What Goes Around: OpenAI got board + Colossal achievements
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 🚨
Mental: Putting the men in mental health. Action-oriented tools targeted towards strengthening the manly mindset.
| Head of Growth |
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. Arc is currently accepting internship applications, so go ahead and forward this to every engineering student you know.
Reach out with any questions! All 150 open job postings are listed here.
Market Stirrings 🚩
VCs should keep an eye out for all things SaaSy. In 2023, SaaS outperformed 9 other verticals according to Pitchbook, coming in at roughly +6% annualized expected returns relative to the cross-vertical average. The 9 other verticals included in the analysis, including AI, fell behind with a 5% gap or more in annualized expected returns relative to SaaS. However, healthtech and biotech are mysteriously missing from the list.
Good Reads 📖
For the rushed reader …
Several months after losing his seat on the board and being pushed out of OpenAI, Sam Altman is rejoining the board.
Weight-loss drug company Novo saw clinical trial success that raised its stock to new heights, increasing more than 88% in one year and surpassing Tesla.
A startup rightly named Colossal announced its production of the first elephant stem cells, a crucial step towards resurrecting the woolly mammoth given that elephants are its closest relatives.
For the less rushed reader …
OPENAI GOT BOARD: OpenAI opened fire, and now it’s opening up. Several months after losing his seat on the board and being pushed out of OpenAI, Sam Altman is rejoining the board. OpenAI changed its m(AI)nd following intense scrutiny for its all white male makeup (except Microsoft’s observer) and an investigation on Altman’s firing. The Congressional Black Caucus sent a letter in January flagging the board’s lack of diversity, which was more concerning given current issues with AI bias. The “transitionary” board members will stay on, and include former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor (OpenAI’s current board chair), Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, Larry Summers, the economist and former Harvard president, and Dee Templeton, a Microsoft-appointed board observer. They’re now joined by Sam, Sue Desmond-Hellmann, the former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Nicole Seligman, ex-Sony Entertainment president, and Fidji Simo, Instacart’s CEO.
WEIGHT LOSS WIN: Weight-loss drug Novo is weightless and soaring to new heights. Results revealed this week showed that patients in Novo’s Phase 1 clinical trials experienced 13.1% weight loss after just 12 weeks. Novo’s success raised its stock to new heights, increasing more than 88% in one year and surpassing Tesla – Novo is no joke. What’s more, Goldman Sachs predicts a wave of healthcare innovation could boost GDP. On their own, anti-obesity drugs have the potential to boost US GDP by 0.4%, which is a decent chunk of the sugar-free pie with latest healthcare breakthroughs lifting GDP up to 1.3% (~$360 billion). In work terms (sorry to give you the Sunday scaries on a Wednesday), that translates to 1% more total workforce output. From where we’re sitting, advancements in weight-loss drugs don’t sound like a loss at all – we should call them weight-win drugs.
WOOLLY ACCELERATING: Colossal achievements are underway with one startup’s proposed de-extinction of the woolly mammoth. A startup rightly named Colossal announced its production of the first elephant stem cells, a crucial step towards resurrecting the woolly mammoth given that elephants are its closest relatives. The company has approached the project by comparing what we know about genomes of certain extinct species to the genomes of their relatives and identifying what genetic differences exist. It’s proven to be an elephantine task, and we’ll have a long wait to find out the true results — elephants’ gestation time is 2 years, and they take 15 years to start breeding. While deextinction is a Jurassic-park-level marvel, it could also play a vital role in conservation of existing species. Think less about dinosaurs in the pet stores and more about the panda families in the bamboo fields.
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
Notable pre-seed raises in …
fintech
AuthPay - Wallets are getting smarter
The Problem: As a business, it’s difficult to discern how to maximize rewards for each transaction.
The Tech: An AI-powered smart wallet that provides secure payment to businesses worldwide, streamlines transaction processing, and enhances security.
Recently Raised: $450k in funding led by SCOPE VC.
Also Note: SCOPE VC recently launched a $45 million venture capital fund dedicated to investments in fintech in gaming.
artificial intelligence
Lumen Orbit - The data edge of earth
The Problem: Sending space data around is costly, demanding high bandwidth and experiencing high latency.
The Tech: A constellation of data centers for in-space edge processing.
Recently Raised: $2.4 million in funding with participation from Nebular.vc, Caffeinated Capital VC, Plug & Play VC, Everywhere Ventures, and others.
Also Note: The round was reportedly 3x oversubscribed.
Outro🚪
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