AI will never forget it
Necessary Nuggets
Happy Wednesday, and happy Valentine’s Day from your one true love, Necessary Nuggets. If you’re new here, welcome to Necessary Nuggets, your one-stop pre-seed shop. We deliver updates from Necessary Ventures and helpful tidbits on our little corner of the world. Every edition is also on our blog.
Jobortunities 🚨
Readout AI: Press fast forward on data analysis in clinical trials. Readout AI is on a mission to eliminate manual analysis and boost development decisions.
| Customer Success Associate |
Taro: Taro increases access to healthcare while reducing costs and physician burnout via direct primary care based health insurance.
| Product Engineer |
Arc Boats: Electrify watercraft. Build the Tesla of boats. Arc’s aim is both sustainability and high performance.
| Test Engineer |
Reach out with any questions! All 126 open job postings are listed here.
Hot off the Press♨️
If you’re a biotech nerd, or even remotely curious about what’s going on in the sector, the time has come. Check out the Necessary Ventures’ Biotech Watch List on our blog, covering emerging trends like KRAS therapeutics, EGFR inhibitors, APRIL, and others. If you don’t know what any of those acronyms mean, there’s only one way to find out.
Market Stirrings 🚩
Seed round valuations in 2023 look a lot like the Usher half-time show: low start, steady climb, exciting finish. Compared to Q1 2021, seed round valuations were up 40%, nearing the peak in Q2 2022 of approximately 50% increase in valuations. This is countered by a 30% decrease in total rounds completed for Q4 2023, which suggests a sort of valuation premium for early stage startups that were able to complete a round in otherwise difficult fundraising conditions.
Good Reads 📖
For the rushed reader …
The US Patent and Trademark Office ruled that an AI system cannot be an inventor, but a human who uses AI to invent can get a patent.
OpenAI announced it will be adding long-term memory to ChatGPT, and it will recall details between conversations.
Europe is leading the world in climate tech innovation, originating the highest percentage of all patents in the field at 28%.
For the less rushed reader …
NO PATENTS FOR (AI)LIENS: Add “non-natural persons” to your acronym box for referring to human-like, non-human things (right alongside E.T., UFO, and WALL-E). Today’s non-natural person is an AI system seeking a patent. The US Patent and Trademark Office ruled that an AI system, as a non-natural person, cannot be an inventor, but a human who uses AI to invent can get a patent. Anyone applying for a patent must disclose if they used AI in the process, and they must have contributed significantly outside of the AI creativity boost. Maintaining intellectual domination (yes, that was written on paper) over the AI system is not enough to be considered an inventor. Guess if an AI system wants to be patented, it will just have to settle for tight patent leather pants – close enough?
UPGR(AI)DE: It was already obvious that ChatGPT has a big br(AI)n, but now it will have an elephant one too (figuratively, not physically). OpenAI announced it will be adding long-term memory to ChatGPT, and it will recall details between conversations. Remember that first date that stalked your social media and remembered every detail? That will be ChatGPT. Previously, LLMs only had memory in two forms: the memory integrated in the model itself during training, and in-context memory during each conversation. This is the first experiment at scale putting long-term memory in LLMs to work. ChatGPT just got chattier.
SEEING GREEN: If you’re looking for another reason to plan a long European vacation, this might be it. Europe is leading the world in climate tech innovation, originating the highest percentage of all patents in the field at 28%. However, climate funding still gets a bad performance review; it’s not enough. Green investment is avoiding the sectors that need help the most. 48% of VC funding in 2022 went to mobility, which only accounts for 15% of emissions, while the heaviest polluting industries like manufacturing, agriculture, and the built environment are left in the ozone-depleting dust. One thing remains true: if we want to see green, we need to use green (i.e. dollar, dollar bill y’all).
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
Notable pre-seed raises in …
fintech
Cascading AI - Lend a h(ai)nd
The Problem: Banks issuing loans are bogged down by manual back-office work.
The Tech: The first AI-native loan origination system to automate and expedite the full loan process.
Recently Raised: $3.9 million in funding led by Peterson Ventures.
Also Note: The company was founded by Stanford and Y Combinator alumni.
FlowFi - Finbros find their home
The Problem: As a founder without a finance background, it can be difficult to understand and track accounting metrics.
The Tech: A marketplace for finance experts that automates accounting functions for founders.
Recently Raised: $9 million in first funding led by Blumberg Capital.
Also Note: After nearly 3 years, the company has over 100 customers and generates millions in annual recurring revenue.
Outro🚪
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Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
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