NVTC Newsletter No. 16
Happy Tech Tuesday everyone! For those new here, welcome to the NVTC weekly newsletter. Here you’ll find recent updates from the tech world, insightful articles related to startups, and highlights from NV portfolio companies.
THIS WEEK’S FEATURES ⚡
🎢 Carbon Negative, Planet Positive – Green fabrics are in style.
⭐ No Longer a BelieVR– John Carmack broke up with Meta.
⭐ Fusion Is Not an Illusion – Research progress for clean energy.
⭐ Better Without the Bot? – Why ChatGPT can’t be trusted.
NV Portfolio Highlight 🎢
If you think Lady Gaga’s infamous meat dress was the height of sustainable fashion, think again. Rubi Laboratories is creating new, carbon-negative fabrics. Their technology uses an enzyme system to capture carbon dioxide from waste streams in manufacturing and transforms it into a natural textile. It’s more than just a petri-dish product. Rubi’s textile is also water-neutral and biodegradable, which checks two more important boxes for use in fashion.
What’s more impressive is Rubi’s process makes the same textiles already used by brands today. Sourcing materials from Rubi means the same performance and quality without the waste or detriment to our planet.
In February of this year, Rubi Laboratories raised a $4.5 million seed round led by Talis Capital and Necessary Ventures. Less than a month ago, twin sisters and cofounders Neeka and Leila Mashouf were listed on Forbes’ 30 under 30 list for their work with Rubi. The company also won an H&M Global Change Award and has shared news of partnerships with tier one brands coming soon.
If you or someone you know also thinks green will be the 2023 color of the year, you can apply to open positions with Rubi Laboratories using this link.
Good Reads 📖
Tech leaders are confronting the ever-pressing threat of talent acquisition and retention, and AI is feeling the effects more deeply. The pace of change in AI is unparalleled, and software engineers who can keep up with AI’s rapid growth–or bridge the knowledge gap fast enough to contribute–are in short supply. Qualified faculty with training in AI are equally hard to come by, putting AI in a worse pickle. It may be time for companies to outsource their AI needs.
As it turns out, John Carmack’s version of going out on a Friday night is resigning from a nearly 10-year-long post. Carmack left Meta, “offended by” inefficiencies at the company. Serving as CTO of Oculus since 2014, he is best known for spearheading Meta’s virtual reality projects. While he still believes Meta is best positioned to integrate VR products into the mainstream, he decided to retire from product development amid frustrations to have his voice heard.
“Howdy, partner,” said Microsoft to Viasat, probably. The duo will work together to expand internet access to people in remote locations across Africa and North and Central America. This is one step in Microsoft’s ultimate goal to provide internet access to 250 million people by the end of 2025. So far, big tech has not made any progress helping people who can’t afford service, even with similar satellite programs from Google and Meta (now shutdown) and SpaceX’s Starlink.
A team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory hit an important milestone for fusion energy: the first known fusion reaction with a net energy gain. The feat took 192 lasers blasting a cylinder with frozen hydrogen surrounded by diamond. While impressive, the technology still has a long way to go. Next steps include increasing the number of reactions per minute, simplifying the process, and ensuring its repeatability.
ChatGPT is scary good at its job. According to some experts, its ability to generate persuasive imitations of human expression may be dangerous. ChatGPT has already sparked an increase in misinformation and spam, and it’s only a matter of time before distrust trickles into other disciplines. Education will experience the first disruptions, but any areas reliant on text or art are fair game.
Startup Watch 🔮
Nilus raised $8.5 million in a seed funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners to solve the problem of cash flow reconciliation. Their goal is to help teams who move significant amounts of money understand their underlying data.
Synchron raised $75 million in Series C funding led by Arch Ventures and also including investments from Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. The company is building brain implants to restore communication among paralyzed patients.
Snyk, a leader in developer security, closed a $196.5 million Series G round led by Qatar Investment Authority. This is a “down round” for Snyk, in which its valuation dropped about 15% to $7.4 billion.
Axelar announced a $60 million startup funding program to fund Web3 products currently unsupported by the centralized web. Other top tier blockchain investors have also committed capital to the program.
Reddit Highlight 📈
Oh, how the turn tables. As 2022 comes to a close, we’ve witnessed some drastic changes in the tech world. The graphic below shows how that is reflected in top individual net worths.
What’s the saying? The higher they rise, the harder they fall? I’m looking at you, Elon Musk.
OUTRO
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