CCTV and other kinds of security cameras have a strong Big Brother vibe, but for many of us that may be because we don't really understand or know how the footage they pick up ever gets used. Today, a startup called Spot AI that's built a system to help answer that question at least in part -- it provides a cloud-based analytics system that "reads" that footage to get insights about not just security, but also safety and operational activity -- is announcing $40 million in funding to grow. Scale Venture Partners is leading the round, with past backers Redpoint Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and new investors StepStone Group and Modern Venture Partners also investing. This brings the total raised by Spot AI to $62 million. Spot AI, appropriately for a security camera company, existed in stealth for years before it came out into the public in 2021: at that point it had already raised $22 million.

In brief Stability AI and Jasper – two startups that make AI software that auto-generates images, text, and other stuff – have each reached so-called unicorn status (valued at over $1 billion) after bagging $101 million and $125 million in funding, respectively. Stability AI, best known for open sourcing the code for its popular text-to-image Stable Diffusion model, threw a glitzy party in San Francisco this week to coincide with announcing its funding. Emad Mostaque, the company's founder, took to the stage announcing plans to build and release more AI tools capable of handling text, audio, and video. Stability's latest funding round was led by Coatue, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and O'Shaughnessy Ventures LLC. A day later Jasper, a startup that uses OpenAI's GPT-3 to output text and images, also announced a successful Series A round.

Did you miss a session from the Future of Work Summit? Managing supply chains was challenging before the pandemic, but the health crises headwinds ramped up the pressure. In a 2021 survey from the Institute for Supply Management, 42% of organizations said that increased cost to supply management due to the pandemic was one of their top concerns. A separate poll from BluJay found that outdated IT systems have become a growing barrier to supply chain innovation. One of the major blockers that organizations face when it comes to the supply chain is reconciling -- and analyzing -- information from an array of different sources. Data including images, paperwork, recordings of customer calls, and raw sensor readings are often spread across disparate systems, apps, and services that don't communicate with each other.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 23, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rescale, the leading hybrid cloud high performance computing (HPC) platform enabling intelligent computing for digital R&D, today announced it has closed $105 million in an expanded Series C funding round. Existing and new investors in the company include Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, Fort Ross Ventures, Gaingels, Gopher, Hitachi Ventures, Initialized Capital, Keen Venture Partners, Microsoft M12, Nautilus Venture Partners, NVIDIA, Prometheus Capital, Republic Labs, Samsung Catalyst Fund, Solasta Ventures, Yield Capital Partners and more. The valuation was not disclosed. Rescale's announcement today follows a dramatic acceleration in customer demand, investor interest and market momentum, bringing the company's total funding to date to over $155 million. With over 200 enterprise customers, and year-over-year sales growing over 2x in 2021, Rescale is accelerating the digital transformation of the computational science and engineering discipline, which has traditionally been on-premises in private data centers but is rapidly shifting to cloud.

The Transform Technology Summits start October 13th with Low-Code/No Code: Enabling Enterprise Agility. Can artificial intelligence and data inspire employees to perform at their very best? If you ask Sean Minter, CEO and founder of the data-driven people enablement platform AmplifAI, the answer is an unequivocal yes. And as of today, the six-year-old startup has a lot more cash on hand to help it make the case for an AI-enhanced human workforce. "Our view of AI is that it isn't here to replace people," Minter said.

One year after voice-based AI technology company ConverseNow raised a $3.3 million seed round, the company is back with a cash infusion of $15 million in Series A funding in a round led by Craft Ventures. The Austin-based company's AI voice ordering assistants George and Becky work inside quick-serve restaurants to take orders via phone, chat, drive-thru and self-service kiosks, freeing up staff to concentrate on food preparation and customer service. Joining Craft in the Series A round were LiveOak Venture Partners, Tensility Venture Partners, Knoll Ventures, Bala Investments, 2048 Ventures, Bridge Investments, Moneta Ventures and angel investors Federico Castellucci and Ashish Gupta. This new investment brings ConverseNow's total funding to $18.3 million, Vinay Shukla, co-founder and CEO of ConverseNow, told TechCrunch. As part of the investment, Bryan Rosenblatt, partner at Craft Ventures, is joining the company's board of directors, and said in a written statement that "post-pandemic, quick-service restaurants are primed for digital transformation, and we see a unique opportunity for ConverseNow to become a driving force in the space."

All the sessions from Transform 2021 are available on-demand now. ConverseNow, a startup developing a platform that automates orders at quick service drive-thru windows, today announced that it closed a $15 million series A funding round led by Craft Ventures, with participation from LiveOak Venture Partners, Tensility Venture Partners, Knoll Ventures, Bala Investments, 2048 Ventures, Bridge Investments, Moneta Ventures, and angel investors. The proceeds bring the company's total raised to date to $18.3 million, which CEO Vinay Shukla says will be put toward scaling and creating technologies like "digital line-busting" -- some of which will roll out later this year. As restaurants recover from the pandemic, many are reimagining their channel strategy for ordering as well as the in-store guest experience. Labor availability and the supply chain are affecting those decisions, as well as challenges like inaccurate orders.

One year after voice-based AI technology company ConverseNow raised a $3.3 million seed round, the company is back with a cash infusion of $15 million in Series A funding in a round led by Craft Ventures. The Austin-based company's AI voice ordering assistants George and Becky work inside quick-serve restaurants to take orders via phone, chat, drive-thru and self-service kiosks, freeing up staff to concentrate on food preparation and customer service. Joining Craft in the Series A round were LiveOak Venture Partners, Tensility Venture Partners, Knoll Ventures, Bala Investments, 2048 Ventures, Bridge Investments, Moneta Ventures and angel investors Federico Castellucci and Ashish Gupta. This new investment brings ConverseNow's total funding to $18.3 million, Vinay Shukla, co-founder and CEO of ConverseNow, told TechCrunch. As part of the investment, Bryan Rosenblatt, partner at Craft Ventures, is joining the company's board of directors, and said in a written statement that "post-pandemic, quick-service restaurants are primed for digital transformation, and we see a unique opportunity for ConverseNow to become a driving force in the space." At the time when ConverseNow raised its seed funding in 2020, it was piloting its technology in just a handful of stores.

The program schedule will cover six days from July 26 until July 31. Presentations each day will start at 10:30 and end at 12:30 US Eastern Time. We will start on July 26 with a presentation on the IEEE Entrepreneur Program and an overview of the Entrepreneur Process and the resources that are available to support the aspiring Entrepreneur. Each following day will provide a Speaker that can give their experience in creating a IoT based Start Up. On the last day, July 31, we will have a spirited competition of Start Ups making their "Pitches".

Altoida Inc. today announced a $6.3 million round of venture capital financing to bring its FDA-cleared and CE Mark-approved medical device and brain health data platform to patients, physicians and researchers around the globe. Led by a team of esteemed neuroscientists, physicians and computer scientists, Altoida uses digital biomarkers to drive better clinical outcomes for brain disease. The Series A round was led by M Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of the science and technology company Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, with participation from Grey Sky Venture Partners, VI Partners AG, Alpana Ventures, and FYRFLY Venture Partners. The new capital will be used to further expand Altoida's global presence with an immediate focus on commercialization activities in the US and EU markets. "Altoida is at the forefront of a new era to leverage Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to assess brain health," said Alexander Hoffmann, Principal, New Businesses at M Ventures.