A new trend for Seed VCs, and the scariest part about OpenAI's data breach

Equity

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4.2 • 365 Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2024

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On today's episode of Equity, Becca's taking a look at news you might've missed over the holiday weekend here in the U.S., starting with the recent OpenAI security breach. While it doesn't seem that people have to be too worried about what the hackers actually accessed, the fact that it happened is worth paying attention to. TechCrunch's Devin Coldeway argues that AI companies are treasure troves of data and will likely become more of a target for hackers. Companies that work with the large AI companies should pay attention. We also had an update on Fisker’s slide into bankruptcy. The EV startup, that you've already heard about on Equity, had a new update this week. The company asked its bankruptcy judge for permission to sell its remaining inventory for $14,000 a vehicle, a noticeable drop from the $70,000 Fisker was initially asking for. This has some fearing that this chapter 11 bankruptcy could turn into a chapter 7. To close out, we looked at a new trend of venture funds helping seed investors exercise their pro rata rights and avoid their equity stake being diluted. This is interesting because while it could be good for smaller funds to have a way to maintain their equity stakes, pro rata rights discussions can get contentious and bringing more capital to the table won't necessarily help that. Equity will be back on Wednesday with an interesting conversation between Mary Ann and angel investor and Floodgate Co-Founder, Mike Maples Jr, so we’ll talk to you then!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome back to Equity Tech Grunches flagship podcast about the business of
0:15.1	startups. Today is July 8th, 2024. I'm Becca Scutak and this is our Monday show where we take a
0:21.2	look at the weekend and get you ready for the week ahead.
0:24.0	We're coming off the July 4th holiday weekend and are ready to get back into it.
0:28.1	While you may have been off last week, Equity was here, so make sure you go check
0:31.4	out Kirsten's interview with VC John McNeil.
0:34.0	But first, today's show. Today we're going to be talking about an update on Fisker's bankruptcy,
0:39.2	what Open AI's data breach means for people working with AI startups and CEDVC are now turning to new
0:45.3	pro rata funds.
0:46.9	All sounds pretty interesting so let's get started. First up today we have an update on a story we've been tracking for quite a while now and that would be Fiskers slide into bankruptcy.
0:59.4	The update this week is that Fisker asks its bankruptcy court to sell its EVs at an average of $14,000 each, a little bit lower than the $70,000 starting price, many of them once were asking for.
1:11.0	Now we told you late last month that after months of
1:13.7	product issues, recalls, and lawsuits the EV startup founded by famed designer
1:18.0	Henric Fisker had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company has
1:22.3	an estimated assets of $500 to $1 billion and
1:25.4	liabilities of between $100 million and $500 million according to the filings which
1:29.8	are some pretty large ranges if you think about it.
1:33.0	Also according to the court documents,
1:34.6	Fisker reported between 200 and 999 creditors,
1:38.8	another big range, including SAP, Adobe, Salesforce, and Ances.
1:44.0	Last week, Fisker announced that it had a willing buyer for its remaining inventory of all electric
1:48.6	ocean SUVs and has asked its Delaware bankruptcy court judge overseeing the case to approve the sale.
	...

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