OpenAI board member Bret Taylor has a new AI startup

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Welcome to our Wednesday show, in which we talk through the week’s leading startup and venture capital news. Today we have an absolute pile of material, so let’s get to work:

• Bret Taylor’s new startup is turning heads: Known for his work at Facebook, Salesforce and OpenAI, Taylor’s new startup Sierra is building conversational AI agents. It has raised a mountain of capital to date, which it might need, given that it’s not alone in its niche.
• FlowFi’s counter-cultural decision: FlowFi is building software to help startups keep their books more intelligently. But it’s not going to try and replace human inputs into financial work. Instead, it’s pairing its software with a labor marketplace so that startups can blend human and computer intelligence. If this means more GAAP accounting for startups, we’re here for it.
• Bold and Antithesis snag new capital: Bold raised $50 million for its Latin American fintech business — good news for the sector and region that once went together like peanut butter and honey. Meanwhile Antithesis raised $47 million for its software testing service.
• Homebrew up, Foundry out: Homebrew is putting together an interesting new $50 million fund, while Foundry has announced that after its current $500 million fund, it’s out of the game.

We also talked mushrooms — it’s PG-13, I promise — and Earlybird Health’s latest fund.