🕶️ Insights from the Musk vs. Altman Lawsuit

Six bullets of updates

1. 🏎️ Tesla didn’t see this racer coming! NVidia dethrones Tesla as market favorite as investors shift focus from EVs to AI, sparking a 12% stock surge.

2. 👋🏼 After just 18 months, Sam Blond exits Founders Fund to return to tech operations, marking the VC giant's second high-profile departure.

3. 💸 VC funding dips for black founders to 0.48% of all venture dollars in 2023, while a steady rise is seen for mixed-gender teams.

4. 🧠 Despite a VC pullback, Mental health startups remain hopeful, bagging $343M in 2022, down from $1.2B in 2021.

5. 🫰 Despite a rough 2023, startups may see 2024 as a turning point: Investors share tips on securing funding.

6. 🇮🇩 Indonesian fintech startup Wagely secures $23M, defying the local funding slump, to expand its 'financial wellness' platform.

✦

Is this about principles? Elon Musk is fighting Sam Altman

Did Sam Altman betray the intention to benefit humanity with Artificial Intelligence? That's what Elon Musk believes and, therefore, sued Altman. ⚖️

Musk was an early investor in Open AI. In those days, —he says— the mission was for the company to operate with open-source code instead of keeping it reserved. According to Elon, the top executives "perverted" this once they partnered with Microsoft and became "a de facto closed-source subsidiary of the world's largest technology company." The lawsuit filed in the San Francisco Superior Court is therefore for:

• Breach of contract

• Unfair business practices

• Breach of fiduciary duty.

He seeks an injunction preventing Microsoft from benefiting from OpenAI's technology. 🚫

According to several sources, Musk may not be betting on winning in court. On the contrary, his intention could be to remind society of his role in forming OpenAI during its early years. In 2015, he financed the startup with tens of millions of dollars while stepping down from the board in 2018.

✦

✦

These companies just raised money

1. 🖥️ Private equity firm Thoma Bravo acquires Everbridge, a critical event management software company, in a whopping $1.8B deal.

2. 🧳 Despite a pandemic blow, travel startup TravelJoy hits a $1B annual spending milestone and eyes AI for future growth.

3. 🦿 Figure snares $675M Series B, boosting its valuation to $2.6B while teaming up with OpenAI for humanoid robotics.

4. ☀️ Enviria scores $200M from BlackRock, bolstering Germany's standing as a solar tech hub, with 2000 systems in the pipeline. 

5. 🦄 Blockchain startup Taiko, aiming to build a truly decentralized web, raises $37M, hitting unicorn status.

6. 🔐 In a cybersecurity win, Paris-based Filigran pockets $16M to further develop its suite of open-source threat management products.

✦

How much money does Qatar have for startups?

Qatar debuted its startup investment initiative, the Startup Qatar Investment Program, at the recent Web Summit, backed by a $100 million fund managed by the Qatar Development Bank (QDB). This program seeks to lure seed and growth-stage tech companies to establish or grow their presence within the country. The initiative targets startups across fifteen sectors, including fintech, cleantech, healthtech, and robotics. It offers funding ranging from $500,000 for early-stage startups to $5 million for growth-stage firms, along with market access and expertise.

✦

✦

Every SaaS metric explained

In this video we break down SaaS metrics from the very basics, to the most complex, but future-predicting cohort tables. If you enjoy it don't forget to SUBSCRIBE 😎