🕶️ Dorsey and Musk's dire warnings on deepfake dangers

Six bullets of updates

1. 🛫 Generative AI offers personalized itineraries and boosts satisfaction for 40% of global travel expenditures.

2. 📢 Opinion: Calls to ban open source in AI miss the mark—it's crucial for innovation and Silicon Valley support.

3. 🎧 Apple's Vision Pro to have a more affordable model by 2025, priced at $1,500-$2,000 compared to the current headset's $3,499. 

4. 🗣️ Mixhalo's new AI feature beams real-time translations to phones at events, enhancing user experience for 2024.

5. 🧳 OpenAI acquires a remote collaboration platform, marking another big move in its enterprise solution strategy. 

6. 🍝 iFood launches iFood Pago, a digital restaurant bank, extending $276M in credit and opening 140,000 accounts.

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‘Trust nothing, verify everything’, warns Jack Dorsey about deepfakes 

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter (now X), warns that deepfakes will make distinguishing reality from fiction nearly impossible within the next decade.

Speaking at the Festival of the Sun, he advised entrepreneurs to verify everything themselves as technology increasingly blurs the lines between real and fake. He also said in a very eloquent phrase, “The only truth you have is what you can verify yourself with your experience.”

Elon Musk echoed Dorsey’s sentiments on X, questioning if we aren't already living in a simulation. Both tech giants advocate for more open-source AI models to ensure transparency in an era dominated by corporate-controlled content. Read more!

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Startup Events and Deadlines

1. How to close a Funding Round (it’s not just the pitch deck) | July 2 | Webinar

2. Crash Course in Financial Modeling | July 10 | Webinar

3. Financial Modeling Bootcamp | July 22 | Bootcamp  

4. SaaStock: Dublin | August 14 | Conference

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These companies just raised money

1. 💨 Zepto, an ultra-fast delivery app from Mumbai, raises $665M at a valuation of $3.6B.

2. 🏊 Poolside raises $400M at a $2B valuation to supercharge its coding copilot for developers.

3. 🫰 Kevin Hartz's A* Ventures raises its second oversubscribed fund in three years, securing $200M.

4. 🔒 Semperis, a specialist in Active Directory security now worth over $1B, has raised $125M in funding.

5. 💻 PayPal Ventures leads a $20M round into Gynger, offering startups BNPL options for tech purchases.

6. 📕 Ex-HubSpot exec raises $4M for AI-powered CRM that learns for you, backed by Sequoia.

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Dataiku's founder: Europe still needs the US to create tech champions

In a decade, Paris-launched AI platform Dataiku, raised $850M, gained major clients like Pfizer and Toyota, and reached a $3.7B valuation. Its success stems from relocating to New York in 2016 to access better funding, with over half its $250M annual revenue now coming from the US. Despite this, a third of its workforce remains in France.

This trend of European tech firms moving to the US raises concerns about digital sovereignty. Dataiku's cofounder, Florian Douetteau, argues that global success ultimately benefits Europe by inspiring future entrepreneurs and fostering long-term growth, although building a robust startup ecosystem will take decades. Read the whole article. 

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A webinar beyond the pitch deck 

If you missed last week’s webinar, check the video to learn how a powerful pitch deck will help your storytelling so you can captivate and convince your investors to close funding rounds. Don’t forget to subscribe for more!