The Brief - Issue #3

Hello and welcome to our third edition of The Brief, your weekly 5 min download on AI developments that execs should know about: funding news, and leadership roles on the business side of AI ⚡️

DEVELOPMENTS
AI developments in the past week

• Figure, an AI robotics company that makes humanoid robots, has inked a deal with BMW manufacturing to deploy their robots in automotive manufacturing.

• Adobe released new AI-powered features on Premier Pro that make audio editing a lot faster and less tedious.

• Rabbit AI, maker of the tamagotchi-like r1 device that sold out like hotcakes on launch day, announced a partnership with Perplexity AI, maker of the conversational search engine that seeks to usurp Google in the AI search space. The partnership will see Perplexity providing search results on the r1, and the first 100,000 r1 buyers will also have access to Perplexity Pro which costs $200.

• Open AI launched its first higher education partnership. The partnership will see Arizona State University have access to ChatGPT Enterprise, and the school plans to use it for coursework, tutoring, and research.

• Meta is also entering the race to build AGI, with Zuckerberg announcing billions of dollars in infrastructure investments with a plan to have about 600,000 GPUs by the end of the year. He also mentioned that he hopes that technology they build can be open sourced and made “as widely available as we responsibly can”.

FUNDING
Funding in the past week

• Eleven Labs, a company that develops generative voice AI and builds tools for long-form synthetic speech, voice cloning, and automatic dubbing, raised an $80M Series B round. Backers include a16z, Credo Ventures, and Sequoia Capital.

• Farm-ng, agricultural robotics maker, raised a $10M Series A round with backing from investors including Acre Venture Partners, Hawk Tower, and Xplorer Capital.

• Forta, parent-led autism therapy provider, raised a $55M Series A round. Backers include Insight Partners, Exor Ventures, and Alumni Ventures

• Sakana AI, an AI research company based in Japan, raised a $30M seed round, with participation from investors like Lux Capital, Khosla Ventures, and 500

• Vicarious, maker of AI-powered vulnerability detection tools, raised a $30M Series B with participation from Bright Pixel Capital, AlleyCorp, and Strait Capital

For a list of all the companies that have raised funding in the past 3 months, check out our funding database! The password is EITreaders

If you’d like to share the database with your friends, share this link: https://www.execsintech.com/funding-database

JOBS
Leadership roles on the business side of AI

• Responsible AI - Advisor Manager Accenture

• Director, Head of AI Platforms CSL

• Head of Product Invisible

• Manager, AI Scaled Programs Meta

• Chief of Staff, AI Tenstorrent

INDUSTRY
AI in Agritech

How is AI being used to improve farm yield, reduce the use of chemicals, and increase sustainability? We mentioned Farm-ng’s recent funding in the earlier section. Here are a few more AI-driven companies doing exciting things in agritech:

Crop Treatment 🌾

Swiss-based Ecorobotix sells AI-powered crop-treatment solutions that significantly reduce the amount of chemicals that have to be used on crops. Their main offering is a ultra-high precision sprayer that, when paired with its plant recognition system, reduces the chemical used in the field by up to 95%. This has the dual benefit of both drastically reducing farmers costs and increasing crop yields. The company raised a $52m Series B in mid-2023.

FarmWise operates a fleet of automated weeders for vegetable farmers. Rented at a per-acre cost, the geo-fenced robots drive along planted rows, using computer vision to classify crops and remove any weeds without needing chemicals. The company raised a $45m Series B in 2022.

Research & Analysis 🔎

Gro Intelligence is an AI-powered decision engine that ingests data across agriculture, climate, and the economy. Gro’s platform analyzes over 650 trillion data points from over 40,000 sources to give both short and long views on agricultural prospects. The company has raised $117m to date, including an $85m Series B in 2021.

Food Waste Management 🥦

UK-based Better Origin builds ‘mini farms’ that leverage AI to turn expiring fruit and veggies obtained from supermarkets into animal feed. The company uses AI and automation to create the optimal environment for black soldier fly larvae to flourish on their container based farms, and this larvae can then in turn be used in animal feed. Better Origin most recently raised a $16m Series A in 2022.

See you next week! If you’ve liked what you’ve read so far, please share this with your friends 🌟