Startups have to be clever when fighting larger rivals
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. You won't find any Founder Mode discourse in this week's newsletter, although the memes keep coming. Instead, here's your usual dose of startup news, from oversized rounds, to pivots, to new product launches.
The Challenge of Fighting Larger Rivals
When facing bigger rivals, startups often have to be clever on how to fight. There's no right answer, which explains why many change their mind along the way when they don't get a lucky break.
Brighter sky: X's shutdown in Brazil is benefiting rival social network Bluesky, which saw a massive influx of newcomers since last weekend. This was particularly noticeable, as it's still much smaller than Meta's Threads and its 200 million monthly active users.
Strategic Moves
Chat battle: Anthropic launched Claude Enterprise, a subscription plan for businesses interested in using its AI chatbot, but with admin tools and more security safeguards. It will compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT Enterprise.
Thrown towel: Not long after it raised a $500 million Series B round, German AI startup Aleph Alpha is pivoting away from the LLM fight and into AI support with the launch of a new product called PhariaAI.
Still kicking: NightCafe doesn't get as much publicity as rival Midjourney, but its AI-powered art creation tools have over 25 million users. This also translates into earnings; a source told TechCrunch that NightCafe makes $4 million in annualized revenue.
Innovation and Differentiation
More funding is another way to try to get ahead of competitors, but so are differentiation, innovation and going for new markets.
Three months later: Safe Superintelligence (SSI), the mere-months-old startup co-founded by Ilya Sutskever of OpenAI fame, has raised over $1 billion, reportedly at a $5 billion valuation.
