Tag: Tech company

Google’s search for an AI future as it turns 25

The tech giant Google and I almost share the same birthday… give or take a few years.

Google turns 25 this month (I’ll have a few more candles on my cake) – and finds itself in a tech landscape that has changed dramatically since founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin started it in 1998.

Back then Google was only a search engine, and it lived for its first few months in the garage of Susan Wojcicki – the future boss of YouTube.

You do not need me to tell you how well that search engine worked out. It has been 17 years since the word Google officially entered the dictionary. I remember a BBC discussion about whether we should use it as a verb on-air because of its potential to be a free advert for the firm.

That company – now part of a larger parent group called Alphabet – has since diversified into pretty much every area of tech and dominates some of them to an extent which sometimes troubles anti-competition regulators. Right now it is trying to Google itself into pole position in the AI race – but some say it has already fallen behind.

Hits and misses
Email and smartphones, software and hardware, driverless cars, digital assistants, YouTube – Google has spawned (and acquired) hundreds of products and services. Not all of them have worked out.

There are 288 retired projects listed on the Killed by Google website, include gaming platform Stadia and budget VR headset Google Cardboard.

Google vice-president Phil Harrison showed off the Stadia controller on-stage at its launch in 2019

The question now is whether Google can maintain its omnipresence in the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence.

There have been mutterings, including from within, that it has fallen behind. A leaked memo from a Google engineer found its way on to the net, in which he said the firm had no AI “secret sauce” and was not in a position to win the race.

This feeling was further fuelled by the battle of the bots.

What is AI, is it dangerous and what jobs are at risk?
‘Google killer’ ChatGPT sparks AI chatbot race
Google what our chatbot tells you… says Google
For many people, the first time they knowingly interacted with AI – and were impressed by it – came in the form of ChatGPT, the viral AI chatbot which exploded into the world in November 2022.

Its creator OpenAI has received billions of dollars in investment from Microsoft, which is now working it into its own products, including the Bing search engine and Office 365.

ChatGPT has been dubbed the “Google killer” because of the way it can answer a question in one go, rather than serve up pages and pages of search results.

It uses a language-processing architecture called a transformer which was actually invented by Google, but when Google followed up a few months later with its own rival Bard, it had nowhere near the same impact.

Bard was given a surprisingly cautious launch. It was not for under-18s, the tech giant said, and it was described to me as “an experiment” by a senior exec.

Perhaps part of its caution was in part a result of a weird situation which preceded Bard.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66659361

Zepto India’s first unicorn in 2023; bags $200 million

The round was led by US investor StepStone Group, which made its first direct investment in an Indian firm.

File photo of Zepto founders Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra. Zepto has raised $200m in a Series E funding round, valuing the firm at $1.4bn and making it India’s first unicorn of 2023.

New Delhi: Zepto on Friday said it has raised $200 million in a Series E round of funding at a valuation of $1.4 billion, making the online grocery company India’s first unicorn of 2023, and lifting hopes in the startup ecosystem facing a prolonged funding winter.

The fundraise was led by US private market investor StepStone Group, which also made its first direct investment in an Indian company. The Group led the round with an investment of $75 million, persons aware of the matter said. Goodwater Capital, a California-based consumer-focused venture capital firm, joined as a new investor. Existing investors such as Nexus Venture Partners, Glade Brook Capital, and Lachy Groom also took part in the round.

Founded in 2021 by Stanford University dropouts Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, Zepto is also considering a public listing in the next two to three years. It currently runs more than 200 dark stores which ship everything from chips to diapers, notebooks, cooking oil and cigarettes in seven cities. In 2022, Zepto had raised $200 million in a Series D funding round led by US technology startup accelerator Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund, which then valued the startup at $900 million.

Quick commerce firms proliferated following the pandemic outbreak, with platforms such as Zomato’s Blinkit and Swiggy’s Instamart offering home delivery of products such as shampoos, soaps, vegetables, and tea, which customers typically buy from local stores. However, the model has been questioned for its high cash burn and for delivering goods otherwise available easily in local markets.

“We’re going to push even harder towards profitability. The idea is to get to Ebitda positive in the next 12 to 15 months and do it at a scale of well over a billion dollars in sales annually,” Palicha, who is also CEO of Zepto, said in a virtual press meet.

Palicha said Zepto plans to add 40% more dark stores over the next 12 months while also reducing the time taken for each of these stores to turn profitable. “The majority of our dark stores are fully Ebitda-positive… The trajectory that we were on with 150 dark stores or so that are already profitable, with most of our dark stores already generating cash, the entire company is likely to be Ebitda-positive in the next 12 to 15 months. We have been actually able to grow our sales 300% year-on-year, reduced burn at the same time and turn most of our stores profitable,” he said.

Source: https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/zepto-india-s-first-unicorn-in-2023-bags-200-million-11692987368170.html

Exit mobile version