Innovation

How Zillow Is Empowering Renters Through A New Credit-Building Payment Reporting Service

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 18, 2024

Zillow has announced a new feature that enables renters who pay their rent on Zillow to have their on-time payments reported to a major national credit bureau at no cost. This is a first for any online rental marketplace, providing a unique opportunity for renters to build credit through regular rent payments at no additional cost.

Cyversity: New Leadership And Board Revealed To Bring Better Diversity In Cybersecurity

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 18, 2024

Cyversity - a 501(c)3 non-profit association dedicated to achieve the consistent representation of women, underrepresented communities, and all veterans in the cybersecurity industry through programs designed for diversifying, educating, and empowering - announced new executive leadership and its newly elected board of directors for the 2024-2026 term effective January 1, 2024.

How John Deere And SpaceX Are Collaborating To Help Farmers With Connectivity Challenges

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 18, 2024

Deere & Company recently announced it has agreed with SpaceX to provide cutting-edge satellite communications (SATCOM) service to farmers. Leveraging the industry-leading Starlink network, this solution will allow farmers facing rural connectivity challenges to leverage precision agriculture technologies fully.

Gates Foundation: $8.6 Billion Budget For 2024 Announced

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 17, 2024

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced its largest annual budget to date as it works toward a healthier and more prosperous world. These are the details.

Northvolt: $5 Billion Raised For Circular Gigafactory

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 17, 2024

Northvolt recently announced the signing of a $5 billion non-recourse project financing to enable the expansion of Northvolt Ett in northern Sweden. This deal represents the largest green loan raised in Europe to date.

Why Snyk Is Buying Helio

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 17, 2024

Snyk - a leader in developer security - announced the acquisition of Helios, an industry pioneer capturing application runtime data, to further enhance Snyk’s cloud-to-code risk visibility. This acquisition marks a milestone in Snyk’s Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) journey, accelerating the evolution of Snyk AppRisk and allowing enterprise security teams to more effectively manage their global application security programs at scale.

Mars: $237 Million Nature’s Bakery Facility To Be Built In Salt Lake City

By Annie Baker ● Jan 17, 2024

Mars announced the establishment of a 339,000 sq. ft. baking facility by Nature's Bakery in Salt Lake City. And Nature's Bakery projects to add over 190 jobs to its Utah location and invest $237 million in its Utah facility.

Granata Bio: Women’s Health And Fertility Company Raises $14 Million

By Annie Baker ● Jan 17, 2024

Granata Bio - a biopharma company focused on invigorating the $3.6 billion global infertility medication market - recently announced the closing of a $14 million Series A funding round led by GV (Google Ventures). The participants in the funding round include CooperSurgical, Gedeon Richter, Alumni Ventures, Amboy Street Ventures, Vibe Bio, and others.

Synopsys Buying Ansys In A $35 Billion Deal: Details

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 16, 2024

Synopsys and Ansys announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Synopsys will acquire Ansys. These are the details.

Microsoft Launches Copilot Pro For $20 Per User Per Month

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 16, 2024

Microsoft announced that it recently achieved over 5 billion chats and over 5 billion images with its Copilot AI companion platform. Microsoft recently announced the introduction of Copilot Pro, which is a new premium subscription for individuals that offers a higher tier of service for AI capabilities, brings Copilot AI capabilities to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers, and new capabilities like the ability to create Copilot GPTs.

Intuition Robotics: ElliQ 3 AI Companion Launches To Improve Lifestyles For Seniors

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 15, 2024

IBM Partnering With SAP On Developing New AI Tools For The CPG And Retail Industries

By Annie Baker ● Jan 14, 2024

IBM recently announced its collaboration with SAP to develop solutions to help clients in the consumer packaged goods and retail industries enhance their supply chain, finance operations, sales, and services using generative AI.

Safe Software: Strategic Growth Investment Received From JMI Equity

By Noah Long ● Jan 14, 2024

Safe Software - a leading enterprise integration company with unrivaled support for spatial data - recently announced that JMI Equity (JMI) has invested strategically in the high-growth enterprise solutions provider.

Ansys Launches SimAI To Combine Simulation With Generative AI

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 14, 2024

Ansys recently launched its newest Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based technology Ansys SimAI, which is a physics-agnostic software as a service (SaaS) application that combines the predictive accuracy of Ansys simulation with the speed of generative AI.

Atomic-6: Advanced Composite Manufacturing Company Secures Over $9 Million

By Noah Long ● Jan 14, 2024

Atomic-6 - a leading innovator in advanced composite manufacturing for Aerospace, Ballistic, and Hypersonic applications - recently announced the successful completion of its first two funding rounds.

Via Scientific: Multi-Omics platform Company Secures $5 Million

By Annie Baker ● Jan 11, 2024

Via Scientific - the developer of Via Foundry, the multi-omics platform that enables pharmaceutical companies, bio-techs and academic researchers to go faster in discovering novel biological insights - recently announced the closing of $5 million in funding led by G20 Ventures and Innospark Ventures.

Ververica: How This Company Is Unlocking The Potential Of Data For Enterprises

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 11, 2024

Ververica (a company founded by the original creators of open-source Apache Flink) is focused on unlocking the immense potential of data for enterprises. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Ververica CEO Alexander Walden to learn more about the company.

Hungryroot: The Success Story Of This Rapidly Growing Online Grocery Service

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 11, 2024

Hungryroot is an online grocery service that makes healthy eating easy and personal. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Hungryroot and Every App founder and CEO Ben McKean to learn more about the company.

What Google Revealed At CES 2024

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 9, 2024

Google GM and VP Sameer Samat revealed several new updates the company made at the CES 2024 event. These are the details.

Deepcell Partners With NVIDIA To Utilize Generative AI In Single Cell Research

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 9, 2024

Deepcell - a pioneer in AI-powered single-cell analysis to fuel deep biological discoveries - recently announced a research collaboration with NVIDIA to accelerate the development and adoption of advanced computer vision solutions in life sciences. And Deepcell - which already uses the NVIDIA A4000 and NVIDIA AI technology - will incorporate NVIDIA AI into its single-cell analysis technology, working collaboratively with NVIDIA to codevelop new uses for generative AI and multimodal applications in cell biology.

McAfee: Deepfake Audio Detection Technology Unveiled

By Annie Baker ● Jan 9, 2024

McAfee recently announced its AI-powered Deepfake Audio Detection technology (known as Project Mockingbird) at the Consumer Electronics Show. This new and proprietary technology was developed to help defend consumers against the surging threat of cybercriminals utilizing fabricated and AI-generated audio to carry out scams that rob people of money and personal information, enable cyberbullying, and manipulate the public image of prominent figures.

Twilio: Khozema Shipchandler Named As CEO

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 9, 2024

Twilio - the customer engagement platform that drives real-time and personalized experiences for today’s leading brands - announced that Khozema Shipchandler, formerly President of Twilio Communications, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer and will join the company’s Board of Directors, effective immediately. Shipchandler is succeeding Jeff Lawson, Twilio’s co-founder, who is stepping down as CEO and as a member of the Twilio Board. Jeff Epstein (a member of the Twilio Board and Lead Independent Director since 2017) has been appointed as Chair of the Twilio Board.

BigCommerce And Marketplacer Sign Strategic Partnership

By Annie Baker ● Jan 9, 2024

BigCommerce (a leading Open SaaS ecommerce platform for fast-growing and established B2C and B2B brands) and Marketplacer (a global technology platform that enables brands, retailers, suppliers, communities, and innovators to build and grow successful online marketplaces at scale) have announced a strategic partnership.

Sofy: How This No-Code Testing Company Is Radically Transforming An $8+ Billion Market

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 9, 2024

Sofy is a company that provides scriptless test automation platform for mobile apps, and users can run QA tests from CI/CD on real devices & complete testing in ten minutes. To learn more about the company, Pulse 2.0 interviewed Soft CEO and founder Syed Hamid.

Apple Vision Pro To Become Available On February 2

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 8, 2024

Today Apple announced Apple Vision Pro will be available beginning Friday, February 2, at all U.S. Apple Store locations and the U.S. Apple Store online. The Vision Pro seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world and unlocks powerful spatial experiences through visionOS and it is controlled by the natural and intuitive inputs: a user’s eyes, hands, and voice.

GE HealthCare Buying MIM Software: Details

By Noah Long ● Jan 8, 2024

GE HealthCare announced today it has entered into an agreement to acquire MIM Software, a global provider of medical imaging analysis and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for the practice of radiation oncology, molecular radiotherapy, diagnostic imaging, and urology at imaging centers, hospitals, specialty clinics, and research organizations worldwide.

Claris Bio: $57 Million Closed To Improve Corneal Healing Quality

By Annie Baker ● Jan 8, 2024

Claris Bio - a late-clinical stage biotechnology company focusing on corneal disease therapies - has unveiled the company and its lead program, with a total of $57 million invested from Series A investors Novo Holdings A/S, RA Capital and Mass General Brigham Ventures and recent investor Janus Henderson Investors.

Isomorphic Labs Signs Deal Valued Up To $1.7 Billion With Eli Lilly

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 7, 2024

Digital biology company Isomorphic Labs - a company with a goal of redefining drug discovery using the power of AI - recently announced that it has entered into a strategic research collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company.

Bumper: $48 Million Raised To Advance Flexible Automotive Payments Across Europe

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 5, 2024

Bumper - a fintech enabling flexible payments for car repairs - recently announced the completion of a $48 million / €46 million / £40 million Series B fundraise to accelerate its growth. The company helps drivers split repair bills into interest-free payments so they are able to keep their cars on the road.

Annabella: Breast Bump Company Secures $8.5 Million In Funding

By Annie Baker ● Jan 5, 2024

Annabella - a first-of-its-kind breast pump - recently announced its seed funding round of $8.5 million and its entrance into the U.S. market. The notable investors include Israel Shark Tank’s Yasmin Lukatz (Founder of Israel Collaboration Network), serial entrepreneur and investor Oren Dobronsky, as well as Zohar Gilon (Tamar Technology Ventures), and Menachem Weinfeld (Starry Group).