Startup Essential AI has raised $56.5 million in funding — including funds from tech heavyweights AMD, Google, and Nvidia — showcasing the increasing investment in companies rushing to meet demand for generative AI products designed to improve business processes. The company, founded this year, had previously raised $8.3 million in seed capital, but has stayed in stealth mode up to now, announcing today its fresh funding round and its goals. Details on what precisely Essential plans to do with the money are still sparse, but in a news release, the company said it is developing full-stack AI pr ..read more

AI, automation and big data analytics are key themes for Belgian fintech, as innovative companies look to solve common problems in the financial services sector. Fintech is, broadly, technology that is applied to financial services or the management of transaction operations within businesses. Cloud-based applications that cut costs, streamline work-flow, and visualise data for users are in high demand, says Dave Remue, head of fintech at KPMG Belgium. To read this article in full, please click here ..read more

AI in the Netherlands is booming: A Techleap.nl 2021 report found that 10% of all registered AI start-ups worldwide are based in the Netherlands. The nation has the highest density of AI start-ups per capita in Europe. In addition, there are a number of relatively young Dutch AI companies that have been in business for a number of years and while they may no longer be considered start-ups, are still growing rapidly and have ambitions to transform the way business is done in sectors including finance, heathcare and agriculture. The Dutch government has recently ramped up efforts to encourage AI ..read more

Venture capital funding for emerging-tech companies in the Netherlands hit a record in the second quarter this year, with cloud, automation and financial technology grabbing a big share of funding, according to a report from financial-services firm Ebitwise and The Dutch Venture Capital Journal. The funding should drive job growth for IT professionals in the country, and points to emerging technology that is being increasingly deployed by enterprises. A government initiative backed by a Dutch prince to connect companies with venture capital firms, as well as the pandemic’s demand for ubiquitou ..read more

The gap between what white men are paid and how much women and minorities earn has narrowed over the past few decades. The latest data from the US Census Bureau shows women now make about 82 cents on the dollar compared with their male counterparts. (Other studies show women make about 98 cents on the dollar compared with men.) But the most recent studies show a much wider gap when it comes to overall compensation, which includes salary, bonuses, equity sharing, healthcare, titles, and any other benefits given to employees. For example, Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) are often issued to an empl ..read more

Before co-founding global hiring firm Remote, Job van der Voort was VP of product at GitLab, a tech firm with a fully remote workforce. Like any company without a physical office, GitLab was able to hire talent across the world, tapping into a global talent pool outside of the bounds of the daily commute. Van der Voort found the processes for hiring new staff laborious and complex, particularly when taking on employees in a new region. “We would find someone great in a country where we’ve never hired someone before and have to figure out: how do we pay them? How do we provide benefits? How do ..read more

Apple is acquiring the UK-based fintech startup Credit Kudos for an undisclosed amount, as Apple typically doesn’t disclose the price of its acquisitions. Credit Kudos last raised £5 million ($6.5 million) in funding back in April 2020. Neither Credit Kudos or Apple could be reached to confirm the deal, which was first reported by the crypto-focused publication The Block, citing three sources close to the deal. The privacy policy link on the Credit Kudos website currently redirects to Apple’s privacy policy. To read this article in full, please click here ..read more

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, only around 5% of US workers toiled away at home full time. By the spring of 2020, that figure had risen to about 60%. While some parts of the world have seen widespread vaccine rollouts allow for the reopening of offices, the majority of office-based workers aren’t planning on returning to their pre-pandemic working ways. In the UK, a survey carried out by YouGov on behalf of the BBC found that 79% of business leaders (and 70% of the general public) think it’s likely that people will never return to offices at the same rate as before the pandemic. To read this ar ..read more

The enterprise tech startup sector is packed with companies capitalizing on growing demand — even amid the disruptions caused by the pandemic — for tools in the world of big data, devops, cloud, mobility, the internet of things and cybersecurity.  According to Gartner, global IT spending is expected to grow by 6.2% this year, with total spending  projected to hit $3.9 trillion. The unprecedented acceleration of digital transformation in 2020 to satisfy the move to remote work, changes to education and new social norms presented by lockdowns has largely offset the early hit ..read more

Silicon Valley and other centers of tech startups may have seemed immune from the COVID-19 pandemic, as software developers, marketers, and others already used to working digitally shifted to largely working at home as lockdowns became mandated throughout much of the world a month ago. But a new survey of the tech startup sector across the globe shows that a high percentage of the industry is poised to starve and go out of business over the coming months as the capital and revenues that sustain them dry up. Startup Genome, a U.S.-based global policy advisory company to tech startups (and gover ..read more