Thursday, March 28

Tag: AI

Canvass Analytics Raises $6.5 Million Funding Led by Yamaha Motor Ventures
FUNDING

Canvass Analytics Raises $6.5 Million Funding Led by Yamaha Motor Ventures

SILICON VALLEY, Calif., 29th Oct 2020-- Yamaha Motor Ventures, the strategic business development and investment arm of Yamaha Motor, led a USD$6.5 million funding round for Canvass Analytics (Canvass), a global leader in industrial Artificial Intelligence (AI) advanced analytics. The investment in Canvass analytics represents Yamaha Motor Ventures’ strategic focus on innovative technologies that work to solve global, societal challenges including increasing efficiency to reduce environmental impact. Canvass’s vision is to transform manufacturing by empowering the workforce of the future. According to IDC, operational data will increase by 2-3x by 2025, but the MAPI Foundation found that 47% of industrial workforces lacked the digital skills needed to derive valu...
Deepsync Tech raises $300k from three angel funds
FUNDING

Deepsync Tech raises $300k from three angel funds

Sept 8th, 2020: Deepsync Technologies, which allows users to clone their voice to augment content production through Artificial Intelligence (AI), has raised about $300,000 (Over Rs 2.2 crore) from three angel funds Anicut Angel Fund, 9Unicorns and Firstcheque. The startup is expected to use the capital to expand business operations, ramp up tech and product development, and expand its technology team. This is the second round of fundraising for the company. Early-stage investor Zeroth.AI is an existing investor in the company. Anjan Ghosal and Venkat Raju were the leads in this investment on behalf of Anicut Angel Fund while the other investors who participated in this round through the fund were Ashvin Chadha, Sanjiv Bajaj, Varun Thapar, Pran Mehra, and Tushar Singh. A representa...
Chinese Company Files $1.4 Billion Lawsuit Against Apple
CHINA

Chinese Company Files $1.4 Billion Lawsuit Against Apple

Shanghai, 3rd Aug 2020: Chinese artificial intelligence company Shanghai Zhizhen Intelligent Network Technology Co, Ltd, also known as Xiao-i, has filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc, alleging it has infringed on its patents. The company is calling for 10 billion yuan ($1.43 billion)in damages and demands that Apple cease "manufacturing, using, promising to sell, selling, and importing" products that infringe on the patent, it said in a social media post. Xiao-i argued that Apple's voice-recognition technology Siri infringes on a patent that it applied for in 2004 and was granted in 2009. Apple did not respond to a request for comment. Reuters was not immediately available to find a copy of the court filing. The lawsuit marks the continuation of a row that has been ongoing for n...
Silicon Vally based AI Startup Drishti raises $25M in Series B round of funding
FUNDING

Silicon Vally based AI Startup Drishti raises $25M in Series B round of funding

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 16, 2020– AI-powered video analytics startup Drishti Technologies raises investment of $25M in Series B round. The round was led by Sozo Ventures, was raised upon demonstrated evidence that Drishti’s AI-powered video analytics, data, and insights bring significant benefits to manufacturers and the people they employ on the factory floor. As part of this round, Uday Sandhu from Alpha Intelligence Capital has joined Drishti’s board of directors. Alpha Intelligence Capital, Toyota AI Ventures, Micron Ventures, Presidio Ventures, HELLA Ventures, as well as current investors Emergence Capital, Benhamou Global Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, also participated in the round.  Drishti’s Series B financing will fuel its expansion into plants across North ...
California based JIFFY.ai raises $18mn led by Nexus Venture Partners
FUNDING

California based JIFFY.ai raises $18mn led by Nexus Venture Partners

Palo Alto, Calif, Jun 12 2020: Enterprise automation platform JIFFY.ai raises USD 18 million (around Rs 136 crore) in Series A round funding led by Nexus Venture Partners. The funding round also saw participation from Rebright Partners, W250 Venture Fund (founded by alumni of the Stanford Executive Program), and corporate leaders led by Sri Viswanath, Richard Galanti, Charles Goldman, Tony Thomas, Jim Brady, and Bob Ward, a statement said. "Our goal is to set a new standard for business at the intersection of entrepreneurship and innovation. Across our entire team, we''re dedicated to tackling the effects of automation on the workforce, not just by accelerating the path to profit for businesses, but also through our foundation arm, we''ll invest in programmes to re-train and up-skil...
Flatfile Raises $7.6M from Two Sigma Ventures & Google
FUNDING

Flatfile Raises $7.6M from Two Sigma Ventures & Google

DENVER, June 11, 2020-- Flatfile, a drop-in spreadsheet importer raises $7.6 million in funding led by Two Sigma Ventures, with participation from existing investors including Afore Capital, Designer Fund, and Gradient Ventures, Google's AI-focused venture fund. New investors HNVR, Work Life Ventures, Quiet Capital, Basecamp Fund, and Soma Capital also participated in this round. The funding coincides with the launch of Concierge, its newest product focused on data onboarding for large enterprises.  Founded in 2018 by David Boskovic (CEO) and Eric Crane (COO), Flatfile's mission is to remove barriers between humans and data. The company's software products focus specifically on solving the problem of data onboarding, the process businesses use to accept data...
Anvil Raises $5M from Google and Citi Ventures
FUNDING

Anvil Raises $5M from Google and Citi Ventures

SAN FRANCISCO, June 4, 2020-- Anvil, a paperwork automation platform raises $5 million in Series A investment. Gradient Ventures Google's AI-focused investment fund led the round, with participation from Citi Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Financial Venture Studio, and 122 West. Anvil is a low-code paperwork automation platform that helps businesses quickly build simple online experiences for paperwork processes. Paperwork is at the core of office work in America; every day millions of forms are shared, filled out, signed, and then returned to the requester for processing. The process is insecure, error-prone, tedious, and requires countless human hours to transcribe information from PDFs into various computer systems. Endless forms also waste valuable time and cause frustration...
Airtel acquires 10 percent stake in AI startup Voicezen
ACQUISITION

Airtel acquires 10 percent stake in AI startup Voicezen

Indian telecom company Bharti Airtel acquires 10 percent stake in Gurgaon-based start-up Voicezen, which focusses on conversational artificial intelligence technologies, in an all-cash deal, the private operator said on Thursday. The stake purchase will give Bharti Airtel preferred access to Voicezen’s technologies, which can be deployed across its customer touch points in multiple languages, Airtel said in a statement without disclosing the amount it paid for buying the stake. The acquisition has been made by the company under its fast expanding Airtel Startup Accelerator Programme, the company noted. “AI is a big focus area for Airtel given the deep positive impact the technology can have in transforming customer experience. Voicezen has built some promising products that are v...
SirionLabs raises $44mn led by Tiger Global, Avatar Growth Capital
FUNDING

SirionLabs raises $44mn led by Tiger Global, Avatar Growth Capital

SirionLabs, an AI-powered contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform, raises USD 44 million (over Rs 331 crore) in series C funding led by Tiger Global and Avatar Growth Capital. The latest round brings SirionLabs' total capital raised to USD 66 million till date. The earlier rounds were led by Sequoia Capital India, a statement said. "The new funding will be utilised to enhance engineering capabilities at our Gurgaon centre and our newly established AI laboratory in Seattle. We are also using the capital to ramp up SirionLabs' global sales and marketing capabilities, as well as to expand our technology and go to market partnerships," SirionLabs co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer Ajay Agarwal said. Headquartered in Gurugram, SirionLabs' diverse team consists of ...
Vernacular.ai secures $5.1 mn led by Exfinity Ventures
FUNDING

Vernacular.ai secures $5.1 mn led by Exfinity Ventures

Vernacular.ai has raised USD 5.1 million (about Rs 38.7 crore) in funding, led by Exfinity Ventures and IAN Fund, Kalaari Capital. AngelList, LetsVenture, also participated in the series A round, a statement said. The fresh capital will be used to fund the company's global expansion into Southeast Asia and the US and towards R&D to further enhance its proprietary AI-based voice automation platform, it added. "As we evolve our voice AI platform and continue to expand our customer-base in new markets, we are happy to see the increased investor confidence in our model. This Series A round will be used to fund the company's expansion outside India and to drive innovation through rigorous R&D across multiple verticals of our business," Vernacular.ai co-founder and CEO Sourabh...
Samsung S20 Launch, First AI and 5G based Galaxy Smartphone
Tech

Samsung S20 Launch, First AI and 5G based Galaxy Smartphone

Samsung has unveiled Galaxy S20, a new series of flagship devices featuring 5G and artificial intelligence camera technology, to strengthen its position in the high-end smartphone market. "As we enter this new decade, 5G will completely change how we communicate... Galaxy S20 variants - Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20+ and Galaxy S20 Ultra - come with 5G connectivity," Samsung Electronics President and Head of Mobile Communications Business TM Roh said in a statement. The company said Galaxy S20 series introduces artificial intelligence (AI) camera technologies and is build for future of communications. The South Korean firm has been witnessing strong competition in the premium mobile phone space from Apple's iPhone and OnePlus. The Galaxy S20 series, unveiled here at Samsung's 'Unpack...
Facebook Acquire AI Location Accuracy Startup Scape Technologies
ACQUISITION

Facebook Acquire AI Location Accuracy Startup Scape Technologies

Facebook has acquired computer vision start-up Scape Technologies. The deal for London-based Scape could be around $40M, according to the report, and it says filings indicate that Facebook has more than 75% of the company. They also indicate that VC representatives on Scape's board have been replaced by two Facebook execs. Scape allows developers to build apps that call for location accuracy better than that offered by GPS, using a "visual positioning service." While it focused initially on augmented reality, Scape is looking to enable any camera to understand its surroundings." "Rather than rely on 3D maps built and stored locally, Scape's visual engine builds and references 3D maps on the cloud, allowing devices to tap into a ‘shared understanding’ of an environment. The...