Synthesio is announcing its second acquisition of the year — it’s buying Social Karma, a company that uses social data to help marketers understand consumers. Back in January, Synthesio announced that it had acquired presentation software-maker Bunkr. Co-founder and CEO Loic Moisand told me that this is all part of a two-year strategy to buy up companies and technologies that can… Read More
Entrepreneurs are invited to the 361st FREE online 1Mby1M mentoring roundtable on Thursday, July 27, 2017, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/8:30 p.m. India IST. If you are a serious entrepreneur, register...
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Sramana Mitra: Can you parse that out? What are the tasks that machines do better and what are the tasks that humans do better in that context? Josh Sullivan: They were having people look over their...
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July 25, 2017
A new non-profit organization, the Center for American Entrepreneurship, launched yesterday.
While there are lots of non-profits supporting entrepreneurship, CAE is organized around the idea of engaging and educating policymakers in Washington and at state and local levels across the nation, regarding the critical importance of entrepreneurs and startups to innovation.
I met the John Dearie founder and CEO of CAE, a year ago. He came to Boulder, met with me for lunch, and gave me a copy of his book Where The Jobs Are, which I promptly read and felt was on the money. I knew a number of people on the board of CAE, which was just getting started, and Amy and I made a quick financial contribution to the organization.
I then watched over the past year as John, as a founder, put CAE together. I helped where I could and watched John live the entrepreneurial life as he founded a new organization. Several of our conversations were self-reflective, especially around the challenges of getting investors attention to provide seed financing for a new organization.
Ultimately John was successful and CAE has launched. Instead of a board role, Iâve agreed to be on the Advisory Council, as Iâm trying to fit into a role of having an impact by helping the CEOs of the non-profits Iâm involved in, rather than having a broad governing role that being a member of the board entails.
If you want to get connected to CAE or are in the DC area and want to engage around the issues of entrepreneurs and innovation,
Also published on Medium.
HubSpot is announcing that it has acquired Kemvi, a startup applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to help sales teams. A few months ago, Kemvi launched DeepGraph, a product that analyzes public data so that salespeople can identify the best time (say, after a job change or the publication of an article) to reach out to potential customers. It also proactively reaches out to… Read More
Tel Aviv-based startup Prospera has raised a $15 million Series B to expand the scope of its technology, which uses computer vision and artificial intelligence to help farmers analyze data gathered from their fields. The round was led by Qualcomm Ventures, with participation from Cisco Investments, ICV and returning investor Bessemer Venture Partners, and brings Prospera’s total funding… Read More
According to Stratistics MRC, the Global Identity & Access Management market is estimated to grow 15% annually from $7.94 billion in 2016 to $20.87 billion by 2022. Earlier this year, Identity...
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While Airbnb may have started off the wave of renting out a room in your house periodically to travelers for some extra income, that industry has blown up to include a lot of other competitors like VRBO. That’s led to many vacation rental owners putting their homes on multiple sites, which has led to the emergence of startups like Beyond Pricing — which helps vacation home… Read More
Varo Money, which provides a mobile-first banking product to consumers, wants to take on the big banks. In an effort to offer similar — but better — checking, savings and lending products to consumers, the company has applied for a national bank charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Read More
Sramana Mitra: I would like to zero in on exactly that. I’ll give you some context. My second company was a lead generation and web research company exactly solving the same problem except that it...
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This week on Technotopia I interview Rahul Sood, former founder of Voodoo PC and the current CEO of Unikrn, an e-sports betting service. Sood, who spent a number of years at Microsoft Ventures, started Unikrn because he saw the e-sports space was exploding in popularity. His company allows people to bet on gaming events and even bet on themselves as they get better at games. Sood’s… Read More
Urbanbase, a Seoul-based startup that makes virtual reality tools for interior planning and design, plans to expand in Asia after raising $1.8 million in Series A funding. Its investors are CKD Venture Capital, Magellan Technology and Capstone Partners. Read More
Facebook is on the cusp of a big push to lure independent content creators to share their art through the News Feed. But it needs to prove it can help creators monetize their content without allowing piracy to run rampant. That’s why it’s acquired content rights management startup Source3, including its team and technology. Read More
Chatbots – automated bots that let you interact with a service or brand via messaging apps or SMS – haven’t yet become breakout hits, as a group. But that hasn’t stopped investors from pouring in $8 million into a hotel booking startup called SnapTravel, which lets users find and book rooms via SMS texts and Facebook Messenger. The $8 million Series A round was led… Read More
July 24, 2017
An amazing book. But a dark, dark future. Or not, depending on whether or not you believe we are actually living in a computer simulation already.
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Also published on Medium.
In this episode, Cap Watkins, the VP of design at BuzzFeed, explains how to apply design to any business challenge, what managers can do to create a more productive environment, and how companies can create a culture that empowers their best people. The job of a designer, according to Watkins, is to “make everything a little grayer.” Rather than focusing on only one facet of design,… Read More
Josh and Angela have written a book called The Mathematical Corporation, based on their exposure to various customer use cases of Machine Intelligence at Booz Allen. They discuss a few here. Sramana...
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Restaurant owners have a lot of responsibilities and a wide array of skills to handle those responsibilities. That said, building a website isn’t usually within that skill-set. That’s where BentoBox comes in. The company, which helps restaurant owners quickly build full-featured websites for their restaurants, has just closed a $4.8 million Series A funding round. The round was led… Read More
Hinge Health, a startup originally founded out of London but that has since moved its headquarters to San Francisco, is on mission to “digitize the delivery of healthcare”. Beginning with musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders, the company is combining wearable sensors, an app, health coaching and peer support to remotely deliver physical therapy and behavioural health for chronic conditions. Read More
With leading tech giants like Alphabet, Apple, and Amazon focusing more on artificial intelligence (AI), the sector is attracting much funding. According to CB Insights, over 550 startups using AI as...
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