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Suborbital space tourism finally arrives | FCC prepares to run public C-band auction | The big four in the U.S. launch industry — United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman — hope to be one of two providers that will receive five-year contracts later this year to launch national security payloads starting in 2022. | China’s launch rate stays high | The International Space Station is the largest ever crewed object in space.

 
Health APIs usher in the patient revolution...
Rish Joshi Contributor Rish is an entrepreneur and investor. Previously, he was a VC at Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund), co-founded a fintech startup building an analytics platform for SEC filings and worked on deep-learning research as a graduate student in computer science at MIT. More posts by this contributor Enterprise companies find MLOps critical for reliability and performance The future of deep-reinforcement learning, our contemporary AI superhero If you’ve ever been stuck using a health provider’s clunky online...

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Top VCs discuss how COVID-19 is impacting...
In the space of several weeks, COVID-19 has transformed countless industries and will continue to do so in ways we can only imagine. The pandemic has also spurred many to find new ways to work and keep society moving amid physical distancing, stay-at-home orders and mass hospitalizations. For years, robotics and automation have been a looming presence in a number of fields ranging from shipping and fulfillment to construction sites and operating rooms. But the novel coronavirus could well...

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As investing apps boom, Public doubles down...
Savings and investing apps are having a moment. While many startups are struggling in the wake of COVID-19 and its economic impacts, services that help regular folks save a bit more or invest their funds are seeing a demand boom. Coming into 2020 on the back of a huge fundraising year for the fintech cohort, it’s a welcome result for investors and founders alike Public, a startup whose app allows consumers to invest for free, is enjoying the updraft....

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Hub Security raises $5M Series A for...
Hub Security, a Tel Aviv-based startup that developed a software and hardware platform for cryptographic operations, today announced that it has raised a $5 million Series A round led by AXA Ventures. Crowdfunding platform OurCrowd also participated in this round. Like most companies at the Series A stage, the company plans to use the investment to expand its team and technology offerings. On the hardware side, Hub Security is building both a relatively standard Hardware Security Module (HSM), using...

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Extra Crunch Live: Join Hunter Walk for...
Today at 10am PDT, two-thirds of the Equity crew are sitting down with Hunter Walk, a venture capitalist with Homebrew and well-known seed-stage investor. Continuing TechCrunch’s running series of Extra Crunch Live discussions with prominent people in the tech industry, bringing Walk in for a discussion is fitting. Our recent chat with Sequoia Roelof Botha’s gave us a slightly later-stage look at the world of startups, for example. And our conversation last week with Mark Cuban gave us an...

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Symend raises $52M to help mediate when...
With unemployment growing at a worrying rate, we’re seeing a lot more people finding themselves in hot water when it comes to their finances. Today a startup that’s built a platform to help identify and help those users when they find themselves unable to make payments is announcing a very large growth round of funding to meet new demands for its services. Symend, a Calgary, Canada-based company that builds behavioural analytics into customer engagement products to identify customers having...

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Enterprise companies find MLOps critical for reliability...
Rish Joshi Contributor Rish is an entrepreneur and investor. Previously, he was a VC at Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund), co-founded a fintech startup building an analytics platform for SEC filings and worked on deep-learning research as a graduate student in computer science at MIT. More posts by this contributor The future of deep-reinforcement learning, our contemporary AI superhero Enterprise startups UIPath and Scale have drawn huge attention in recent years from companies looking to automate workflows, from RPA...

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Vote for Europe’s hottest startups in The...
The Europas Awards — which have been recognising the hottest European tech startups in since 2009 — are now open for the public voting stage, prior to the formal judging process. The entries have been sorted and sifted by journalists to compile an editorially-driven ‘long list’ of some of Europe’s most exciting startups and investors. Voting is now live, so please go and vote! The public vote will close at midnight (UK time) on MAY 20 11.59 PM (London...

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The future of deep-reinforcement learning, our contemporary...
Rish Joshi Contributor Rish is an entrepreneur and investor. Previously, he was a VC at Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund), co-founded a fintech startup building an analytics platform for SEC filings and worked on deep-learning research as a graduate student in computer science at MIT. It was not long ago that the world watched World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov lose a decisive match against a supercomputer. IBM’s Deep Blue embodied the state of the art in the late 1990s,...

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Treasury Prime raises $9M to bring its...
Treasury Prime, a startup that built software tooling to help banks automate and accelerate routine tasks, announced today that it has closed a $9 million Series A. The new capital was sourced from Amias Gerety of QED, Jason Lemkin of SaaStr, and Hans Morris of NYCA Partners. The capital event is yet another funding round for an API-focused startup. Earlier this week, Daily.co raised $4.6 million for its video-calling API business. Both Daily.co and Treasury Prime announced new venture...

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Monzo to shutter Las Vegas customer support...
Following voluntary employee furloughs and salary cuts in the U.K., Monzo is continuing to take tough decisions in order to shore up its financial position amidst the coronavirus crisis and resulting economic downturn. The latest move — which TechCrunch understands was being considered prior to the pandemic, though undoubtedly the decision was escalated and made because of it — will see the U.K. challenger bank shutter its customer support office in Las Vegas. The U.S. outpost employs 165 customer...

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