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Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, aims to secure $1 billion in equity financing to compete with industry leaders such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. The company, co-founded by Musk, has already garnered $135 million from investors, as revealed in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Alternative Investments/ESG: Timothy Plan Unveils Biblical High Dividend ETF
Timothy Plan, an investment company based in Florida, has launched a new ETF that is suitable for investors who abide by biblical principles. The Timothy Plan Market Neutral ETF (NYSEARCA: TPMN) is a market-neutral strategy that aims to provide high dividends. It invests in dividend-paying stocks of companies across various market capitalizations in developed markets.
Artificial Intelligence: AI Flies A Fighter Jet For Over 17 Hours
Lockheed Martin’s (NYSE: LMT) VISTA X-62A, a unique training aircraft, was flown by an AI agent for over 17 hours in December, marking the first time AI was used on a tactical aircraft.
Alternative Investments/AI: Tidal Files For ETF (CHAT) To Capture The Conversational AI Theme
A new exchange-traded fund (ETF) called the Conversational AI, AI and Innovation ETF has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, seeking to invest in global stocks connected with artificial intelligence, specifically in “conversational” AI and innovation. Appropriately, the new ETF would trade under the ticker CHAT.
Alternative Investments/ESG: Sprott Unveils ETFs For Clean Energy Metals
The four new ETFs focus on providing investors pure-play exposure to critical minerals essential to the generation, transmission, and storage of cleaner energy.
Alternative Investments/ESG: Six New Responsible Funds Flag Off Morgan Stanley’s ETF Platform
Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) has launched its ETF platform with six Calvert ETFs listed on NYSE Arca. The ETFs feature Calvert’s responsible investing approach and offer access to four indexed and two active ESG strategies across asset classes.
Artificial Intelligence: Instagram Co-Founders Are Back With Artifact, A Personalized Newsfeed App
Instagram co-founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, are launching Artifact, a news reading app that uses machine learning to understand users’ interests and offers a personalized newsfeed of articles from a curated list of publishers.
Alternative Investments: BlackRock In Move To Attract Younger Savers To Its ETFs
BlackRock is teaming up with neobroker Bux to offer low-cost ETF savings plans in Europe. The savings plan, which will cost just €1 per month on the Bux platform, will allow investors to build portfolios of up to 10 BlackRock iShares ETFs, with a €1 commission fee for portfolio trades.
Artificial Intelligence: AI-Powered Study Finds Earth Will Reach 1.5C Warming In The Next Decade
A new study warns that the world is close to exceeding a critical climate threshold, signaling that time is rapidly running out to avoid the most disastrous effects of global warming.
Artificial Intelligence: AI Detects Eight “Technosignatures” From Vast Trove Of Radio Telescope Data
Scientists say a new machine learning technique has discovered eight previously unknown “signals of interest” in the search for alien life. The signals, detected in five nearby stars, could indicate alien intelligence on other planets.
Venture Capital: Steel Decarbonizing Company Boston Metal Raises $120M
Boston Metal, a decarbonization tech firm for steel production, announced the close of its $120M Series C funding led by ArcelorMittal. Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund and SiteGround Capital also joined as new investors, along with existing ones.
FinTech: Stripe Evaluating Alternatives To Enable Employees To Cash In Soon-To-Expire Options
Payment startup Stripe plans to go public next year, according to a Thursday report by The Information. Despite being valued at $95 billion in 2021 and being one of the most highly-anticipated IPOs of 2023, Stripe co-founder John Collison had previously stated that there were no immediate plans for a public offering. This may now change as the company faces the issue of 10-year stock units awarded to veteran employees that are set to expire at the end of this year.
Digital Assets: Bitcoin Infrastructure Company Blockstream Raises $125M
Blockstream, a leading Bitcoin infrastructure firm, has raised $125 million in convertible note and secured loan financing to expand its institutional bitcoin mining services. Kingsway Capital led the convertible note, with other investors including Fulgur Ventures.
Liquid Alternatives: Panagram Launches Its Maiden ETF Focused On Collateralized Loan Obligations
Panagram Structured Asset Management, a subsidiary of Eldridge, has launched its first ETF, the Panagram BBB-B CLO ETF (NYSEARCA: CLOZ).
Artificial Intelligence: Microsoft Extends Partnership, Invests $10B In ChatGPT
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and OpenAI have announced the third phase of their long-term partnership, involving a multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment to accelerate AI breakthroughs and ensure they are widely shared with the world.
Digital Assets: As Withdrawals Surge, Crypto Focused Banks Borrow Billions From Home-Loan Banks
Two of the largest banks catering to cryptocurrency companies, Signature Bank (NASDAQ: SBNY) and Silvergate Capital Corp, (NYSE: SI) have taken loans of billions of dollars from Federal Home Loan Banks to stem a flood of customer withdrawals.
Digital Assets: NAB Launches AUDN, A Stablecoin Backed By The Australian Dollar
The National Australia Bank (NAB) (ASX: NAB) plans to launch a stablecoin, called AUDN, that will be pegged to the Australian dollar and will be on the Ethereum network.
Venture Capital: Space Debris Remover ClearSpace Lands €26.7m Series A
Switzerland-based startup ClearSpace is working on technology for space debris removal and has recently raised €26.7m in a Series A round to accelerate the launch of the world’s first-ever space mission to remove a moving, non-cooperative object from orbit.
Venture Capital: CalPERS Will Fund $1B To Promote Diversity In Alternative Fund Managers’ Investments
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), a pension fund with assets worth $457 billion, has announced that it is committing $1 billion to support diverse and underrepresented private market investors through asset managers TPG and GCM Grosvenor.
FinTech: Uber Eats And Visa Make A Join Effort To Promote Environmentally Friendly Restaurant Packaging
Uber and Visa have announced a new program to support small-and medium-sized businesses in their transition to green and sustainable packaging solutions. The program is also part of a broader effort to support small businesses that use Uber Eats to grow their businesses.
FinTech: Three-Way Collaboration Between Allianz Trade, Santander And Two For B2B BNPL Solution
A new global B2B Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) solution is being developed by a three-way collaboration between Allianz Trade, a global leader in trade credit insurance, Two, the business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce payments platform, and Santander CIB (BME: SAN), one of the top trade finance banks in the banking sector.
Liquid Alternatives: DIPC, A Liquid Alt Offering From FundFront And DipSea Capital
Investors can hope to generate steady income and as well participate in outsized equity market moves with DIPC, a product that is an alternative to the traditional but currently underperforming 60:40 portfolio. FundFront last month launched DIPC in partnership with Dipsea Capital to offer the latter’s tactical relative value strategy by trading a basket of short-dated U.S. equity options and momentum stocks.
Alternative Investments/ESG: Hypatia Announces New ETF Focusing On Companies Led By Women
Hypatia Capital Management LLC has launched an ETF that invests in women-led, publicly traded companies. The Hypatia Women CEO ETF (NYSE: WCEO) will seek out companies led by a female CEO or Board Chair. Hypatia is an asset management group focused on female CEOs and balanced management teams, with a CEO-level female executive network that includes over 1000 business leaders.
Digital Assets: It Gets Worse – Coinbase Announces A Third Round Of 950 Layoffs
In a blog post this morning, Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) CEO and Co-Founder Brian Armstrong said he still expected further contagion from the crypto market’s downturn, but the events represented an opportunity for the company and validated its long-term strategy. He said the company had to be operationally efficient enough to take advantage and therefore needed to reduce operating expense by about 25% quarter-on-quarter, which included letting go of about 950 people.
Artificial Intelligence: Microsoft Mulling $10B Investment in ChatGPT Creator OpenAI
OpenAI launched ChatGPT on November 30, and the program went viral soon thereafter. Sources having knowledge of the matter have revealed to Bloomberg that Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT) is negotiating to invest as much as $10 billion in OpenAI, the startup that created the wildly popular AI bot named ChatGPT. The sources also disclosed that…