Joyce’s picks: musings and readings in AI/ML, May 20, 2024

📌 Musings and Readings

Reflections from Google I/O 2024 (Link)

Stability AI may be looking for a buyer (Reuters)

“Prepare to Get Manipulated by Emotionally Expressive Chatbots” (Wired)

“pfl-research: simulation framework for accelerating research in Private Federated Learning” (Apple)

👏 Deals 

Lucid Bots, a NC-based company building robotics for labor-intensive work, has raised $9m in series A financing.

Renegade Plastics, a CO-and WI-based startup making low-carbon coated fabrics to reduce plastic waste, has raised Pre-Seed financing.

RunPod, a NJ-based AI startup enabling developers to deploy custom full-stack AI applications, has raised $20m in seed financing.

Active Surfaces, a Massachusetts-based startup developing innovative, lightweight, flexible solar panels, has raised $5.6m in financing.

Princeton NuEnergy, a NJ-based clean-tech startup that offers lithium-ion battery recycling solutions, has raised $10m in series A financing.

Ndustrial, an AI-driven platform that helps optimize energy intensity for industries, has raised $18m in series B financing.

Aerial, a Seattle-based startup building an AI-powered platform for unstructured business data, has raised $2m in pre-seed financing.

LanceDB, a CA-based open-source startup building databases for multimodal AI models, has raised $8m in seed financing.

Trawa, a Berlin-based startup using AI to simplify the purchase of renewable energy for small and medium-sized enterprises, has raised €10m in seed financing.

Orange Charger, a CA-based startup offering EV charging solutions to multifamily properties, has raised $6m in seed financing.

Bedrock Materials, a Chicago-based battery tech startup developing materials for low-cost, eco-friendly sodium-ion batteries, has raised $9m in seed financing.

Kudos, a Los Angeles-based startup developing a free AI-powered wallet calculating credit card rewards and benefits automatically, has raised $10.2m in series A financing.