Tether Expands into Trade Finance with the Middle Eastern Crude Oil Transaction

Big idea:

• Physical Intelligence, an AI startup focused on creating a universal “brain” for robots, raised $400 million in funding from high-profile investors led by Jeff Bezos, Thrive Capital, and Lux Capital, with support from OpenAI, Redpoint Ventures, and Bond.

Why it matters:

• The startup's technology represents a shift towards general-purpose AI in robotics, enabling a single system to power various robots across industries, from consumer applications to industrial tasks. By advancing automation, this trend can redefine business operations, cost structures, and labor dynamics.
• The $400 million funding also highlights the growing impact of new technologies and disruptive trends in the robotics industry.

“What we’re doing is not just a brain for any particular robot. It’s a single generalist brain that can control any robot,” said CEO Karol Hausman.

Key details:

• The company was founded in 2023 by Karol Hausman (formerly at Google Robotics), Sergey Levine (UC Berkeley professor), and Lachy Groom (former Stripe executive).
• The funding round valued Physical Intelligence at approximately $2 billion from its earlier $70 million seed financing.
• Their software, π0 (pi-zero), enables robots to perform complex tasks like folding laundry and clearing tables. This innovation paves the way for adaptable robotic solutions in manufacturing, logistics, and service industries.

• Key competitors in the field include Skild, Figure AI, and Covariant, each focusing on similar advancements in general-purpose and industrial robotics.

Concerns:

• Developing a generalist model requires extensive data on real-world operations, which is scarce. This has forced the startup to build datasets to train its AI models.
• The pi-zero software is compared to OpenAI’s early GPT-1 model, indicating it’s in an early stage with room for growth, however, a breakthrough could arrive sooner than expected—or much later.

What's next:

• While predictions are uncertain, breakthroughs similar to ChatGPT could happen sooner or later. Future breakthroughs could accelerate the adoption of general-purpose robots in everyday tasks, reshaping industries dependent on automation. 

Proof points: 

• Physical Intelligence’s pi-zero current abilities, such as folding laundry and clearing tables, demonstrate practical use cases that hint at broad applications.
• High-profile funding and rapid valuation reflect a strong belief in the disruptive potential of general-purpose AI in robotics to redefine industrial and business processes.

Big idea:

• CREW Carbon has raised $5.3 million in seed funding to scale its carbon capture technology that targets wastewater treatment facilities to remove carbon dioxide (CO₂) through enhanced weathering.

Why it matters:

• Approximately 10 gigatons of CO₂ must be removed annually by 2050 to meet global climate targets. 
• CREW's solution uses existing wastewater infrastructure to cost-effectively capture CO₂ by removing biogenic carbon. This approach provides valuable co-benefits for wastewater operators, making it an attractive and easily adoptable option within the industry.

Key details:

• Developed at Yale, CREW’s technology uses enhanced weathering within the earth’s water cycle to store CO₂ permanently.
• The technology focuses on biogenic CO₂ in wastewater, leveraging wastewater’s natural CO₂ concentration for scalable carbon removal.
• CREW is already operating in several plants and plans to expand operations next year, aiming for thousands of tons of CO₂ removed.
• The funding round was oversubscribed and led by Counteract, with participation from several other investors including ReGen Ventures, ANIMO, and Connecticut Innovations.

“Robust greenhouse gas removal is needed, and needed swiftly, to limit the effects of climate change and to meet our climate goals,” stated Dr. Joachim Katchinoff, CREW Co-Founder and CEO.

What's next:

• CREW plans to use the seed fund to expand the team, deploy systems at additional plants, and enhance its proprietary carbon monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) system.

Proof points:

• Strong investor interest suggests wide industry support, positioning CREW as a viable leader in scalable carbon removal.
• CREW has already achieved successful pilot projects demonstrating cost reduction and improved operational efficiency in wastewater treatment.
• The solution is seen as scalable and cost-effective, addressing climate change while addressing operational challenges in wastewater treatment plants.

Big idea:

• Crusoe Energy, a data center start-up, is raising $500 million in equity capital led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. This new fund values the company at approximately $3 billion, more than double its valuation two years ago.

Why it matters:

• This fundraising highlights the growing investment in AI infrastructure, driven by the demand for advanced, AI-powered data centers. Tech companies continue to seek well-developed infrastructure to support machine learning and other resource-intensive applications.

Key details:

• Crusoe Energy was founded in 2018 by Chase Lochmiller, a quantitative trader, and Cully Cavness, an energy investment banker.
• Founders Fund, an early Crusoe investor, led the $500 million round, raising the company’s valuation to approximately $3 billion.
• Crusoe initially focused on harnessing oilfield waste gasses for energy-intensive computing tasks but shifted to building more permanent data center facilities in 2020.
• The recent funding round comes alongside a $3.4 billion joint venture with Blue Owl Capital and Primary Digital Infrastructure to build a new data center in Texas. This data center will be leased to Oracle.

What's next:

• The ‘Neocloud’ sector will gain traction as companies increasingly look to provide a differentiated service from traditional hyperscalers. 
• Crusoe will use the new funds to improve its facilities and expand its capacity to support AI workloads.
• Will monitor how real estate-like data infrastructure development projects are separated from the operational GPU cloud owned by Crusoe. The best Neoclouds will be the strongest cloud operators.

Proof points: 

• Over 40% of the $93 billion spent by venture capitalists in early 2024 was directed towards AI start-ups.
• CoreWeave, a leading neocloud company, has raised over $12 billion in debt and equity in the past 18 months, highlighting the growing investment trend in AI infrastructure.
• Crusoe raised $200 million in debt from Upper90 last year using Nvidia chips as collateral. This capital was used to buy thousands of Nvidia’s H100 GPUs, strengthening its AI cloud capabilities.