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Amazon's discount store 🏪,Toys "R" Us' AI Fever Dream🧸

Plus: Figma's AI redesign 🧑‍🎨

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Cash Nut
June 27, 2024

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In Today’s Edition 

  • Can AI Startups Outrun Dot-Com Bubble Comparisons? 

  • Amazon plans to launch discount store in bid to fend off Temu and Shein 

  • Shein is getting pushback to its proposed London IPO

  • SpaceX has been selected by NASA to deorbit the International Space Station

  • Toys “R” Us riles critics with “first-ever” AI-generated commercial using Sora 

  • Figma has announced a major UI redesign

  • The brain makes a lot of waste. Now scientists think they know where it goes 

🚀Startups Nuts

Amid a surge reminiscent of the dot-com bubble, investors at the Collision conference express caution toward the AI startup frenzy. Key takeaways include the search for startups with unique, viable business models, especially those capable of creating a 'data moat' with proprietary or distinct data sets for AI training. High-profile investments continue despite concerns, with emphasis on differentiation and long-term value over AI hype. Is a shakeout on the way?

Other News

  • Sila, an Alameda, Calif., battery materials company, raised $375m in Series G funding

  • Formation Bio, an AI-driven drug developer, raised $372m in Series D funding

  • Sidecar Health, an employer-facing health insurer, raised $165m in Series D funding

  • Bright Machines, software-defined manufacturing company based in SF, raised $106m in Series C funding

  • Axelera, a Dutch AI chipmaker, raised $68m in Series B funding

  • Odaseva, a Cambridge, Mass., cybersecurity startup for Salesforce users, raised $54m

  • KarmaCheck, an SF-based employee background check startup, raised $45m in Series B funding

  • Onehouse, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based data lakehouse company, raised $35m in Series B funding

  • Orby AI, an SF-based generative process automation startup, raised $30m in Series A funding

  • Perplexity AI is in talks to raise up to $20m from SoftBank at a $3b valuation

🏭Business Nuts 

Amazon is planning to launch a new section on its site dedicated to low-priced fashion and lifestyle items. The new storefront will allow Chinese sellers to ship directly to US consumers, with items arriving within nine to 11 days. It is an aggressive attempt to fend off competition from Temu and Shein, who have expanded their presence in the US in recent years. Amazon will start accepting products for the storefront this fall. The company has yet to announce when it intends to debut the storefront.

Other News

  • Shein is getting pushback to its proposed London IPO from some British. politicians, related to concerns over the fast-fashion giant's labor practices.

  • SpaceX, which yesterday won a big NASA contract, reportedly launched a secondary tender at a $210b valuation. ByteDance remains the world's most valuable startup, but this shrinks the gap.

  • Federal judge to likely reject $30B settlement between payment processors Visa, Mastercard, and merchants who say they have overpaid in credit card processing fees—which are often passed down to consumers.

  • Amazon's market cap has surpassed $2 trillion for the first time, positioning it as the fifth most valuable company globally, following the lead of tech giants like Microsoft.

  • SpaceX has been selected by NASA to deorbit the International Space Station after it is retired in 2030 for $843 million.

  • Volkswagen will invest up to $5B in EV maker Rivian, starting with an initial $1B infusion. The partnership pairs the world’s second-largest automaker with one that lost $6.8B in 2022.

  • Denmark is introducing the world’s first agriculture carbon emissions tax to reduce livestock emissions. The new tax will charge $43 per metric ton of CO2 from livestock beginning in 2030, increasing to $107 in 2035.

📱Tech Nuts

Toys “R” Us partnered with ad agency Native Foreign to create a brand film using OpenAI's text-to-video tool Sora. The film uses AI-generated video clips to tell the story of the company's founder. Sora, which was introduced in February, is still not yet available to the public. The video required quite a bit of human post-production work to put together, showing that Sora is not yet a turnkey solution for instantly usable clips. The video, as well as behind-the-scenes footage showing how it was made, is available in the article.

Other News

  • Figma has announced a major UI redesign, new generative AI tools, and a built-in slide show functionality. The UI redesign includes a new toolbar, rounded corners, and 200 new icons. The new generative AI tools allow users to quickly get started with a design.

  • Google is collecting facial data from its interior security cameras at one of its sites in Kirkland, Washington, to help identify people who may pose a security risk to its people, products, or locations.

  • YouTube is reportedly negotiating with major music labels like Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Records to pay for licensing their songs for AI training.

  • Character.AI announced that users can now make calls to AI characters, supporting multiple languages including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese.

🎁Miscellaneous

The brain makes a lot of waste. Now scientists think they know where it goes 

Two teams of scientists have published three papers that offer a detailed description of the brain's waste-removal system. Their research suggests that during sleep, slow electrical waves push fluid from around cells deep in the brain to its surface, where it is absorbed into the bloodstream through a sophisticated interface. There is growing evidence that the brain's waste-removal system is impaired in Alzheimer's disease - the new findings could help researchers figure out how to restore the system.

💡What else are we reading and seeing?

😎Fun Fact

On this day: In 1950 The US enters the Korean War

🔥 Few tools many people are finding useful

  • Ario - AI assistant for busy parents

  • Zip AI - Procurement intelligence that works for you (used by OpenAI, Snowflake and Sephora)

  • AI edit by Captions - Watch as AI edits your videos for you

  • Lazy AI - Build web apps with prompts and deploy them with 1 click

  • Skyvern - Automate browser-based workflows with AI

🐦Joke of the Day

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