Neura, a platform that helps users personalize connected devices while guarding their data, will promote its new software development kit after raising a $11 million Series A. The round was led by AXA Strategic Partners and Pitango Venture Capital, with participation from Liberty Israel Venture Fund and Lenovo Group.
Neura, which can currently be integrated with more than 55 devices and software channels, just held a beta program with “tens of thousands of users,” and expects that number to increase significantly after launching its SDK. Co-founder and chief executive officer Gilad Meiri says Neura will use its new funding to promote the SDK, strike partnerships with tech companies, and hire more employees.
At last year’s CES, Intel showed off Curie, an itty-bitty wearable computer that could fit into a button—literally, as CEO Brian Krzanich pulled a button off his blazer during his keynote speech and explained it contained a demo module. On Tuesday, during the world’s largest chip maker’s keynote speech at this year’s CES, Krzanich said Intel will start shipping the chip in the first quarter, and that it will cost less than $10.
Insurers are increasingly recognizing the IoT’s potential to offer real-time monitoring of vehicles, homes, and other areas of key risk exposure. And one way they are seizing on this opportunity is partnering with emerging startups and tech giants in the space.
Cloud infrastructure provider Amazon Web Services today that its AWS IoT service for working with data from Internet-connected devices is now generally available.
Amazon first announced the beta launch of AWS IoT at the AWS re:Invent conference in October. Part of the appeal of the service is that it abstracts away underlying compute and storage infrastructure.
Since the launch in October, Philips and Scout Alarm have started using the service, AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post today.
Having been early to the mobile revolution, Joe Britt has now turned his focus to the Internet of Things.
Today, Britt took the wraps of his new startup, Afero, which claims to enhance connections between smart objects and improve security. Britt is best known as the cofounder of Danger, (which was bought by Microsoft), where he was later engineering director for Android.
Britt is joined by a handful of former employees from Apple and Nest.
The intelligent home is now an exciting reality — we’re replacing our electronics with devices that act as mini-computers, knowing our every move and curating web-based content to suit our preferences. In 2016, 4 million new “things” will become available to consumers, according to Gartner. From a security standpoint, we could be talking about 4 million digital door keys to private homes.
We’re about to see a surge in “autonomous devices” — devices that are aware of their environment, their state, and incoming data and that have the ability to learn and make decisions on their own.
Internet of Things startups have attracted over $7.4B in cumulative investment over 887 deals since 2010. As the IoT continues to transform business categories such as auto, medicine, and heavy manufacturing, it’s important to know where to top VCs are placing their bets.
Quarterly trends in smart money IoT investment
Looking at quarterly trends, the IoT space saw an uptick in deals involving smart money VCs beginning in 2011. However, smart money participation peaked in Q4’14, with $332M in funding. Since then, these top investors have cooled off on IoT bets.
Robots that move around and do the heavy lifting, drones that drop off stuff you ordered on-line an hour before, self-driving cars, even self-driven vacuum cleaners that don’t bump into the furniture – it’s all part of the big technology revolution that 3D vision is on the verge of bringing to the world. And according to Igal Iancu, a senior manager on Intel’s RealSense 3D vision tech team, based in Haifa, none of it is going to be possible without a heavy dose of made-in-Israel technology.
