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☆ AI-powered Cherish Health has raised $26 million and is set to raise a $30 million Series B — and hasn't grabbed a single dollar from VCs. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-25 | by ( Rebecca Torrence | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

But with his latest startup, Cherish Health, he's taking a different approach. To date, Cherish Health, which makes a radar-based device to detect falls in the home, has raised $26 million from these alternative sources. Cherish Health is now gearing up to raise its Series B round, targeting $30 million at a $200 million valuation. In late 2022, Cherish Health landed $5 million in Series A funding led by Alarm.com at a $45 million valuation. If Cherish Health had gone the way of traditional venture capital, Nagpal said, "we would've given up most of our value by now."

Persons: Sumit Nagpal, Nagpal, he's, we've, JP Morgan, Health's, Health, Alarm.com, consortiums, aren't Organizations: pharma, Abbott, Business, Accenture, Health, Apple, Comcast, Amazon, Cherish Health Locations: Alere, Haven, Amazon , Berkshire, Alarm.com, VCs

☆ China is trying to connect Southeast Asia by high-speed rail. Here’s how that’s going
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-25 | by ( Heather Chen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

CNN —Imagine jumping on a train in southwestern China, traveling some 2,000 miles and arriving in Singapore – less than 30 hours later. Southeast Asia is the “obvious” choice because of its “proximity to China,” Bowerman adds. “Beijing, I think, ultimately wants to see Southeast Asian countries within its sphere of geopolitical influence. A staff member waits for passengers to board the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed train during a week-long public trial phase at the Halim station in Jakarta on September 17, 2023. “In the example of a high-speed railway line between Malaysia and Singapore, Singapore would likely have just one stop – Malaysia would have more,” Wong told CNN.

Persons: China’s, Gary Bowerman, ” Bowerman, ”, Pon Souvannaseng, Peerapon Boonyakiat, Bowerman, Pan Wenbo, Pan, Mei Wei, Wei, “ I’m, Xi Jinping’s, Souvannaseng, Hong Kong –, Hong Kong’s, Yasuyoshi Chiba, Wong Muh Rong, ” Wong Organizations: CNN, Initiative, China Railway, Reuters, East Japan Railway Co, Malaysian, Bentley University, of, Communist Party, Laos Railway, Laos Railway cumulatively, Orient Express, Getty Locations: China, Singapore, Asia, Laos, Kunming, Vientiane –, Indonesia, Jakarta, Bandung, West Java, Thailand, Bangkok, Thai, Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Southeast Asia, “ China, Peerapon, Cities, Penang, Malacca, Phuket Old Town, Beijing, Vietnam, Philippines, Cambodia, Wat, Siem Reap, ”, Kowloon, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Halim, AFP, “

From 1985 to 2002, he worked at Goldman Sachs, one of the most storied — and criticized — investment banks on Wall Street. He famously swooped in to turn around the struggling IndyMac bank after its failure in the financial crisis of 2008. Earlier this month, Mnuchin jumped back into the headlines when his PE firm led a roughly $1 billion investment in embattled New York Community Bancorp. In 2009, OneWest Bank Group, where Mnuchin was chairman and CEO, bought the troubled IndyMac after federal regulators took over the bank. Mnuchin was Treasury secretary in 2020, when the Trump administration brokered a deal where Oracle and Walmart would take a large stake in TikTok.

Persons: Steven Mnuchin, Donald Trump’s, Goldman Sachs, Mnuchin, Max, Mnuchin's dealmaking, Robert Weissman, ” Weissman, Robert Rubin, Clinton, Weissman, couldn’t, NYCB, George Soros, John Paulson, OneWest, Kevin Kaiser, “, ” Kaiser, Maxine Waters, ”, Trump, doesn't, Chris Caulfield, ” Caulfield, ” ___ Rugaber Organizations: Trump, Public Citizen, Treasury, Treasury Department, Liberty Strategic Capital, Citizens, New York Community Bancorp, OneWest Bank Group, Federal, of Insurance Corp, FDIC, Wharton School, Oracle, Walmart, CNBC Locations: Wall, TikTok, Saudi Arabia, East, Washington, Congress, U.S, China, West Monroe, “

☆ This AI startup founded by ex-Googlers just raised $35 million. Check out the 12-slide pitch deck Bioptimus used to land the funds.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-20 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Bioptimus, a new French AI startup for life sciences, has raised $35 million in seed funding. Founded in 2023, Bioptimus is the brainchild of Jean-Philippe Vert, a former research scientist at Google and recently chief R&D officer at French health AI startup Owkin. The company was formed to capitalize on the enormous potential of AI in biological sciences, Vert told Business Insider. "There is something very special now about AI," Vert said. Owkin, Vert's former employer, is an investor and partner to the startup, as is tech entrepreneur and investor Xavier Niel.

Persons: Bioptimus, Jean, Philippe Vert, Rolophe Jenatton, Xavier Niel Organizations: Google, Business, Sofinnova Partners, Cathay Innovation, Harvest, Fundraising Locations: Owkin

[1/3] Visitors gather at Applied Materials and Micron Technology kiosks before the start of 'SemiconIndia 2023', India's annual semiconductor conference, in Gandhinagar, India, July 25, 2023. REUTERS/Amit DaveGANDHINAGAR, India July 26 (Reuters) - Top executives from Foxconn and semiconductor firms Micron and AMD will this week attend a conference in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state, as the government tries to lure investments into India's nascent chip industry. Modi will inaugurate the annual SemiconIndia conference in Gandhinagar, in western state of Gujarat, on Friday. The event comes just weeks after Foxconn backed out of a $19.5 billion chips joint venture with Vedanta, saying "the project was not moving fast enough". Which explains the skepticism of global chip giants to come here and set shop," said Arun Mampazhy, a former India manager of U.S.-based chipmaker GlobalFoundries.

Persons: Amit Dave GANDHINAGAR, Narendra Modi's, Modi, Young Liu, Sanjay Mehrotra, Mark Papermaster, Foxconn, Arun Mampazhy, Munsif, Sumit Khanna, Aditya Kalra Organizations: Materials, Micron Technology, REUTERS, Micron, AMD, Vedanta, Devices, Semiconductor, Thomson Locations: Gandhinagar, India, Taiwan, Gujarat, Bengaluru

☆ Toshiba, General Electric to build offshore wind equipment supply chain in Japan-Nikkei
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

TOKYO, July 15 (Reuters) - Japan's Toshiba (6502.T) plans to establish a domestic supply chain for offshore wind power equipment together with U.S. manufacturer General Electric (GE.N), Nikkei reported on Saturday, as Japan is expanding in renewable energy in a zero-carbon push. Japan's offshore wind power market is set to grow as the government aims to install up to 10 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind capacity by 2030, and up to 45 GW by 2040, as part of its decarbonisation push. Last month, the government finished accepting bids for the second round of offshore wind power tenders to build 1.8 GW of capacity in four areas, with results yet to be announced. According to Nikkei, the equipment supply chain would involve around 100 small and medium-sized companies with focus on the areas where offshore wind capacity should be installed. In 2021, Toshiba and GE announced a strategic partnership to localise GE's Haliade-X offshore wind turbines manufacturing in Japan, as the U.S. company wants its technology to be as competitive as possible in Japan's offshore wind auctions.

Persons: localise GE's, Katya Golubkova, Michael Perry Organizations: Toshiba, Nikkei, Mitsubishi, GE, U.S ., Japan Wind Power Association, Thomson Locations: TOKYO, Japan, U.S

ABUJA, June 4 (Reuters) - Nigeria's state oil firm NNPC Ltd is winding down crude swap contracts with traders and will pay cash for gasoline imports, its chief executive told Reuters, adding that private companies could begin importing petrol as soon as this month. And we now have an arm's-length process where we can pay cash for the imports," Kyari told Reuters in an interview late on Saturday. This is the first time NNPC has said it is terminating crude swap contracts. In its report detailing March crude oil loadings, NNPC also allocated crude to the swap contracts held by the consortiums. Nigeria has struggled to meet its OPEC oil quota of 1.742 million bpd due to grand oil theft and illegal refining.

Persons: Bola Tinubu's, Tinubu, NNPC, Kyari, MacDonald Dzirutwe, Camillus Eboh, Julia Payne, Susan Fenton Organizations: NNPC, Reuters, Dangote Refinery, Thomson Locations: ABUJA, Nigeria, Ukraine, Dangote, NNPC, Vienna

South Korean companies do not disclose the unit prices for their weapons, which are often sold with support vehicles and spare parts. That will include building South Korean arms on license in Poland, officials in Seoul and Warsaw said. "It may work for some countries at very, very low volume," he added of Polish-brokered South Korean weapons sales, discussing challenges the joint operation might face. The 2022 arms deal began with South Korean companies signing a framework agreement with the Polish government. Seoul has since approved at least some South Korean weapons components for use in Ukraine.

☆ Alibaba and Ant venture to launch RISC-V chips for payments
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The development comes as Chinese companies continue to invest heavily in chips, in the wake of U.S. export restrictions targeting China's semiconductor sector. Alibaba is one of several Chinese tech companies to pour research and development resources into RISC-V, an alternate chip architecture. The open-source nature of RISC-V's design in theory makes it less susceptible to export restrictions. In 2019, Washington imposed export restrictions on China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd (HWT.UL), which threw the company's access to ARM designs in limbo. In late 2022, the United States launched similar export restrictions on Chinese chip fabs and research labs.

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