what do jon lajoie, babies, and pugs have to do with one another?
Happy day-of-recognizing-growth-of-AI-companies-ready-to-hire-someone-like-you to those who celebrate
Howdy!
Everyone hiring in today’s newsletter is an AI company with a fresh series A. It’s not all genAI either. Lots of goodies in here.
xoxo / ❤️
Jordan
Company Spotlight: Hedra
Today’s hero company is Hedra, which is making ultra-high-quality, character-based content creation accessible (the video above is a viral video created by Jon Lajoie using Hedra!). Hedra’s genAI allows users to hi-fi create video, images, and audio with a few clicks. Case in point: Look at me!
This buzzy startup has had investors all atwitter since it first appeared in 2024. And, last week, Hedra announced its $32M Series A after emerging from stealth less than a year ago. That brings its total backing to $44M.
The platform’s 3 million users include comedians and Fortune 500 companies. The company is wildly efficient too. Its character-3 model was built for less than $2 million.
Hedra will likely be the first to lead us out of the horrifying uncanny valley where character-generating AI has been living for far too long.
They’re hiring in New York and SF.
Straight-A Job Opportunities
Loti lets public figures (self-appointed and otherwise) track their voice and likeness across the internet. Loti announced their $16.2 million Series A in April, and they’re ready to make someone’s dream come true: Finally, one lucky job seeker will be able to call themself a Likeness Tokenomics Strategist. Check out all of Loti’s U.S.-based remote jobs here.
Eudia is an augmented intelligence AI platform for legal teams. Law remains one of the most fertile industries for AI applications. See: This company raised a super-duper juicy $105 million series A. Hiring now in California and India.
Exowatt is a solar energy company that captures, stores, and dispatches energy to power data centers—the energy stack of the future. Exowatt is currently charged up by a $70 million Series A, and they’re hiring in Austin and Miami.
HR tech is hugely ripe for AI. As HR and recruiting teams do more with less, companies are investing heavily in AI-powered tech to increase productivity. Listen Labs is among the buzziest players. Backed by a $27 million series A, they’re currently hiring in SF.
Still sizzling from its $20 million series A raise, Unblocked’s AI platform that answers dev questions about code has cool Vancouver jobs open now.
Reflection AI is an agentic and autonomous coding system. Their $130 million series A is almost as sexy as their ultra-minimalist website. Now hiring in SF, NYC, London, and Paris. Très chic. 🧑🏽🎨 (Scroll to the bottom of that page to see open roles.)
Freed is an AI scribe for clinicians that cuts down on tedious documentation and doctors’ notoriously terrible handwriting. They announced their $30 million Series A in March, and they’re currently hiring in NYC and SF.
SchoolAI customizes learning experiences for students with personalized instruction and learning gap analysis. They announced their $25 million series A in April and are now hiring for remote and in-person jobs across the US.
Cartesia builds high-fidelity voice clones and realistic voice AI models in 15 languages. With their $64 million series A, the company is now hiring at their SF HQ and scaling up in Bangalore, India.
The zombiecorns are back
As overall VC funding slows with the economy (that’s normal), a report from Silicon Valley Bank out Tuesday warns that “zombiecorns” are rising again from their graves. That is, companies with $1 billion valuation tearing through cash with little growth to show for it.
While this might technically be true, VCs remain enthusiastic about companies that have something really novel to offer. See: all those companies above. So, go get ’em, tiger… er, Shaun?
TobyTalks (expert advice on landing that next j.o.b.)
Next time you’re using AI to augment your job applications, try this prompt from Hilary Gridley, head of core product at WHOOP.
My favorite prompt in the world, is, I will say… “Be 100x more specific.”
Preaching to a choir of engineers
Apple’s senior director of engineering gave an interview to First Round Review which proves that he actually gets it, touting the importance of “Wolf Time.” He argues that 29% of time should be spent on creative work that can’t really be explained to a manager. IYKYK.
😘 Thanks for reading—what else do you want to see here? Just hit reply or the comment button.
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