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Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, aims to secure $1 billion in equity financing to compete with industry leaders such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. The company, co-founded by Musk, has already garnered $135 million from investors, as revealed in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
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FinTech: Chinese Regulators Keep Up Rhetoric Against (Very Large) Fintechs
The barrage of regulatory voices against the “fintech-that-shall-not-be-named” continues. In the latest call to hobble giant fintechs such as the Ant Group, former finance minister Lou Jiwei said regulators should restrict the number of banks that they can partner with.
Artificial Intelligence: Pepsi Deploys AI To Monitor Cheetos Quality
Pepsi (NASDAQ: PEP) goes to great lengths to ensure that its highly popular Cheetos Snacks always have the optimal crunch, lightness, and shape. Consistency of flavor, texture, and color is achieved through careful monitoring of the extruders that produce the delicious snack. Engineers need to constantly monitor variables such as the speed of the snack cutting tool, the ratio of cornmeal to water in the mix, snack lengths, bulk density, and other attributes. For the company, Cheetos is a billion-dollar brand that is produced in 22 countries in more than 50 flavours. No surprises then, that Pepsi decided to deploy AI for quality control of Cheetos’ production.
Artificial Intelligence: In Historic Spy Plane Flight, AI Plays Co-Pilot
On Tuesday, the U.S. Air Force conducted a path-breaking flight test. An AI algorithm (colorfully named ARTUµ in true Star Wars style) rode alongside U.S. Air Force Maj. “Vudu” on a U-2 Dragon Lady assigned to the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base.
The aircraft flew on a reconnaissance mission during a simulated missile strike, with core tasks divvied up between human and algo.
Digital Assets: Bitcoin Scales $20K; Ruffer UK Bought £550M Of Bitcoin In November
Bitcoin is in the history books today after it suddenly sliced through the key $20,000 resistance like a hot knife through butter. It is now trading above that psychological level for the first time. As this is being written, the cryptocurrency is perched at $20,675, up 5.97%. It has now taken out its previous all-time high achieved on December 1, 2020.
Venture Capital: Blade, The Short-Hop Uber-Of-The-Skies, To Go Public Via SPAC
Blade Urban Air Mobility, the helicopter company known for short-haul trips from airports to city centers, is going public by merging with Experience Investment Corp. (NASDAQ: EXPC), a public entity affiliated with KSL Capital Partners. The short hop to listing will make Blade the only publicly traded global urban mobility company.
Artificial Intelligence: Seductive Chatbot Xiaoice Sets 500M Chinese Men’s Hearts Aflutter
Created by Microsoft, Xiaoice is an AI-powered female chatbot that has nearly 500 million lonely Chinese men hooked on her charms. Available 24/7, on a wide variety of devices, and for free, she even talked one suicidal man off the parapet. Her fans know she has relationships with millions of other men, but they’re OK with that.
Digital Assets: Hackers, Suspected Of Russian Origin, Breach The U.S. Treasury
According to a Reuters report, hackers infiltrated departments in the U.S. government and read emails. The criminals were said to be working for Russia, and the attack could have much wider repercussions, Reuters’ sources said.
The bad actors targeted the U.S. Treasury and Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
Venture Capital: The Story Of Sequoia’s Insane Returns On Airbnb
Do the math on this. Venture capital firm Sequoia paid $585,000 for 58 million shares in Airbnb (NASDAQ: ABNB) in 2009, equivalent to about 1 cent per share. Airbnb listed yesterday, and its shares closed their first day of trading at $144.71. Sequoia’s initial investment of about half a million became worth $8.4 billion in slightly over a decade. Is it any surprise that probably the adjective used most often to describe Sequoia is ‘storied?’
Digital Assets: Venerable Mass Mutual Hops Onto The Crypto Bandwagon; Buys $100M Bitcoin
U.S.-based mutual firm The Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company plunked down $100 million to buy bitcoin for its general investment account, according to the Wall Street Journal. For good measure, it also acquired 5% in NYDIG, the bitcoin-dedicated financial services firm.
Artificial Intelligence: Casino And Resort Operator Melco To Combat Food Waste Using AI
Melco Resorts (NASDAQ: MLCO), the global casino and resort operator famous for its City of Dreams and Morpheus resorts in Macau, plans to use AI systems from Winnow Vision to reduce food waste and improve environmental sustainability.
FinTech: Revolut Launches ‘Pockets’ to Help Consumers Manage Spending
Revolut continues to add new features to its banking app as it steps up its efforts to be present in the entire financial life-cycle of its consumers and become a super app. Pockets, its latest innovation, allows consumers to organize bills and earmark money for their payment. The amount leftover in the main account is what’s free to use for spending.
Alternative Investments/ESG: Amundi’s New DAX ESG ETF
The new Amundi DAX 50 ESG UCITS ETF (DECD) is a DAX 50 ETF with a preference for companies that have strong sustainable profiles. It tracks the DAX 50 ESG index which bars companies in activities such as weapons, tobacco and thermal coal, or do not meet international standards.
Artificial Intelligence: China’s Huawei And Megvii Tested AI To Pinpoint Uighur Muslims
Chinese tech giant Huawei and Megvii, one of the country’s largest AI companies, have reportedly tested a facial recognition system to track Uighur Muslims, a repressed minority group. On detection, the system also alerts the authorities.
Artificial Intelligence: AI-Controlled Gun Used to Kill Iranian Nuclear Scientist, Claims IRGC
On Sunday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that artificial intelligence and a satellite were used to control a machine gun that killed Fakhrizadeh on November 27.
Digital Assets: MicroStrategy Borrowing $400M To Bump Up Bitcoin Bet
MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), the listed business intelligence company that pioneered corporate treasury investing in bitcoin, announced an issue of $400 million aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2025 in a private offering to qualified institutional buyers. The company will invest the net proceeds of the issue in bitcoin, it said on Monday.
Digital Assets: BISON, The Crypto App Of Boerse Stuttgart, Hits Record Volumes
In another sign of the growing adoption of cryptocurrencies, Boerse Stuttgart announced Monday that Bison, its crypto trading app had clocked, year to date, a total trading volume of € 1 billion (over $ 1.2 billion).
It said that active users of the Bison trading app had surged by 180% to 206,000 in the same period. Also, during November, the app scaled daily record trading volumes on several days during the month, even exceeding € 35 million.
Venture Capital: TechVenture Fund Highland Europe Raises €700M For Fund IV
Highland Europe, the venture investment firm that was spun off from the U.S.-based Highland Capital Partners in 2012, has raised €700 million ($851 million) for its fourth and largest fund in record time.
Venture Capital: Space Perspective Scores $7M For Its Sub-Orbital Balloon Junkets
Space Perspective is a startup planning to offer high-altitude (read: “edge of space”) trips in Spaceship Neptune, a pressurized capsule suspended from a balloon. It announced Wednesday its raise of $7 million as a seed round led by Prime Movers Lab and Base Ventures.
Digital Assets: Ultimate Validation? S&P Dow Jones To Launch Crypto Indexes In 2021
S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) and Lukka, the New York City-based crypto-asset software and data company, are partnering to launch S&P DJI-branded and customized indexing and benchmarking solutions for global cryptocurrency assets. Lukka will provide its proprietary crypto asset pricing data.
Alternative Investments/ESG: Invest In Decarbonization Solutions Via The New iClima Earth ETF
iClima Earth is a London-based research firm that identifies which companies offer solutions that reduce greenhouse gases by avoiding emissions or by sequestering carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere. iClima has partnered with white-label ETF issuer HANetf to launch an ETF that would invest in such “enablers” of decarbonization.
Alternative Investments/ESG: TD Asset Management Launches Three New Equity ETFS With ESG Focus
TD Asset Management announced Tuesday the launch of three new ESG Equity ETFs to cater to investors looking for exposure to equity market indexes and companies with an ESG edge. The ETFs have a regional focus and track Canadian, U.S. and International equity indices respectively.
Artificial Intelligence: AI Startups Scale And Olive Score Solid Funding Rounds
Scale AI, a startup that labels data for customers building machine learning algorithms, tipped the scales with a $3.5 billion post-money valuation when it raised $155 million in a Series D round led by Tiger Global. Olive AI Inc, which provides an AI workforce platform to the healthcare industry, closed a $225.5 million funding round, also led by Tiger Global, bringing its valuation to $1.5 billion.
Alternative Investments/Digital Assets: Bitcoin Scales New All Time High; Draws New 5- and 6-Figure Targets
Bitcoin momentously broke its 2017 high on Monday, recording a new one at $19,864.15. This had all the crypto evangelists out in full force, insisting the bull market in the leading crypto was now well and truly in place.
As expected, more lofty targets were trotted out – one at $50,000, the other at $500,000.
Artificial Intelligence: Raytheon And C3.ai Team Up For Military AI Solutions
Raytheon Intelligence & Space, a unit of Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX), will collaborate with C3.ai, a provider of enterprise AI software, to develop AI solutions for aerospace and defense missions by the US Air Force and intelligence agencies.