German data mining software firm Celonis said on Thursday that it had raised $290 mln in a Series C funding round, putting a $2.5 billion valuation on the company that has been compared with enterprise application giant SAP . The funding round was led by Arena Holdings and investors included Ryan Smith, the founder of customer experience specialist Qualtrics that was bought by SAP for $8 billion a year ago. Celonis, based in Munich and New York, runs a cloud-based service that uses artificial intelligence to mine data and optimize business processes, serving customers including Siemens, 3M, Airbus and Vodafone. "We are in a market that shows enormous momentum," co-CEO and co-founder Bastian Nominacher told Reuters, adding that Celonis would invest the funds raised in its global sales and customer service and in enhancing its cloud platform. The funding round brings total investments into Celonis to $370 million.

The company has acquired two start-ups since 2018- QGraph and Emotion Intelligence (Emin)- and following strategic integration of their technology into Appier's core offering. Taipei: Appier, an artificial intelligence (AI) company, announces today that it has raised a US$80 million Series D funding round with investment from TGVest Capital, HOPU-Arm Innovation Fund, Temasek's Pavilion Capital, Insignia Venture Partners, JAFCO Investment and UMC Capital. Appier's total funding to date is US$162 million. The latest capital injection will propel worldwide market expansion, attract outstanding global talent and drive innovation in AI for new industries beyond digital marketing, in addition to continuing to strengthen and scale Appier's current product suite. "Appier has been unwavering in its commitment to developing AI that makes people's lives easier, and we're proud to help our customers become data-driven organizations with cutting-edge technology at their core," said Chih-Han Yu, Appier CEO and Co-founder.

The company has acquired two start-ups since 2018- QGraph and Emotion Intelligence (Emin)- and following strategic integration of their technology into Appier's core offering. Taipei: Appier, an artificial intelligence (AI) company, announces today that it has raised a US$80 million Series D funding round with investment from TGVest Capital, HOPU-Arm Innovation Fund, Temasek's Pavilion Capital, Insignia Venture Partners, JAFCO Investment and UMC Capital. Appier's total funding to date is US$162 million. The latest capital injection will propel worldwide market expansion, attract outstanding global talent and drive innovation in AI for new industries beyond digital marketing, in addition to continuing to strengthen and scale Appier's current product suite. "Appier has been unwavering in its commitment to developing AI that makes people's lives easier, and we're proud to help our customers become data-driven organizations with cutting-edge technology at their core," said Chih-Han Yu, Appier CEO and Co-founder.

The evolution of modern finance was closely linked to the evolution of computers, communications, and financial mathematics. Two main changes happened in the 1970s with the beginning of derivative trading and after the crisis of 2007 with the massive introduction of fintech. Derivatives pricing started with the celebrated Black and Scholes equation and formulas in 1974, followed by a wealth of mathematical methods to compute the prices of derivatives. Still, even the 1980s derivative pricing required supercomputers, giving big firms a major competitive advantage – before the 2007 crisis, the trading volume was close to 1 trillion dollars a day. The prevailing opinion was that derivatives had enabled us to complete financial markets so that any stream of cash flows could be engineered.

We are nearing the end of this decade, and investors need to gear up for the sectors that will dominate the 2020s. Artificial intelligence (AI) has attracted attention from a variety of circles. AI skeptics like Elon Musk have struck a cautionary tone, while Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is far more optimistic. There is one thing we can guarantee: companies will continue to throw huge investments, as AI tech promises to be a big money maker going forward. Canada's stock market has been maligned for being financial, energy, and material heavy, while its technology sector is tiny in comparison to its U.S. counterparts.

Vancouver, WA: ZoomInfo, the global leader in go-to-market (GTM) intelligence solutions, today announced the acquisition of Seattle-area based technology startup Komiko, whose technology will integrate into the ZoomInfo Powered by DiscoverOrg platform. Designed to accelerate the sales pipeline with valuable analytics, Komiko's AI-powered CRM automation, playbooks, and predictive analytics will be released as ZoomInfo InboxAI. Founded by Microsoft executives Hal Howard and Ami Heitner, Komiko utilizes machine learning and data science to better automate the CRM process. Now as a function of ZoomInfo InboxAI, the technology can capture contact and activity data buried deep in the email inboxes and calendars of sales representatives. That data is then populated within the CRM system of record -- triggering alerts and generating analytics essential to supporting renewals, managing new business pipelines, and giving every organization a 360-degree view of customers, prospects, and partners.

Artificial intelligence (AI) marketing companies bagged $2.5bn of investment last year as marketers turned to the new technology to help analyse huge troves of data. Last year's investment surge has continued into 2019, with $1bn invested in the second quarter alone, according to figures compiled by tech investment firm GP Bullhound. The report shows that marketing AI remains a nascent sector, with private placements outnumbering merger and acquisition transactions. However, the steady rise highlights how marketers and increasingly looking to technology to help sort and analyse growing amounts of user data. "Artificial intelligence heralds the beginning of a new marketing era, driven by the need to connect vast amounts of disparate data, uncover patterns and make predictions, which only AI can accomplish," said Oliver Schweitzer, executive director at GP Bullhound.

After a year of uncertainty, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) shareholders were holding out hope that the company could return to year-over-year revenue growth, or at least continue the incremental improvements it has delivered in each of the previous two quarters. While the return to growth has yet to materialize, NVIDIA did deliver sequential improvement in its third-quarter earnings report out Thursday, supporting investors' hopes that the worst is over. For the fiscal 2020 third quarter, which ended Oct. 27, NVIDIA reported revenue of $3.01 billion, down 5% year over year -- but up 17% sequentially. This was easily above analysts' consensus top estimates of $2.91 billion and the high end of management's forecast, which called for $2.96 billion. Profits were equally promising, as adjusted earnings per share of $1.78 declined 3% from a year ago but soared past expectations of $1.57.

An hour of earnings reports highlighted how every business will go digital, becoming software-based and utilize artificial intelligence. Michael Dale Hayford, CEO of NCR, said the company is looking to create software defined stores in its retail business. And banking, which is becoming more about the ATM than the branch. NCR reported third quarter revenue of $1.78 billion, up 15% from a year ago, with net income of $105 million. The company saw strong growth in both ATM and point of sale terminals.