News
Each day, DailyAlts tracks major developments across the alternative investment world. Our content is procured from primary contacts in the industry and secondary sources across the web. Our goal is to give readers the most up-to-date news and engaging experience to open new doors and areas of knowledge. Our stories cover nine separate verticals of the alternative investment industry.
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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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Venture Capital: AgTech Startup Benson Hill Lands $150M
Benson Hill, an agtech startup based in St. Louis, announced Thursday its close of a $150 million Series D round led by Wheatsheaf and GV (formerly Google Ventures). It uses biotechnology and data science to enhance the nutritional qualities and sustainability of crops.
FinTech: Alliance Data Buys BNPL Fintech Bread For $450M
Alliance Data Systems (NYSE: ADS) said Thursday that it will acquire Bread and its digital platform for $450 million of which $100 will be paid through Alliance stock. The transaction would expand Alliance Data’s own digital offerings by including buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) products.
Digital Assets: KPMG’s Chain Fusion Blockchain Suite To Integrate Coin Metrics’ Products
KPMG LLP, a unit of Big Four accounting and consulting firm KPMG, announced an alliance with Coin Metrics, an open-source project with the goal of onboarding financial institutions across the world with data and insights into cryptoassets. KPMG’s Chain Fusion is a suite of analytic and digital capabilities that enables the adoption of cryptoassets across financial organizations by bridging their traditional systems with blockchain systems. As a part of the alliance, the Chain Fusion suite will integrate Coin Metrics’ full-suite of institutional data products and infrastructure.
Artificial Intelligence: AI Detects COVID From Cellphone Recorded Coughs
A person who is contagious but asymptomatic for COVID-19 coughs differently from healthy individuals.
The difference in coughing may not be discernible to the ordinary person, but a trained AI model can pick it up, according to researchers at MIT. Their system analyzes forced-cough recordings taken on a cellphone or laptop and submitted via the internet. It highlighted COVID-19 positivity with near-total accuracy.
Alternative Investments/ESG: Brunel Allots £1.2B ($1.55B) Sustainable Mandate To Three Managers
The Brunel Pension Partnership has picked Ownership Capital, RBC Global Asset Management, and Nordea Asset Management to manage its new Sustainable Equities Fund of around £1.2 billion ($1.55 billion). Brunel is one of eight pooled Local Government Pension Scheme funds in the U.K.
FinTech: UK Development Lender CrowdProperty Notches £100M Of Loans
CrowdProperty, a leading crowdfunder/lender to the U.K. SME property sector, has lent over £100 million to development professionals. The funding had a beneficial impact on the UK economy because it catalyzed an expenditure of over £ 80 million on construction-related labor, materials, and services. Notably, all of the funded projects have been fully repaid, with platform investors earning, on average, 8% per annum.
Digital Assets: Ripple Invests In Money Tap, A Subsidiary Of SBI Holdings, Japan
Ripple Labs, the San Francisco-based technology company that facilitates cross-border payments through the use of its blockchain solutions via RippleNet, will invest an undisclosed amount in Money Tap. Money Tap offers the smartphone app of the same name.
Artificial Intelligence: Apple Shells Out $50M For Video AI Startup Vilynx
Earlier this year, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) acquired Vilynx, a Barcelona-based startup that uses AI and computer vision technology to analyze a video’s visual, audio, and text elements. Reportedly, the iPhone maker clinched the acquisition for $50 million. (Bloomberg)
Venture Capital: Scopely Rides COVID Games Growth, Lands $340M Series E
Leading mobile games and interactive entertainment company Scopely raised $340 million in a Series E round within a year of its previous $200 million funding. The company, which boasts of blockbuster games such as Star Trek Fleet Command, Marvel Strike Force, and WWE Champions, “seized the play,” garnering a whopper of a valuation of $3.3 billion. That valuation is twice what it was a year ago.
Alternative Investments/ESG: European Investors Prioritizing ESG Factors In ETFs (Cerulli)
Research by Cerulli Associates shows that European investors hold companies that minimize their carbon footprint or run fossil-free operations in high regard. They will therefore prefer ETFs that incorporate these ESG factors into their portfolios. On the other hand, negative screening and exclusions are not so important.
Digital Assets: JPMorgan’s Digital Currency “JPM Coin” Is Live In Cross-Border Payments
An unnamed but large technology company is already using JPM Coin, JPMorgan’s (NYSE: JPM) digital currency developed in-house, for cross-border payments. A CNBC report says the bank has now set up its digital currency and blockchain businesses inside a new unit dubbed Onyx.
Venture Capital: Ordermark Scores $120M In SoftBank-Led Series C Round
Ordermark announced Tuesday its successful close of a $120 million Series C investment round led by SoftBank’s Vision 2 Fund. Existing investor Act One Ventures also participated in the round.
Ordermark will use the new funds to expand its services to more restaurants looking to go online amidst the Covid 19 pandemic.
FinTech: UBS Makes $200M Splash In Burgeoning Fintech Industry
UBS Group (SWX: UBSG) announced Tuesday a strategy to increase its interaction with the fintech industry, particularly digital ventures. UBS Next, its new venture arm, will invest US$ 200 million in direct equity investments into early-stage fintechs and other tech companies.
Artificial Intelligence: The USPTO Deploys AI To Gauge AI Trends In Patents
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) said in its October report, “Inventing AI – Tracing The Diffusion Of Artificial Intelligence With US Patents,” that annual AI-related applications rose from 30,000 in 2002 to more than 60,000 in 2018. That showed more than a 100% increase.
Alternative Investments/ESG: Amundi Launches Sustainable ETF With Exposure To Japanese Stocks
The Amundi Index MSCI Japan SRI UCITS ETF offers exposure to large and mid-cap companies with outstanding Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings in the Japanese market.
The new ETF is an extension of Amundi’s range of sustainable ETFs.
Artificial Intelligence: Intel First To Deploy AI “On Edge” In Space
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) has the distinction of launching the first onboard AI processing chip into space. Earlier this month, the European Space Agency and Intel announced the successful deployment in space of PhiSat-1, the first-ever satellite with onboard AI-processing capabilities. Launched from a rocket dispenser on September 2, the PhiSat-1 is positioned about 530 km above our heads, moving at a speed of 27,500 km per hour in a sun-synchronous orbit.
Venture Capital: RV Marketplace RVshare Lands $100M Round As Virus Boosts Bookings
RVshare is a marketplace that matches up trippers looking to hire an RV with owners wanting to earn something from their vehicle by letting it out. It announced Wednesday a fundraising of $100+ million led by KKR. Existing investor Tritium Partners also participated in the round.
Digital Assets: “An Ocean Of $250T In Assets Will Move To The Bitcoin Pond”
In a webcast with Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough last week, Saylor described the bitcoin network as “a thing of beauty and extraordinary value,” and “the first network in the world that can pull monetary energy.”
FinTech: PrimaryBid Snags $50M
London-based PrimaryBid allows retail investors to digitally access share offerings on the same terms as institutions on its internet-based investment platform. It partners with the London Stock Exchange to cater to retail investors, which it says “is an important constituency in any capital raising activity.” The company announced Monday its close of a $50 million Series B investment round.
Alternative Investments/ESG: ESG Investments Are Now Mainstream And Core Portfolio Elements
Adrian Lowcock is head of personal investing at Willis Owen. He notes that ESG’s decisive outperformance during the last one, three, and five years shows the investing approach is here to stay.
Lowcock points to the 94.6% return from the MSCI ACWI ESG leaders index over five years compared to the 91.3% return from the MSCI ACWI index, as validation of his opinion.
Digital Assets: JPMorgan Issues Bullish Bitcoin Analysis
JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) analysts issued a note on Friday that said millennials’ preference for cryptocurrency over gold could lend a bullish tailwind to bitcoin in the coming years. Millennials would constitute an important segment of the investment fraternity and that could tip the scales in favor of BTC versus the yellow metal.
Venture Capital: Yale Endowment’s Legendary Boss Swensen Moves To Change “Mostly White, Mostly Male”
David Swensen stands tall in the field of management of endowment funds at universities. He joined the Yale Investments Office at the age of 31. The fund was then worth $1 billion. Today, Swensen runs $31.2 billion for Yale, second only to Harvard’s corpus of $40 billion. On October 2, Swensen wrote to the investment management firms that handled Yale’s prodigious endowment fund.
FinTech: ZestMoney Launches Buy-Now-Pay-Later Offers For Apple Products In India
Lizzie Chapman, CEO and Co-Founder at ZestMoney, said in a LinkedIn post that her company had partnered with Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) to “drive affordability in India.” Though premium products, such as those from Apple had so far remained out of reach for India’s price-sensitive consumers, that would change now, Chapman wrote.
Artificial Intelligence: How AI Watches For Pirates On The High Seas
A maritime anti-piracy system from a Singaporean engineering company uses AI to deliver fully automated piracy alerts to ocean-going vessels, particularly in pirate-infested waters such as near Somalia and the South China Seas.