Kenzie (Keller) Hoelscher’s Post

👋 Is the world of tech startups getting wilder by the day? 🤔 1. OPENAI ROLLING IN REVENUE 💸 OpenAI now rakes in a whopping $3.4 BILLION annually! PwC, Moderna, and Estée Lauder are among their big-name clients. SO, WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL? 👉 Microsoft poured $13 billion into OpenAI. 👉 Massive growth fueled by AI tools. 👉 But hold on, are smaller startups getting the short end of the stick? 💡 HARD TRUTH: With giants like OpenAI hoarding resources, where does that leave women-led startups? Are we just feeding the beast? How do we carve out our own space in such a monopolized field? 2. $52M FOR FIREWORKS AI 💥 Fireworks AI, a GenAI inference platform, just snagged $52 million in Series B funding. WHY SHOULD YOU CARE? 👉 Based in Redwood City and making waves. 👉 Backed by big names like NVIDIA and Sequoia. 🧐 FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Are these huge investments in AI platforms a sign that traditional VCs are ignoring unique, women-first ventures? Is it time to seek alternative funding routes or innovative capital-raising methods? 3. GREENIRON & MORPHO MAKING MOVES 🌍 Stockholm’s GreenIron is funding CO2-free metal reduction. Paris-based Morpho picks up $50 million for crypto lending on Ethereum. WHAT’S IMPRESSIVE? 👉 GreenIron tackles environmental sustainability. 👉 Morpho is pioneering decentralized finance. 🌱 REALITY CHECK: Our world is shifting towards sustainability and decentralization. Should we pivot our startup focuses? Are we leveraging these trends effectively, or do we risk being left behind in traditional tech niches? 🔮 WHAT NOW? Tech startups are either riding the wave or being swept away. From massive AI investments to green tech, it’s a battlefield out there. What do you think? Can startups still bloom in a tech jungle dominated by giants? Is there space for innovative, women-led ventures to thrive? Share your thoughts below👇! 🫡 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐩 𝐧𝐨𝐰: https://femaleswitch.app 🔈🔈🔈 🫵 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐩 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐮𝐫𝐬, 𝐡𝐢𝐭 𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖 #startups #femalentrepreneur #zerocode #ai

Can startups really compete with big tech in the AI era? 🤔 Cowboy Ventures' Aileen Lee believes history says yes, but patience is key. In her latest blog, Aileen highlights that while tech giants dominate early in platform shifts (like the web, mobile, and cloud), they often pave the way for startups to out-innovate over time. AI may follow a similar path: though incumbents like OpenAI and Microsoft are thriving, there’s still untapped potential for AI-native companies to emerge, especially by solving new problems and enhancing B2B and consumer applications. For founders, the opportunity is still ripe, with lessons from past tech cycles. Read the full article linked comments. 👇 #Startups #Innovation

🤖📊 AI startup Sierra, founded by Bret Taylor, former co-CEO of Salesforce, and Clay Bavor, a longtime Google executive, has completed a funding round valuing the company at $4.5 billion. 📈 This valuation is a leap from its January valuation of $1 billion, marking significant growth fueled by a fresh $175 million investment led by Greenoaks Capital, with contributions from ICONIQ Capital and Thrive Capital, as reported by industry sources. Sierra’s ascent comes during an AI industry boom, with one in three venture dollars this year reportedly directed toward AI-focused startups. 🤖 Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eWV3rcwc #tech #funding #news #AI #startup #VC #valuation #investment #technology #innovation

Are AI startups struggling to survive? The CEO of Hugging Face, a startup valued at $4.5 billion, recently made an interesting remark👨💻 ➡️Clément Delangue mentioned that he receives at least 10  acquisition requests from AI projects every week. ➡️Data from other tech giants confirms this trend. Last year, Apple acquired 32 AI firms, Google 21, and Microsoft 18. Do you believe this is a symptom of industry consolidation, or are small and early-stage projects simply realizing they can’t survive?  Thanks to Sherin Shibu from Entrepreneur Media for the insights. https://lnkd.in/eG-gdMrn 

As a VC investing in AI startups, there is one mistake I see above all others: building undifferentiated products. In my latest blog post, I explain why following AI trends might hurt your startup’s success and what good product ideas look like. https://lnkd.in/dngakH8i

AI startup Glean, aiming to become the "Google for Work," raises $260 million, doubling its valuation to $4.6 billion. 🔍 Glean leverages generative AI to enhance workplace search tools for clients like Reddit, Instacart, and Pinterest. 💰 The startup's fresh $260M funding round comes as its annual recurring revenue tripled within the past year. 🚀 Glean’s valuation doubled in just six months, reflecting growing investor confidence in its AI-powered workplace solutions. #AI #Startups #Innovation Glean aims to streamline workplace search and productivity, positioning itself as a leader in AI for enterprises. The company has rapidly expanded, demonstrating significant growth in both client base and revenue. https://lnkd.in/gDfAq4cy

#AI Startup Glean Nears Fundraise Valuing it at $4.5 Billion #Enterprise #AI company #Glean is in advanced discussions for a deal that would double its valuation from six months ago to $4.5 billion, a sign of how fast-growing artificial-intelligence startups are still attracting intense investor interest. Glean is set to raise $250 million in the financing, people familiar with the matter said. The venture firm DST #Global, founded by Russian-born, Israeli investor Yuri Milner, is in talks to lead the round, some of the people said. The investment details aren’t finalized and could change. The startup sells AI-powered search software that helps employees look up information spread across the organizations they work for. Executives and investors have pointed to such productivity apps as a potentially more lucrative market for generative AI in the near term than consumer-facing applications. Glean’s subscription revenue has recently reached $55 million on an annualized basis, the people familiar with the matter said. The company projects that number could reach $100 million by the end of the year, one of the people said. Glean counts Instacart, #Pinterest, #Reddit, and #Duolingo as customers, according to its website. The startup, founded in 2019 by former #Google search engineer Arvind Jain, was valued at $2.2 billion when it raised $200 million from name-brand Silicon Valley venture firms including Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital in February. Venture capitalists are scouring Silicon Valley to find AI startups showing signs of becoming stable businesses with growing revenues. The breakout success of ChatGPT in late 2022 fueled an AI funding frenzy, but investors have since pared back expectations after discovering that the technology is more expensive to develop than they expected. Early startup darlings such as Character AI and Inflection AI recently got bailouts from big tech companies after struggling to boost revenue from their chatbots. Others have had to cut costs or lay off staff. Glean’s generative AI search engine uses language models provided by #OpenAI and other developers instead of building its own from scratch, an approach that makes it more reliant on partners but reduces costs.

AI is distorting the VC market as technology giants like Microsoft and Amazon are pouring billions of dollars in the industry. That's creating even greater challenges for the venture industry, which is already in the midst of a deep slump due to the IPO drought. These companies, alongside AI startups, are oversaturating and oversubscribing the industry, and appear to be very bullish on AI. What do you think?

How Not to Fail in 2025: Lessons from the Graveyard of AI Startups. Avoid common pitfalls and thrive in the competitive AI landscape. 💡🤖 #AI #StartupLessons #TechInnovation #AIStartups #FutureOfTech https://lnkd.in/ddWuw3Xw

The strategic maneuvers of the "Big 3" — Apple, Amazon, and Google — further illustrate how these tech giants leverage their resources to dominate the AI landscape. Apple's integration of GenAI into its ecosystem, Amazon's substantial investment in AI startups, and Google's continued attempts at personalization reflect a broader agenda. These companies are ensuring their stranglehold on future AI innovations. What are your thoughts? #AIInvestments #TechStartups #VentureCapital