Tootfinder

PitchBook: AI startups received 53% of all global VC dollars invested in H1 2025, rising to 64% in the US, and accounted for 29% of all global startups funded (Dan Primack/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/03/ai-startups-vc-investments

AI is eating venture capital, or at least its dollars
AI startups received 53% of all global VC dollars invested in the first half of 2025.

De-AntiFake: Rethinking the Protective Perturbations Against Voice Cloning Attacks
Wei Fan, Kejiang Chen, Chang Liu, Weiming Zhang, Nenghai Yu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.02606

De-AntiFake: Rethinking the Protective Perturbations Against Voice Cloning Attacks
The rapid advancement of speech generation models has heightened privacy and security concerns related to voice cloning (VC). Recent studies have investigated disrupting unauthorized voice cloning by introducing adversarial perturbations. However, determined attackers can mitigate these protective perturbations and successfully execute VC. In this study, we conduct the first systematic evaluation of these protective perturbations against VC under realistic threat models that include perturbatio…

StarVC: A Unified Auto-Regressive Framework for Joint Text and Speech Generation in Voice Conversion
Fengjin Li, Jie Wang, Yadong Niu, Yongqing Wang, Meng Meng, Jian Luan, Zhiyong Wu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02414

StarVC: A Unified Auto-Regressive Framework for Joint Text and Speech Generation in Voice Conversion
Voice Conversion (VC) modifies speech to match a target speaker while preserving linguistic content. Traditional methods usually extract speaker information directly from speech while neglecting the explicit utilization of linguistic content. Since VC fundamentally involves disentangling speaker identity from linguistic content, leveraging structured semantic features could enhance conversion performance. However, previous attempts to incorporate semantic features into VC have shown limited eff…

Source: Chime's IPO is expected to price at ~$11B, down from its $25B private valuation in 2021; every VC-backed IPO in the past 12 months has been a down round (Cory Weinberg/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/every-vc-ba…

Every VC-Backed IPO in the Past 12 Months Has Been a Down Round
When banking app Chime goes public next month, it will mark the eighth straight venture capital–backed initial public offering in the past 12 months to be valued less than it was in private fundraising rounds. Chime, for instance, was valued at $25 billion in 2021, but its bankers have been ...

PseudoVC: Improving One-shot Voice Conversion with Pseudo Paired Data
Songjun Cao, Qinghua Wu, Jie Chen, Jin Li, Long Ma
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01039 h…

PseudoVC: Improving One-shot Voice Conversion with Pseudo Paired Data
As parallel training data is scarce for one-shot voice conversion (VC) tasks, waveform reconstruction is typically performed by various VC systems. A typical one-shot VC system comprises a content encoder and a speaker encoder. However, two types of mismatches arise: one for the inputs to the content encoder during training and inference, and another for the inputs to the speaker encoder. To address these mismatches, we propose a novel VC training method called \textit{PseudoVC} in this paper. …

ReFlow-VC: Zero-shot Voice Conversion Based on Rectified Flow and Speaker Feature Optimization
Pengyu Ren, Wenhao Guan, Kaidi Wang, Peijie Chen, Qingyang Hong, Lin Li
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01032

ReFlow-VC: Zero-shot Voice Conversion Based on Rectified Flow and Speaker Feature Optimization
In recent years, diffusion-based generative models have demonstrated remarkable performance in speech conversion, including Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models (DDPM) and others. However, the advantages of these models come at the cost of requiring a large number of sampling steps. This limitation hinders their practical application in real-world scenarios. In this paper, we introduce ReFlow-VC, a novel high-fidelity speech conversion method based on rectified flow. Specifically, ReFlow-VC…

This was really interesting. It's about Topaz AI, which was a denoising/upscaling solution I looked at about nine months ago, and rejected because I wasn't really prepared to make the investment at that stage ($300/yr) https://mstdn.social/@Onmyom/114779996030982643…

This is exactly what I was afraid of when #laravel took VC money.
https://hachyderm.io/@j3j5/114784445289560905

Eu comentando num grupo "Caramba, o Flamengo estš ganhando de 5 a 0! E eu estava trabalhando aqui, nem lembrei que tinha jogo hoje."
A resposta do meu amigo: "Jš acabou. Mas agora que vc descobriu, o Juiz vai mandar voltar a bola pra um terceiro tempo e o Fortaleza vai virar pra 6 a 5!"
Sim, é esse o nível da minha fama de pé-frio rs.

VC-dimension of generalized progressions in some nonabelian groups
Gabriel Conant, Aycin Iplikci Arodirik, Tora Ozawa, David Zeng
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.21789

VC-dimension of generalized progressions in some nonabelian groups
We analyze generalized progressions in some nonabelian groups using a measure of complexity called VC-dimension, which was originally introduced in statistical learning theory by Vapnik and Chervonenkis. Here by a "generalized progression" in a group $G$, we mean a finite subset of $G$ built from a fixed set of generators in analogy to a (multidimensional) arithmetic progression of integers. These sets play an important role in additive combinatorics and, in particular, the study of approximate…

Avatars and Environments for Meetings in Social VR: What Styles and Choices Matter to People in Group Creativity Tasks?
Anya Osborne, Sabrina Fielder, Lee Taber, Tara Lamb, Joshua McVeigh-Schultz, Katherine Isbister
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.21780

Avatars and Environments for Meetings in Social VR: What Styles and Choices Matter to People in Group Creativity Tasks?
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many professional entities shifted toward remote collaboration and video conferencing (VC) tools. Social virtual reality (VR) platforms present an alternative to VC for meetings and collaborative activities. Well-crafted social VR environments could enhance feelings of co-presence and togetherness at meetings, helping reduce the need for carbon-intensive travel to face-to-face meetings. This research contributes to creating meeting tools in VR by exploring the effe…

On the a16z podcast, Bryan Kim said a16z backed Cluely because speed in marketing and building beats crafting a perfect "artisan" product due to AI competition (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/202…

Why a16z VC believes that Cluely, the ‘cheat on everything’ startup, is the new blueprint for AI startups | TechCrunch
Andreessen Horowitz explains why its new investment philosophy prioritizes 'build as you go' approach embodied by Cluely

Relativistic Deformation of Geometry through Function C(v): Scalar Deformation Flow and the Geometric Classification of 3-Manifolds
Anton Alexa
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01146

Relativistic Deformation of Geometry through Function C(v): Scalar Deformation Flow and the Geometric Classification of 3-Manifolds
We introduce the scalar deformation function C(v), which captures how local geometric structures respond to motion at velocity v. This function exhibits smooth analytic behavior and defines a critical velocity vc beyond which the geometry compresses. Extending C(v) into a flow C(v, tau), we construct a scalar analogue of Ricci flow that governs the evolution of geometric configurations toward symmetric, stable states without singularities. The flow is derived from a variational energy functiona…

Extended VC-dimension, and Radon and Tverberg type theorems for unions of convex sets
Noga Alon, Shakhar Smorodinsky
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.17777 https…

Extended VC-dimension, and Radon and Tverberg type theorems for unions of convex sets
We define and study an extension of the notion of the VC-dimension of a hypergraph and apply it to establish a Tverberg type theorem for unions of convex sets. We also prove a new Radon type theorem for unions of convex sets, vastly improving the estimates in an earlier result of Bárány and Kalai.

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.21568 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csSD_…

VoiceMark: Zero-Shot Voice Cloning-Resistant Watermarking Approach Leveraging Speaker-Specific Latents
Voice cloning (VC)-resistant watermarking is an emerging technique for tracing and preventing unauthorized cloning. Existing methods effectively trace traditional VC models by training them on watermarked audio but fail in zero-shot VC scenarios, where models synthesize audio from an audio prompt without training. To address this, we propose VoiceMark, the first zero-shot VC-resistant watermarking method that leverages speaker-specific latents as the watermark carrier, allowing the watermark to…

Lockheed Constellation sobre Santiago de Cuba https://archivo.kamasystems.nl/es/2023/07/31/lockheed-constellation-sobre-santiago-de-cuba/

Rhythm Controllable and Efficient Zero-Shot Voice Conversion via Shortcut Flow Matching
Jialong Zuo, Shengpeng Ji, Minghui Fang, Mingze Li, Ziyue Jiang, Xize Cheng, Xiaoda Yang, Chen Feiyang, Xinyu Duan, Zhou Zhao
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01014

Rhythm Controllable and Efficient Zero-Shot Voice Conversion via Shortcut Flow Matching
Zero-Shot Voice Conversion (VC) aims to transform the source speaker's timbre into an arbitrary unseen one while retaining speech content. Most prior work focuses on preserving the source's prosody, while fine-grained timbre information may leak through prosody, and transferring target prosody to synthesized speech is rarely studied. In light of this, we propose R-VC, a rhythm-controllable and efficient zero-shot voice conversion model. R-VC employs data perturbation techniques and discretize s…

Sources: Meta offers to buy ~49% of Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross's VC fund NFDG; about half of NFDG's first fund of ~$1.1B, raised in 2023, has been invested (Yuliya Chernova/Wall Street Journal)
https:/…

Metacurity is pleased to offer our free and premium subscribers a weekly digest of the best long-form (and longish) infosec-related pieces we couldn't properly fit into our daily news crush.
This week's selection covers
--Bashar al-Assad was toppled by spyware,
--Facial recognition threatens us all with deportation,
--VC money fuels worker surveillance,
--Will Trump launch offensive cyber ops on US networks?,
--The Pall Mall Process and commercial c…

Best infosec-related long reads for the week of 5/31/25
Bashar al-Assad was toppled by spyware, Facial recognition threatens us all with deportation, VC money fuels worker surveillance, Will Trump launch offensive cyber ops on US networks?, The Pall Mall Process and commercial cyber intrusions, Self-confidence leads to GenAI skepticism, more

VC firms Thrive Capital and General Catalyst are adopting the "roll-up" strategy from the PE playbook, as Khosla Ventures, 8VC, and others explore similar moves (George Hammond/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/74db4959-5980-4ca3-8a46-f058ef4774…

Tech venture firms deploy private equity ‘roll-up’ strategy
Thrive Capital’s backing of Savvy Wealth is part of growing effort to fund groups that go on to buy similar companies

The VC-dimension of random subsets of finite groups
Brad Rodgers, Anurag Sahay
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.14219 https://arxiv.org/pdf…

The VC-dimension of random subsets of finite groups
For a random subset of a finite group $G$ of cardinality $N$, we consider the VC-dimension of the family of its translates (equivalently the VC-dimension of a random Cayley graph) and prove a law of large numbers as $N\rightarrow\infty$. This answers a question of McDonald--Sahay--Wyman.

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.11862 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_mat…

Bounds on Functionality and Symmetric Difference -- Two Intriguing Graph Parameters
Functionality ($\mathrm{fun}$) is a graph parameter that generalizes graph degeneracy defined by Alecu et al. [JCTB, 2021]. They research the relation of functionality to many other graphs parameters (tree-width, clique-width, VC-dimension, etc.). Extending their research, we completely characterize the functionality of random graph $G(n,p)$ for all possible $p$. We provide matching (up to a constant factor) lower and upper bound for a large range of $p$. It follows from our bounds for $G(n,p)$…

Report: Swiss deep tech startups have created over $100B in total enterprise value, with 60% of VC funding in Switzerland from 2019 to 2025 going to deep tech (Cate Lawrence/Tech.eu)
https://tech.eu/2025/06/26/switzerlands-100b-deeptech-engine-comes-…

Switzerland’s $100B deeptech engine comes Into focus
Today, the launch of The Swiss Deep Tech Report 2025 spotlights how Switzerland has quietly become one of the world’s most advanced and efficient deeptech ecosystems. Curated in close collaboration with Dealroom.co, Startupticker and venture capital firms Founderful and Kickfund, the report is the first of its kind to map the full scope of Switzerland’s deeptech performance - from research institutions and patents to venture activity and late-stage outcomes. With over 1500 Swiss deeptech …

Largest dyadic dual VC-dimension of non-piercing families
Xinqi Huang, Yuzhen Qi, Mingyuan Rong, Zixiang Xu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.13606 https://

Largest dyadic dual VC-dimension of non-piercing families
The dyadic dual VC-dimension of a set system \( \mathcal{F} \) is the largest integer \( \ell \) such that there exist \( \ell \) sets \( F_1, F_{2}, \dots, F_\ell \in \mathcal{F} \), where every pair \( \{i, j\} \in \binom{[\ell]}{2} \) is witnessed by an element \( a_{i,j} \in F_i \cap F_j \) that does not belong to any other set \( F_k \) with \( k \in [\ell] \setminus \{i, j\} \). In this paper, we determine the largest dyadic dual VC-dimension of a non-piercing family is exactly $4$, provi…

Q&A with Mary Meeker on publishing her first Trends report since 2019, its focus on the AI revolution, why OpenAI may have an insurmountable lead, and more (Dan Primack/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/05/30/mary-meeker-trends-report-openai

Q&A with Mary Meeker on the AI revolution
The famed internet analyst turned VC just published her first Trends report since 2019.

PitchBook: US VC investment in AI startups rose 33% QoQ to $65B in Q1, up 550% from the quarter prior to ChatGPT's 2022 release (Cade Metz/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/technology/ai-spending-openai-amazon-meta.html…

A.I. Frenzy Escalates as OpenAI, Amazon and Meta Supersize Spending
Companies like OpenAI, Amazon and Meta have supersized their spending on artificial intelligence, with no signs of slowing down.

Pureformer-VC: Non-parallel Voice Conversion with Pure Stylized Transformer Blocks and Triplet Discriminative Training
Wenhan Yao, Fen Xiao, Xiarun Chen, Jia Liu, YongQiang He, Weiping Wen
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08348

Pureformer-VC: Non-parallel Voice Conversion with Pure Stylized Transformer Blocks and Triplet Discriminative Training
As a foundational technology for intelligent human-computer interaction, voice conversion (VC) seeks to transform speech from any source timbre into any target timbre. Traditional voice conversion methods based on Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) encounter significant challenges in precisely encoding diverse speech elements and effectively synthesising these elements into natural-sounding converted speech. To overcome these limitations, we introduce Pureformer-VC, an encoder-decoder frame…

JIS: A Speech Corpus of Japanese Idol Speakers with Various Speaking Styles
Yuto Kondo, Hirokazu Kameoka, Kou Tanaka, Takuhiro Kaneko
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.18296

JIS: A Speech Corpus of Japanese Idol Speakers with Various Speaking Styles
We construct Japanese Idol Speech Corpus (JIS) to advance research in speech generation AI, including text-to-speech synthesis (TTS) and voice conversion (VC). JIS will facilitate more rigorous evaluations of speaker similarity in TTS and VC systems since all speakers in JIS belong to a highly specific category: "young female live idols" in Japan, and each speaker is identified by a stage name, enabling researchers to recruit listeners familiar with these idols for listening experiments. With i…

Centific, an AI "data foundry" that works with businesses to develop, train, and deploy their AI models, raised a $60M Series A led by Granite Asia (Nicholas Gordon/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/asia/2025/06/25/centi…

Singapore VC Granite Asia leads $60 million funding round for AI ‘data foundry’ Centific to fund global expansion
“This funding round isn’t about necessity—it’s about ambition,” CEO Venkat Rangapuram said in a statement.

RT-VC: Real-Time Zero-Shot Voice Conversion with Speech Articulatory Coding
Yisi Liu, Chenyang Wang, Hanjo Kim, Raniya Khan, Gopala Anumanchipalli
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.10289

RT-VC: Real-Time Zero-Shot Voice Conversion with Speech Articulatory Coding
Voice conversion has emerged as a pivotal technology in numerous applications ranging from assistive communication to entertainment. In this paper, we present RT-VC, a zero-shot real-time voice conversion system that delivers ultra-low latency and high-quality performance. Our approach leverages an articulatory feature space to naturally disentangle content and speaker characteristics, facilitating more robust and interpretable voice transformations. Additionally, the integration of differentia…

Training-Free Voice Conversion with Factorized Optimal Transport
Alexander Lobashev, Assel Yermekova, Maria Larchenko
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.09709 http…

Training-Free Voice Conversion with Factorized Optimal Transport
This paper introduces Factorized MKL-VC, a training-free modification for kNN-VC pipeline. In contrast with original pipeline, our algorithm performs high quality any-to-any cross-lingual voice conversion with only 5 second of reference audio. MKL-VC replaces kNN regression with a factorized optimal transport map in WavLM embedding subspaces, derived from Monge-Kantorovich Linear solution. Factorization addresses non-uniform variance across dimensions, ensuring effective feature transformation.…

Juniper Square, which offers investment management and fund administration tools for real estate, PE, VC firms, raised $130M led by Ribbit at a $1.1B valuation (Katie Roof/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Turnkey, which builds low-level infrastructure for digital wallets used to store and manage crypto, raised a $30M Series B led by Bain Capital Crypto (Ben Weiss/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/06/09/exclus…

Exclusive: Coinbase vets raise $30 million for crypto wallet startup Turnkey
The fundraise attracted big VC names like Bain Capital Crypto, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Faction.