As wildfire season approaches, AI could pinpoint risky regions using satellite imagery
The U.S. has suffered from devastating wildfires over the last few years as global temperatures rise and weather patterns change, making the otherwise natural phenomenon especially unpredictable and severe. To help out,...
Researchers use biometrics, including data from the Oura Ring, to predict COVID-19 symptoms in advance
A team of researchers from the West Virginia University (WVU) Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute (RNI), along with WVU’s Medicine department and staff from Oura Health have developed a platform they say can be used to...
EQT acquires freemium graphics and stock photo marketplace, Freepik
Freepik, a Malaga-Spain based website which offers a curated freemium marketplace of vector graphics and stock photos fed by a community of contributing designers and photographers, is being acquired by investment and private equity firm EQT. The EQT Mid Market Europe fund has entered into an agreement to acquire a majority stake of Freepik from its founders and management team, who will remain on as minority owners, with co-founders,...
Meet News Break, the news app trending in America founded by a Chinese media veteran
TikTok isn’t the only new media app with Chinese background that’s making waves in the U.S. News Break, a news app founded by China’s media veteran Jeff Zheng with teams in Beijing, Shanghai, Seattle and Mountain...
5G, AI, cybersecurity and renewable energy set for investment boost under EU coronavirus recovery plan
The European Commission is proposing to direct billions of euros of financial relief into high tech and green investments to help the bloc recover from the coronavirus crisis. Technologies such as 5G, AI, cloud,...
Babylon Health leads a $30M Series B in US health kiosk operator, Higi
UK-based AI chatbot Babylon Health — which last year raised $550M at a $2BN+ valuation — has led a $30M Series B in US-based Higi, which owns and operates 10,000+ FDA-cleared health kiosks. Higi, which was founded back in 2012 per Crunchbase, has built out a nationwide network of “health stations” located at retail locations such as groceries and pharmacies within 5 miles of 73% of the US population, where users can check...
AI is more data-hungry than ever, and DefinedCrowd raises $50M B round to feed it
As AI has grown from niche to mission-critical technology, the companies that enable it have multiplied and in many cases prospered. A good example of that success is DefinedCrowd, which has gone from the Disrupt stage to globe-spanning AI toolkit to the Fortune 500 in just a couple years. The company just raised a new $50.5M B round to further fuel its expansion. DefinedCrowd doesn’t make AI, but rather supplies data used to create...
Spectrm raises $3M Series A from Runa Capital for its conversational marketing platform
In the “Age of Corona” — as some like to call it, the roboticization of industry and business has been super-charged by the pandemic. So while companies using messaging platforms to drive customers toward purchases was always on a long-term trend, the sheer volume of people staying online 24/7 during global lockdowns has led to this tactic also being boosted. So it’s therefore understandable that Spectrm, an AI-powered...
Apple’s handling of Siri snippets back in the frame after letter of complaint to EU privacy regulators
Apple is facing fresh questions from its lead data protection regulator in Europe following a public complaint by a former contractor who revealed last year that workers doing quality grading for Siri were routinely...
Directly, which trains customer service chatbots with expert advice, raises $11M more
Directly, a startup whose mission is to help build better customer service chatbots by using experts in specific areas to train them, has raised more funding as it opens up a new front to grow its business: APIs and a partner ecosystem that can now also tap into its expert network. Today Directly is announcing that it has added $11 million to close out its Series B at $31 million (it raised $20 million back in January of this...
China’s Geek+ brings warehouse robots to US via Conveyco partnership
Chinese robots will soon be seen roaming a number of warehouse floors across North America. Geek+, a well-funded Chinese robotics company that specializes in logistics automation for factories, warehouses and supply chains, furthers its expansion in North America after striking a strategic partnership with Conveyco, an order fulfillment and distribution center system integrator with operations across the continent. Geek+ is seizing a...
