The Dark Appetite of AI

And why investors are loving biotech

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Lucila Sarquis & Arturo Pardo
February 06, 2024

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The Grammys gave us unforgettable moments both on and off the stage, setting the stage for an exciting week ahead 🎤

In today’s edition, we delve into a burgeoning data market that's reshaping industries, the captivating allure of biotech for investors, China's challenges in funding AI startups, and the intriguing prospect of an Olympic-style event allowing performance-enhancing drugs by 2025 🏋️

It's like a scene straight out of Black Mirror, yet it's only February 2024.

And don't miss our video at the end of the email, where we share our adventure attempting to pay with Bitcoin in El Salvador following Bukele's recent re-election ₿

Enjoy today's read!

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Six bullets of updates

  1. 🇮🇳 Investors Vs Founders. Drama at Byju's as major investors seek leadership change. Edtech giant claims they lack voting power.

  2. 💬 #VCsAreSaying Over 80% of startup pitches now involve AI, reveal Kleiner Perkins' VCs Mamoon Hamid and Ilya Fushman.

  3. 🏋️ Peter Thiel backs the Enhanced Games, an Olympic-style event permitting performance-enhancing drugs, set for 2025 debut.

  4. 🪅 Despite contributing $3.2T to the US economy, Latinx/s founders are significantly absent from critical AI policy conversations.

  5. 🇨🇳 China's AI investments dipped 38% YoY in 2023 amid US-China tensions and a global funding slowdown.

  6. 👚 Despite labor and environmental concerns, VCs still flirt with fast-fashion startups like Newme, which churns out 500 new items weekly. 

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Feeding the AI Beast

A booming data market is emerging to feed hungry AI models, with companies like Meta and OpenAI needing massive datasets to train their models. New York City-based startup, Nomad Data, has built large language models to match over 2,500 data vendors to data buyers. The company offers data discovery, allowing companies to search for specific types of data in natural language.

Nomad's CEO, Brad Schneider, highlights that the true value lies not in the training data, but in the constant feeding of live data (inference) to AI models for predictions or task-solving. He also emphasized the increasing importance of customized training of AI models using specific datasets.

This data market phenomenon has led to a surge of data vendors, including media outlets and corporations. Nomad Data's business model revolves around using AI to find new data vendors. Schneider predicts that the market's most exciting part will be the utilization of previously invaluable data in business operations due to new technology. 

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Startup Events and Deadlines

  1. Pitch Deck Design | February 13, 2024 | Online  

  2. SaaS Open | March 3, 2024 | Austin

  3. SaaSOpen: Austin | March, 28, 2024 | Austin

  4. World Summit AI Americas | April 24, 2024, Montreal

  5. TechCrunch Early Stage | April 25, 2024 | Boston

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Takeaways from this week’s podcasts

Securing a significant funding round doesn’t necessarily spell disaster for competitors. In fact, some companies receive funding and are sometimes pushed towards unsustainable growth, potentially leading to decisions that aren’t in the company’s best interest in the long term.

This is an essential insight: Startups should focus on their customers and product development rather than getting too caught up in competitor moves. Early-stage startups are mainly competing with themselves to meet market needs effectively. Pay more attention to customer-focused strategy than panicking in response to competitors’ funding news.

Ryan Rutan and Will Schroeder in the Start-Up Therapy Podcast.
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These companies just raised money

  1. 🥔 ProducePay bags $38M in Series D, ready to take on global food waste with its supply chain monitoring & financing for growers.

  2. 🧘 Hey, new Fund! Backing human potential, Niremia Collective debuts with a $22.5M fund, focusing on wellness tech startups.

  3. 🕹️ StatusPro scores $20M to expand its XR sports gaming empire, boasting over 1M users with an average playtime doubling industry standards.

  4. 🌪️ Swiss startup Jua receives $16M to create a large AI 'physics' model for the natural world, aiming to predict weather patterns impacting sectors from energy to agriculture.

  5. 🌙 Moon-focused startup Interlune, helmed by former Blue Origin leaders, raises $15.5M to develop tech for lunar resource utilization.

  6. 🍫 Planet A Foods bags $15.4M in Series A to scale its sustainable cocoa-free choco, ChoViva, amid an 84% hike in cocoa prices.

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Biotechnology is sexier than ever

Unsplash

Biotechnology is thriving for its ability to enhance health and revolutionize agriculture. In essence, to provide a fair summary, biotechnology encompasses everything. With government support and technological advancements, the stocks of critical players like MannKind (MNKD), Illumina (ILMN), and TG Therapeutics (TGTX) have become pillars that simultaneously explain the significant growth of the sector 🧪

With exciting market projections and FDA support, biotechnology is poised to reach new heights. Moreover, upcoming trends such as bioprinting and tissue engineering are set to make waves this year. 📈

As per a report from Grand View Research, the global biotechnology market is projected to reach $3.88 trillion by 2030, demonstrating a robust compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14% between the forecast period of 2024 to 2030.

So, if you're seeking financial excitement, watch these three major biotech companies closely.

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Data Room for Investors

An investor data room is a storage space, digital or physical, where companies store information relevant to due diligence. We've put together a FREE Template/Checklist of all the items your data room should include, along with resources and tools for obtaining them.

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The bitcoin-lover president was re-elected

Last Sunday, Nayib Bukele was chosen for a second presidential term in El Salvador. This country has Central America’s slowest economy during his time in power. Revisit our adventure trying to pay with Bitcoin in El Salvador - and don’t forget to subscribe!