Former OpenAI and DeepMind researchers raise whopping $300M seed to automate science, plus, Whoop opens blood-testing service to what it says is a 350,000-person waitlist
Periodic Labs was founded by Ekin Dogus Cubuk and Liam Fedus. Cubuk led the materials and chemistry team at Google Brain and DeepMind, where one of his projects was, for instance, an AI tool called GNoME. Researchers say that tool discovered over 2 million new crystals in 2023, materials that could one day be used to power new generations of technology.
Whoop Advanced Labs offers health-screening blood tests from Quest Diagnostics that cover a variety of markers, from calcium to white blood cells. The platform integrates those results with the band’s continuous monitoring of activity, sleep, respiratory rate, and blood pressure to offer more personalized wellness advice.
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5:18
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5:18
CommanderAI building Salesforce for the waste management industry, also, a year after filing to IPO, still-private Cerebras Systems raises $1.1B
CommanderAI launched in early 2024 as a customer relationship manager and sales prospecting platform built for waste management — and other industrial services like dumpster rentals and industrial recyclers – to fill that gap.
Also, Silicon Valley-based Cerebras announced it raised a $1.1 billion Series G round on Tuesday that valued the AI hardware company at $8.1 billion. The round was co-led by Fidelity and Atreides Management with participation from Tiger Global, Valor Equity Partners, and 1789 Capital, among others.
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8:25
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8:25
Vibe-coding startup Anything nabs a $100M valuation after hitting $2M ARR in its first two weeks; also, AI recruiter Alex raises $17M to automate initial job interviews
It’s no secret that vibe coding — using AI-powered coding tools to build apps and websites via natural language prompts — is exploding in popularity. In July, Swedish vibe coding startup Lovable hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue just eight months after launch, plans to close the year at $250 million ARR and thinks it will hit $1 billion ARR within the next 12 months. Meanwhile, Replit said earlier this month that its ARR soared from $2.8 million to $150 million in less than a year.
Also, job seekers in all fields can expect to soon be doing a lot more initial screening interviews. While that may sound like positive news, it doesn’t mean that there will suddenly be more open positions. Instead, recruiters, often bogged down with determining which applicants are qualified for the next round, will outsource the routine screening tasks — like checking backgrounds, salary needs, and availability — to (you guessed it) AI.
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8:42
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8:42
The startup behind open source tool Polars raises $21M from Accel; plus, ComplexChaos thinks AI can help people find common ground
Polars, the Amsterdam-based company behind the popular open source project of the same name, has raised about $21 million in a Series A round led by Accel, with participation from Bain Capital Partners and angel investors. But while raising this kind of money is the dream of many developers, its creator Ritchie Vink didn’t set out to do so.
Also, making democracy work isn’t easy, as recent events have made clear. Some critics would argue that technology is making it worse. But one startup is hoping that AI could help bridge some differences instead of widen them.
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8:11
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8:11
Paid, the AI agent ‘results-based billing’ startup, raised huge $21M seed; former Microsoft execs launch AI agents to end Excel-led finance
Paid just closed an oversubscribed $21.6 million seed round led by Lightspeed. With the €10 million pre-seed round it raised in March, London-based Paid has already raised $33.3 million and hasn’t even hit its Series A yet. A source familiar with the deal says the startup’s valuation is over $100 million.
Also, despite millions spent on financial software, many finance teams still rely on Excel to close their books and reconcile numbers while preparing them for audit. Two former Microsoft executives view it as a problem — and they have started Maximor to replace spreadsheets with AI agents for the grunt work finance teams perform.
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