It’s been pretty obvious for a few months now, but Google has finally admitted that its running its own investment fund targeting machine intelligence startups. The fund will go by the name Gradient Ventures and provide capital, resources and education to AI-first startups. Google isn’t disclosing the size of the fund, but the company told us that it’s being run directly off… Read More
from TechCrunch
Toyota is the latest Fortune 500 company to launch an AI focused venture capital fund. The initial early-stage fund will deploy $100 million and operate as a subsidiary of the Toyota Research Institute. The automaker has strategiclly positioned itself as an ROI rather than strategic focused fund — meaning that it aims to profit like any other VC firm. Jim Adler will serve as… Read More
from TechCrunch
Astronomer aims to ease the pain around data analytics. Collecting data is just part of the operation. After the data has been collected, it needs to be assembled and organized and sometimes that’s the most time-consuming part of the process. Astronomer says its solution helps with this process, freeing up engineering resources to actually analyze the data. The Cincinnati-based company… Read More
from TechCrunch
Fresh out of 500 startups, Datatron has raised $2.7 million in seed financing for its data-savvy assistant, Emma. But under the somewhat trite coating of an assistant, Datatron is making it easier for employees to gather insights from the complex web of historical and real-time data. Read More
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Curve, the London fintech that offers a platform that lets you consolidate all your bank cards into a single Curve card and manage your money, is on the verge of closing $10 million in Series A funding. Read More
from TechCrunch
With the launch of Bixby and reports that Samsung is building its own competitor to Amazon’s Echo, the consumer electronics giant has now made an acquisition that could help power its next generation of voice-powered services. Samsung has acquired Innoetics, a startup out of Greece that has developed text-to-speech and voice-to-speech technology that can, among other things, listen to… Read More
from TechCrunch
Sendence, a new startup based in New York City, announced a $1.5 million seed round today. The company is working on a platform for simplifying deployment of real-time applications. Investors include Boldstart Ventures, Greycroft, Contour Venture Partners, Notation Capital and Resolute Ventures. As company CEO and co-founder Vid Jain sees it, more companies are hiring data scientists to… Read More
from TechCrunch
Allurion, a Boston-based startup offering a non-invasive gastric balloon by swallowing a pill, has gained $27 million in Series C funding from previous investor Romulus Capital, with new participation from Cogepa Investments and IDO Investments, an innovation firm based in Oman. Read More
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Sales teams have Salesforce. Engineers have GitHub. But designers have always had slim pickings. Abstract, launching today, is a workflow platform and system of record built for designers to solve the debilitating frustrations of the design process. The company is targeting Sketch users out of the gates with a round from Cowboy Ventures in the bank and ambitions to accommodate the whole gamut… Read More
from TechCrunch
Genoox, a startup that wants to make it easier for medical professionals to use genomic data in patient care, has raised $6 million in funding. The capital includes a seed round from Inimiti Capital Partners and a Series A round led by Glilot Capital Partners. Read More
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