Unique Research · Company / Weekly Digest · October 14, 2024
China funding
DP Technology (深势科技): multi-hundred-million-RMB round from Beijing AI Industry Fund & Zhongguancun Science City — AI for Science / multi-scale simulation for biopharma, energy, materials (“Deep Potential · Yuzhi®”). Talent, full-stack depth, industry landing.
YiZhu Tech (亿铸科技): multi-hundred-million-RMB raise led by a noted overseas fund (Shengshi Tech, Xingzhi Capital following; ex-overseas GPU co-founder follow-on) — compute-in-memory AI chips for data center, cloud, servers, AV, edge; break memory/power/compile walls.
Deep Principle (深度原理): seed+ exclusive from Hillhouse Ventures — AI materials R&D (Jia Haojun, Duan Chenru); ReactControl / ReactBO / Reactify / ReactGen reaction-prediction stack. Founded 2024.
91360 (pathology AI): new round led by Ivy Capital, Hangzhou Gongshu SOE following — cervical cytology AI (China’s first NMPA Class III pathology AI cert; MIIT/NMPA AI medical-device innovation winner Aug 2024) + digital pathology / telepathology.
Tavi Tech (塔维科技): multi-million-RMB angel led by Singapore’s Tavistock Institute — psychology + AI for education, CDC, justice, public safety; UK Tavistock’s sole APAC psych+AI ops entity (founded Aug 2024).
Overseas funding
Numeric: $28M Series A led by Menlo (IVP, Socii new; Founders Fund, Long Journey, 8VC, F&F, Fifth Down) — five months after $10M seed. AI agents reconcile accounting systems + Excel, flag/explain account moves; close month/quarter faster. Founder Parker Gilbert: actual close/calc still ahead.
Relyance AI: $32M Series B led by Thomvest (M12, Cheyenne, Menlo, Unusual) — scan apps/cloud/AI models/code vs policies → data inventory & maps. Customers: Coinbase, Snowflake, MyFitnessPal, Plaid. Headcount → ~90 by year-end.
Distributional: $19M Series A led by Two Sigma (a16z, Operator Collective, Oregon VF, Essence, Alumni) — $30M total. Ex-Intel AI software GM Scott Clark; automated statistical tests for non-deterministic AI risk before prod. ~35 staff + first enterprise deploys by year-end.
KoBold Metals: $491M (of ~$527M target) — AI mineral discovery (Cu/Li/Ni/Co); large high-grade Zambia copper find; plans ~$2.3B self-develop. Backers: Gates, Bezos, Jack Ma, a16z, Breakthrough Energy.
EvenUp: $135M Series D at >$1B valuation (unicorn) led by Bain Capital Ventures (Premji, Lightspeed, Bessemer, SignalFire, B Capital) — PI legal AI; $235M raised since 2019; ~20M U.S. injury victims/year.
Perceptyne (India): $3M seed co-led by Endiya + Yali — AI semi-humanoid industrial robots (PR-34D / PR-9D); weeks not months to deploy; industrial robotics → ~$41B by 2030.
Suki: $70M Series D led by Hedosophia (Venrock, March) — $165M total; ~$500M valuation. Voice AI assistant for clinicians; 300+ health systems; Epic/Cerner/Athena/MEDITECH. Founder Punit Soni (ex-Google/Flipkart).
Industry moves
Nobel Physics 2024: John Hopfield & Geoffrey Hinton — foundational ANN / ML discoveries (Royal Swedish Academy, Oct 8).
Khosla Ventures disclosed $405M into OpenAI via SPV (not necessarily its own capital). Khosla put $50M into OpenAI in 2019 for a reported ~5%.
Sierra AI (Bret Taylor, ex-Salesforce co-CEO): Information reports raise that may push valuation above $4B; hundreds of millions from Greenoaks; SF HQ expanded.
OpenAI investor side letters: Reuters — Thrive & Tiger’s $6.6B deal asked investors to avoid Anthropic, xAI, SSI, plus apps Perplexity and Glean. OpenAI revenue goal cited: $3.7B (2024) → $11.6B (2025).
People
Si Luo — ex-Alibaba VP / DAMO chief scientist (also ex-Salesforce EVP; Purdue tenured) joins Banma Network Technologies as CTO to drive LLM R&D and AIOS; Banma covers 150+ models / 7M smart cars shipped; new cabin brand “Yuanshen AI” at Yunqi.
Yu Youping — ex-Baidu AI Cloud VP (17 years at Baidu; HUST PhD; Guanghua EMBA) becomes president of Zhongguancun Kejin (conversational AI; 100+ LLM patents).
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