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Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.
This is the first of a two-part series that we built for you going back over critical themes from 2023.
It was a very, very busy year in the worlds of technology, startups, and venture capital — so busy that we asked for your 2023 in a headline, and you delivered!
In Part 1, Mary Ann and Alex dug into a host of key themes:In Part 2 — coming soon!
ImpriMed, a California-based precision medicine startup, builds AI-powered dog cancer treatment technology that helps veterinarians identify the most suitable drugs for individual canine and feline blood cancers.
The startup, which centers on improving treatment outcomes of dogs and cats with cancer first, now aims to expand its precision medicine technology for human oncology applications.
“Also, the proven know-how acquired from developing AI algorithms in veterinary oncology streamlines the building of new predictive models in human oncology.
For human precision oncology, its AI software for multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer, is in the process of approval, aiming to commercialize in 2025, Lim told TechCrunch.
ImpriMed’s unique strength is “the ability to develop and incorporate AI models into the personalized medicine service workflow,” according to Lim.
OpenAI is expanding its internal safety processes to fend off the threat of harmful AI.
In-production models are governed by a “safety systems” team; this is for, say, systematic abuses of ChatGPT that can be mitigated with API restrictions or tuning.
Frontier models in development get the “preparedness” team, which tries to identify and quantify risks before the model is released.
So, only medium and high risks are to be tolerated one way or the other.
For that reason OpenAI is making a “cross-functional Safety Advisory Group” that will sit on top of the technical side, reviewing the boffins’ reports and making recommendations inclusive of a higher vantage.
As AI applications continue to proliferate across industries, they hold the promise of revolutionizing customer experience, optimizing operational efficiency, and streamlining business processes.
In recent years, concerns about ethical, fair, and responsible AI deployment have gained prominence, highlighting the necessity for strategic oversight throughout the AI life cycle.
The rising tide of AI applications and ethical concernsThe proliferation of AI and ML applications has been a hallmark of recent technological advancement.
AI governance has emerged as the cornerstone for responsible and trustworthy AI adoption.
Strong ethical and risk-management frameworks are essential for navigating the complex landscape of AI applications.
IBM is doling out €2.13 billion ($2.3 billion) to acquire a duo of data integration assets from Germany-based enterprise software company Software AG.
The all-cash deal will see IBM take ownership of StreamSets, a data integration platform that Software AG had acquired just last year, and WebMethods, which Software AG bought for more than $500 million back in 2007.
Today, news emerged that Silver Lake has now bought 93 percent of Software AG, with plans to delist the company from the public markets imminently.
And this is where data integration systems enter the fray, allowing companies to build pipelines that can pool their data regardless of where it resides and in whatever format.
And that, effectively, is what IBM is buying in StreamSets and WebMethods, technologies that span the various layers that constitute application and data integration, including API management which is what WebMethods specifically brings to the table.
The investment is coming by way of Verdane taking a substantial stake Fountain Venture, the investment vehicle controlled by the founder and current chairman of Meltwater, Jørn Lyseggen.
Joakim Kjemperud, a principal at Verdane, said the deal also gives his firm a stake in an HR firm, Jobylon, although Meltwater is by far the bigger asset.
In that context, it’s notable that Verdane opted to invest in Fountain Venture rather than directly in Meltwater.
That will give Verdane not only the stake in Meltwater, but also a stake in Jobylon and whatever else Fountain and Lyseggen find interesting.
Meltwater built AI in-house and has acquired a stream of businesses in an analytics consolidation play.
In this edition of WiR, we cover Cruise slashing 24% of its driverless workforce (and, relatedly, Tesla’s autopilot recall), Twitch’s new nudity policy conundrum, Adobe’s updated app design language and Instagram launching a generative AI–powered background editor.
Most readGemini comes to more apps: Google’s Gemini GenAI models — specifically Gemini Pro, a lightweight version of a more capable model, Gemini Ultra, set to arrive in the coming months — is making its way into more Google products.
Duet AI, the company’s suite of dev assistance tools for code completion and generation, will soon start using Gemini.
So will AI Studio (formerly MakerSuite), Google’s AI app design experience on the web, and Vertex AI, the tech giant’s managed AI dev platform for enterprises.
Called Spectrum 2 (no surprise there), the new design system backs off a bit from the austerity of the current Spectrum design and adds quite a few more splashes of color.
We’re wrapping up our end-of-year robotics Q&A series with this entry from Deepu Talla.
Over the past several years, NVIDIA has established itself a major platform for robotics simulation, prototyping and deployment.
Previous Q&As:What role(s) will generative AI play in the future of robotics?
Simulation: Models will be able to accelerate simulation development, bridging the gaps between 3D technical artists and developers, by building scenes, constructing environments and generating assets.
These GenAI assets will see increased use for synthetic data generation, robot skills training and software testing.
Grimes is stepping into the toy business with “Grok,” a character that she voiced for Curio’s new line of screen-free AI plushies.
The toy is not affiliated with the AI chatbot backed by Grimes’ ex, Elon Musk, which is also named Grok.
There’s Grok, an anthropomorphized rocket ship voiced by Grimes.
As Business Insider reports, Grimes’ Grok was trademarked first.
“I can’t believe even ai can’t avoid showing up at school and meeting another kid with the same name haha.”
I’ve spent much of the past year discussing generative AI and large language models with robotics experts.
It’s become increasingly clear that these sorts of technologies are primed to revolutionize the way robots communicate, learn, look and are programmed.
Well-funded Oregon-based startup Agility has been playing around with the tech for a while now using its bipedal robot, Digit.
Agility notes, “Our innovation team developed this interactive demo to show how LLMs could make our robots more versatile and faster to deploy.
MIT CSAIL’s Daniela Rus also recently told me, “It turns out that generative AI can be quite powerful for solving even motion planning problems.
