Lemonade, a mobile-first, AI-infused insurance firm backed by chatbots and self-proclaimed ethics, has announced a $120 million series C funding round led by Japanese telecom giant SoftBank. The round saw participation from some existing investors, which include big names such as GV (Google Ventures), Sequoia Capital, and Allianz. The company told VentureBeat that "most prior investors" participated in this round, though it wouldn't divulge which ones, specifically. Founded out of New York in 2015, Lemonade is a fully licensed insurance carrier that underwrites its own policies, unlike many other entrants into the growing insurtech space. With a focus on homeowners and renters, Lemonade strives to differentiate itself in a number of ways, including by cutting bureaucracy and speeding up the application process.

AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) tokens will act as fuel of SingularityNET ecosystem. AGI tokens will let anyone buy and sell AI/machine learning services from around the world via SingularityNET marketplace. SingularityNET wants to open the AI market to the entire world by enabling individuals, developers, small companies and organizations to buy and sell AI services and machine learning tools easily. SingularityNET Foundation operates on a belief that the benefits of AI should not be dominated by any small set of powerful institutions, but shared by all. Demand for AI and Blockchain As everyone focuses on the wild run in Bitcoin the real story unfolding is the high demand for anything related to artificial intelligenece (A.I.) and blockchain.

Apple confirmed a theory many users have had for years: the iPhone gets slower with age. The confirmation comes after Reddit users noticed their devices were getting slower as the batteries in their iPhones got weaker. Apple heads into the new year with some unusually downbeat news: its new iPhone X isn't proving to be quite the sales darling that some of its previous smartphones have been. Shares of Cupertino tech giant were down 3% in early trading Tuesday after several market analysts forecast lower than expected demand for the latest iPhone, with its edge-to-edge screen, face-recognition software and lofty price. Apple could cut its sales forecast for the first quarter of 2018 to 30 million units, down from an initial target of 50 million, according to a report in Taiwan's Economic Daily News cited by Reuters.

SingularityNET raised $36 mln in one minute, completely selling out of its native AGI tokens. While this is an enormous amount of money to raise in an incredibly short period of time, it's somewhat unsurprising considering demand. The company asserts that the issue was massively oversubscribed, with 20,000 people registered to participate, seeking to buy $361 mln worth of tokens. "[Screening] all applicants using layers of algorithms, in addition to manual review, to comply with global KYC/AML regulations. This reduced the pool of contributors to 5,000, but also set a new standard for fundraising via Blockchain with respect to global legislation."

Technological innovations have radically transformed the business landscape in many ways over the last two centuries, from the introduction of steam power to the market conquest of radial-ply tires. Research by McKinsey & Company and the McKinsey Global Institute shows that digitization is having the same radical impact. In particular, our research shows how digitization can significantly hurt incumbent firms in many industries -- depleting as much as half the revenue growth and one-third of earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) growth of companies that neglect to embrace digital innovations. It is not too late for incumbents to reverse the digital curse and re-create a more profitable growth path if they are willing and able to invest more in digital than their peers and take the offensive by reshuffling their activity portfolios and beefing up remaining activities with new business models. On top of that, incumbents would be wise to choose a "platform play" -- creating value by intermediating in transactions between other parties, such as suppliers and consumers -- because it opens the way to capture more value in disrupted industry chains.

The one-time giant of smartphones has gone through tumultuous times over the past six years, and become a much smaller software company. Its results last week showed just how small: third-quarter revenues were $226m (£169m), its lowest three-monthly total since 2004, with an operating loss of $258m. The Canadian company's chief executive, John Chen, is a turnaround specialist who believes that the future is in self-driving cars, where automakers and software firms alike see huge promise. It is investing hope in QNX, which it bought in 2010: a maker of software that underpins car entertainment and data systems. That is a long way from the early 2000s, when BlackBerry was one of the world's biggest smartphone makers and Apple had yet to launch the all-conquering iPhone.

SingularityNET raised $36 mln in one minute, completely selling out of its native AGI tokens. While this is an enormous amount of money to raise in an incredibly short period of time, it's somewhat unsurprising considering demand. The company asserts that the issue was massively oversubscribed, with 20,000 people registered to participate, seeking to buy $361 mln worth of tokens. "[Screening] all applicants using layers of algorithms, in addition to manual review, to comply with global KYC/AML regulations. This reduced the pool of contributors to 5,000, but also set a new standard for fundraising via Blockchain with respect to global legislation."

Investors in Didi's new funding include Japanese mega-fund-manager SoftBank Group Corp. and Mubadala Development Co., an Abu Dhabi state fund, people familiar with the matter said Thursday. The company announced the funding without naming the investors. The injection gives Beijing-based Didi $12 billion cash reserves and a valuation of $56 billion, these people said. It also means that added together Didi has raised about $19 billion, the most venture capital ever raised by a startup, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. While Uber's valuation was roughly $68 billion based on its last funding round in June 2016, a current SoftBank offer to purchase a sizeable stake at a large discount would lower the U.S. ride-sharing firm's valuation in the range of about $50 billion.

Didi Chuxing has announced another gargantuan equity funding round, as the Chinese ride-hailing giant reveals it has raised a further $4 billion. This latest round comes just eight months after the company raised $5.5 billion, which followed a year after it raised $7.3 billion from big-name backers including Apple. This new cash injection takes Didi's total inbound investments to $19.7 billion, though the company didn't reveal who the investors were beyond stating they were "Chinese and international institutions." With another $4 billion in the bank, Didi said that it plans double down on its artificial intelligence (AI) investments, support its global expansion, and support other initiatives such as "new energy vehicle service networks," according to a statement issued by the company. Similar to Uber, Didi Chuxing offers smartphone-based car services, such as carpooling, taxis, and premium cars with drivers, while it has previously revealed how it's lending its data to cities which are leveraging it in all manner of ways to fight road congestion.

Over the last 12 months, we've seen some incredibly stirring and thoughtful conversations from our members on LinkedIn about hot topics like the opioid crisis, immigration reform, the U.S. tax bill, healthcare coverage and harassment cases. These events sparked hundreds of thousands of insightful comments from professionals on LinkedIn around the world -- and will certainly have lasting consequences for years to come. Amazon has become a kind of corporate obsession in 2017. Companies big and small are watching the retailer: A review of last quarter's earnings calls shows that Amazon's name came up almost four times as often as President Trump's, and six times as often as wages. Amazon's moves this year proved that it's corporate tentacles are expanding, from purchasing Whole Foods to searching for its HQ2, a $5 billion project that promises to bring 50,000 high-paying jobs to the winning locale.