Maria Deutscher
Latest from Maria Deutscher
ServiceTitan lands $165M on $1.65B valuation for its home services platform
Traditional segments such as construction, mortgage lending and freight shipping that were once largely overlooked by the tech industry are witnessing a surge in startup activity. This boom is fueled by deep-pocketed investors willing to make increasingly bold bets in segments with strong disruption potential. The latest startup to reap the rewards is Glendale, California-based ServiceTitan Inc., which ...
Microsoft to acquire Slack-backed chatbot startup Xoxco
Microsoft Corp. today announced that it’s acquiring Xoxco Inc., an artificial intelligence startup with a prominent spot in the chatbot ecosystem. Austin-based Xoxco launched in 2009 and focuses mainly on providing development services for companies looking to build conversational assistants. The startup has worked with, among others, Microsoft itself according to today’s acquisition announcement. But it’s Xoxco’s ...
SnapLogic moves into AI development with new machine learning toolkit
Data integration provider SnapLogic Inc. is moving into the artificial intelligence market with a new toolkit for building and deploying neural networks. Launched today, SnapLogic Data Science expands the company’s flagship Enterprise Integration Cloud, which enables enterprises to link internal applications with one another using customizable connectors called Snaps. These Snaps make it possible to share ...
Report: Waymo will launch a commercial driverless taxi service next month
A decade after it started working on self-driving cars, Alphabet Inc. is reportedly finally moving to commercialize the technology. A Bloomberg report published today claims that Waymo LLC, the subsidiary that leads the company’s efforts in this segment, will launch a paid autonomous taxi service early next month. The service would be the first of its kind ...
After nationwide bidding war, Amazon picks New York and Virginia for HQ2
Amazon.com Inc. today announced that it will split its planned $5 billion “second headquarters” between New York City and Virginia, concluding a yearlong search during which the company received bids from no fewer than 238 U.S. cities. The online retail giant originally signaled that it was looking to build just one big campus, dubbed HQ2. ...
Icahn attacks Dell’s planned stock market return, citing the $34B IBM-Red Hat deal
Back in 2013, activist investor Carl Icahn sued Dell Technologies Inc. in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to block Chief Executive Michael Dell (pictured) from taking it private. Now that the enterprise technology giant is looking to return to the stock market, it has once again found itself in Icahn’s sights. The billionaire investor today issued a 20-page ...
RPA provider Kofax to shell out $400M for Nuance’s document imaging business
Kofax Inc., a major player in the fast-growing robotic process automation market, today announced its first acquisition since moving under the wing of the private-equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC last year. Kofax has inked a $400 million deal to buy the document imaging business of Nuance Communications Inc., a Burlington, Massachusetts-based enterprise software provider. The ...
Cloud wars: Beating out Amazon Web Services, Microsoft lands 5-year deal with Gap
Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has struck a five-year cloud computing deal with The Gap Inc. that will see the apparel giant shift much of its operations to Azure. Gap, which generated $15.9 billion in sales last year, is the latest traditional retailer to choose Azure over Amazon Web Services, the industry’s biggest cloud platform ...
After $390M Apple investment, iPhone laser supplier Finisar acquired for $3.2B
More changes are happening in Apple Inc.’s supply chain. Finisar Corp., an iPhone supplier that makes lasers optimized for tasks such as facial recognition, is set to be acquired by another optical components producer called II-VI Inc. as part of a deal announced today. Publicly-traded II-VI is paying about $3.2 billion for the company, or ...
Daimler and Bosch to launch self-driving taxi service in San Jose next year
Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler AG and Robert Bosch GmbH, one of the world’s largest auto parts makers, are joining the race to build self-driving taxis. The firms today announced that they’ve signed a memorandum of understanding to launch a ride-hailing service powered by autonomous vehicles in the second half of 2019. The program will operate ...