Pyka Announces $11M Seed Round for Autonomous Flight

MaintainPR client Pyka are designing and manufacturing large electric aircraft for a variety of real world autonomous applications — right out of Oakland! They currently fly the world's only commercially approved autonomous electric aircraft in use for agricultural sprayers in rural environments.

TechCrunch recently covered this innovative young startup’s seed led by Prime Movers Lab and with participation from Y Combinator.

“Pyka and its autonomous, electric crop-spraying drone land $11M seed round” — TechCrunch

Lily AI Announces $12.5M Series A

MaintainPR client Lily AI is a female led (and coded) platform focused on using deep learning to help brands better convert customers through emotionally tailored recommendations.

The experienced team, including SXSW Award winner Purva Gupta and former Box/Yahoo tech lead Sowmiya Chocka Narayanan, have recently announced a $12.5 million Series A led by Canaan Partners. Prior investors NEA, Unshackled and Fernbrook Capital also took part in the funding event.

Read more on TechCrunch for how a personal shopping pain point from Purva led to leading AI and Machine Learning solving multiple issues for big brands and retailers.

“Lily AI raises a $12.5M Series A led by Canaan to accelerate its e-commerce recommendation tech” — TechCrunch

Momentus Announces $25.5 Million Series A

MaintainPR client Momentus are transforming the business implications of getting around in orbit. They recently announced a $25.5MM series A investment round led by Prime Movers Lab and featuring investment from Y Combinator, the Lerner Family, the University of Wyoming Foundation, Quiet Capital, Mountain Nazca, ACE & Company, Liquid 2 Ventures, Drake Management, and others. This brings the total investment sum for Momentus to $34MM.

View some of the coverage we secured.

“Momentus Raises $25.5M for In-space Shuttle Services” — Space News

“In-space Shuttle Service Momentus Raises $25.5 Million” — TechCrunch

“Startup that wants to ferry items in deep space raises $25.5M” — Forbes

Lily AI Featured in TechCrunch

MaintainPR client Lily AI recently unveiled more about their plans for applying AI and machine learning to several problems facing the online apparel industry. The 2017 SXSW Award Winner features a former Box/Yahoo! heavyweight as CTO, and this piece in TechCrunch lets her expertise shine.

“The AI Stack That’s Changing Retail Personalization” — TechCrunch

LDV Capital Featured in Axios

By 2025, manufacturing and logistics will be faster, cheaper and more flexible because of visual technologies. That’s the main takeaway from MaintainPR client LDV Capital’s most recent report in their Insights series https://www.ldv.co/insights

We helped get the report in the hands of Kaveh Waddell, Axios’ lead AI writer, and he used several citations to back up an excellent piece on teaching robots to see.

“Teaching Robots to See” — Axios

MaintainPR & Noble.AI

Corporate R&D spending in 2018 reached $782 billion among the top 1000 companies, representing a 14% increase relative to 2017 and the largest figure deployed firms to R&D ever. Despite this, most AI-as-a-service is designed and targeted toward marketing and commerce.

Enter MaintainPR client Noble.ai (https://noble.ai/), AI software that helps enterprises do R&D with 10x lower cost. Since founding the company in 2017, Matthew C Levy and his team have worked with many of the largest and most forward-thinking enterprises – across verticals like chemistry, automotive, and materials science – using their unique technology to help them lower the cost of R&D and invent faster.  

We are excited about the future announcements from this stellar SF-based startup. You can read more about the seed fundraise from Prime Movers Lab and Solvay Ventures (the venture arm of world-leading chemical company Solvay) on TechCrunch below.

Big data AI startup Noble.AI raises a second seed round from a chemical giant — TechCrunch

Momentus Featured in MIT Tech Review

MaintainPR client Momentus has very big plans about the future of space. MIT Tech review recently included them in this great explainer on steam-powered spacecraft.

Steam-powered spacecraft could jump-start asteroid exploration — MIT Tech Review

Fullstack Academy Featured in InfoWorld

A Fullstack developer understands the entire software stack, from the GUI front end to the database back end. Read more on Fullstack Academy’s value proposition in this great InfoWorld piece.

Fullstack Developer: What It Is, and How You Can Become One — InfoWorld

Momentus Announces Contracts for New In-space Transportation

Satellite ridesharing has reached hyper-growth thanks to pioneers like SpaceX. But, not all payloads want to be in the same orbit. Enter MaintainPR client Momentus, who today announced that they are taking orders for their Vigoride and Vigoride Extended services — orbital repositioning for satellites with masses up to 250kg.

The press seems to think they are onto something!!

Water-powered Rockets Aim to Give Satellites a Nudge — The Wall Street Journal

Momentus Announces First Vigoride Customer — Space News

Momentus Is a Water-powered Space Startup - Silicon Valley Business Journal

Contract Initiated Between Momentus and EXOLAUNCH for SmallSat LEO Support — Satellite News

Exolaunch backs Momentus’ Vigoride service for bespoke in-orbit transportation — SpaceWatch Global

Momentus Announces Orders are Open for the Vigoride Orbit Transfer Service – EXOLAUNCH Among First to Book — Parabolic Arc

Momentus Announces Orders are Open for the Vigoride Orbit Transfer Service — Space Daily

Fullstack Academy Featured in City A.M.

Want a job working at Amazon? City A.M. covers tech training in NYC, including MaintainPR client Fullstack Academy.

Want a Job at Amazon? Here is Where to Get Tech Training in NYC — City A.M.

Momentus -- Pioneering In-space Transportation

MaintainPR is excited to announce our new working relationship with Momentus.

Formed by veteran space entrepreneur Mikhail Kokorich, Momentus provides in-space connecting flights for satellites between various orbits and deep space. Their mission is to provide the most efficient in-space transportation, powered by deep space resource utilization services and propulsion technologies.

You can read more in TechCrunch now.

Fullstack Academy Supports NYC Cybersecurity

MaintainPR client Fullstack Academy is a part of NYC’s new cybersecurity initiative. The city is investing $30M into “Cyber NYC,” a job development initiative focused on five key technology programs, including a cyber boot camp through its partnership with Fullstack.

Fullstack’s founders have always been at the forefront of “new collar” jobs and giving back to their city. Read more in the press below.

NYC plans cybersecurity industry push that could add 10,000 jobs — Fast Company

NYC Wants to Build a Cyber Army — TechCrunch

City kicks off massive cybersecurity venture — Crain’s New York

NYC Venture Seeks to Spur Jobs, Innovation in Cybersecurity — PC Mag

Why NYC is investing millions in 5 cybersecurity programs — TechRepublic

NYC Invests $30 Million in Cybersecurity — Security Today

Fullstack Academy Co-founders on More Women in Tech

Fullstack Academy's Co-founders recently penned an oped for Vox Media's recode on how to get more women in tech.

The piece is a great read on how to dismantle tech’s gender gap in two straightforward steps. 

Check it out: We need more women in tech in order to get more women in tech -- recode

LDV Capital on the Rise of Synthetic Data in Tech

MaintainPR client LDV Capital (http://www.ldv.co/), is a venture fund investing in people building visual technology businesses at the seed stage.

Today, General Partner Evan Nisselson was published in TechCrunch around an advantage disrupting the ability for anyone to create and leverage synthetic data to train computers across many use cases.

See: Deep learning with synthetic data will democratize the tech industry -- TechCrunch

Fullstack Academy Brings Tuition-deferred Grace Hopper Program to Chicago

Coding boot camp and MaintainPR client Fullstack Academy recently launched a track in Chicago that defers tuition for women until they land a job. The track is named for computer programming pioneer Grace Hopper, and the first group of eight students is set to graduate at the end of May.

Check out coverage in the Chicago Tribune: Chicago Women Band together to Challenge 'Bro Fest' -- Chicago Tribune

Arago CEO Envisions AI-empowered Fashion Supply Chain

Chris Boos, Arago founder and CEO, recently weighed in on the impact of AI in fashion forecasting and supply chain management in an OpEd for Business of Fashion. In the piece, Boos determines that AI chatbots and and automated "shortcuts" that leverage AI may not be the best application in an age where boutique brands need to differentiate on customer service. He points instead to the recent overproduction that cost H&M shareholder dearly and recommends AI in the supply chain.

The Business of Fashion has gained a global following as an essential daily resource for fashion creatives, executives and entrepreneurs in over 200 countries.

Read the full OpEd: How Fashion Should (and Shouldn’t) Embrace Artificial Intelligence -- Business of Fashion

LDV Capital Raises 2nd Fund for Visual Technology

MaintainPR client LDV Capital is having a great start to 2018 with the announcement of a second fund with $10 million for investing at the pre-seed or seed stage.

Dedicated to supporting and investing in deep technical teams that leverage computer vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze visual data, Evan Nisselson and his team at LDV also helm the LDV Vision Summit

Check out coverage of the news in WSJ, Strictly VC and more.

LDV Capital Raises Seed Fund for Visual Tech  -- WSJ

GumGum's Incredible Growth Spotlighted in Forbes

GumGum's computer vision platform for in-image advertising is expanding beyond media and ad verticals. By helping sports sponsors evaluate ROI across untapped opportunities in social media, this MaintainPR client has seen a record year, surpassing $100M in revenue.

Read more in Forbes.

How GumGum Is Using Image Recognition Technology To Change Online Advertising, Sports Sponsorships And More -- Forbes

Arago's CEO Chris Boos in WSJ on Positive Future with AI

With all of the dire predictions that some AI-practitioners like to dispel in order to drum up press, it's nice to hear a more balanced and productive counterpoint.

Marketwatch's Rachel Koning Beals recently spoke with MaintainPR client Arago on what a realistic future would look like with automation.

No need to squirm in your seat here because Chris Boos (Arago's CEO) has already been implementing AI for Fortune 100 companies in finance/IT and telecom for years!

AI is too smart and busy to knock off humans - WSJ/Marketwatch

Astro Digital on NPR's Planet Money

Space is easier to get to than ever and it will change life on earth. That's the premise of NPR's recent series featuring MaintainPR client Astro Digital

In Episode 3, the Planet Money team explores new options and a redefined landscape for launch services. Having synced up with the Astro Digital team during Small Sat Symposium in Utah, the results include some thought compelling commentary.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/12/01/567267573/planet-money-goes-to-space