Happy Friday. Welcome to The Chaos Coordinator! We are Brain Candy's snarky little sister, delivering carefully curated news happening across the industry (that you should probably care about) right to your inbox, with a hefty dose of irreverence.
In this issue, we dive into:
Perpetual Capital
Government Shut Down
Databricks
ChatGPT
New York Fashion Week
What's happening in.....
PE/VC
Forever. Forever? Forever Ever. Forever Ever?
Perpetual capital lends a helping hand to private equity.
According to Pitchbook, some of the largest private equity managers, such as Blackstone, Apollo and KKR, saw their assets under management grow this year. In the face of an industry-wide slowdown in fundraising, what pushed the growth? Two words: perpetual capital. Perpetual capital, or investment funds with an indefinite life and flexible exit timelines, have become an important funding source fueling the assets under management growth in these market giants, reports Pitchbook. At the end of Q2 2023, "perpetual capital in the hands of seven publicly-traded private equity giants surged by 13.2% year-over-year, totaling around $1.2 trillion," states the US Public PE and GP Deal Roundup, a rise of nearly 10%. Among these listed managers, Blue Owl reported the fastest increase in perpetual capital—a 24% increase over a 12-month period ending in June.
What will a government shut down mean for markets?
Unless Congress finds a way to get along align on a number of issues and approve 12 separate bills funding federal agencies before the fiscal year ends on September 30, it appears the US government is heading towards an indefinite golf vacation shut down. Proposed spending cuts, restoring expired corporate tax reductions, and expanding the child tax credit are a few of the hurdles lawmakers must figure out how to jump before October 1. While the Biden Administration has urged Congress to pass a "continuing resolution" to temporarily maintain current government operations, the likely shut down could still result in federal employee furloughs and disruptions to essential programs like food and childcare assistance. Following a recent debt-ceiling standoff, there's concern about how ongoing government uncertainty might impact the economy and markets. Investors are watching carefully and they have questions.
On Thursday morning, Databricks, a prominent player in the data and AI sector, announced a successful funding round, securing an impressive $500 million from a combination of venture capitalists, crossover capital funds, and strategic investors. This latest infusion of funds now places Databricks at a valuation of $43 billion, a significant increase from its previous private valuation of $38 billion in 2021. Given the excitement for all things AI-related, the new funds are not a surprise to the tech market. The most recent funding round was a bit more than a mere cash infusion, TechCrunch reports, as it included several strategic investors, including Nvidia, who has seen demand for AI-related computing power its own profitability in recent quarters.
As Databricks continues to bring in more capital, a competitive AI market has started to heat up. Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi sat down with TechCrunch to talk investment, its plans for AI, growth, the current market and more. Check it out here.
GENERATIVE AI
ChatGPT Traffic Slips for Three Straight Months
However, back to school = back to homework = back to the chat bot.
Before Meta’s Threads launch, OpenAI's ChatGPT was the fastest growing consumer application ever, quickly becoming one of the top 30 websites in the world. However, the artificial intelligence chatbot, officially launched in November 2022, saw monthly website visits decline for the third month in a row in August, according to analytics firm Similarweb. Despite the decline, there are signs that the summer slump is coming to an end. While desktop and mobile visits, along with time spent of the website, decreased in August, worldwide unique visitors ticked up to 180.5 million users compared to the 180 million visitors in July. School coming back into session towards the end of August may have played a helping hand - "Students seeking homework help appears to be part of the story: the percentage of younger users of the website dropped over the summer and is now starting to bounce back," said David F. Carr of Similarweb.
Let New York Fashion Week be a lesson that influencers are not always the solution.
Once known as "the destination at the forefront of shaping culture, trends, and the evolution of American fashion," Fall's 2023 New York Fashion Week traded glitz and glamour for chaos and commotion, as influencers took over the scene and intruders crashed the runways, leaving many industry legacies with a lot to say. Internet celebrities joined the ranks of supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Emily Ratajkowski in walking the event’s runways. At Creators Inc.’s show, a man dressed in a plastic shower curtain and shower cap walked down the runway before appearing to be tackled by security guards to remove him from the stage. “They got mad cuz it was the best design of the collection,” a viewer commented on TikTok. “Fashion Week is dead,” said Taylor Hawkins, a model and digital creator, in another TikTok video. “Just because somebody has a lot of followers does not mean that they need to be at Fashion Week events. Imma say it. A lot of y’all can’t dress.” Comments poured in underneath Hawkins' post, most viewers agreeing and sharing their thoughts about the decline of the week long event, many claiming that NYFW has lost its allure because it’s arguably not as exclusive as other Fashion Weeks, becoming too accessible.
Did influencers ruin Fashion Week? Read more here.
