Hype for Sam Altman’s AI device is building as some shady venture capital deals take place below the surface.
Back in December, Swedish tech entrepreneur Sebastian Siemiatkowski — the guy behind Klarna, the infamous burrito financing app — directed his family investment company to dump $5 billion into AI startups.
The investment made up a „mini portfolio“ of four „prominent US-based AI companies“, a press release said at the time. Those were software engineer startup Anysphere, generative AI language outfit Speak, bioresearch venture Chai Discovery — and a fourth, anonymous company.
On its face, there’s nothing out of the ordinary about that. AI startups nabbed almost half of all venture capitalist funds raised last year, according to Reuters, amounting to about $96 billion.
Anonymous startups are likewise pretty common, a tactic known as „stealth mode“ made by founders who want to protect intellectual property or avoid media scrutiny until they’re ready to announce their business.
However, this „mini portfolio“ earmarked a whopping 70 percent of its investment funds to the anonymous firm, or about $3.6 billion. All anyone knew was that this was a „seed investment“ toward the launch of a „new AI hardware product.
