Big Sky Capital debuts its $20M fund to invest in enterprise SaaS startups
Jahn Karsybaev and Adil Nurgozhin met while at the University of Montana and launched five startups together before forming Big Sky Capital.
The Download: hunting an asteroid, and unlocking the human mind
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Inside the most dangerous asteroid hunt ever If you were told that the odds of something were 3.1%, it might not seem like much. But for the people charged with protecting our planet,…
Technology
Team behind crypto privacy protocol Manta Network is now valued at $500M
Even amid the crypto winter, some web3 companies are racking up hefty valuations. P0x Labs, the team behind Manta Network, a privacy-preserving protocol running on the Polkadot blockchain, announced today that it has reached a $500 million valuation following a $25 million Series A funding round. Lead investors in the round are crypto-focused Polychain Capital […]
The Download: Meta’s new AI system, and covert Chinese social media activity
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Meta’s latest AI model is free for all The news: Meta is going all in on open-source AI. The company has unveiled LLaMA 2, its first large language model that’s available for anyone…
FedML raises $11.5 to combine MLOps tools with a decentralized AI compute network
Interest in AI among the enterprise continues to rise, with one recent survey finding that nearly two-thirds of companies plan to increase or maintain their spending on AI and machine learning into this year. But often, these companies are encountering blockers in deploying various forms of AI into production. A 2020 poll from Rexer Analytics […]
Spotting Chinese state media social accounts continues to be a challenge
This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology developments in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. It’s no secret that Chinese state-owned media are active on Western social platforms, but sometimes they take a covert approach and distance themselves from China, perhaps to reach more unsuspecting audiences. …
Nigeria’s MyCover.ai to scale its open insurance API platform with new funding
Africa’s insurance market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7% between 2022 and 2028, reaching $120 billion. Though seemingly impressive, the insurance industry in Africa could be worth more if insurance penetration on the continent wasn’t extremely low, less than 3%, according to reports. As a result, traditional insurers […]
Neura Robotics picks up $55M to ramp up in cognitive robotics
Neura Robotics, a German startup that since 2019 has been building cognitive robots — machines that possess memory, the ability to operate across a complex and changing mix of variables, and can collaborate with people (“cobots” as Neura calls them) — has raised $55 million. It plans to use the funding to fuel more R&D […]
Korean fashion platform Musinsa bags $190M Series C led by KKR at a $2.7B valuation
Musinsa, a Seoul-based fashion marketplace, said Wednesday it has raised a $190 million round of Series C funding led by KKR, with participation from Wellington Management. The new capital put Musinsa’s valuation at approximately $2.76 billion (more than 3 trillion won), per sources familiar with the situation. The Korean fashion e-commerce startup declined to provide […]
Forerunner Ventures sees a future full of “digitally native franchises”
Forerunner Ventures made its name in the venture world by betting on once-nascent startups like Jet, Bonobos and Glossier when it was far easier to build a digitally native brand than today. But as commerce has evolved, so has the firm. As part of that evolution, Forerunner five years ago brought aboard veteran VC Brian […]
Maybe showing off an AI-generated fake TV episode during a writers strike is a bad idea
The ongoing strike of creatives in TV and film, plus the nascent threat of AI-based writing and effects, make it a complicated time to work in show business. But little savvy is required to see that this may be the worst possible moment to soft-launch an AI that can “write, animate, direct, voice, edit” a […]