• Lore
  • Posts
  • Lore Issue #37: Billion-Dollar AI Acquisitions Begin

Lore Issue #37: Billion-Dollar AI Acquisitions Begin

Author

Nathan Lands
June 28, 2023

Good morning.

This week was relatively quiet in terms of new AI tools, but things heated up in the world of AI acquisitions with a jaw-dropping billion-dollar deal. Our prediction in Issue #33 that major companies would engage in significant acquisitions due to the critical importance of AI is starting to come true.

As every company realizes that AI represents the most significant opportunity — and threat to their business, we’ll likely see some of the biggest acquisitions in technology ever.

In today’s newsletter, I’m continuing to experiment with the format and content ahead of several announcements we’ll be making in July.

I aim to make this newsletter the best weekly AI overview for busy executives, leaders, and venture capitalists.

Please let me know what you think!

  • Databricks acquires MosaicML, an OpenAI competitor, for $1.3B. They paid $21M per employee(62 employees). (Link)

  • Thomson Reuters buys Casetext, an AI legal tech startup, for $650M in cash. (Link)

  • Figma acquires Diagram to power Figma AI. The price of the deal hasn’t been disclosed. (Link)

  • Dropbox launches $50M AI-focused venture fund. (Link)

  • BentoML raises $9M in funding to expedite AI app development. (Link)

  • AI model startup Reka raises $50 million, led by DST Global Partners. (Link)

  • AWS launches a $100M program to fund generative AI initiatives. (Link)

Dropbox Introduces Two AI Products

This week, Dropbox made two big AI announcements.

Dropbox AI

First, they introduced Dropbox AI, a feature that lets you interact with your documents. For instance, imagine being able to ask a PDF specific questions and receiving relevant answers, saving you the hassle of reading the entire document. Currently, this feature supports single documents, but Dropbox plans to extend this functionality to multiple files.

Dropbox Dash

The second announcement is Dropbox Dash, dubbed as a universal search engine.

What sets Dash apart is that it’s not restricted to searching your Dropbox files. It enables you to search through all of your files and employs AI to comprehend the content of documents, not just their titles.

Midjourney V5.2 Brings Us Zoom Out

After a few delays, Midjourney V5.2 is finally out! It has even better image quality than the already amazing V5.1 and introduces a fantastic new Zoom Out feature.

Remember Adobe's Generative Fill that we discussed a few weeks ago? It allowed you to fill in missing parts of an image seamlessly. Zoom Out in Midjourney V5.2 is similar but seems easier to use.

What makes Zoom Out extraordinary is its ability to take an existing photo and expand it by continuously zooming out, allowing you to create much larger AI-generated images without losing quality.

We continue to be blown away by the team at Midjourney and how they have maintained their lead against Dall-E by OpenAI and Stable Diffusion.

Our friend Matt Wolfe made a great video explaining everything new in MidJourney. Check it out!

Other news:

  • Mizuho rolls out generative AI to all 45,000 bank staff in Japan. (Link)

  • Chinese A.I. stocks fall as U.S. weighs more restrictions on chip exports to China. (Link)

  • Unity shares rise 15% after company announces A.I. marketplace. (Link)

Unity AI

It’s going to be a lot easier to create video games soon thanks to Unity AI. They’re accepting beta applications now. Apply here.

Marvel Using AI

For possibly the first time, a major Hollywood studio, Marvel Studios, used AI Art in the opening credits for a TV series.

  • Diagram: AI for Figma designs. Recently acquired by Figma. (Link)

  • theGist: A unified AI workspace to supercharge humans. (Link)

  • WriteSparkle: An AI-powered tool that enables PDF integration and automation of workflows. (Link)

  • EmbedAI: Create AI chatbots using your data. (Link)

  • VCSheet: Use AI to fill out a spreadsheet with ivestors interested in your industry. (Link)

Find more tools at FutureTools.io.

  • DreamEditor: Text-Driven 3D Scene Editing with Neural Fields. (Link)

  • Harvard will use AI bot in CS50 course. (Link) 

  • OpenAI function call demo Python app on Replit, created by Pietro Schirano. (Link)

  • AI Getting Started Repo. A Javascript AI getting started stack for weekend projects. Created by A16Z. (Link)

  • DragGAN demo now available. Easily manipulate photos with AI. (Link)

That's it!

See you next week!

If you want to support Lore, please:

  1. Share this newsletter 

  2. Follow us on Twitter @NathanLands & LoreAiNews.

  3. Join our Generative AI community on LinkedIn.