Sam Altman Discusses Putting the Brakes on Cutting-Edge AI

We had so much fun tonight with those of you in New York who came to the StrictlyVC event! It was our first time back in a couple of years, and we loved the talks, the crowd, and the venue. Enormous thanks to everyone who came together to make the night a success, including, most of all, Collaborative Fund, our partner in tonight’s event; its team could not have been more supportive. If you missed it, don’t worry; we have pictures and plenty of coverage coming, starting with a scoop below. (Thanks to our colleague Sheri Spence for snapping this one after everyone started to take their seats.)

Top News

Sam Altman reportedly told OpenAI employees the company could slow development of cutting-edge AI, potentially in coordination with rival labs, as safety concerns intensify and the company acknowledges it has already paused some training and slowed parts of model development. Bloomberg has more here.

Anthropic says it blocked several scientists who used Claude for biological research that could have aided weapons development, including a grant proposal for gain-of-function work on chikungunya – a mosquito-borne virus that can cause fever and severe joint pain – at a military research institute. The New York Times has more here.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Nvidia structured its $17 billion licensing deal with AI chip startup Groq to sidestep antitrust review, pairing a “nonexclusive” technology license with the hiring of Groq’s CEO and other top executives rather than an outright acquisition. The New York Times has more here.

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Thrive Capital Led VCs into Pro Sports Ownership; Collaborative Fund Just Upped That Play

By Connie Loizos

Collaborative Fund, the 15-year-old, New York-based generalist venture firm that has roughly $1 billion under management and which made early bets on Lyft, Reddit, Sweetgreen, and Olipop, among others, is taking a stake in the soccer club D.C. United and its stadium, Audi Field.

It’s the latest — and smallest — firm to try something that Thrive Capital opened the door to just months ago: turning venture money into pro sports ownership.

To recap, Joshua Kushner’s Thrive launched a new vehicle, Thrive Eternal, explicitly built to hold “iconic franchises and cultural institutions” for decades, funded by many of the same investors already in Thrive’s venture and growth funds. The firm kicked things off by announcing a stake in the San Francisco Giants. Months later, the same vehicle — with former Disney CEO Bob Iger, a Thrive partner, joining as co-owner — bought the Lakers outright for a record $12.5 billion.

That’s new. Historically, money has poured into pro sports two other ways: individual tech fortunes, and private equity. For example, Vinod Khosla and his family agreed this summer to buy the Seattle Seahawks for a record $9.6 billion soon after the Khosla family also took a stake in the San Francisco 49ers alongside OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor. That was a personal-wealth play, the kind we’ve seen over and over.

Private equity firms have also been at this for years, including Sixth Street, which holds stakes in the Boston Celtics, the New England Patriots, and MLB’s San Francisco Giants; Ares, which owns a piece of the Miami Dolphins outright and separately financed Chelsea’s stadium plans through a $500 million preferred-equity deal; RedBird, which owns AC Milan outright and holds a minority stake in Fenway Sports Group, the holding company behind Liverpool and the Red Sox; and Arctos, with minority positions scattered across MLB, the NFL, the NBA, and European soccer. (Apollo, the newest entrant, has mostly stuck to sports financing deals so far rather than ownership stakes.)

Thrive and Collaborative are doing neither of those things. At the same time, the two firms’ approaches to sports ownership look very different. Thrive built a standalone, permanent-capital vehicle specifically to hold trophy assets. Collaborative is investing out of the same early-stage fund it uses to write seed and Series A checks, and treating the deal less like something to buy and hold and almost more like infrastructure.

Massive Fundings

ARC, a five-year-old Philadelphia startup that manages charging, storage, tracking, and maintenance for shared handheld devices used by frontline workers across large enterprises, raised a $60 million round led by Acadia Investment Partners. More here.

Ayar Labs, an 11-year-old company based in San Jose, CA, that develops optical interconnect chips that connect processors in large AI data centers with higher bandwidth and lower power use, raised a $150 million round. Investors included Wiwynn as well as previous investors Alchip, AMD, Intel, MediaTek, and NVIDIA. More here.

The Boring Co., a nine-year-old startup based in Bastrop, TX, that builds underground tunnels and transit systems to move vehicles and passengers beneath congested urban areas, raised a $3 billion round at a $23 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by the United Arab Emirates, with Human Capital, Vy Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Temasek, Shamal Holding, and Baron Capital also chipping in. Benzinga has more here.

Inspiren, a 10-year-old New York company that monitors senior living residents’ environments to alert care teams about falls, emergencies, and changing care needs, raised a $70 million Series C round at a $500+ million valuation. The deal was led by NewView Capital, with Insight Partners, Primary Venture Partners, Scale Venture Partners, Vintage Investment Partners, Lightbank, Avenir Growth Capital, Story Ventures, and Camber Creek also investing. The company has raised a total of $225 million. More here.

Kepler Computing, an eight-year-old startup based in San Jose, CA, that develops memory-chip technology designed to increase the density of high-bandwidth memory and SRAM, announced that it has raised a total of $468 million from investors including GlobalFoundries, Intel Capital, AMD Ventures, Baillie Gifford, and Gates Frontier. WIRED has more here.

Mach Industries, a three-year-old startup based in Huntington Beach, CA, that manufactures unmanned military vehicles, strike drones, counter-drone systems, and rocket motors for military customers, raised a $600 million Series C extension at a $3.7 billion valuation. Investors included prior backers Ribbit Capital, Infinite Capital, Bedrock Capital, and Sequoia Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Maven Robotics, a two-year-old startup based in Santa Clara, CA, that builds autonomous robots for warehouse palletizing and other industrial tasks, raised a $100 million Series A from RoboStrategy, LocalGlobe, Vine Ventures, and XTX Markets Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Payward, a 15-year-old company based in Cheyenne, WY, that operates cryptocurrency exchange Kraken and other trading and financial products, received a $100 million investment from Nasdaq as part of an expanded partnership around tokenized equities. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Positron AI, a three-year-old startup based in Reno, NV, that builds energy-efficient inference systems that data centers use to run large AI models at lower power and memory cost, raised an $875 million Series C round at a $5 billion post-money valuation. The deal was co-led by NEA, Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, Andra Capital, Dylan Patel's SemiAnalysis Capital, and Jim Clark, with DFJ Growth, Qatar Investment Authority, Resilience Reserve, Arena Private Wealth, Natural Capital, Helena, 1517 Fund, Flume Ventures, Unless, Boardman Bay Capital Management, Fincadia Advisors, Banyan Ventures, U First Capital as well as VentureTech Alliance, Hudson River Trading, Cisco Investments, and Naver Ventures also piling on. Reuters has more here.

TAR, an Austin startup founded this year that develops and operates off-grid renewable power and battery systems that supply AI data centers without waiting for utility grid connections, raised a $120 million Series A round at a $1 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Spark Capital. More here.

TwoStep Therapeutics, a two-year-old startup based in San Carlos, CA, that develops targeted peptide-drug conjugates and radioligand therapies for solid tumors, raised a $62.5 million Series A round co-led by Insight Partners, Medical Excellence Capital, M Ventures, and Pfizer Ventures, with Stanford University as well as previous investors NFX and 2048 Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of $71.2 million. More here.

UniPat AI, a one-year-old startup that generates synthetic training data and test scenarios for coding agents, browser automation, and visual reasoning models, raised a $300 million round at a $2.5 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Alibaba Group Holding, with Tencent Holdings as well as previous investor HSG also engaging. TradingView has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Arlequin AI, a two-year-old Paris startup that develops AI models for analyzing relationships and patterns across large datasets, raised a $32.6 million Series A co-led by redalpine and OTB Ventures, with Bpifrance as well as existing investors Vsquared Ventures and 10x Founders also participating. Tech Funding News has more here.

Beep, a seven-year-old startup based in Orlando, FL, that plans, deploys, and manages autonomous shuttle and on-demand microtransit networks for public agencies and private communities, raised a $20 million Series B round led by Mobileye. The company has raised a total of approximately $130 million. More here.

Epsilon Health, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that operates a radiology practice that uses AI to help board-certified radiologists read medical images faster for imaging providers, raised a $20 million Series A round led by AlleyCorp, with Uncork Capital, Renegade Partners, SemperVirens, and Jack Altman also engaging. More here.