Data Tech Fund in the press
Tin Can has Reinvented the House Phone for Today’s Families
One hot new phone of 2025 has no screen, can’t send a text, and needs to be plugged into the wall. But to buyers of the Tin Can, that’s a definite plus. The Tin Can, from a Seattle startup of the same name, grew out of conversations cofounder and CEO Chet Kittleson had with fellow parents about the challenges of enabling kids to connect with friends and relatives without giving them full-fledged cellphones. While children of the 20th century could
Snowflake to Acquire Select Star
Today’s leading enterprises have Snowflake at the center of their data estate. But the full context of their valuable data assets—including where they came from and how they’re being used—is scattered across upstream and downstream systems like databases, BI platforms and orchestration tools. This fragmentation makes it difficult to discover the right data asset and understand the full context around it. Now, in the age of AI, this limited context is a problem not only
NoFraud Acquires Yofi AI to Tackle $100B a Year Return Fraud and Abuse
NoFraud, a leader in ecommerce fraud prevention, today announced the acquisition of Yofi AI, a leading return fraud and policy abuse detection platform for ecommerce retailers backed by Nyca Partners, Point72 Ventures, and eBay Ventures… READ MORE >
From landlines to ‘dumb phones,’ these startups are dialing up new options for kids
The idea for Tin Can came to Chet Kittleson when he was outside his kids’ school, chatting with a group of parents about the playdate planning process. “It’s so much, I’m like an assistant to my kid,” the group agreed. In the moment, Kittleson said he recalled the ease of being a kid who could jump on a landline phone at home to ring a friend to hang out. Two years later, Kittleson and co-founders Graeme Davies and Max Blumen,
Retail returns business BuyWander raises $2M and plans warehouse near Seattle
BuyWander, the Spokane, Wash.-based startup that aims to turn truckloads of retail returns into fresh deals for shoppers, raised $2 million in seed funding to support expansion to the Seattle area. The company plans to open a 30,000-square-foot warehouse space at 18726 East Valley Highway in Kent, Wash., not far from IKEA and Southcenter Mall, on June 1. BuyWander currently operates a facility in Spokane. Launched in February 2024, BuyWander’s goal is to find a
Dryad Networks Demonstrates First Fully Functional Drone Prototype for Detecting, Locating and Monitoring Wildfires
In the aftermath of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires estimated to cost more than $250 billion, Dryad Networks, a pioneer in ultra-early wildfire detection technology, today announced a successful demonstration of the world’s first fully functional drone prototype solution to autonomously detect, locate, monitor and eventually extinguish wildfires. At an event on March 27 in Eberswalde, Germany, Dryad demonstrated that its Silvaguard drone system autonomously responded to a controlled fire detected almost instantly by its Silvanet sensor system for
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 >