startup

YC-backed Four Growers builds robots to help solve greenhouse labor shortages

AI /

When Brandon Contino and co-founder Dan Chi were developing Four Growers’ produce-harvesting robots, they practically lived in a greenhouse for an entire year. They coded at a small desk tucked in the back corner and discovered that fertilizer bags can be comfortable beds. “We actually started just running everything off a laptop, and I would […]

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Data center monitoring firm LogicMonitor raises $800M at a $2.4B valuation

Fundraising /

As companies’ server infrastructure grows, they often run into challenges keeping tabs on the health of their various assets, like cloud instances and local data centers. Monitoring tools, also known as observability tools, can help — but lots of tools quickly becomes overwhelming. According to one survey, seven in 10 organizations believe that monitoring is

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LogicMonitor’s massive $800M raise shows AI is driving the demand for data center monitoring

Fundraising /

As companies’ server infrastructure grows, they often run into challenges keeping tabs on the health of their various assets, like cloud instances and local data centers. Monitoring tools, also known as observability tools, can help — but lots of tools quickly becomes overwhelming. According to one survey, seven in 10 organizations believe that monitoring is

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Database startup Neo4j embraces AI to supercharge growth

Enterprise /

To make AI possible, you need to create connections between vast quantities of data. That’s where tech like graph databases come into play. Graph databases handle fast-changing, interconnected data more adeptly than traditional databases, which were designed to store rigidly structured information. Of course, graph databases need to be managed in order to be useful.

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Lightyear is on a mission to modernize network procurement

Fundraising /

Dennis Thankachan isn’t someone you’d expect would launch a digital procurement startup. After college, Thankachan went to work for Goldman Sachs as an investment banker. Two years later, he left for a hedge fund, PointState Capital, where he helped to manage equity investing. At PointState, which specializes in telecommunications, Thankachan said he encountered an unexpected

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Precursor’s Charles Hudson believes founders should test their investors

Venture /

Charles Hudson, managing partner of Precursor Ventures, told an audience at AfroTech the basics of knowing when to invest: A company should have product-market fit and some form of traction.  But the next thing he said garnered some surprised looks from the audience: Founders should test investors with a small issue to see how they

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This generative AI startup is strapping cameras to people’s backs

AI /

A startup is training an AI model that it claims will enable creators to generate cinematic worlds, with complete control over the scenery, characters, lighting, and motion. How? By having humans strap cameras to their backs and hike around the world. Odyssey, founded by self-driving pioneers Oliver Cameron and Jeff Hawke (Cameron was previously the

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Bret Taylor’s customer service AI startup just raised $175M

AI /

Sierra, the AI startup co-founded by OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor, has raised $175 million in a funding round that values the startup at $4.5 billion. Sierra, founded by Taylor and longtime Google exec Clay Bavor, focuses on selling AI-powered customer service chatbots to brands like WeightWatchers and Sirius XM. There’s an “agent” component, as well.

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