Data Tech Fund in the press
JD Sports Canada Uses AI as Secret Weapon Against Fraud and Policy Abuse
JD Sports Canada is using artificial intelligence to give it a home court advantage. The company has linked with startup Yofi to protect itself from bad actors—those who perpetuate abuse, fraud or scams in violation of companies’ policies—in stores and online. And in the process, the sportswear retailer determined that a few of its bad actors had come from the inside. Using AI that identifies and aggregates information about consumers—from how many email addresses they might have, to their typical
DraftKings Reaches Agreement to Acquire Simplebet to Further Enhance Live Betting Offering
BOSTON & NEW YORK – DraftKings Inc. (Nasdaq: DKNG) (“DraftKings” and the “Company”) today announced that it has entered into an agreement (the “Merger Agreement”) to acquire Simplebet Inc. (“Simplebet”), a leading sports betting provider of in-play micromarket content and pricing (the “Proposed Transaction”). The Merger Agreement and the Proposed Transaction have been approved by the Boards of Directors of each of DraftKings and Simplebet. The Proposed Transaction is subject to the receipt of required gaming
Former Facebook Engineers Lead Seattle-Based Investment Firm Backing Data-Focused Startups
Back when Ravi Grover and his colleagues at Data Tech Fund were getting off the ground a few years ago, not everyone was excited about their focus on data. “Some of the feedback we got was that it sounded too boring,” Grover said. But with the recent rush of generative AI and other AI-related technologies, the conversation around data — and the importance of good data to fuel AI apps and services — has changed. “Now the struggle is the opposite,” said Grover.
Female Founders 250 – Allison Wolff
For expanding technology for tracking and preventing wildfires from 300,000 to seven million acres and becoming a government-approved environmental vendor. READ MORE >
Restaurant delivery software startup Loop raises $6M
Loop, a startup helping to make third-party delivery more profitable for restaurants, raised $6 million in seed funding, the company tells Axios exclusively. Why it matters: Third-party delivery continues to increase its share of restaurant revenue, but fees and commissions can account for 15% to 30% of sales. The big picture: “Restaurants are in a place where they have to look at this revenue stream sustainably and profitably, and they can’t do a patchwork of solutions,” Loop
Dryad detects wildfire in Lebanon in 30 minutes
Successful alert underpins the global need for effective ultra-early detection technology Berlin, December 15, 2023 — Dryad, a leader in ultra-early wildfire detection, today announced that its Silvanet system successfully identified and raised the alarm about an unauthorized fire at a customer site in Lebanon. On the morning of Monday 11th December, Mada® (XOL Broadband), a leading Telecommunications provider in the Middle East and Africa, reported that Silvanet, Dryad’s ultra-early wildfire detection system, detected a small
Birdstop plans node-based drone deployments
Keith Miao, the CEO and founder of Birdstop Inc., began his career working in imagery and data science, “working with satellite imagery to solve some of the problems we’re trying to solve now with BVLOS drones,” he said. After working in the public sector in Washington, D.C., he moved to Mountain View, California, to lead a data science team at Google before leaving to found Birdstop. “The idea behind Birdstop has always been, how can
Simplebet powering parlay tech for big players
This NFL season will bring the first cycle of legal football betting in Ohio and Massachusetts, the long-trumpeted arrival of Fanatics, the still-in-the-oven addition of a fully vested ESPN and the migration of “NFL Sunday Ticket” to YouTube TV, where the potential for the integration of online sportsbooks is vast. The NFL Kickoff on Thursday night felt kind of like last year. I don’t think we’ll still be saying that in December. The runaway train
Dryad battles the most remote forest fires
An Internet of the Forest suite of products detects and mitigates forest fires at their earliest stages. Every summer gets hotter, and stories of fires in places like Australia, Greece, and the US hit our news. Fires destroy ecosystems, damage the environment, demolish workplaces, homes, and local infrastructure, and cause the loss of wildlife and the death of animals and people, severely impacting a country’s carbon emissions. However, while burnt homes often get the most