Self-Driving Truck Startup Kodiak Raises $125 Million in Series B Round
On November 11, self-driving truck startup Kodiak announced that it had raised $125 million in an oversubscribed Series B round for a total of $165 million raised to date.
Tag: startup
Spanish Startup to Launch the World’s First Cybersecurity Lab Dedicated for Robotics in Munich
Spanish startup Alias Robotics and ElevenPaths are to set up the world’s first lab dedicated to cybersecurity for robotics in Munich.
Playstation “Father” Ken Kutaragi Becomes CEO of Tokyo-Based Robotics Startup
Former Sony executive Ken Kutaragi, known to be the “father” of PlayStation, has been named CEO of Ascent Robotics.
Google’s Head of Business EMEA joins French startup Outsight to make it a leader in Spatial Intelligence
Google’s Head of AI & IoT Strategic Business Development EMEA, has been appointed Chief Business Officer of Outsight.
Chinese AI Startup SenseTime considers IPO on STAR Market
Chinese AI start-up SenseTime is considering IPO on Shanghai Stock Exchange’s STAR Market.
Bengio-Backed Startup Korbit Introduces STEM Intelligent Tutoring System
Canadian education technology startup Korbit Technologies has introduced a personalized AI-powered learning experience that it says can help all students learn faster and better in a cost-effective way.
Japanese Unicorn Preferred Networks Releases First PyTorch Library
Japanese artificial intelligence startup Preferred Networks (PFN) today debuted its PyTorch library pytorch-pfn-extras (PPE).
Running an Industrial Robotics Software Startup Is Not Getting Easier
After running the industrial robot operating system startup “Cobot” for three years, founder Miao Li has decided to axe 98 percent of the company’s “fancy services” and just focus on drug logistics and sorting mushrooms.
Hot Chips | A California Startup Has Built an AI Chip as Big as a Notebook. Why?
California artificial intelligence startup Cerebras Systems yesterday introduced its Cerebras Wafer Scale Engine (WSE), the world’s largest-ever chip built for neural network processing.
AI Local Rainfall Nowcasting Using Weather Radar Maps
To provide accurate precipitation nowcasting, Beijing startup ColorfulClouds Tech is applying machine learning (ML) techniques using observed radar echo maps to generate high resolution, minute-by-minute rainfall forecasts on its ColorfulClouds Weather mobile app.
New Funding Pushes Chinese AI Chipmaker Horizon Robotics’ Valuation to $3Bn
Beijing-based AI chip startup Horizon Robotics today announced a staggering US$600 million in Series B funding led by South Korea conglomerate SK Group. The investment brings Horizon’s value to an estimated US$3 billion, making it the world’s highest-valued AI chip startup.
Can a Canadian AI Startup Challenge Google in AutoML?
Enter DarwinAI, a Waterloo, Ontario based AI startup which recently released a beta version of an automated machine learning solution it says can generate models ten times more efficiently than comparable state-of-the-art solutions.
New Funding Pushes Chinese Self-Driving Startup Momenta’s Valuation to $1Bn
Beijing-based self-driving startup Momenta has closed its latest funding round to boost its total funding to over US$200 million. The company bills itself as China’s most valuable autonomous driving startup, with an estimated worth of US$1 billion.
Adaptive Learning Startup Squirrel AI Raises CN¥1B
This August, thousands of Chinese middle school students participated in a two-day “AI teacher vs. Human teacher” competition. Students were separated into two groups: one received math tutoring from experienced teachers, the other from an intelligent learning system.
Meet California Startup Voicera’s AI Stenographer
California-based Voicera recently came out of beta and introduced their Enterprise Virtual Assistant (“Eva”), a note-taking AI bot that automatically detects and marks a conference call’s important moments and extracts highlights from the call.
Building DIY Human Action Detectors With Matroid
Computers are now excellent at recognizing images of human faces, cats and dogs — but struggle when it comes to detecting continuous actions, for example determining if a character in a video might be “dancing the tango.” Computers also fall short in detecting nuanced expressions of human emotions.
Suiyuan Technology Gets $50M to Build Cloud-Based Deep Learning Chips
Chinese AI maker startup Suiyuan Technology announced today that it has completed its Series Pre-A funding with nearly CN¥340 million (US$50 million). Funding was led by Tencent Holdings Ltd, Zhen Fund, Delta Capital, Yunhe Partners and Summitview Capital.
EV Startup Xpeng Gets CN¥4 Billion in Series B+
Guangzhou-based Xiaopeng Motors (Xpeng) announced today that it had scored CN¥4 billion (US$585 million) in its Series B+ funding round. This is the largest 2018 single-round funding total among Chinese Electric Vehicle startups (NIO, Byton, WM Motor, etc.), and pushes Xpeng’s valuation to CN¥25 billion (US$3.66 billion).
Tuya Smart Gets $200M for its Smart Home, Smart Business & Smart City Strategy
Chinese IoT startup Tuya Smart has completed its Series C funding with nearly US$200 million, led by Future Fund, NEA, China Broadband Capital, Quadrille Capital and C.M.Capital. The company will apply the funds to its AI+IoT, Smart City, Smart Business and Smart Home technologies.
Exploring Human-computer Interaction Startup Rokid’s Jungle
Four years after its founding, human-computer interaction and robotics company Rokid held its first major press conference on June 26 in Hangzhou. Dubbed “Rokid Jungle,” Founder and CEO Misa Zhu quipped that the presser was “a combination of Google IO and Apple WWDC.”
D.C. Startup Foundry.ai Provides Practical ML Solutions for Big Business
Founded in 2016, Foundry.ai provides cloud-based AI-powered software applications for C-Suite executives, particularly those with Forbes Global 2000 companies.
FPGA-Maker Xilinx Buys Chinese Chip Startup DeePhi Tech
Xilinx, the world’s leading designer and supplier of programmable logic devices, today announced its acquisition of DeePhi Tech — a Beijing-based chip startup with a focus on machine learning, specializing in deep compression, pruning, and system-level optimization for neural networks.
Innoviz Envisions Mass Produced Self-Driving Cars With Solid State LiDAR
Innoviz is a two-year-old Israeli provider of LiDAR remote sensing solutions. The company took a leap forward in the solid state LiDAR field recently by scoring a couple of important partnerships: BMW chose solid-state Innoviz LiDAR sensors and computer vision tech to enable its Level 3-5 autonomous vehicles in April…
Self-Driving Startup Pony.ai Raises Another $102 Million
Chinese autonomous driving solution provider Pony.ai has reported an additional US$102 million in Series A1 funding — just six months after scoring US$112 million — to bring its Series A total to US$214 million.
Chinese Chip Giant Cambricon Closes Series B With Valuation of $2.5 Billion
Cambricon Technologies announced today that it has secured hundreds of million dollars in its Series B funding round, with investments from China’s State-owned Capital Venture, SDIC Venture Capital, China Capital Investment Group, TCL Capital, CITIC Securities, Alibaba VC, Lenovo Capital & Incubator Group and others.
Chinese Computer Vision Unicorn Yitu Closes C+ Round With $200 Million
Chinese computer vision company Yitu announced today that is has secured US$200 million in its C+ funding round, with investments from GC Capital, ICBC International, and SPDB International.
World #1 AI Startup SenseTime Gets Additional $620 Million
China’s computer vision startup SenseTime today announced it had raised US$620 million in Series C+ funding, a mere 50 days after it closed its Series C funding with US$600 million.
3D Sensor Unicorn Orbbec Closes Over $200 Million Series D
AI startup Orbbec (奥比中光) today closed an over US$200 million Series D funding round led by Ant Finance. Other investors include Saif Partners, Green Pine Capital, Telstra Ventures, and Renzhi Capital.
YITU CIO Hao Lu on AI Startups, Innovation, and Coming Home
While a Computer Science PhD candidate at the University of Washington, Hao focused on intelligent human-computer interaction research, and R&D and evaluation of intelligent systems and their tools.
UBTECH Robotics Gets US$820 Million Funding; Becomes the World’s Most Valuable AI Startup
Chinese AI and humanoid robotic company UBTECH Robotics today announced a staggering US$820 million in Series C funding. With its new estimated value of US$5 billion, Shenzhen City-based UBTECH becomes the world’s most valuable AI startup.
“My Other Lawyer is a Robot” – LawGeex Automates Contract Review
Founded in 2014 by international business lawyer Noory Bechor and machine learning guru Ilan Admon, LawGeex is a Tel Aviv-based legal tech startup focused on contract review. It closed US$7 million in Series A funding last March, principally from Indeed.com owner Recruit Holdings, Lool Ventures, and LionBird.
DataVisor Uses Unsupervised Learning to Combat Online Fraud
DataVisor is a Mountain View, California based anti-fraud startup that uses AI to detect fake accounts, prevent money laundering, and protect financial institutions from credit scams. The company offers clients its DataVisor APIs for real-time data connection, and a specialized UI for direct results.
Tech Giants Are Gobbling Up AI Startups
It’s no surprise that tech companies are eager to stay abreast of AI developments. When they’re not luring AI talents with huge compensation packages, they’re on the lookout for AI startups suitable for acquisition.