Baidu marked volume production of Apolong autonomous buses, developed with Chinese busmaker King Long and using Apollo autonomous driving software, for commercial operation in cities including Beijing, Shenzhen, Pingtan and Wuhan, the company said at its developer conference in Beijing on July 4, 2018. Intel is getting a big opportunity to show off advanced vision technology and software from its Mobileye unit by partnering with Baidu's Apollo, the Chinese tech giant's autonomous driving consortium. Working with Mobileye, Baidu will integrate the Israeli company's Responsibility Sensitive Safety software into both its open-source Apollo platform shared with partner companies and commercial Apollo Pilot programs, Intel said in a statement. Baidu will also use Mobileye's camera-based surround computer vision system for automated vehicles being developed for the Chinese market. "Our team recognizes the value and critical role that Mobileye's RSS model plays in safely deploying autonomous driving," Weihao Gu, general manager of Baidu's Intelligent Driving Unit, said in a statement.

Planck Re, a startup that wants to simplify insurance underwriting with artificial intelligence, announced today that it has raised a $12 million Series A. The funding was led by Arbor Ventures, with participation from Viola FinTech and Eight Roads. Co-founder and CEO Elad Tsur tells TechCrunch that the capital will be used to expand Planck Re's product line into more segments, including retail, contractors, IT and manufacturing, and grow its research and development team in Israel and North American sales team. The Tel Aviv and New York-based startup plans to focus first on its business in the United States, where it has already launched pilot programs with several insurance carriers. Tsur says that Planck Re's clients generally use it to help underwrite insurance for small to medium-sized businesses, including business owner policies, which cover property and liability risks, and workers' compensation. Founded in 2016 by Tsur, Amir Cohen and David Schapiro, Planck Re poses its technology as a more efficient and accurate alternative to the lengthy risk assessment questionnaire insurers ask clients to fill out.

Planck Re announces their first funding round of $12M to empower commercial insurers by generating insights that streamline the commercial underwriting process – enabling insurers to instantly and accurately underwrite any policy. The round was led by Arbor Ventures and includes Viola FinTech and Eight Roads. Founded in 2016, Planck Re is pioneering the commercial insurance data industry, providing an Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven data platform. Leveraging deep industry expertise and breakthrough data science, Planck Re streamlines the commercial underwriting process by aggregating small and medium businesses' digital footprint to help insurers acquire a comprehensive understanding of customer risk. The end result is a frictionless underwriting process with greater insurance carrier visibility into risk factors, leading to improved conversion, retention and reduced loss ratios.

Somewhere in the spare room of a home in the US or overseas, a recent high school grad and soon to be member of the Class of 2022 at a school like Stanford or Georgia Tech is gathering up the clothes, gadgets, and dorm room basics that they will need for freshman year. Four years after that traumatic (for the parents) drop-off day, that skinny but brilliant freshman will graduate and join a six-person start-up company, where he or she will play an integral part in building the game-changing technology that you and your organization will use just a few years later. We can't tell you which freshmen are on the way to cashing out their stock options or which companies they will work for, but we can get a glimpse of key information technologies that might be available in the somewhat shorter term. Some of the companies and technologies that will be in the must-have category are pulling in venture capital investments today. This is the first in an occasional series of roundups of just a few of the noteworthy startup reporting investments.

A drone analytics solutions specialist has teamed up with a insurance provider in a move designed to bolster its services in the run up to run-up peak hurricane season. Everest Insurance announced today an agreement with Airware, designed engagement to add precision and efficiency to the claims management process. The partnership will also help expedite the claims adjustment process by leveraging Airware's aerial data analytics and machine learning (ML) capabilities. Ryan Cole, Everest Insurance director, commented: "Beyond flying drones, this relationship will empower our adjusters and inspectors to elevate the customer experience. We are optimistic this technology may further reduce claims cycle time, improve response time in the wake of catastrophic events, and help customers proactively identify potentially hazardous conditions through aerial identification."

Cerebri AI, an Austin startup that uses AI to improve customer service, just announced a major round of funding -- a $5 million Series A led by Microsoft's venture fund, M12. With the fresh funds, the company plans to expand its operations and support the release of its new Cerebri Values product, which "quantifies each customer's commitment" to a product, according to the company's press release announcing the deal. "With the fantastic support from our investors and the capital raised in our Series A financing, today we are launching a truly revolutionary way for major enterprises to engage with their customers," Jean Belanger, Cerebri AI's CEO and co-founder said in a statement. The company uses machine learning to give companies the ability to track and analyze the patterns that lead to purchases. "Cerebri has created a product that is fundamentally changing how customer-facing sales and success professionals can analyze the customer journey," said M12 Partner Elliott Robinson in a statement.

Netradyne, a leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology focusing on driver and commercial fleet safety, today announced that its Driveri platform has been selected as the winner of the "Best AI-based Solution for Transportation" award from AI Breakthrough, an independent organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies and products in the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) market today. "Netradyne's recognition by the Artificial Intelligence Awards as being the best AI-based solution for transportation reiterates our company's belief that we are driving forward the potential for AI in all aspects of the transportation space including commercial trucking and autonomous vehicles," said Sandeep Pandya, Netradyne President. "This organization recognizes cutting edge AI technology at the highest levels and to have the Driveri platform mentioned alongside so many other impactful companies such as Google, NVIDIA and IBM is a tremendous honor. We are elated by the recognition and will continue to look for innovative ways to showcase AI's unique and impactful capabilities within transportation." The mission of the AI Breakthrough Awards is to honor excellence and recognize the innovation, hard work and success in a range of AI and machine learning related categories, including AI platforms, Deep Learning, Smart Robotics, Business Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, industry specific AI applications and many more.

Windward, the pioneering maritime risk analytics startup that's fundamentally changing the marine insurance landscape, today announced it had raised $16.5m in Series C funding. It brings the total raised to date to $38.9m. The round was led by San Francisco-based insurtech fund, XL Innovate. Existing investors, Horizons Ventures and Aleph, also participated, as did a number of individuals, including Salesforce Chairman & CEO, Marc Benioff. As part of the fundraising, Tom Hutton, XL Innovate Managing Partner and former CEO of RMS, will become a board director.

Tessian announced today that it has raised $13 million in venture capital as the U.K.-based company seeks to address the problem of enterprise email security through automation. Formerly known by the more literal name CheckRecipient, Tessian uses machine learning to discover and fix misaddressed emails, a seemingly mundane hiccup that in fact causes big security headaches when sensitive information falls into the wrong hands. Tessian notes that the U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office receives more security incident reports about misaddressed emails than about any other type of security issue. And new European privacy rules could result in hefty fines for such mistakes. "With the recent report from the ICO that misaddressed emails are now the number one data security incident reported to them, and GDPR now in full swing, companies should make addressing this risk a top security priority," said Tessian CEO and cofounder Tim Sadler, in a statement.

Kroger, one of the country's largest grocery retailers, looks to bring its grocery delivery service into the future with plans to utilize autonomous vehicles to send goods to customers, the company announced Thursday. The partnership between the Ohio-based grocery chain and driverless car company Nuro means that customers can place same-day delivery orders through Kroger's ClickList ordering system and Nuro's fleet of self-driving vehicles will deliver those orders. Kroger, with 2,800 stores across the U.S, hopes that with the help of Nuro's technology it will "change the status quo of grocery delivery through convenience at a low price." It is the first time the tech company's hardware and software are being utilized, the company said. The rollout is slated for fall.