News
Distilling a generally-accepted definition of what qualifies as artificial intelligence (AI) has become a revived topic of debate in recent times. Some have rebranded AI as “cognitive computing” or “machine intelligence”, while others incorrectly interchange AI with “machine learning”. This is in part because AI is not one technology. It is in fact a broad field constituted of many disciplines, ranging from robotics to machine learning.
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WorldRemit, a London-based startup with some 2 million users that offers a quick way for people to send money to each other with a focus on developing markets.
The company has picked up $40 million — a Series C round that sources tell us brings the company’s valuation to around $668 million.
The funding was led by a new, strategic investor: LeapFrog Investments, the firm founded in 2007 and backed by billions from the likes of Prudential, JP Morgan and the Omidyar Network specifically to make investments into financial and healthcare businesses improving services in emerging markets, specifically in regions like Africa and Asia.
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Viola FinTech, an Israeli tech investment group, has raised $100m to back financial technology startups across the world.
The fund drew investment from banks and insurance companies including Scotiabank – credited with being Israel’s second largest bank – The Travelers Companies and Bank Hapoalim.
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Scaling great startups into profitable, productive global powerhouses is the ambition of many nations. A report launched by Mind the Bridge and Cisco today names the UK as the tech scaleup capital of Europe.
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WorldRemit, a London, UK-based digital money transfer service, raised $40m in Series C funding.
The round, which brings the total amount raised to $220m, was led by LeapFrog Investments, with participation from existing investors Accel and TCV.
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UK-based investment group Mercia Technologies PLC has held the first closing of EV Growth II with initial commitments totalling £45.1m.
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Graduway, a London, U.K.-based provider of alumni software, raised $12.7m in growth funding.
Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE), made the investment joining existing investors Gigi Levy, Massa Innovations and SaaS Capital.
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London-based deep learning startup Chattermill has raised £600,000 in Seed funding.
Entrepreneur First, Avonmore Developments and angel investors, including Jeff Kelisky, the CEO of Seedrs, participated in the round.
Chattermill was co-founded by Mikhail Dubov, a Cambridge and LSE educated software engineer, and Dmitry Isupov, a Maths graduate with deep knowledge and experience in machine learning.
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Modsy isn’t an augmented reality company as much as they are a 3D imaging startup that’s aiming to help you augment your living space’s style. Users can snap a few photos of a room in their house with any basic phone camera, then a short bit later Modsy reconstructs the space in 360 3D and sends you a couple totally new designs based on your “style genome,” which it calculates via a short questionnaire.
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Episode 1, a London, UK-based software only early stage venture capital firm, closed its second tech fund at £60m.
LPs included British Business Bank, the UK government’s economic development bank, entrepreneurs, and new institutions including Draper Esprit and ADV.
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