Human-powered and AI-curated, Microfiche is a 90-second sprint through the last month at USV. From our early conversations to signed term sheets, we cover the full scope of our work. Here's what caught our eye this month. We'd love to hear what's caught yours.
Join our conversation around some ideas we've been throwing around
1/ Emergent Properties: The Future of Health Metrics: We were fascinated by the idea that health can be measured through emergent properties like variability in biological systems. This approach could lead to more accurate and holistic health assessments, moving beyond traditional metrics like blood pressure or cholesterol levels.
2/ Building for Micro-grids: The importance of microgrids and storage solutions in energy transmission and distribution stood out as a big theme. It's clear that selling to utilities is challenging, but as energy becomes more decentralized, there are many interesting opportunities to deploy technologies at the edge.
3/ Climate Adaptation Technologies: Technologies that help communities adapt to climate change, such as wildfire monitoring systems and flood prediction tools, are becoming increasingly essential. Investing in these solutions can address immediate climate risks and build long-term resilience. It’s also an underinvested area in our portfolio.
4/ Decentralized Training: Exploring decentralized training models across clusters could significantly alter the landscape of AI development. This approach has the potential to open up the creation of powerful models and reduce reliance on the massive capital needed for training. Could this challenge the dominance of AI giants and open the door for a world of many models?
5/ Past Peak Onlineness: There's a growing trend towards reducing online time and increasing offline activities. Products that help people disconnect, like the Brick device, are gaining traction and we want to look at more ways to help people touch grass.
Stuff we're actively looking for
1/ The System of Record Network Effect by Nick Grossman
2/ Home on the Internet by Jared Hecht
3/ What We’ve Learned About AI Learning by Grace Carney
4/ We Need Actually Open AI Now, More Than Ever by Albert Wenger
5/ Touching Grass by Jared Hecht
Daylight - Advertising and Recommendation Network for Web3 - Series A
Stuff thats happening in the real world.
1/ Hume has launched EVI 2 - their empathic AI voice model that really gets you
2/ Sofar Ocean's technology is being used by the navy to model hurricane severity.
3/ Rhiannon White has taken over as the new CEO of Clue
4/ Kaiser Permanente has rolled out Abridge to its 40 hospitals, making it the largest generative AI project in Healthcare to date.
5/ Jake Heller went on the Y Combinator podcast to discuss how they built an AI agent reliable enough for Big Law.
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This month's Microfiche highlights inventive ideas on health metrics, energy microgrids, climate adaptation tech, and decentralized training for AI. With recent developments, including empathic AI voice models and a milestone for Abridge in healthcare, it's time to tune into innovation. See more from @thelibrarian!