Tag Archives: Microsoft

What’s happened in AI: June 3rd-9th

By | June 10, 2019

What do you do when you have a talented team but no chance to compete against better scaled competitors? You sell and move on. Looks like this is the situation Drive.ai finds itself in as it’s rumored to be in talks with Apple to be acquired.

I’m personally a huge fan of Drive.ai. They were one of two startups I pitched in my AI VC thesis a few years ago (the other one being Netra). My thesis on them held true, as I said they were a strong candidate to be acquired by a self-driving player who felt “behind the game”, which Apple very much is. With that being said the return early stage investors are getting likely isn’t great as this will be an acqui-hire and Drive.ai was looking for a buyer for 6 months (not the best sign). Regardless, I wish the team the best of luck in their next adventure. More weekly news below.

What’s happened in AI: May 13th-May 19th

By | May 24, 2019

China’s focus on facial recognition continues to expand to various use cases. The latest? Pandas. Our favorite bear is now the subject of a new app developed by China’s Research and Conservation Centre. Given there’s less than 2,000 wild pandas left, the government is focusing on ways to conserve the population. More weekly news below.… Read More »

What’s happened in AI: May 6th-12th

By | May 14, 2019

Two big M&A announcements this week in the AI space. The first one is Salesforce, who acquired Bonobo AI out of Israel for an undisclosed price. Bonobo AI specializes in analyzing customer interactions for sales teams. Acquisition clearly makes sense for Salesforce.

The other big acquisition this week is Square acquiring Eloquent Labs, who provides a conversational AI assistant named “Ellie”. This acquisition should help bolster Square’s NLP capabilities. Other weekly news can be found below. 

What’s happened in AI: April 15th-21st

By | April 22, 2019

We’ve seen two sides of Microsoft over the past two weeks. Last week, we learned that Microsoft was working with a Chinese military university on AI. This week, we learned they declined to sell their facial recognition technology to California law enforcement. While encouraging to hear given the current privacy and civil rights violations associated with many facial recognition technologies, the fact that they’re operating in China on this topic should still leave us all concerned. More weekly news can be found below.

What’s happened in AI: April 8th-14th

By | April 15, 2019

Thanks to Uber’s S-1 filing we have new insight on their investment activities surrounding autonomous vehicles. Last year they spent over $450mm on autonomous vehicles, and ~$1bn in total over the past three years. Quite a big bet they’re making and it will be interesting to see how they stack up against Lyft in the future. Other weekly news can be found below.

What’s happened in AI: March 25th-31st

By | April 1, 2019

Big news this week for AI M&A with McDonald’s acquiring an Israeli AI startup for $300mm and Daimler Trucks acquiring an autonomous truck startup for an undisclosed amount. For those interested in reading more about the autonomous truck industry, take a look at one of my earlier posts on the industry. I expect to see a lot more M&A activity going forward.

What’s happened in AI: March 11th-17th

By | March 19, 2019

Most of us could infer that large scale autonomous vehicle programs were capital intensive. With that being said, the recent news of Uber’s $20 million a month burn rate for its autonomous vehicle program must have caught a lot of us by surprise. With that amount of money they might as well pursue 1 or 2 acquisitions to help accelerate progress. Other weekly news can be found below.

What’s happened in AI: February 25th-March 3rd

By | March 4, 2019

Big news this week is centered around the AI chip industry. Out in China, Horizon Robotics has raised a massive $600mm series B led by SK China. They’re already backed by Intel and will use the proceeds to continue expanding their capabilities in what’s known to be a very competitive space.

Meanwhile in the U.S., Google Ventures has invested in Lightmatter, an AI chip startup out of Boston. More weekly news can be found below.