These new companies and health tech startups business are leveraging technology to reinvent medicine for the benefit of researchers, patients, and clinicians. This is a positive development for all parties involved. In the realm of medicine, the use of various technological advancements, such as blockchain and artificial intelligence, in addition to big data analysis and the connectivity of internet-connected items, play an essential role. There has been a shift toward placing a greater focus on the use of health tech startups in the medical industry, and as a direct consequence of this shift, new companies have been established to profit from this trend. These recently established companies have come up with novel approaches to diagnose and treat patients, increased the number of treatment alternatives that are available at more reasonable prices, and sped up the procedure of drug research and development.

The future of computer vision and machine learning can be seen trundling at about 1 mile per hour at a lettuce field in the Salinas Valley of California. In certain fields, a tractor is pulling a highly specialized robot called the "lettuce bot." The robot, made by Blue River Technology, contains enough smarts to differentiate the weeds from the budding lettuce plants and then kill those weeds with an injection of fertilizer. The result is a weed-free field without the use of expensive and harmful pesticides -- making Blue River's robot a threat to the $31-billion pesticide business and a friend of organic farmers. The startup, founded in 2011, on Monday said it has raised $3.1 million in a Series A round led by Khosla Ventures.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is poised to put a damper on Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) IPOs and mergers: it deepened its investigation into potential conflicts of interest in SPAC underwriting processes, and brought charges against prominent SPACs. Find below an analytical digest of the AI SPAC's state of affairs. A special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) is a company with no commercial operations that is formed strictly to raise capital through an IPO for the purpose of acquiring an existing company. IPO investors have no idea what company they ultimately will be investing in.) SPACs seek underwriters and institutional investors before offering shares to the public.

Waabi founder and CEO Raquel Urtasan, a computer scientist and University of Toronto professor, sees a new path to commercializing self-driving technology. Computer scientist Raquel Urtasan, an artificial intelligence expert who led a team of Toronto-based engineers for Uber's self-driving vehicle program, is launching tech startup Waabi with an $83.5 million funding round and a new "AI mindset" approach to commercializing automated driving. The Series A round, among the biggest for any Canadian tech startup, is led by Khosla Ventures and includes investment from Uber, Radical Ventures, 8VC, OMERS Ventures and BDC Capital's Women in Technology Venture Fund. Aurora Innovation, the self-driving tech company that acquired Uber ATG last December, is a minority investor. AI experts including Stanford University's Fei-Fei Li, the University of Toronto's Geoffrey Hinton and Sanja Fidler and the University of California, Berkeley's Pieter Abbeel also participated in the round.

The founders of Vise AI met when they were 13, a couple of teenagers more interested in applied artificial intelligence than English class. Fast-forward several years and the pair has relocated from the Midwest to San Francisco to raise money for a financial technology business they've been self-funding since 2016. As teenagers with an inordinate amount of AI knowledge, Samir Vasavada and Runik Mehrotra proved to be quite useful to large businesses, investment bankers and other financiers. Leveraging their AI know-how, they were paid $700 per hour by a consulting firm to teach financial "experts" about AI. Mehrotra, according to Vasavada, is a mathematical prodigy: "And that translates extremely well to AI, right, because what underlies AI is math," Vasavada, co-founder and chief executive officer of Vise AI, tells TechCrunch.

The founders of Vise AI met when they were 13, a couple of teenagers more interested in applied artificial intelligence than English class. Fast-forward several years and the pair has relocated from the Midwest to San Francisco to raise money for a financial technology business they've been self-funding since 2016. As teenagers with an inordinate amount of AI knowledge, Samir Vasavada and Runik Mehrotra proved to be quite useful to large businesses, investment bankers and other financiers. Leveraging their AI know-how, they were paid $700 per hour by a consulting firm to teach financial "experts" about AI. Mehrotra, according to Vasavada, is a mathematical prodigy: "And that translates extremely well to AI, right, because what underlies AI is math," Vasavada, co-founder and chief executive officer of Vise AI, tells TechCrunch.

Synthetic Minds, which aims to build safer blockchain code, today announced it has raised $5.5 million in a new round of funding. The San Francisco startup is a graduate of the most recent summer class from the Y Combinator accelerator. The money came from Khosla Ventures and Pantera Capital (a cryptocurrency-focused fund). This funding comes on the heels of investment from Y Combinator. Synthetic Minds' core technology is called program synthesis.

From analyzing millions of satellite images to finding healthy strains of plant microbiome, these startups have raised over $500M to bring AI and robotics to agriculture. Agricultural tech startups have raised over $800M in the last 5 years. Deals to startups using robotics and machine learning to solve problems in agriculture started gaining momentum in 2014, in line with the rising interest in artificial intelligence across multiple industries like healthcare, finance, and commerce. Smart money VCs like Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel Partners, Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, and Data Collective have invested in general-purpose drone and computer vision companies with a focus on agricultural applications, like DJI and Orbital Insight, as well as ag tech startups like Blue River Technology. Big corporations like Monsanto and Syngenta, which are active ag tech investors, have also backed companies like Resson and previously mentioned Blue River Technology.

From analyzing millions of satellite images to finding healthy strains of plant microbiome, these startups have raised over $500M to bring AI and robotics to agriculture. Agricultural tech startups have raised over $800M in the last 5 years. Deals to startups using robotics and machine learning to solve problems in agriculture started gaining momentum in 2014, in line with the rising interest in artificial intelligence across multiple industries like healthcare, finance, and commerce. Smart money VCs like Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel Partners, Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, and Data Collective have invested in general-purpose drone and computer vision companies with a focus on agricultural applications, like DJI and Orbital Insight, as well as ag tech startups like Blue River Technology. Big corporations like Monsanto and Syngenta, which are active ag tech investors, have also backed companies like Resson and previously mentioned Blue River Technology.

LeddarTech, the Canadian developer of sensors and LiDAR distancing systems for ADAS and other mobile systems, raised $101 million in a Series C funding led by Osram with participation by Delphi, Magneti Marelli, Integrated Device Technology, Fonds de solidarité FTQ, BDC Capital and GO Capital. This round of funding will allow LeddarTech to enhance its ASIC development efforts, expand its R&D team, and accelerate ongoing LiDAR development programs with select Tier-1 automotive customers for rapid market deployment. Innoviz Technologies, the Israeli solid-state LiDAR startup, raised $65 million in a Series B funding. Delphi Automotive PLC and Magna International participated in the round, along with additional new investors including 360 Capital Partners, Glory Ventures, Naver and others. All Series A investors also participated in the round.