With several large funding rounds on the West Coast last week, check out what developments are underway in sectors ranging from artificial intelligence to augmented reality. This is the Built In SF Weekly Refresh.
Character.AI raised $150M. Innovating the conversational AI space, Character.AI operates a platform where users can message and create chatbots with unique personalities. People can use these chatbots for roleplay, emotional connections, email composition help and more. The company plans to deliver new user features and expand its engineering team with the fresh capital. [Built In SF]
Netflix announced it will release new games this year. Entertainment company Netflix has recently been building a presence for itself within the gaming sector. Coming this year, Netflix will add 40 new titles to its growing portfolio. These will be available for subscribers to play on mobile devices. The company currently has 70 additional titles in development with its partners. [Built In SF]
SF Tech Quote of the Week
“The round is at a good price that we believe reflects our performance, especially given the change in the fundraising backdrop over the last year. It lets us focus on our customers and build great products no matter what happens with the economy.” — Parker Conrad, CEO and co-founder of Rippling
Rippling pulled in $500M. In the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank incident earlier this month, HR tech company Rippling pulled in a hefty funding round with the intention of helping its customers distribute paychecks to their employees. The situation ultimately remedied itself and Rippling shifted its banking operations to JPMorgan Chase. The round from Greenoaks came at an $11.2 billion valuation for Rippling. [Built In SF]
Artera got $90M. The company developed a prostate cancer test solution for clinicians. The tool leverages AI to help providers predict patient outcomes and develop personalized treatments. With its fresh capital, Artera wants to make its test available worldwide. Later, it will optimize its prostate cancer test and apply it to other types of cancers. [Built In SF]
Unstoppable Domains announced a new service. The company offers a domain for Web3 projects. It announced its Unstoppable Messaging solution, a platform that will allow users to send encrypted messages via Polygon-based domains. The tool’s goal is to help Web3 projects curate and build their communities with peer-to-peer messaging. [CoinDesk]
In other VC funding news: Backed by AI tech, Viz.ai is a care coordination platform that aims to speed up the detection of diseases and improve patient care. The San Francisco-based company raised $40 million from CIBC Innovation Banking. [Business Wire]
Augmented reality company Illumix pulled in an $18 million Series A round from LightShed Ventures, Mark Cuban and other investors to enhance its platform. [GlobeNewswire]
Butlr develops heat sensor-based technology for monitoring people activity inside buildings. The company raised $5 million from Qualcomm Ventures. [Built In SF]
