00:00Grok, with a Q, is raising $350 million in fresh funding, valuing the AI startup at about $3.5 billion.
00:07That's about half its peak valuation last year.
00:11The round set to be announced today was led by investment firm Disruptive,
00:14with NVIDIA also set to invest, according to a Grok representative.
00:18The company plans to use some of its recent financing to expand its total data center capacity
00:23to more than 200 megawatts by next year.
00:27This was a big one.
00:28And Stripe is making a major AI bet, clinching a deal to buy Open Router for more than $7 billion,
00:34according to sources.
00:35The startup gives developers access to hundreds of AI models and could expand Stripe's foothold in the AI sector.
00:41Bloomberg's Natasha Mascarenas.
00:43Who else?
00:44Part of the team that wrote the story.
00:45This was a big one.
00:46I saw lots of people share it in real time.
00:48You know, Stripe is big, and this was quite a big deal for them.
00:51Yeah, I mean, this absolutely struck a chord.
00:53I mean, this is at a time when the top conversation is how to make models cheaper, how to make
00:59the usage of AI cheaper.
01:00And Open Router has, you know, founded in 2023, kind of soared as a result of helping developers access different
01:07models, optimize different models.
01:09And the Stripe buy is a sign of the value of that creation.
01:14I mean, a big guiding question for me, this entire AI boom, has been who's going to capture the value
01:18and who's going to create it.
01:19And so very interesting and big news for Open Router.
01:22Very quick, $7 billion deal.
01:23But do we know how it's structured?
01:25Is this just Stripe flush with cash saying, here's $7 billion?
01:28Yeah, I mean, I expect this to be a mix of cash and stock, and it's tracking for north of
01:33$7 billion.
01:35Last private valuation was about $1.3, $1.5 billion, so a pretty dramatic markup.
01:39You've been so busy for four days.
01:42On Friday, it started with you breaking the story of how one of Thrive's best funders performed and some of
01:49the sort of firm-wide performance.
01:51You then had a follow on Saturday about them getting into Amazon, among many other stories.
01:57Just go through with the situation at Thrive.
01:59Yeah, I mean, the reason I was so excited to get the Thrive return numbers is really to answer the
02:04question about how much value is being captured in this era of concentration at all costs.
02:09It's this idea that Thrive, I would say, really pioneered this idea of putting 90% of the fund into
02:14your top dozen investments.
02:16A lot of people were like, that looks great if it's an open AI, but what does that look like
02:20when it happens across a bunch of different companies?
02:23And so the numbers show how much value they're sitting on top of.
02:26Of course, the next thing to break there is how much they'll actually distribute to investors, which is why that
02:30open router story is so interesting.
02:32It actually shows distribution.
02:33It's super quick.
02:34Amazon is a public position.
02:36Yeah, so this tells us Thrive is basically expanding their public markets investment process.
02:40They want to stay focused, but I broke news that they're investing around $200 million into Amazon, and that comes
02:46about two months after putting around $100 million into Shopify.
02:48They want to stay focused, but they want to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want
02:48to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want to stay
02:48focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and
02:48they want to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want
02:48to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want to stay
02:48focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and
02:48they want to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want
02:48to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want to stay
02:49focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and they want to stay focused, and
02:49they want to stay focused, and they want to stay
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