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  • SpaceX’s Starlink made $1.4 billion last year

SpaceX’s Starlink made $1.4 billion last year

Plus: Moderna CEO on AI’s potential to cure cancer

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Cash Nut
September 14, 2023

In Today’s Edition

  • Defence AI startup Helsing Secures a $223M Series B

  • Databricks secures $500M more and growing its valuation to $43B despite late-stage gloom

  • Retailers are losing $100 billion a year from return fraud, bots and coupon stacking

  • Stability AI debuts Stable Audio bringing text to audio generation to the masses

  • Moderna CEO on AI’s potential to cure cancer

  • Millionaire Biohacker Says Algorithm Runs His Life: ‘My Mind No Longer Decides

🚀Startups Nuts

Helsing, a startup specializing in Defense AI, has raised €209 million ($223 million) in a funding round led by General Catalyst, with Saab also investing. Helsing's pre-money valuation was €1.5 billion but is now expected to exceed €1.7 billion. The startup aims to improve democracies' defense and national security using real-time data. It has been chosen by the German government to deliver AI-assisted electronic warfare capabilities for the Eurofighter jet fighter and awarded the contract to provide the AI backbone for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program.

Databricks raised $500M in Series I funding with a post-money valuation of $43B from investors like T. Rowe Price, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Capital One, and NVIDIA. The company has over 10,000 customers, and its revenue run rate surpassed $1.5B in Q2. With half a billion dollars in capital, Databricks will have the resources to pursue its ambitions in the potentially huge AI market.

🏭Business Nuts

Starlink generated $1.4 billion in revenue last year, up $222 million from 2021 but $11 billion short of its original projections. The company is no longer incurring losses from producing satellite antennas. Elon Musk initially predicted in 2015 that Starlink would have 20 million subscribers by the end of 2022. The service reported 1.5 million users in May 2023. Starlink was losing about $20 million a month maintaining its services in October 2022.

Anti-fraud company Riskified polled 300 global companies and found losses from policy abuses, such as return fraud and coupon stacking, are costing retailers $100 billion annually. In one case, just 4,000 users created 137,000 fake accounts to take advantage of a discount code, resulting in $14 million in annual losses. One survey respondent said they would rather have a customer break into their warehouse and steal an item than order it and return it, because their returns process is so long and costly.

📱Tech Nuts

Stability AI has announced the public release of Stable Audio. The technology allows anyone to use text prompts to generate audio clips. It uses a diffusion model trained on audio rather than images. The model is not able to generate new music in the style of specific artists. The free version of Stable Audio will allow 20 generations of tracks up to 20 seconds per month, while the Pro version will allow 500 generations of up to 90 second tracks for $12 per month.

Moderna was using AI to create new drugs years before ChatGPT came out. The technology was used to create drugs like its Covid-19 vaccine. Moderna's experimental mRNA flu vaccine did well enough in a Phase 3 study that it could potentially gain regulatory approval. It is now planning a Phase 3 trial of an mRNA-based therapy for a certain type of lung cancer. This article contains an interview with Moderna's CEO where they discuss AI, management challenges that the tech poses, and how artificial intelligence is being used to help find a cure for cancer.

🔥Newsletter Spotlight

🎁Miscellaneous

Bryan Johnson is a 46-year-old tech millionaire famous for his longevity project, Blueprint. He takes more than 100 supplements a day, submits himself to constant medical assessments, keeps to a strict diet, goes to bed at 8:30 p.m., and takes a dizzying array of experimental treatments. Johnson has spent around $2 million per year on the project and he openly shares the findings on his website. This article features an interview with Johnson where he talks about the project, the time airport security flagged him for having too many powders, and why he wants to maximize his urination speed.

💡What else are we reading and seeing?

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😎Fun Fact

The world's oldest known recipe is a beer recipe from ancient Sumeria, dating back to around 3,900 BCE

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