SINGAPORE, Aug. 16, 2024 — WSPN (Worldwide Stablecoin Payment Network), a leading provider of next-generation stablecoin infrastructure, has raised US$30 million in Seed funding round. This round was led by Folius Ventures and Foresight Venture, with participation from prominent investors including Hash Global, Generative Ventures, RedPoint Capital, and a consortium of top-tier investment companies, exchanges and foundations.

WSPN distinguishes itself through its team of seasoned professionals with experience at industry leaders such as CTH, Paxos, and Visa (NYSE: V), bringing decades of combined expertise in payments and stablecoin operations. Further solidifying its position, WSPN has garnered support from over 30 exchanges, more than 10 major wallets, and dozens of prominent payment institutions and market makers. This robust foundation enables WSPN to confidently build a truly global digital payment network.

WSPN is building a more secure, efficient, and transparent payment solution by working towards establishing a global framework and a new digital payment ecosystem. The company is committed to providing users with a superior stablecoin experience, powered by its groundbreaking “Stablecoin 2.0″ approach.

Introducing Stablecoin 2.0

WSPN is pioneering the concept of Stablecoin 2.0, setting the new standard for the next generation of stablecoins. The Company’s mission extends beyond creating a stable digital currency; it aims to design and develop infrastructure that embodies the essence of Web3, with a focus on enhancing the robustness and transparency of stablecoin systems.

Here’s how WSPN is building Stablecoin 2.0:

• User-Centric Value Distribution: WSPN plans to introduce its own governance token, allowing users to share in the ecosystem’s long-term value and have a direct influence on its development trajectory, embodying the “From the People, For the People” principle.
• Community-Driven Governance: WSPN will adopt on-chain voting, empowering token holders to participate in key decision-making processes. This ensures the ecosystem remains transparent, accountable, and responsive to its users, with decisions and asset verifications transparently recorded on the blockchain.
• Enhanced Accessibility and Payment System Upgrade: WSPN aims to streamline user interfaces and reduce entry barriers, making stablecoin usage more accessible to both individuals and institutions. This approach not only drives mainstream adoption but also seeks to upgrade existing electronic payment and settlement systems.
• Comprehensive Value Ecosystem: WSPN is committed to develop a wide range of products and use cases, from asset management to everyday transactions, unlocking the full potential of stablecoins for users globally.

“This substantial capital injection will significantly accelerate our efforts to bring about the next generation of stablecoin infrastructure,” said Raymond Yuan, Founder and CEO of WSPN. “We are excited to collaborate with our esteemed investors to build a more robust, transparent, and user-centric stablecoin ecosystem that can power the future of finance.”

About WSPN

WSPN is a leading provider of next-generation stablecoin infrastructure, committed to building a more secure, efficient, and transparent payment solution for the global economy. Their flagship product, WUSD stablecoin, is pegged 1:1 to the U.S. Dollar and aims to optimize secure and licensed digital payments for Web3 users.  WSPN ‘s Stablecoin 2.0 approach prioritizes user-centricity, community governance, and accessibility, paving the way for widespread stablecoin adoption.

Learn more: www.wspn.io | X | LinkedIn

SOURCE WSPN

The company is preparing to scale multiple new deployments globally. 

ST. LOUIS, Aug. 15, 2024 — Intramotev, the technology company building battery-electric railcar retrofits, announced today it has closed a $14.4 million oversubscribed Series A funding round. The round is led by Flybridge Capital Partners and Alpaca VC, and joined by other investors including Advantage Capital, Aera VC, Band VC, Cantos, Cathcart Rail, Collide Capital, Decisive Point, and Idealab Arizona.

“This funding positions us to continue deploying our technology to customers across the US and abroad to unlock a new era of growth for the rail industry,” said Tim Luchini, Intramotev’s CEO. “We’ve heard from customers again and again that they want freight solutions that don’t compromise on efficiency, speed, or flexibility. TugVolt and ReVolt deliver just that.”

Intramotev’s retrofitted solutions create new possibilities for customers to increase their rail capacity, while saving money on fuel and lowering their carbon footprint.

“A lot of suppliers promise to make your job easier, but Intramotev actually delivers,” said Jon Brown, VP of Business Development and Capital at Iron Senergy. “Intramotev’s team worked relentlessly to ensure the proper implementation of their technology at our mine, and we couldn’t be more pleased with the results. 5,000 miles into our experience with their ReVolt train, we’re thrilled to continue working with Intramotev to accelerate innovation in mining.”

Intramotev is the world’s only self-propelled railcar supplier with units in active revenue service. Currently deployed at Iron Senergy’s Cumberland Mine, Intramotev will launch an additional deployment at a calcium mine owned by Carmeuse Americas later this year.

About Intramotev

Intramotev is a high-technology company focused on transforming modern freight movement by developing battery-electric, self-propelled rail solutions that decrease costs, increase usage and safety, and promote environmental responsibility. Learn more at Intramotev.com.

Press Contact

Don Soffer, [email protected]

SOURCE Intramotev

PENNINGTON, N.J., Aug. 15, 2024 — Zynext Ventures USA LLC (Zynext Ventures), the Venture Capital (VC) arm of Zydus Lifesciences (Zydus), committed to advancing disruptive breakthroughs in healthcare, announced its investment in neuro42 Inc. (neuro42), a US-based developer of cutting-edge portable MRI systems for neuroimaging and interventions.

neuro42 is transforming neuroimaging and interventions with their portable MRI and robotic intervention technology, bringing advanced imaging and treatment to the patient’s bedside. Their compact, user-friendly MRI scanner enables rapid diagnosis, while the robotic module promises to revolutionize procedures like brain biopsies and ablations. neuro42’s Diagnostic MRI platform is FDA 510(K) cleared for neuroimaging, and the company is currently seeking regulatory clearance for its interventional module.

Jay Kothari, Director of Zynext Ventures, highlighted the investment’s strategic importance, saying, “neuro42’s disruptive technology has the potential to reshape neuroimaging and interventions, enabling precise planning and execution of surgical procedures like shunts, biopsies, and laser therapy. Our investment will propel their progress and bring groundbreaking solutions to patients.”

“We are delighted to have Zynext as our strategic investor,” said Dr. Amit Vohra, Founder and CEO of neuro42. “The partnership will accelerate our mission in bringing our innovational neuroimaging and interventional products to global masses.”

The US MRI imaging market was valued at ~$1.8bn in 2024, with neurology accounting for 23% of this market. As per Center for Disease Control (CDC), there are 2.8 million cases of traumatic brain injury (TBI), 795,000 strokes, and 14,000 brain biopsies each year in the US alone. neuro42 is well-positioned to address this demand and revolutionize the space.

About Zynext Ventures

Zynext Ventures is the investment arm of Zydus Lifesciences. The venture capital firm focuses on identifying and investing in promising early-stage and growth-stage companies in the healthcare sector. Zynext Ventures provides financial support, strategic guidance, and industry expertise to its portfolio companies, helping them achieve their full potential and make a meaningful impact on the lives of patients.

To learn more about Zynext Ventures, please visit: https://zynextventures.com

LinkedIn: Zynext Ventures

Twitter: @ZynextVentures

About Zydus

Zydus Lifesciences Ltd. with an overarching purpose of empowering people with freedom to live healthier and more fulfilled lives, is an innovative, global lifesciences company that discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets a broad range of healthcare therapies. The group employs 27,000 people worldwide, including 1,400 scientists engaged in R & D, and is driven by its mission to unlock new possibilities in lifesciences through quality healthcare solutions that impact lives. The group aspires to transform lives through path-breaking discoveries. Over the last decade, Zydus has introduced several innovative, first-in-class products in the market for treating unmet healthcare needs with vaccines, therapeutics, biologicals and biosimilars. For more details visit www.zyduslife.com.

About neuro42

neuro42, Inc. is a medical technology company focused on diagnostic imaging and image guided interventions of the brain. Founded by a team of successful entrepreneurs and healthcare innovators, neuro42 is developing and commercializing an intraoperative MR, AI and robotic platform that allows easy access to MR imaging for screening, diagnosis and interventions of neurological diseases. Backed by over 50 patents, neuro42’s platform is poised to enhance patient and physician experience with its novel, easy-to-use and portable configuration. To learn more about neuro42, visit neuro42.ai.

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2442038/Zynext_Ventures_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Zydus Lifesciences Ltd

NEW YORK, Aug. 15, 2024 — Chaos Labs, the industry leader in onchain risk management, today announced a $55 million Series A funding round led by Haun Ventures. This significant investment, aimed at scaling onchain economic security, attracted prominent new investors including F-Prime Capital, Slow Ventures, Spartan Capital, and more. They join an impressive roster of existing backers such as Lightspeed Venture Partners, Galaxy Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, PayPal Ventures, General Catalyst, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Coinbase Ventures. The round also saw participation from strategic angel investors, including Kevin Weil (OpenAI CPO), Michael Shaulov (Fireblocks CEO), Anatoly Yakovenko (Solana CEO), Francesco Agosti (Phantom CTO), and Anton Katz (Talos CEO).

Chaos Labs plans to leverage this funding to accelerate new product development and scale its cutting-edge risk management platform. The platform currently features enhanced observability tooling, innovative risk oracles, and real-time parameter recommendations.

This Series A investment is the first led by Diogo Mónica, General Partner at Haun Ventures. Mónica shared his enthusiasm for the investment: “Chaos Labs has emerged as an industry leader; their rapid growth, despite volatile markets, speaks volumes about their product-market fit, brand strength, and product quality. As onchain finance matures to compete with its centralized counterparts, the need for world-class risk management tools, designed from the ground up for the blockchain stack, is both clear and intuitive.”

Mónica added, “Meeting Omer and witnessing his intense focus and vision strengthened our conviction on Chaos Labs. We’re excited to partner with Chaos Labs as they continue to safeguard and grow the industry.”

In the past year, Chaos Labs tripled its customer base. Today, more than 20 protocols including Aave, GMX, and Jupiter, rely on Chaos Labs to secure, monitor, and grow their products. Chaos Labs technology has secured $860B in cumulative trading volume, $25B in loans, and $35M in incentives.

For Chaos Labs, this growth is part of a grander vision: to empower decentralized applications with contextualized data to improve risk management, and economic security posture, while increasing capital efficiency and achieving performance parity with their centralized counterparts.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Haun Ventures and double down with existing investors on our expanded vision for Chaos Labs,” said Omer Goldberg, Founder and CEO at Chaos Labs. “Our north star has always been high quality data informing high quality risk management. Crypto is among the most volatile asset classes today. Yet, most DeFi applications remain static, relying on stale parameters that take hours or days to update. The future of decentralized finance needs modern, dynamic data infrastructure.”

Many companies attempting to solve different parts of the blockchain data stack, such as industry giants Chainlink and LayerZero, have tapped Chaos Labs for their own research and development and risk management needs, often referencing assessments published by Chaos Labs in their benchmarks and product announcements.

These opportunities have validated the team’s thesis that data requirements are becoming more sophisticated and holistic as blockchains capture flow from traditional exchanges and applications demand dynamic data infrastructure.

“Offchain data and onchain risk are inextricably linked,” said Goldberg. “Market context, including volatility, liquidity depth, and bid-ask spread, is essential for real-time adjustments in high-frequency trading applications.”

Goldberg expanded on this vision: “Chaos Labs is building new products which merge previously siloed offchain market data, observability, and alerting with dynamic risk parameter adjustments. This new technology will build upon our existing stack and enable instant updates which reflect current market conditions.”

Decentralized finance applications currently depend on manual risk management and isolated analysis of data feed performance to ensure platform integrity in variable market conditions. By comparison, centralized exchanges, including the Chicago Options Exchange utilize risk engines built directly on top of market data feeds.

“We’re catching up to our CeFi counterparts and this is where it’s going,” said Goldberg.

About Chaos Labs

Chaos Labs leads the blockchain risk management industry with innovative solutions for the evolving onchain financial landscape. The company’s Risk Platform provides comprehensive economic security for crypto protocols through advanced monitoring, real-time simulations, and cutting-edge Risk Oracles. Chaos Labs enables protocols to verify stability across all market conditions, merging offchain observability with onchain risk parameter adjustments. This empowers DeFi applications to adapt instantly to market volatility, allowing teams to monitor health, execute proactive changes, protect user funds, and optimize capital efficiency. Backed by leading venture capital firms, Chaos Labs continues to set new standards for security and responsiveness in onchain finance.

Founded in 2021, Chaos Labs is headquartered in New York City. For more information, visit www.chaoslabs.xyz or @chaos_labs on X.

SOURCE Chaos Labs, Inc.

Final Closing of Funding Round Follows Hiring of CEO Ray Smets, Reinforces Industry First That Paves Faster Path to Commercial-ready Quantum Computing – More Powerful Qubits With Built-in Error Detection

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Aug. 15, 2024 — Quantum Circuits, Inc., announced it has secured a final Series B investment round of more than $60 million, providing additional capital support as the company prepares to commercialize its quantum systems with an industry first – error detection built into a more powerful qubit for scalable, higher-fidelity computing.

The investment is led by ARCH Venture Partners, F-Prime Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Hither Creek Ventures. The Series B round also includes investment from Canaan Partners, Fitz Gate Ventures, In-Q-Tel (IQT), Osage University Partners, Connecticut Innovations, Tao Capital Partners, and Tribeca Venture Partners.

Quantum Circuits is a spinout from Yale University, including Rob Schoelkopf, the Sterling Professor of Applied Physics at Yale and one of the founders of the superconducting quantum computing field. The Series B investment provides Quantum Circuits with additional latitude to engage lead customers and set commercial go-to-market plans for its unique quantum systems. The final closing follows the company’s recent appointment of President and CEO Ray Smets and delivery of cloud-based simulation for quantum applications with built-in error detection.

These systems are based on a novel superconducting architecture that solves one of the most pressing problems in quantum computing – error detection and correction. Its powerful dual-rail qubit with built-in error detection is an industry first. Quantum Circuits’ unprecedented approach provides greater accuracy, performance, and scalability for quantum systems, accelerating the path to consistent, repeatable computing results that are a prerequisite for commercially viable systems.

“At Quantum Circuits, we are delivering the industry’s first full-stack quantum computing solution with built-in error detection to realize reliable and trusted quantum computing at scale,” Ray Smets said. “By putting the power of error detection and real-time control into the hands of algorithm developers, we will accelerate their ability to create new solutions and achieve better results needed for commercial applications. The full Series B investment underscores the confidence in our approach.”

“The founding goal for Quantum Circuits has always been to focus on the biggest challenge for quantum computing – to deliver reliable fault-tolerant and scalable quantum computers,” said Rob Schoelkopf, Quantum Circuits’ founder and Chief Scientist. “We take the strategy of ‘correct first, then scale,’ using our built-in error detection and correction.”

Supporting Quotes

Bill Coughran, Partner at Sequoia Capital
“From the beginning, Quantum Circuits has delivered unique innovation that positions it for the long run. Creating the more powerful dual-rail qubit with built-in error detection is a significant achievement in the quantum space. They are setting themselves apart from the rest of the vendor landscape.”

Corey Ritter, Principal at ARCH Venture Partners
“Quantum Circuits’ dual-rail qubit architecture solves the most pressing problem in quantum computing – error detection and correction. We are excited to see Quantum Circuits scale their world-leading architecture and chart the clearest path to realizing the promise of quantum computing.”

Stephen Knight, M.D., President and Senior Managing Partner at F-Prime Capital
“We see many quantum companies taking different approaches to solving the error correction challenge with varying degrees of success. Quantum Circuits leverages the speed, flexibility, and scalability of this approach to build high-fidelity systems that have the potential to be best-in-class.”

Eugene Chiu, Senior Partner at IQT
“Quantum Circuits takes a refreshing new approach to error correction, speeding up quantum computing’s transition from science labs to global enterprises. Their team’s pedigree and pragmatism allow the company to stand out as the quantum computing industry matures.”

Zander Farkas, Managing Partner at Hither Creek Ventures
“Quantum Circuits’ work on error correction puts them solidly in the lead in the race to build useful quantum computers. In a world where companies tout qubit counts while making near-zero progress toward a functional computer, Quantum Circuits’ hardware accomplishes milestones that the rest of the industry will struggle to achieve within the decade.”

About Quantum Circuits
Quantum Circuits is founded by quantum physicists, including leading quantum expert and Yale Professor Rob Schoelkopf. The company is a leader in the development of quantum computers designed to scale. Quantum Circuits’ innovative architecture integrates high-fidelity qubits with intrinsic error detection and handling. High-fidelity error detection is a key component to reducing the number of physical qubits necessary to build a useful quantum computer, thus accelerating the timeline to fault-tolerant quantum computing and real-world applications. Quantum Circuits’ team includes pioneers in the development of superconducting quantum science and circuit quantum electrodynamics. For more information, visit www.quantumcircuits.com.

SOURCE Quantum Circuits

NEW YORK and LONDON, Aug. 15, 2024 — Qubit Capital has made a significant impact by revolutionizing how startups connect with investors. Through its pioneering AI-driven matchmaking platform, Qubit has secured over $9 million for different startups in recent funding rounds in quarter 2 of 2024, empowering them to thrive in a competitive market.

Breaking New Ground in the US, UK and Europe

Qubit Capital’s expansion into the U.S. and Europe marks a milestone in its mission to democratize access to venture capital for founders globally. The platform has already facilitated $215 million in funding for 64+ startups since inception in 2020. Recent deals facilitated through Qubit include

• Swiipr Technologies: This UK-based fintech and travel startup raised approximately $7.7 Million from Octopus Ventures, UK, and TX Ventures, Switzerland.
• Spottitt: A satellite-based geo-spatial analytics company, Spottitt secured $800,000 from Right Side Capital & 3 Angel Investors.
• iVent Pro: A virtual events platform, received an undisclosed amount from Purple Ventures.

Revolutionizing Fundraising with AI Precision

At the core of Qubit Capital’s success is its cutting edge AI and machine learning technology. By harnessing data-driven insights, Qubit automates the matchmaking process between startups and investors, ensuring precision and efficiency. This approach is particularly beneficial for Seed, Series A, and Series B stages, with a round size in the range of $150,000 – $30 Million.

“Startups face immense challenges in securing funding, especially in a virtual-first, remote work environment,” said Mayur Toshniwal, Co-Founder of Qubit Capital. “Our AI-powered platform provides startups with the tools they need to connect with the right investors and secure crucial funding. Our recent successes with Swiipr Technologies, Spottitt, and iVent Pro highlight our platform’s rapid growth and effectiveness.”

A Vision Born from Necessity

Qubit Capital was founded at the onset of the 2020 pandemic by experienced entrepreneurs who understood the hurdles startup founders face in raising capital. Identifying the right investors, building relationships, and dedicating time and resources to fundraising are formidable challenges.

“We believe AI can democratize access to investors worldwide, breaking down barriers regardless of background or location,” said Sagar Agrawal, Co-Founder of Qubit Capital. “Our global expansion into Europe, the UK, and the US excites us, and we are eager to support startups in these regions.”

About Qubit Capital

Qubit Capital is a trailblazing fundraising platform and network that transforms how startups connect with investors. Since its inception, Qubit has facilitated $215 million in funding for 64+ startups. By integrating AI, data-driven insights, and digital tools, the platform provides seamless matchmaking and comprehensive support throughout the fundraising journey. Qubit Capital is industry and stage agnostic, working with startups from early to late stages, all driven by a passion for growth.

For more information, visit Qubit Capital.

Media Contact:

Ludington Media LLC

Olivia Ludington

551 795 5950

[email protected]

www.ludingtonmedia.com

SOURCE Qubit Capital

LONDON, Aug. 15, 2024 — AISQ, a pioneering force in AI-driven business solutions (since 2010), today announced the launch of Next Level Marketing, the world’s first end-to-end fully automated marketing system. This groundbreaking platform requires only minimal input from business administrators, allowing AI to take over the entire marketing process—from research and planning to scheduling, publishing, and distribution—across all digital channels. Next Level Marketing is now available exclusively on the AISQ website.

Revolutionizing Digital Marketing Automation

In an era where time and resources are often stretched thin, AISQ’s Next Level Marketing emerges as a game-changer, offering a comprehensive solution to the challenges of modern digital marketing. Designed with small to medium-sized businesses in mind, this platform automates every aspect of a business’s marketing strategy, requiring only approvals from the business admin to initiate and oversee operations.

“Next Level Marketing represents a paradigm shift in how businesses approach digital marketing,” said Florin Muresan, CEO of AISQ Squirrly. “We’ve created a system that automates the entire process—research, planning, content creation, publishing, and distribution—across all digital channels, including search engines, social media, and email newsletters. It’s a true set-it-and-forget-it solution that empowers businesses to focus on growth while the AI takes care of the rest.”

The Future of Marketing is Here

Next Level Marketing addresses the persistent issue of time-consuming and resource-intensive marketing tasks that often hinder business growth. By leveraging advanced AI technology, AISQ has developed a platform that not only executes but also optimizes marketing strategies in real-time, ensuring businesses remain competitive in an ever-changing digital landscape.

“The beauty of Next Level Marketing is in its simplicity and efficiency,” added Muresan. “Once the initial setup and approvals are complete, the system takes over—researching keywords, generating content, planning campaigns, scheduling posts, and even handling SEO tasks. It’s like having an entire marketing department in your pocket, available 24/7.”

Global Significance and Industry Impact

The launch of Next Level Marketing (currently in early Beta) is poised to have a significant impact on the global digital marketing industry. This innovation democratizes access to high-level marketing capabilities, making them available to businesses of all sizes, regardless of their budget or expertise. It’s a step towards a future where AI-driven marketing is not just an option but a standard practice.

According to industry research, 92% of businesses plan to invest in AI this year. Next Level Marketing is designed to meet and exceed the expectations of this growing market.

Next Level Marketing is the latest in a long line of AI innovations created by the Squirrly Company, now re-branded as AISQ.

About AISQ

AISQ stands at the forefront of AI innovation, with a proven track record that dates back to 2010 when we first predicted the transformative potential of artificial intelligence. Over the past decade, we’ve not only anticipated the AI revolution but actively shaped it, developing multiple custom-built AI solutions that have consistently pushed the boundaries of what technology can achieve for 23,000 businesses that buy software from us.

Contact Information:

Irina Pogor, Marketing Lead
AISQ Squirrly
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +44 7425 330730
www.aisq.com

SOURCE AISQ

Pantera Capital, Binance Labs, and Polychain Capital led funding to support the launch of Sahara AI’s blockchain platform, promoting AI sovereignty and provenance, and providing secure control and protection of AI assets for individuals and businesses

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 14, 2024 — Sahara AI, a decentralized blockchain platform built for open and equitable AI, announced today $43 million in total funding, led by Pantera Capital, Binance Labs, and Polychain Capital. The round included participation from Samsung NEXT, Matrix Partners, dao5, Geekcartel, Nomad Capital, SCB 10X, Canonical Capital, Mirana Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Dispersion Capital, Aegis Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and Tangent Ventures, among others.  

Sahara AI has also partnered with strategic angels and advisors from the AI industry and academia including Laksh Vaaman Sehgal (Vice Chairman, Motherson Group), Rohan Taori (Research Scientist, Anthropic), Teknium (Co-founder, Nous Research), Vipul Prakash (CEO, Together AI), and Elvis Zhang (Founding Member, Midjourney). 

This new capital will allow Sahara Labs to expand its global team of experts, enhance the performance of its AI blockchain, and grow its developer ecosystem.

Ethical concerns over copyright, privacy, resource access, and economic imbalances continue to grow as AI becomes more widely adopted and capable. Stakeholders, including users, data contributors, model creators, and application builders, are seeking solutions to secure ownership and receive fair compensation for their contributions. To empower everyone to shape and own the future of AI, Sahara Labs is launching a blockchain-based AI platform that offers users and developers secure control and “copyright” protection over their AI assets, including proprietary data, models, and agents. This platform fosters an open, transparent, and inclusive AI economy where all participants are fairly attributed and compensated for their input.

“At Pantera, we believe in the future of decentralized AI, offering opportunities for personalized products to be built without centralized oversight,” said Lauren Stephanian, General Partner of Pantera Capital. “Sahara AI’s platform is designed to meet these challenges, providing an ethically designed and universally accessible infrastructure that enables individuals and enterprises to leverage AI’s full potential without compromising on privacy or sovereignty. We are excited to support Sean, Tyler and the rest of the team as they build towards this new collaborative AI economy.”

“Binance Labs is dedicated to empowering founders in Web3 who have the potential to build innovative tech solutions and create sustainable, lasting impact. We look forward to backing Sahara AI as they pioneer a decentralized AI blockchain platform, reshaping the future of AI to be more transparent, secure, and accessible for everyone,” said Yi He, Co-Founder of Binance and Head of Binance Labs.

Since its founding in April 2023 by USC Professor and Viterbi Early Career Chair Sean Ren and former Binance Labs investment director Tyler Zhou, Sahara AI has grown exponentially, and is now trusted by over 35 leading tech innovators and research institutions, including Microsoft, Amazon, MIT, Motherson Group, and Snap.

“Since our inception, our goal has been to create a future where AI is ethical, transparent, and accessible to all through AI sovereignty and open technology,” said Sean Ren, co-founder of Sahara Labs—the driving force contributing to Sahara AI. “With the help of our notable investors and partners, this latest funding is a testament to why it is necessary to establish a robust, decentralized provenance infrastructure within today’s rapidly evolving AI-first world.”

For more information, please visit Saharalabs.ai, subscribe to the Sahara AI Blog, or follow @SaharaLabsAI on X.

About Sahara AI

Sahara AI is a decentralized blockchain platform that prioritizes sovereignty and provenance of AI, ensuring security, equity, and accessibility for all users. Backed by top investors in AI and Crypto, including Pantera Capital, Binance Labs, Polychain Capital, Samsung NEXT, Matrix Partners, and many more, Sahara AI continues to push the boundaries of decentralized AI. Today, Sahara AI is trusted by 35+ leading tech innovators and research institutions, such as Microsoft, Amazon, MIT, Motherson Group, and Snap. 

About Sahara Labs

Sahara Labs, the driving force behind Sahara AI, is an AI and blockchain infrastructure company led by USC Professor and AI veteran Sean Ren and former Binance Labs investment director Tyler Zhou. Sahara Labs envisions a future where AI is equitable, transparent, ethical, and accessible to all through AI sovereignty, provenance, and open technology. 

Media Inquiries
[email protected]

SOURCE Sahara AI

Enterprise data engineering teams can now observe, fix, and optimize their Spark data applications, in-motion

CHICAGO, Aug. 14, 2024 — definity today announced the general availability of its pioneering Data Application Observability & Remediation platform for Spark data analytics environments, marking a significant advancement in data operations. The company is also announcing it has raised $4.5 million in a Seed funding round led by StageOne Ventures, with participation from Hyde Park Venture Partners and additional strategic angel investors.

Faulty data operation and poor data quality cost an enterprise $12.9 million each year according to Gartner, highlighting the critical challenge for data engineering teams to maintain the reliability of data applications (data pipelines), optimize their performance, and prevent data downtime.

This is particularly urgent for enterprises deploying new AI initiatives, relying on accurate feature engineering and model fine-tuning. The problem is amplified tenfold in the Spark ecosystem, which typically involves heavy and mission-critical workloads and a more obscure infrastructure, but lacks modern observability tooling.

definity bridges this gap with the industry’s first data application native solution, providing in-motion and contextualized insights into data pipeline execution, data quality, and data infrastructure performance. Using a unique agent-based architecture, definity runs inline with every data transformation on the platform, establishing ubiquitous observability with zero code-changes—in on-prem, hybrid, or cloud environments.

Designed specifically for Spark-heavy environments, definity helps data engineers to proactively prevent data incidents, find their root-cause, and fix them—faster than ever before. definity also enables engineers to automatically monitor data applications’ performance, identify concrete optimization and saving opportunities across the platform, and easily optimize performance. This empowers enterprises to minimize downtime, increase engineering velocity, and reduce infrastructure cost.

The company was founded by CEO Roy Daniel, former product executive at FIS; CTO Ohad Raviv, former big-data tech lead at Paypal and Apache Spark contributor; and VP R&D Tom Bar-Yacov, former data engineering manager at Paypal. After experiencing the challenges of managing mission-critical data applications at high-scale firsthand, they built the solution they sought for the enterprise segment.

“Enterprise data engineers demand a new standard of observability that doesn’t exist today” said Roy Daniel, co-founder & CEO, definity. “Traditional data monitoring focuses on the symptoms, assessing data quality at-rest in the data warehouse, which is too out-of-context, reactive, and simply not applicable for Spark. definity fills this void by taking a completely new approach focused on the data application itself, observing in-motion how data is processed and how the infrastructure operates, making Spark applications human-readable.”

“Today’s enterprise data leaders face a serious pressure to ensure the reliability of the data powering the business, while increasing scale, cutting costs, and adopting AI technologies”, said Nate Meir, General Partner, StageOne Ventures. “But without x-ray vision into every data application, data teams are left blind and reactionary. definity is addressing this need head-on with a paradigm shifting solution that is both powerful and seamless for data engineering and data platform teams.”

The announcement comes on the heels of remarkable momentum for definity, which onboarded several global technology enterprises to its new platform this year.

About Definity
definity is a Data Application Observability & Remediation platform, helping Spark-heavy data engineering teams to seamlessly monitor data applications health + data quality + performance in-motion, detect anomalies in run-time, resolve incidents in minutes, optimize applications’ performance, and cut infrastructure cost – with zero code changes.

SOURCE definity