October 05, 2024

E154: OpenAI secures $6.6B round, expands capabilities; Cerebras files for IPO with 220% revenue growth; Anthropic hires former OpenAI co-founder, valued at $25.2B; Flexport restructures to improve profitability, valuation plummets; Epic Games files antit

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- Wednesday = secondary market valuations, revenue multiples, performance, index fact sheets
- Saturdays = pre-IPO news and insights, webinar replays

00:07 | OpenAI Secures $6.6B Round, Expands Capabilities
- Introduced real-time voice assistant capabilities through API for businesses
- New API features and developer events announced to engage 3M+ developers
- Workforce doubled to 1,700 employees from 770 in November 2023
- Raised $6.6B funding round at $157B valuation (primary round)
- Secured $4B revolving credit line with potential to expand to $10B in liquidity

01:31 | Cerebras Files for IPO with 220% Revenue Growth
- Specializes in AI hardware, particularly wafer-scale chips for AI training
- Revenue of $136.4M in H1 2024 vs. $78.7M for full year 2023
- Faces customer concentration risk with 87% of H1 2024 revenue from G42
- Raised $715M in venture capital, valuation at $6.7B (secondary), up 124% since June 2024

03:11 | Anthropic Hires Former OpenAI Co-Founder, Valued at $25.2B
- Added Durk Kingma, co-founder of OpenAI, to its growing talent pool
- Continues attracting top talent from OpenAI and other tech giants
- Positioned as a leader in responsible AI development under CEO Dario Amodei
- Secondary market valuation: $25.2B (+40% vs Jan 2024), rumored to be raising at $40B

04:09 | Flexport Restructures to Improve Profitability, Valuation Plummets
- Logistics tech company plans to sublease warehouse space, integrate sales teams
- Faced layoffs (20% in October, 15% in January) and loss of key customers like Crocs
- Aiming for global expansion by 2027 with an asset-light model
- Secondary market valuation: $1.95B (-75% vs Jan 2022 primary round)

05:15 | Epic Games Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google and Samsung
- Filed lawsuit over Samsung’s "Auto Blocker" feature, alleging it blocks third-party app stores
- Claims Google Play’s dominance is reinforced by Samsung's preinstalled feature
- Lawsuit follows mixed success in earlier legal battles against Google and Apple
- Secondary market valuation: $16.6B (-26% vs Feb 2024 round)

06:20 | CoreWeave Raises $421M, Valued at $23B
- Cloud provider specializing in Nvidia GPUs for AI computing
- Raised $421M in Series B, backed by Nvidia, Magnetar Capital, Blackstone
- Secured $2.3B in debt financing in August 2024
- Appointed former Google Cloud VP of finance as CFO, signaling potential IPO
- Currently raising a primary round at a $23B valuation

07:34 | Pre-IPO Stock Market Weekly Performance
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- Pre-IPO +0.77% for week, +67.25% for last 1yr
- Up week: Synk +17.1%, OpenAI +13.7%, Canva +6.9%, Rippling +5.9%, Notion +5.3%
- Down week: xAI -5.3%, CoreWeave -2.2%, Cohere -1.7%, Epic Games -1.6%, Neuralink -0.6%
- Top valuations: ByteDance $301b, SpaceX $229b, OpenAI $157b, Stripe $84b, Databricks $46b

08:20 | Pre-IPO Stock Vintage Index Weekly Performance
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- 2024 Vintage Index top contributors since inception: Revolut +201%, Rippling +113%, Anduril +76%, OpenAI +56%, Klarna +40% … the 2024 Vintage Index is up 63% since its inception, or year to date 2024
- Key metric averages for all Vintage Indexes 5 years old or older…
472% cumulative return since inception
58% realized, distributed to investors
5.72 TVPI; 3.31 DPI, 2.41 RVPI
4.1 years to return the fund