Google -owned AI specialist, DeepMind, has claimed a “significant milestone” in being able to demonstrate the usefulness of artificial intelligence to help with the complex task of predicting 3D structures of proteins based solely on their genetic sequence. Understanding protein structures is important in disease diagnosis and treatment, and could improve scientists’ understanding of the human…
Companies are staying private longer and longer and New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has a new plan to combat the negative implications of the trend. The storied venture capital firm has invested in a spinout fund called NewView Capital and sold 31 of its late-stage portfolio companies to the effort. Former NEA general partner Ravi Viswanathan is…
Last week, India introduced new regulations governing the use of drones by private citizens in the country, effectively overturning a ban from 2014 and allowing people to fly their unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) legally. That’s great, but there’s one hitch that might keep drones grounded for a bit. Let’s first take a look at the…
When I first joined BlaBlaCar as CTO, more than a decade ago, the European tech startup scene was on the edge of a revolution. I was joining a small team and excited to leave my job as a mobile development manager to work on the platform full-time. The technological needs of a fast-growing business change quickly…
When we think about endangered animals in Afrika at risk of extinction or being poached, we usually think of elephants and rhinos. This can be attributed to various factors including increased publicity around the increasing threats that rhinos and elephants face from poachers. However, there are other endangered animal species in Afrika that also require as much…
In 1990, Kleiner Perkins rejected 99.4% of the proposals it received, while investing in 12 new companies a year. Those investees made Kleiner Perkins “the most successful financial institution in the history of the world,” boasting “returns of about 40 percent per year, compounded, for coming up on thirty years.” Nowadays, the Valley’s VC poster…
Virtual Reality is in a public relations slump. Two years ago the public’s expectations for virtual reality’s potential was at its peak. Many believed (and still continue to believe) that VR would transform the way we connect, interact, and communicate in our personal and professional lives. Google Trends highlighting search trends related to Virtual Reality…
Scooter startup Lime has sought to back peddle on an explanation given by its VP of global expansion late last week when asked why it had hired the controversial PR firm, Definers Public Affairs. The opposition research firm, which has ties to the Republican Party, has been at the center of a reputation storm for Facebook,…
Floom, the online marketplace and SaaS for independent florists, has raised $2.5 million in a seed funding. The round was round led by Firstminute Capital, and will be used by the London headquartered startup to continue to expand to the U.S., where it already operates in New York and L.A., and to further develop its…
AWS, once a nice little side hustle for Amazon’s eCommerce business, has grown over the years into a behemoth that’s on a $27 billion run rate, one that’s still growing at around 45 percent a year. That’s a highly successful business by any measure, but as I listened to AWS executives last week at their…
