Teikametrics, a leading SaaS provider of AI-powered optimization for brands and sellers on Amazon and Walmart, today announced the completion of a $15 million strategic funding round backed by new and existing investors. The announcement follows Teikametrics' selection as one of Walmart's first exclusive advertising optimization partners, and the addition of Srinivas Guddanti, a 14-year senior Amazon veteran, as its Chief Product Officer. Jump Capital led the round and were joined by follow-on investments from Granite Point Capital, MIT Professor of Econometrics, Jerry Hausman, and the former Head of Growth at Facebook and Uber, Ed Baker. "We're thrilled to lead this new round of capital in Teikametrics," said Michael McMahon, founding partner of Jump Capital. "The Company has grown rapidly, and the success of its proprietary AI technology for Amazon is a strong proof point for a broader ecommerce platform opportunity. The partnership with Walmart is a landmark event and we are excited to fund the expansion of the Teikametrics platform across multiple ecommerce channels."

Teikametrics, a leading SaaS provider of AI-powered optimization for brands and sellers on Amazon and Walmart, announced the completion of a $15 million strategic funding round backed by new and existing investors. The announcement follows Teikametrics' selection as one of Walmart's first exclusive advertising optimization partners, and the addition of Srinivas Guddanti, a 14-year senior Amazon veteran, as its Chief Product Officer. "We're thrilled to lead this new round of capital in Teikametrics" Jump Capital led the round and were joined by follow-on investments from Granite Point Capital, MIT Professor of Econometrics, Jerry Hausman, and the former Head of Growth at Facebook and Uber, Ed Baker. "We're thrilled to lead this new round of capital in Teikametrics," said Michael McMahon, founding partner of Jump Capital. "The Company has grown rapidly, and the success of its proprietary AI technology for Amazon is a strong proof point for a broader ecommerce platform opportunity. The partnership with Walmart is a landmark event and we are excited to fund the expansion of the Teikametrics platform across multiple ecommerce channels."

Roombas come in a variety of models ideally suited to your needs. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission. If you're one of the many Americans who spends roughly six hours a week cleaning your home, it's high time you get yourself a robot vacuum to do the work for you. Black Friday is one of the best times to save big on the handy floor cleaner, like our favorite robot vacuum, the iRobot Roomba i7 . Retailers like Amazon and Walmart are offering savings of up to $251 on select robot vacuum models from brands like iRobot, Bissell, Shark, and more.

Extra Crunch offers members the opportunity to tune into conference calls led and moderated by the TechCrunch writers you read every day. This week Brian Heater, fresh off a trip to Pittsburgh to visit a handful of robotics companies, led a discussion about the current state of robotics and how startups are integrating the machines into our lives. When it comes to our home lives, we really only have the Roomba, that circular disc that moves about our floors on its own sweeping up the dust and dirt. In fact, the jobs being performed behind the scenes are the ones robots are digging into. Obviously we've got some fairly unrealistic expectations about robotics that have been served up to us by sci-fi and things like that.

But the reverberations from ride-share apps are nothing compared with what will happen when autonomous vehicles become the norm. This new industry is on its way to becoming a multitrillion-dollar business--bigger than Amazon and Walmart combined. According to the World Economic Forum, the digital transformation of the auto industry will deliver $3.1 trillion annually in societal benefits by reducing the number of crashes, the impact of carbon emissions and the cost of car ownership, including maintenance, fuel and insurance. A 2017 study from Intel predicted that the global autonomous-vehicle market will generate $7 trillion annually by 2050--both directly (industrial use) and indirectly (savings from shorter commutes and a reduced need for emergency services). Everything around us will be altered by autonomous vehicles--our roads, our warehouses and even our definition of what a car can be.

This is where robots come in. Resembling oversize Roombas topped with Ikea shelving, these Kiva robots can carry up to 750 pounds of goods in their 40-odd cubbies. After a customer places an order, a robot carrying the desired item scoots over to a worker, who reads on a screen what item to pick and what cubby it's located in, scans a bar code and places the item in a bright-yellow bin that travels by conveyor belt to a packing station. AI suggests an appropriate box size; a worker places the item in the box, which a robot tapes shut and, after applying a shipping label, sends on its way. Humans are needed mostly for grasping and placing, tasks that robots haven't mastered yet.

Campaigns enter texting era with a plea: Will u vote 4 me? Political candidates have a number of tools at their disposal to try and win your vote. Slick branding, TV commercials and social media ads are just the beginning. The New York Times dives into how campaigns in 2018 are hitting us up via the good ol' text message and the questions that arise from that method of outreach. Waymo's self-driving cars are near: Meet the teen who rides one every day Tom Randall and Mark Bergen, Bloomberg If you've been wondering what it's like to participate in Waymo's self-driving test, here's the story of one Arizona family who is doing just that.

Companies are waging an invisible data war online. And your phone might be an unwitting soldier. Retailers from Amazon and Walmart to tiny startups want to know what their competitors charge. Brick and mortar retailers can send people, sometimes called "mystery shoppers," to their competitors' stores to make notes on prices. Online, there's no need to send people anywhere.

Confronting supply chain problems is increasingly necessary for retailers to maintain relevancy, but the retailers who straighten out their supply chains and use new tech to better gauge and meet consumer expectations will dominate the industry. That's where AI comes in. As demonstrated by the CB Insights report, AI can learn from consumer habits in an online store and better predict and target what the consumer wants, allowing the retailer to more effectively market and handle inventory. If meeting consumer expectations is a retailers' biggest problem, then understanding consumer behavior through AI is the way to solve it. That's why companies like Amazon and Walmart are so successful.

A new feature allows users to ask Amazon's voice assistant Alexa to play "baby making jazz music." FILE - This file photo provided by Amazon shows models of the Amazon Echo Show. With Echo Show, Amazon has given its voice-enabled Echo speaker a touch screen and video-calling capabilities as it competes with Google's efforts at bringing "smarts" to the home. Amazon has been ramping up efforts to get more people to shop using the Alexa voice assistant on Echo speakers and other Amazon devices. NEW YORK -- In the name of convenience, Amazon and Walmart are pushing people to shop by just talking to a digital assistant.