Inflection AI Inc., the new artificial intelligence startup from the founders of LinkedIn and DeepMind, has launched its first chatbot.
The Palo Alto company designed its chatbot, dubbed Pi, to be more personal, helpful and nuanced that previous ones, co-founder Mustafa Suleyman told Forbes in a story published Tuesday. Inflection crafted Pi — short for "personal intelligence" — to engage people in conversations rather than to write software code or essays, he said. As such, the startup programmed the chatbot to be an active listener and to closely tailor its responses to each individual and conversation.
"It's really a new class of AI — it's distinct in the sense that a personal AI is one that really works for you as the individual," Suleyman told Forbes.
Suleyman previously co-founded AI developer DeepMind Technology Ltd. and worked for several years at Alphabet Inc.'s Google LLC following its purchase of his U.K.-based business. After he co-founded Inflection last year with LinkedIn Corp. co-founder Reid Hoffman, their new startup raised an outsized $225 million seed round from Greylock Partners, the Menlo Park venture firm where Hoffman is a partner and Suleyman a venture partner.
Inflection is now seeking another $675 million in funding, the Financial Times reported Tuesday.
In March, a little less than a year after Inflection's debut, Hoffman resigned from the board of ChatGPT developer OpenAI LLC, saying he wanted to avoid any conflicts of interest. He remains, however, on the board of Microsoft Corp., which is investing billions of dollars in OpenAI and partnering with it.
Here's more startup and investor news at midweek:
Funding rounds
- Simpplr Inc., Redwood City, $70 million, Series D: Sapphire Ventures led the round for this provider of software that helps companies build internal social networks. Norwest Ventures, Tola Capital and Salesforce Ventures also invested.
- Fire Friends LLC (dba Frontline Wildfire Defense), San Rafael and Jackson, Wy., $6.4 million, Seed: Echelon led the round for this provider of a sprinker system designed to protect homes and other structures from fires.
- NinjaTech AI Inc., Palo Alto, $5 million, Seed: SRI Ventures, Candou Ventures, DCVC, Lazlo Bock and others invested in this developer of an AI-powered virtual assistant.
- Sourse Inc., San Francisco, $2.4 million, Seed: New Theory Ventures, Satori Capital and Jaws Ventures led the round for developer of chocolate-based vitamin supplements. H Ventures, Short List Capital, Harlo Capital and LDR Ventures also invested.
- Instock Inc., San Carlos, $4 million, Seed: One Way Ventures and Lux Capital led the round for this developer of a highly automated warehouse stocking system and related robots. Commerce VC also participated.
Funders in the news
- Kleiner Perkins partner Wen Hsieh has left the Menlo Park firm to launch Matter Venture Partners, according to Reuters. Hsieh's new firm has lined up $200 million in funds from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. according to the report.
- Mike Schroepfer, Victoria Beasley and Evaline Tsai launched Gigascale Capital. The Palo Alto-based venture firm will focus on early-stage startups working on addressing the effects of climate change. Schroepfer is Facebook's former chief technology officer, Beasley is a former partner at Prelude Ventures and Tsai is a former partner at Fine Structure Ventures.
- Innovation Endeavors promoted Davis Treybig to partner. Innovation Endeavors is a Palo Alto-based venture firm.
- Waverley Capital promoted Deek Velagandula to principal. Waverly is a venture firm based in Palo Alto.
Business Journal TechFlash Editor Cromwell Schubarth contributed to this report. If you have funding or venture capital news, please let us know at svbjnews@bizjournals.com.
