AI Startups: Mergers, Acquisitions, and Regulatory Challenges

Startups are becoming tools for megacaps to acquire talent while avoiding regulatory scrutiny.

### The AI M&A Fakeout: Megacaps Absorb Startups While Skirting Regulation
* ♟️  Startups are increasingly becoming **pawns in the strategic games** of major tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, which are rapidly **absorbing promising AI startups** without outright acquisitions.
* 🤖  Microsoft’s recent **$650 million deal** with Inflection and Amazon’s **$330 million agreement** with Adept highlight how these megacaps are **securing talent and technology** while **avoiding regulatory scrutiny**.
* 📈  Character.AI, once valued at **$1 billion**, has seen significant user engagement but struggled to monetize its services, leading it to partner with Google for talent rather than a **full acquisition**.
* 💰  The trend of licensing deals allows startups to **offload financial pressures**, especially related to costly resources like GPUs, while aligning with **more profitable megacaps**.
* ⚖️  Regulatory bodies, however, are becoming more vigilant; the FTC has opened probes into these deals, questioning whether they are designed to **circumvent antitrust laws**.
* 💼  While these arrangements seem beneficial for founders and investors, many employees are left behind, unable to **share in the rewards** as their companies become **shells of their former selves**.
* 📉  Venture capitalists, who typically seek **high returns**, may find themselves disappointed with the outcomes of these licensing deals as many AI startups struggle to establish **viable business models**.
* 🔍  The landscape of generative AI is shifting, and as regulators catch up, the future of these **pseudo-acquisitions remains uncertain**, raising questions about the **sustainability of the current trend**.

Startups are becoming pawns in the megacap game of chess. Microsoft absorbs Inflection. Big organizational change happening at Microsoft around AI. Amazon consumes Adept. This startup was valued at more than $1 billion. Now, most of the company is now going to Amazon. Google and Character.AI. Three of the biggest tech companies swallowing three of the biggest startups in the AI world without actually acquiring them. The reality is, everywhere you look, we see rapid concentrations. They're quelling competition, poaching top talent, and skirting scrutiny. While regulators are still playing checkers. I'm Deirdre Bosa, and this week on Tech Check, the AI M&A Fakeout. Character.AI was one of the most promising startups in the age of generative AI. Personalized AI. How are thee. Let's get to the bottom of this. Highly engaging. Loyal user base. Somebody who sends one message today is active for, on average, two hours in that

day. $150 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation. Character.AI launched its software last September and has had more than 173 million visits last month. A 61% increase from March. And a founder who pioneered generative AI. When I got started working on these large language models and inventing this field like in 2016 to 2018, like very few people were excited. There was just one problem, the startup couldn't make money, and according to reports, it struggled to generate enough revenue from paid users. Character.AI, billion-dollar valuation. Pre-revenue, very much feels like the 2010 App Store, where you gain a lot of users and kind of figure out the monetization later. So it turned to a well-established money-printing Megacap, Google. Which was happy to cut a deal, especially since it was arguably more interested in the talent than the technology. Character.AI co-founder Noam Shazeer was an author of a groundbreaking paper

that laid the foundation for today's age of AI. It would bring Shazeer back to Google, along with the fifth of his employees and license Character's technology, without having to outright buy the startup in an acquisition. Every person on Earth is going to be inventing their own applications. It's a playbook that skirts the regulatory crackdown on big tech dominance, provides an exit for AI startups struggling to make money, and allows Mega-caps to pick up the talent needed in the AI arms race. There's a very small number of researchers, AI practitioners that operate at the frontier of the technology. There's probably only thousands right now, and the hyperscalers, the megacaps want that talent, and they're looking to get it any way they can. A playbook that Microsoft pioneered. In March, it inked an unusual deal with Inflection, a prominent AI startup with a chatbot to rival ChatGPT's.

Again, not an outright acquisition, just a $650 million agreement that would allow Microsoft to use Inflection's AI models and hire away most of its staff, including founder Mustafa Suleyman, whom they put in charge of its entire AI unit. He co-founded DeepMind back in 2010, that was later acquired by Google. In 2022, he co-founded a company called Inflection. He did that with Reid Hoffman. In June, Amazon and Adept AI struck a deal. Amazon reportedly paid at least $330 million to license Adept's technology, with a $100 million retention bonus to employees who jumped ship. A big cost center for these startups is GPUs, those chips, cloud computing. And what does Amazon have? They've got AWS. They've got the cloud computing side in spades. So if you're a startup and you're looking to partner with one of these companies or do some sort of

licensing deal. You're going to look at one of the big tech companies, likely Amazon, Google, Microsoft. For the Megacap and the startup employees who were hired away, it's a win-win. The founders no longer feel pressured to monetize their business models, being swallowed up by a highly profitable Megacap, that buys some time to build for the longer term. As these founders are looking to scale their companies, they might see headwinds, any number of headwinds. And it could just be that at this point in time, the best home for them is, again, a Megacap. And their cloud computing costs needed to develop gen-AI models running into the hundreds of millions of dollars, they get absorbed by the tech giants that own the infrastructure. We definitely talk to founders that want to develop the best technologies and just have access to GPU resource and not fight for it, and I think that's why you've seen some funds spin up clusters of their

own to give founders access. For the Megacaps, it's a quick and easy way to get the best talent in the field. And that was likely a motivation when Google purchased DeepMind back in 2014, an example of an all-out acquisition that is highly unlikely to get approved today. DeepMind was one of the most prestigious independent AI research labs a decade ago. Google was early and managed to acquire it before gen-AI was even on the radar of regulators. Today, though, AI is squarely in their crosshairs, and Gen AI is the biggest arms race in tech. Gen-AI aside, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Meta, they all have pending cases before the antitrust chiefs of the FTC and the DOJ. Google has already found itself on the losing end, with a federal court ruling that it has a monopoly in the search market and now faces a potential breakup. Big Tech might think they're outsmarting antitrust enforcers and sidestepping scrutiny, but they could be

playing with fire. The regulators of today, they do have a few moves up their sleeves. They're more agile and aggressive than ever. The FTC has already opened an antitrust probe into Microsoft's deal with Inflection, investigating whether Microsoft's structured that deal to gain control of the startup while also dodging review. And the agency has also launched an informal inquiry into the Amazon Adept deal. Even Congress has taken notice, with three U.S. Senators calling for an investigation. Lina Khan and others have looked at it. It's not that there's been wholesale mergers of these things, but even the partnerships unto themselves. Their main concern isn't just whether or not the acquisition happened on a technical level. At this moment, AI is a nascent technology that could catalyze enormous growth and innovation. There's enormous opportunity here for a vibrant market, but we also see risk. We see risk of consolidation. We see risk of monopolization.

It's whether or not the act is ultimately anti-competitive, especially in a nascent growing space where having competition is key to making sure that there's innovation, instead of the same incumbent behemoths getting ever larger and more powerful. Because, yes, Megacaps, they aren't swallowing startups whole. They're leaving behind a shell of a company and some of its employees still functioning, but not competitive. Which also brings into sharp relief just who gets left holding the bag. On the surface, these deals seem like a win-win, but there are employees and investors who are left behind. In the Adept deal, for example, Amazon only hired away the AI researchers, according to the New York Times. The teams working on product, sales, and other areas weren't so lucky. They don't reap any of the rewards that their former colleagues do. A new cushier gig, at a proven, big corporation without the desperate search for viable revenue.

Instead, they're left trying to find a way to piece together a new business without its top talent. In a number of deals of this type, the remaining company still has access to the IP that's been created, and certainly enough resources as part of the transaction to continue to hire talent and build upon that IP. Then there's the VC money that initially founded those startups, those that backed Character.AI, Adept, and Inflection. They're being made whole, or almost whole, through licensing deals. But it is a far cry from the returns they were looking for. Typically, VCs bet on bigger payoffs. A minimum of 5 to 10 times rate of return is considered a benchmark for success. One insider, who wanted to remain anonymous, tells me that there could be more of these types of deals to come, noting that there are many more overvalued AI startups that have yet to find viable business

models. Cohere, for example, is another still independent gen-AI darling that was recently valued at more than $5 billion. It reportedly has less than $25 million in annualized revenue. A lifeline from a Megacap, that could be a welcome development as the pressure to monetize builds. But as regulators get wise to the pseudo acquisition, will Big Tech be willing to tempt them with more deals? Or will the AI unicorns be left to fend for themselves as the big get bigger? However it plays out, the AI M&A fakeout has changed the landscape for generative AI.

How Google, Microsoft And Amazon Are Raiding AI Startups For Talent

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Startups Caught in the Megacap Power Play

Tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are rapidly absorbing major AI startups, causing a concentration of power in the industry.

AI, a promising startup with a $1 billion valuation, struggled to generate revenue and ultimately turned to Google for a deal.

The aggressive talent poaching and strategic partnerships are raising concerns about competition and regulatory scrutiny.

Shazeer is returning to Google with a portion of his employees and licensing Character's technology, avoiding a direct acquisition.

This strategy aims to address the talent shortage in AI, with megacaps like Microsoft and Amazon also using similar deals to hire key personnel from struggling startups.

The partnerships focus on licensing technology and offering retention bonuses, leveraging the resources of companies like Amazon to support AI startups.

The Impact of Megacaps on Startup Founders

Megacap tech companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are providing a win-win situation for startup founders by offering financial stability and resources to scale their businesses.

The high cost of cloud computing for developing gen-AI models is driving founders to seek support from these tech giants.

However, the increasing scrutiny and antitrust cases against these Megacaps may complicate their dominance in the tech industry.

Regulators Take Action Against Tech Giants' AI Deals

Regulators are becoming more agile and aggressive, with the FTC opening antitrust probes into Microsoft's deal with Inflection and launching an inquiry into Amazon's Adept deal.

There is concern about the risk of consolidation and monopolization in the nascent AI industry, which could hinder competition and innovation.

The impact of these deals is not uniform, leaving some employees and investors behind while benefiting others, raising questions about the true winners in these transactions.

AI startups are struggling to rebuild without their top talent, but remaining companies still have access to their IP and resources for hiring.

VC investors are being made whole through licensing deals, but these returns fall short of their typical 5 to 10 times rate of return benchmark.

The landscape for generative AI is changing, with more overvalued startups like Cohere facing pressure to monetize and potentially seeking lifelines from larger companies.