<div>
  <ul>
    <li>
      <p>
        Natural Fiber Welding (NFW), a technology company that develops textiles using recycled plants and natural fibers, has announced that Bellroy, an Australian accessories manufacturer, has used Mirum again to produce a plant-based leather wallet collection called &ldquo;Slim Sleeve.&rdquo;
      </p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <p>
        The Slim Sleeve features Mirum leather for some parts of the wallet, with the rest of the wallet (including the stitching) being made from cotton. The Slim Sleeve is a 95 cm x 80 cm wallet that is available for purchase in limited quantities. It will be priced at USD 99.99, with the standard non-Mirum Slim Sleeves starting at USD 70.&nbsp;
      </p>
    </li>
  </ul>
  <p>
    &lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;
    <b>Analyst QuickTake:</b>
     NFW partnered with Bellroy in February 2021 to incorporate Mirum in Bellroy&rsquo;s plant-based pouches. The continued partnership is an indication of Mirum&rsquo;s ability to replace conventional leather. NFW has also secured partnerships with players like 
    <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7850">
      Ralph Lauren
    </a>
    , Motherson, Richemont, and Allbirds to commercialize its Mirum brand. Based on this, we ranked NFW #11 on our 
    <a href="https://sp-edge.com/insights/9587">
      EDGE100
    </a>
    list, where we identified promising early-stage startups across various emerging industries. NFW has big plans for Mirum, for which it also raised 
    <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9745">
      USD 85 million
    </a>
     in Series B funding last month.&lt;/ul&gt;
  </p>
  <p>
  </p>
</div>


Bio-based Materials

Natural Fiber Welding’s Mirum leather used by Bellroy for plant-based leather wallet

Bringing fresh produce closer to consumers with efficient, advanced technology.

Vertical Farming

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

<div>
 
 <p>Virginia-based company, Babylon Micro-Farms, has introduced STEM Garden, a portable indoor farm designed for schools to encourage interdisciplinary learning through on-site cultivation of food.</p>
 <p>The STEM Garden, which requires manual watering and lacks a remote monitoring feature, comes with a specially designed curriculum to instruct hydroponics in classrooms.</p>
 <p>According to Babylon Micro-Farms, the product has the potential to create a significant change in the way food is grown and integrated into education, imparting hands-on experience by teaching children that chefs can grow ingredients on-site for meal preparations.</p>
 
</div>

Babylon Micro-Farms launches STEM Garden for K-12 education

The tools that power remote work are define the next generation of enterprise software.

Remote Work Tools

<div>

 <p>Calendly, a platform focusing on scheduling meetings, has debuted a revamped browser extension, accessible on Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Outlook. The updated feature incorporates a "Meetings" tab, enabling users to oversee and alter meetings organized via Calendly. There's also a fresh "Contacts" tab, providing the ability to monitor forthcoming meetings and participants. The extension facilitates the sharing of links for various meeting types, immediate booking of subsequent calls, and the scheduling of several meetings for identical time slots. </p>
 <p>Calendly posits that this refurbished extension, when used alongside integrations such as Gmail and LinkedIn, has the potential to significantly reduce the time that users allocate to alternating between apps and websites. The objective of the extension is to aid not only in scheduling but throughout the entire meeting process, with features designed for managing and recording meeting transcripts. </p>
 
 </div>

Calendly updates browser extension to enhance meeting scheduling and management

ANALYST_QUICK_TAKE

INCUMBENTS_PRESENT

<div>
 
 <p>Atlassian has combined Jira Software and Jira Work Management into a single project management tool named "Jira". The aim is to simplify collaboration and goal alignment across diverse teams within a company. Pricing will be unchanged from the existing Jira subscriptions.</p>
 <p>Jira's updated tool includes several AI-driven functions meant to enhance collaboration, such as an AI work breakdown for automatically dividing work into manageable pieces, an automatic summary of issue comments, and a natural language processing feature for creating Jira queries. The tool addition "Goals", aimed at aligning team objectives, and new views for task and project visualization are also included in this package.</p>
 <p>Atlassian states the upgraded Jira tool will lessen tension between different teams, facilitating cooperative working and easier goal alignment. Additionally, it plans to automate certain routine tasks with the aid of new integrations and features, freeing up project managers to concentrate on vital strategic tasks.</p>
 
</div> <p><b>Analyst QuickTake:<br>
 </b> This collaboration follows Atlassian's previous strategy of launching specialized Jira versions, such as Jira Work Management in 2021, which replaced Jira Core. Such collaborations provide cross-functional tools that help different teams within a company collaborate and track their work more effectively.</p>

Atlassian combines Jira Software and Jira Work Management into single product

AI-based solutions for evolving digital threats

Next-gen Cybersecurity

<div>
 <p>AI-based cybersecurity company, Deep Instinct, has introduced a new AI malware analysis tool named "Deep Instinct’s Artificial Neural Network Assistant" (DIANNA). </p>
 <p>The tool, DIANNA, uses LLMs and the collective understanding of the cybersecurity community, offering in-depth scrutiny of attacks. This extends to new threats, while also providing context on the tactics used and file behaviors.</p>
 
</div>

Deep Instinct launches AI-powered malware analysis assistant

<div>

<p>Japanese Omakase strawberries farming company, Oishii, has received a loan of USD 15 million from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The funds will be spent on revamping an unused building in Phillipsburg into an energy-conserving production facility. This plant will accommodate a state-of-the-art indoor vertical farming operation. This facility will encompass harvesting, packaging, and distributing produce. It is envisaged to cut down the company’s annual operation expenses by USD 150,000 and to generate 45 new jobs.</p>

</div>

Oishii secures USD 15 million to build new facility in Philipsburg

Clean, congestion-free air travel gets liftoff

Passenger eVTOL Aircraft

<p>UK-based global aerospace and technology company, Vertical Aerospace, recently announced the appointment of Stuart Simpson as CEO, succeeding founder CEO, Stephen Fitzpatrick. Prior to his appointment, Simpson worked as the CFO of Vertical Aerospace and has over 30 years of leadership experience spanning technology, automotive, and logistics sectors. He has had significant roles at Avast, Royal Mail Group, GLS Group, General Motors, Rolls-Royce, and Bentley Motor Car Company.</p>
<p>Despite stepping down, Stephen Fitzpatrick will remain a board member of the company, focusing on business strategy and actualisation of the company's vision. Simpson, in his new role, will focus on strategic initiatives including the certification and commercialization of the company's VX4 aircraft and fund-raising for the organisation.</p>

Vertical Aerospace appoints Stuart Simpson as new CEO

Exploring the limitless possibilities of AI

Generative AI Applications

<div>
 
 <p>NVIDIA has made improvements to its AI-driven chatbot app, ChatRTX. It allows more interaction with local data on RTX-supported Windows PCs and workstations.</p>
 <p>The enhanced ChatRTX now accommodates more LLMs such as Google's Gemma and a bilingual model, ChatGLM3. Its functionality has been expanded to include features from OpenAI's Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training (CLIP), giving users the ability to engage in spoken interaction with image data on their devices.</p>
 <p>In addition, through the integration of OpenAI’s Whisper model, users can now use their voice to pose questions and receive answers in text format.</p>
 
</div>

NVIDIA updates ChatRTX with new models and features

<div>
 
 <p>GenAI models and applications provider, Anthropic, has unveiled an iOS app and a subscription plan aimed at businesses, especially those in regulated industries like healthcare, finance, and legal sectors. This plan, called "Team," costs USD 30 per individual monthly and requires at least five seats.</p>
 <p>Anthropic created this service to give corporations high-quality access to their Claude 3 AI models along with additional administrative and user management oversight.</p>
 <p>Noteworthy features of the Team plan encompass high-priority access to advanced AI models, a context window of 200,000 tokens, priority access to new updates, and improved controls for billing and user management.</p>
 
</div> <p><b>Analyst QuickTake:<br>
 </b> Expanding into the enterprise market, Anthropic now competes with established players like OpenAI, which recently introduced <a href="https:<br>
//sp-edge.com/updates/25408"> ChatGPT Team </a> for smaller teams at a competitive price of USD 30 per user per month. OpenAI also caters to large enterprises with custom pricing options. Similarly, Perplexity entered the arena last week with <a href="https:<br>
//sp-edge.com/updates/28720"> Enterprise Pro, </a> a business-focused service priced at USD 40 per month, adding to the competitive landscape in this space.</p>

Anthropic announces new enterprise plan for Claude; launches iOS App

Providing a seamless consumer experience is one hope for bringing back brick and mortar retail, automated stores are being built to do just that.

Automated Stores

<div>
 <p>Instacart, a provider of intelligent cart solutions, has collaborated with grocery retailer, The Save Mart Companies, to introduce a variety of in-store retail tech solutions. These solutions include the "Caper Carts" smart cart and the "FoodStorm", an order management system for ready-to-order food products from Instacart.</p>
 <p>In addition, The Save Mart Companies intends to integrate Instacart's "Storefront Pro," a comprehensive omnichannel digital commerce platform specialized for groceries.</p>
 <p>These solutions are intended to be launched across nearly 200 locations owned by The Save Mart Companies which includes Save Mart, FoodMaxx, and Lucky outlets.</p>
 
</div>

Instacart deploys smart cart solutions at Save Mart Companies

Data Infrastructure & Analytics

<div>
 
 <p>Peregrine, a data integration platform supplier, has secured 30 million dollars in a Series B financing round. The leading investors were Friends &amp; Family Capital and Fifth Down Capital, and other investors, including Goldcrest Capital, and Craft Ventures, also participated.</p>
 <p>The new investment is planned to be used for the expansion of the platform and hiring new employees, with the goal of more than doubled workforce by 2024.</p>
 <p>Established in 2018, Peregrine offers a sophisticated data integration platform to public safety agencies. It provides a solution to connect different data sources and integrate any size or type of data, providing complex insights. The platform includes features for searching, investigation, and operation management, giving real-time answers to users.</p>
 
</div>

All Updates