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Accenture continues Canadian tech acquisition spree with Solvera Solutions, Eclipse Automation (BETAKIT)
Founded in 2005, Solvera’s team of more than 450 provides consulting and services across the ServiceNow, Microsoft, and SAP platforms. Solvera works with clients in the public sector, health, financial services, utilities and energy, and agriculture industries.
Seedtag, the ex-Googler-founded, cookie-free, AI-based adtech startup, taps $250M+ in funding (TECHCRUNCH)
Seedtag, a contextual advertising startup that uses AI tools both to “read” content on a page to match that up with advertisers’ aims, as well as to subsequently track how those ads perform, has raised “over” €250 million (more than $252 million, exact amount unspecified).
BrainBox AI’s Series A round reaches $30 million following EDC top-up (BETAKIT)
This close adds an additional $6 million USD to the Series A round, which had an initial close in October of $24 million USD. When it raised the $24 million, BrainBox said at the time that it was working to raise a “top-up” within six to eight weeks from additional investors on the same terms and valuation as its first Series A close.
Google Is Selling Advanced AI to Israel, Documents Reveal (THE INTERCEPT)
Training materials reviewed by The Intercept confirm that Google is offering advanced artificial intelligence and machine-learning capabilities to the Israeli government through its controversial “Project Nimbus” contract. The Israeli Finance Ministry announced the contract in April 2021 for a $1.2 billion cloud computing system jointly built by Google and Amazon.
Check out these Canadian tech venture funding reports for Q2:
From seed to fork: building better food systems through impact investing (BETAKIT)
“It has to start with providing all people—emphasis on all—with enough food and nutrients to nourish themselves,” said Ran Goel, founder of Fresh City Farms in Toronto. “That is the foundation. Then the question becomes: how do we do that in a way that can essentially carry on indefinitely into the future?”
DeepMind’s protein-folding AI cracks biology’s biggest problem (NEWSCIENTIST)
Determining the crumpled shapes of proteins based on their sequences of constituent amino acids has been a persistent problem for decades in biology. Some of these amino acids are attracted to others, some are repelled by water, and the chains form intricate shapes that are hard to accurately determine.
Four Canadian companies selected for inaugural CB Insights Advanced Manufacturing 50 list (BETAKIT)
According to CB Insights, the firms that made it into the Advanced Manufacturing 50 list were chosen based on factors including R&D activity, market potential, business relationships, investor profile, news sentiment analysis, competitive landscape, team strength, and team novelty.
F.T.C. Sues to Block Meta’s Virtual Reality Deal as It Confronts Big Tech (THE NEW YORK TIMES)
The antitrust lawsuit is the first under Lina Khan, the commission’s chair and a leading progressive critic of corporate concentration, against one of the tech giants. Ms. Khan has argued that regulators must stop competition and consumer protection violations when it comes to the bleeding edge of technology, including virtual and augmented reality, and not just in areas where the companies have already become behemoths.
Intelligent City puts scaffolding in place to scale sustainable building solution (BETAKIT)
Intelligent City secured $22 million (all numbers CAD) over the past year in equity and grant funding. Its most recent Series A round of $12 million, which closed last month, will help the company build out its robotic manufacturing plants and scale into Ontario and along the West Coast of North America.
Cleerly quadruples previous funding with $192M for heart attack-predicting AI (FIERCE BIOTECH)
After proving that its noninvasive artificial intelligence software is comparable to the current gold standard of coronary angiography in spotting signs of heart disease, Cleerly has cleared a path to bring the technology to even more people around the world.
Stradigi.ai vows to continue despite laying off more than two-thirds of its staff (BETAKIT)
“The company has temporarily streamlined its operations to the essentials and remains in a going concern while various stakeholders continue to work together on a long term solution,” said CEO and co-founder Basil Bouraropoulos.