Fundraising

SuperAnnotate wants to help companies manage their AI data sets

High-quality data may be the key to high-quality AI. With studies finding that data set curation, rather than size, is what really affects an AI model’s performance, it’s unsurprising that there’s a growing emphasis on data set management practices. According to some surveys, AI researchers today spend much of their time on data prep and […]

SuperAnnotate wants to help companies manage their AI data sets Read More »

Text marketing firm Take Blip secures backing from SoftBank, Microsoft

People prefer texts over phone calls — especially when it’s a company on the other side. According to one survey, two-thirds of consumers say they’d switch to a company that offered texting as a contact option. With the text-message marketing industry expected to grow to $12.6 billion by 2025, it’s not surprising that vendors like

Text marketing firm Take Blip secures backing from SoftBank, Microsoft Read More »

OpenAI at one point considered acquiring AI chip startup Cerebras

OpenAI was at one point considering acquiring Cerabras, an AI chipmaking company that’s in the process of going public, according to new legal filings. Elon Musk’s ongoing lawsuit against OpenAI has new exhibits that describe how OpenAI was contemplating snatching up Cerebras in or around 2017 — a year after Cerebras’ founding, and just a

OpenAI at one point considered acquiring AI chip startup Cerebras Read More »

SwiftConnect lets workers access the office with a smartphone swipe

With the advent of flexible workspaces, companies are increasingly adopting smartphone-based authentication to let employees enter and leave. In a recent poll, nearly two in five firms said they’re letting staff use their phones to access office buildings. The boon has benefited vendors like SwiftConnect, which sells a platform for managing access to physical offices. Chip

SwiftConnect lets workers access the office with a smartphone swipe Read More »

German travel startup Tourlane raises $26M led by Sequoia

Global travel continues to gain ground, with the World Travel and Tourism Council predicting the industry will cross $11 trillion in revenues this year. Consumers are evolving from the so-called “revenge travel” of the post-Covid-19 years, dedicating a growing share of their budget to a wider array of experiences away from home. Add AI to

German travel startup Tourlane raises $26M led by Sequoia Read More »

Leland lands $12 million to grow its coaching platform

Coaching platform Leland has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Forerunner Ventures with participation from GSV ventures to grow its platform geared toward matching coaches and aspirants to fulfill goals ranging from getting into a university to passing an entrance exam and excelling at product management. The company aims to build better

Leland lands $12 million to grow its coaching platform Read More »

After spending three years working on SMS verification at Zenly, Prelude wants to fix SMS onboarding

Prelude is a new a new French startup that focuses on SMS verification; it’s coming out of stealth Wednesday. The two founders met when they were working for Zenly, a popular location-sharing app with tens of millions of users that was acquired by Snap (and later shut down). While you might not think much about

After spending three years working on SMS verification at Zenly, Prelude wants to fix SMS onboarding Read More »

Just Eat Takeaway sells Grubhub to Wonder for $650 million

Netherlands-based Just Eat Takeaway announced today that it is selling Grubhub to Wonder in a deal valued at $650 million. Just Eat Takeaway said that it expects the deal to be completed by Q1 2025. “The sale of Grubhub to Wonder will increase the cash generation capabilities of Just Eat Takeaway.com and will accelerate our growth. This deal

Just Eat Takeaway sells Grubhub to Wonder for $650 million Read More »

LocalStack raises $25M to help developers emulate and test cloud apps locally

Knowing how your cloud application will behave in production usually requires significant development and testing in the environment in which it will be deployed, be that AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or wherever. But this can be a resource-intensive endeavor, particularly with issues relating to latency (the time it takes to constantly send data) and the

LocalStack raises $25M to help developers emulate and test cloud apps locally Read More »

NitroVolt is helping farmers make their own fertilizer using renewable power

When Suzanne Zamany Andersen arranged her trip to greenhouse grower Koppert Cress in the Netherlands, she thought she would just be pitching her startup’s device, which turns electricity and air into ammonia, a widely used fertilizer.  Not only did the company agree to test the ammonia production system made by her company — Denmark-based NitroVolt

NitroVolt is helping farmers make their own fertilizer using renewable power Read More »