Big Opportunity in AI Andrew Ng’s AI Fund, a startup incubator that supports small teams of experts looking to solve key problems using AI, plans to raise up to $120 million for its second tranche.
a Submit files With the SEC, AI Venture Fund II has so far raised $69.75 million from 13 partners — leaving about $50 million to invest. A public relations official for AI Venture Fund declined to comment.
Ng, founder of the Google Brain deep learning project, co-founder of Coursera, and recent appointee to Amazon’s board, was one of the most recognizable names in the AI community when he became chief scientist at Baidu in 2014. He left Baidu in 2017 to work on launching a number of… Artificial intelligence projects, incl DeepLearning.ai Cycle and Landing AI, a startup that develops AI tools targeting manufacturing companies.
Ng launched the AI Fund in 2018 with $175 million, serving as managing director of the incubator and leading its direction. (In the SEC filing mentioned above, he was named as the “Managing Member of General Partner” for AI Venture Fund II.) The idea was to provide funding at the seed and Series A stages of a company’s life cycle, allowing teams to operate in relative anonymity until They become prepared – and connect them to Ng’s extensive professional network.
Greylock Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital and SoftBank Group were among the AI fund’s early backers. Crunchbase Lists 38 portfolio companies, including AI monitoring platform WhyLabs, Ng’s Landing AI company, and AI application builder Baseten.
At $120 million, AI Venture Fund II will be significantly smaller than the first tranche of AI Fund. However, it is more than twice as large as the It said It was initially hoped to raise $50 million to pursue the AI fund.
Take this as another potential sign that the AI bubble — and particularly the buzzy generative AI sector within it — may be deflate.
Beachbook recently Reported For two consecutive quarters, early-stage AI dealmaking has declined, falling 76% from its peak in Q3 2023. Venture capital deal value for pre-seed and seed deals in Q1 2024 fell to $122.9 million, down from the Q3 high of $517.7 million.
Corporate reluctance may be the reason.
In two recent surveys by the Boston Consulting Group, about half of respondents—all executives—said they don’t expect generative AI to deliver significant productivity gains and are concerned about the potential for errors and failures. Data compromises arising from generative AI tools. As my colleague Ron Miller wrote last week, companies are finding that implementing generative AI at scale is harder than previously assumed—and executives are wary.