FieldAI Inc., a startup that builds AI models to control robots, is reportedly in the middle of a large fundraise. According to a source cited by Business Insider, the company is looking to raise $700 million in a round that could value it at $10 billion.
That figure would be five times FieldAI's valuation from last August. The report says the company has already signed a term sheet. A term sheet is a preliminary, nonbinding document that sets out the main conditions of an investment before the final agreement is signed.
Who might be writing the checks
The report did not name the investors expected to join the round. Large growth-stage rounds often include money from a startup's existing backers. FieldAI's current investors include Bezos Expeditions, Intel Capital and NVentures, the venture fund of Nvidia Corp.
Sean Parker is back in the music business. This time he says he is working with the industry instead of against it.
The Napster co-founder told The Information that he is "playing by the rules" with his latest project: rebuilding Stability AI as a toolmaker for music professionals. He openly admits that his old habit of asking for forgiveness rather than permission did not end well the last time he got involved with music. The new plan is built around licensing deals with the major labels from the start.
From near-collapse to a new direction
Stability AI is best known as an image-generation startup. Two years ago it was in serious trouble. Overspending and internal turmoil pushed it close to collapse and led to the ouster of founder Emad Mostaque.
Legato, a hearing technology startup, has started selling its first product. Legato Frames are glasses with hearing assistance built into the arms, and they use AI to pick voices out of background noise. The company announced on Thursday that they are now available. Prices start at $999. The glasses are aimed at adults with hearing loss up to a moderate level.
The company says it wants to make hearing care easier to access by addressing three common reasons people avoid hearing aids: cost, comfort, and stigma. Placing the technology in a pair of glasses is its answer to all three.
Black Forest Labs (BFL) has released Flux 3 Image, the image-generation part of its new Flux 3 model family. The main selling point is editing. According to BFL, users can make several edits in a row without the model changing parts of the picture they never asked it to touch.
That is a narrow claim, but an important one. Most people who refine an AI image over several rounds want each change to stay contained, so that fixing a background does not also alter a face or a product label. BFL says Flux 3 Image handles that kind of step-by-step workflow. So far, that comes from the company itself and has not been independently tested.
Tavus, a San Francisco startup, wants its AI to hold a face-to-face conversation well enough that you can't tell it is a machine. Its new model, Griffin, is the closest the company has come so far. In Tavus' own study, nearly half of participants finished a one-minute video call convinced they had been talking to a human.
What Griffin is
Tavus calls Griffin the first "Human Interaction Model," or HIM. The label describes a class of model built to understand and carry on face-to-face conversations in real time. It is meant to do more than generate text or a talking head.
CyrioX is financed by advertising. You can choose how you want to use this website:
With advertising: we load an advertising script from a third-party ad network. The ad network may set cookies, use your IP address and device information, and may process data outside the EU. We also count your visits for our own visitor statistics (with a random ID stored in your browser).
Ad-free for €0.99 per month: no advertising and no advertising tracking. Cancel at any time.
You can change your decision at any time via "Cookie Settings" at the bottom of every page.
