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Chipmaker AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) has unveiled a range of innovative AI solutions spanning from data centers to personal computers. The AMD Instinct MI300 Series features data center AI accelerators, while the ROCm 6 open software stack introduces new features supporting Large Language Models (LLMs). Additionally, the Ryzen 8040 Series processors come equipped with Ryzen AI capabilities.
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FinTech: European P2P Lending Platform Robo.cash Reports Surge In Loan Offtake
The year 2020 ended with a flourish for European P2P lender Robo.cash. In November, the platform funded € 9.2 million – a monthly record. In December, it chalked up a cumulative lending of € 200 million, the highest total ever.
Digital Assets: Bitcoin Smashes Past $35K
The leading cryptocurrency sets yet another new all-time high in 2021.
For those impressed by the 16.26% return the S&P 500 clocked in all of 2020, here’s something to chew on. At the time of writing, bitcoin is sitting pretty on a gain of nearly 19% achieved in just six days of the new year. For 2020, the crypto achieved a return of 301.33%. Bitcoin (BTC) struck a new high of $35,879 on January 5 but is currently trading around $34,400.
Venture Capital: Hinge Health, The Digital Clinic For Back And Joint Pain, Raises $310M
The Series D funding valued the startup at $3 billion post-money – a 6X increase in less than a year.
According to a report by TechCrunch, San-Francisco-based Hinge Health raised $310 million in a Series D round that valued it at $3 billion post-money. Hinge is the first digital clinic for back and joint pain and offers musculoskeletal (MSK) care at every stage from prevention to post-surgery.
Artificial Intelligence: AI Tackles The Locust Menace In Africa
In 2020, Africa was afflicted by an invasion of desert locusts that ravaged crops and worsened an already critical food shortage. Hundreds of millions of these rapacious insects attacked food crops across Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya. The UN described the outbreak as the worst seen in over 25 years. One swarm of these insects reportedly measured 40 km by 60 km. A locust swarm of a square kilometer can devour the same amount of food in one day as 35,000 people, according to the FAO. Kuzi, an AI-powered early warning system, helps farmers safeguard their crops from this menace.
Digital Assets: Grayscale’s Digital Large Cap Fund Switches Out Of XRP
In continuing bad news for the beleaguered XRP cryptocurrency, Grayscale Investments announced today that it had removed XRP from the portfolio of the Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund. It said it used the sale proceeds from XRP to purchase Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash, the other components of the fund.
FinTech: Spend Management Fintech Divvy Nabs $165M In Series D Round
Big-name, new investors such as Hanaco, PayPal Ventures, Whale Rock, and Schonfeld participated in Divvy’s latest investment round. Previous investors such as NEA, Insight Venture Partners, Acrew, and Pelion also chipped in, catapulting the leader in spend management to unicorn status.
Alternative Investments: Simplify Asset Management Launches Four New Disruptive Technology ETFs
Four new ‘bleeding edge’ ETFs are on the anvil from Simplify Asset Management. Founded by Paul Kim and David M. Berns, Ph.D., the firm’s new thematic ETFs focus on firms that have important technological or cultural edges and provide meaningful concentration to their stock price.
Venture Capital: Population-Scale Healthcare Platform Color Raises $167M At $1.5B Valuation
Color, a startup that works on a population scale in distributed healthcare and clinical testing, announced Monday its raise of $167 million in a Series D round. Led by General Catalyst and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., with participation from Viking Global Investors and others, the round tagged Color with a valuation of $1.5 billion.
Artificial Intelligence: Repurposing Old Drugs For New Uses
Ping Zhang, Senior Author, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and Biomedical Informatics, Ohio State University, led a team of medical researchers on a project that used AI to suggest new uses for old drugs. The team found that machine learning could process huge amounts of data to determine whether existing, FDA-approved medications could be repurposed for use in other diseases.
Alternative Investments/Digital Assets: Fresh Bid By VanEck For A Bitcoin ETF
VanEck filed an application with the SEC last week for a VanEck Bitcoin Trust. The SEC has removed unmoved thus far and turned down all previous applications for launching a bitcoin ETF. VanEck itself retracted its previous ETF application in September 2019.
FinTech: Fintech And Ecommerce Billionaire Jack Ma Maybe Missing
Media chatter surrounds Jack Ma’s whereabouts after his controversial anti-establishment remarks at a Shanghai forum in late October.
Digital Assets: As Bitcoin Soars, Russia’s Gazprom Neft Kills Two Birds With One Stone
With bitcoin having scaled an all-time high of US$ 34,000, it is becoming increasingly lucrative to mine the cryptocurrency, especially if energy costs are low, or free. Gazprom Neft, a direct subsidiary of Russian gas monopoly Gazprom (MCX: GAZP), is converting gas from its oil fields, that would otherwise have been flared, into usable energy for bitcoin mining.
Venture Capital: Madrona Venture Group Raises Over $500M For Two New Funds
Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group has obtained more than $500 million in the largest-ever fundraising effort in its year history. Madrona has earmarked $345 million out of this capital for its eighth ‘early-stage’ fund targeting 35-to-40 Pacific Northwest tech startups. The balance amount of $160 million is for its second “acceleration fund” to be deployed for later-stage companies in North America.
Digital Assets: SolarWinds Attack More Widespread Than Thought
The massive cyberattack launched by a suspected nation-state earlier this month is more pervasive than previously estimated says the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The hack also attacked computer systems used by state and local governments, critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations.
Venture Capital: Octopus Energy Clinches Japanese Investment And Supply Deal
Octopus Energy has a mission: to disrupt the energy industry in Britain which “is ruled by a handful of complacent dinosaurs peddling fossil fuels, pricing trickery, and poor customer service.” Supplying green energy sourced from renewable sources, the startup is already adding 30,000 customers a month and supplies energy to 1.5 million homes in the UK. Expanding its international footprint, Octopus will soon enter Japan in collaboration with Tokyo Gas, the largest gas utility in Japan.
Alternative Investments/ESG: Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater And Lyxor Tie Up For All-Weather ESG UCITS Fund
Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, which is led by billionaire Ray Dalio, will launch in Europe a sustainability/ESG fund using a UCITS structure. For this purpose, it is partnering with Lyxor Asset Management, a subsidiary of French bank Societe Generale (PAR: GLE).
FinTech: China Mounts Anti-Trust Probe Into Alibaba In Regulatory Crackdown
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) announced Thursday an investigation into Alibaba’s (NYSE: BABA) allegedly monopolistic practice of barring its merchants from selling on competing e-commerce platforms. Merchants must agree to sell their products only on the behemoth’s online shopping platform.
Artificial Intelligence: An AI Bot Can Judge Your Taste In Music (It’s Free)
The Pudding, a digital publication, has created a free service to evaluate your Spotify playlists. Dubbed “How Bad Is Your Spotify,” it explains: “Our sophisticated A.I. judges your awful taste in music.”
Artificial Intelligence: Yahoo Japan To Deploy AI Against Cyberbullying
Yahoo Japan will use AI to detect and delete hate messages and defamatory remarks from its online posting sites. The action follows the tragic and suspected suicide due to cyberbullying of reality television show star Hana Kimura.
Digital Assets: SEC Has Ripple In The Dock; Garlinghouse Fires Back
The SEC on Tuesday charged Ripple and two executives for raising over $1.38 billion via an unregistered securities offering.
The SEC filed the complaint in the federal district court in Manhattan alleging that the defendants violated the registration provisions of the Securities Act. It prayed for injunctive relief, disgorgement with prejudgment interest, and civil penalties. The two executives named in the complaint are Christian Larsen, Ripple’s co-founder, executive chairman of its board, and former CEO; and Bradley Garlinghouse, the company’s current CEO.
Venture Capital: Logistics-on-demand Startup Lalamove Nabs $515M
Lalamove, the logistics major which offers services around the globe, announced Tuesday its Series E round raise of $515 million. Sequoia Capital China led the round which received participation from existing investors including Hillhouse Capital and Shunwei Capital.
Alternative Investments/ESG: Invesco Launches Four Active Non-Transparent ETFs
Investors get the opportunity to avail of Invesco’s investment expertise in their first suite of active, non-transparent ETFs. Other features of the ETFs that investors will find attractive are tax efficiency, intraday tradability and an arbitrage mechanism. Besides, the four ETFs also offer a very cost-effective structure.
FinTech: Large Chinese Fintechs Stop Taking Online Deposits For Banks
On Friday, the Jack Ma-controlled Ant Group’s Alipay platform, which offers an impressive array of financial products to its customers, removed online deposits that it was accepting on behalf of several banks. The reason – regulatory restrictions.