A Conversation with the GitHub CEO, Why We're Investing in Groundlight, and New Robotics Alliance Launches

As always, it has been a busy few weeks. We're excited to reveal a new portfolio company, Groundlight, and congratulate Lexion on its latest round — both of which were just announced today. We have great conversations with the GitHub CEO and Eric Newcomer teed up for you. And don't miss the recent Washington Post piece about Seattle's tech scene and the news coming out of our portfolio, including Deepgram's new powerful speech-to-text model!

Founded & Funded

GitHub Copilot is Changing the Dev Landscape, Aseem Talks to Thomas Dohmke about the Promise of AI

We had the pleasure of hosting GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke on Founded & Funded. He and Partner Aseem Datar talk about?#Copilot, the rise of?#generativeAI?and how it is opening the door for developer?creativity by democratizing access to skills. They also discuss?why #developers, in particular, are set up?to leverage generative AI to its fullest potential. Thomas also offers up advice for people just launching a startup. But you'll have to listen to hear it all! Listen here.

Funding Announcements

Envisioning the Future: Why We're Investing in Groundlight

We have come to know?Leo Parker Dirac?and?Avi Geiger?over the last several years and have developed a deep respect and appreciation for them as brilliant engineers, innovators, and entrepreneurs. Their vision to make high-quality #computervision as simple as integrating an API service like Twilio resonated deeply with us. Today, we are excited to announce our investment in Leo and Avi's AI startup, Groundlight AI , whichempowers developers without data science experience to quickly build robust computer vision solutions for industrial applications. We see Groundlight as an essential piece of infrastructure to further the future of autonomous systems, and we are thrilled to partner with Leo and Avi on this journey. You can read more about the company from Tim Porter and Aseem Datar in their blog post or in VentureBeat and GeekWire.

Lexion raises $20M Series B

In other funding news, Lexion also announced its Series B today, which GeekWire covered. Lexion has established itself as a leader in the legal tech and contract management sectors and is working to reduce the time lawyers spend reviewing contracts by possibly 80%, CEO Gaurav Oberoi told Geekwire. We recently hosted Gaurav in an #IA40 spotlight episode of Founded & Funded, which you can listen to here.

Madrona News

Jon Turow Talks Amazon Bedrock & BabyAGI

Madrona Partner Jon Turow recently sat down with Eric Newcomer to talk about the blistering pace of AI developments in just the past couple of weeks — and what that means for founders. Jon hits on Amazon Bedrock, the company's new #foundationmodel offering; how #OpenSource #AI projects fit with proprietary offerings from OpenAI, Anthropic, and others; how founders can build useful and differentiated #LLM-based apps; and BabyAGI + other types of foundation model agents.

Hooked: Leadership Role Specs

Audra Aulabaugh?explains in this week's issue of Hooked that building out a role spec and aligning the early team so everyone agrees and stays in lockstep throughout the interview process unlocks critical information for how you source, conduct talent outreach, and eventually communicate with the candidate at the same time that they're assessing your team, the problem, and how they can solve it — the magic of two-way fit. Read this week's issue and subscribe here.

Washington Post: Seattle, hit by tech cuts and pandemic, tries to reboot

Also from Madrona's great talent team — Director of Talent Shannon Anderson ?was quoted in a recent Washington Post story about Seattle's tech growth in the face of many challenges. Talking about startup recruiting, Shannon?said that the challenge comes down to convincing people that working at a young company can be refreshing after years at a large tech firm, adding that while the big firms may have been going through layoffs, Madrona's portfolio companies are hiring for about 570 roles. Seattle still has tech jobs to offer! Read more here.

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New Robotics Alliance Launches

Madrona has teamed up with Cascadia and Fresh Consulting to launch the Northwest Robotics Alliance.?The Alliance will bring together builders, founders, and automation experts to continue to build the robotics ecosystem here in the Northwest.?They had their first event yesterday, which featured UW professor, Cruise engineer, and former Amazon Robotics AI Director Siddhartha Srinivasa . You can learn more about the Alliance here.

Aspiring for Intelligence: The Ai Watchdogs are coming

AI tools like #ChatGPT?have captured not only the imagination of millions of users around the world but also the attention of regulators. Recently, we've seen Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer formally launch a proposal to establish rules around AI, the Biden Administration announce it is?seeking additional input from the public on AI safety measures, and Italy ban?ChatGPT usage for privacy reasons. Like it or not, policymakers now have AI?squarely in their crosshairs and are primarily focused on two key areas: #dataprivacy and ethical + safety considerations. In the latest Aspring for Intelligence,? Vivek Ramaswami and Sabrina Wu talk about some of?the best ways for startups building in these spaces to effectively address these concerns and ensure they remain compliant. Read and subscribe here. (Speaking of #responsibleAI — did you catch our recent episode of Founded & Funded with Credo AI CEO Navrina Singh — listen here.)

Cricket Anyone?

#Cricket is the second largest sport on the globe, and now Major League Cricket is launching in the US — and coming to Seattle!?Read about the many faces of the sport in this great Seattle Times story featuring Madrona Managing Director S. Somasegar and his good friend, Sanjay Parthasarathy .?(Soma was also recently featured in a podcast with the Microsoft Alumni Network — listen here.)

Portfolio Roundup

We couldn't be more excited for all our portfolio companies nominated for the GeekWire Awards! (Big congrats to all of you: Lexion, WhyLabs, Flexe, iSpot, Rec Room, SeekOut, MotherDuck, Temporal, and Yoodli —?and to our CEO of the Year nominee Luis Ceze!)?Vote here.

And congrats to Clari and Runway for landing on the?Forbes AI 50?and to Fixie for being named one of the most promising generative-artificial-intelligence startups of 2023 on?Business Insider's list.

Deepgram?announced Nova, a powerful speech-to-text model, setting a new standard in speech AI.

Pulumi?announced Pulumi Insights, the next 10x productivity enhancement in the cloud. It was also featured in?Silicon Angle. Also, check out this piece featuring Joe Duffy.

Clerk was named one of SaaStock's top Saas Startups in 2023.

OthersideAI?launched Personal Assistant – its AI agent that can use a web browser like a human.

MotherDuck?CEO Jordan Tagani joined "Yet Another Infra Podcast" to talk about the crucial role of company culture in attracting top talent and fostering a successful organization.

Clari CEO Andy Byrne recently spoke with Diginomica about the launch of RevGPT.

ReadAI?was featured recently in Localogy Insider for its new highlights offering!

XetHub?launched Git-Xet Mount to allow you to instantly mount and explore large datasets with?no FUSE kernel driver needed.

Envisagenics?Co-founder Martin Akerman contributed a piece to?Pharma's Almanac, sharing the company's startup story.

Common Room?launched a guide to measuring the effectiveness of your community.