Battery Ventures leads Arize AI's $19M round for ML observability

Arize AI is applying machine learning to some of technology's toughest problems. To continue with its mission, the company announced $19 million in Series A funding. Battery Ventures led the round with participation from existing investors Foundation Capital, Trinity Ventures, The House Fund an

Nomad Homes raises $20M to create a personalized house hunting platform for Europe, Middle East

Not every country has a Multiple Listing Service to aid in buying and selling a home. This often makes the process complicated as buyers weed through fake and duplicate listings and little pricing data, unlike in the United States. Property technology startup Nomad Homes is working to change that b

Optimove raises $75M growth investment to manage customer-led journeys at scale

When businesses can connect more personally with their customers, those customers in turn are more loyal. However, as consumer behavior changes, especially as it did over the past 18 months, it is more difficult to establish that connection amid all of the messages put in front of them. Optimove, s

Alpha Edison leads customer service platform Thankful's $12M round

Customer service is one of the most important relationships between a business and its customer, and that was made even more clear during the global pandemic. Though Thankful AI CEO Ted Mico and his co-founder Evan Tann didn't start out with experience from the business side, they started the V

AI tradeoffs: Balancing powerful models and potential biases

As developers unlock new AI tools, the risk for perpetuating harmful biases becomes increasingly high — especially on the heels of a year like 2020, which reimagined many of our social and cultural norms upon which AI algorithms have long been trained. A handful of foundational models are emergin

D-ID launches ‘Speaking Portrait,’ a way to turn photos into custom, photo-realistic videos

The company whose tech powered the sensational MyHeritage app that turned classic family photos into lifelike moving portraits is back with a new implementation of its technology: Transforming still photographs into ultra-realistic video, capable of saying whatever you want. D-ID’s Speaking P

Robotic farming firm Iron Ox raises $53M

Bay Area-based autonomous farming startup Iron Ox this week announced a $53 million round. The Series C, led by Breakthrough Energy Venture, brings the firm's total funding up to $98 million. Iron Ox is one of a large number of companies looking to revolutionize farming for the 21st century, am

Attack of the $200M robotic raises

How's this for a bit of regional synchronicity? This week, a pair of Chinese robotics firms secured $200 million rounds. It's all part of a booming ecosystem that we get some insight into every so often. There are so many players in China's robotics space it can be hard to keep track of

UK announces a national strategy to ‘level up’ AI

The U.K. government has announced a national AI strategy — its first dedicated package aimed at boosting the country’s capabilities in and around machine learning technologies over the longer term. It says it hopes the strategy will lead to an increase in the number and types of AIs bei

EyeGage is building a database of eye scans for drug testing

LaVonda Brown developed an interest in eye-tracking during her time at Georgia Tech. The fascination with all the information that can be derived by scanning the so-called “windows to the soul” formed the foundation of EyeGage, one of the 20 companies competing at this year's Disrup

Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi, Shaun White, Shawn Mendes get behind Shelf Engine

Shelf Engine's mission to eliminate food waste in grocery retailers now has some additional celebrity backers. The company brought in a $2 million extension to its $41 million Series B announced in March. Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi, Shaun White and Shawn Mendes are the new backers, who ca

The next healthcare revolution will have AI at its center

The global pandemic has heightened our understanding and sense of importance of our own health and the fragility of healthcare systems around the world. We've all come to realize how archaic many of our health processes are, and that, if we really want to, we can move at lightning speed. This i

Boston Dynamics owner Hyundai deploys Spot for factory safety monitoring

Back in June, Hyundai completed a deal for controlling interest in Boston Dynamics. The Korean automotive giant no doubt has some grand plans for integrating the Massachusetts-based firm's technology into a lot of their forward-looking concept mobility vehicles — for now, however, it̵

Tiger's bullish robotic investments

On Tuesday, Tiger Global led not one but two big funding rounds, announcing its role in a $26 million Series A for Ambi and an additional $50 million for Locus Robotics. The firm has been so active in investing of late, that neither one of these companies cracked Alex's coveted “Today's T