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Acerta closes $10.4 million CAD Series B to help automakers like Nissan and GM build car parts more efficiently (BETAKIT)
Kitchener-Waterloo-based Acerta Analytics has benefitted as car and vehicle parts manufacturers have sought to operate more efficiently amid these conditions, amassing a list of clients that includes Nissan, General Motors (GM), BMW, Volvo, and Dana.
The Vector Institute at five (THE LOGIC)
Built around AI godfather Geoffrey Hinton, the Vector Institute is a $135 million bid to ‘put Canadian companies in the big leagues.’ Is it living up to its promise?
Prairie tech celebrates its own with Calgary Launch Party, Start Alberta Awards, Startup TNT Summit (BETAKIT)
This year’s Launch Party highlighted 10 Calgary startups, with three taking home prizes for the People’s Choice Award, Alumni’s Choice Award, and the Alex Raczenko Pitch Award, respectively.
Autonomous delivery startup Nuro lays off 20% of workforce (TECHCRUNCH)
The co-founders said they take responsibility for the layoffs, which were the result of over-hiring in 2021 smacking into economic headwinds in 2022:
“Each and every one of you have made important contributions to this company, and saying goodbye to talented Nurons is not a decision we have taken lightly. For those of you leaving Nuro, we are very sorry for this outcome — this is not the experience we wanted to create for you. We made this call and take full responsibility for today’s circumstances, said the co-founders in an email to staff.
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Canadian tech venture funding continued to fall in Q3 2022, CVCA reports (BETAKIT)
“Investors continue to monitor market conditions in anticipation of an inflection point, while founders hold off fundraising at decreased valuations,” says CVCA CEO Kim Furlong.
Special Series Launch: The Promises And Perils Of A Decade Of AI Funding (CRUNCHBASE NEWS)
Leading the way in AI startup funding are robotics, autonomous vehicles and enterprise software, but other sectors have quickly followed: biotechnology, computer vision, language processing, fintech, semiconductors, security, logistics, learning, agtech and more.
OMERS Ventures’ Laura Lenz says “ego raising” is over in #CDNtech (BETAKIT)
Lenz said the “ego raising” that she saw in 2021 can be blamed on both sides: companies wanted to raise bigger rounds, and VCs have their own fund dynamics for which they want to put a certain amount of capital to work.
This Copyright Lawsuit Could Shape the Future of Generative AI (WIRED)
A class-action lawsuit filed in a federal court in California this month takes aim at GitHub Copilot, a powerful tool that automatically writes working code when a programmer starts typing. The coder behind the suit argues that GitHub is infringing copyright because it does not provide attribution when Copilot reproduces open-source code covered by a license requiring it.
How electrifying transportation could surge Ontario’s economy (BETAKIT)
“The change to electric vehicles is the right thing for the industry to do to remain competitive and profitable,” said Richard Dunda, the Director of the Centre for Integrated Transportation and Mobility.
SFPD authorized to kill suspects using robots in draft policy (MISSION LOCAL)
The new policy, which defines how the SFPD is allowed to use its military-style weapons, was put together by the police department. Over the past several weeks, it has been scrutinized by supervisors Aaron Peskin, Rafael Mandelman and Connie Chan, who together comprise the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee.
How Acuva balances global growth with local impact to provide clean drinking water (BETAKIT)
Singh founded Acuva in 2014 with a mission to enable clean drinking water using technology and so far he’s secured $8.4 million in growth financing to do it.
Speaking with BetaKit, Singh shared Acuva’s growth story, how he’s prioritizing local impact while growing globally, and the challenges the company has faced scaling in Canada.
We could run out of data to train AI language programs (MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW)
Language models are trained using texts from sources like Wikipedia, news articles, scientific papers, and books. In recent years, the trend has been to train these models on more and more data in the hope that it’ll make them more accurate and versatile.
Attabotics secures $95 million CAD from EDC, Ontario Teachers’ to scale its warehouse robots (BETAKIT)
With its tech finally ready and $95 million CAD ($71.7 million USD) in fresh “Series C-1” funding, Attabotics founder and CEO Scott Gravelle said the startup is prepared to start scaling. After launching its new and improved Attabot in September, Gravelle says “the hard part’s done.”