a16z

Character.AI hires a YouTube exec as CPO, says it will raise money next year with new partners

Character.AI is starting a new chapter after its $2.7 billion licensing deal with Google, which involved CEO Noam Shazeer returning to the search giant. It hired Erin Teague as a chief product officer, a YouTube exec who was the global head of sports movies and shows product management. Teague, who has been working at Google […]

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11x.ai, a developer of AI sales reps, has raised $50M Series B led by A16Z, sources say

11x.ai, a startup that develops AI-powered sales development bots, has secured roughly $50 million in Series B funding, TechCrunch has learned. The new round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the company at around $350 million, multiple sources told TechCrunch. The recent deal follows the company’s $24 million Series A, which was led by Benchmark

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Adam Neumann’s startup Flow opens co-living community in Saudi Arabia

Flow, Adam Neumann’s co-living startup, opened a compound with 238 apartments in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, and Forbes has some details. The opening included an Aztec-themed hot chocolate ceremony and tote bags with the words “holy s— I’m alive” on them. The rent for the furnished units starts at $3,500 a month and includes hotel-style

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Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs comes out of stealth with $230M in funding

Fei-Fei Li, the Stanford professor many deem the “Godmother of AI,” has raised $230 million for her new startup, World Labs, from backers including Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, and Radical Ventures. World Labs is valued at over $1 billion, and the capital was raised over two rounds spaced a couple of months apart, TechCrunch reported in

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Andreessen Horowitz shutters its Miami office after two years

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has closed a satellite office in Miami Beach just two years into a five-year lease it signed for an 8,300-square-foot space. The reason? Disuse, reports Bloomberg. Miami — once a hotspot for crypto, an area of interest for a16z — has struggled to retain venture cash and entrepreneurial talent in recent years,

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A16z’s Joshua Lu says AI is already radically changing video games and Discord is the future

Andreessen Horowitz’s partner Joshua Lu knows that, in the video game industry, you can never get too comfortable. When he was head of product at Zynga, he experienced the height of mobile games, working on hits like Words with Friends; then as a vice president at Blizzard Entertainment, he helped produce tentpole hits like Diablo

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California AI bill SB 1047 aims to prevent AI disasters, but Silicon Valley warns it will cause one

Update: California’s Appropriations Committee passed SB 1047 with significant amendments that change the bill on Thursday, August 15. You can read about them here. Outside of sci-fi films, there’s no precedent for AI systems killing people or being used in massive cyberattacks. However, some lawmakers want to implement safeguards before bad actors make that dystopian

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Viggle makes controllable AI characters for memes and visualizing ideas

You might not know Viggle AI, but you’ve likely seen the viral memes it created. The Canadian AI startup is responsible for dozens of videos remixing the rapper Lil Yachty bouncing on stage at a summer music festival. In one video, Lil Yachty is replaced by Joaquin’s Phoenix’s the Joker. In another, Jesus seemed to

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Former a16z VC Balaji Srinivasan obtained a private island for his new longevity ‘technocapitalist’ school

Depending on your thoughts on the intersection of crypto and Silicon Valley’s libertarians, this is either a dream idea or an odd one: former a16z-investor Balaji Srinivasan has booked out an island in Singapore to create his own “Network School.” This is where he’ll run programs on crypto, longevity and what it takes to establish “a technocapitalist

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California AI bill SB 1047 aims to prevent AI disasters, but Silicon Valley warns it will cause one

Update: California’s Appropriations Committee passed SB 1047 with significant amendments that change the bill on Thursday, August 15. You can read about them here. Outside of sci-fi films, there’s no precedent for AI systems killing people or being used in massive cyberattacks. However, some lawmakers want to implement safeguards before bad actors make that dystopian

California AI bill SB 1047 aims to prevent AI disasters, but Silicon Valley warns it will cause one Read More »