December 20, 2024

Pairing live support with accurate AI outputs

A live agent spends hours each week manually documenting routine interactions. Another combs through multiple knowledge bases to find the right solution, scrambling to piece it together while the customer waits on hold. A third types out the same response they’ve written dozens of times before. These repetitive tasks can be draining, leaving less time…

The Download: OpenAI’s GPT-4o, and what’s coming at Google I/O

May 14, 2024
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. OpenAI’s new GPT-4o lets people interact using voice or video in the same model The news: OpenAI just debuted GPT-4o, a new kind of AI model that you can communicate with in real…

After surpassing $100M in ARR, Harness Labs grabs a $150M line of credit

May 14, 2024

Harness Lab isn’t founder Jyoti Bansal’s first startup. He sold AppDynamics to Cisco for $3.7 billion in 2017, the week it was supposed to go public. His latest venture has raised $425 million, per Crunchbase. On Tuesday, Harness announced $150 million in debt financing, essentially a line of credit that the company can draw on […]

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What to expect at Google I/O

May 14, 2024
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. In the world of AI, a lot can happen in a year. Last year, at the beginning of Big Tech’s AI wars, Google announced during its annual I/O conference that it…

Sona, a frontline workforce management platform, raises $27.5M with eyes on US expansion

May 14, 2024

Sona, a workforce management platform for frontline employees, has raised $27.5 million in a Series A round of funding. More than two-thirds of the U.S. workforce are reportedly in frontline jobs, which might be anything from customer service and healthcare to retail environments and hospitality. But managing this vast workforce, ensuring roles are filled and […]

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Uber to acquire Foodpanda’s Taiwan unit from Delivery Hero for $950M in cash 

May 14, 2024

Uber Technologies announced Tuesday that it will buy the Taiwan unit of Delivery Hero’s Foodpanda for $950 million in cash. The deal is part of Uber Eats’ strategy to expand in Asia, specifically by strengthening its position in Taiwan. On the other hand, it also underscores Delivery Hero’s ongoing retreat from that same market: the sale […]

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Maad raises $3.2M seed amid B2B e-commerce sector turbulence in Africa

May 14, 2024

Maad, a B2B e-commerce startup based in Senegal, has secured $3.2 million debt-equity funding to bolster its growth in the western Africa country and to explore fresh opportunities in the wider Francophone region. The seed round was led by Ventures Platform, with participation from Seedstars International Ventures, Reflect Ventures, Oui Capital, Launch Africa, Voltron Capital […]

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