Unique Research · Company / Weekly Digest · September 2, 2024
Ingest note: ~18 CN images; attach on ingest.
China funding
Infinigence (无问芯穹) — nearly ¥500M Series A, largest single check among China AI-infra startups at publish. Joint lead: NSSF Zhongguancun Independent Innovation Fund, Qiming, Hongtai; Lenovo Capital, Xiaomi, Softcom Hi-Tech follow. Founded only 16 months; cumulative near ¥1B. Soft/hard co-optimize chip utilization + heterogeneous cluster adapters; AMD strategic deal; HETHUB mixed hetero training at ~1k-GPU scale; Infini-AI hetero cloud + edge LPU path.
Overseas funding
Viggle AI (Toronto genAI animation) — $19M Series A led by a16z; Two Small Fish. Proprietary JST-1 physics-aware video 3D foundation model (text/image→realistic character motion). Discord community ~4M; Creator program. Scale product + controllable video/animation.
Flyr (airline retail AI) — $225M Series D (+$70M credit; >$500M total) — largest travel-tech deal YTD. Led WestCap; BlackRock, Streamlined, ADIA sub, Avianca; Vista Credit on debt. Laurence Tosi (ex-Airbnb/Blackstone CFO) joins board. Dynamic pricing / personalized offers for airlines + hotels; ARR +290% LTM. Customers: Avianca, JetBlue, Air NZ, Virgin Atlantic, etc.
Magic (genAI coding) — $320M from Eric Schmidt, Alphabet CapitalG, Atlassian, Elad Gil, Jane Street, Nat Friedman & Daniel Gross, Sequoia — ~$500M total. Google Cloud “supercomputers” on H100 + next-year Blackwell. LTM-2-mini claimed 100M-token context (largest commercial claim then). Auto pair-programmer for write/review/debug/plan.
Codeium (GitHub Copilot rival) — $125M Series C at $1B unicorn. Led General Catalyst; Kleiner Perkins, Greenoaks. ~$243M total since 2021. ~70 languages; 700k+ users; 1,000+ enterprise (Anduril, Zillow, Dell). Generous free tier; headcount plan to 120 by 2025.
Openmart (AI local-sales leads) — $2.75M seed; exited beta. YC W24; founders Kathryn Wu & Richard He. Scrapes public business profiles/maps/reviews into typed local-SMB DB; sells owner contact lists. Start with large accounts, then mid-market; stay SMB-contact specialists.
Industry moves — China
Dongguan Binhaiwan — ¥1B electronics/AI industry fund (Binhaiwan Industry Investment × Dongguan Sci-Tech Finance × Qianhai Ark). Six AI project pitches (VR, 5G edge, etc.).
SK Group × Legend Capital (SL Capital) with Wuxi gov — ¥1B fund to pull Korean semi supply chain into Wuxi. SL investing China semis incl. Black Sesame; Nextin & Gigalane plan Wuxi plants. SK Hynix: China fabs exist but no AI memory production in China (per statement).
ByteDance LLM Research Institute (secret build) — external talent reporting to Zhang Yiming. Ex-Moonshot core Qin Yujia + ex-01.AI Huang Wenhao joined Byte LLM team (institute affiliation unclear). Path: Lark/Yunque model → Doubao; Flow apps (late 2023); Coze overseas / 扣子 domestic. Shift from internal-only talent to external hiring. (Source note: AI Tech Review.)
Alibaba Quark PC — AI search / write / PPT / file summarize; system-level hotkeys; ~200 doc types; Word→PPT.
Meitu (1357.HK) H1 2024 — revenue ¥1.62B (+28.6%); profit ~¥303M (+45%); adj. NI ~¥270M (+80.3%). R&D ¥430M (26.2% of rev, +44.5%). Imaging/design +54.5% (57.4% mix); paid subs >10.81M record. 484 patents; 266 software copyrights.
Leqi × Yizhi JV Kiwise (其知) — AI e-commerce (membership ops, CS, marketing) combining Leqi commerce + Yizhi voice AI.
Industry moves — overseas
Nvidia FY2025 Q2 — revenue $30.04B (+122% YoY); NI $16.6B; data center $26.3B (+154%); gaming $2.9B (+16%). Full-year GM guide ~70% (below ~76.4% Street); Q3 rev ~$32.5B (+80%; Street high ~$37.9B) → after-hours −8%. $50B buyback; Blackwell mass production/ship Q4.
Apple + Nvidia reportedly in talks for next OpenAI round that could value it at $100B (NYT). Thrive may lead; Microsoft (49% economic stake) may join. OpenAI ARR earlier >$3.4B but reported path to ~$5B loss by year-end on training/staff. Ties: Nvidia GPUs; Apple ChatGPT-in-iOS via Apple Intelligence.
Midjourney → hardware — SF hardware team; >$200M revenue without VC. Hired ex-Neuralink Ahmad Abbas (Apple MR); CEO David Holz co-founded Leap Motion. Still shipping video/3D models amid training lawsuits.
Thomson Reuters acquires Safe Sign Technologies (UK legal vertical LLM, founded 2022; Cambridge legal/AI faculty; co-founder/chief scientist Jonathan R. Schwarz). Surprising after 2023 Casetext deal — feed into CoCounsel.
People
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy — internal GenAI assistant Amazon Q: Java upgrades from ~50 days to hours; saved ~4,500 developer-years; ~$260M efficiency. Code gen, docs, tests, refactor. Amazon Q Business for enterprise data/systems.
Zhang Zhaosheng (ex-Chinasoft Hongmeng ecosystem CTO; ex-ShenKaiHong CTO; OpenHarmony TSC) founds Hongxin Zhilian (鸿信智联) — open HarmonyOS, secure comms, AI terminals; angel funded. (Source: 豹料台.)
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