7 OCTOBER | LONDON 2024
SEPTEMBER 12TH - 14TH
The O2, LONDON
Future of Capital Allocation
Your weekly newsletter on the fast-evolving world of investing
AI vs. human investors: Who earns more?
A new class of startups is devoted to disrupting the highly regulated — and often antiqued — platforms used by investors. Would you trust an AI-generated valuation?
Wealth managers are embracing AI, using it for trading, analysis and research. Meanwhile, the US’ Securities and Exchange Commission just approved the first AI-powered investment platform. But AI investors still fall short in one area. Read on for more on AI’s shortcomings — as well as where JP Morgan’s £800 million budget for AI is going and the energy breakthroughs investors should pay attention to.
—Charlie and the Research & Intelligence Team
💸 Fintechs disrupt investing
Capital markets fintechs are revolutionising the tools investors use to manage money. From 74 Strings’ AI valuation software to TreasurySpring’s investing platform, these are the ones to watch.
📉 SEC approves AI investment platform
PortfolioPilot is the first non-human financial advisor to become a registered trader. The platform integrated ChatGPT to make investing more accessible to users.
How AI is transforming investing
🔍 Wealth managers embrace AI
They’re using it for trading, marketing, corporate analysis and customer research. Although AI is changing how wealth managers work, it won’t replace them, the FT argues.
📊 AI vs. human brokers
In an experiment, a machine learning tool outperformed human investing during a bear market and in the early stages of recovery. AI is great at recognising patterns — but still falls short on creative thinking for investment theses.
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Startups
⚡ Energy startups surge
VC-backed energy startups brought in £4.3 billion in revenue in Q2 — their best quarter since 2021. Investors should pay attention to new breakthroughs in nuclear fusion and geothermal energy.
👽 Space startups soar
With its high levels of radiation and microgravity, space offers a unique R&D environment for drugs, chips, conductors and more. In-space manufacturing is forecast to be a £8 billion market by the 2030s.
Jobs
•Senior Partnerships Manager | Volt | London | £70-90k
•Senior Data Scentist, AI | Carousel Consultancy | London | £90-97k
•Chief Financial Officer | Zanda | London | £150-180k
•VC Investor, AI | Merantix | Berlin | £40-55k
•Head of Sales Partnerships | SESAMm | Paris | £60k
•Financial Analyst | Clarity AI | Madrid | £43k
The investment ecosystem
Noteworthy deals
Series A+
•US AI startup Intenseye is in the process of securing new funding that is anticipated to triple its valuation to £236m. The Series B funding round is led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.
•German deeptech startup sewts raised £6m in a Series A round led by Emerald Technology Ventures.
Pre-seed & seed
•Swedish nuclear fusion startup Novatron Fusion Group has raised a £4.3m seed round led by Climentum Capital.
•UK startup Jitty has raised £1.6m to build an AI-powered property search engine from Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI fund.
Undisclosed:
•San Francisco sales tech platform Apollo.io raised a £79m round led by Bain Capital Ventures.
•UK property data and analytics firm Kamma raised £3.6m in a round led by the Clean Growth Fund.