From Marhard where Innovation of Money and Power Collie in Silicon Valley, NBN.
This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed loved Love.
I'm Caroline Heide of Bloomberg's World headquarters in New York and I Mad Lovelow in San Francisco.
This is Bloomberg Technology.
Coming up.
We'll talk the state of the digital consumer as inflation shoes.
Some signs of moderation, with a founder of course, joining us.
CEO of Mickmac, a global e commerce analytics platform.
Plass will sit down for an exclusive conversation with the CEO of Data Breaks, one of the fastest growing software companies, to discuss how they're utilizing AI to power their business.
And sticking with AI, we break down the earning some oracle as the AI frenzy spurs cloud demand. Plus we look at how salesforce so focusing in on artificial intelligence. But first let's focus in on these markets because we have some calling some signs of calling in inflation. If you look at not the core CPI, but look at the main overall print, we're back at four percent low as that we've had since March twenty twenty one. So we are seeing some optimism the FED will holds and
stand steady for the month of June. We're seeing Na's that cup about five tens percent, benefiting from that risk on feel. But look, this inflationary pressure is being felt elsewhere. We think about the UK at the moment, yields absolutely spiking and I want to show what asset is still trading there, the pound versus the US dollar, higher versus
US dollars. We think the FED might pause, but all eyes on maybe even a six percent level when you're thinking of central bank policy over at the Bank of England. Interesting of course, moves coming from China. They're going to the opposite direction. Instead of curtailing inflation, they're looking to speed up their economy. They're cutting rates that were surprise overnight that really boid some of the commodities markets. We're
seeing up more than three percent in oil. But moving on to one of our favorite more risk assets in the world of technology, let's look at what's happening in the world of crypto. Look, not dramatic moves, but ill pressure remaining on bitcoin. We're atwred and seventy seven right now. This is even with a weaker dollar ed so clearly some of this regulatory our anxiety is still pressuring the main crypto asset ed.
Yeah, when it comes to individual movers, that CPI print and the idea around the FED is having some impact here. But there's one name I'm looking at, which is Tesla, up for a thirteenth consecutive session, longest streak of gains
on record trading at a September high. One of the kind of news events of the last twenty four hours was all those charging names coming out all at once, basically Yessay afternoon saying yep, you know what, we're going to adopt the NCACS standard, kind of pivoting to profressure and momentum in that space. A few stories that we're going to cover throughout the show playing out in equity markets. When it comes to movers as well, you mentioned Oracle
and Salesforce. Oracle moving to the upside one point three percent. AI is driving cloud momentum. We'll get deep into those numbers with bion this Anna Ragrana, but interesting AI story with Salesforce as well, it's moving to the downside one and a half percent. They had this event where they kind of explained in real terms how their work in AI is going to better their existing suite of products. Remember there was also a referendum essentially on Mark Benioff's
popularity with investors, which we can talk about. We're about to go to Miami to Florida and talk about Trump. So I just note this stock rumble. The conservative or right leaning social platform down four and a half percent. With the president in focus, and what's happening in court?
Yeah, former President Donald Trump is in focus. Let's go straight there, just for an update really on what's happening. We're expecting the appearance in the Miami court today after being indicted on thirty seven counts of allegedly mishandling classified documents. As of course, after leaving the White House, Bloomberg's Kaylee Lines is outside the courthouse. And when are we anticipating in arrival Kayley.
Well, three pm Eastern time is when he is due to report here at the Federal Courthouse. We may not actually see him arrive, though, it's expected that he will enter the Fort House via the underground garage, but once inside he will be arrested and processed just like anyone else who has been indicted on federal criminal charges. Its potential that he could have his fingerprint and mugshot taken.
He may even need to surrender his passport. Then he will go up to the thirteenth floor of this building behind me a pear before a judge and is expected to plead not guilty. Of course this this indictment came
down last week. The president has maintained that he is innocent, said that this is a witch hunt, election interference at the highest level, and that is likely the kind of messaging he is likely to take with him from Miami back up to Bedminster, New Jersey this evening, where he will be speaking at his golf club at eight fifteen pm Eastern Time, addressing his supporters, supporters and holding a
donor event. His campaign expects that he could raise two million dollars at that event tonight, which is taking place just hours after he will become the first former president in history ever to be arranged on federal criminal charges.
Kaylee, local police, one of which has just walked past you in that shot, and authorities preparing for some demonstration right what's the scene like on the ground right now where you are? Well?
The police chief ahead of today has sent from five thousand up to as many as fifty thousand demonstrators could be here today and as a result, there is a pretty heavy security presence. There is a lot of police, There are perimeters set up all around, and there have been I would say several dozen of both pro Trump
and anti Trump demonstrators here today. There is a lot of Trump flags, people wearing Make America Great Again gear, a couple that have T shirts on that indicate Trump is not guilty, that Trump won the election, but there are some anti Trump people as well, holding up signs like lock him Up. So far, though, it does seem peaceful. President Trump, of course, had called for his supporters to
show up and peacefully protest. It doesn't seem like there is too much disruptive activity that is taking place here today at this point.
All right, Bloombergs Katie Lines will be bringing us the latest throughout the day from Miami, Florida. But just gave us the latest here on Bloomberg Technology. Thank you so much. Now elsewhere in the world of eco head line CPI numbers inflation easing to the lowest levels since March with
twenty twenty one. Let's get to the view from the founder of mickmac a global e commerce enablement and an analytics platform for multichannel brands showing us now Rachel Tippograph, who is the MICKMAC founder and CEO, at the street level or the online level, what does that inflation print tell you about the direction of travel right now?
Rachel?
Yeah, And you know, with the results just coming out, it's really interesting to think about why we're saying inflation might be going down. If we look at food and consumer good categories like appliances, those have been relatively flat. But when we remove that from the equation, inflation is
still going up. And the reason why we're seeing categories like food and appliances stay relatively flat is that for the last few quarters, brand manufacturers have been raising praises, and the reason why they've been reached prices is that it's more extensive than ever before to bring consumer goods to market, to keep them on the shelf, and to
market them to consumers. To offset those margins, they've been raising prices, which is why at NCKMAC we feel core inflation is more indicative of what's happening in the general economy, and when we look at that inflation continuing to go
up against e commerce conversion rates. What we're seeing at Mickmac is that year over year e commerce conversion rates have been declining since twenty twenty And to put it into context, in twenty twenty one, the average e comm conversion rate we saw at Mickmac was seven point four percent. We're now halfway through twenty twenty three and the average e comm conversion rate is at four point eight percent. So it's showing that consumers are more trepidacious to buying right now.
Yeah, what does that mean in terms of companies trepidation about marketing? An interesting headline just across the Brimberg is going to open a pop up restaurant of Parery call Netflix bytes in La. I mean, of course that's a marketing focus. It's itself a company that's taking in advertising, in fact dolos from other companies. Now, how willing and able are companies to experiment in this environment if the conversion rates up pretty low?
Yeah?
I think for most big brands and brands that understand what it takes to stand the test of time, you have to advertise during trying economic times. Look in Procter Gamble, they've proven that over one hundred years that being said, every dollar is being scrutinized right now by folks that hold the title like CFO, and they're holding the marketing teams accountable to driving business results, which has created a
perfect tailwind for the rise of retail media. Meaning meta's biggest competitor isn't just Snap or TikTok, it's also Amazon, Target Walmart. And what the retailers have at their advantage is consumer purchase data and their ability to monetize that data and say, hey, we know who needs to replenish diapers right now, So if you have one dollar to spend to market diapers, you should give it to us
over a platform that may not know that. So from a marketing standpoint, we're continuing to see brands spend, but they're spending in more strategic channels that have more visibility into the end sales data so they can understand marketing effectiveness.
Rachel, we're showing on the screen, you know, the difference in direction of travel between goods and services inflation, and you learn in a recessionary and in inflation re environment that.
Who is leading who.
You know that there's a response to the consumer and their change in behavior, but there's also the reaction from the retailers themselves based on what you see.
In the market.
Who moves more quickly, you know, the consumer to change habits or the online retailer to respond to them.
Yeah, it's it's a given a take per your point. But right now, what we're seeing into in terms of how consumers are spending is they're really spending on essentials. At Nickmac, we have over three thousand retailers in the network and we collect basket level sales data, and so we can tell you right now what America's buying bottled water, granola bars, teeth whitening kits, press on nails, and weed killers. And what that shows you is, hey, these are essential items.
But when it comes to things like beauty, for example, you could go to the salon to get your nails done, or you could buy on press on nails at Walmart. And so in some of these discretionary categories, we are seeing consumers be more choosy with the things that they're willing to do on their own versus go to a more service oriented place.
A boy, if I served one more press on nail kit Instagram marketing, I'm going to explode, so clearly that's the place this is right now, mus you got them all on Rachel Pohograph. Thank you so much spending some time with us. I think mac founder and CEO really interesting. Their weekkiller sexy stuff. Meanwhile, coming up and we're going to be sitting down for an exclusive conversation this year of Data Bricks as they acquire Rubicon to stealth infrastructure startup.
It's focusing on storage systems that's key for AI. So that's the CEO. Meanwhile, watching shares of Apple.
The company's stock is been downgraded to neutral from buy by UBS, which.
The analysts is citing soft demand.
Outlook for the iPhone and in particular for services growth as well. And it's notable that this downgrade is pushing bullish analysts ratings on the stock to a two year low of three ten percent. Remember it was a record high yesterday.
This's Atlmberg.
Data Bricks is announcing it's acquired Rubicon, a stealth infrastructure startup focusing on storage systems for AI. Data Bricks is used by more than nine thousand organizations worldwide who rely on the companies lake House platform to unify their data, analytics and AI. The startup also hit key milestones for revenue and top line growth. Joining us now Data Brick CEO Ali Godzi a lot to go over.
I'm learning a lot.
About data breaks this morning. Let's start with the top line. You've just closed out a financial year at the end of jen hit a billion dollars of revenue, which is a milestone. But the growth is really interesting. That makes you one of the fastest growing software names out there.
What's driving it?
Yeah, it's really tailwinds.
By the way, it's the fastest growing software if according to our records. But what is driving it is really we're seeing tailwinds. One around AI. Everyone wants AI now one. We've been saying it for ten years that data innai is going to be the future, that in every industry the winners are going to be data ANAI companies. But something happened in November last year and everyone kind of realized after chat GPT that this is the future. And
the second thing is tcoor reduction. People want to cut down their costs of data spend and our Lakehouse platform helps that.
Data warehousing SQL is the product. You also sharing some financials on that particular product. So I remember when you announced it, you know, it's a domain you compete with snowflake in. What's driving this growth? Is this a market share gain for you?
Yeah, So we've announced that we now passed one hundred million ARR on our data warehousing product that we just frankly launched just a year ago. So what's going on here is that this Lakehouse paradigm helps organizations cut down their cost of data warehousing significantly. And you know, there's a tale of two cities. On the one hand side, everybody wants AI and they want to spend on AI.
On the other hand, everyone wants to reduce their cost and they want to reduce the spend on data warehousing. So it's really that cost tco optimization that's driving that tail went behind data.
Warehousing spent caroline from organic growth to inorganic growth. Ali, godseeing data breaks who have been outshot.
Yeah, I'm interested in that deal, Rubicon. This is all about storage systems. You say, it's the backbone of AI. Ali, did you have to pay up? I mean, this isn't a cheap time to be trying to buy a company related to AI.
Right now?
Yeah, right now, you have to pay up. That's just as simple as it is. And everyone that's doing anything with AI. And this was a team that can build storage for all kinds of unstructured data. This is the oil that fuels AI.
You know, those are not cheap right now. And this is the team that.
Actually has built it previously at drop.
Box and before that at Google.
So this is a team that really knows how to build this kind of sort of data systems for AI. You know, Sergay and team are really really experienced. So we're excited to have them as part of Data Bricks.
Of course, you, as you said, for the last decade, have been telling people the future is data, it's AI.
Your own well experience two decades in this particular field and in particular with deep routes not only in R research ALI, but also in open source software, and I'm interested in your take and just sort of theoretically at the moment, as everyone Warren debates as to whether open AI, Microsoft Google going to eat the entire lunch when it comes to large language models when it comes to application, and whether the open source is actually already showing that they aren't any modes.
Where do you stand on this divide?
Yeah, I would say two things. I would say. On the one hand, We absolutely.
Want open source to flourish because as AI becomes more and more powerful, we want the researchers around the world to understand this technology. We don't want just one or two companies to sit on top of this and there are only ones that know if.
It's going wrong or right.
We want researchers the whole world to understand the models. What can go around well, you know, how do we align them with US US one. The second thing is I actually think it's impossible for one or two companies to keep up with the competition. Every university on the planet, every researcher now in the data field, in the tech field, is focused on llm's generative AI.
I've never seen anything like it before.
So it's going to be very hard for one company to keep a proprietary model that they say is ahead of everybody else, and it's ahead of open source. So and we've seen this every day we're having new results in open source. You know, I follow it very closely. It's no longer months, it's no longer weeks, it's every day, multiple times a day, there's a new breakthrough result. So I think it's going to be very hard for proprietary closed companies to say, ahead, what is.
The Alley Gods view on when and why data breaks would go public?
And I just want to caveat that.
You know, there's reports that you kind of trim the valuation on the company. Didn't slash the trimmed, but what would push you to do that?
Yeah, So look, I've always said that IPO is something we will do in the future for us. We think that we're going to be a really successful, sustainable business in the long run, in you know, next decade or so. So this is just a milestone right now. The markets are shut down, We're not over optimizing for this IPO event. We'll get there, you know, whenever the time is right. There's just so much demand for our business right now. And Frank, we want to be able to invest in AI.
We want to be able to do the investment set we're allowed to do us private companies. It would be actually hard to do that as a public company. So actually right now it's really helping us to stay for private data.
Brix CEO, Annie Gods there, We thank you for bringing us the update on some of the revenue numbers and the acquisition.
Time Now for.
Talking tech Kathy Wood is making new bets on other tech stocks after of course, dropping in video from her funds. Largely, two Ark invest funds purchased roughly one hundred and seventy five thousand shares Meta, while the Ark Autonomous Technology and Robotic etf IT picked up more than ninety eight thousand
shares the chip maker TSMC. Meanwhile, TSMC also regaining it's five hundred billion dollar market cap as investors buy into artificial intelligence and looks sift through which stock's the best place to thrive during this AI boom. While TSMC toilted its potential role within AI, has expressed some caution over the outlook for the smartphone market, in particular that of course, comprises a significant chunk of its revenue so far. And
let's look at arm So software back chip designer. It's in talks with potential investors, including Intel, to be an anchor in its New York listing later this year. Sources are saying that the company has held talks with other firms about funding. The IPO was expected to be one of the most significant IPOs of the year.
Ed Yeah, let's chip away all this story further Bloomberg Deals reporter Katie Ruth joining us from Los Angeles. An anchor investor, you and I have been across many IPOs in years. An anchor investor gives you a bit of confidence appear in your industry.
That's very interesting, Yeah, exactly, And investors like this SoftBank stock traded up on the news. Yes, a lot of times you'll see an anchor investor of about one hundred to two hundred million in size to help shore up confidence. You know, it's a vote of confidence, a bit you know, from a competitor and also a partner that shows that they're serious and excited about arms technology.
I mean they have a relationship already a technical one. The fact that it would become a financial one, I mean remind us of in the past when this has happened because sort.
Of Qualcomm is underpin previous listings as well.
Yeah, yeah, it's happened with Qualcom and then Mobile I. There have been other anchor investors in the past. Mobile I was spun out from Intel last year, and so not just in this category, but in general. It's something that you sometimes see with IPOs ahead of the roadshow, ahead of drumming up interest from institutional investors to have this strategic anchor investor to shore up confidence.
So Katie, you are the name on the Deals newsletter publishing this morning. A big focus on all the talk out in LA and LA Tech Week and Karen and I, you know, we look at each of these tech Weeks LA, New York, San Francisco. Sometimes a lot comes out of it, sometimes very little does. What did you learn on the ground, Well.
I had fun?
What what did I learn?
I chatted with Mantis, the Chainsmokers, the band. They have a venture fund and they they threw events uh uh djayed by Travis Barker. I mean, it wouldn't be LA Tech Week without participation from Hollywood. I spoke to Will i Am, who my editor joke should be called will A i Am, because he's been into interested in AI for uh really the past decade. He's had multiple AI startups.
He has a new one, and he spoke to me about you know, why he's excited about AI, but also how he thinks that you know, it could provide an opportunity for there to be a reset, uh for for new jobs. And you know he's going back to his home community to help, you know, prepare them for the changing job market. There were you know a lot of different events, sometimes at Hollywood mansions and you know, sometimes
featuring pizza robots. But you know, it's exciting to catch up with the LA's tech industry.
I'm not sure there's any tech reporter that hasn't spoken to me. I have now, I think you've aired you. He turned up a Mercedes events for you. I think I interviewed them Mobile Will Congress or Viva Tech or something. Meanwhile, these events are going thick and fast, and think gets London Technik on at the moment. So maybe he's over there right now. Katie Ruth, we thank you so much for.
Telling us about all the NA parties so she has.
Been at as well as all the deals that are being done there. Go check out her MNA deals discussion. It's in the latest newsletter on the Bloomberg terminal. Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. I'm Caroline Hyde.
In New York and I Mad Ludlow in San Francisco. It's going to check in on the market. Stocks pushing higher, including the technology sector, driven by the inflation print.
That we got.
The idea being that the chances of a hike in twenty four hours time at the FED meeting increasingly lower. That's not to say the market thinks that the FED is done, but we are now a little more certain about a June meeting pause or however you want to phrase. It's SP five hundred and seven tens to one percent, the tech heavy NAZDA one hundred slightly underperforming that, but basically in line that's HISS yields push higher, the US ten year three point seven eight percent, up by about
five basis points. And we talked about our sort of favorite risk asset that Bitcoin actually did start to move a little lower, down just three tens percent in the session to twenty five eight hundred and nine.
US dollars per token.
Two kind of mover stories out there this Tuesday morning, Oracle and Salesforce, Oracle and earning story where cloud momentum being driven by compute demand for AI. Also kind of granularity coming from Larry Ellison, the chairman, about two billion dollars of bookings fueled by LA compute demand. And then Salesforce demonstrating its competence CARO in the field of generative AI, how the work they're doing there is going to boost their existing offerings in the world of CRM and other
software suite and tools. But of course we also had this kind of soft referendum on Mark Benioff's popularity, which he did better on this year than last.
And it's worth reminding ourselves just how far both of these stocks have rallied this year.
I think Oracle's up more.
Than fifty percent salesforce giving away a little bit today, but at more than sixty percent on the year. Let's dive deeper into just what's behind the share price momentum, and of course it's cloud momentum, mainly across both Anna Ragranaz with us Bloomberg Intelligence senior tech analyst, and let's start on Oracle because a lot of notes coming out that they loved, in particular Oracle's cloud infrastructure that they seem to be seeing a key highlight for you as well as for Jeffries.
Yeah, this is I mean it was.
The acceleration in infrastructure as a service was a bit surprising to us.
It was quite a bit sharper.
Only because in the whole world is slowing down right now in terms of consumption, and here is Oracle, even though it's a smaller base, you know, but improving their growth rates. Now this is where we you know, wrote this morning that this is going to do, you know, get some work done from both Amazon and Microsoft in terms of explaining to the market that they are not losing market share and everybody is going to benefit from both the AI boom and people moving more workloads to
the cloud. Now, remember, Oracle is very good at marketing itself, and I think they did a phenomenal job over the last few quarters and we can see the results of that.
Speaking of marketing oneself, Salesforce set out, it's still in terms of what it's doing in the field of generative AI. Where does Salesforce sit in the AI wars from the BI perspective an RAG.
So one of the things that we have talked a lot about is when you look at generative AI, consumer applications are going.
To be the first one to embrace this.
And we have seen that already with our GPT and you know being including some of that stuff.
You're going to get more of that in the coming months.
A large portion of that is because the data, the consumer data is a little bit easier to get than enterprise data. When you look at a company like Salesforce, the number one concern for corporations right now is are they going to use my data to come up with some new algorithm and then you start divulging those data sources out there.
And I think what.
Salesforce data yesterday was very smart. They're there to explain to people that your personal data will remain private.
As a company, we're not going to use it.
If you're going to use it, it's only going to be for you. So I think it's a first good step in explaining to people what it means. I think Salesforce is a big beneficiary in the long run because at both their cloud products, whether it's Sales Cloud or Customer Relationship Management or the Customer Service Cloud, both are three times bigger than the nearest rival in the cloud. And I think they are sitting on top of a lot of data and they're going to benefit from that.
All right, Oh, thanks to Ana rag Rana or Bloomberg Intelligence reacting to what's been a busy twenty four hours in newsflow, let's get more perspective on AI and cloud software from Manny Medinao Outreach. Outreach is a Salesforce partner and an AI driven sales platform which is used by
thousands of enterprises to increase sales rep productivity. And it's a great place to start because the question Caroline and I constantly pose Nanny is how does the introduction of generative AI tools not just change sales function but does it eliminate some as well.
Let's think I step back, so where are the very early innings of what jenai and JIAI in.
General can do for a sales rep and for a sales manager.
And the winners of this race are going to be called out in the next two years, if you would. But what's important is that if you go to the future, can you imagine you know what is it non negotiable? So if you think for first principles back and what's going to happen in the future, that we need to do today is that in the future, there is no rep. There's no manager that doesn't have an AI dedicated to
their work. That is not helping them, you know, close deals faster, That is not helping them prioritize their day, that is not helping them figure out what accounts to pursue, what accunts not for to pursue, who who to follow up with and sort of get the aggregate of those reports to a manager and making sure that the team is moving forward and delivering. So in that future, if you work it back to today, the things that are important is how do you lay.
Out that data?
How do you make you know your your your partner in the enterprise trustworthy, which is what seales for today. How do you make sure that you are accumulating data and processing in such a way that you are increasingly helping the reps work close and making them more successful.
Now will doubt this displaced jobs?
I doubt it because people, you know, organizations will get greedy and they will see that with higher efficiency they can actually drive higher results.
So they will continue to hire reps that use GENI as part.
Of their day to day workflow and that will continue to drive you know, efficient returns and efficient compounding outcomes for organizations.
So it's a very exciting time right now.
Exciting as long as you're happy to be augmented, as long as you're ensuring you're up in your skill set to work alongside this AI manny, What did you hear that was different out of salesforce? That ultimately is being said by everyone else who's trying to help you with your CRM, with your interactions with your customers, with marketing when it comes to AI.
I think what we're seeing right now is an even played in field among all the systems of record players. So you're seeing Dynamics in Microsoft coming out with a setup announcements. You see an Oracle coming up with a setup announcements. You seeing Salesforce coming up with sort of announcements.
Three weeks ago.
Service now layout there rotema for AI and I gonna mean for IDSM and the rest of the year.
Differct maney manny. That's really overwhelming for me.
I mean, as the journalists, you're speaking to, all these companies getting you onto, and it feels as though there's too many announcements, everyone suddenly trying to make themselves out to be some AI efficient company. How can you discern which one's doing the right things?
And when.
There is no way to go wrong? Right now, see that players who are going to win. They set out the AI strategy ten years ago. So if you read you know the sell sorces of full service announcement, they actually have been working on a number of things for a while. And this is just the culmination and the and the and another turn of the flywheel.
Of getting their AI on on the onto the market now with the help of Generative AI.
So General VII is just another flavor of a bunch of AI that has been built over the past ten years.
It's the same thing for outreach.
We've been working with workflows and we've been looking at what the what is the rep doing or the manager doing, what is the outcome of the workflows and fitting that into models so that we can make people more productive. General VAI is just another gear into that, into that flight wheel. So everyone is going to have enhancements to the user experience on their platforms and that is just good news for everybody.
MANNY to the enterprises you work with have the technical expertise and the personnel necessary to understand what's happening and then implement it on their end.
That is exactly the right question to ask.
So the main the main funnel through which AI is going to have to go through the main uh, the mechanism, but which AI gets deployed and gets useful is through the human being. It's through the worker, it's through the
project and through the workflow. And we need to spend more time thinking about how does that AI impact, the rep impact, the customer success manager impact, the support UH person or professional and managers out there to make sure that we are fitting the AI to the benefit of the human being, because only then you're going to get the compound and effect of AI plus human delivers drastic results.
So we need to spend more time a locating that our team members and the and the recipients into the new into the new workflows, into the new possibilities that i I bring to the table.
Without it, you're not going to get adoption.
So that that is the part that we all need to be talking about, is what are you doing to drive adoption of AI out your customer's point, not in the technology delivery.
Now, your delivery is very easy right now is customer after right?
All right?
Thanks to our reco Manny Medina, who's reacting carried to salesforce setting out what they're doing in the field of AI in the last twenty four hours. Now coming up the state of the venture industry and what will be the next big thing enabled by AI. More on that with four runners Brian O'Malley, that's next.
This is Bloomberg all right, Time for the VC roundup.
First up, Insight Partners has cut the target size of its latest fund to fifteen billion dollars from the earlier target of twenty billion dollars. Is it sees quote a great reset in tech. That's according to the Financial Time, citing a letter to institutional investors. The firm is so
far raised about two billion dollars for its thirteenth fund. Similarly, Technology Crossover Ventures or TEAC has raised fifty to seventy five percent less capital for his flagship fund, down from the planned five point five billion target set last year. That's according to the Information, citing securities filings and a document compiled by one of tcb's A limited partners. TCV
has raised one point four billion for its flagship fund. Finally, wafer producer Cubic PV says it secured over one hundred million dollars in new firm equity commitments for its US factory plans and product ROMAC, SCG, Hunt Energy, and break Through Energy all committed capital, with the first thirty three million dollars to be released immediately.
Caroline, let's stick.
With this world of VC. We're very pleased to welcome to the show. Brian and Valley, managing partner at four Run Adventures two billion dollars in assets under management and really ran you state your claim, and some of the key companies you back before are very consumer focused. I'm
thinking in the glossiers him and hers Aura. At the moment, you seem to be looking at a lot at the platforms that empower gig economy workers, and I'm interested as to how much time is currently helping your portfolio companies basically ensure that they're empowered with AI, then they're not having their lunch, eat and elsewhere.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I think AI is on everyone's mind these days. It's something that I've been hearing you guys talk about all morning. It's something we're talking about in our offices all day long. And so we did a survey recently
of our portfolio to really understand where they're exploring. And it's not surprising that about eighty to ninety percent of the portfolio companies are already leveraging AI in some fashion and the rest are thinking about it and starts with marketing, it starts with their product, and then they're really thinking about internal processes and how they can automate internal processes as well.
Full your portfolio companies and the founders you invest in. What is the single biggest factor that would push them to invest in AI?
Why do they need it?
Well, everyone is trying to be both more efficient as well as provide more value to their end customers. And we're finding ways where if they can put their people first and then enable some of the back end processes to be leveraged through AI, that enables them to have more human element even though they're taking advantage of these new technologies.
I think it poses the question Carrie, going back to consumer, because I was getting ready for this segment and I was kind of looking forward to not talking about AI, and we're two and a half minutes in and we've already ruined that. But traditionally, for vcs, the consumer segment is risky. You're against giant global conglomerates who are also innovating. Why do you want to focus there in more consumer facing startups in their platforms.
Sure?
Well, we believe that when you focus at something, you can be the best in the world at it, and that's what we're trying to do in terms of understanding both what consumers want. Right now, we spend a lot of our time not pontificating, but really listening. So we do a fair amount of focus groups, a fair amount of surveys. I understand what is top of mind for people. And even though there's all this innovation, people are still
left wanting more. They've got challenges in their personal lives, looking for community and connection, and they're also thinking about how they can get better purpose, better self reliance. And so we feel like as much as there's dollars going into the ecosystem, there's a lot of needs still being unmet for consumers, and we believe the founders we work QUI can help solve those needs.
You know, Caroline, We've had vcs and founders on the show that are making something for the consumer, and valuing that offering is really hard.
Yeah, I mean, Brian, I'm having a lot of conversations with vcs who've primarily backed consumer focused companies and at the moment they say they're not touching them with a barge pole.
In terms of new checks to be written.
How much is the valuations the companies that you currently have had and just having to write size still at the moment.
Sure, Well, there's a combination that portfolio, as there always is, and the ratio may change a little bit, but our best companies are still finding dollars available to them, they're still raising capital, and they're able to do what they need to do. The companies that are struggling, they continue to struggle, and a lot of that comes down to just this question around whether they found product market fit and whether they're timing is right for what they're ultimately offering.
And so we look at a time where a lot of other consumer we're investors or left scratching their head because they found themselves chasing some of these shiny objects. We find that when we're grounded talking to people, talking about what their needs are and looking at how that is juxtaposed against new business models and new technologies, we find that there's more than an opportunity to invest in.
It's just about finding the right ones, where we have the right founder fit based on our ambition and based on what they're trying to.
Do talk to us about the founder fit.
Of course, there was a lot of concern that as you know, that sucking feeling, sucking noise started to happen in terms of the money coming out of the situation, it was going to leave particularly diverse founders.
Sort of most hard hit.
But then now what I'm hearing is actually the diverse founders have been used to being scrappy ultimately, and they're actually better at weathering these sorts of downturns because they know how to have a sort of nimble business. And you're seeing that how much you were able to continue to support founders who perhaps wouldn't have had checks previously.
Yeah, absolutely, we're looking for founders today to be scrappier than they've ever been before.
But scared city is.
An important trait for these startup companies. When you have too many things going on, it enables you took to lose your focus. And when there's less resources, when there's less people on the team, it's easier to pick what's the one priority we need to get accomplished now. And that's what we're working with our teams on to help them pick that priority and help them execute against it.
Brian, what's your exit strategy when you're in this space?
Our access strategy is really simple. We try to build great businesses, and those great businesses tend to have lots of opportunities come towards them, and that window might be.
Changing a little bit.
It might be harder to sell a company, I'd be harder to take a public right now. But if you're building a durable, sustainable business where the customers love what you're doing, time is actually your friend versus your enemy, and that's.
What we're trying to help our companies do.
All right, full run Avenches managing partner Brian O'Malley, thank you very much. Federal Prosecutes is in the Fharaanos case. They're asking for Elizabeth Holmes to pay two hundred and fifty dollars every month in restitution once she's released from prison. Lawyers for the former Pharaoh CEO say she has quote limited financial resources and should not have to make the monthly payment. Holmes had said she can't afford to pay the nine figure sum demanded by the US over four
hundred and fifty two million dollars. Twitter's former CEO, Jack Dorsey says authorities had threatened the platform during the farmer protests unless Twitter removed certain politically sensitive posts. Now India's Minister of State for Electronics and it fired back at Dorsey, saying, quote, that's a lie. Bloomberg's Technology editor Sarah Fryer joins US on set with more.
Let's start.
I guess with the retort, what is it that that India is saying Twitter is lying or Jack Dorsey specifically is lying about.
Well, they're saying that they never shut Twitter down and then nobody went to jail. That's not what Dorsey was saying. He was saying that there were threats that the company
would be shut down and that employees would be threatened. So, I mean, what you're seeing here this is just a microcosm of what's happening with Twitter across the world, which is governments are realizing that they can ask for the company to do certain things to take down a posts from dissidents, from people who are criticizing the government and say they're in violation of law, and if they don't comply,
they could lose their market power in that country. And that is something that I think is going to be even more difficult under the new CEO, Lindia Karino and new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk. We're talking about with Dorisy. Happened in twenty twenty one, and now Twitter has so many fewer of those global legal policy employees who really understand a local government and enlarge governments like India, how to navigate those different political stumbling blocks that come about.
I mean, I'm thinking of Linda Acarino's recent tweet thread, and she really wants to make Twitter the open place for discussion, and ultimately certain countries are going to find that difficult. We know India, of course, does tend to fight back against social media. I mean they've banned TikTok, for example, one of the any key countries to do that.
How do you think you can navigate that?
So, Cara, I'm going to jump in here because I think Sarah lost you in her ear. But basically the question is what do we know about how Twitter is now handling it's global relationships with regulators in different jurisdictions.
What we know is that a lot of the executives who were in charge of trust and safety at Twitter, who are in charge of ensuring that the side is complying with laws is taking down hate, reature, misinformation and violent content that they are, you know, losing a lot
of the top executives who were in charge. And I think that that makes it very difficult because when you're working with governments and negotiating with governments, basically this is against the law Twitter, you used to fight those cases, they used to fight Turkey, they used to fight in Egypt and say like no, like we're gonna we're gonna keep those posts up. We're not going to give you
information on those people. What's going to be really interesting is to see how how Twitter's changes and fights adjusts. Given that their owner, Elon Musk, also has other business interests in the countries where Twitter is operating with Tesla, with SpaceX was with Starlink, it could get very complicated.
All right, Bloomberg, Sarah Fryer, thank you here on SF all thanks Twitter, Carrot.
Yeah, notable that that town square that the New York from talks about currently talking about, well a football club close to our home and at the moment when it comes to Manchester United. But we don't have time to talk about that because it's the end of this edition of a New Bow Technology.
It's second day of the week.
Busy week so far, so don't forget you recap with the podcast wherever you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify, iHeart and of course on all of the core Bloomberg platforms. From New York and from San Francisco. This is Bloomberg technology,