Good day. Tim Draper, founder and managing partner of venture firm Draper Associates, was in New York last week for a live taping of his entrepreneur pitch show, “Meet the Drapers.” We caught up with the billionaire, who has invested in companies like Baidu, Tesla and SpaceX, on the sidelines of the event.

We discussed how Draper Associates uses AI, why he is not a fan of humanoid robots and working through the kinks in AI. Excerpts of our conversation follow, edited for length and clarity.

WSJ Pro: How are you using AI at your venture firm now?

Draper: We have a data lake of 250,000 companies and the AI spits out about five a week for me to evaluate, and retrain it. So I look and go no no no. Yes, maybe. The AI takes that and next time, I get five new companies and they are better than the last time.

We’ve now done two investments that came specifically out of our data lake that we would not have seen—no way.

WSJ Pro: How are you using AI to evaluate entrepreneurs during pitch meetings?

Draper: We use it for voice to personality. So apparently, different voices have different personalities. So you can identify what type of person it is based on the voice recording.

WSJ Pro: What are you looking for when you are trying to assess a founder’s personality?

Draper: Our ambition is to train it [the AI] to look for what we're calling the wild animal, which is the entrepreneur. We're not there yet. Instinctively, you know what kind of a person you’re dealing with. But when you get it in print after they talked, it helps you think about them better. You can't count on [the AI] yet.

WSJ Pro: What kind of startups are you most interested in investing in right now?

Draper: We've made a lot of investments in healthcare recently because the world's going from chemotherapy to bio cures. It's the Crispr and the cloning and the stem cells and mRNA. Big Pharma is not going to like it.

Another place is space and transportation. Elon [Musk] really broke the logjam there. There are all sorts of things happening out in space.

In AI, I’m kind of interested in AI-plus robots. But not humanoid robots. No, no, I want a robot that like flies and has 40 arms.

And now on to the news...

AI profitability concerns. U.S. stocks slipped Tuesday after a report raised questions about the profitability of renting out artificial-intelligence computing power.

• Roughly flat in early Tuesday trading, stock indexes turned lower after a report in the Information said that internal documents showed that the cloud-computing company Oracle was generating relatively small profits from a unit that provides specialized servers to OpenAI and other businesses.
   
• Oracle shares, which have surged this year as the company announced huge new contracts, fell as much as 7.1% before paring losses and ending the day down 2.5%. Other tech companies also fell, with Alphabet losing 1.9% and CoreWeave dropping 3.8%.

The secondary market for private-credit assets may be much smaller and younger than its private-equity counterpart, but it is rapidly gaining ground.

• “We’re seeing a substantial increase,” said Jeffrey Griffiths, the global head of private credit at private-capital advisory firm Campbell Lutyens. These transactions have “picked up the pace this year.”

For years, Clear has been the fast lane through airport security—an extra layer of insurance for making your flight. TSA has often been a crapshoot, risking pileups as travelers pulled laptops from carry-ons and novice vacationers struggled to untie their sneakers.

• Recently, though, TSA has taken steps to move those snaking lines more quickly. Travelers no longer have to slip off their shoes, and the agency has expanded its own facial recognition technology. Some travelers say the improvements give Clear tougher competition.

Funds

Energy Impact Partners closed its third flagship fund with $1.36 billion in commitments, which is nearly 40% larger than its preceding fund. The energy investment firm now has more than $4.5 billion in assets under management.

EvenUp, a San Francisco-based AI platform for personal injury law, raised $150 million in Series E funding, bringing the company’s valuation up to more than $2 billion. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round, which included participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and others.

Meanwhile, a Bermuda-based bitcoin-denominated life insurance provider, picked up an $82 million investment co-led by Haun Ventures and Bain Capital Crypto.

Feedzai, a Lisbon-based financial crime prevention platform, scored about $75 million in Series E funding from investors including Lince Capital at a valuation of more than $2 billion.

Quilter, a Los Angeles-based circuit board design automation startup, collected $25 million in Series B funding. Index Ventures led the round, with Partner Nina Achadjian joining the company’s board.

Membrion, a Seattle-based developer of ceramic desalination membranes for industrial wastewater treatment, closed a $20 million Series B1 round from investors including Pangaea Ventures.

Energy Robotics, a Germany-headquartered AI software platform for autonomous inspection with robots and drones, completed a $13.5 million Series A round co-led by Blue Bear Capital and Climate Investment.

Tycho AI, a Cambridge, Mass.-based startup developing hardware and software for unmanned aerial vehicle technology, secured $10 million in Series A financing. FirstMark led the round, which included participation from Pillar VC.

HyperSpectral, an Alexandria, Va.-based AI-powered spectral intelligence startup, closed a $7 million Series A2 round co-led by RRE Ventures and Kibo Ventures.

Ewake, a Paris-based startup using AI agents for software reliability, picked up €2 million in pre-seed funding led by Connect Ventures.

• Tesla Debuts Cheaper, Stripped-Down Versions of Model 3 and Model Y
   
• SoftBank Expands AI Footprint With Multibillion-Dollar Robotics Deal
   
• Cybersecurity Gets C-Suite Attention as Companies Dive Into AI
   
• IEA Cuts U.S. Renewable Energy Growth Outlook on Trump Policies
   
• Corporate Anxiety Is Fueling a Multimillion-Dollar Industry of Gen Z Translators
   
• Dell Lifts Long-Term Growth Targets on Surging AI Demand

• OpenAI sneezes, and software firms catch a cold (Wired)
   
• U.S. lawmakers call for broader bans on chipmaking tool sales to China (Reuters)

This newsletter was compiled by Yuliya Chernova and Zachary Cole.

WSJ Pro Venture Capital is a premium service of The Wall Street Journal. We cover venture capital and the global startup ecosystem. Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The Team: Matthew Strozier, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley and Marc Vartabedian.