PORTFOLIO NEWS

Steelhead Technologies, a pioneer in job shop software for the metal finishing industry, is proud to announce the successful close of a $6 million Series A funding round. This significant investment will empower Steelhead Technologies to advance the development of its next-generation platform, revolutionizing the industry and enabling job shops to reach new heights of success in the digital age.

The Series A funding was led by Stage 2 Capital with support from C2 Ventures and TIA Ventures, who share Steelhead Technologies' vision for the future of Job Shop manufacturing.

Second place winner, Eskuad, an operating system that took second place in the contest. Its mission is to deliver solutions for the forestry industry, especially in fieldwork. Eskuad has gained recognition for its ability to digitize all forms used in the industry, which includes replacing reporting processes, dispatch management, and inventory control. Furthermore, it does so efficiently in any connectivity condition.

Max Echeverría, one of the founders of this program, explains that Eskuad allows the digitization of existing summaries and also allows corporations to generate reports tailored to their needs. It even facilitates the incorporation of FSC and ISO certifications. Most importantly, it automates all processes related to reporting, data submission, and task assignment, saving time and resources.

By being aware of common cognitive biases, you may be able to avoid them — or at least minimize their influence on your decision.

Diners have certain, rapidly evolving expectations, and the restaurant industry must deliver. One way to ensure a best-in-class customer experience? Having the right operational tools, including software. However, an outdated, traditional approach to buying software hampers innovation in the hospitality industry.

Driver Technologies, Inc. (Driver), an AI-based mobility tech company that delivers a safer driving experience, has been named to PropertyCasualty360's Insurance Luminaries Class of 202 3 in the category of Claims Innovation.

This recognition celebrates innovation in the property and casualty insurance industry. The program spotlights top professionals, teams, organizations, programs, practices and products within the sector that strive to modernize and humanize the business.

“We are excited to open the doors to our Steelhead Hatchery and invite the industry to explore the future of manufacturing with us," said Jeff Halonen, Chief Executive Officer at Steelhead Technologies. "Just as a hatchery fosters the growth of steelhead trout, our Hatchery nurtures the growth of knowledge and expertise within the Steelhead ecosystem. We believe this initiative will revolutionize how businesses perceive and leverage ERP solutions."

Armilla Assurance, a Toronto-based startup launched this year, offers what it calls a product warranty backed by reinsurers, including Swiss Re and Chaucer, that AI models will work the way their sellers promise. Jerry Gupta, Swiss Re’s senior vice president of property and casualty research and development, said its partnership with Armilla Assurance, which focuses on model accuracy, is the first of its AI-related insurance products that could be designed to address more complex issues like bias, copyright, and data privacy. “As we learn, as we get more data, then we’ll figure out the next steps,” he said.

IHPlans [IHP], a national alternative health insurance company, launched Medmo as part of their healthcare plan options, delivering provider partners and members with comprehensive medical imaging services and support.

"This was a huge win for our members," said Mike Feeney, Managing Partner, IHPlans. "It allows them to more quickly and easily schedule imaging appointments that meet their needs, whether it's the most affordable price for self-pay or finding the best in-network center. Medmo's support team can walk them through the entire process."

In the United States, just over 1 million active physicians attend to the medical needs of a population of 330 million people. Meanwhile, a fraction of this number—120,000 veterinarians—serve 200 million pets and counting.

“The divergence between the two is very high, especially when you consider just how massive the pet health ecosystem in the U.S. is,” says Vivian Graves, MBA ’19, founder and CEO of Otis, a pet health company.

TechCrunch editorial hand-selected 200 startups out of thousands of applicants to comprise the Startup Battlefield 200. This year, TechCrunch saw the highest number of applications across the largest spread of countries and industries. Of the 200, 20 companies, including Phalanx, will pitch on the Disrupt Stage. Come watch these companies compete for the Disrupt Cup and a $100,000 equity-free grand prize.

In a time when AI is being used in everything from sneakers to music and movies, it’s interesting, perhaps even surprising, to see it tackle some of the less glamorous tasks, such as cleaning toilets.

From New York’s backstreets comes Somatic’s autonomous toilet-cleaning robot, revealing that robots can roll up their metaphorical sleeves for the less coveted gigs.

Driver Technologies, Inc.(Driver), an AI-based mobility tech company that delivers a safer driving experience, today announced the launch of Driver Trucking, the first fully cloud-based video solution for commercial vehicles, leveraging its No. 1 rated dash cam app, Driver.

The new Driver Trucking service will provide fleets with a dedicated smartphone device, pre-configured in Kiosk Mode, for employees to run a no-touch version of Driver's top-rated dash cam and safety alert app. The device has an unlimited data plan, so once installed, the camera will auto-start and auto-stop recording when taking a trip and automatically upload the full video to the Driver Cloud for remote viewing.

Ross Guberman: Legal writing has been a longtime passion, and I have delivered workshops on the topic around the world for law firms, courts, government agencies and legal departments. In 2017, I created a prototype product called ContractCatch, and then we replaced it with our signature tool, BriefCatch, in 2018. It is an editing product similar to Grammarly, specifically tailored for lawyers and with many explanations and examples. We recently introduced our third version [of BriefCatch], which is cloud-based and boasts a range of advanced features. Our subscribers range from individual practitioners to the world’s biggest firms and to many judges and governmental agencies.

Koffie Financial has teamed up with fellow insurtech Snapsheet in a strategic partnership that it says will improve the MGA’s claims function as the trucking specialist also looks to bring claims in-house.

Olive believes that digital transformation can’t happen in silos. It’s about understanding the needs of the people in your organization and using technology to enhance your decision-making process.

Collaborate to select the right solutions that drive digital transformation for your enterprise. Make fast, efficient, and unbiased decisions on enterprise decisions with Olive!

Driver Technologies, Inc. (Driver), an AI-based mobility tech company that delivers a safer driving experience and Métrica Móvil, a Mexican-based technology company that speeds up the digitization of fleet's systems, announced today a partnership to offer Driver Enterprise Solutions which will provide telematics, safety alerts and dash cam video to fleets all across Latin America.

Proposal-GPT automatically processes and ingests the content of a received RFP, pre-populating key fields such as advertiser, agency, budget, advertiser objectives, and flight dates directly into a new proposal. With Boostr’s native email integration, sellers need not even open or review the RFP; Proposal-GPT automatically scans the attachment, extracts, and populates the relevant information into a new proposal for the seller.

Magellan AI, the podcast media planning and measurement platform, has announced support for measuring the performance of streaming audio campaigns alongside podcasts. Advertisers can confirm impression delivery by channel in the Magellan AI dashboard and measure ad performance through custom KPIs to optimize their current and future spending.

Eze, a B2B marketplace that connects global electronic wholesalers allowing them to trade devices in large quantities with real-time market data, has raised $3.7 million in an oversubscribed seed round.

Olive’s revolutionary platform empowers enterprises to collaborate on IT Decisions, uncovering the best-fit solutions for their digital transformation initiatives. With this seamless integration of AI, Olive now supercharges and expedites teams’ internal technology decision-making processes.

The expectation that by now we’d all be whizzing around in self-driving cars – texting, reading, or snoozing while being autonomously delivered to our destination – hasn’t really lived up to predictions. A similar hope for an automated trucking industry is also in abeyance as we wait for technology to catch up.

Birmingham founder Ian Hoppe says we’re living during a “Gold Rush” era of electrification. And that means big business for his startup Condoit, an energy management tool. Because amid this electrification gold rush, Hoppe said Condoit is “selling shovels.”

Join host Matt Sprague with guest Tom Yeshurun, Founder & CEO, to hear how Tom’s obsession with precision has placed @civrobotics on the cutting edge. CIV Robotics’ customers use automation for everything they can, including: -Automating smaller, annoying tasks that no one likes to do -Using robot-level precision to reduce waste and increase profit -Dealing with labor shortages, especially in remote job locations in the solar industry.

Marking coordinates with 3/100' (8mm) accuracy and only one operator. Its onboard speaker guides the operator with the point description (in this case, telling it to mark with Blue / White nails and whiskers). This highly precise autonomous layout tool is ideal for construction projects with tight tolerances.

Driver Technologies, Inc., an AI-based mobility tech company that delivers a safer driving experience, and Getaround (GETR), the world's first connected carsharing marketplace, today announced a pilot program that will offer drivers of shared vehicles in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle free access to dash cam technology and safety features.

Driver Technologies, Inc., an AI-based mobility tech company that delivers a safer driving experience, and TomTom(TOM2), the geolocation technology specialist, today announced a partnership to implement the premium version of the Driver app into the TomTom Digital Cockpit for OEM car makers.

"This partnership with TomTom represents Driver Technologies' expansion into the OEM market," said Rashid Galadanci, CEO and Co-Founder of Driver Technologies. "TomTom is the perfect partner as it integrates various innovative apps within its Digital Cockpit platform to help bring the automotive industry one step closer to providing video and telematics data for personal use, coaching, fleets, and insurance companies worldwide."

"This partnership with TomTom represents Driver Technologies' expansion into the OEM market," said Rashid Galadanci, CEO and Co-Founder of Driver Technologies. "TomTom is the perfect partner as it integrates various innovative apps within its Digital Cockpit platform that will help bring the automotive industry one step closer to providing video and telematics data for personal use, coaching, fleets, and insurance companies worldwide."

The travel industry appears to be banking on a more normal season this year after the pandemic sidelined a lot of travelers. “We saw spending jump pretty significantly in February,” Magellan AI CEO Cameron Hendrix says. On his company’s monthly update detailing the biggest podcast ad spenders, Hendrix said spending jumped 111% between January and February. That differs from last year, when travel industry spending on podcasting was roughly the same during the two months.

Even as 22 new travel brands were detected by Magellan AI for the first time last month.

Magellan says podcasts in the Comedy genre had the biggest share of travel industry ad dollars, followed by True Crime and Sports. Nearly a third of travel ads were also host-read – but the number for Booking Holdings and Expedia was much lower. Hendrix said those two brands spent 11% on host-read ads.

Condoit®, a modern platform for electrical design, analysis, and collaboration, today announced the raising of its series seed funding round. The fully subscribed round raised new capital to fuel the company’s next phase of growth.

The round was led by C2 Ventures, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based venture capital firm specializing in “Dirty, Dull, and Dangerous Vertical Markets”. The lead investment team was joined by Atlanta-based Overline, Birmingham-based Alabama Futures Fund, Techstars, and several angel investors. Funds will be primarily allocated across product development, sales, marketing, and customer success to accelerate market penetration and expand deployments within existing accounts.

Driver Technologies, Inc., an AI-based mobility tech company that delivers a safer driving experience, today announced new research with data from over 17,000 drivers that shows using the Driver dash cam and safety app helped coach drivers to implement safe driving behaviors and stop dangerous habits such as tailgating, blowing stop signs, hard braking and speeding.

The new research analyzed the driving patterns of 17,000 drivers after using the Driver next-gen dash cam for 20 hours and found that the users were...