“If AI is so easy, why isn’t there any in this room?” asks Ali Farhadi, founder and CEO of Xnor, gesturing around the conference room overlooking Lake Union in Seattle. And it’s true — despite a handful of displays, phones, and other gadgets, the only things really capable of doing any kind of AI-type work…
Starling Bank, founded by banking veteran Anne Boden, has raised £75 million in further funding. The new capital breaks down as £60 million in a Series C round led by Merian Global Investors, including Merian Chrysalis, with £15 million in follow-on funding from Starling’s existing backer and major shareholder Harald McPike. It brings total funding…
China celebrated Lunar New Year last week as hundreds of millions of people travelled to their hometowns. While many had longed to see their separated loved ones, others dreaded the weeklong holiday as relatives awkwardly caught up with them with questions like: “Why are you not married? How much do you earn?” Luckily, there are…
Google for Startups has expanded a partnership with startup training program Founder Gym to better serve underrepresented founders through a new scholarship program. The program typically charges $396 to participate, but thanks to this partnership with Google for Startups, Google will cover the costs for select scholarship recipients to participate in the six-week program. This partnership…
The battle between Uber and Lyft, which are both expected to go public this year, continues. Today, Lyft announced the hire of Michelle DeBella, formerly Uber’s global head of internal audit, as its own VP of finance strategy. At Lyft, DeBella will be responsible for ensuring Lyft meets its objectives around scaling. She’ll systematically review…
A law change that comes into force in the UK today makes the highly intrusive practice of ‘upskirting’ illegal. The government said it wants the new law to send a clear message that such behaviour is criminal and will not be tolerated. Perpetrators in the UK face up to two years in prison under the new…
Y Combinator has been steadily ushering in more and more startups into its classes, but this year the poll position accelerator is having to make some major logistical adjustments to accommodate just how massive its group of startups has become. YC has more than 200 startups in their winter 2019 batch (!!) By comparison, the…
Jobvite, the company that was once an early mover in leveraging social networks to help source job opportunities and find interesting candidates for openings, is today announcing two big moves to double down on its ambition to build a bigger platform for recruitment and applicant tracking. The company has picked up an investment of over…
Aditya and Aarti Kochhar Kaji didn’t set out to start the snack food business Taali Foods when they were studying for their business degrees at Harvard. The couple both hail from Mumbai and met at the University of Pennsylvania . They were married before starting at Harvard’s Business School and initially were interested in other areas…
Artificial intelligence is widely heralded as something that could disrupt the jobs market across the board — potentially eating into careers as varied as accountants, advertising agents, reporters and more — but there are some industries in dire need of assistance where AI could make a wholly positive impact, a core one being healthcare. Despite…
