Palantir’s push into federal health work continues. The data analytics company just picked up a new U.S. Food and Drug Administration contract which will span three years for a total of $44.4 million. The company’s shares, which have doubled in value over the last two months, are up around 20% on the news. As Bloomberg […]
The aerospace industry has seen an explosion of activity from the world of startups, where bright engineers are foregoing jobs at large corporations and opting instead to raise funding from increasingly ambitious venture capitalists to build their own startups to turn moonshots into business realities. In the latest development, a startup out of Munich has […]
French President Emmanuel Macron sat down with Niklas Zennström for an interview on the European tech ecosystem. Macron listed everything that’s needed to create European tech giants that compete with the biggest American and Chinese tech companies. According to him, Europe needs to focus on “financing, integration of our markets and an actual single market, […]
This year has taken a toll on so many small businesses, yet the data shows the entrepreneurial spirit remains strong with a drive to push onward, improve and succeed.
Richard Socher, former chief scientist at Salesforce, who helped build the Einstein artificial intelligence platform, is taking on a new challenge — and it’s a doozy. Socher wants to fix consumer search and today he announced you.com, a new search engine to take on the mighty Google. “We are building you.com. You can already go […]
It’s GitHub Universe week and unsurprisingly, the ubiquitous code management service is announcing a slew of updates. Companies can now become GitHub Sponsors and invest in open-source projects by paying developers directly. There is automatic merging of pull requests (if that’s your thing), discussions for all public repositories and the beta of dependency reviews. GitHub […]
TC Sessions: Space is happening next week (December 16-17), and besides talking to some of the biggest names in the industry, we’ll be highlighting a few of the most interesting startups as well. Kayhan Space aims to coordinate the increasingly crowded lower orbits, and Firehawk Aerospace has a new approach to rocketry that could lead […]
So, how are filmmakers reacting to the news that Warner Bros. will be releasing all of next year’s movies on HBO Max at the same time that they’re released in theaters? Not too well, according to a story published yesterday in The Hollywood Reporter. While the story includes plenty of anonymous commentary (mostly from agents), […]
Dozens of medical imaging devices built by General Electric are secured with hardcoded default passwords that can’t be easily changed, but could be exploited to access sensitive patient scans, according to new findings by security firm CyberMDX . The researchers said that an attacker would only need to be on the same network to exploit […]
For the longest time, Google’s new Fuchsia operating system remained a bit of a mystery — with little information in terms of the company’s plans for it, even as the team behind it brought the code to GitHub under a standard open-source license. These days, we know that it’s Google’s first attempt at developing a […]
YouTube in 2016 added support for HDR (high-dynamic range) videos on its platform, allowing cretators to upload videos offering higher contrast, more accurate shadows and highlights, a wider range of colors, and, overall improved image quality. Today, the company announced it’s now bringing HDR support to live streamed videos, too. This will make YouTube the […]
As companies rely increasingly on machine learning models to run their businesses, it’s imperative to include anti-bias measures to ensure these models are not making false or misleading assumptions. Today at AWS re:Invent, AWS introduced Amazon SageMaker Clarify to help reduce bias in machine learning models. “We are launching Amazon SageMaker Clarify. And what that […]
Calm, a well-known meditation app, has raised new capital at a valuation of $2 billion. The round was anticipated after the company was reported to be hunting for up to $150 million at a valuation of $2.2 billion; perhaps Calm will follow in the steps of Robinhood and add a second tranche to the round […]
Boost Biomes, the Y Combinator-backed developer of microbiome-based bio-fungicides and bio-pesticides for agricultural applications, has added $2 million in funding and picked up a new strategic investor in Japan’s Universal Materials Incubator. To date, Boost Biomes has raised more than $7 million in financing to support the development of new products like its bio-fungicide developed […]
Snap today announced a new 2021 fund of $3.5 million that will be directed toward supporting Snapchat Lens creators and developers who are using the company’s Lens Studio tool to explore the use of AR technologies. The news kicked off Snap’s multi-day virtual event, Lens Fest, where it also announced an upgraded version of its […]
Thumbtack, a marketplace where you can hire local professionals for home improvement and other services, is announcing that it has acquired Setter. Founded in 2016, Setter provides its customers with video home checkups conducted by experts, then offers personalized plans for how to address any issues. In a blog post, Thumbtack CEO Marco Zappacosta said […]
Venture capital activity is high at the moment, making it difficult to keep up with the influx of new rounds that are being announced. Our cup runneth over, and I would much rather be busy than bored, but not all sectors are as busy as others. We’re not drowning in consumer social rounds, for example. […]
It’s a special day; we’re hosting the year’s final episode of Extra Crunch Live with General Catalyst’s Peter Boyce and Katherine Boyle at 4 p.m. EST/1 p.m. PST. Extra Crunch members can join the live conversation (details below) or catch it on demand. Questions from the audience are not just allowed, they’re highly encouraged, so […]
ShoppingGives, a Chicago-based startup pitching retailers a service that can integrate non-profit donations into their sales and shopping platforms, has raised an undisclosed amount from Serena Williams’ venture capital firm, Serena Ventures, the company said. ShoppingGives allows retailers to offer a donation on behalf of a shopper to any of over 1.5 million nonprofits that […]
Buzzy face-swap video app Reface, which lends users celebrity ‘superpowers’ by turning their selfies into “eerily realistic” famous video clips at the tap of a button, has caught the attention of Andreessen Horowitz. The Silicon Valley venture firm leads a $5.5 million seed round in the deep tech entertainment startup, announced today. Reface tells us […]
