Ex-Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Launches Startup to Simplify AI – PYMNTS.com
Dazzle AI, a new startup founded by former Yahoo President and CEO Marissa Mayer, raised $8 million in a seed round.
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The company achieved a $35 million post-money valuation in the round, it said in a Tuesday (Dec. 23) press release.
Dazzle AI aims to make artificial intelligence (AI) “more intuitive and genuinely useful” by leveraging Mayer’s experience in user-centered technology and providing tools that simplify technology, according to the release.
The company will use the funding to expand its team and prepare to launch its first product within months, per the release.
“Now that foundational models have reached a level of consistent excellence, they’ve become a reliable infrastructure,” Mayer said in the release. “The new frontier is applications — leveraging that power to create real, tangible value. I’m thrilled to be building something new alongside an incredible group of investors and partners.”
PYMNTS reported that Mayer left Yahoo in 2017, when Verizon acquired the company amid a wave of mergers and acquisitions that had been the hallmark of media and content firms.
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After leaving Yahoo, Mayer founded Sunshine (formerly Lumi Labs) to help people use technology, according to her LinkedIn profile.
TechCrunch reported Tuesday that Mayer shuttered Sunshine to launch Dazzle AI.
When announcing the launch of Sunshine in 2020, Mayer said in a press release that the firm was dedicated to building better alternatives to existing technologies that “help us stay connected to those who matter most.”
At launch, Sunshine said it offered an app called Sunshine Contacts that used AI and other technologies to automatically organize and improve iPhone contacts.
Mayer is also on the boards of directors of Starbucks, Hilton, AT&T and Walmart, according to her LinkedIn profile.
From 1999 to 2012, Mayer was with Google and held several positions, including vice president, local, maps and location services.
Kirsten Green, founding partner at Forerunner, who led Dazzle AI’s seed round, said in the release that the builders of tomorrow’s winning platforms think in terms of entirely new ecosystems.
“As a leader, Marissa embodies the ambition and bravery that’s essential to taking this kind of big swing,” Green said. “We have barely scratched the surface of having AI integrated into daily routines in a way that feels human, enriching and transformatively useful.”
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