“We’re not doing 30 bets a year”: Vijay Pande on betting small after running $4 billion at a16z
Vijay Pande — who left a16z's roughly $4 billion biotech practice last year to start the much smaller, AI-native VZVC — talks about why biology is finally shifting from a "discovery" science to an "engineering" one, why clinical trials are still brutally expensive, and why he thinks open, shared datasets (not walled-off ones) are what will actually let AI transform medicine.
A venture investor who previously managed close to $4 billion in a healthcare and life sciences practice at a major firm has started a smaller investment firm that makes only a handful of concentrated bets per year instead of dozens. The shift reflects a broader change in how AI is transforming drug development, moving from discovery-based approaches to engineered solutions that can better predict human outcomes than traditional animal models. A key challenge in AI-driven biotech is that biological data cannot be freely gathered from the internet like text data, meaning companies must build their own datasets, which raises questions about how advances in AI medicine will be shared across the field. The investor argues that AI could eventually integrate siloed medical knowledge to provide specialists in everything, though this requires greater data sharing through open-source biological foundation models.
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Anthropic sets IPO price range of $70 to $78 per share to reach an implied valuation of $1.404 trillion
The company could end up being worth a hefty $1.404 trillion if its shares list at the top of the price range, on a fully diluted basis.
Also reported by SiliconANGLE
Anthropic pushes ahead with pre-Thanksgiving IPO despite tech selloff, accepts lower valuation
Despite the tech selloff, Anthropic is pressing ahead with its IPO at a valuation of $1.25 to $1.75 trillion, well below the hoped-for $2 trillion. The Claude developer aims to raise $80 to $100 billion before Thanksgiving. Rival OpenAI has also recently had to cut its valuation. The article Anthropic pushes ahead with pre-Thanksgiving IPO despite tech selloff, accepts lower valuation appeared first on The Decoder.
Also reported by TechCrunch and The Verge
Taiwan’s chipmaking giant TSMC to invest $1B in Anthropic, OpenAI
Top chip manufacturer TSMC is ready to invest $1 billion in Anthropic and OpenAI. That would give the Taiwanese chipmaker direct stakes in leading AI developers, even as its own contract chipmaking business has profited enormously from the AI data center buildout. The chipmaker’s board approved plans to invest up to $500 million in OpenAI preferred stock reserved for large investors and another $500 million to purchase Anthropic common shares at the latter’s expected IPO price, according to Reut
OpenAI lands an $11 billion funding round, but has to court dentists for more capital
OpenAI has secured $11 billion in fresh capital, the first tranche of a round that values the company at $1.25 trillion. The full round could swell to $20 billion. That OpenAI is already turning to wealthy private investors hints at a saturating AI capital market and growing investor caution. The article OpenAI lands an $11 billion funding round, but has to court dentists for more capital appeared first on The Decoder.
Hatz AI raises $24M to help small businesses go AI-native through their MSPs
Large enterprises have emerged as the foremost adopters of artificial intelligence technology, and it’s giving them an unfair advantage over their smaller competitors. Looking to change that is a startup called Hatz AI Inc., which has just raised $24 million in early-stage funding to empower managed services providers with the tools they need to keep […] The post Hatz AI raises $24M to help small businesses go AI-native through their MSPs appeared first on SiliconANGLE.
Anthropic Seeks Record $88.5B Tied To Public Market Debut
Anthropic is seeking to secure up to $88.5 billion in its planned IPO and a concurrent private placement, potentially making it the largest-ever fundraise tied to a public market debut. On Tuesday, the AI giant submitted an updated S-1 filing for its upcoming public offering, unveiling new details including a proposed share price range offering size. The offering could set a fully diluted valuation of up to $1.4 trillion for the San Francisco company. Anthropic’s expected valuation comes in belo