Above the Trend Line: your industry rumor central is a recurring feature of insideAI News. In this column, we present a variety of short time-critical news items grouped by category such as M&A activity, people movements, funding news, industry partnerships, customer wins, rumors and general scuttlebutt floating around the big data, data science and machine learning industries including behind-the-scenes anecdotes and curious buzz. Our intent is to provide you a one-stop source of late-breaking news to help you keep abreast of this fast-paced ecosystem. We’re working hard on your behalf with our extensive vendor network to give you all the latest happenings. Heard of something yourself? Tell us! Just e-mail me at: daniel@insideAINews.com.
Let’s kickstart our rumor mill with some new funding news … Tabnine, the creators of the AI-powered assistant for developers, announced it raised $25 million in a Series B round, bringing its total funding to $55 million. The round was led by Telstra Ventures and included participation from new investor Atlassian Ventures. Existing investors Elaia, Headline, Hetz Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and TPY Capital also participated. The funding will be used to extend Tabnine’s mission to integrate generative AI into the end-to-end software development lifecycle (SDLC), following Tabnine’s successful application of AI to code creation and completion, which already serves more than one million monthly users. Tabnine will also further build out its sales and global support teams to meet massive customer demand … BlastPoint, a minority-led AI consumer analytics trailblazer, surpasses $8 million in funding with the recent investment from Curql. The company will use the capital to accelerate its upward trajectory as the industry’s most personalizable and accurate customer insights solution, empowering businesses across highly regulated industries—including utilities, financial institutions, automotive, insurance, and more—to optimize customer engagement, surpass benchmarks, generate revenue, and achieve growth … Guidde, the video documentation platform harnessing generative AI, announced a $11.6 million Series A funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners, joined by existing investors Entrée Capital, Honeystone Ventures, Crescendo Ventures, and new investor Tiferes Ventures. The Series A funding comes within a year of the company’s product launch, bringing its total capital raised to $15.6 million. Guidde will use the capital to expand its engineering and data science teams and grow its go-to-market team as it looks to develop its presence around the globe … Luzia, a premier AI assistant designed to simplify tasks, boost productivity and provide inspiration to users, announced the closing of $10M in Series A financing led by Khosla Ventures. The latest investment, received six months after the launch of Luzia, reflects the growing confidence of Silicon Valley and international investors in the company’s vision and potential. The previous investment rounds garnered a total of $3 million in funding from notable investors such as Mike Santos of Technisys, Sean Ryan of Sean Investments LTD, and Grupo Proeduca … Pantomath Inc., a data pipeline observability and traceability platform, announced that it completed $14 million in Series A funding in early September led by Silicon Valley-based Sierra Ventures and included Series Seed investors Bowery Capital and Epic Ventures. The company has now raised $18 million in only 16 months. The additional capital will be used to innovate through AI and expand to new territories … TileDB Inc. announced the closing of its Series B funding round, raising $34 million to advance its vision of the “modern database” as a single secure product for enterprises, developers and scientists. The funding was led by AlleyCorp, founded by Kevin Ryan (co-creator of MongoDB and DoubleClick, among many other accomplishments), with participation from Two Bear Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Big Pi Ventures, Intel Capital, Uncorrelated, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Amgen Ventures, NTT Docomo Ventures, Verizon Ventures, S Ventures, LDV Partners and Scale Asia Ventures … Aampe, the AI-native user engagement platform, announced a $7.5 million Pre-Series A funding round led by Matrix Partners India and Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA). The new capital will support product development and fuel growth as the company continues its rapid global expansion … Pulumi, a leading open source Infrastructure as Code platform, announced $41 million in Series C funding led by Madrona with participation from NEA, Tola Capital, and Strike Capital. This round brings Pulumi’s total funding to $99 million. Pulumi will use the investment to make cloud infrastructure easily accessible to everyone – innovating on its open source platform, advancing infrastructure security and bringing the power of generative AI to cloud engineers and developers … PerfectScale, an innovation leader in Kubernetes optimization, announced that the company has successfully closed $7.1 million in seed funding, led by Blumberg Capital with participation from previous investor UpWest, Prelude Ventures, and additional investors K2 Access Fund, Inner Loop Capital, Triangle Tweener Fund, and Firestreak Ventures. The latest investment brings the company’s total funding to nearly $10 million, since its founding in March, 2022 … Acceldata, a leader in enterprise data observability, announced the company has attracted a $10 million Series C extension funding round from new investor Prosperity7 Ventures to fuel its go-to-market expansion. The investment brings the company’s total capital raised to over $100 million as it reports significant corporate momentum fueled by customer growth, product innovation, global expansion, and the acquisition of Bewgle … Kolena, a pioneering leader in AI and machine learning model testing, announced that it has successfully secured $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Lobby Capital, bringing total funding for the company to $21 million. Returning investors SignalFire, Bloomberg Beta, 11.2 Capital, Zero Prime Ventures and others also participated. This significant investment will fuel Kolena’s mission to revolutionize the way AI systems are tested and validated, ensuring trustworthiness and reliability in an increasingly AI-driven world … Nexusflow, a Generative AI leader targeting the cybersecurity industry, announced that it has raised a $10.6 million seed round led by Point72 Ventures, with participation from Fusion Fund and several AI luminaries in Silicon Valley. Nexusflow was founded by AI experts Professor Jiantao Jiao and Professor Kurt Keutzer from the Berkeley AI Research (BAIR) Lab, along with industry AI leader Jian Zhang. Jian Zhang received his Ph.D. from the Stanford AI Lab and served as the former Machine Learning Director at SambaNova Systems, a $5B+ AI startup. Together, they bring years of research and productization experience in AI algorithms and systems.
In recent M&A news we have … Databricks on made its second major acquisition in the past four months, reaching an agreement to purchase Arcion for $100 million in a move that adds new data ingestion and data replication capabilities … EnterpriseDB, a leader in accelerating Postgres® in the enterprise, announced its acquisition of Splitgraph, an early-stage disruptor that provides a Postgres compatible serverless SQL API for building data driven applications from hundreds of datasources. This move is seen as a meaningful step in EDB’s evolution, underscoring its commitment to delivering Postgres solutions to the ever evolving challenges customers face across a diverse data landscape … Contentsquare, a global leader in digital experience analytics, announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire leading product analytics platform Heap. This acquisition will bring together two complementary industry players, unlocking a new era of customer insights and transforming the way businesses and organizations optimize their customers’ online experience.
We also learned of a number of new partnerships, alignments, and collaborations … Google announced an expansion of its partnership with Anthropic, committing to the highest standards of AI security and safety, and that Anthropic will leverage the latest generation Cloud TPU v5e chips for AI inference. The two companies have worked closely since Anthropic’s founding in 2021, as the AI safety and research startup has built one of the largest Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) clusters in the industry. Anthropic also currently uses AlloyDB, Google’s fully managed PostgreSQL-compatible database, to handle transactional data with high performance and reliability; and Google’s popular BigQuery data warehouse to analyze vast datasets and extract insights for its employees … MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ: MDB) and Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) company, announced the two companies are collaborating to optimize Amazon CodeWhisperer to provide enhanced suggestions for application development and modernization on MongoDB’s industry-leading developer data platform that millions of developers and tens of thousands of customers rely on every day for business-critical applications. Trained on billions of lines of Amazon and publicly available code, Amazon CodeWhisperer is an AI-powered coding companion from AWS that generates code suggestions based on natural-language comments or existing code in developers’ integrated development environments (IDEs). Working together with AWS, MongoDB provided curated training data for MongoDB use cases and took part in the evaluation of Amazon CodeWhisperer outputs throughout the training process to promote high-quality code suggestions. While Amazon CodeWhisperer already provided support for building applications on MongoDB, developers can now get enhanced suggestions that reflect best practices, allowing developers to ideate more quickly, rapidly prototype new features, and accelerate application development … BIP, a leading multinational consultancy firm, announced its partnership with Domino Data Lab, provider of a leading Enterprise AI platform trusted by over 20% of the Fortune 100, to jointly deliver solutions for rapidly and responsibly scaling enterprise AI innovation across Life Sciences and other key markets. BIP will provide professional services to help Domino customers rapidly scale AI innovation for a competitive advantage as part of this collaboration. BIP will also deliver pre-built templates and projects focused on accelerating life sciences use cases in Domino’s recently announced AI Project Hub … SnapLogic, a leader in generative integration, announced it has entered a multifaceted partnership with Acolad, world leader in content and language solutions. Together, they will cooperatively develop and deliver new cutting-edge generative AI translation services from Acolad, powered by the pioneering generative integration solutions from SnapLogic … Cloudera, Inc., the data company for trusted enterprise artificial intelligence (AI), and Pinecone, the vector database company providing long-term memory for AI, announced a strategic partnership that integrates Pinecone’s AI vector database expertise into Cloudera’s open data platform, aimed at transforming the way organizations harness the power of AI to streamline operations and improve customer experiences … CalypsoAI, a leader in AI Security, announced a partnership with Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE: PLTR) to utilize Palantir’s FedStart program. CalypsoAI’s security platform will now be made available to government agencies through FedStart, which provides an accredited environment for AI security and other application deployments .. Iris Energy Limited (NASDAQ: IREN) (together with its subsidiaries, “Iris Energy” or “the Company”), a leading owner and operator of institutional-grade, highly efficient Bitcoin mining data centers powered by 100% renewable energy, announced it is partnering with WEKA, the data platform software provider for performance-intensive workloads, as part of its entry into the generative AI market … C3 AI (NYSE: AI), the Enterprise AI application software company, announced a new partnership with ESG Book, a global leader in sustainability data, to deliver powerful new insights to ESG teams. The collaboration combines C3 AI’s leading AI-enabled ESG application with ESG Book’s comprehensive suite of sustainability data to provide sustainability teams within enterprises with unparalleled data-driven analytical capabilities … data.world, the data catalog platform, unveiled a new partnership with Sigma, one of the first cloud data platforms enabling business and technical users to collaborate and analyze live, at scale data from their cloud data warehouse. The integration combines the speed and flexibility of Sigma with the governance and cataloging capabilities of data.world, providing joint customers with greater trust in their data visualizations and reporting.
In the people movement category we heard … SnapLogic, a leader in generative integration, appointed a new VP of People, Cassie Capano, to lead people operations, HR, and recruiting while also spearheading new opportunities for employee retention and development, manager training, and collaboration across functions to propel business strategy. With 20 years of HR experience, Cassie most recently led People Operations at Eat Just, a food tech company, focusing on building processes to scale the company globally. Prior, Cassie worked at Lending Club, where she led a team focused on HR technology and compliance … dbt Labs, a pioneer in analytics engineering, announced the appointment of Brandon Sweeney as President and Chief Operating Officer. In this new role, Sweeney will lead the global go-to-market organization, including revenue, customer success, partnerships and marketing. Sweeney will play a critical role in growing the business as it experiences rapid adoption, helping customers manage data complexity at scale … Scality, a leader in reliable, secure and sustainable data storage software, announced the promotion of Eric LeBlanc into a new role as the vice president of worldwide channel sales and general manager of ARTESCA. Riding a wave of success with ARTESCA — Scality’s simple, secure S3 object storage software for immutable backups — LeBlanc will now extend his responsibility beyond EMEA and Asia-Pacific into a global role driving channel sales across all regions, including the Americas. LeBlanc’s new focus will help drive sustainable business results for the channel and ARTESCA customers … Tabnine announced the appointment of Peter Guagenti as President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to lead go-to-market strategy and growth. Guagenti brings decades of leadership excellence at high-growth companies and will help drive Tabnine in its mission to bring generative AI to the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC) … Cloudera, the data company for trusted enterprise AI, strengthened its executive leadership team with three new department chiefs: Mary Wells as Chief Marketing Officer, Dipto Chakravarty as Chief Product Officer, and Dilip Upmanyu as Chief Financial Officer. The trio join a refreshed c-suite, which includes new CEO, Charles Sansbury, who was appointed this summer to guide the long-time hybrid data leader into its next phase of growth and prepare their Fortune 1000 clients for crucial digital transformation and AI adoption … Prevedere, a leading cloud provider of advanced predictive planning solutions, announced three new appointments to its executive team — Greg Schneider as Chief Marketing Officer, Michelle Green as Chief Economist and Head of Customer Operations, and Neil Thomas as Chief Sales Officer. This move comes as Prevedere continues to experience rapid growth in revenue and new customers in 2023. With continued market volatility and economic uncertainty on the horizon, Prevedere is seeing high demand for its solutions as companies seek help in navigating the market headwinds and tailwinds impacting their businesses … Opaque Systems, a leader in privacy-enhancing technologies for data and AI, announced the appointment of Aaron Fulkerson as Chief Executive Officer. Fulkerson joins Opaque with enterprise and open-source software expertise and decades of experience growing and scaling technology companies. Most recently, he launched ServiceNow Impact, a new software category providing AI-enabled value acceleration for ServiceNow customers, where he served as Vice President and General Manager. At Opaque, he will spearhead the company’s go-to-market initiatives to continue unlocking the value of confidential computing and propel Opaque into its next stage of growth … Sisense, an embedded analytics platform provider that empowers thousands of companies to embed analytics into data products, announced the appointment of Brian Weinberger as their SVP of Global Sales. Weinberger is responsible for overseeing and expanding Sisense’s sales operations on a global scale. Weinberger brings to Sisense more than 25 years of SaaS sales experience from Cube, Salesforce, Segment, Yext and others … Iridia™ Inc., a pioneer in the field of DNA-based data storage, announced the appointment of Sandeep Vij, an experienced semiconductor industry executive, to its Board of Directors. With his appointment, Iridia’s Board has been expanded to seven members … Concurrency, Inc., which is proudly recognized as Microsoft’s #1 Azure OpenAI partner, announced the appointment of Brandon Dey as Lead Data Scientist. With a stellar track record in constructing end-to-end machine learning systems, Brandon’s addition amplifies Concurrency’s dedication to innovation and excellence in the Azure OpenAI space. Brandon’s career is distinguished by a unique blend of deep technical expertise, a sharp product vision, extensive engineering management experience, and a proven ability to lead teams through transformative changes. He has played a pivotal role in providing technical leadership on over 50 data science projects for Fortune 500 and startup clients, spanning industries such as Manufacturing, Retail, Financial Services, Healthcare, Education, Agriculture, and Commercial Real Estate … Elastic announced the appointment of Abhishek Singh as General Manager of Elastic Observability. Previously the VP of Product at Datadog, Singh will spearhead rapid advancements for Elastic Observability solutions like the Elastic AI Assistant for Observability, which leverages the power of generative AI and an organization’s own proprietary data to make problem resolution faster and easier for site reliability engineers (SRE) and DevOps engineers … -With its expanded focus on enhancing its offerings with artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) capabilities, Reltio® announced it has appointed Vidhi Chugh as Head of Product Management for AI/ML Solutions. This strategic hire further solidifies Reltio’s ongoing commitment to AI/ML innovation and its dedication to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in this domain. In her new role, Ms. Chugh will lead Reltio’s AI/ML roadmap, focusing on enhancing capabilities, such as entity resolution using pre-trained machine learning models and anomaly detection … Dataiku, the platform for Everyday AI, announced the appointment of Sandrine Bossard as their new Chief People Officer. This significant appointment underscores Dataiku’s commitment to its employees and values. Bossard will lead innovative HR practices and initiatives, concentrating on enhancing organizational culture, retaining employees, promoting learning and development, and boosting organizational efficiency to support future growth … Stravito, the enterprise insights platform democratizing access to market data for the world’s largest organizations, announced the appointment of My Truong to the position of Vice President of Marketing. Truong will be responsible for spearheading marketing strategies that drive rapid and sustainable growth for the company … Imply, the company founded by the original creators of Apache Druid, announced that Pranav Parekh has been named its new Chief Customer Officer, a strategic move aimed at enhancing customer experience and elevating Imply’s commitment to delivering exceptional value to its customers. Parekh will take charge of sales engineering, solution architects, customer success and support, leading an initiative to drive customer-centric innovation and solidify Imply as the industry leader in real-time data analytics … DAS42, a leading data consultancy, announced it has welcomed Deloitte veteran Frank Farrall as CEO to lead DAS42 in its next phase of growth, building on the company’s strong foundation to become a market-leading data consultancy. Nick Amabile, the company’s founding CEO, will transition to an advisory role and continue serving as a member of DAS42’s Board of Directors … Jasper, an early leader in generative AI, announced that the founding team has selected Timothy Young as chief executive officer for the company’s next stage of growth. As former president of Dropbox and VP of product & engineering for VMware, Young brings a deep understanding of enterprise needs and decades of experience scaling companies in rapidly evolving industries. Jasper Cofounder Dave Rogenmoser, who served as CEO for the company’s first two years, will remain as chairman of the Board.
We also learned of some new customer wins … Evan Welbourne, head of AI and Data at Samsara (NYSE: IOT), developed a machine learning platform specifically designed to operate within edge environments. Thousands of customers use Samsara’s AI Dash Cam technology to monitor driver safety (ex: tailgating detection and prevention). To optimize Samsara’s ML models for these devices, Evan and his team utilized Ray’s open-source framework for scaling Python applications, and the results were significant … Dremio, the easy and open data lakehouse, announced that KION Group, Europe’s largest manufacturer of forklift and warehouse trucks, has today deployed the Dremio data lakehouse solution to extract actionable intelligence from vast, siloed data sets, and to accelerate decision making … Progress (Nasdaq: PRGS), the trusted provider of application development and infrastructure software, announced that Sensing Clues, the Dutch non-government organization dedicated to the preservation of nature and wildlife using advanced technologies, leveraged Progress® MarkLogic® Data Hub to prevent illegal animal poaching. Providing rangers with better situational awareness to act on unauthorized access into restricted areas, in 2022 alone, Sensing Clues supported over 320 rangers and conducted more than 54,500 observations and tracks to protect 3,211,000 hectares of nature … In the fiercely competitive world of international motorsport, where every millisecond counts, Kinetica has been chosen by Mahindra Racing, currently competing in the electric FIA Formula E Championship, to provide immediate insights from racing car sensor data, essential for success in Formula E racing. Mahindra Racing selected Kinetica as its real-time database for advanced analytics for its unrivaled speed and processing of location-enriched time-series data from sensors encompassing engine, aerodynamics, and tire performance. The faster they can process this data, run complex models, and identify critical issues, the quicker Mahindra Racing’s team can fine-tune their cars’ setups to win races …
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