Google partners with VCs to host its own machine learning startup competition

On the heels of acquiring data science community Kaggle, Google is launching a machine learning competition of its own for startups. Google is targeting early-stage companies taking an innovative approach to machine learning. The competition is being run in partnership with seven venture capital firms that include Sequoia, KPCB, GV, Data Collective, Emergence Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock. Two of the firms, Data Collective and Emergence Capital, plan to contribute $500,000 each to the winning startup. To qualify for that prize, startups will not be required to use Google services.