Sizable startup funding announcements continued to roll in this week, with the largest rounds coming in the form of growth equity investments to Quavo Fraud & Dispute Solutions and Vanta, two companies in the dispute and risk management spaces. We also saw good-sized financings tied to AI and biotech. 1. Quavo, $300M, dispute management: Dispute management software provider Quavo announced that it secured $300 million in a growth equity investment from Spectrum Equity. The 10-year-old Wilmington, Delaware-based company offers tools for banks, credit unions and fintechs to manage consumer transaction disputes. 2. Vanta, $150M, compliance and risk management: Vanta, developer of AI-enabled tools for enterprise compliance and risk management, raised $150 million in Series D funding. Wellington Management led the financing, which sets a $4.15 billion valuation for the San Francisco-based company. 3. Armada, $131M, edge computing: San Francisco-based Armada, developer of an edge computing platform for communications-challenged areas, locked down $131 million in fresh funding. It plans to use the funds to scale Leviathan, its megawatt-scale, full-stack modular data center....
For the third year in a row, MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) have assembled an international panel of AI experts that includes academics and practitioners to help us gain insights into how responsible artificial intelligence (RAI) is being implemented in organizations worldwide. Last year, we published a report titled 'Building Robust RAI Programs as Third-Party AI Tools Proliferate.' This year, we continue to examine organizational capacity to address AI-related risks but in a landscape that includes the first comprehensive AI law on the books ' the European Union's AI Act. To kick things off, we asked our experts and one large language model to react to the following provocation: Organizations are sufficiently expanding risk management capabilities to address AI-related risks. A clear majority (62%) of our panelists disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement, citing the speed of technological development, the ambiguous nature of the risks, and the limits of regulation as obstacles to effective risk management. Below, we share insights from our panelists and draw on our own observations and experience working on RAI initiatives to offer recommendations on how organizations might leverage organizational risk management capabilities to address AI-related risks....
Good morning & happy Thursday! Despite the delay, today's edition is the best one yet. Today we're going to deconstruct The Billion-Dollar (FinTech) Marketer and explore the lessons from Ryan Reynolds (how everything he touches turns gold + a deeper dive into Reynolds-backed Nuvei that just got acquired), JPMorgan that just entered the media business and is starting to show Super App ambitions (why their ad platform is brilliant + a deep dive into JPM & how FinTechs are media companies too), and see how AI is revolutionizing risk management in financial services (looking at ValidMind & why they are exciting). So let's just jump straight into the awesome stuff ' He doesn't just invest money and sit back - he becomes the face and driving force behind the brands he believes in. With his signature wit and charm, Reynolds creates ads that are instant viral sensations, seamlessly injecting himself into the cultural narrative. From capitalizing on the buzz around Taylor Swift's music re-recordings to turning around a hilarious Aviation Gin ad in just 36 hours featuring the actress from Peloton's controversial commercial, Reynolds has mastered the art of "fast-vertising."...
