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Bloomberg
21-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
LMArena Goes From Academic Project to $600 Million Startup
Chatbot Arena started as an academic project, where researchers and students at the University of California at Berkeley worked to evaluate the capacity of artificial intelligence tools. Now, the group has spun out into a new company, called LMArena, that's raised $100 in seed funding from a slate of A-list investors. Andreessen Horowitz and UC Investments — which manages an investment portfolio for the University of California — led the fundraising, which the company plans to announce Wednesday. The deal includes backing from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Felicis Ventures and Kleiner Perkins, among others, the company said.
Business Wire
14-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Granola Launches AI Workspace for Teams and Raises $43M Series B
LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Granola, the AI-powered notepad that combines your typed notes with AI transcriptions, today launches Granola 2.0. This major update transforms the company's popular AI meeting assistant into a powerful, intelligent workspace for teams. Every day, Granola transcribes and analyzes millions of minutes of conversation: collective knowledge which is now accessible and actionable across entire organizations. "Since our launch a year ago, people have started referring to Granola as their 'second brain,'" said Christopher Pedregal, Co-Founder of Granola. "With Granola 2.0, we're bringing that power to your entire team, tapping into the most up-to-date, relevant data on what's happening in your company – the conversations your employees are having day in, day out." Granola 2.0 and all its features are rolling out today. New users can download the desktop app and create their first shared folder in under a minute. Beyond Meeting Notes: Harnessing Shared Context with AI Granola has identified that the most valuable information in companies isn't found in static documents or wikis, but in the daily conversations happening across teams. "Harnessing shared meeting context with AI will be a core tool of how effective teams work in the future," said Pedregal. "Our vision is to make Granola the place your team gets work done – a powerful, intelligent workspace sitting on top of living, up-to-date context of what's happening in your company." With the launch of 2.0, Granola is now a collaborative workspace that transforms how teams capture, share, and leverage collective knowledge: Shared Team Folders: Create dedicated spaces for Sales Calls, Customer Feedback, Hiring Loops, Weekly Syncs, and more, with folders that anyone on your team can access (even without a Granola account) Chat with Folders: Query across an entire folder of meeting notes using best-in-class reasoning models, with AI delivering insights that cite specific meetings and transcripts as sources Enterprise Collaboration: Business & Enterprise users can explore any public folder inside their domain—perfect for competitive intel, customer success, or onboarding new hires Slack Integration: with a one-time connection to Slack, Granola can keep your whole team in the with concise summaries and a 'chat with this meeting' button posted to your chosen channel the moment the call ends "With every call in one place, sales leaders can ask 'Why are we losing deals this quarter?,' product managers can investigate 'Which UX issues come up most often?,' and recruiters can understand 'Where do our interviews keep stalling?' — all answered instantly with source-linked citations," said Sam Stephenson, Co-Founder of Granola. What's Next The launch also coincides with the announcement that Granola has raised $43 million in Series B funding led by Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross from NFDG, with continued participation from existing investors Mike Mignano from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Nabeel Hyatt from Spark Capital. The company has also attracted investment from an impressive roster of angel investors, including Guillermo Rauch (Vercel), Amjad Masad (Replit), Tobi Lutke (Shopify), Karri Saarinen (Linear), Lenny Rachitsky (Lenny's Newsletter), Des Traynor (Intercom), Karim Atiyeh (Ramp), Zach Lloyd (Warp), Charlie Songhurst, Noah Weiss, Romain Huet, Nilan Peiris and Laura Modiano. With this funding, Granola plans to continue expanding its team in London to accelerate product development. The company is focused on making Granola a tool that not only helps teams work better but think better. About Granola Granola was founded in March 2023 by Chris Pedregal and Sam Stephenson to change the way we work, with tools that understand us, anticipate our actions, and augment our abilities. In May 2023 they raised a $4.25M Seed round from Lightspeed Venture Partners, betaworks and FirstMinute, and raised a further $20M Series A in October 2024, led by Spark Capital, with participation from investors AI Grant, Lightspeed, Betaworks, Firstminute Capital, and others. About the Founders Chris Pedregal - Chris studied Computer Science at Stanford before joining Google as a Product Manager, where he worked on Gmail, Search and Maps. In 2013 he quit to launch Socratic, an AI-powered tutor for high school students, which grew organically to 10+ million MAUs and won 'App of the Year' in 2017. In 2018, Socratic was acquired by Google, where it receives over four billion questions a year. Sam Stephenson - Sam studied graphic design at Falmouth before spending a few years in San Francisco at a design agency and an education non-profit. Along the way, he built his own startup connecting neighborhoods to local farmers, helped build an iOS app for Swim Smooth, designed interactive ski maps for Carv and helped an array of B2B companies with design and front end development.
Entrepreneur
09-05-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Three Investor Directors Exit GlobalBees Board Amid Leadership Changes
Representatives from Chiratae Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Premji Invest have stepped down from GlobalBees' board, according to the YourStory media sources. You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. GlobalBees, the Thrasio-style roll-up commerce venture backed by FirstCry, has witnessed the exit of three key investor board members, signaling continued shifts in its leadership and governance structure. According to a report by YourStory, Sudhir Kumar Sethi of Chiratae Ventures, Harsha Kumar of Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Kaveesh Chawla of Premji Invest have stepped down from the company's board. Sources familiar with the matter revealed that Chawla exited the board in September 2023, while Sethi left prior to the recent announcement of CEO Nitin Agarwal's resignation. Both Sethi and Kumar had joined the GlobalBees board in July 2021, after participating in its USD 150 million Series A funding round led by FirstCry. The departures are reportedly in line with compliance protocols linked to SEBI's Unpublished Price Sensitive Information (UPSI) regulations, which are designed to prevent insider trading based on confidential corporate developments. "Premji and Chiratae are shareholders of FirstCry, and they continue to be part of FirstCry. Their exit is to comply with UPSI rules," said a person aware of the matter. A spokesperson for Premji Invest confirmed the development, stating, "As a matter of general practice, Premji Invest does not hold Board positions in listed companies or their subsidiaries. In line with this principle, Premji Invest had stepped down from the Board of FirstCry and GlobalBees, a subsidiary of FirstCry, several months ago." These changes come on the heels of significant executive churn at GlobalBees. CEO and Director Nitin Agarwal resigned last month, citing personal reasons. Last year, Chief Business Officer Damandeep Soni also departed, later joining AstroTalk in March 2025. Currently, Anuj Jain, formerly SVP of Marketing at FirstCry, is leading GlobalBees' operations. Founded in 2021 by Supam Maheshwari and Agarwal, GlobalBees operates a portfolio of D2C brands across categories such as personal care, fashion accessories, and fitness. The company recorded a consolidated turnover of INR 1,209 crore in FY23. Just last month, FirstCry approved an infusion of INR 146 crore into GlobalBees, to be disbursed over 12 months in multiple tranches.
Mint
07-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
AI application startups in India set to get more investments from VC firms Accel, Peak XV, Lightspeed
Indian venture capital firms are expected to increase the number of investments in startups building applications for artificial intelligence in 2025 following improvements in the tooling and infrastructure layers of the technology, according to industry veterans. 'We are seeing a lot more application-layer pitches from founders. Our investments will likely be weighed more heavily there," said Hemant Mohapatra, a partner at global VC firm Lightspeed Venture Partners. 'We're very active in the market." It's a sentiment that's echoed by the largest VC firms in the Indian market including Lightspeed, Accel India and Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India and Southeast Asia). Lightspeed said its cheque sizes for AI startups would vary, depending on a company's technology. Its investments have ranged from $3.5 million with a recent Pre-Series A round in Stimuler, a voice-first AI tutor for English-as-a-second language, to leading foundation model company Anthropic's $3.5 billion Series-E round earlier this year. 'We look for extraordinary founders who are going after large markets. We're just seeing more AI companies," said Rajan Anandan, managing director at Peak XV. The firm said it doesn't reveal the size of investments it makes in startups. 'It's not an increase as a strategy but more because for every one foundational company there are 10,000 application-layer companies," said Prayank Swaroop, a partner at Accel, a global VC firm. 'By the law of large numbers, application-layer investments will be a lot more not just for us, but for other Indian VCs, even for VCs all over the world." A part of the reason for the shift towards the application layer is the significant improvement in middleware, the software that connects operating systems to applications, data and users. It's the 'glue' that links various moving parts, allowing them to function seamlessly. As a result, AI startups aren't building horizontal platforms anymore. They're focusing on vertical solutions. Many AI startups from India are building vertical AI agents – targeting the US as well as Indian markets. 'Startups are building for banks, insurance, retail, healthcare, construction, even real estate. Vertical AI is a mega theme, followed by building for the tooling and infrastructure layers," said Anandan. According to Accel, a global VC firm, three trends have emerged over the past few months in India: The shift to agentic applications, and the ease and convenience of building AI applications have contributed to boost in the ecosystem. Companies such as Cursor, Windsurf and other 'vibe-coding' platforms have made the barrier to build applications very low. Due to these preceding trends, applications with better solutions are being built in India's AI ecosystem. 'Founders will be building software for testing of applications, data management and cybersecurity," said Swaroop. 'When people make so much software, they realise there are problems and start solving for them as well." Startup founders have noticed the improvements in infrastructure as well, given that algorithms have advanced significantly over the past 18-24 months. 'The quality of applications, the complexity which we're able to build for enterprise applications is superior and at the same time, at much lower cost than what was available two years back," said Saurabh Mishra, co-founder and chief executive officer of OrbitShift. Founded in 2022, OrbitShift was part of the most recent cohort of Surge, Peak XV's seed platform for startup founders, and raised $7 million in a Series-A round with participation from Peak XV and Stellaris Venture Partners in 2024. founder Vidur Mahajan said the ease of building an AI application and the amount of accessible data have played a role. 'Given that reality, naturally there is a huge draw towards building application layer products," Mahajan said. The startup is building an AI-based image analysis platform for hospitals and imaging centres. raised $6 million in seed funding last year in a round led by Stellaris. Novo Holdings, LeapFrog Investments, Bain & Co, Boston Consulting Group and UnitedHealth Group were also part of the round. Regardless of the ease of building applications, it's still a very competitive market. The cost of starting a company may fall, but customer value proposition will be key, with larger cheques being cut only when that happens. 'I think it'll be small raises up to $3 million in the beginning and once customer value is proven, a very large next round between $10 to $15 million," said Swaroop. 'For proven teams, the initial round can be larger, from $8 to $15 million." Given the shift in technology, there's also been a change in founder behaviour, including many more pitches for the AI application layer and a clarity of vision that wasn't present last year. 'Founders are able to think more clearly about how they're trying to differentiate themselves in the market," said Swaroop of Accel. What's more, traditional software-as-a-service business models are being viewed as unsustainable. Founders realise they must build AI solutions to stay competitive as customers expect complex applications that can offer more. 'There's more clarity in Indian founders' minds about why they're different. They are a lot clearer on what their role is and what their company's role is in the global landscape," said Lightspeed's Mohapatra. 'Founders have more clarity in going after the application layer and they are able to articulate those advantages to us." As a result, the firm has seen an uptick in founders recognising new use-cases for AI and building to solve specific problem statements. Peak XV clocked the trend earlier in its latest cohort of Surge, with eight of the 14 companies in AI – six developing AI applications and two building for AI infrastructure and tooling. 'We are seeing more companies building across the AI stack and you can expect to see that in our next cohort of Surge and the companies our venture team is partnering with," Anandan said, adding that there's also a boost in the infrastructure and tooling layers. Companies such as Auquan and Wobot were part of the most recent Surge cohort and are building vertical AI agents in industries ranging from information technology-enabled services and banking to food services and retail. While the US and China are widely considered to be ahead when it comes to building foundation models in AI, India's advantage lies in data – something that neither of the two nations has. 'Data is going to be critical – that's where India's moat is in terms of both specific data like healthcare information and general data like enterprise workflows," Mohapatra said. The advantage that startups in India have is when they launch a product, the sheer number of potential users in the country gives them a lot of data to iterate their product on. Not just that, it gives them a chance to collect feedback and go to the market quicker. Indian foundation model companies already have access to huge repositories of data or, in some cases, are building it themselves. which uses AI to map out construction sites and help with facilities maintenance, has been building its own AI models because there are no datasets for their product. Peak XV was part of the company's $12 million Series-A funding round led by Tenacity Ventures. Netradyne, the first unicorn – a startup valued at $1 billion or more – of 2025, built all its datasets related to driver and road safety from scratch by putting its devices on vehicles in the US and in India when it launched. 'The best vertical AI companies will have access to proprietary data and one of the things that Indian startups can do – because of our cost of talent – is we can collect a lot more data and train domain specific models. It's a huge, huge moat," said Peak XV's Anandan. What's more, given India's long history as a business process outsourcing destination, there is a lot of experience, knowledge networks and demand for application layer products, according to Mohapatra. 'Now is our moment. It is where the world is headed, it's where the capital is going and it's what we're already really good at. Frankly, it is our game to lose," he said. But where does India stand when compared with AI giants in the US and China? 'We're ahead of China on the application layer. They don't have a global supply chain of applications," said Mohapatra, adding that nobody really uses a Chinese frontier model in an enterprise setting in India or the US. That is corroborated by the fact that soon after the release of DeepSeek earlier this year, several countries banned its use on government devices and for official work. But given the pace of innovation, improvements and ease of building applications in AI, will older startups get pushed out by newer companies with better technology? It's not that simple. 'It requires lot more domain knowledge, spending time with the customers to understand their business, create something which meets their requirements, so they don't feel the friction," said OrbitShift's Mishra.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Virtue AI raises $30m to expand AI safety platform
Virtue AI, a startup focused on AI safety, has raised $30m in Seed and Series A funding rounds to develop its unified AI security and compliance platform for enterprise AI applications. The investment rounds were led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Walden Catalyst Ventures, with participation from Prosperity7 and existing backers including Factory, Osage University Partners, Lip-Bu Tan, Amarjit Gill, and Chris Ré. The company plans to use the new funding to expedite its mission to remove the traditional trade-off between AI innovation and security, allowing enterprises to adopt generative AI technologies without concerns related to safety, compliance, or regulatory risk. Virtue AI will also use the newly secured capital to enhance its platform, grow its market presence, and attract AI safety talent. Virtue AI co-founder and CEO Bo Li said: 'We saw companies struggling with the same challenges repeatedly—subpar evaluation methods, inefficient guardrails, and manual processes that created bottlenecks in AI deployment pipelines. 'Our team has dedicated decades to solving these exact problems. Virtue AI transforms that expertise into practical solutions that eliminate the false choice between innovation and safety.' The company offers organisations with tools to red team AI application, train safe models, and deploy advanced guardrail technologies designed to support responsible AI use. Its platform includes VirtueRed, an algorithmic red teaming system that addresses more than 320 risk categories such as hallucination, privacy leakage, jailbreaks, and prompt injections. The system provides automated risk assessments and aims to reduce the cost of testing by minimising human input. VirtueGuard, another component of the platform, comprises guardrail models that are claimed to be more than 30 times faster than comparable solutions. It is said to deliver 40–50% better performance across text, image, audio, video, and code, and support more than 90 languages. The company also offers VirtueAgent, an AI-powered security agent that automatically interprets internal policies and regulatory requirements, replacing manual compliance processes with automated workflows. "Virtue AI raises $30m to expand AI safety platform" was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Sign in to access your portfolio
