Illuminating Surgeries & Revolutionizing Search with Andi

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Welcome to another edition of Open Scout, where we showcase the most exciting early-stage startups, job openings, and valuable resources, all in a single newsletter.

Before we begin... a big thank you to this week's sponsor.

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Shoeboxed is a receipt scanning service and scanner app—with many different methods for extracting receipt data to prepare for tax season.

Chosen as Hubspot’s #1 choice for tax season prep and the best receipt tracking app for emailed receipts by Forbes in 2023, Shoeboxed also has 4.4/5 stars on Capterra and G2 Crowd and a review score of 4.5/5 on Techradar Pro.

Startup spotlight

Illuminant Surgical

What? - Illuminant is helping surgeons perform safer and more efficient surgeries by projecting visual guidance directly on the patient’s skin. Using computer vision and low cost hardware, we can display patient-specific anatomical structures from preoperative medical images (e.g. CT scans), pre-operative annotations from planning, and real-time feedback, like needle depth and tool trajectory, as a surgeon operates.

Why? - This advancement is crucial in tackling surgical errors, which are alarmingly frequent, with an estimated 4,000 occurring annually in the U.S. alone. If successful, Illuminant's technology could significantly enhance surgical safety and efficiency, possibly leading to the development of new minimally invasive techniques.

Founded: 2021, Culver City, CA

Industries: AI/ML, Health

Stage: Seed

By: Eldrick Millares (CEO and Co-founder) - Stanford BS/MS EE, Prev. 1st hire @ Red Leader Technologies; James Hu (Co-founder and Chief Product Officer) - Stanford Bioengineering, UCI Med

Funding: N/A

Andi

What? - Instead of just links, Andi gives you answers - like chatting with a smart friend. Andi is a new type of search engine that uses generative AI and language models combined with live data to generate factually correct answers to questions, and to explain and summarize information combined from the best sources. Andi works as a search chatbot that's ad-free and privacy-focused. Ask Andi to...

✅ Answer questions

🧠 Find, summarize and explain information

🔍 Navigate and search the web

Why? - Unlike traditional search engines like Bing or Google, Andi isn't merely another alternative. It's a departure from the conventional search paradigm, presenting itself as a chatbot-like interface where you can directly ask questions and receive prompt and relevant answers. This aligns seamlessly with modern search habits, where users often resort to search engines not just for web links but also for quick weather updates, simple calculations, and more.

Andi addresses the inherent flaws in contemporary search mechanisms, which are plagued by SEO spam, intrusive advertisements, and the overarching grip of surveillance capitalism. By cutting through the clutter, Andi streamlines the search process, offering visually appealing results through a user-friendly chat interface. Moreover, it prioritizes user privacy by shielding you from the pervasive influence of ad tech and other distractions.

Founded: 2021, San Francisco, CA

Industries: AI/ML, Search

Stage: Seed

By: Angela Hoover (CEO), Jed White (CTO)

Funding: $2.5 Seed - Y Combinator, Acacia Venture Capital Partners, K20 Fund

Elsewhere

1/ So, Reddit (you know, that place where you can find anything and everything since way back in 2005) is finally taking the plunge into the world of IPOs with the ticker $RDDT. It's actually the first time we've seen a social media company go public since 2019. They're aiming for a value of at least $5 billion in their IPO, which is a big step down from the $10 billion they were valued at back in 2021.

According to their S-1 filing with the SEC, Reddit pulled in revenue of $804.0 million in 2023, which is a nice 21% jump from the year before. Their gross margin also got a little boost, up to 86% from 84% in 2022. However, they still ended up with a net loss of $90.8 million for the year, although that's an improvement from the $158.6 million loss they posted the year prior.

Now, let's talk users. For the three months ending on December 31, 2023, Reddit boasted around 73 million daily active users and a whopping 267 million weekly active users, or as they like to call them, "active uniques." And let's not forget about those 100,000 active subreddits keeping things interesting.

But here's where it gets juicy: the executive and director compensation. Steve Huffman, the big cheese over at Reddit, pulled in a cool $193 million in 2023, mostly thanks to stock and option awards. But hold up, before you start shouting, "That's why Reddit isn't making money!" let's take a closer look. His cash compensation is actually around $1 million, including salary and bonus.

Now, about those shares... A chunk of the shares he got are performance-based RSUs of Class B shares, which you can't just buy on the open market. He only gets his hands on these babies if Reddit can keep its market cap above $5 billion for ten straight days after the IPO. Oh, and the exercise price of these options? Yeah, that was set before the IPO, so we won't really know their true value until a year after the big debut. And it looks like Steve's in it for the long haul, with the S-1 suggesting he'll be getting these options gradually over the next decade, until 2030.

2/ Nvidia just hit a whopping $2 trillion in market value, putting it right up there with the big dogs: Apple, Microsoft, and Google Parent Alphabet.

It's been quite the journey for Nvidia since its IPO back in January 1999. It took them more than 24 years to crack the $1 trillion mark, which they finally did last May. But get this—going from $1 trillion to $2 trillion? Only took them a mere 270 days. Crazy, right? Reminds you of the dot-com bubble back in '99, the EV craze of 2021, and the COVID tech boom. Yeah, that didn't end so well.

Now, don't get me wrong, AI is a big deal. But let's not forget the lessons of history when it comes to speculative hype. Nvidia's recent skyrocketing success, thanks largely to stellar quarterly earnings and the booming demand for AI, underscores their dominance in the chip game, whether it's for crypto mining or AI processing. But hey, let's not get carried away. This peak in demand, combined with global chip shortages, might not last forever. Competitors will crop up, and as AI evolves, Nvidia's grip on the market could loosen.

More:

• Microsoft and Intel strike a custom chip deal that could be worth billions

• OpenAI’s Sam Altman seeking trillions to fund chips for AI

3/ Google

We've got a lot to unpack here: Google's definitely making moves to grab our attention. 😕

a/ Google just announced that they're pulling the plug on the standalone Google Pay app in the United States come June 4, 2024. They're streamlining their payment services strategy, focusing on Google Wallet instead. Apparently, Google Wallet's got five times the users across 180 countries compared to Google Pay. But don't fret, Google Pay will still be kicking in Singapore and India to cater to those markets' needs. Google says they're doing this to make things simpler for both users and developers.

b/ So, Google kinda hit the brakes on letting users create images of people with its Gemini AI tool on February 22nd. And get this, it's just weeks after they launched image generation in Gemini. Why, you ask? Well, apparently there were some "inaccuracies" in the historical depictions it was churning out.

c/ Now, Google's come out with Gemma 2B and 7B, two open-source AI models that developers can freely tap into. These babies stem from the research that went into their flagship Gemini. And word on the street is Gemma 7B's leaving competitors like Mistral AI 7B and LLaMa 2 in the dust, according to the paper.

Personal opinion: Perplexity is way better than OpenAI and Gemini.

Venture deals

• Clumio, a Santa Clara, Calif.-brd developer of software designed to automate data backup, recovery, and compliance for businesses, raised $75 million in Series D funding. Sutter Hill Ventures led the round and was joined by Index Ventures, Altimeter Capital, and NewView Capital.

• Fabric, a New York City-brd platform designed to automate clinical and administrative work for health care providers, raised $60 million in Series A funding. General Catalyst led the round and was joined by Thrive Capital, GV, Salesforce Ventures, Vast Ventures, Box Group, and Atento Capital.

• Highway 9 Networks, a Santa Clara, Calif.-brd tk, raised $25 million in funding from Mayfield, General Catalyst, Detroit Ventures, and others. 

• Orkes, a Cupertino, Calif.-brd microservice and workflow platform, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Nexus Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Battery Ventures and Vertex Ventures US.

• Blackbird Health, a Pittsburg, Pa.-brd in-person and virtual youth mental health provider, raised $17 million in Series A funding. Define Ventures led the round and was joined by Frist Cressey Ventures and GreyMatter.

• Clairity Technology, a Los Angeles, Calif. developer of low-cost carbon dioxide removal systems, raised $6.8 million in seed funding from Lowercarbon Capital and Initialized Capital.

• Nodeshift, a San Francisco-brd cloud platform, raised $3.2 million in funding. Inovo.vc led the round and was joined by Notion Capital, 10X Founders, and others.

• Astrotalk, a New Delhi, India-brd astrology platform, raised $20 million in Series A funding from Left Lane Capital.

• Monite, a Berlin-brd fintech focused on B2B platforms, raised $6 million in a top-up seed round, bringing the total seed round to $16 million. Valar Ventures and Third Prime led the round, and were joined by existing investors.

Funds

• Partech, a Paris-brd venture capital firm, raised $300 million for its second Africa-focused fund.

Who's hiring

• Superpower: Platform for managing personal health

  • Founding Full Stack Engineer - Hybrid (San Francisco or Los Angeles)*

• Magic (YC S22): Stripe for closed-loop payments

  • Founding Engineer - Hybrid (New York City)*

• Sequence: Financial router - visualize your money flow, set smart routing rules, and control it all from one single powerful platform.

  • Senior Developer - Tel Aviv, Israel

• Counterpart: Management & professional liability insurance for the 21st century workplace

  • Analytics Engineer - Remote (US)

  • Head of Business Services - Remote (US)

Appreciate you taking the time to read.

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Catch you next Thursday — Kenneth

P.S. Interested in sponsoring next week's issue? Shoot me an email.