Fundings: Avalanche, Elevate Security, Sonet.io
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Fundings: Avalanche, Elevate Security, Sonet.io
26 April 2023 - A Weekly Publication by New North Ventures
Founded: 2018
Key People: Co-founded by Robin Langtry and Brian Riordan
Elevator Pitch: A compact fusion reactor designed for carbon-free distributed energy, mobility, and space propulsion/power applications.
Funding: The company raised $40 million of venture funding in a deal led by Lowercase Capital on April 24, 2023, putting the company's pre-money valuation at $90 million. Atlas Capital, and 9 other investors also participated in the round.
Founded: 2017
Key People: Co-founded by Robert Fly and Masha Sedova
Elevator Pitch: A security risk management platform intended to help enterprise security leaders gain deep visibility into their organizational risks to prevent ransomware.
Funding: The company raised an undisclosed amount of venture funding from CrowdStrike Holdings on April 24, 2023.
Founded: 2020
Key People: Co-founded by Dharmendra Mohan, Venu Banda Ph.D, and Shahrukh Noor
Elevator Pitch: A cloud security platform designed to secure access for the distributed workforce.
Funding: The company raised $6 million of seed funding in a deal led by WestWave Capital and The Hive on April 24, 2023. Other undisclosed investors also participated in the round.
Copper Shortage Threatens Green Transition
Copper demand is expected to surge due to the growth of the electric vehicle and renewable energy industries.
However, a lack of new mining activity has led to concerns about a potential supply shortfall or rising prices in the next decade.
Analysts forecast little output growth in copper-producing countries such as Peru and Chile, and new ores being mined are of lower grades, potentially leading to lower copper volumes produced even if mining activity stays flat.
Prices would need to rise significantly to attract investment in new mines, and potential new supplies could come from Congo and Zambia in central Africa.
US Officials Seek to Crack Down on Harmful AI
The head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Lina Khan, warned that the U.S. government will not hesitate to crack down on harmful business practices involving artificial intelligence (AI).
Khan and other U.S. civil rights and consumer protection agencies are working to track and stop illegal behavior in the use and development of biased or deceptive AI tools that amplify bias into decisions about hiring, worker productivity monitoring, and access to housing and loans.
The FTC could use its antitrust authority to protect competition amid a fast-moving race between tech giants, such as Google and Microsoft, in selling more advanced AI tools that generate text, images, and other content resembling the work of humans.
Further, Khan said that many of the most harmful AI products might already run afoul of existing laws protecting civil rights and preventing fraud, and there is no AI exemption to the laws on the books.
Look for a new episode of Securing the Future Podcasts wherever you listen. In our latest episode, we have guest Dr. Jennifer Rudolph sit down with General Partner Jeremy Hitchcock for an engaging conversation where Dr. Rudolph discusses her passion for Asian history and politics, her research on Taiwan's political identity, and shares critical insights into the complex US-China relationship from her latest book, The China Question.