This Week in Australian Startups - 1st March, 2023
This Week in Australian Startups - 1st March, 2023
Another week, and AI is still dominating not only the news cycle but also tech companies. Maybe I should just let ChatGPT write for me…
Well, that’s exactly what Intercom is enabling for its customers, announcing their new AI-powered features. I’m quite impressed with how they’ve decided to leverage the ChatGPT model and been honest in its limitations.
There’s real value that is being provided to Intercom users that will save time with no real risk of encountering any AI hallucinations. The focus has been on how to use AI to increase efficiency, users can now leverage AI to:
Summarise conversations with customers internally
Adjust the tone of voice to match the customer
Change the length of messages
Generate full length content from shorthand notes
Notion also announced very similar capabilities with the launch of Notion AI - focusing on AI being an assistant. Other notable launches include Slite’s AI enabling users to “ask” instead of searching through information in your companies knowledge base.
Maybe it’s time to bring back Ask Jeeves!
Snapchat is also releasing its own AI chatbot, unlike Notion and Intercom this isn’t designed to be an assistant but an actual chatbot you can have conversations with in addition to your friends.
I previously wrote about how the war for AI in search could look like, but the current use case seems will be how AI can be incorporated into existing products and services to enhance customer experience.
Microsoft is already working on integrating AI into its suite of Office tools, Google will likely do the same with tools like Docs and possibly Google Assistant. But whilst they are focusing on making their own products, AWS announced a non exclusive partnership with Hugging Face to make it easier to carry out AI work in its cloud.
In the coming weeks and months I’m sure we’ll see even more integrations of AI with existing products whether it’s with OpenAI’s API or Hugging Face on AWS. But the FTC in the US has given a clear warning that it will be keeping companies accountable on how legitimate their claims on AI usage are, after announcing a new Office of Technology to combat the “oozing snake oil in tech”.
Top News
Australia & New Zealand Startup Events Calendar by Startmate, here
Elon Musk says remaining Twitter employees will soon receive ‘very significant’ stock awards, more here
Adobe's $20b buy of Figma in crosshairs of Europe's antitrust cops, more here
Investible names Charlie Ill as first chief investment officer to ramp up global focus, more here
Snapchat is releasing its own AI chatbot powered by ChatGPT, more here
Crypto gaming wunderkind Immutable cuts staffing again in just 6 months cutting another 11%, more here
NBN and Starlink are ramping up the bandwidth battle for rural Australia, more here
Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz invested more in fintech than any other sector in 2022, more here
Nokia reveals new logo to remind you it doesn’t make phones anymore, more here
Canada bans TikTok on government devices, more here
Blackbird tops spicy anonymous VC ranking list, Square Peg respond to missing top 10, more here
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried charged with 12 counts in new indictment, more here
DoJ accuses Google of deleting chats in its antitrust investigation, similar to Fortnite’s case, more here
Instagram’s co-founders’ personalised news app Artifact launches to the public with new features, more here
Meta says it is experimenting with AI-powered chat on WhatsApp and Messenger, more here
Meta backs a new system that allows minors to stop their intimate images from being posted online, more here
Australian Funding Rounds
Presentations startup Chronicle banks $7.5 million from Accel & Square Peg to take the fight up to Canva and Powerpoint, more here
Andrew Forrest backs biotech startup SpeeDx in $26 million raise, more here
Meat subscription startup Our Cow, raising $1.5 million in 24 hours, more here
Payments fintech DataMesh bags $30 million Series A, more here
ISP GigaComm raises a further $20 million, more here
Green energy innovator MGA Thermal backed by $560,000 by Shell to bring 24-7 renewable power to the grid, more here
Mutinex valued at $37m after VC buy-in, EVP eyes 10x return as CFOs back sharper marketing econometrics; founders join martech, CX swing to holdcos, consultants as SaaS resellers. More here
International Highlights
Skydio soars to a $2.2 billion valuation after raising $230M Series E, more here
Fantasy sports app Champions Round raises $7M to build new content creator feature, more here
Cloud security startup Wiz, now valued at $10B, raises $300M, more here
Pagos Raises $34M to Expand Vital Cost and Revenue-Impacting Payment Intelligence for Any Business Selling or Billing Online, more here
Born of drone tech, insuretech Flock raises $38M Series B to nudge commercial drivers towards safety, more here
ProsperOps raises $72M for its cloud cost optimisation platform, more here