Khosla Ventures, led by Indian American billionaire Vinod Khosla, participated in major funding rounds for Genie AI, Even Healthcare, and OpenAI, bolstering its position as a leader in disruptive innovation.
October has been a spending month for Khosla Ventures. Founded by Indian American Vinod Khosla in 2004, Khosla Ventures rose to be a key player in the investment landscape.
On October 23, Khosla Ventures announced its participation in funding rounds for startups Genie AI and Even Healthcare.
Legal tech startup Genie AI secured a $17.8 million in Series A funding from Google and Khosla Ventures. The London-based startup bills itself as an AI-powered legal assistant for reviewing legal documents quickly and efficiently. The latest round of funding, which the startup plans to use to expand to the U.S., amounts the firm’s total funding to around $20 million.
Bangalore-based startup Even Healthcare announced this week that it has raised $30 million in a funding round led by Khosla Ventures. The healthcare startup, which offers unlimited free consultations, diagnostic tests and cashless hospitalization to its members, saw participation from other U.S.-based investors such as Founders Fund, 8VC and Lachy Groom.
Roughly two weeks ago, Khosla Ventures was part of a major investment – backing OpenAI with $405 million of the $6.6 billion funding round. The investment made Khosla’s stake in the ChatGPT maker to be at least 6%. However, this wasn’t the investment firm’s first stint with OpenAI which was valued at $157 billion after its recent funding. A returning investor, Khosla Ventures previously invested $50 million in the AI company in 2019.
Khosla Ventures also participated in wealth management firm Farther’s Series C funding round that raised $75 million last week.
READ: Vinod Khosla slams Musk’s OpenAI case as ‘sour grapes’ (March 5, 2024)
Right before the start of October, Loti AI raised nearly $7 million in a seed funding round with additional investment from Khosla Ventures. Loti AI leverages advanced AI to combat deepfakes and other unauthorized content on the internet.
All these investments make Khosla a standout investor among the VCs, particularly in the Indian American subset. In fact, Khosla Ventures ranked first in the Founder’s Choice VC in 2023; the list included more than 200 venture capital firms.
Trailblazing entrepreneur, Khosla finds himself a strong advocate of disruptive innovation which right now appears to be AI. In September, Vinod took to publishing a 10,000-word essay on the broader societal impact of AI, detailing the dystopian versus utopian views of AI.
During his 2024 TED talk, he emphasized the transformative power of AI, predicting that most expertise, such as primary healthcare and education, will become nearly free due to AI advancements.
“I estimate that 80% of 80% of all jobs, maybe more, can be done by an AI,” Khosla predicted.
“Be it primary care doctors, psychiatrists, sales people, oncologists, farm workers or assembly line workers, structural engineers, chip designers, you name it.”
READ: Parag Agrawal’s AI startup secures $30 million funding, Khosla Ventures leads investment (January 9, 2024)
Prior to establishing Khosla Ventures, billionaire entrepreneur Vinod Khosla co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982. A Silicon Valley pioneer, Vinod made his wealth from early venture capital investments in disruptive technologies in clean energy, healthcare and biotech. In 2021, Vinod was ranked 92nd on the Forbes 400 list which he initially entered in 2014.
Vinod Khosla boasts degrees from prestigious universities: a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from IIT Delhi, a master’s in biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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Khosla Ventures’ October investment surge: A tech and healthcare power play
