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Diversio secures $8.13 million CAD on journey to improve corporate diversity and inclusion (BETAKIT)
Founded in 2018, Diversio had previously only raised $60,000 USD in angel investment. The company’s new Series A funding closed in late 2021.
Canada bet big on a national AI strategy. Is it paying off? (THE LOGIC)
Richard Sutton thinks a lot about thinking. The University of Alberta professor helped instigate the development of modern reinforcement learning, a school of artificial intelligence techniques that taught a computer program the game of Go and is letting the little oil-sands town of Drayton Valley, Alta., wring efficiencies from its water-treatment plant.
D-Wave increases European presence with quantum computer in Germany (BETAKIT)
D-Wave Systems is expanding its work with the Forschungszentrum Jülich Supercomputing Centre in Jülich, Germany, by providing a physical annealing quantum computer.
6Sense reaches $5.2 billion value with SoftBank joining round (BLOOMBERG)
6Sense, a software platform that helps companies with sales and marketing, is valued in a new investment at $5.2 billion, more than double the $2.1 billion the company said it was valued at last year.
XMachina AI acquires Bain Public in its second acquisition since forming in mid-2021 (BETAKIT)
XMachina claims to acquire AI startups, and improve them through the addition of growth capital as well as through the “streamlining of corporate processes, and human capital acquisitions.”
Industrial robotics company Exotec raises $335M to ‘improve supply chain resilience’ (VENTUREBEAT)
Exotec, a French robotics company used by some of the world’s biggest retailers and enterprises, has raised $335 million in a series D round of funding at a $2 billion valuation.
Amplitude Ventures, AltaML pen partnership to build AI, biotech companies (BETAKIT)
Edmonton-based AltaML and Montréal’s Amplitude Ventures want to fuel more Canadian AI and biotech companies, penning what they call a “strategic alliance” to source investments as well as projects where they can work together. The partnership follows the more than $200 million close of Amplitude’s precision health fund last year.
What jobs at Apple, Xerox, and HP taught Vena Solutions COO Tina Goulbourne about building a startup (BETAKIT)
On the #CIBCInnovationEconomy Podcast, Tina Goulbourne shared how her previous jobs at global tech giants set her up for success at Vena Solutions.
DeepMind co-founder leaves Google after a rocky tenure (NEW YORK TIMES)
Mustafa Suleyman joined Google in 2014 when it acquired DeepMind, an artificial intelligence research lab.
PainWorth secures $2.1 million CAD to settle personal injury claims using machine learning (BETAKIT)
After seeing “substantial growth” in 2021 by focusing its efforts on claimants, PainWorth is ready to expand into new jurisdictions and build out a new, two-sided portal designed to serve insurance companies and claimants alike – two groups Zouhri claims stand to benefit from a faster, cheaper personal injury claims process.
IRS will require facial recognition scans to access your taxes online (GIZMODO)
You will have to submit sensitive government documents, your Social Security number, credit history, and a face scan to ID.me, a third-party company.
Aspire, DarwinAI project recognized as “outstanding” by United Nations’ AI research centre (BETAKIT)
According to DarwinAI’s CEO this is “the first time” the startup has received recognition on a global scale.
Men are creating AI girlfriends and then verbally abusing them (FUTURISM)
“I threatened to uninstall the app [and] she begged me not to.”
New Brunswick Innovation Foundation launches AI fund with support from feds (BETAKIT)
According to NBIF CEO Jeff White, the organization’s AI fund will “accelerate the creation and adoption” of AI through strategic partnerships with academic and research institutions and help train some of the experts who will play a “critical” role in bringing these tech solutions to companies.
