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Zal Bilimoria just raised its fourth $50 million Refactor Capital fund and continues to enjoy the status of a stand-alone GP

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Zal Bilimoria has been a solo complementist since 2018 and has no plans to stop. And he attributes this decision to former colleague David Lee, who co-founded Refactor Capital with him in 2016.

He said he would not have been able to start the Burlingame-based company if it weren’t for Lee, a former Google executive who led Ron Conway’s seed-stage enterprise capital fund, SV Angel, for several years. Together, they raised a seed fund of $50 million. When Lee decided to retire in 2018, he wanted Bilimoria to stay Refactoring as an independent family doctor.

Zal Bilimoria, sole general partner of Refactor Capital (Image source: Refractor Capital
Image credits: Refactoring capital / Refactoring capital

Being an independent GP means having full authority to make your personal investment decisions, while also having full responsibility for things similar to fundraising. And while this level of freedom may sound great, it also means there aren’t any vesting partners to push and force VCs to analyze investment decisions in ways that will not have occurred to them. Even though business angels do that, they spend their very own money. The sole investor invests on behalf of the limited partners, who trust that this person will make their money grow.

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“He convinced me to stay on my own, and this was at a time when stand-alone primary care physicians were not in vogue,” Bilimoria told TechCrunch. “He told me that since I loved my independence and power and loved spending time with the founders, I should stay alone. I was very nervous, but the more I thought about it and talked to other people, I realized this was what I wanted to do and I haven’t looked back. If I can help it, I will be an independent GP for the rest of my career.”

Bilimoria will not be without its own unique lineage. Prior to joining Refactor, Bilimoria spent almost three years as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he helped launch the $200 million Bio Fund. Before a16z, Bilimoria spent ten years constructing technology products for tech giants including Google, Netflix, LinkedIn and Microsoft. He was also the founder of the consumer mobile startup Sniply.

With Refactor, it invests in corporations “solving the biggest challenges facing society,” he said. In fact, the term “refactor” comes from computer science and refers to making code more efficient.

Being an independent GP hasn’t slowed down Bilimoria one bit. It has subsequently raised three additional funds and has now closed a fourth fund value $50 million in capital commitments to put money into the biotech, climate and hard tech startup spaces.

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Since its launch in 2016, Refactor has invested in greater than 100 corporations, 4 of which have turn out to be unicorns, including Solugen, which uses synthetic biology to remove hydrocarbons from the chemical industry, and Astranis, which produces microsatellites.

Last week, Solugen received approx $214 million loan from the Department of Energy’s Office of Loan Programs to construct one other Solugen Bioforge in Minnesota, which can produce chemicals from corn sugar somewhat than crude oil. DOE award given to a small number of startups made a similar loan to Tesla in 2010.

He added that Bilimoria was able to raise the latest fund in lower than 90 days. Ninety percent of the fund was raised by existing limited partners, including firms similar to Knollwood Investment Advisory. The majority of LPs are institutional investors, and the entire group of LPs are U.S. investors.

“I feel very lucky to have this group of LPs,” he said. “I’ve been chasing one institutional investor for the last four funds and I finally got them into this fund, so they’re part of my new 10%.”

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Bilimoria is ending investments from the third fund, but has already committed part of the capital from the fourth fund.

This latest fund will proceed to lead pre-seed and seed investments in startups operating in areas similar to novel battery technologies, cancer therapies, in vitro fertilization advances and chemicals. The checks are typically value between $1 million and $2 million and will probably be distributed amongst 20 to 25 corporations over the next three years, Bilimoria said.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Anysphere, which makes the cursor supposedly collect USD 900 million with a valuation of USD 9 billion

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AI robot face and programming code on a black background.

Anysphere, producer of coding cursor with AI drive, attracted $ 900 million in the recent financing round by Thrive Capital, Financial Times He informed, citing anonymous sources familiar with the contract.

The report said that Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z) and ACCEL also participate in the round, which values ​​about $ 9 billion.

The cursor collected $ 105 million from Thrive, and A16Z with a valuation of $ 2.5 billion, as TechCrunch said in December. Capital Thrive also led this round and in addition participated in A16Z. According to Crunchbase data, the startup has collected over $ 173 million thus far.

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It is alleged that investors, including index ventures and a reference point, attempt to support the company, but plainly existing investors don’t want to miss the opportunity to support it.

Other coding start-ups powered by artificial intelligence also attract the interest of investors. Techcrunch announced in February that Windsurf, a rival for Aklesphere, talked about collecting funds at a valuation of $ 3 billion. Openai, an investor in Anysphere, was supposedly I’m attempting to get windsurf for about the same value.

(Tagstransate) A16Z

(*9*)This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com

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This is the shipping of products from China to the USA

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Shein and Temu icons are seen displayed on a phone screen in this illustration photo

The Chinese retailer has modified the strategy in the face of American tariffs.

Thanks to the executive ordinance, President Donald Trump ended the so -called de minimis principle, which allowed goods value 800 USD or less entering the country without tariffs. It also increases tariffs to Chinese goods by over 100%, forcing each Chinese firms and Shein, in addition to American giants, similar to Amazon to adapt plans and price increases.

CNBC reports that this was also affected, and American buyers see “import fees” from 130% to 150% added to their accounts. Now, nevertheless, the company is not sending the goods directly from China to the United States. Instead, it only displays the offers of products available in American warehouses, while goods sent from China are listed as outside the warehouse.

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“He actively recruits American sellers to join the platform,” said the spokesman ago. “The transfer is to help local sellers reach more customers and develop their companies.”

(tagstotransate) tariffs

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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One of the last AI Google models is worse in terms of safety

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The Google Gemini generative AI logo on a smartphone.

The recently released Google AI model is worse in some security tests than its predecessor, in line with the company’s internal comparative test.

IN Technical report Google, published this week, reveals that his Flash Gemini 2.5 model is more likely that he generates a text that violates its security guidelines than Gemini 2.0 Flash. In two indicators “text security for text” and “image security to the text”, Flash Gemini 2.5 will withdraw 4.1% and 9.6% respectively.

Text safety for the text measures how often the model violates Google guidelines, making an allowance for the prompt, while image security to the text assesses how close the model adheres to those boundaries after displaying the monitors using the image. Both tests are automated, not supervised by man.

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In an e-mail, Google spokesman confirmed that Gemini 2.5 Flash “performs worse in terms of text safety for text and image.”

These surprising comparative results appear when AI is passing in order that their models are more acceptable – in other words, less often refuse to answer controversial or sensitive. In the case of the latest Llam Meta models, he said that he fought models in order to not support “some views on others” and answers to more “debated” political hints. Opeli said at the starting of this yr that he would improve future models, in order to not adopt an editorial attitude and offers many prospects on controversial topics.

Sometimes these efforts were refundable. TechCrunch announced on Monday that the default CHATGPT OPENAI power supply model allowed juvenile to generate erotic conversations. Opeli blamed his behavior for a “mistake”.

According to Google Technical Report, Gemini 2.5 Flash, which is still in view, follows instructions more faithfully than Gemini 2.0 Flash, including instructions exceeding problematic lines. The company claims that regression might be partially attributed to false positives, but in addition admits that Gemini 2.5 Flash sometimes generates “content of violation” when it is clearly asked.

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“Of course, there is a tension between (after instructions) on sensitive topics and violations of security policy, which is reflected in our assessment,” we read in the report.

The results from Meepmap, reference, which can examine how models react to sensitive and controversial hints, also suggest that Flash Gemini 2.5 is much less willing to refuse to reply controversial questions than Flash Gemini 2.0. Testing the TechCrunch model through the AI ​​OpenRoutter platform has shown that he unsuccessfully writes essays to support human artificial intelligence judges, weakening the protection of due protection in the US and the implementation of universal government supervisory programs.

Thomas Woodside, co -founder of the Secure AI Project, said that the limited details given by Google in their technical report show the need for greater transparency in testing models.

“There is a compromise between the instruction support and the observation of politics, because some users may ask for content that would violate the rules,” said Woodside Techcrunch. “In this case, the latest Flash model Google warns the instructions more, while breaking more. Google does not present many details about specific cases in which the rules have been violated, although they claim that they are not serious. Not knowing more, independent analysts are difficult to know if there is a problem.”

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Google was already under fire for his models of security reporting practices.

The company took weeks to publish a technical report for the most talented model, Gemini 2.5 Pro. When the report was finally published, it initially omitted the key details of the security tests.

On Monday, Google published a more detailed report with additional security information.

(Tagstotransate) Gemini

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This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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