Latest news with #WaldenCatalystVentures
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Speedata raises $44m in Series B funding round
Israel-based startup Speedata has secured $44m (NIS154m) in a Series B funding round to advance its chip technology tailored for data analytics workloads. The latest investment brings the company's total capital raised to $114m. The round saw participation from investors including Walden Catalyst Ventures, 83North, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Pitango First, and Viola Ventures. Strategic investors also joined the round, among them Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel and managing partner at Walden Catalyst Ventures, and Eyal Waldman, co-founder and former CEO of Mellanox Technologies. Speedata is known for its Analytics Processing Unit (APU), which is designed to significantly accelerate big data analytic workloads across various industries. Concurrently, the company also announced the launch of a new chip aimed at enhancing big data analytics. The APU, powered by Speedata's custom-designed Callisto chip, addresses longstanding bottlenecks in data pipelines, offering substantial acceleration for complex analytics tasks. The chip has been tested by companies in sectors such as finance, healthcare, insurance, and AdTech, the company said. The newly introduced C200 PCIe card features a PCIe Gen5 x16 interface and is designed to be compatible with a range of server environments. It is integrated with Speedata's Dash software stack for Apache Spark, allowing job redirection to the APU without requiring modifications to existing applications or infrastructure. Adi Gelvan, Speedata's incoming CEO, said: 'Everyone knows that AI inference will transform our lives, but none of that happens without data analytics first. 'To paraphrase the well-known saying: 'Diamonds in, diamonds out' – in other words, before AI value can be maximised, the data must be ready. Speedata's APU is the missing link, unlocking scalable, real-time analytics that power everything from business intelligence to medical breakthroughs to next-gen AI applications. It's the catalyst AI needed to get to the next era.' "Speedata raises $44m in Series B funding round" was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. 擷取數據時發生錯誤 登入存取你的投資組合 擷取數據時發生錯誤 擷取數據時發生錯誤 擷取數據時發生錯誤 擷取數據時發生錯誤
TechCrunch
6 days ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Speedata, a chip startup competing with Nvidia, raises a $44M Series B
Speedata, a Tel Aviv-based startup developing an analytics processing unit (APU) designed to accelerate big data analytic and AI workloads, has raised a $44M Series B funding round, bringing its total capital raised to $114M. The Series B round was led by its existing investors, including Walden Catalyst Ventures, 83North, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Pitango First, and Viola Ventures, as well as strategic investors, including Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel and Managing Partner at Walden Catalyst Ventures, and Eyal Waldman, Co-Founder and former CEO of Mellanox Technologies. The APU architecture focuses on addressing the specific bottlenecks of analytics at the computing level, unlike graphics processing units (GPUs), which were initially designed for graphics and later modified for AI and data-related tasks, according to the startup. 'For decades, data analytics have relied on standard processing units, and more recently, companies like Nvidia have invested in pushing GPUs for analytics workloads,' Adi Gelvan, CEO of Speedata, said in an interview with TechCrunch. 'But these are either general-purpose processors or processors designed for other workloads, not chips built from the ground up for data analytics. Our APU is purpose-built for data processing and a single APU can replace racks of servers, delivering dramatically better performance.' Speedata was founded in 2019 by six founders, some of whom were the first researchers to develop Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Architecture (CGRA) technology. The founders collaborated with ASIC design experts to address a fundamental problem: data analytics were being performed by general-purpose processors. If the workloads grew too complex, they could need to tap into hundreds of servers. The founders believed that they could develop a single dedicated processor to accomplish the task faster using less energy. 'We saw this as an opportunity to put our decades of research in silicon into transforming how the industry processes data,' Gelvan said. Its APU currently targets Apache Spark workloads, but its roadmap includes supporting every major data analytics platform, according to the company CEO. Techcrunch event Save now through June 4 for TechCrunch Sessions: AI Save $300 on your ticket to TC Sessions: AI—and get 50% off a second. Hear from leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Khosla Ventures, and more during a full day of expert insights, hands-on workshops, and high-impact networking. These low-rate deals disappear when the doors open on June 5. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you've built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | REGISTER NOW 'We aim at becoming the standard processor for data processing—just as GPUs became the default for AI training, we want APUs to be the default for data analytics across every database and analytics platform,' Gelvan told TechCrunch. The startup says it has a number of large companies testing its APU, though it declined to name them. The official product launch is set for the Databricks' Data & AI Summit in the second week of June. Gelvan said that they will publicly showcase its APU for the first time at the event. Speedata claims a specific case where its APU completed a pharmaceutical workload in 19 minutes, which was significantly faster than the 90 hours it took when using a non-specialized processing unit, resulting in a 280x speed improvement. The startup said it has achieved several milestones since its last fundraising, including finalizing the design and manufacturing of its first APU in late 2024. 'We've moved from concept to testing on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), and now we are proud to say we have working hardware that we are currently launching. We already have a growing pipeline of enterprise customers eagerly waiting for this technology and were ready to scale our go-to-market operations,' Gelvan, said.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Virtue AI raises $30m to expand AI safety platform
Virtue AI, a startup focused on AI safety, has raised $30m in Seed and Series A funding rounds to develop its unified AI security and compliance platform for enterprise AI applications. The investment rounds were led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Walden Catalyst Ventures, with participation from Prosperity7 and existing backers including Factory, Osage University Partners, Lip-Bu Tan, Amarjit Gill, and Chris Ré. The company plans to use the new funding to expedite its mission to remove the traditional trade-off between AI innovation and security, allowing enterprises to adopt generative AI technologies without concerns related to safety, compliance, or regulatory risk. Virtue AI will also use the newly secured capital to enhance its platform, grow its market presence, and attract AI safety talent. Virtue AI co-founder and CEO Bo Li said: 'We saw companies struggling with the same challenges repeatedly—subpar evaluation methods, inefficient guardrails, and manual processes that created bottlenecks in AI deployment pipelines. 'Our team has dedicated decades to solving these exact problems. Virtue AI transforms that expertise into practical solutions that eliminate the false choice between innovation and safety.' The company offers organisations with tools to red team AI application, train safe models, and deploy advanced guardrail technologies designed to support responsible AI use. Its platform includes VirtueRed, an algorithmic red teaming system that addresses more than 320 risk categories such as hallucination, privacy leakage, jailbreaks, and prompt injections. The system provides automated risk assessments and aims to reduce the cost of testing by minimising human input. VirtueGuard, another component of the platform, comprises guardrail models that are claimed to be more than 30 times faster than comparable solutions. It is said to deliver 40–50% better performance across text, image, audio, video, and code, and support more than 90 languages. The company also offers VirtueAgent, an AI-powered security agent that automatically interprets internal policies and regulatory requirements, replacing manual compliance processes with automated workflows. "Virtue AI raises $30m to expand AI safety platform" was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Sign in to access your portfolio
