Startup News: Databricks unveils open-source chatbot, Dolly 2.0

Databricks unveils open-source chatbot, Dolly 2.0

Well, hello Dolly 2.0!

That’s the name of data analytics firm Databricks’ latest version of Dolly, a text-generating chatbot comparable to Open AI’s ChatGPT. The release of Dolly 2 comes 12 months after the release of the original Dolly chatbot.

And most importantly, the technology is “open-source,” meaning that it is available for commercial applications without the need to pay for API access. (An API is a set of rules and specifications used to communicate between two applications.)

According to information-technology news site Infoworld, Databricks’ move to release an AI product based on open source can be attributed to demand by companies for controlling the model and using it for targeted or specific use cases in contrast to close loop trained models, such as ChatGPT, that put constraints on commercial usage, analysts said.

Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi told trade publication VentureBeat last week that while there are other large-language model chatbots that can be used for commercial purposes, “they won’t talk to you like Dolly 2.0.” Ghodsi added that users can modify and improve the training data because it is made freely available under an open-source license. The upshot is that developers can make their own versions of Dolly.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Databricks is a provider of data analytics solutions for a variety of companies and other organizations. The company was valued at: $37.89 billion as of August 2021.

AlphaSense gets funding injection from Alphabet’s venture arm

CapitalG, the late-stage venture capital arm of Google-parent Alphabet, is seeking ways to get in on the rise of generative AI technology. And AlphaSense, a market intelligence research platform, is the latest beneficiary of that quest.

Last week, AlphaSense announced that it had received a fresh round of $100 million in funding led by CapitalG. The funding, which values the company at $1.8 billion, follows a $225 million funding round last year.

In its press release announcing the funding, New York City-based AlphaSense said that its latest investment support reflects the rapidly growing adoption of AlphaSense and its AI and search capabilities across 4,000 enterprise customers, which now include the majority of companies in the S&P 500 and nearly all of the world's largest banks.

AlphaSense said that the $100 million investment will help fuel continued deployment of AlphaSense's advanced AI capabilities, including generative AI that speeds up the research process for business and financial professionals.

ID.me receives a fresh funding injection, hires new CFO

Finally, ID.me, the McLean, Virginia-based secure digital identity network, has announced a slew of new developments at the company.

Last week, the company reported that it had raised $132 million in Series D funding, led by Viking Global Investors with participation from CapitalG, Morgan Stanley Counterpoint, FTV Capital, PSP Growth, Auctus Investment Group, Moonshots Capital, and Scout Ventures. The latest round brings the total investment in the company to more than $240 million since its founding in 2010.

The company also announced the appointment of Samantha Greenberg as chief financial officer. Greenberg had prior positions as a portfolio manager with hedge fund giant Citadel and as CFO with Mint House, a tech-forward residential hospitality company.

ID.me also announced a strategic partnership with Carahsoft Technology Corp., a government IT solutions provider. Under the agreement, Carahsoft will serve as ID.me’s Master Government Aggregator, making ID.me’s identity solutions and expansive pre-verified network available to the federal government.