{"id":12915,"date":"2024-08-22T02:09:01","date_gmt":"2024-08-22T02:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/?p=12915"},"modified":"2024-08-22T02:09:01","modified_gmt":"2024-08-22T02:09:01","slug":"why-investors-are-starting-to-pass-on-ai-startups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/22\/why-investors-are-starting-to-pass-on-ai-startups\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Investors Are Starting to Pass on AI Startups"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>As AI technology and programs like ChatGPT evolve, the way venture capitalists think about investing in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/starting-a-business\/how-to-find-the-right-programmers-a-brief-guideline-for\/392785\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\">startups<\/a> is changing.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/leadership\/this-ceo-turned-investor-who-sold-his-company-for-500\/376606\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\">Investor<\/a> Leah Solivan, the founder of freelance marketplace TaskRabbit, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/how-to-start-sell-a-million-dollar-company-taskrabbit\/478663\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\">sold to Ikea in 2017<\/a>, has been working as a venture capitalist for the last eight years. She currently works with startups building AI products as a general partner at early-stage fund Fuel Capital.<\/p>\n<p>The process to build an AI company is &#8220;very expensive,&#8221; she says.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazyload\" loading=\"lazy\" role=\"presentation\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.entrepreneur.com\/images\/misc\/1724269893_Leah-Solivan-GettyImages-1187894119.jpg?width=1000\" style=\"height:524px; width:1000px\" width=\"1000\" height=\"524\"\/><i><sup>Leah Solivan. (Photo by Chance Yeh\/WireImage)<\/sup><\/i><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[AI] is a big game-changing technology, but the costs are still so high to launch something,&#8221; Solivan <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=M9WBvWgl38A\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\">told entrepreneur Jeff Berman<\/a> last week. &#8220;Startups need to raise a lot more money to get started right now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>Related:<\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/how-to-start-sell-a-million-dollar-company-taskrabbit\/478663\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\"><b> <\/b><b>How to Start a Multi-Million Dollar Company, According to an IBM Engineer Turned Founder<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p>AI models can take upwards of $100 million to develop, according to<a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/anthropic-ceo-ai-will-cost-10-billion-to-train-by-2025\/476750\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\"> Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Solivan says the cost of AI is changing where a smaller, early-stage fund like Fuel Capital invests. Big industry players like Microsoft and Nvidia, which have<a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/jeff-bezos-microsoft-invest-in-a-humanoid-robot-startup\/470546\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\"> invested billions of dollars<\/a> into AI companies, can afford to invest in expensive AI startups \u2014 but smaller, early-stage funds might not see the return on investment they&#8217;re looking for.<\/p>\n<p>So smaller funds could strategically choose to pass on AI startups because of the steep price, even if those startups are developing cutting-edge technology.<\/p>\n<p><b>Related: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/hugging-face-ceo-says-more-ai-startups-want-to-get-acquired\/475631\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\"><b>Is the AI Industry Consolidating? Hugging Face CEO Says More AI Entrepreneurs Are Looking to Be Acquired<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s almost like when we used to look at hardware companies and we were like whoa this is going to take way too much capital, the ROI on our investment, the math just doesn&#8217;t work for our fund,&#8221; Solivan explained. &#8220;You need really, really deep pockets to be successful. I think it&#8217;s harder for the small funds to play here.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In 2023, AI was<a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/want-to-start-a-billion-dollar-business-look-to-these-two\/470089\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\"> one of the best industries for growth in unicorns<\/a>, or startups with at least a billion-dollar valuation.<\/p>\n<p>AI was also the sector with the biggest jump in funding last year, with AI startups<a href=\"https:\/\/news.crunchbase.com\/ai\/hot-startups-2023-openai-anthropic-forecast-2024\/#:~:text=Although%20venture%20investment%20continued%20to,seemed%20to%20know%20no%20bounds.\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\"> collectively raising $50 billion<\/a>, even though the year was tough as a whole for startup fundraising.<\/p>\n<p><b>Related:<\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/employers-can-tell-if-you-used-chatgpt-to-write-your-resume\/478444\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\"><b> <\/b><b>ChatGPT Is Writing Lots of Job Applications, But Companies Are Quickly Catching On. Here&#8217;s How.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/why-investors-are-starting-to-pass-on-ai-startups\/478734\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As AI technology and programs like ChatGPT evolve, the way venture capitalists think about investing in startups is changing. Investor Leah Solivan, the founder of freelance marketplace TaskRabbit, which sold to Ikea in 2017, has been working as a venture capitalist for the last eight years. She currently works with startups building AI products as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":12916,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/assets.entrepreneur.com\/content\/3x2\/2000\/1724186934-ChatGPT-Invest-GettyImages-1497617145.jpg?format=pjeg&auto=webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12917,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12915\/revisions\/12917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}