5 min catch-up by Business Wave

What happened last week you need to know in 5 minutes?

Nino Pavicic

Nov 27, 2023

Hi all,

most important news from last week in 5 minutes!

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Indian company pushing to end China e-bike dominance

EMotorad, an Indian startup manufacturing electric bikes, raised $20 million in a Series B round as it aims to disrupt China’s market domination and expand its presence in global markets.

“Almost 99% of the world procures e-bikes from China, and that is what we want to change. It’s a $40 billion industry internationally. And we are trying to make a dent in that,” Kunal Gupta, co-founder and CEO at EMotorad, said in an interview.

Full story HERE

Elon Musk’s brain implant startup raises an additional $43M

Neuralink, the Elon Musk-founded company developing implantable chips that can read brain waves, has raised an additional $43 million in venture capital.

Founded in 2016, Neuralink has devised a sewing machine-like device capable of implanting ultra-thin threads inside the brain. The threads attach to a custom-designed chip containing electrodes that can read information from groups of neurons.

Fully story HERE

Interesting news

Adobe reportedly acquires text-to-video AI platform Rephrase

Adobe circulated an internal memo announcing the acquisition of California-headquartered text-to-video company Rephrase.

While the cost of the deal remains undisclosed, the move is expected to bolster Adobe’s suite of Creative Cloud products, which have gradually been getting gen AI upgrades over the past year. In particular, Rephrase will help the company empower its customers with the ability to generate professional-grade videos with just text.

Full story HERE

Nvidia reports record Q3 results

Nvidia reported record revenue today for its third fiscal quarter of fiscal 2024 (ending October 31, 2023), beating Wall Street’s expectations.

The graphics processing unit (GPU) and AI chip company reported record Q3 revenue of $18.2 billion, up 206% year-over-year and 34% sequentially. Nvidia’s data center segment grew 279% annually and 41% sequentially to $14.51 billion, representing 79% of total revenue for Q3.

Fully story HERE

Google’s Bard AI chatbot can now answer questions about YouTube videos

Although Bard already had the ability to analyze YouTube videos with the launch of the YouTube Extension back in September, the chatbot can now give you specific answers about queries related to the content of a video.

“We’re taking the first steps in Bard’s ability to understand YouTube videos,” the company wrote on Bard’s updates page. “For example, if you’re looking for videos on how to make olive oil cake, you can now also ask how many eggs the recipe in the first video requires. We’ve heard you want deeper engagement with YouTube videos.

Full story HERE

Elon Musk says xAI’s chatbot ‘Grok’ will launch to X Premium+ subscribers this week

First released on November 4 to select testers, Grok is Musk’s answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, Anthropic’s Claude and others, and could potentially gain a following as part of X’s broader social platform.

In addition, xAI, the Musk-owned company behind Grok, promises that its chatbot will have more of a personality than rivals. It plans to respond to users’ questions “with a bit of a wit” and is said to have a “rebellious streak,” according to its website. The chatbot also plans to answer “spicy” questions that are rejected by other AI systems, the company has noted.
But personality alone won’t be key to Grok’s differentiation — it will also have access to real-time knowledge via the X platform, which could be an interesting component, if not one that leads to the highest accuracy in terms of its responses.

Full story HERE

Warren Buffett payment investment didn’t pay off

Berkshire Hathaway exited Paytm-parent firm One97 Communications Friday at a loss of about 40% on the high-profile investment it made more than five years ago.

The Warren Buffett firm invested about $260 million in Paytm in 2018, acquiring a 3% stake in the financial services startup at a valuation of about $10 billion. The investment giant — which sold a stake worth $36 million in Paytm in 2021, at a profit — sold its remainder position on Friday for $121.6 million, according to disclosure by the local Indian stock exchange. Berkshire secured a return of less than $160 million on its ~$260 million investment in Paytm.

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Revolut to start $133tn bond market trading for European clients

Revolut will offer its European clients the chance to trade in government and corporate bonds by early next year in an effort to make the multitrillion-dollar industry more accessible for retail traders in the region.

Juteika, who is also Revolut’s head of wealth and trading for the European Economic Area, said that access to the bond market for most people is difficult due to large capital requirements.
“For US dollar bonds, the usual minimum required amount is around $100,000. We are reducing that minimum amount significantly to offer that from €100,” he said.

Full story HERE