Agorai, an integrated marketplace for Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and the data assets that fuel them, is announcing it has committed to invest £20 million in the UK AI market. The investment will help accelerate the economic benefits that can be generated by leveraging the power of AI and its ability to transform society and positively impact the UK economy. The multi-year investment announced today will be distributed over the next five years. It will span the AI ecosystem by focusing on three key areas: education, empowerment, and entrepreneurship.

Hailo, a company developing a proprietary chip for deep learning on edge devices, today announced the completion of a $12.5 million Series A round. The company’s investors include Ourcrowd.com, Maniv Mobility, the Drive accelerator fund: Next Gear; as well as angel investors, Hailo Chairman Zohar Zisapel and Delek Motors CEO Gil Agmon. The company will use the funding to further develop its deep learning processor, which will deliver datacenter processing capacity to edge devices. This latest funding round brings the total raised to date by the Tel Aviv-based company to $16 million.

Blackwood Seven, the Copenhagen based provider of real-time AI powered media planning software, today announces a fundraising round of €17 million to support expansion of the business across Europe, the US and Asia.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as the most frequently mentioned theme in discussions among the key disruptive technologies during the first quarter (Q1) of 2018 on Twitter, according to leading data and analytics company GlobalData. 

BrainQ, developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered technologies to treat neurodisorders in innovative ways, today announced the completion of a financing round, making the total investment in the Company to date stand at $8.8M. The financing included Qure Ventures, OurCrowd.com, Norma Investments, IT-Farm, and other strategic angel investors such as Founder and CEO of Valtech Cardio Amir Gross, acquired by Edwards in a $990M deal in November 2016.

Hazy, the data anonymisation software developer formerly known as Anon AI, has won M12’s Innovate AI award, receiving a $1million investment from M12 in partnership with Notion.

Cognism, a London-based start-up which uses artificial intelligence to generate sales leads has closed a £2m funding round with the help of Newable Private Investing and the London Co-Investment Fund.

Diffblue, the Oxford-based world leader in AI for code, today announces that Jane Silber has been appointed Chair of the Board of Directors. Silber was most recently CEO of Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu - the marketing-leading Linux based operating system, where she remains on the board as a non-executive director. Silber has unrivalled experience in running and managing open-source software enterprises globally.

Reality Zero One has secured £285,000 investment from startup funders and private investors  including the British Robotics Seed Fund, Startup Funding Club, and the London Co-Investment Fund.  The funidng will enhance its new digital reality capture platform. The tech makes it easy to capture ultra-high-definition 3D versions of real-world objects for use in any virtual or augmented-reality application.

With the virtual/augmented reality market predicted to hit $215 billion dollars by 2021 and an estimated ten billion commercial and cultural objects ripe for conversion, potential demand for the tech is huge. However, the high cost and difficulty of mass 3D capture has put potential users off - until now.

Birmingham-based Redbeard, a firm that develops code for Apple (iOS) apps has secured investment from the British Robotics Seed Fund (BRSF). The BRSF has provided £80,000 funding alongside £50,000 from private investors. Monies will be used to expand the company’s global development community and Code Store.

Britbots, the organisation dedicated to promoting U.K.-based robotics companies, and Sapphire Capital Partners, a specialist manager of tax-efficient funds, has announced that their second British Robotics Seed Fund has attracted a lot of investor interest and has been well subscribed.  

Eggplant (formerly Testplant), the provider of Digital Automation Intelligence solutions, has announced the acquisition of NCC Group’s Web Performance Division.