Character.AI, a man-made intelligence start-up based by two former Google workers, is capitalizing on enterprise capitalists’ unquenchable thirst for offers in know-how’s hottest area.
The two-year-old firm stated on Thursday that it raised $150 million at a $1 billion valuation in a funding spherical led by Andreessen Horowitz. Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, who helped created the structure utilized in standard chatbots, left Google in 2021 and based Character.AI the identical yr.
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Character.AI stated in a press launch asserting the funding that its know-how provides “users the ability to create a fully-customizable and personalized AI companion with a distinct personality and values.”
The financing spherical follows main efforts by Google and Microsoft to develop and embed chatbot software program into key merchandise, bringing AI-generated responses into issues like search, paperwork and electronic mail. Big tech firms and VCs are dashing into the market after Microsoft-backed OpenAI launched ChatGPT to the general public in November and noticed the free experimental service go viral.
In January, Microsoft introduced a ChatGPT-integrated Bing search engine. Earlier this week, Google launched a check model of its chatbot Bard.
“There are some overlaps, but we’re confident Google will never do anything fun,” Freitas advised Axios, relating to Bard. “Because we worked there.”
Character.AI said the fresh capital will allow it to expand its “compute talents leading to a extra subtle mannequin with superior reasoning and higher accuracy.” The cash will assist the corporate develop its 22-person group and add technical talents. The firm stated it is nearing 100 million web site visits monthly, “a four-fold increase in two months.”
The 10-figure valuation for a company that’s reportedly pre-revenue is reminiscent of other recently hyped technologies like crypto (or more broadly Web3) and social audio. Andreessen Horowitz has been a significant player in driving up prices in both markets. The firm announced a $4.5 billion crypto fund in mid-2022 as the digital currency market was in freefall. A year earlier, it added to its investment in audio app Clubhouse, valuing the early-stage startup at $4 billion. The Clubhouse buzz quickly quieted as the post-lockdown economy reopened.
Character.AI didn’t provide additional comment.
Sarah Wang, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, said in the release that “Character.AI is rapidly and dramatically advancing generative AI, with the potential to transform how humans connect not just with AI, but more broadly reinvent how we interact with technology as a whole in our everyday lives.”
Other traders embody former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, A Capital and SV Angel.
Jill Chase, who leads AI investments at Alphabet’s late-stage enterprise group Capital G, beforehand advised CNBC that Shazeer is the kind of one that “can go into their basement for 18 months and change the world.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time with Noam,” she stated. “He is an exceptional technologist.”
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Source: www.cnbc.com