External News

Hollywood writers fear losing work to AI

"Chun Xia is a founding partner of Silicon Valley-based technology investment firm TSVC. He envisages a future where sitcom writers use AI-generated scripts as a foundation for further development", quoted in this BBC report on Hollywood writers strike.

Red Hat’s code restrictions draw mostly sympathetic response from open-source providers

Over the 30 years of its existence, Red Hat Inc. has cultivated a nice-guy image for its practice of releasing all the fruits of its software development efforts as open-source code for anyone to use. But over the past three weeks that image has taken a hit. Although the company’s action may be inconsistent with the spirit of open source, “it’s also been nearly 40 years since the GNU Project was founded and the world has changed in that time,” said Spencer Greene, general partner of venture capital firm TSVC Management LLC, referring to the free software movement that goes by the recursive acronym “GNU’s Not Unix.”

How Early Zoom Investor TSVC Finds ‘Defensible’ Seed Startups To Back

The rapid deployment of AI across industries in recent months suits the longtime talents of TSVC, a seed investor in deep tech companies where AI coupled with domain expertise has led to breakthroughs...

Zūm’s Path to Product-Market Fit — How The Student Transportation Company Found Product-Market Fit Twice

Zūm co-founder Ritu Narayan tells the story of how her transportation company found product-market fit in both B2C and B2B. TSVC invested in Zum's seed round in 2016.

AI chatbots lose money every time you use them

"This cost of operating the systems is so high that companies aren't deploying their best versions to public". TSVC invested in AI chip startup d-matrix and it was mentioned in this article.

Washington Post

LEADOPTIK Raises $5 Million in Series Seed Funding to Advance Early Lung Cancer Detection with Cutting-Edge Imaging Technology

LEADOPTIK Inc., a Silicon Valley-based medical imaging company today announced that it has raised $5 million in an oversubscribed series seed funding, led by MetaVC Partners with participation from SOSV, Sony Innovation Fund, TSVC, ENEA, Arash Ferdowsi (co-founder of Dropbox), Ray Muzyka (co-founder of BioWare), and others.

Bandai Namco Entertainment Invests in DeepMotion To Pioneer New Forms of Entertainment with AI Motion Technology

DeepMotion (a TSVC portfolio), a leader in AI motion generation technology, announced today that Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. has decided to invest in DeepMotion Inc. to create new entertainment and build its "IP (characters and other intellectual properties) Metaverse”.

February 9, 2023

THE BUZZY APP INSPIRED BY POLYVORE AND HIGH-FASHION TWITTER

Beyond mood-boarding, Reverie wants to build an online community and open up who has access to fashion. TSVC portfolio Revery featured at Fashionista

February 1, 2023

TSVC Spencer Greene at Bloomberg Tech TV on Jan. 23, 2023

Spencer Greene, a General Partner at TSVC, spoke on Bloomberg Tech TV about the potential silver lining of the layoffs 2023 for seed stage venture capital firms like TSVC and new startups. He highlighted the opportunity that downturns present, citing TSVC's investment in Zoom as the first institutional investor in 2011 as an example of successful investment during a downturn.

December 29, 2022

The fintech reckoning is upon us. Here’s what to expect next year

Many private companies created in recent years had one central assumption: low interest rates forever, according to TSVC partner Spencer Greene.

December 15, 2022

Primer for Web Assembly-The Dawn of a New Epoch for Cloud Computing

TSVC investment team spent some time poking into WebAssembly: an evolving foundational technology that is finding a home in every layer of the cloud technology stack and becoming not only the future infrastructure for cloud-native computing but also a de facto solution across most languages.

December 5, 2022

Early Venture Capitalist Investor In Zoom With A 200x Return Offers His Views On The Future Of The Startup Space

Venture capitalist and early-stage investor Eugene Zhang was in the right place at the right time. His firm, TSVC, was the first institutional investor in the initial round of funding for Zoom in 2011. Its check for $250,000 garnered a 200x return...Despite his success, Zhang is realistic, leaning toward being somewhat pessimistic about the near-term future of startups...

November 17, 2022

Venture capital investors see an ‘R’ word coming for tech — and it isn’t just recession

Tech-startup investors expect a big 'reset' that creates 'a two-year period of both pain and opportunity,' with money still flowing to early-stage startups while older ventures face an uneasy road. Eugene Zhang, founding partner of TSVC, had some advice for young tech workers and those new to the industry, who may not have been through its ups and downs yet.

October 18, 2022

Cyberdontics raises $15M for robotic root canals

“If you’ve had something like a root canal, a crown or any of these types of procedures, where you’re spending an hour or two in the dentist’s chair and you’re spending multiple trips to go back and get it fixed,” he explains, “the idea that you can literally have this robot in your mouth for under one minute and you can be out the door 15 minutes later, is a game changer. For people that really don’t like the dentist, this is a really attractive way to get in and out a lot faster.”

September 23, 2022

What is AI hardware? How GPUs and TPUs give artificial intelligence algorithms a boost

Featuring our portfolio company d-Matrix by Peter Wayner at VentureBeat regarding our one-of-a-kind AI computing platform that delivers best-in-class economics for AI inference acceleration in the datacenter.

September 22, 2022

What Venture Capitalists Look for in A Pitch

"It's always about the team, we measure background, passion, dedication, and leadership, among other elements, and make a call on the team" from Eugene Zhang - TSVC 's founding partner's interview with Abdullah Idris from Financegeek along with Frank Willemsen from Sand Hill Angels, Benjamin Ling from Bling Capital and Jean Hammond from CP Ventures.

August 17, 2022

On acquisitions, Beltway and tech talk past each other

As our general partner - Spencer Greene told Axios: There just isn't any case to be made for antitrust enforcement being a problem for startup investors. If you cut off one of the options among the many, then you make it marginally less attractive. But in exchange for that, if it also encourages competition, then on balance it may actually be good for innovation and for investment.

August 11, 2022

Zoom investor tells startup founders: ‘Forget the past three years’ and accept 50% valuation hit

From CNBC today featuring our founding partner Eugene Zhang and general partner Spencer Greene's thoughts on the current deep cut on startup valuation. The painful adjustment rippling through Silicon Valley is a lesson in how much luck and timing can affect the life of a startup – and the wealth of founders.

August 10, 2022

H2U Technologies could revolutionize PEM electrolyzers

Rethink Technology Research's overview of our AI driven Catalyst Discovery Engine (CDE) for our portfolio company H2U Technologies, Inc. and how it could be a game-changer in the Green Hydrogen quest to optimize costs and volume capabilities.

The world is growing old at a rapid pace. Here are ways to invest for a gray future

Featured by CNBC today, a key theme for TSCV investments is innovations to address impending labor shortages to battle the gray future. Our team has invested in start-ups that use AI to automate precision manufacturing for electronics and self-driving technology for long-haul trucks. Another is helping improve efficiency in healthcare processes.