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Three Questions With AWS Startup Chief Howard Wright
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Good day. Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud-computing arm, Amazon Web Services, this week unveiled a 10-week accelerator program for startups building generative artificial-intelligence software tools. Among other resources, the program offers founders $300,000 in AWS credits for their cloud expenses. The setup is similar to Alphabet Inc.’s Google, which covers up to $250,000 in cloud costs for AI startups over their first year. Microsoft Corp. is also investing heavily in AI startups, not least ChatGPT maker OpenAI. WSJ Pro touched base with Howard Wright, vice president and global head of startups at AWS, on why the world needs more AI startup accelerators. Edited excerpts below:
Why did AWS launch an AI accelerator?
Generative AI has the potential to reinvent every customer experience and application out in the world today, as well to create new and improved ones we haven’t even imagined yet. Amazon has been focused on AI for over two decades to power our own workflows and those of over 100,000 clients. We have built the expertise in this space to recognize we are at the cusp of a technological jump.
How will AWS help AI startups develop, grow and compete in an increasingly crowded market?
The mission of the AWS Generative AI Accelerator is to help early-stage generative AI startups more quickly overcome both technical and go-to-market challenges with uniquely designed programming, as well as build community and raise awareness for their company. We’re determined to help founders unlock the potential of generative AI with both business and technical guidance—from matching companies with mentors and connecting them to technical experts, to providing them with the computing power required to fuel their solutions.
Some tech insiders have called for a pause in AI experimentation. How is that likely to impact the AI startup ecosystem, if at all?
AI experimentation will continue to move forward, but as an industry, it is our responsibility to put guardrails in place to ensure that solutions brought to market are trustworthy, fair, and safe. AWS is committed to developing responsible AI and has created guidelines and resources to that end to be used internally and provided to our customers.
And now on to the news...
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The Treasury Department says that rogue states have used the opaqueness of DeFi markets to move money without detection. PHOTO: AL DRAGO/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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DeFi warning. The burgeoning decentralized cryptocurrency market threatens U.S. national security and needs greater oversight and enforcement against money-laundering, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reports. The warning, in a new Treasury report assessing the risk of the so-called DeFi markets, lays the foundation for tougher regulations and punitive action by federal agencies. DeFi platforms enable crypto investors to transact with each other through software running online, without a central intermediary overseeing transactions. Without the intermediaries of traditional finance such as banks, regulators currently have little insight into DeFi
transactions.
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StraightPath Receiver Outlines Recovery Steps for Investors
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StraightPath Venture Partners investors may see a glimmer of light signaling the eventual return of at least some of the capital sunk into what regulators have characterized as a fraudulent operation, WSJ Pro reports. Court-appointed receiver Melanie Cyganowski is telling investors in StraightPath’s pre-IPO investment funds to expect statements by April 19 detailing what her team has determined to be the amount each investor has at stake and providing 45 days to dispute the amount. Ms. Cyganowski, a former U.S. Bankruptcy Court chief judge and now a lawyer with New York firm Otterbourg PC, was named StraightPath’s receiver last June.
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Hopes for Hong Kong’s IPO Market Rest on Carve-Out Plans
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Plans by two of China’s biggest technology companies to sell shares in their subsidiaries could give a jolt of confidence to a Hong Kong IPO market that has been in the doldrums for more than a year, WSJ reports. Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which is listed in Hong Kong and New York, said last week it would reorganize into six independently run companies and explore IPOs for them. Not long after, smaller rival JD.com Inc. filed paperwork in the Asian financial hub to sell shares in its property and industrial units. These deals could give a boost to Hong Kong IPO volumes, which fell by more than two-thirds to $8.5 billion last year.
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Companies That Went Public via SPACs Log Billions in Write-Downs
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Companies that went public through mergers with special-purpose acquisition companies in recent years booked billions of dollars in goodwill write-downs in 2022, reflecting in part a reckoning of the heady premiums paid to secure deals during the SPAC boom, WSJ reports. Pretax goodwill impairments across 39 post-SPAC businesses in 2022 totaled an estimated $11.57 billion, based on a review of filings through Tuesday—at which point about 78% of public U.S. companies had filed their annual reports—according to financial and risk advisory firm Kroll LLC. That compares with $2.71 billion across 11 such businesses the previous year.
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WSJ Pro Event: Prospects for Private Credit
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On April 25, we will be discussing the prospects for private credit in a virtual event. Private credit has been booming for 20 years but we will be looking at how lending, borrowing and investing in the asset class could be affected by rising interest rates and higher risk. Speakers include Jean Hsu of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and Spyro Alexopoulos of Golub Capital. You can register here.
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Funds
S2G Ventures, which is focused on food, agriculture, ocean and clean energy markets, launched a $300 million Special Opportunities fund to provide flexible financing to companies seeking to create positive long-term social and environmental impact. The firm, which has offices in San Francisco, Boston and Chicago, now has $2 billion in assets under management.
Portola Valley, Calif.-based Theory Ventures, a new firm founded by cloud-software investor Tomasz Tunguz, raised $230 million for its debut fund to make seed and Series A investments.
Kensington Capital has raised more than 150 million Canadian dollars (about $110 million) toward the firm’s Kensington Venture Fund III fund, which has a target of C$290 million. The Toronto-based firm said it will make direct investments in emerging technology companies as well as investments into venture capital funds through the new vehicle. The fund will invest across sectors including artificial intelligence, industrial automation and robotics, cybersecurity, life science and healthcare, energy and sustainability technologies, and tech-enabled services. Kensington Capital closed its Kensington Venture Fund II in 2019 with C$150 million.
People
Plant biotechnology startup GreenLab Inc. named Ryan Schon as chief operating officer. He previously held positions at Monsanto, Corn States, Corteva and Latham Seeds.
Private market investing platform Yieldstreet said Lea Stendahl joined the company as chief marketing officer. She was most recently CMO of Suffolk Construction.
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LayerZero Labs, a Vancouver-based blockchain messaging protocol, closed a $120 million Series B round, valuing the company at $3 billion. The investment included participation from a16z crypto, BOND and others.
Honeycomb, a San Francisco-based observability platform used by engineering teams to investigate the behavior of cloud applications, secured more than $50 million in Series D financing led by Headline.
Staytuned, a New York-based startup that builds and acquires Shopify apps, scored $34 million in new funding from investors including TenOneTen, Hawke Ventures, Riverpark Ventures and others.
4.screen, a Munich-based business-to-driver interaction platform, completed a €21 million Series A round from investors including S4S Ventures.
Mojo Vision, a Saratoga, Calif.-based startup developing micro-LED display technology for consumer, enterprise and government applications, snagged $22.4 million in Series A funding led by New Enterprise Associates and Khosla Ventures.
Chroma, a San Francisco-based open-source embedding database, picked up an $18 million seed investment led by Quiet Capital.
LI.FI, a multi-chain liquidity and data gateway, snagged $17.5 million in Series A funding from investors including CoinFund.
Fetcherr, an Israel-based demand prediction and algorithmic pricing optimization platform for the airline industry, landed $12.5 million in pre-Series B funding led by Left Lane Capital and M-Fund.
Ecosapiens, a climate tech startup offering digital collectibles that directly finance carbon removal projects, added $3.5 million in seed funding led by Collab+Currency.
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Editor’s Note: Each week, we share selections from WSJ Pro. The stories are unlocked for Wall Street Journal subscribers.
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Movie fans have been trickling back to the cinema after the pandemic upheaval, but the financial pain has intensified for some of the largest theater-industry players, including Cineworld Group and AMC Entertainment.
Private-equity investors looking to stand out as they enter the crowded—and potentially lucrative—playing field of sports are buying into less popular segments such as rugby, where pricing pressure is lower, but risks loom large.
America is aging, but many companies don’t want to hire older people. Some employers may subtly communicate through their wording in online help-wanted ads that older workers ought not apply. But including this demographic is important for maintaining a healthy labor market.
Healthcare has been a bright spot in a slowing exit environment for private-equity firms. In one of the more recent examples, global private-equity firm Warburg Pincus stands to score a lucrative return with the sale of gene therapy technology provider Polyplus, the latest in a string of healthcare exits the firm has produced over the past year.
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STEPHANIE AARONSON/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL; PHOTOS: ISTOCK
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