From CCN.com: UiPath, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup first backed by Google's CapitalG fund in 2018 will shortly, according to leaked reports, achieve over 5000% growth. Business Insider sources claim UiPath, also backed by Sequoia Capital and Accel, is set to hit $200 million annual recurring revenue (ARR). ARR is a metric used by software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers to reflect subscription revenues. The ARR figure for UiPath was just $3.5 million in 2016. Its ARR hit $150 million in November 2018.

Similarly, an Indian travel start-up, RailYatri, has created an Estimated Arrival Time prediction algorithm using Machine Learning and statistical modelling techniques to predict the arrival time of trains. The system, trained on historical data, can provide customers with realistic estimated times for the arrival of their trains. According to Kapil Raizada, Cofounder of RailYatri, the method to predict the arrival time of trains in India had not changed over decades and was typically based on a distance by speed ratio for trains with some buffer time. RailYatri's Machine Learning algorithm takes into considerations other parameters ("ground realities") such as increasing traffic, rush, seasonality, etc, and adapts as it learns from subsequent inputs, making the predictions better with time. It uses clustering techniques to organise historical train runs into thousands of patterns where time series data attributes are similar.

MUMBAI: Private equity firm Apax Partners has signed a definitive agreement to invest as much as $200 million to become the single largest shareholder in Fractal Analytics, India's second largest big data firm. The transaction, which consists of a secondary stake acquired from existing shareholders such as Malayasian sovereign investor of Khazanah and T.A. Associates besides a primary investment into the business, both the companies said in a statement. Though not disclosed, sources tell ET, Apax will end up with a significant minority stake of around 45%. The deal is expected to get closed by February 2019, the statement said. ET first reported about the potential transaction in its edition dated Jan 4. The company will use the investment by the Apax Funds to accelerate growth, both organically and through M&A, and to invest further in AI products and research.

DETROIT - Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co. said on Tuesday they will join forces on commercial vans and pickups and are exploring joint development of electric and self-driving technology in moves meant to save the automakers billions of dollars. Ford and VW announced their partnership against the backdrop of the Detroit auto show. The tie-up, which starts with sales of vans and medium-sized pickups in 2022, will not involve a merger or equity stakes, the companies said. "It is no secret that our industry is undergoing fundamental change, resulting from widespread electrification, ever stricter emission regulation, digitization, the shift towards autonomous driving, and not least the changing customer preferences," Volkswagen Chief Executive Herbert Diess told reporters and analysts on a conference call. "Carmakers around the globe therefore are investing heavily to align their portfolios to future needs and accelerate their innovation cycles," he added.

Compared to a few years ago, the artificial intelligence (AI) market is starting to solidify around real-world applications with the pace of change being faster than it has ever been before, as startups and technology providers rush to create platforms and targeted niche solutions for solving specific enterprise problems. According to a new report from Tractica, the industry is churning and evolving quickly as merger and acquisition (M&A) activities abound, and it is homing in on areas of focus. Tractica's research has identified more than 1,000 companies that are driving innovation in the AI market, some of whom are well-known technology heavyweights but many of which are emerging solution providers that are focused on tailored AI applications to serve tactical business needs in specific industries. "The AI ecosystem is a tangled web of traditional technology providers that have adapted to shifting trends and new market entrants focused on using AI for solving problems in niche areas, in addition to well-established internet-era hyperscaler companies that are spearheading the push toward AI-first organizations," says research analyst Sherril Hanson. The key categories of companies in Tractica's mapping of the AI market ecosystem are as follows: Tractica's report, "Artificial Intelligence Market Ecosystem", provides an in-depth examination of the market ecosystem for AI.

We dive into the strategies Microsoft is pursuing across cloud, enterprise IT, AI, gaming, and more to see how the company is positioning itself for the future. As the world's most valuable company, and with a current market cap hovering around $780B, Microsoft may be the next company to reach the $1T threshold. While it may not grab as many headlines as its buzzier tech giant counterparts, the company is quietly adapting across its core business areas, led by a future-focused Satya Nadella. Since assuming the CEO role in 2014, Nadella has deprioritized the Windows offering that initially helped Microsoft become a household name, refocusing the company's efforts on implementing AI across all its products and services. That's not the only change: in addition to an increased focus on AI, cloud and subscription services have become unifying themes across products. And to maintain its dominance in enterprise technology, Microsoft is expanding in new areas -- like gaming and personal computing -- that leverage the company's own cloud infrastructure. Below, we outline Microsoft's key priorities, initiatives, investments, and acquisitions across its various business segments. The majority of Microsoft's revenue comes from its enterprise technologies, which fall under its Intelligent Cloud and Productivity & Business Processes segments. The Productivity & Business Processes segment includes software products like Office 365, Skype, LinkedIn, and Microsoft's ERP (enterprise resource planning) and CRM (customer relationship management) platform, Dynamic 365. Microsoft's Intelligence Cloud segment includes cloud platform Azure, the Visual Studio developer platform, and Windows Server, a version of Microsoft's proprietary operating system optimized for running in the cloud. Outside of enterprise technology, Microsoft generates revenue from products like Xbox and Microsoft Surface, among others areas. These products are bucketed into the company's More Personal Computing segment. In addition to its in-house efforts, Microsoft has a number of initiatives that look to support promising young businesses. These include Microsoft's venture capital arm, M12, Microsoft's accelerator, ScaleUp, and other initiatives like Microsoft for Startups.

In 1994, soon after Jeff Bezos incorporated what would become Amazon, the entrepreneur briefly contemplated changing the company's name. The nascent firm had been dubbed "Cadabra," but Bezos wanted a less playful, more accurate alternative: "Relentless." Twenty-four years later, perhaps no adjective better describes Bezos' empire than the name he once wanted to give it. The company is known as the "everything store," but in its dogged pursuit of growth, Amazon has come to dominate more than just ecommerce. Amazon is a fashion designer, advertising business, television and movie producer, book publisher, and the owner of a sprawling platform for crowdsourced micro-labor tasks.

This morning, we explain what a terrible year cryptocurrency had -- I hope you didn't remortgage your house. Meanwhile, Xbox seems ready to have a strong 2019, and drones plunge one of the UK's biggest airports into chaos. After five years, two mid-generation console releases and a brand-new gamepad...Xbox is poised to dominate the next console generation While the Switch and PS4 are riding high in this console cycle, Microsoft is better positioned than any other video-game company to take control of the coming one, which is expected to kick off in 2020. Living the Marty McFly dream.Nike's first self-lacing basketball shoes go on sale in 2019 for $350 On Nike's quarterly earnings call, executives revealed plans for an'Adaptive' basketball shoe that will cost around $350. That's about $400 cheaper than last year's HyperAdapt trainers, but more expensive than the Jordan XXXIII with its strap the wearer adjusts on their own.

The S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission puts Uber neck-and-neck with Lyft. Both planned IPOs are shaping up to be among the biggest in a spate of offerings aimed for 2019. Lyft said Thursday it had filed its S-1, and people familiar with the matter have said it is aiming to debut in March or April. Uber's filing indicates it could go public as soon as the first quarter, as The Wall Street Journal reported in October. That would be sooner than many observers had expected.

In a week of multiple nine-figure venture capital funding rounds, B2B FinTech has proved it plans to end the year on a high note. The star of this week's roundup is undoubtedly data: Two Robotics Process Automation (RPA) companies focusing on enterprise data analytics and automation landed a combined $565 million, while other high-value rounds were closed in the workspace sharing and asset-based lending markets. Below, PYMNTS breaks down the more than $912 million raised by B2B FinTech firms this week. RPA is igniting chatter in the corporate finance community as professionals explore next-level analytics and automation functionality to enhance processes like accounts payable, accounts receivable, cash flow management and more. This week, RPA startup Automation Anywhere made waves with its $300 million investment from the SoftBank Vision Fund, reports said Thursday (Nov.