The field of artificial intelligence continues to be hot, and investment is also active. Recently, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents, the well-known artificial intelligence expert Andrew Ng’s AI Fund—a startup incubator focused on helping small teams use artificial intelligence to solve critical problems—plans to raise more than 1.2 billion for its second fund. billion dollars. The fund, called AI Venture Fund II, has received $69.75 million in funding and has about $50 million left to invest. This move not only demonstrates Ng's continued influence in the field of artificial intelligence, but also reflects the market's continued concern and optimism for artificial intelligence technology.
According to SEC filings, AI tycoon Andrew Ng’s AI Fund, a startup incubator that supports small teams using artificial intelligence to solve critical problems, plans to raise more than $120 million for its second fund.
AI Venture Fund II has raised $69.75 million from 13 partners, with about $50 million left to be invested, according to the filing.
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Andrew Ng is the founder of the Google Brain deep learning project, co-founder of Coursera, and one of the recently appointed members of Amazon’s board of directors. He became one of the most well-known figures in the artificial intelligence community when he became Baidu's chief scientist in 2014. He left Baidu in 2017 and began promoting multiple artificial intelligence startup projects, including the DeepLearning.ai course and Landing AI, a startup developing artificial intelligence tools for manufacturing companies.
Ng launched the AI Fund in 2018 and raised a total of US$175 million. He serves as the GP of the incubator and leads its direction. (In the aforementioned SEC filing, he is referred to as the "managing member of the general partner" of AI Venture Fund II). The idea is to provide funding at the seed and Series A stages of a company's lifecycle, let the team work in relative anonymity until they're ready, and connect them to Ng's extensive professional network.
Greylock Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital and SoftBank Group are the initial backers of the AI fund. Crunchbase lists 38 portfolio companies, including AI observability platform WhyLabs, Ng’s own Landing AI and AI application building tool Baseten.
AI Venture Fund II's $120 million size will be much smaller than the first round of AI funds. Still, that's more than double the $50 million Ng originally hoped to raise.
This could be another potential sign of an AI bubble, in which the noisy field of generative AI in particular may be shrinking.
Highlight:
- AI tycoon Andrew Ng plans to raise more than $120 million for the second fund of his AI fund.
- The idea of the AI Fund is to provide funding at the seed and Series A stages of a company's lifecycle, allow teams to work in relative anonymity until they are ready, and connect them to Ng's extensive professional network.
- The $120 million AI Venture Fund II will be much smaller than the first round of AI funds, which could be another potential sign of an AI bubble.
Andrew Ng's AI fund continues to receive investment, indicating that the field of artificial intelligence is still full of vitality, but it also hints at potential market adjustments. In the future, the investment trend in the field of artificial intelligence will deserve continued attention.