Funding for Generative AI Startups Shifts to Applications
As large language models improve, investors are backing robots, voice generators and other technologies.
In the world of generative artificial intelligence startups, chatbots are so 2023. This year, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are building and backing new applications of the emerging technology, including humanlike robots and voice generators.
In the first quarter, venture capitalists plowed more than $2.2 billion into startups tracked by The Information’s Generative AI Database, an increase of more than 11% from the fourth quarter. Figure, which is building humanlike robots that incorporate AI, raised the most funding in the period—$675 million from investors including Microsoft, OpenAI, Nvidia and Bezos Expeditions. In total, The Information’s database tracked 21 of the largest funding deals from January through March.