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Sources say General Catalyst is working on a “follow-on” fund worth up to $1 billion

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Hemant Taneja, Managing Partner, General Catalyst

General Catalyst, certainly one of Silicon Valley’s largest enterprise capital firms, is preparing to launch a so-called “follow-on fund” worth between $800 million and $1 billion, according to a person conversant in the plans.

The follow-on fund consists of a portion of the shares that the VC firm holds in portfolio firms. From approx $25 billion by way of assets under management for 2023, the precise composition of General Catalyst’s follow-on fund portfolio is still being determined. However, it’s going to likely take stakes in Stripe, Gusto and Circle, the person added. The company recently hired Jefferies as a further investment advisor.

Once the fund is created and investors are found for it, General Catalyst’s original limited partners could have a alternative: sell their shares and money out, making room for brand new investors, or remain invested within the follow-on fund (a process called “rolling”). ‘

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Although private equity firms have long used follow-on funds, this mechanism has only recently gained popularity amongst enterprise capitalists, largely due to the low variety of IPOs and slowing M&A activity. This has forced some large enterprise capital firms to use the secondary market to return capital to their limited partners.

In July, for instance, Bloomberg reported that NEA sold shares in 11 portfolio firms, including Databricks and Plaid, to secondary investors who collectively paid $540 million for assets. Lightspeed is currently within the technique of selling a group of existing businesses valued at as much as $1 billion to used buyers.

Like NEA and Lightspeed, General Catalyst’s follow-on fund will consist of late-stage startups which have increased in value for the reason that company first invested within the asset.

General Catalyst didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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The primary advantage of a follow-on fund, as opposed to simply selling the shares to one other buyer in a secondary market transaction, is that it allows VC investors to proceed to manage the shares while retaining any future advantages from them. Follow-on funds are also considered more founder-friendly than secondary sales of shares of individual startups because they don’t introduce latest owners into the startup capitalization table. The same VC fund stays invested, albeit through a different fund.

VC funds have been more willing to sell on secondary markets currently as some LPs tell them they’ll reduce on their investments in one other VC fund in the event that they don’t receive at the least a few of the money returns on older investments.

While follow-on funds are generally useful to enterprise capital funds, they will pose a conundrum for some limited partners. Because secondary partnerships sell stock at a significant discount to current valuations – typically 20% to 30% from current valuations – when selling shares, limited partners cannot only take a haircut to existing valuations, but additionally forgo potential increases in stock prices.

Still, one General Catalyst limited partner told TechCrunch that given the shortage of liquidity from enterprise capital investments, his pension fund would at all times select to money out reasonably than move into a follow-on fund.

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The person didn’t say when this LP would receive this chance, and Top Contributor is unable to estimate this. Follow-on funds are complex transactions that may take anywhere from six months to a 12 months to sell. These transactions may additionally fail completely. Last 12 months, Tiger Global tried to sell a sort of follow-on fund called a strip portfolio, which sells only a portion of its holdings in each company. However, it couldn’t find a buyer willing to pay a price that the corporate considered fair, PitchBook reported.

When Shasta Ventures asked its limited partners earlier this 12 months to approve a follow-on fund that was valued at 35% below carrying value, the corporate’s investors voted against the deal, – Axios reported.
In April, the Financial Times reported that General Catalyst would commit capital worth almost $6 billion to the brand new core fund. The latest fund has still not been announced. When TechCrunch asked for more details about its fundraising efforts last week, the corporate declined to comment.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Trump to sign a criminalizing account of porn revenge and clear deep cabinets

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President Donald Trump is predicted to sign the act on Take It Down, a bilateral law that introduces more severe punishments for distributing clear images, including deep wardrobes and pornography of revenge.

The Act criminalizes the publication of such photos, regardless of whether or not they are authentic or generated AI. Whoever publishes photos or videos can face penalty, including a advantageous, deprivation of liberty and restitution.

According to the brand new law, media firms and web platforms must remove such materials inside 48 hours of termination of the victim. Platforms must also take steps to remove the duplicate content.

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Many states have already banned clear sexual desems and pornography of revenge, but for the primary time federal regulatory authorities will enter to impose restrictions on web firms.

The first lady Melania Trump lobbyed for the law, which was sponsored by the senators Ted Cruz (R-TEXAS) and Amy Klobuchar (d-minn.). Cruz said he inspired him to act after hearing that Snapchat for nearly a 12 months refused to remove a deep displacement of a 14-year-old girl.

Proponents of freedom of speech and a group of digital rights aroused concerns, saying that the law is Too wide And it will probably lead to censorship of legal photos, similar to legal pornography, in addition to government critics.

(Tagstransate) AI

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Microsoft Nadella sata chooses chatbots on the podcasts

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Satya Nadella at Microsoft Ignite 2023

While the general director of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, says that he likes podcasts, perhaps he didn’t take heed to them anymore.

That the treat is approaching at the end longer profile Bloomberg NadellaFocusing on the strategy of artificial intelligence Microsoft and its complicated relations with Opeli. To illustrate how much she uses Copilot’s AI assistant in her day by day life, Nadella said that as a substitute of listening to podcasts, she now sends transcription to Copilot, after which talks to Copilot with the content when driving to the office.

In addition, Nadella – who jokingly described her work as a “E -Mail driver” – said that it consists of a minimum of 10 custom agents developed in Copilot Studio to sum up E -Mailes and news, preparing for meetings and performing other tasks in the office.

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It seems that AI is already transforming Microsoft in a more significant way, and programmers supposedly the most difficult hit in the company’s last dismissals, shortly after Nadella stated that the 30% of the company’s code was written by AI.

(Tagstotransate) microsoft

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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The planned Openai data center in Abu Dhabi would be greater than Monaco

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Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI

Opeli is able to help in developing a surprising campus of the 5-gigawatt data center in Abu Dhabi, positioning the corporate because the fundamental tenant of anchor in what can grow to be considered one of the biggest AI infrastructure projects in the world, in accordance with the brand new Bloomberg report.

Apparently, the thing would include a tremendous 10 square miles and consumed power balancing five nuclear reactors, overshadowing the prevailing AI infrastructure announced by OpenAI or its competitors. (Opeli has not yet asked TechCrunch’s request for comment, but in order to be larger than Monaco in retrospect.)

The ZAA project, developed in cooperation with the G42-Konglomerate with headquarters in Abu Zabi- is an element of the ambitious Stargate OpenAI project, Joint Venture announced in January, where in January could see mass data centers around the globe supplied with the event of AI.

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While the primary Stargate campus in the United States – already in Abilene in Texas – is to realize 1.2 gigawatts, this counterpart from the Middle East will be more than 4 times.

The project appears among the many wider AI between the USA and Zea, which were a few years old, and annoyed some legislators.

OpenAI reports from ZAA come from 2023 Partnership With G42, the pursuit of AI adoption in the Middle East. During the conversation earlier in Abu Dhabi, the final director of Opeli, Altman himself, praised Zea, saying: “He spoke about artificial intelligence Because it was cool before. “

As in the case of a big a part of the AI ​​world, these relationships are … complicated. Established in 2018, G42 is chaired by Szejk Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the national security advisor of ZAA and the younger brother of this country. His embrace by OpenAI raised concerns at the top of 2023 amongst American officials who were afraid that G42 could enable the Chinese government access advanced American technology.

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These fears focused on “G42”Active relationships“With Blalisted entities, including Huawei and Beijing Genomics Institute, in addition to those related to people related to Chinese intelligence efforts.

After pressure from American legislators, CEO G42 told Bloomberg At the start of 2024, the corporate modified its strategy, saying: “All our Chinese investments that were previously collected. For this reason, of course, we no longer need any physical presence in China.”

Shortly afterwards, Microsoft – the fundamental shareholder of Opeli together with his own wider interests in the region – announced an investment of $ 1.5 billion in G42, and its president Brad Smith joined the board of G42.

(Tagstransate) Abu dhabi

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