AI startup roundup: Alibaba-backed AR glasses maker and a flood forecaster

Also: Search company founded by AWS director and a blockchain data analysis firm

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Funding blitz

Startup: Nreal develops augmented reality glasses.

Latest funding: $60 million, series C+ (seventh round)

Lead investors: Alibaba

Other investors: N/A

Funding plans: The company plans to increase its R&D and expand into new markets.

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Startup: Qure.ai is developer of deep learning tech for automated interpretation of radiology exams.

Latest funding: $40 million (third round)

Lead investors: Novo Holdings and HealthQuad

Other investors: MassMutual Venture

Funding plans: Qure.ai will use the new investment to extend and strengthen its global reach, especially in the U.S. and Europe, and intensify product development for critical care and community diagnostics.

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Startup: Pinecone is a search infrastructure company founded by former AWS director and scientist Edo Liberty.

Latest funding: $28 million, series A (second round)

Lead investor: Menlo Ventures

Other investors: Tiger Global, Wing Venture Capital

Funding plans: Pinecone will use the funds to grow its product, customer success and R&D teams, and will invest in core research on machine learning, information retrieval and natural language processing.

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Startup: Dune Analytics is a blockchain data analysis firm.

Latest funding: $69 million, series B (third round)

Lead investors: Coatue

Other investors: Multicoin Capital, Dragonfly Capital

Funding plans: Dune Analytics will use the funds to educate, reward and foster a new generation of web3 analysts create an infrastructure to reward users for generating content to incentivize up to a million new web3 analysts.

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Startup: Syntiant develops AI edge hardware for voice and sensor solutions.

Latest funding: $55 million, series C1 (fifth round)

Investors: Renesas Electronics Corp., Millennium Technology Value Partners, Mirae Asset Capital. (A Microsoft venture fund invested in an earlier round.)

Funding plans: The new funds will be used to enhance software capabilities, as well as accelerate the deployment of the company’s third-generation Syntiant Core 3 architecture, which the company expects to introduce next year.

Figure 1:

Startup: FloodMapp said it can forecast floods and create flood inundation mapping. Its real-time modeling solutions can help mitigate risk by preventing flood damage.

Latest funding: $6 million, seed funding (third round including pre-seed)

Lead investors: Union Square Ventures’ Climate Fund

Other investors: Mundi Ventures, Climate X and Jelix Ventures

Funding plans: FloodMapp will use the capital injection to scale the company and expand into new markets.

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Startup: Vaarst is a marine robotics and AI company focused on the offshore wind, wave and tidal, scientific, maritime security and civil industries.

Latest funding: $20 million, series B (first round)

Lead investors:  Legal & General Capital, Equinor

Other investors: Foresight Group, In-Q-Tel

Funding plans: The company plans to expand its work into computer vision and data management as well as expand to Austin, Texas and Tokyo, Japan.

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Startup: Videa Health is developer of dental diagnostic AI solutions.

Latest funding: $20 million, series A (fourth round)

Lead investors: Spark Capital

Other investors:  Zetta Venture Partners, Pillar VC

Funding plans: Videa Health plans to expand its diagnostics capabilities to dentists. It aims to provide the leading AI solution to more than 6,750 practices by the end of 2023.

In other news

Gradient AI has partnered with Socotra

Gradient is integrating its AI solutions with Socotra’s cloud-native insurance core platform.

The combination would allow insurers to leverage Gradient’s datasets, which are made up of millions of policies and claims, directly through Socotra’s innovative platform.

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