Amazon’s huge AI investment | Fuse raises $250M fund

Meet the Seattle-area startups from Y Combinator’s latest cohort ADVERTISEMENT [GeekWire]( SPONSOR MESSAGE: The GeekWire Summit returns October 19th! We're assembling some of the top names in artificial intelligence for the half-day summit, taking place in downtown Seattle: [Get your tickets today!]( TODAY'S TOP STORIES Welcome to a new week, GeekWire readers. VC firm Fuse pulled in a major chunk of cash, Costco is getting deeper into healthcare, and we profiled recent Y Combinator grads. Up top, Amazon makes a big bet on an AI startup. Amazon is investing up to $4 billion in Anthropic, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence startup that is considered one of the world’s top AI labs. - In its race to keep up with Microsoft and Google, Amazon will take a minority stake in Anthropic, which makes large-scale AI models and a chatbot called Claude. The startup will make Amazon Web Services its main cloud provider. - "There is absolutely no doubt that generative AI looks like it’s going to be an explosive additional source of growth in the years ahead,” AWS CEO Adam Selipsky told Bloomberg this morning. - Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dr. Dario Amodei (above) previously led OpenAI’s engineering and policy team. [Read more.]( Fuse raises $250 million fund: The venture capital firm will use the cash haul — one of the largest funds ever raised by a VC firm firm in the Seattle region — to support early stage enterprise software startups across the Pacific Northwest. [Read more.]( Meet the Seattle area’s Y Combinator grads: Four startups are tackling a wide range of problems, and many are using AI to do it. [Learn about the companies.]( Costco makes healthcare push: The Seattle-area retail giant is partnering with a New York startup to offer members primary care and mental health services, joining others including Amazon that are investing in the sector. [Read more](. Hot Links: - Getty Images created an AI image generator that relies on the Seattle company’s vast library of photographic content. ([The Verge]( - Move over Alexa and Siri, OpenAI’s ChatGPT can now talk. And it can respond to uploaded images. ([The New York Times]( - Seattle leads all major cities when it comes to the share of residents working in tech jobs. ([The Seattle Times]( - Snap is partnering with Microsoft for the ads connected to a My AI, a chatbot introduced previously for Snapchat users. ([Tech Crunch]( - Microsoft is looking for nuclear tech experts that can help figure out how to power its data centers. ([CNBC]( Thanks for [subscribing]( to the GeekWire newsletter, and have a great week. — GeekWire managing editor Taylor Soper, taylor@geekwire.com; and GeekWire reporter Kurt Schlosser, kurt@geekwire.com. SPONSOR MESSAGE [IT Degrees—Certs Included]( Many IT jobs require at least a bachelor’s degree, plus multiple certifications. The cost of certification exams can be overwhelming if you’re paying for them out of pocket. At WGU, we include relevant industry-recognized certifications in our IT degree programs. Earn an IT degree that prepares you for your career with certifications from the likes of AWS, CompTIA, Cisco, and more included in the cost of your program. Learn More at [WGU.edu/IT](. LATEST HEADLINES [Costco to offer healthcare services through partnership with New York startup]( [Hydrogen fuel startup spins out of Bill Gates-backed R&D effort, lands $7.8M]( [Fuse raises $250M for its second fund to supercharge more Pacific Northwest startups]( [Meet the Seattle-area startups that just graduated from Y Combinator]( [Amazon pours up to $4B into AI startup Anthropic, escalating rivalry with Microsoft and Google]( [NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe delivers sample of asteroid — and moves on to next target]( [Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Sept. 17, 2023]( [‘Six Days in Fallujah’ game, developed in Seattle, recreates paranoia of urban conflict zones]( GEEKWORK: TODAY'S TECH JOBS - [INRIX: Product Marketing Manager, Public Sector]( - [Submittable: Senior Machine Learning Scientist]( - [Submittable: Senior Software Engineering Manager]( - [INRIX: Lead Software Engineer]( - [Submittable: Senior Software Engineer (Back End) – Data]( - [GeekWork: Senior Backend Engineer]( - [Submittable: Senior Software Engineer (Backend) – Employee Engagement]( - [Submittable: Staff Front End Software Engineer – Employee Engagement]( - [Submittable: Senior Product Pricing Strategist]( - [City of Portland Water Bureau: Technology Manager]( [FIND MORE JOBS ON GEEKWORK]( [HIRING? BUY A FEATURED LISTING TO APPEAR HERE]( [About GeekWire]( [Contact Us]( [Advertise]( Copyright © 2023 GeekWire LLC, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted to receive emails from GeekWire LLC.  Our mailing address is: GeekWire LLC 123 NW 36th St, Suite 203 Seattle, WA 98107  [change email frequency or address]( | [unsubscribe](