StoryFile offers a somewhat unique service that seems poised to look like something out of Black Mirror. The company – a relative newcomer – helps people to record themselves telling their stories, then presents those stories in an interactive, voice-activated interface. Users can ask the digital storytellers questions, which are interpreted by the StoryFile app and answered with snippets from their recorded stories. Now, StoryFile is announcing that it has acquired a new portfolio of patents covering the use of AI in creating "artificially intelligent interactive memories." StoryFile began with a greenscreen studio and select guests, including Nobel laureates, astronauts, Holocaust survivors, and many others.

We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. Follow Anders on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google . Artificial intelligence (AI) is a hot topic these days. Many companies rely on machine learning and deep data analysis to take their business operations to the next level. Other companies want to supply the needed tools to make a reality out of those AI-powered dreams. The COVID-19 lockdowns have accelerated growth in the industry because AI tools can be helpful in work-from-home and shelter-in-place situations. The AI market is a game-changing opportunity for the next decade and beyond. You've not missed out on this explosive investment idea, even if this is the first time you're looking at AI stocks.

Acquisition broadens Fastly's security offering and accelerates Compute@Edge adoption; Expected to be accretive to growth and gross margin Fastly, Inc., provider of an edge cloud platform, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Signal Sciences ("Signal Sciences"), for approximately $775 million in cash and stock. The acquisition will expand Fastly's robust security portfolio at a time when security at the edge has never been more critical. Signal Sciences' strong, developer-first web application and API protection solutions will bolster Fastly's existing security offerings to bring customers a unified edge security solution. Signal Sciences' technology combined with Fastly's current solutions will form Fastly's upcoming new security offering, Secure@Edge. Secure@Edge will be a modern, unified web application and API protection solution that will power and protect companies looking to further or begin their digital transformation.

ACTO, a startup using AI-powered mobile experiences to educate stakeholders in life sciences, today closed an $11.5 million funding round. The round dovetails with the launch of the company's capabilities for supporting doctors, nurses, and other health providers with conversational AI that surfaces information about drugs and medical devices. "Pharma and medtech companies are answering the call of duty during the pandemic," ACTO CEO Parth Khanna told VentureBeat via email. "Now more than ever, we need to bring medical innovations to market quickly and efficiently. With the new funding, ACTO is well-positioned to help life sciences pioneers thrive in the'new normal' and accelerate digital transformation to virtually engage all key stakeholders, from reps to providers to patients."

Elastic, the company behind Elasticsearch and the Elastic Stack, announced the appointment of Paul Appleby as president, worldwide field operations. Appleby was most recently the chief executive officer of Kinetica, and will be responsible for enhancing the customer journey, driving global revenue growth, and developing strategies for addressing the large market opportunity for Elastic. Appleby will report to Elastic founder and Chief Executive Officer Shay Banon. Appleby joins Elastic as the company continues to see increasing demand for its enterprise search, observability and security solutions that are built on a single technology stack under a unified pricing model. Elastic's unified, resource-based pricing enables customers to predictably control costs and fuel rapid adoption across its solutions.

Dataiku was founded in 2013 with the mission to take machine learning and AI projects out of experimental labs and put them into everyday …

Dataiku was founded in 2013 with the mission to take machine learning and AI projects out of experimental labs and put them into everyday operations …

Each week we round up travel startups that have recently received or announced funding. Please email Senior Travel Tech Editor Sean O'Neill at so@skift.com This week, travel startups announced more than $136 million in funding. Omio, the travel booking app, said Wednesday it had raised $100 million (€83.7 million) in convertible debt. Investors included Temasek, Kinnevik, Goldman Sachs, NEA, and Kleiner Perkins.

With a slew of partnerships with large pharmaceutical companies under its belt and the successful spin out of at least one new company, Atomwise has already proved the value of its machine learning platform for discovering and commercializing potential small molecule therapies for a host of conditions. Now the company has raised $123 million in new funding to accelerate its business. "Scaling the technology and scaling the team and scaling what we've been doing with it," says chief executive officer Abe Heifets when asked about what comes next for the eight-year-old business. Atomwise has already signed contracts worth $5.5 billion with corporate partners that include Eli Lilly & Co., Bayer, Hansoh Pharmaceuticals and Bridge Biotherapeutics. Smaller, earlier-stage companies like StemoniX and SEngine Precision Medicine are also using Atomwise's tech.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning techniques are finding their way into financial services. Ranging from operational efficiencies to more effective detection of fraud and money laundering, firms are embracing techniques that find patterns, learn from them and can subsequently act on signals coming out of large volumes of data. According to Martijn Groot, VP Marketing and Strategy, Asset Control, the most promising, and potentially lucrative, use cases are in investment management though. Among the groups that benefit most are hedge fund managers and other active investors who increasingly rely on AI and machine learning to analyse large data sets for actionable signals that support a faster; better-informed decision-making process. Helping this trend is the increased availability of data sets that provide additional colour and that complement the typical market data feeds from aggregators, such as Bloomberg or Refinitiv, range from data gathered through web scraping, textual analysis of news, social media and earnings calls. Data is also gathered through transactional information from credit card data, email receipts and point of sale (POS) data.