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VCs Back Startup Trying to Take the Bot Feel Out of Chatbots
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By Marc Vartabedian, WSJ Pro
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Good day. Artificial intelligence is getting smarter, but is it still too…artificial?
Anam is developing technology that allows organizations to customize digital avatars to perform chatbot-style functions but with a personalized, human touch. The London-based startup’s software lets customers choose the appearance, behavior style, facial movements and gestures of their avatars.
A chatbot that takes the form of a human character enables a more personable interaction and keeps users better engaged, Caoimhe Murphy, Anam’s co-founder and chief executive, said.
“Every customer is different,” Murphy said. “The way a bank wants its avatar to interact with its customers is likely different than how a beauty brand might handle sales chats.”
Anam is gearing up the tech for companies in industries such as healthcare, education, enterprise software and entertainment. Its customers include French cosmetics company L'Oréal Paris and German chemical and consumer goods company Henkel.
While Anam provides the platform to build the digital agents, customers can use the large language models of their choice to power their avatar’s intelligence, Murphy said.
In November, Anam closed a $9 million seed round led by Redpoint Ventures with participation from investors including SV Angel, Torch Capital and Concept Ventures. Anam is disclosing the round now along with new versions of its technology, Murphy said.
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And now on to the news...
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Mark Zuckerberg. PHOTO: MANUEL ORBEGOZO/REUTERS
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Developing superintelligence. Mark Zuckerberg announced a new “Superintelligence” division within Meta Platforms, officially organizing an effort that has been the subject of an intense recruiting blitz in recent months, The Wall Street Journal reports. Former Scale CEO Alexandr Wang will lead the team as chief AI officer, and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman will lead the company’s work on AI products, according to an internal memo Zuckerberg sent to employees that was viewed by the Journal.
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The new organization, called Meta Superintelligence Labs, will house Meta’s fundamental AI research team, also known as FAIR; the team that currently builds the company’s Llama models; and the team that develops Meta’s AI products—as well as a new lab focused on “developing the next generation of our models.”
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10%
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The S&P 500 rose more than 10% in the second quarter, posting its largest quarterly percentage gain since the fourth quarter of 2023.
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Google Signs Deal to Buy Fusion Energy From Nuclear Startup
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Google signed one of the world’s first commercial deals for fusion energy, in an agreement with nuclear startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems, WSJ Pro reports. It is a bet on future technology. Nuclear fusion has never been used for commercial energy production. CFS, which is backed by Bill Gates’s technology fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures, is aiming to start producing commercial fusion energy in the 2030s. The deal for 200 megawatts of energy—about enough to power 75,000 homes—from CFS’s first commercial ARC plant in Chesterfield County, Va., marks the first direct deal between a customer and a fusion energy company, and
the largest deal of this scale in terms of energy provided.
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Amazon Is on the Cusp of Using More Robots Than Humans in Its Warehouses
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The automation of Amazon.com facilities is approaching a new milestone: There will soon be as many robots as humans, WSJ reports. The e-commerce giant, which has spent years automating tasks previously done by humans in its facilities, has deployed more than one million robots in those workplaces, Amazon said. That is the most it has ever had and near the count of human workers at the facilities.
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People
IVP hired Helen Clement as a partner and head of capital formation, and Jimena Nowack as partner in the London office. Clement joins the firm from Wellington Management, and Nowack joins from Dawn Capital.
Fintech-focused investor Restive Ventures appointed Ben Glenney as an associate. He was most recently at Pilatus Capital.
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Levelpath, a San Francisco-based AI-native procurement platform, scored more than $55 million in Series B funding. Battery Ventures led the round, with General Partner Neeraj Agrawal joining the company’s board.
Campfire, a San Francisco-based provider of enterprise resource planning software for finance and accounting teams, landed $35 million in Series A funding led by Accel.
CRED, a San Francisco-based AI-powered predictive intelligence platform, raised $15 million in seed funding led by defy.
Circuit, a New York-based digital asset recovery startup, was seeded with a $4.4 million investment from Nyca Partners, Soma Capital, New Form Capital and others.
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ILLUSTRATION: MONA EING & MICHAEL MEISSNER
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