ClearBrain has a big goal: “Our mission is to democratize AI for marketers.” That’s how co-founder and CEO Bilal Mahmood put it, though he and his co-founder Eric Pollman aren’t trying to do all that at once. Instead, they’re tackling a more specific challenge — helping companies target ads toward the users most likely to sign up for a subscription, buy… Read More

 Studio, a startup that delivers coaching, music and competition to treadmill runners’ smartphones and smartwatches, is getting a boost from treadmill maker Life Fitness. Studio founder and CEO Jason Baptiste explained that through this partnership, Studio’s classes will be available on Life Fitness treadmills in gyms, starting with the ones equipped with the company’s… Read More

 Notation Capital, the NY-based pre-seed fund that launched in 2015, has just picked up a fresh $27 million in capital to invest in to super early stage startup sin the NYC area. The fund is called Notation II, and it’s still run by Nick Chirls, who led seed investment at betaworks and helped build Alphaworks, and Alex Lines, an architect at betaworks who contributed to products like… Read More

 Kids don’t try their hardest unless they think someone’s watching. Overcrowded classrooms and distracted parents can make pouring effort into school work feel pointless. But Seesaw’s app turns their assignments into social media they share with teachers, peers and mom and dad. Now it’s invading schools across the country and just raised a Series A round from LinkedIn… Read More

 Flux, the London fintech startup founded by former early employees at Revolut, has deepened its partnership with U.K. challenger bank Starling to add Flux-powered loyalty points to Starling’s mobile banking app. It builds on earlier Flux integration that sees Starling support item-level digital receipts powered by Flux and supported merchants (to date, this includes all 111 EAT stores in… Read More

 Highfive, a startup that’s building an integrated software and hardware video conferencing solution, today announced that it has raised a $32 million Series C round, which brings the Redwood City-based company’s total funding to $77.4 million. The lead investor for this round was Dimension Data, a major global technology integrator and managed services subsidiary of Japan’s… Read More

 French startup Cityscoot announced a $50 million round of financing yesterday (€40 million). RATP Capital Innovation and Inventure Partners are leading the round, with existing investors Caisse des Dépôts and LeasePlan also participating. Cityscoot operates an electric scooter-sharing service in Paris and plans to expand to other cities in France and Europe. You can now find around… Read More

 Viacom has acquired VidCon, a move that seems designed to help the media giant connect with younger audiences. Viacom’s blog post describes VidCon as “the premier event for the worldwide online video community,” drawing more than 30,000 attendees to its flagship conference in Anaheim, Calif. (It’s also held smaller events in Amsterdam and Melbourne.) The company was… Read More

 Pushing through a funding round is never an easy process — and for Captain401 co-founder Roger Lee, it was even more tricky this time around. That’s because Lee and his team raised $11 million right around the birth of his first baby. That gave Lee an even deeper appreciation and understanding for the need of robust employee benefits, which was part of the original goal of… Read More

 Protecting critical infrastructure like power plants and other industrial plants is just as important as it’s challenging. It’s one thing to take over a remote machine to mine some Bitcoin, but you’ve got a totally different problem when those hackers try to manipulate the physical infrastructure of your power plant with the goal of causing an explosion. With their thousands… Read More

 SEC chairman Jay Clayton made clear today that his agency, along with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, remains acutely concerned about initial coin offerings and cryptocurrency trades. In fact, toward that end, they’re now looking for more expansive powers when it comes to protecting customers on cryptocurrency exchanges from fraud. Read More

 Placements.io says it’s helping online publishers get paid on time for ads. Placements.io offers a system for publishers to manage ad inventory, orders, payments and billing, all across multiple sales channels. It also integrates with a variety of different adtech systems. Read More

 Meet ProcessOut, a French startup that automatically routes transactions to the best payment provider. This way, big online services can start using multiple payment providers, pay fewer fees and reduce the number of declined transactions. The startup has just raised $1 million from various business angels, such as BlaBlaCar CTO Francis Nappez, former PayPal Director of Global Business… Read More

 Exclusive content is how creators get patrons to pay them a monthly subscription fee on Patreon, so the startup is equipping them with a Snapchat-like tool to turn their private lives into “behind-the-scenes” footage. Patreon Lens launches today so creators can share photos and videos that disappear in 24 hours just with those who pay them at least a $1 a month. Read More

 As a fan of both waffles and robots I present to you the FANUC food and beverage manipulation robot, waffle edition. The robot, as you see below, sorts the waffles by color, stacks them, and then another robot grabs them and puts them into a box. And these bad boys can do some heavy lifting. From the site: We have the largest o­ffering of standard and collaborative robot models with… Read More

 The team at SocialRank has spent the last few years building ways for brands and marketers to get a better sense of who’s following and engaging with them on social media. Until now, they’ve been doing that on an account level — plug in an account and you get a SocialRank report covering things like your most valuable followers. With a new product called SocialRank for… Read More

Sramana Mitra: In some cases if you can exit your company without needing a Series A, that is not a bad way to mitigate the Series A gap. Victoria Pettibone: Yes. Your angels are going to be happy...

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Andrew Romans is General Partner of Rubicon Venture Capital. Our discussion includes an interesting segment on ICOs.

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This interview explores the nuances of SAP’s Corporate Incubation strategy in great depth. Sramana Mitra: Tell us about what SAP’s thinking is in the domain of corporate innovation. What are your...

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