VisioLab's self-checkout system is designed to be low-hardware, allowing customers to place their items under a standard Apple iPad, where a camera-based AI identifies them in seconds without the need for barcodes or specialized equipment.
Helical's thesis is that bio foundation models, AI systems trained on vast genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic datasets, have already crossed a quality threshold that makes computational hypothesis-testing meaningful in pharma research.
Portal Space Systems is developing a technology called solar thermal propulsion, which concentrates the heat of the sun to heat propellant and move spacecraft at high speed.
The idea that you're going to extend the capabilities of LLMs [large language models] to the point that they're going to have human-level intelligence is complete nonsense. Most human reasoning is grounded in the physical world, not language, and AI world models are necessary to develop true human-level intelligence.
Back for 2026, the program is providing $100,000 in grant funding for founders who are ready to pitch, learn, and grow. This year, the program features two pitch competitions: one in-person event in Toronto in June, and a national virtual competition in November. Regardless of what town, province, or territory you are from, there's a path for you to compete, and a path to funding that could change the trajectory of your business.
There's a lot of apps helping you meet new people for dating or friendship, but not a lot are focused on your existing relationships and how you maintain and nurture those over time. The app pulls key details from social media content and turns them into a calendar-style hold to share with friends or family, turning social media scrolling into real-world plans.
I went in as an artist, and I stayed there for almost seven years. And through the years, I was less of an artist every year. Not being limited to the creative side of things helped him explore other aspects of game-making, from art direction to working with external partners.
When a business succeeds, it isn't necessarily because of some intricate business plan or elaborately devised model. Such is the case with Texas Roadhouse, a concept that was initially written down on a cocktail napkin before it blossomed into the enterprise we know today. As soon as founder Kent Taylor found investors for his dream, he quickly sketched out his vision using the resources available to him.
People want to feel human. While AI has taken over the internet and social media has evolved to feel less social, there's also been a resurgence of analog media: landlines, photo booths, record players. This cultural shift signaled to Escargot's founders that now was a good moment to launch a product centered on nostalgia for paper goods as a foil to the futuristic tech coming out of Silicon Valley.
I think it's very, very early days in this new wave of AI, particularly on the user interface interaction side of things. The technology developed very quickly, but it takes human time to figure out the right interaction patterns.
AlleyWatch is NYC's leading source of tech and startup news, reaching the city's most active founders, investors, and tech leaders. Learn More → Hook - $10M Series A Music & Entertainment Hook, a creative social music app for making and sharing song remixes and mashups, has raised $10M in Series A funding led by Khosla Ventures. Founded by Gaurav Sharma in 2022, Hook has now raised a total of $16.5M in reported equity funding.
Quantonation Ventures, a venture firm investing in quantum and physics-based startups, has closed its oversubscribed second fund at €220 million, or approximately $260 million. That's more than twice the size of its inaugural fund, and comes in addition to other signals that the quantum winter isn't coming yet. While some warned that too much quantum hype and not enough tangible outcomes would eventually cause funding to collapse, the opposite has happened.
