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L-SPARK launches accelerator with BlackBerry QNX (BETAKIT)
The accelerator is looking for startups with business models and technologies that align with the BlackBerry QNX suite of products.
Amazon’s new small-business product ‘feels like a trap,’ says Shopify’s CEO (VOX)
Tobi Lütke thinks giving your business data to Amazon might not be a good idea.
mobilityView joins Telus enterprise program on heels of new funding (BETAKIT)
mobilityView’s platform allows businesses to understand how employees are using mobile data (SMS, voice, data, and local/roaming).
Einstein Voice gives Salesforce users gift of gab (TECHCRUNCH)
Salespeople usually spend their days talking. They are on the phone and in meetings, but when it comes to updating Salesforce, they are back at the keyboard again typing notes and milestones, or searching for metrics about their performance. Salesforce decided to change that by introducing Einstein Voice, a bit of AI magic that allows salespeople to talk to the program instead of typing.
Ritual’s Ray Reddy on how to scale when everything breaks (BETAKIT)
“The myth to be disproven is that we can’t build big, global companies in Toronto.”
DataGrail raises $4M Series A funding (FINSMES)
DataGrail provides companies with a compliance solution for multiple legal frameworks, including EU regulations GDPR and ePrivacy, and Californian regulation CCPA, which gives users visibility into what data companies have and how their data is used.
Keela raises $1.53 million to build non-profit tech (BETAKIT)
CEO Nejeed Kassam built the tool after finding that organizations didn’t have tech tools built specifically for their needs.
Colorado’s Quantum Metric raises $25 million for software that catches costly UX errors (VENTUREBEAT)
Quantum Metric, an enterprise SaaS startup that helps companies calculate how much revenue is lost from bad website design, raised the funding from Insight Venture Partners.
Brizi raises $2.5 million to bring jumbotrons to smartphones (BETAKIT)
The round was led by 2EP, one of the early investors in Harmonix, which developed GuitarHero and RockBand.
MariaDB acquires Clustrix (TECHCRUNCH)
MariaDB will integrate Clustrix’s technology into its own database, which will allow it to offer its users a more scalable database service in the long run.
IBM launches AI bias tool (ITPROPORTAL)
The fully automated SaaS explains decision-making and detects bias in AI models at runtime — so as decisions are being made — which means it’s capturing “potentially unfair outcomes as they occur.”
Q4 raises $49 million CAD Series C led by Napier Park (BETAKIT)
Q4’s last funding round was a $22 million Series B in 2016.
GV leads $20 million investment in automated software testing startup Mabl (VENTUREBEAT)
The funding was led by Alphabet’s venture capital (VC) arm GV, with participation from its series A investors Charles River Partners and Amplify Partners.
