Artificial intelligence is clearly on the mind of the biggest companies in tech. Of note, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently called the development of artificial intelligence one of his top three key goals over the next 10 years. IBM launched a $100M Watson venture fund in January. And Google has already acquired a handful of AI startups including DeepMind Technologies of the UK for $500M.
With big moves taking place in the space, we took a look in the CB Insights database to pick a few up-and-coming startups that might be worth keeping an eye on in machine learning, natural language processing and who are working in the area of AI
Corporate messaging tool Slack announced today that it has closed a $120 million round led by Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins.
The new round values the company at $1.12 billion, post funding — a massive valuation for an eight-month-old company. Slack was quick to point this out in its press release: “Having just launched in February, this milestone marks Slack as the fastest growing SaaS company ever.”
Ten of the most innovative startups in digital health demonstrated their products live on stage at VentureBeat’s HealthBeat conference yesterday.
Grilling the startups after their demos were venture capitalists Casper de Clercq (NVP), Michael Yang (Comcast Ventures), and Julie Wheelan (Edison Nation Medical).
The products presented were impressive. “I’m really glad we weren’t asked to pick a winner this year because there were so many great companies here,” said Edison National Medical’s Julie Wheelan after the presentations.
Currently seeking funding through Indiegogo, Bluesmart is a truly intelligent suitcase with digital locking, location tracking, and self-weighing capabilties.
Two companies targeting the “mom” demographic with a product lineup that includes party supplies, crafts, toys, and more, Seedling and P.S. XO, are now merging. The combined companies have also now raised $7 million in new funding from UpFront Ventures and Greycroft Partners, in light of the deal and the revenue projections as a combined entity. The two are expected to hit $10 million in revenue by year-end, and more than double that by year-end 2015.
Adsquare, which provides a platform for Mobile Audience Targeting to help advertisers target groups of people based on their location, has raised a $4.3 million Series A round led by German VC Target Partners, with participation from existing investors. This adds to a previous $1.4 million seed round from Frühphasenfonds Brandenburg, Berlin Ventures and various angel investors.
The UK fintech scene is hot right now, with more than $450M having been invested in 2014 alone. We decided to use CB Insights data to pick a few up-and-coming startups that are worth keeping an eye on. These startups are pre-Series C companies that have received funding within the last year.
People don’t want to cook, and while ordering takeout used to be the fix to that problem, now you can order chef-made food (such as from Munchery) or, better yet, order a chef to your house and temporarily live the life of the rich and famous.
La Belle Assiette, a French startup, lets folks do exactly that. The startup is announcing today that it has raised $1.7 million in seed funding to continue growing and make some key hires.
GoldieBlox, the San Francisco Bay Area startup focused on building toys for girls aimed at getting them hooked on engineering, has this morning taken its first steps into the digital realm with the debut of a new iOS application – the company’s first – GoldieBlox and the Movie Machine, as well as a “digital playground” called Bloxtown.com.
