Reid Hoffman, founder and Chairman, Linkedin, at 2015 WEF in Davos, Switzerland. David A. Grogan | CNBC Inflection AI, the start-up launched earlier this month by LinkedIn billionaire Reid Hoffman and DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, has poached artificial intelligence gurus from Google and Meta, according to CNBC analysis. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Inflection’s aim is to develop AI software products that make it easier for humans to communicate with computers. When the company was… Source link
Read More »A microtransit startup that wants to ‘make core transit routes stronger’
Is it a bus? Is it an UberPool? Not quite. It’s microtransit. The future of transit is bigger than your car yet fits in the palm of your hand. The Routing Company partners with cities to offer apps that provide on-demand shuttles and buses that promise to meet commuters where they are at the push of a button. Its focus is better coverage, efficiency, equity and convenience for riders. The startup competes against ride-sharing firms like Uber, which just announced a deal with New York City… Source link
Read More »Google acquires microLED startup Raxium
San Francisco: Google has reportedly acquired Raxium, a five-year-old startup focused on developing microLED displays for AR and VR applications. The terms of the deal are unknown, but Google put a value of $1 billion on Raxium, according to a report from The Information. microLED is similar to OLED in that it doesn’t use a backlight, instead, each pixel emits its own light. Two years ago it acquired North, a pioneer in human computer interfaces and smart glasses, has built a strong… Source link
Read More »Google-backed start-up launches free carbon emissions tracker
A majority (up to 85%) of the emissions from a barrel of oil come when transportation, such as your car, is driven, according to Carbon Tracker. It’s a stark example of how difficult the net-zero goal will be for companies, but far from the only one. Red Huber | Tribune News Service | Getty Images Normative, a Swedish start-up backed by Google, has launched a free version of its carbon emissions tracker as companies around the world try to figure out how to manage their environmental… Source link
Read More »Looks like Google’s on an audio startup buying spree
Over the past year or so, Google has been buying up several audio hardware startups, according to a recent report from Protocol. The fact that Google’s estimated to have spent tens of millions on startups and patent portfolios of companies working on audio hardware, 3D audio, noise cancellation, and Bluetooth tech could hint that it’s planning on expanding its lineup of audio products. In many cases, it’s reportedly brought on employees from the companies as well. Google is no… Source link
Read More »Tunisian enterprise AI startup InstaDeep raises $100M from Alpha, BioNTech, Google – TechCrunch
A recent survey carried out by CNBC reported that 81% of executives worldwide say AI will play a prominent and critical role in how their businesses operate this year. Companies are phasing from the first generation of AI, which deals with pattern, text and image recognition, to decision-making AI, which helps them make timely decisions in complex spaces. InstaDeep, a Tunis and London-based enterprise AI startup that creates decision-making systems for solving real-world problems, has… Source link
Read More »Israel-based cybersecurity startup Siemplify sells to Google for $500M – TechCrunch
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for January 4, 2022! Yesterday we noted that startup news was kicking off the year a little light, but that that would change quickly. And change it has. In the following we have IPO news, robot news, canned-water startup news, acquisitions and more. Let’s go! —Alex The TechCrunch Top 3
Read More »Sequoia, 120 angel investors back former Google execs’ consumer finance startup Arbo Works – TechCrunch
A team of Google executives, many of whom worked with one another for years, left the company earlier this year to launch a startup. The fintech firm, Arbo Works, has raised a financing round led by Sequoia Capital India, the two said Thursday. Arbo Works, spearheaded by Caesar Sengupta, said on Thursday 120 angel investors, many from Google, participated in the seed financing round. “This group includes CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, founders of successful startups, senior executives… Source link
Read More »Google Cloud teams up with NLP startup Cohere on multiyear partnership around TPUs – TechCrunch
Google Cloud announced a multiyear partnership with Cohere, an early-stage startup that is building a natural language processing platform to make it easier for developers to build natural language processing models into applications. The solution requires a fair amount of infrastructure resources to pull off, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is going to provide them under the terms of this deal. The two companies are also planning a go-to-market effort together,… Source link
Read More »Stanford dropouts raise $60 million for grocery startup Zepto
A new startup company founded by two Stanford University dropouts is threatening to restructure the grocery delivery industry in India. 19-year-old former Stanford classmates Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra founded Zepto in April of this year. In less than 8 months, the company has raised over $60 million from investors. The idea for a startup came when the pair were locked in the house due to pandemic restrictions back in 2020. Zepto’s main selling point is its speed. The service… Source link
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