CB Insights

1 in every 3 VC dollars now goes to AI. Within AI, a company’s age and stage don’t always correlate to the size of financing rounds. One of the largest rounds in Q3’24, for instance, was a mammoth $1B deal to Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI) — an early-stage startup founded in June by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever. The company has just 10 employees. SSI’s deal is the 9th $1B+ AI equity round this year. Given their willingness to participate in such large rounds to so many companies, investors appear confident that a new tech giant will emerge from the space — and apparently have FOMO. Yet despite investors’ bullishness, many of today’s fledgling AI startups will struggle to live up to lofty expectations, and some will ultimately fail. Learn more in our new State of Venture Report: https://cbi.team/3zzsFXH

It’s hard to become a unicorn. …right? On average, it takes just over 7 years for today’s unicorns to cross the billion-dollar mark. Until, of course, you zoom in on generative AI startups. They average 3.9 years to hit unicorn status – 45% less than all other unicorns. And some do it in a fraction of the time. Mistral AI, for example, grabbed a $2B valuation in 8 months after being founded. Is it sustainable? Or a bubble about to burst? And are investors chasing the next big thing, or are they ignoring the risks? Dig into the data here: https://cbi.team/3ZD0WzX

AI agents — LLM-powered bots that can independently reason and execute tasks — will reshape the workforce. More than 50 companies have emerged in the last 2 years in this space. One step further are multi-agent architectures, which outperform single agents on complex tasks by leveraging specialized sub-agents. We dive into the outlook for these systems, including agent “subcontracting” and future marketplaces that will emerge: https://cbi.team/4gnn0oc

Your transaction data is gold. And big tech is willing to mine it at all costs. Where you shop. How often you buy. The amounts you spend. They want to know it all. Should you be concerned? Regulators are. Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot was blocked over privacy concerns. And Google is under fire from European regulators for antitrust violations. Still, big tech keeps pushing – partnering, investing, and acquiring to expand their grip on your transactions. How far will it go? Our expert breaks down Amazon and Google’s growing fintech ambitions in this free webinar: https://cbi.team/4em6pQ1

Here’s a trillion-dollar opportunity: AI weather forecasting. Extreme weather is the #1 global risk for the next decade, per the World Economic Forum. So any improvements in weather prediction will have major implications for the $30T of weather-impacted GDP. Tech giants like Google and Nvidia have created deep learning models that can generate weather forecasts at the local and global scale in minutes. This shift will reshape how industries manage climate risk, starting with insurance and financial services. Learn more about AI weather forecasting and 8 other game-changing technologies in our report: https://cbi.team/3TJG463

Europe has already fallen behind in AI. And overregulation certainly isn’t helping. Even the European Commission admits it: “The EU’s extensive and stringent regulatory environment (exemplified by policies based on the precautionary principle) may, as a side effect, restrain innovation”. (The Future of European Competitiveness Report). And this “side effect” is widely felt. CB Insights data shows US-based AI companies have raised ~4x more funding across ~2x as many deals compared to their European counterparts in Q2’24. Among the top 10 LLM developers by valuation, only 2 are based in Europe vs 5 in the US – 2 in China, 1 in Canada. Do you think the EU should adopt a laissez-faire approach?

Clinician burnout is crippling healthcare. Is ambient AI the silver bullet for the industry’s $4.6B crisis? It frees up more time for physicians to spend with patients by automating clinical documentation and capturing doctor-patient interactions. Recent partnerships like the one between Abridge & Kaiser Permanente are already bringing this technology to the front lines. Naturally, where there’s data to be captured, there’s big tech. Microsoft and Oracle have entered the space, further signaling rapid adoption of AI across healthcare. We’re on the brink of an AI takeover in the space. Those not prepared to adapt, will fall behind.

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Micromobility is unprofitable. There, we said it. The business model is broken. High tariffs from China, high maintenance costs, high vehicle expenses. Can it ever be cost effective? The short answer: Maybe. Last-mile logistics players and automakers like Amazon, Honda, and Nissan are all pushing ahead in the micromobility space. Amazon is building e-bike hubs across Europe, and APAC automakers are betting on futuristic EV-micromobility hybrids. Is it a desperate attempt to revive a sinking ship? Or do they know something we don’t?

Nvidia is on track for an even bigger year of dealmaking than last year. The company is investing in startups across the AI landscape as it embeds itself (and its chips) further into the ecosystem. So far this month, it’s backed rounds to: ▪️ You (AI search) — $50M Series B ▪️ Arsenal Bio (biotech) — $325M Series C ▪️ Wombo (content generation) — $9M Series A ▪️ Superliminal Medicines (drug discovery) — $120M Series A Learn more about Nvidia’s priorities in our strategy map here: https://cbi.team/3B2xUiV