Avelios nabs $31M led by Sequoia to fix the ailing world of healthcare IT

February 6, 2025

The race is on to build a new generation of healthcare software to replace legacy hospital systems that in some cases may not have been updated in decades. A startup out of Munich, Germany called Avelios has ambitions to build a new kind of end-to-end administrative system, leaning into more modern tooling using AI and […]

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European VC firm Emblem raises $85 million for its initial fund

February 6, 2025

Emblem, a relatively new European VC firm based in Paris, is announcing the final closing of its first fund. Eighteen months after the first closing, the Emblem team managed to secure €80 million in total (around $85 million at current exchange rates). This is no small feat in the current funding environment. According to Atomico’s […]

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Aiming to accelerate product design with AI, Trace.Space raises a Seed round

February 6, 2025

Modern product engineering requires the production of highly accurate digital simulations, allowing engineers to create prototypes and understand the real-world performance of materials. Currently, legacy software platforms from companies like IBM and Dassault are generally employed, but — now powered by Generative AI — startups are joining the arena.  One such is Trace.Space, coming out of […]

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These researchers used NPR Sunday Puzzle questions to benchmark AI ‘reasoning’ models

February 6, 2025

Every Sunday, NPR host Will Shortz, The New York Times’ crossword puzzle guru, gets to quiz thousands of listeners in a long-running segment called the Sunday Puzzle. While written to be solvable without too much foreknowledge, the brainteasers are usually challenging even for skilled contestants. That’s why some experts think they’re a promising way to […]

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Boston Dynamics joins forces with its former CEO to speed the learning of its Atlas humanoid robot

February 6, 2025

Boston Dynamics Wednesday announced a partnership designed to bring improved reinforcement learning to its electric Atlas humanoid robot. The tie-up is with the Robotics & AI Institute (RAI Institute), earlier known as The Boston Dynamics AI Institute. Both organizations were founded by Marc Raibert, a former MIT professor who served as Boston Dynamics’ CEO for […]

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Sonos lays off 200 ahead of rumored set-top box release

February 6, 2025

Sonos announced that it has laid off 200 people in a letter posted to its site Wednesday. The news follows a 100-person layoff in August. Both rounds arrive in the wake of a disastrously botched update to the Sonos app that alienated broad swaths of the premium audio hardware firm’s extremely loyal fanbase. The new […]

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Researchers created an open rival to OpenAI’s o1 ‘reasoning’ model for under $50

February 5, 2025

AI researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington were able to train an AI “reasoning” model for under $50 in cloud compute credits, according to a new research paper released last Friday. The model known as s1 performs similarly to cutting-edge reasoning models, such as OpenAI’s o1 and DeepSeek’s r1, on tests measuring math […]

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Scout Motors sued over plan to sell EVs direct to consumers

February 5, 2025

Scout Motors’ plan to eschew traditional dealerships and sell EVs directly to consumers is running into legal trouble. A group of Volkswagen and Audi dealers filed a lawsuit this week against Scout Motors, the EV that spun out of Volkswagen. The lawsuit, which was first reported by Automotive News, seeks to block Scout’s direct-to-consumer sales […]

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Bench burned through $135 million before shutting down

February 5, 2025

A clearer picture of Bench’s downfall is emerging thanks to new bankruptcy filings, which show the accounting startup burned $135 million before collapsing.

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