AI Startup Roundup: Modernizing Car-shopping, Generative AI Tools

Also, fund raises for startups in computer vision, drug discovery and rural banking

Ben Wodecki, Jr. Editor

January 23, 2023

4 Min Read
A fleet of cars at a car dealership

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Startup: Impel - Based in Syracuse, New York, Impel develops digital engagement software to modernize the car-shopping experience for consumers.

Latest funding: $104 million, venture round

Lead investor: Silversmith Capital Partners

Other investors: Wavecrest Growth Partners.

Funding plans: Impel plans to use the funds to accelerate company growth through product expansion and M&A activity.

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Startup: Qitan Technology - Based in Chengdu, China, Qitan is developing genome sequencing technology. Its drug discovery tech is being used across biopharma, pathology and oncology diagnosis.

Latest funding: $103.7 million, series C

Lead investor: Meituan

Other investors: Huagai Capital, BioTrack Capital

Funding plans: The capital will go towards building out its product portfolio and expanding commercialization efforts.

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Startup: DeepL - German AI company creating AI-powered translation tools.

Latest funding: $100 million, venture round

Lead investors: IVP

Other investors: World Innovation Lab, btov Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Benchmark, Atomico

Funding plans: The newly secured cash will accelerate research and development, expand its product offering and enable ongoing team growth, DeepL said.

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Startup: Exodigo- Split across Palo Alto and Tel Aviv, Exodigo creates AI-powered subsurface imaging platforms.

Latest funding: $41 million, seed round (extension)

Latest investor: National Grid Partners

Initial lead investors: Zeev Ventures and 10D Ventures

Other investors: SquarePeg Capital, JIBE Ventures, Tidhar Construction, Israel Canada, WXG

Funding plans: Exodigo plans to deepen its work in the transportation and energy sectors, as well as expand across the construction and infrastructure markets.

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Startup: Mad Street Den - Chennai, India-based computer vision tech developers. Mad Street Den focuses its work on retail, creating image and video recognition platforms for retail automation.

Latest funding: $30 million, series C

Lead investor: Avatar Growth Capital

Other investors: Sequoia Capital, Alpha Wave Global (formerly Falcon Edge Capital)

Funding plans: The investment will be put towards Mad Street Den expanding its artificial intelligence offerings across industries.

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Startup: BIOHM - Cleveland, Ohio-based company developing AI tech that analyzes gut's total microbiome.

Latest funding:$7.5 million, seed round

Lead investor: VTC Ventures

Other investors: Felton Group, Jobs Ohio Growth Capital Fund, Aztec Capital Management, Cleveland Life Science Advisors

Funding plans: The raise will fund BIOHM’s AI tech for consumers, medical practitioners, and companies across the food, beverage and dietary supplement industries.

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Startup: Infinity AI - Based in California, Infinity’s tools generate synthetic machine learning training data in a bid to build quality ML models faster.

Latest funding: $5 million, seed round

Lead investors: Matrix Partners

Other investors: Snorkel AI CEO Alexander Ratner, Andrea Coravos, CEO at HumanFirst

Funding plans: Infinity co-founder Lina Colucci said that the company plans to commercialize two generative AI tools it currently has in development: a Stable Diffusion-based inpainting tool that augments scenes and another that adds clothing textures to avatars.

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Startup: ElevenLabs - London-based startup developing AI-powered translation tools.

Latest funding: $2 million, pre-seed round

Lead investor: Credo

Other investors: Concept Ventures and individual investors including its own venture partner, Carles Reina, as well as former Polkadot founder Peter Czaban, among others.

Funding plans: ElevenLabs will now look to increase its team size and scale its solution to include more languages.

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Startup: Komunal- Indonesian fintech Komunal is working to digitize rural banks, helping create digital services so users do not have to rely on physical locations.

Latest funding: $8.5 million, series B

Lead investors: East Ventures

Other investors: Sovereign’s Capital, Skystar Capital, Ozora, Gobi Partners, AlphaTrio Capital

Funding plans: The newly raised funds will be used to market its DepositoBPR product line.

About the Author

Ben Wodecki

Jr. Editor

Ben Wodecki is the Jr. Editor of AI Business, covering a wide range of AI content. Ben joined the team in March 2021 as assistant editor and was promoted to Jr. Editor. He has written for The New Statesman, Intellectual Property Magazine, and The Telegraph India, among others. He holds an MSc in Digital Journalism from Middlesex University.

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