Morning VC Brief丨2024.08.05

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00. TL;DR

1/ Humanoid Robotics Startup Figure AI teases Figure 02

2/ Google Hires Character.AI Cofounders and Licenses Its Models

3/ AI chipmaker Cerebras confidentially files for US IPO

4/ Loyalty program for renters startup Bilt Rewards raises 150M Venture Round

5/ RAG for Enterprise startup Contextual AI raises 80M Series A

6/ Decentralized Lending Protocol Morpho raises 50M Venture Round

7/ GenAI video making startup Hedra raises 10M Seed Round

01. Tech News

1/ Humanoid Robotics Startup Figure AI teases Figure 02

Figure AI published a trailer video for its newest model: Figure 02. Founder Brett Adcock also posted on his personal X account that Figure 02 was “the most advanced humanoid robot on the planet.” Figure AI is backed by OpenAI, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Intel Capital and Bezos Expeditions. Link

2/ Google Hires Character.AI Cofounders and Licenses Its Models

Google has agreed to pay a licensing fee to chatbot maker Character.AI for its models and will hire its cofounders and many of its researchers. Unvested employee options will continue to vest at $88 per share through the end of July 2026. This valued the company at $2.5 billion.

Character’s employees working on model training and voice artificial intelligence—about 30 of its roughly 130 staffers—will join Google to work on its Gemini AI efforts. Link

3/ AI chipmaker Cerebras confidentially files for US IPO

Cerebras is a startup making semiconductors optimized for artificial intelligence uses. The company is targeting a listing in the second half of the year, and may seek a valuation in the IPO that would value it above the $4 billion figure achieved in its 2021 funding round. Cerebras’s existing investors include Alpha Wave Ventures, Abu Dhabi Growth Fund, G42, Altimeter Capital, Benchmark Capital and Coatue Management. Link

02. Venture News

1/ Loyalty program for renters startup Bilt Rewards raises 150M Venture Round

Bilt Rewards is the largest loyalty program for the home and neighborhood in US. Bilt's resident loyalty program continues to evolve, helping properties collect on-time rent payments, offer tailored benefits to residents, and generate new revenue from local spend at partner merchants. This round was led by Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG), the late-stage venture and growth investment arm of Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, with participation from existing investors and new endowments including Vanderbilt University Endowment and the University of Illinois Foundation, which valued the company at $3.1 billion. Link

2/ RAG for Enterprise startup Contextual AI raises 80M Series A

Contextual AI lets enterprises build state-of-the-art RAG 2.0 applications in minutes. Enterprise AI applications will automate complex knowledge-intensive tasks, freeing up knowledge workers to focus on the highest-value activities. This round was led by Greycroft with participation from Bain Capital Ventures (BCV), Lightspeed and Conviction. Link

3/ Decentralized Lending Protocol Morpho raises 50M Venture Round

Morpho is a permissionless, resilient, and primitive lending protocol that creates an open market for risk management and specialized products. This round was led by Ribbit Capital with participation from a16z crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Variant, Pantera and 40+ others. Link

4/ GenAI video making startup Hedra raises 10M Seed Round

Hedra came out of stealth with its video-focused foundation model Character-1. Hedra said more than 350,000 users have used the Character-1 platform and created over 1.6 million videos. This round was led by Index Ventures, Abstract Ventures and A16Z Games Speedruns. Link