Deal of the Week:
I won’t spend too much time on the $110B OpenAI round. Apart from re-emphasising an older point I’ve made. Given the sheer amount of capital required to train and scale frontier models, it increasingly feels like a question of when, not if, they go public especially as they need to compete with the hyperscalers who are dropping $150B+ a year.
There has also been a huge amount of capital flowing into new chip architectures. Both on the LLM training side and the inference side. This week we saw a massive round of $500M into Berkeley-founded MatX, which appears focused primarily on the training side rather than inference.
I remain convinced that inference is about to see another step-change. Just based on my own usage, I would estimate my inference consumption is up 100x since the start of the year. I suspect we’re going to see that pattern replicated across the broader system. Congrats to MatX and Mike Gunter.
The deglobalization of data?
The deglobalization of trade is a known trend as supply chains reshore and realign. I increasingly think we are entering the deglobalization of data era.
As data becomes the core input in the AI age, there is a shift in how this is viewed and the importance placed on where and how the data is used. This is being reflected up and down the stack. We are seeing this in the form of regulation, geopolitics and the architecture of infrastructure.
Regulation is tightening
China was early in forcing companies like Apple to localize Chinese user data. What once looked a one off now looks directional.
Europe is moving further with data localization and sovereignty requirements through GDPR enforcement, the Data Act, and evolving AI regulation. India has debated localization mandates.
These countries have different motivations to control the data I admit in one case surveillance in the other privacy (I will let you decide which is which!), but the outcome is the same.
State actors see data as leverage
In an AI world, compute + data = power.
Governments are increasingly uncomfortable with critical datasets (healthcare, financial, energy, telecom, defense) sitting on foreign-owned infrastructure. The old hyperscaler model was centralized global regions with fluid data movement the globalization of bytes and bits. This looks to be outdated as national interest increasingly take precedent. Data is increasingly being treated like critical energy infrastructure: strategic, regulated, and politically sensitive.
Corporate response: architectural shifts
This has real implications for the stack:
More on-prem deployments in regulated industries. Check out this company Oxide Computer that just raised $200M for on-prem compute.
Impact?
If trade deglobalization reshaped physical supply chains, data deglobalization reshapes digital ones. In the short term we will see the rise of private clouds and on-prem. While in the longer term we may be headed towards regionally siloed intelligence systems. The impact of this feels unclear but is worth thinking on.
Quick Takes
Small but fun moment. I was speaking with a Courtyard Ventures portfolio company (portfolio here) last week. Someone had just joined the team who previously worked at another Courtyard company. They found their office space via Tandem (increasingly hearing this from startups), were using Invoice Butler (loved the product!) to stay on top of bills, and were exploring Wayo for merchandise. They had even done some work for yet another portfolio company.
Nearly 20% of the portfolio somehow involved in a quick conversation. All Berkeley linked! Lets get some more of this going!
Summary by the #️⃣ & 💰:
10 Berkeley-founded companies funded
$110.6B of capital raised from the 23rd Feb to 1st March
💡 Got any ideas or feedback on how to improve this weekly digest? Just hit reply.
Acquisition
🐻 Luca Weihs, Co-Founder. BA Maths Article
Closed Rounds
🐻 John Schulman, Co-Founder. PhD EECS Article
🧠 MatX $500.0M Series B 🇺🇸 AI training chipmaker. 💰 Spark Capital, Homebrew, Situational Awareness
🐻 Mike Gunter, Co-Founder & CTO. BA Article
🧬 BreezeBio $60.0M Series B 🇺🇸 Nanoparticle gene therapies. 💰 Sequoia Capital, Bow Capital, SV Investment
🏗️ MeltPlan $14.0M Seed 🇺🇸 AI preconstruction platform. 💰 Bessemer Venture Partners, noa, WND Ventures*
🐻 Kanav Hasija, Co-Founder & CEO. Construction Management Article
🥤 Kenetik $10.7M Series 1 🇺🇸 Ketone energy drink. 💰 Undisclosed
🐻 Devon Price, Co-Founder & CEO. MS MEng Article
💳 Dots $8.9M Series A 🇺🇸 Payments infrastructure platform. 💰 DCM Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Soma Capital
🐻 Sahil Hasan, CEO & Co-Founder. BS EECS Article
🎨 Cosigned $8.0M Seed 🇺🇸 NFT fan engagement platform. 💰 Undisclosed
🐻 Roger Chen, Co-Founder & CEO. PhD EECS Article
🏠 Willow Servicing $1.0M Seed 🇺🇸 Mortgage servicing automation. 💰 Thomvest Ventures, Zigg Capital
🐻 Laura Cain, CEO & Co-Founder. BS Business Article
🌱 Greenshoot Materials Accelerator 🇺🇸 Compostable packaging materials. 💰 Activate Global, Founder Institute, Plug and Play Tech Center
🐻 Chris Kaffer, Co-Founder & Chief Commercialization Officer. PhD Molecular Bio
❄️ Rebound Technologies Undisclosed 🇺🇸 Industrial thermal storage. 💰 Village Capital
🐻 Russell Goldfarbmuren, CTO & Co-Founder. MS MEng Article
Date Built By Berkeley Started | Companies Funded | Total Raised ($M) |
7/8/24 | 664 | 208,174 |
Our goal is to document the startup ecosystem of Berkeley-founded companies. Please share this newsletter with any Cal Bears in your network so we can crowdsource information about all investment rounds and job opportunities.
Did we miss a company or want to announce a round? Add it here, and we will post it next week.
Do you have a job you want to post from a Berkeley Company? Add here.
Is there someone in the Berkeley ecosystem that you would want us to do a profile on? A founder, funder, or general startup person? Add here.
Built By Berkeley is not affiliated with UC Berkeley, but maybe we will be one day if we get enough subscribers….
Built By Berkeley, where we announce all the funding rounds by Berkeley-founded companies. This is a community effort, so please let us know if we missed a company here. 🐻
