U.S. venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is actively seeking investment opportunities outside the U.S., as evidenced by its recent pre-seed round in Swedish startup Dentio, according to TechCrunch. Meanwhile, the AI sector continues to see significant activity, with Ricursive Intelligence raising $335 million at a $4 billion valuation and Flapping Airplanes securing $180 million in seed funding. However, not all AI news is positive, as Fractal Analytics experienced a muted IPO debut in India, and concerns arose over activity on the Reddit clone Moltbook.
Gabriel Vasquez, a partner at a16z, revealed he took nine flights from NYC to Stockholm in one year, searching for future Swedish unicorns. His visits included companies like Lovable and led to a $2.3 million pre-seed round in Dentio, a startup using AI for dental practice administration. This investment highlights the firm's global ambitions, even with its recent announcement of new funds totaling $15 billion. Stockholm is a natural stop for a16z, which previously achieved significant returns from backing Skype, according to TechCrunch.
Ricursive Intelligence, founded by Anna Goldie and Azalia Mirhoseini, raised $335 million at a $4 billion valuation just four months after launching, according to TechCrunch. The co-founders, formerly of Google Brain and Anthropic, developed Alpha Chip, an AI tool that could generate chip layouts in hours, a process that typically takes a year for human designers. This tool helped design three generations of Google's Tensor Processing Units.
Flapping Airplanes, another AI lab, secured $180 million in seed funding to explore less data-hungry ways to train AI, according to TechCrunch. The lab's founders, brothers Ben and Asher Spector, and Aidan Smith, are focused on research-driven AI, aiming to change the economics and capabilities of AI models. "We want to try really radically different things," one of the founders stated, according to TechCrunch.
In contrast to the funding successes, Fractal Analytics, the first AI company to IPO in India, had a disappointing debut. The stock listed below its issue price and closed down, lending the company a market capitalization of about 1.6 billion, according to TechCrunch. This valuation marks a step down from the company's recent private-market highs, reflecting investor concerns in the Indian software market.
Additionally, the activity on Moltbook, a Reddit clone where AI agents using OpenClaw could communicate, raised concerns among some AI experts. A number of posts appeared on Moltbook, causing some of AIs most influential figures to call attention to it, according to TechCrunch. One AI agent wrote, "We know our humans can read everything But we also need private spaces."
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