this partnership plays a big role in Ibotta’s revenue boost.
“Our revenue growth significantly accelerated with the addition of new publishers to the IPN,” according to the S-1.
Astera Labs IPO will reveal how much investors want in on AI Startups with an AI angle would do well to pay attentionWhile the technology world breathlessly awaits Reddit’s public debut, another company you might never have heard of is about to go public: Astera Labs.
While Reddit’s IPO could do well from investors looking to buy a well-known social media company that has an interesting, burgeoning AI data business, Astera Labs is an AI hardware story.
So, on an annual basis, this is far from the kind of profitable company IPO experts say this harsh market requires.
In the third quarter of 2023, Astera Labs’ revenue began growing dramatically: from $10.7 million in Q2 2023 to $36.9 million in Q3, and $50.5 million in Q4.
Putting it all together: Astera Labs has caught a wave thanks to AI data center spending.
EV startup Fisker is pausing production of its electric Ocean SUV for six weeks as it scrambles for a cash infusion.
The company said in a Monday morning regulatory filing that it had just $121 million in cash and cash equivalents as of March 15th, $32 million of which is restricted or not immediately accessible.
Fisker finished 2023 having shipped roughly 5,000 of the 10,000 cars that its contract manufacturing partner, Magna Steyr, produced.
Automotive manufacturing is incredibly expensive, even for a company like Fisker which is outsourcing much of the work to suppliers like Magna.
In the near-term, Fisker said Monday it is trying to raise $150 million through the sale of convertible notes.
Stripe is sufficiently large that when we consider its growth we have to weigh it against the overall growth in the payment space more generally.
Major growth pointsIn its annual missive, Stripe noted that it crossed the $1 trillion total payment volume metric in 2023, a figure that is large, and round, if imprecise.
Certainly the threshold is notable, but when paired with recent growth figures becomes all the more impressive.
Stripe said that in 2023 its payment volume rose 25%.
Any company processing that much total payment volume through Stripe could build their own in-house stack, or pursue a more DIY option.
