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AI Funding Data, News, and Tools. Edition #09

$701M+ was raised last week across 27 funding rounds.

February 24, 2023

“AI is one of the most important things humanity is working on. It is more profound than, I dunno, electricity or fire.”

– Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet (Google)

Welcome to Episode 9 of the AI Track – your destination for the latest news, tools, and funding data in AI and ML. 🥳

This week in AI:

Amazon AWS partners with HuggingFace.

Microsoft Bing AI ends chat when prompted about 'feelings'.

Qualcomm demos the fastest AI image generation with SD on mobile.

Replika AI raises serious ethical questions.

Nvidia’s riding the AI train with its $10,000 A100 chip.

Harvey AI partners with a major law firm.

Jasper releases new business features.

Pixelicious.xyz and texturelab.xyz are joining scenario.gg.

OpenAI has hired tons of former Google and Meta employees.

👉 Great article: 3 Waves of Successful Generative Tech Startups 

3 Waves of Successful Generative Tech Startups 

We're only in the first wave of a 3-wave Generative Tech revolution. Here's what wave 2 and wave 3 companies will look like.

https://www.nfx.com/post/3-waves-generative-ai-startups?utm_campaign=NFX%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=247578745&utm_content=247578745&utm_source=hs_email

 Generative technology and generative AI will greatly impact every industry. It's not just about making things more efficient. It'll lead to new ways of doing things we haven't considered. Right now, we're in the first wave of AI companies, emphasizing repackaging AI into user interfaces and selling it to customers. The second wave concerns using AI within traditional businesses to gain a competitive advantage. The third wave will be about visionary ideas we have yet to imagine. If you can wrap your head around these new capabilities and see the future, now is a great time to build something massive.

And don't forget to look at the most recent tools. They are listed below 👇

🧑‍💻 WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON?

I'd love to hear about how you utilize AI in your business or projects! Please respond to this email or reach out through DM. It might be featured in this newsletter.

🛠️ TOOLS & TIPS

PhotoRoom released generative AI on the web platform.

Generate AI photos from your IG feed turned model.

Monetize your Voice with SteosVoice.

Get your marketing done with MarketingBlocksAI.

Create AI wallpapers in seconds with background.lol!

ChatGPT for prayers.

Replace your ex on pictures.

Quickly find information on any web page using natural language.

Scribble Diffusion

Turn your sketch into a refined image using AI

https://scribblediffusion.com/

MarioGPT - a Hugging Face Space by multimodalart

Discover amazing ML apps made by the community

https://huggingface.co/spaces/multimodalart/mariogpt

Brancher.ai

Connect AI models to build AI apps in minutes, with no-code. The next generation of AI-powered apps will be built by you.

https://www.brancher.ai/

Uizard Autodesigner | Coming Soon | Uizard

Introducing Uizard Autodesigner, the next frontier of AI design. Generate multi screen UI mockups with text inputs. Sign up for exclusive access.

https://uizard.io/autodesigner/

write-a-card.co | Use AI to help write your greeting cards; birthday, valentines, christmas, etc.

Generate greeting card content using AI services

https://write-a-card.co/

Create the perfect professional headshots

Use AI to creates a strong, positive first impression on hiring managers, recruiters and future teammates. Get 14X more visits & 36X more messages on LinkedIn.

https://figmill.com/

AI Outfit Generator and Maker

Upload a single photo and change your outfit to anything you want. Using Artificial Intelligence create new fashion in only a couple seconds!

https://www.myfashionai.com/

Dreamphilic - Frontpage for AI-generated content

https://dreamphilic.com/

Generate ad creatives that help you sell more. Fast.

Artificial Intelligence powered ad creative and banner generator for better conversion rates.

https://www.adcreative.ai/

📺 MEDIA OF THE WEEK

3 Waves of Successful Generative Tech Startups 

We're only in the first wave of a 3-wave Generative Tech revolution. Here's what wave 2 and wave 3 companies will look like.

https://www.nfx.com/post/3-waves-generative-ai-startups?utm_campaign=NFX%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=247578745&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--qUiLAGpzRefNiSpK79B8fyGm_q8o2P2uDrL_Rk73uO0862ukmoExFjXkUMUDYEXf8qCAmyGCKaGFQ-5Mw1Puf2dqBIhEB3Fx6TXfOw3gw14wSsuo&utm_content=247578745&utm_source=hs_email

📰 STORYS OF THE WEEK

AWS and Hugging Face expand partnership to make AI more accessible

AWS will become the preferred cloud provider for Hugging Face, meaning developers can access tools from Amazon SageMaker, AWS Trainium and to AWS Inferentia.

https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/2023/02/23/aws-and-hugging-face-expand-partnership-to-make-ai-more-accessible/

Omdia: AI chip startups to have a tough year

Analysts from Omdia expect AI chip startups to have a difficult year.

https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/2023/02/21/omdia-ai-chip-startups-to-have-tough-year/

Meet the $10,000 Nvidia chip powering the race for A.I.

The $10,000 Nvidia A100has become one of the most critical tools in the artificial intelligence industry,

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/23/nvidias-a100-is-the-10000-chip-powering-the-race-for-ai-.html

After trying the Replika AI companion, researcher says it raises serious ethical questions

The warm light of friendship, intimacy and romantic love illuminates the best aspects of being human—while also casting a deep shadow of possible heartbreak.

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-02-replika-ai-companion-ethical.html

Worried about ChatGPT and artificial intelligence? How Qualcomm is trying to humanize tech

For the last five or so years, Qualcomm has bet big on bringing more artificial intelligence to smartphones, laptops, vehicles, smart infrastructure and other devices in the field—or what the company calls the "connected intelligent edge."

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-02-chatgpt-artificial-intelligence-qualcomm-humanize.html

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has hired tons of former Google and Meta employees, new data shows

OpenAI has snatched up dozens of former Google and Meta employees in its race to dominate the AI war.

https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-openai-microsoft-hired-former-google-meta-apple-tesla-staff-2023-2?IR=T&r=US&utm_campaign=Artificial%2BIntelligence%2BWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Artificial_Intelligence_Weekly_321

Qualcomm demos fastest local AI image generation with Stable Diffusion on mobile

Qualcomm demos local AI image generation in a trice.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/23/23611668/ai-image-stable-diffusion-mobile-android-qualcomm-fastest

Research keeps AI compatible with smart devices

Smart devices keep getting smarter and are demanding more and more out of the hardware. How can we make sure that these devices are compatible with the artificial intelligence needed to keep them functioning, without having to increase the hardware capacity? This is what Nesma Rezk, Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering, has been researching in her dissertation.

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-02-ai-compatible-smart-devices.html

Microsoft Bing AI ends chat when prompted about 'feelings'

Microsoft Corp. appeared to have implemented new, more severe restrictions on user interactions with its "reimagined" Bing internet search engine, with the system going mum after prompts mentioning "feelings" or "Sydney," the internal alias used by the Bing team in developing the artificial-intelligence powered chatbot.

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-02-microsoft-bing-ai-chat-prompted.html

Microsoft brings Bing chatbot to phones after curbing quirks

Microsoft is ready to take its new Bing chatbot mainstream—less than a week after making major fixes to stop the artificially intelligent search engine from going off the rails.

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-02-microsoft-bing-chatbot-curbing-quirks.html

AI experts suggest 39% of time currently spent on chores could be automated within the next decade

On average, 39% of time currently spent on unpaid domestic work could be automated within the next decade, suggest AI experts from the UK and Japan. The findings are published in PLOS ONE by a team led by Ekaterina Hertog at the University Oxford, UK, and colleagues in Japan.

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-02-ai-experts-spent-chores-automated.html

‘It’s fundamental’: WPP chief on how AI has revolutionised advertising

Mark Read says artificial intelligence is helping firm win clients keen to tap into technology’s potential

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/23/ai-artificial-intelligence-wpp-global-advertising-revolution-technology

💰 FUNDING $701M+ was raised last week across 26 funding rounds.

Europe’s generative AI startups, mapped

Europe already has more than 130 startups working with generative AI. Here's the list, broken down by subsector, region and the best funded.

https://sifted.eu/articles/europe-generative-ai-startups/

👉 Previa Medical - Seed ($2.1M) | AI that detects patient complication risks.

👉 Sandbox AQ ($500M) | scans companies' systems to identify which parts use the old cryptography, identifies which need to be replaced urgently, and sets out to fortify the encryption of the enterprise.

👉 Voicemod ($14.5M) | wants to enhance the development of its real-time AI voice identity capabilities.

👉 Replicate ($17.8M) | enables developers to deploy AI models with a few lines of code.

👉 Smile Identity - Series B ($20M) | enables ID verification and KYC compliance through AI designed for African faces and identities.

👉 Quantum Motion ($50.5M) | creates “scalable quantum computers”. The funding was led by Bosch Ventures, with participation from Porsche, the U.K. government’s National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF), and a host of additional investors.

👉 SPRK.global - Seed ($6M) | AI-enabled distribution platform for connecting food oversupply with demand partners by considering NGOs.

👉 Xaba - Seed | operates as an industrial AI-driven control system.

👉 Kern AI - Seed ($2.7M) | data-centric platform for building natural language interfaces.

👉 QiO Technologies - Series B (£8.3M) | AI sustainability tech company that provides a sustainability suite to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

👉 Uktena Tech - Series A (€250k) | Industrial services platform in mixed reality.

👉 Simulacra - Seed (€500k) | Simulacra is a holding company in three distinct markets: adult entertainment, AI-driven robotics, and medical simulation.

👉 BrainBox AI - Grant ($6.5M) | utilizes cloud-based computing, algorithms, and a proprietary process to create an autonomous building technology.

👉 Gongyuan Sanqian - Pre-Seed ($525,000)  | automatic inspection solution provider and quality data analysis platform.

👉 Lingxin Intelligence - Pre-Seed | interactive AI platform that applies advanced artificial intelligence technology to digital diagnosis.

👉 Extreme Entropy Data - Series B (CN¥90M) | Extreme Entropy Data is an innovative high-tech enterprise that focuses on the value of physical industrial and commercial data.

👉 MoleculeMind - Seed (CN¥100M) | MoleculeMind is an AI-integrated biotech firm that fuses artificial intelligence with biotechnology to form a new development platform.

👉 Veridion - Seed ($6M) | provides business data enrichment based on real-time updates

👉 Tome - Series B ($43M) | Tome is an AI-powered storytelling productivity tool that helps users transform ideas into visually appealing narratives.

👉 Aniai - Seed (€3M) | Aniai has developed a labor solution for quick-service restaurants by building a robotic kitchen.

👉 Ledgerowl (€2M) | digitalize and personalize the fashion industry.

👉 AeroCloud - Series A ($12.6M) | bringing cloud-native, AI-powered software to airports of all sizes.

👉 Locstat | Graph Analytics Platform providing graph intelligence capability and solutions in complex data environments

👉 Astrus ($100k) | AI to automate microchip design

👉 Spoke.ai (€2M) | Spoke.ai cuts through workplace noise with powerful AI that prioritizes and summarizes across tools

👉 Transmetrics ($2.5M) | Transmetrics optimizes logistics planning and asset management by leveraging the power of predictive analytics and artificial intelligence.

👉 SafeToNet (£1.8M) | SafeToNet makes the digital world safer for children to explore and enjoy.

Thank you for reading episode 9 of the AI Track. Please reply to this email or contact me on social media if you have any thoughts or suggestions for future editions. Remember to share and subscribe.

See you next week, and let's keep researching!