Fiddler Labs announced it had raised $32 million in its second round of funding. The fund will be used to provide access to the company’s Model Performance Management platform powered by Explainable AI to enable the team to develop Responsible AI in production.
Private equity firm Insight Partners, Amazon, and Global ventures led the funding round along with existing investors like Haystack Ventures, Lockheed Martin, The Alexa Fund, and Bloomberg Beta. As artificial intelligence powered decision-making has drastically expanded into every sector, a growing demand has been seen for the processes, tools, and understanding needed to deploy machine learning models responsibly.
Fiddler said that it aims to build trust in artificial intelligence as modern platforms are so complex that they resemble ‘black holes.’ George Mathew, Managing director of Insight Partners, said that he believes every company in the near future has to adopt AI. He added, “Through its unique MPM platform, Fiddler accelerates the march to an AI-first future while managing the ever present challenges of Explainability & Bias Detection.”
The company’s Explainable AI and ML Monitoring Platform is now setting a benchmark for machine learning engineers and data scientists as they implement their AI initiatives. Fiddler was founded in 2018 by Krishna Gade, who earlier worked with Facebook, where he led a team that developed explainability tools for the machine learning models behind Facebook’s Newsfeed.
The enterprise acquired a spot in Forbes top 50 AI company list in 2021 and was named a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer in 2020. The current CEO of the company, Gade, said that they have already expanded enough to encompass every stage of the artificial intelligence lifecycle, from development to production, after the launch of the company’s artificial intelligence platform.
He also added that with the new funding, the company would continue to enhance their Model Performance Management solution, help resolve issues like data drift and bias, and educate people about ‘Responsible artificial intelligence.’
Coursera Global Skill Report is based on performance data of more than 70 million learners from across 100 countries on the platform collected since the onset of the pandemic. It benchmarks skills proficiency across categories like business, technology and data science.
Asia Pacific Region
Asia Pacific countries that have invested in national artificial iIntelligence programs have performed well. These countries include China who aims to develop a domestic AI industry worth $150 billion in the next few years, and Singapore whose national AI strategy aims to invest $150 million over five years.
In the field of data Science, Japan leads the region of Asia Pasific. Data skills present a unique opportunity for Japan, which has a national healthcare system that is a treasure chest of data. Demographic conditions and rising healthcare costs also support the business case for further investments in the digital transformation of healthcare.
Central Asia including India, which ranked 66th, performed the worst in data science skills in the Asia Pacific region. Governments around the region have started to earmark budgets to address these gaps. Kazakhstan is investing in the implementation of the “Digital Silk Way” to improve its high-speed and security infrastructure for the transfer, storage, and processing of data.
North America
The west coast of America remains the leader in data science, but the northeast and midwest are catching up. Many top Universities in these regions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have invested recently in new data science degree programs.
Learners in the South of the country score particularly low in mathematics. Eighty-two percent of southern states are below the national average for eighth-grade math on standardized tests
Canada is lagging in probability & statistics. Once a top-10 country in the world in mathematics education according to PISA, has now had its ranking and math scores decrease consistently for the past 15 years.
Europe is a global leader in machine learning. Finland has been leading the way in AI education with a recent push by its government and the University of Helsinki to teach 1% of the world basic AI skills
Northern and western Europe lead the world in data science proficiency. Eight out of the top 10 countries across the globe in data science are in this region. The data economy’s value in the EU27 is predicted to increase to over €550 billion by 2025, representing 4% of the overall EU GDP.
Few countries stand out globally in one or two skills, despite lagging overall relative to european neighbours. Azerbaijan shows strengths in data analysis and mathematics, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Serbia excel in machine learning and a number of complementary data science skills.
Latin America And Caribbean Region
Latin American countries are top-performers in data analysis, and statistical programming. This is mainly of the “nearshore” outsourcing trend, which has allowed US-based companies to outsource analytical programming work to Latin America.
Venezuela, Uruguay, Argentina, and Costa Rica score the highest in data science skills in the region as these countries have high concentrations of “tecnolatinas” (tech startups) that have emerged in the region. Tecnolatinas include companies like MercadoLibre, Despegar, and Globant.
Mathematics skills are lacking across the region. These results align with other studies like the OECD’s PISA assessment, where the average math score for Latin American students was a Level 1, the lowest possible out of six.
Middle East and North Africa
Data visualization is an under-tapped strength for the region, particularly in Northern Africa. Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria are all globally competitive in these skills. The global data visualization market was valued at $2.99 billion in 2020 and expected to reach $5.17 billion by 2026.
Data science and statistical programming are lagging for the region. These skills are associated with some of the fastest growing jobs in the region between 2018 and 2022—data scientists and data analysts.
Israel on the contrary continues investing to become a global artificial intelligence leader. In 2020, Israel ranked behind only the US, China, and the UK in terms of private investment in artificial intelligence. It’s also a global leader in AI technologies applications in industries like education and manufacturing.
Sub-Saharan Africa
African countries are global leaders in data visualization. These skills are particularly important to local, open-source community initiatives such as Code for Africa, which focuses on data journalism as a key tool to promote digital democracies and empower citizens with actionable information.
With the exception of South Africa and Rwanda, most African countries perform poorly in mathematics. Nearly nine out of ten children between the ages of about 6 and 14 in sub-saharan Africa will not meet minimum proficiency levels in reading and math.
Nigeria lags behind other large countries. Despite being Africa’s largest economy and having one of the most vibrant startup hubs in Lagos, Nigeria ranks near the bottom globally in data skills
Conclusion
Coursera’s Global Skill Report shows evidence that the world is witnessing exponential growth in the data science and artificial intelligence industry. Data & AI jobs have been among the fastest-growing, at 40+% annualized growth over the past five years. Countries like the USA and entire Europe are investing massive amounts of money in this sector which has created thousands of jobs. The problem is the growth is concentrated in a few pockets around the globe. Countries should be encouraged to invest more in this industry by introducing AI and data science-related courses in the Universities and by supporting start-ups that deal in this domain to create a homogenized growth ecosystem worldwide.
KeepTruckin has recently raised $190 million in a Series E funding round, making its valuation at $2 billion. The company develops hardware and software that helps manage cargo vehicles and ensure driver safety.
Existing investors along with a few new firms like G2 Associates, participated in the funding round. According to the company’s CEO Shoaib Makani, KeepTruckin plans to invest this money to improve its AI-powered smart dashcam, which detects unsafe driving activities like mobile distraction and alerts the driver. Along with the dashcam, the company also intends to enhance its range of AI products like GPS tracking and ELD compliance.
Shoaib Makani said, “KeepTruckin’s specialty is that we can build complex models and make it run on the edge with low-power, low-memory, and low-bandwidth constraints.” He further added that they had developed in-house IPs to resolve problems at various environmental conditions like extreme weather, occluded subject, low light, and distortions.
Usher Transport, one of KeepTruckin’s clients, stated that they recorded an annual reduction of 32% in accidents after using the safety products offered by KeepTruckin, such as the Smart Dashcam.
The enterprise’s self-developed machine learning platform trains and tests billions of ground truth data points, which is a very resource-intensive process to deliver high accuracy outcomes.
According to Makani, the machine learning platform includes smart annotation capabilities to automatically label the different data points so the neural network can simulate innumerable potential situations, achieving similar performance to the edge device in the field with real-world environmental conditions.
Since the pandemic, KeepTruckin said it experienced 70% annual growth, mainly because of its expansion into new markets like food and beverage, field services, construction, oil and gas, and agriculture. The company expects the demand to rise and aims to use the recently acquired funds to recruit more talent and expand its R&D team to 700 employees globally.
On Tuesday, tech giant Oracle predicted its current-quarter revenue under Wall Road estimates, as the company’s software developers ramp up investments in its cloud computing enterprise to compete against rivals together with Amazon and Microsoft.
Oracle plans to double its capital spending on the cloud segment to around $4 billion in fiscal 2022 as they see higher profit because of the pandemic with companies choosing hybrid-work culture.
Increased investment in the cloud segment has led Oracle to forecast its Q1 earnings per share of 94 cents to 98 cents, under expectations of $1.03, sending its shares down 4.5% in prolonged buying and selling.
The company has been organizing extra information facilities to aid corporates as they widen their operations. They intend to enhance their cloud platform to catch high-profit clients just the way Zoom Communications did in the recent past.
This 45 years old company is seen as a distinct segment participant by analysts and trade experts when compared to other giants like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.
An analyst at Third Bridge, Scott Kressler, said, “The company, nonetheless has plenty of work to do and progress to make earlier than they’re thought-about in the identical class because the main cloud infrastructure corporations.” He also mentions, “One among Oracle’s greatest points is how small the corporate’s income development has been, regardless of a concentrate on its cloud options.”
The firm said it expects its current-quarter income at its largest unit Cloud companies and license help to increase by 4%, which involves around US$7.2 billion, according to expert’s calculations. Analysts commonly count on it to be $7.36 billion.
Oracle posted revised revenue of $1.54 per share on income of $11.23 billion within the fourth quarter ended Could 31, in contrast with estimates of revenue of $1.31 billion and income of $11.04 billion.
An artificial intelligence-based start-up, Vianani System has raised $140 million in their second funding from SoftBank Vision and trade luminaries. The company announced this development on Wednesday 16 June.
Vikas Sikka founded Vianani after parting ways with the IT giant Infosys in 2017. The company said that it would utilize the funds to ramp up the development speed of its AI platform and related products to offer quick supply the enterprise clients.
Vikas Sikka, in an interview, said, “We have been working hard to build a better AI platform, one that puts human judgment at the center of systems that bring vast AI capabilities to amplify human potential.” He added that he is immensely grateful for the trust that the customers and investors have put in them.
Vianai mentioned that they are developing a Human-centric AI platform that would amplify human judgment skills, which would empower area specialists with AI instruments to ship enterprise worth. The company in the past has proven itself by delivering profitable outcomes to many industry-leading companies, in addition.
The company announced that Fei Fei Lee, Co-Director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, will be one of the members of the advisory board. Deep Nishar, a Senior Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, said, “With the AI revolution underway, we believe Vianai’s human-centered AI platform and products provide global enterprises with operational and customer intelligence to make better business decisions.”
Viani also mentioned that along with SoftBank, its buyers include Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, KKr co-founds George Roberts and Henry Kravis, and Silver Lake co-founder Jim Davidson. Earlier in 2019, the company raised US$50 million in its first round of funding.
NASSCOM clarifies on Twitter that the article published by India.com does not come from any official NASSCOM reports. Yesterday, India.com posted an article mentioning NASSCOM as the source, according to which IT giants like TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Cognizant were planning to terminate more than 3 million employees in India by 2022.
We would like to clarify that the data points shared in this article by @indiacom are not from any NASSCOM report.
The industry has & will continue to be a net creator of jobs & is committed to people-centric innovation, & relentless talent focus. https://t.co/aOF4PVdg5X
This decision was taken as it would help the companies to lay off a monthly burden of $100 billion, which includes salaries and other overhead costs, and to increase Robot Process Automation (RPA), claimed the article.
The article ignited a havoc among 4.3 million IT-Sector workers of the country as their job security was in menace. Today, NASSCOM in a tweet, rejected the claims of India.com. The Tweet also mentioned that there is no such risk of large scale layoffs, rather the industry is growing and will continue to create more jobs. India.com faced severe backlash from the twitteratis.
Seriously don't get why publications don't verify data and use the right source! Not only r tech cos increasing workforce, but we have more demand than supply in several emerging areas like data analytics etc. We need keep up and upskill fast .. the jobs exists. https://t.co/CKKDK5HEK7
President of NASSCOM, Debjali Ghosh also gave her reaction on Twitter. She mentioned, “Seriously, I don’t get why publications don’t verify data and use the right source!” She added that the country has more demand than supply in several sectors like data analytics. The country needs to keep up and upskill quickly to meet the demand.
Apna, a leading job network platform from India, has raised $70 million in its Series B funding round led by Insight Partners and Tiger Global. Participants also include existing investors like Greenoaks Capital, Lightspeed India, Rocketship VC, and Sequoia Capital India.
Apna’s unrivaled market leadership and remarkable business growth is the primary reason for this funding. Within 16 months, the company has raised over $90 million and is currently valued at $570 million. Apan plans to use the fund to expand into different parts of the country within six months to boost India’s economy, which is still affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company aims to amplify its ed-tech platform for skilling by continuing to invest in hiring extraordinary talent and building top-notch engineering and product capabilities. In the coming year, the firm intends to enter international markets like the United States and South-East Asia.
Nirmit Parikh, Founder and CEO of Apna said, “At Apna, we are determined to take a fresh approach towards solving employment and skilling challenges for billions. Over the last month itself, Apna has facilitated more than 15 million job interviews and work-related conversations where users have helped each other to start a business, find a gig or learn a new skill.”
Currently, the Apna app hosts 60+ dedicated communities for skilled professionals like painters, carpenters, sales agents, and many more. In addition, the app enables its users to find local job opportunities and practice for interviews. Apna’s data science-led algorithm matches candidates with employers after considering their skills and experience. This has eliminated problems like relevancy and candidate volume for the employers.
India’s leading companies, such as Zomato, Delhivery, Burger King, Bharti-AXA, Shadowfax, Teamlease, G4S Global, and 1MG, rely on Apna for all hiring needs. The Company also works alongside UNICEF Yuwaah and the Ministry of Minority Affairs of India to provide quality skilling and job opportunities to candidates.
The Washington-based startup Lexion announced it had raised $11 million in its series A funding round led by Khosla Ventures along with Madrona Venture Group and Wilson Sonsini. Earlier, the company had raised $4.2 million to develop cost-effective AI-powered management solutions for enterprises.
Gaurav Oberoi, CEO of Lexion, also mentioned the joining of Kanu Gulati from Khosla Ventures as a board member. Lexion intends to use the funds to enhance its AI-driven products. The company was founded in 2017, but it holds immense expertise as it emerged from Microsoft’s co-founder’s AI research institute named Allen Institute for AI.
In a very short time, the start-up gained popularity in the contract lifecycle management (CLM) sector due to its innovative AI-powered CLM solutions. As a result, Lexion was also given a spot in the top 100 promising private AI companies worldwide for two consecutive years.
Vinod Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures, said, “We invested in Lexion because their team has the rare combination of deep technical expertise in building sophisticated AI systems and a proven track record in delivering SaaS applications that solve real problems.” He further added that the amalgamation of high-end technology with simple and practical applications is how AI will be implemented in the corporate sector.
Lexion AI-powered product aims to save professional time by digitizing contracts and organizing them. The debut product launched by Lexion was LexiconMD, which helped doctors to dictate their notes into e-medical records. Their latest product, Lexion AI, is a speech recognition platform that has accuracy comparable to transcription done by humans.
The CEO refused to talk about the number of customers Lexion has but said the firm’s median customer has around 1,000 employees and a legal department of a few lawyers. The range extends from companies with 100 employees up to companies with more than 10,000. In the past few months, the company’s revenue has increased up to 400%, and it aims to triple its revenue by next year.
On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that Satya Nadella would be replacing independent director John Thompson and become the Chairperson. The company’s board called for a unanimous vote, which led to this decision.
The success and vision Satya Nadella has shown in the past seven years is the prime reason for this decision. When asked about the key role of Nadella, the company mentioned, “Leveraging his deep understanding of the business to elevate the right strategic opportunities and identify key risks and mitigation approaches for the board’s review.”
After becoming The CEO in 2014, Nadella helped Microsoft regain its title of the world’s most valuable company. Currently, the company stands second, right behind Apple Inc., with a growth of over 600% in stocks.
He then predicted that the company’s annual cloud revenue would increase three folds in just two years. Nadella then helped create a plan for Microsoft to achieve this goal by streamlining the company’s attention on its cloud services, ditching its mobile ambitions.
The tech giant is now focused on cloud computing services to power other company’s software. Under Nadella’s leadership, the company is expected to grow even further in this domain. The board praised Nadella for achieving 14% revenue growth in the tender year of 2020 despite several challenges. Satya Nadella is one of the company’s top individual shareholders, with more than 1.6 million shares.
This development happened one year after the co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, stepped down from the company’s board. A Microsoft spokesperson said that Gates left the board after an investigation that accused him of harassment of an employee.
Ex- CEO of Symantec, John Thompson, replaced Gates as the company’s chairperson in 2014; on the same day, Satya Nadella became the CEO of Microsoft after replacing Steve Ballmer.
Waymo, formerly known as the Google self-driving car project, announced a second external funding round, which has raised $2.5 billion for the consistent advancement of its autonomous driving technology.
According to PitchBook, an investor website, the company is valued at over US$30 billion, though the figure does not include this very recent second round of funding. For many years, Waymo has been dependent almost exclusively on the generosity of its corporate parent, Alphabet.
In March 2020, it announced its first external funding round of $2.5 billion, which in a few months grew to $3.2 billion with the addition of a few more investors. The same group of investors returned to participate in the second round of funding, which includes Fidelity Management and Research Company, Magna International, Silver Lake, Temasek, Andreessen Horowitz, AutoNation, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Mubadala Investment Company, Perry Creek Capital, and Waymo’s parent company Alphabet along with a new participant, Tiger Global.
The company says that this funding would further help its mission to bring self-driving vehicles into diversified markets. Currently, Waymo’s self-driving taxis are publicly available only in Arizona in an approximately 100-square-mile service radius that includes the towns Gilbert, Chandler, Tempe, and Mesa.
The company also allows passengers to ride on fully driverless vehicles with no safety driver on the front seat in a specific area of about 50-square-mile. The company’s chief technology officer and co-CEO, Dmitri Dolgov, said, “Experience has taught us so much, and we agree with those experts who say there’s no greater challenge in artificial intelligence than building and deploying fully autonomous technology at scale.” Yesterday, Cruise announced it received $5 Billion funding from General Motors. The increased cash flow in the autonomous driving vehicle industry skyrockets the expectation for results, which will be seen in the near future.
