Roundup of news and ideas from the world of startups – Week ending 6th Jan 2019
News you can use
Getting PR for Your Startup – Getting media attention is a powerful and often misunderstood communication tool. For entrepreneurs, it can mean massive exposure, and validation for their product. Join us on January 9th for a panel with founders and PR professionals, Laura Lisowski Cox (Co-Founder and CMO of Oars + Alps), LT Taylor (Director of Communications at Burrow), J.J. Colao (Founder & President of Haymaker Group), and Michael Alexis (Chief Marketing Officer of Museum Hack), who’ll share stories about how they generated early press for their own startups and others.
RoboSense New Solid-State LiDAR Launched at CES 2019 for Level 5 Driverless Driving – RoboSense , a leader in LiDAR perception technology solutions and CES 2019 Innovation Award Honoree, announced today that next weekat CES 2019, they will publicly demonstrate an upgraded version of their MEMS solid-state LiDAR, an automotive grade solid-state LiDAR designed for the mass production of autonomous vehicles. The new RS-LiDAR-M1 with patented MEMS technologyoffers ground-breaking vehicle intelligence awareness to fully support Level 5 driverless automated driving. A breakthrough on the measurement range limit based on 905nm LiDAR with a detection distance to 200 meters, the upgraded optical system and signal processing technology brings remarkable final output point cloud effect which can now clearly recognize even small objects, such as railings and fences.
GE lawsuit accuses Uptake of ‘ruthless scheme to poach’ executives and trade secrets – Uptake Technologies allegedly has engaged in a “ruthless scheme to poach” executives and trade secrets from General Electric, according to a lawsuit the struggling conglomerate filed Monday against the Chicago-based data analytics firm. The lawsuit says the alleged “scheme” started roughly a year ago, after Caterpillar and another company ended their investments in Uptake and it laid off about 50 people.
Corporate M&A
Google buys startup to improve Assistant’s answering abilities – Google has acquired a startup named Superpod that built an app allowing users to post questions and receive answers from experts quickly — a move that will help boost Google Assistant’s ability to accurately answer users’ questions. According to a report in Axios late Thursday, Google paid nearly $60 million to “acqui-hire” the founders and purchase some of Superpod’s assets.
3M scooped up a clinical speech recognition business for $1 billion (MMM) – Massive US conglomerate 3M acquired the tech business of healthcare speech recognition company MModal for $1 billion , highlighting healthcare players’ bullishness on voice tech in healthcare. MModal sells voice software that integrates with electronic health record (EHR) systems and allows doctors to verbally create, edit, and sign patient notes. The acquisition builds on 3M’s existing healthcare portfolio, which includes clinical documentation software and risk assessment systems that help providers analyze patient data, per ZDNet.
Failed Startupsa
Woz’s job goes up in smoke after startup burns through $100 million – Primary Data, an enterprise storage startup which employed Steve Wozniak as its chief scientist, appears to have shut down. At time of writing, the company’s Twitter and Facebook appear to be down, although its webpage is still working. Its operating status is described as “closed.” Woz has been involved in a number of startups over the years after leaving full-time employment at Apple in the 1980s (he returned briefly in the 1990s to work as an advisor, before Steve Jobs ditched him in this role.) Confusingly, last year he was reported as being an adviser for a new augmented reality chap app launched by New England Patriots tight end Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski — although he later said this was not the case.
Canadian FoodTech startup Food Starter abruptly shuts down – Food Starter, a Toronto based startup incubator is shutting down. According to Canadian news agency, CBC, Food Starter sent out an email to clients alerting them that the final day for processing at the facility would be December 21, and that all tenants would need to move out of the plant as early as December 31.