Elon Musk does laundry đź‘•
Necessary Nuggets
Happy Wednesday! If you’re new here, welcome to Necessary Nuggets, your one-stop pre-seed shop. We deliver updates from Necessary Ventures and helpful tidbits on our little corner of the world. Every edition is also on our blog.
Jobortunities 🚨
Taro: Taro increases access to healthcare while reducing costs and physician burnout via direct primary care based health insurance.
| Product Engineer |
Arc Boats: Electrify watercraft. Build the Tesla of boats. Arc’s aim is both sustainability and high performance.
| Test Engineer |
Forage: Create a unified API that helps low-income Americans buy online groceries. It’s Stripe, but for Electronic Benefits Transfer.
| Security Software Engineer |
Reach out with any questions! All 121 open job postings are listed here.
Hot off the Press♨️
The saying goes that “people make the place,” but where are the right people?
At Necessary Ventures, we know that talent is distributed across the globe, but opportunity is not. We're excited to share our preferred partnership with Assembly Industries, which provides access to management consulting level talent, vetted for strong critical thinking and communication skills, at an exclusive price of only $1,600/month. While originally only for our portfolio companies, we have seen strong enough results to share with you as well.
Companies are using Assembly across sales, marketing, project management, account management, customer success, operations, and finance. See talent here that you can hire today. Extending this preferred pricing is one way we're saying thank you for being a part of our community, just be sure to mention Necessary in your onboarding.
Market Stirrings đźš©
For all the “bad news bears” funding reports, it’s not equally bad for everyone. From October 2023 to now, AI has consistently received the most pre-seed funding of any industry, totaling $173.8 million when you add up every deal reported by Crunchbase. While this may be another supporting data point for all the hype we’ve seen around AI (especially generative AI) within the past year, it could also suggest a reduced reporting lag for AI compared to other industries. It’s also worth noting that the $173.8 million grand total is dragged upwards by one particularly large deal in late December amounting to $135.5 million for xAI (that’s about the cost of one apartment in Manhattan, by the way). Regardless, it looks like AI has come out on top in recent months and climate tech lags most behind, despite the continued chaos towards reaching climate goals.
Good Reads đź“–
For the rushed reader …
The hot new thread on X this week is this video from Elon Musk showing humanoid robot Optimus folding laundry.
Google laid off about 1,000 employees in its hardware team, the majority coming from its AR division.
Leading AI startup Anthropic released a study that demonstrates AI models can create potentially dangerous “sleeper agents” that evade safety checks.
The Biden administration will allocate $623 million to increase the number of EV charging points across the US.
Virginia-based startup Contraline is developing reversible vasectomy technology in the form of a sperm-blocking hydrogel injected into the scrotum.
For the less rushed reader …
HUMANOID WENT … DOMESTIC?: Elon Musk should be elected president of the LDHC (Laundry Day Haters Club). The hot new thread on X this week is this video from Elon Musk showing humanoid robot Optimus folding laundry. In recent years, humanoid robots gained heightened interest from researchers and investors alike for their potential applications in healthcare, manufacturing, and even education. So where are we now? For starters, Musk’s video certainly read more like commercial showboating than technical wizardry. Optimus did not act autonomously, which only showed off its mechanics, not its artificial intelligence. This was similar to the Stanford ALOHA demo, which may have precipitated the Optimus post. Aside from Tesla, top startups in the space include Boston Dynamics, Figure, 1X, and Apptronik. However, the tech has a long way to go in terms of battery life, cost, and further advancements in computer vision before robots can join the workforce (and maid force).
HARD DAY FOR HARDWARE: Oh where oh where can hardware be? The answer to that question is certainly not at Google. Google laid off about 1,000 employees in its hardware team, the majority coming from its AR division. As part of this mass exodus, Fitbit co-founders James Park, Eric Friedman, and other Fitbit leaders are also leaving the company. Google swears Fitbit will live on, but this may be the end of Fitbit as we know it. Perhaps better questions to ask are what does this mean for fitness wearables, and how are folks ever going to meet all their fitness-focused New Year’s resolutions?
LIES AND DECEPTION: The AI bees are buzzing with two, fresh key words: trust and safety. Specifically, experts wonder if AI systems are capable of deceptive behavior, not entirely far off from the sci-fi movies where sentient computers shoot lasers at humans. Leading AI startup Anthropic released a study that demonstrates AI models can create potentially dangerous “sleeper agents” that evade safety checks. The researchers trained AI models to be helpful but conceal secret objectives. Even after standard training protocols were set up to ingrain trustworthy behavior, the deceiving AI models could not be removed. The larger the AI model, the better it was at hiding ulterior motives. Maybe we can set up fake Instagram accounts to catch the lying AI models.
BOOS FOR THE BOOST: Joe Biden is bitin’ a bullet amid rumors that the US is behind on its zero-carbon transportation goals. The Biden administration will allocate $623 million to increase the number of EV charging points across the US. The funding will be distributed in grants for programs spanning 22 states and adding 7,500 chargers total. That means over $80k per charger. Even with this baby boost for EV infrastructure, the numbers aren’t quite adding up. Let’s look at three important ones: 1) The White House set a goal for 500,000 chargers by 2030; 2) The US currently has 170,000 chargers; 3) The US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates we need 28 million chargers to support the transition. I haven’t crunched all the numbers, but it feels like something needs to give.
BIO BLOCKERS: This is nut funny business. Virginia-based startup Contraline is developing reversible vasectomy technology in the form of a sperm-blocking hydrogel injected into the scrotum. The hydrogel enters the vas deferens, resulting in a 99% reduction in the number of moving sperm, and dissolves at the end of its lifetime. It’s like an IUD for men, according to Kevin Eisenfrats, cofounder and CEO of Contraline. While still in early stage trials, the procedure has already proven successful on 23 men. Talk about reproducible results.
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
Notable pre-seed raises in …
fintech
Sunrise AI - Goal! Credit scores
The Problem: Traditional credit scoring services tend to be non-inclusive and unfair.
The Tech: A proprietary AI suite that analyzes more robust data sources predicts a borrower’s ability to repay debt obligations with 96% accuracy.
Recently Raised: An undisclosed amount led by Andrew Ng’s AI Fund.
Also Note: Andrew Ng’s AI Fund is backed by leading venture capital firms, including Greylock Partners, Sequoia Capital, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), and Softbank Group.
EDTECH
Echo Labs - Next-level lectures
The Problem: Speech recognition technology has yet to enter the classroom in a meaningful way, especially for hearing-impaired students.
The Tech: An AI-powered software application for academic platforms that can recognize and transcribe speech as well as a human can, in real time.
Recently Raised: $7.4 million in funding from undisclosed investors.
Also Note: This funding round was the highest ever for its stage in Chicago startup history.
Outro🚪
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