<div>
  <ul>
    <li>
      <p>
        Greenwood, a provider of digital banking services via a mobile app for individuals and businesses from African-American and Latino backgrounds, has announced the acquisition of The Gathering Spot for an undisclosed amount.&nbsp;
      </p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <p>
        The Gathering Spot is a company that provides access to a private membership network that specifically caters to professionals and entrepreneurs from African-American backgrounds. The Gathering Spot has over 12,000 members across its network, including some of the leading companies such as Accenture, Apple, The Coca-Cola Company, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Meta, NAACP, Revolt, Truist, and Spotify.
      </p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <p>
        Through the acquisition, Greenwood expects to expand its product portfolio and deliver services such as community building, personal finance content, and banking services, along with access to financial education and tools.&nbsp;
      </p>
    </li>
  </ul>
  <p>
  </p>
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<div>
  <p>
    <a href="https://www.valdostadailytimes.com/news/business/greenwood-inc-acquires-the-gathering-spot-creating-the-largest-combined-fintech-and-community-platform-for/article_90de51c3-f040-560d-a10c-194954b6f5d4.html">
      Company press release
    </a>
  </p>
</div>


Neobanks

Greenwood acquires The Gathering Spot for an undisclosed amount

Autonomous and connected technologies shaping the future of the auto industry

Auto Tech

ANALYST_QUICK_TAKE

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

<div>
 <p>Autonomous shuttle operator, Beep, has collaborated with Mississippi State University (MSU) to launch an autonomous and electric shuttle pilot program. This is the first of its kind in Mississippi. The pilot will launch later this year and will include two 11-passenger autonomous shuttles running on multiple routes across the university. The goal is to enhance the university's current transport options.</p>
</div> <p><b>Analyst QuickTake:<br>
</b> Though this partnership marks Beep’s first deployment in Mississippi, the company has previously piloted its shuttles at various locations, including universities such as <a href="https:<br>
//sp-edge.com/updates/26901"> Florida State College at Jacksonville </a> and <a href="https:<br>
//sp-edge.com/updates/21639"> the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. </a></p>

Beep partners with Mississippi State University to launch autonomous shuttle pilot program

Using online platforms, autonomy, electric and fuel-cell tech solutions to shape the future of trucking.

Truck Industry Tech

INCUMBENTS_PRESENT

<div>
 <p>Uber Freight, Uber's online freight matching solution, has introduced "Uber Freight Exchange: Spot." This new feature offers carriers the ability to manage spot freight fulfillment with smart search, bidding, upfront pricing, and automated tendering without revealing specifics.</p>
 <p>The service gathers spot freight for carriers from multiple shippers in Uber Freight’s managed transportation and brokerage, providing consolidated load pricing, automated bidding, and tendering.</p>
 <p>The platform's main features include Uber Freight’s Carrier Web Portal, Freight Allocation Module (FAM), and exclusive algorithms designed to support scalable workflows. Additionally, the platform offers personalized search and recommendations based on pre-determined load requirements.</p>
</div>

Uber Freight launches ‘Uber Freight Exchange: Spot’ for intelligent spot freight fulfillment

<div>
 <p>Freight network orchestration and procurement platform, GoodShip, landed USD 8 million in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Ironspring Ventures, Chicago Ventures, FUSE VC, Cercano Management, 53 Stations, and various angel investors. This increase brings GoodShip's total funds to USD 15.4 million.</p>
 <p>GoodShip plans to use the newly acquired capital to expand its team, advance product development, and enhance customer support.</p>
 
</div>

GoodShip raises USD 8 million in Series A funding to expand product development and team expansion

Foundation Models

<div>

 <p>Tencent has made improvements to and open-sourced its text-to-image large model (LM), known as Hunyuan. This model is reportedly the first Chinese diffusion model to use the Transformer (DiT) architecture and has a parameter size of 1.5 billion, making it an open-source text-to-image model. </p>
 <p>According to Tencent, the upgraded model shows enhanced capability in generating visual models, displaying a progress of over 20% compared to its predecessors. </p>
 <p>Hunyuan is available for use on platforms like Hugging Face and Github, and it is permission-free for commercial exploitation.</p>

</div>

Tencent upgrades and open sources text-to-image LM 'Hunyuan'

Leveraging personal data for custom-fit diagnosis and treatment

Precision Medicine

<div>
 <p>Fulgent Pharma and Moffitt Cancer Center have announced a partnership to expedite the development of personalized cancer therapies. This collaboration gives Moffitt priority access to Fulgent's resources and expertise to accelerate the advancement of clinical trials, enhance patient screening and share data. The companies will combine Moffitt's scientific knowledge with Fulgent's nanotherapeutic drug development platform to create personalized cancer treatments. </p>

 <p>Fulgent Pharma, a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, specializes in the development and commercialization of novel cancer therapies. As a subsidiary of the nanobiotechnology company Fulgent Genetics, it uses technologies such as nanoencapsulation to enhance the delivery and effectiveness of cancer drugs. The company's pipeline includes targeted therapies for various cancers, including breast, lung, ovarian, colon, and pancreatic.</p>
</div>

Fulgent Pharma and Moffitt Cancer Center partner to advance personalized cancer therapies

<div>
 <p>Ambry Genetics and PacBio are collaborating to support the Pediatric Mendelian Genomics Research Center program managed by the University of California, Irvine, and the GREGoR Consortium. The partnership aims to identify genetic causes of rare diseases that went unnoticed in prior studies.</p>
 <p>Over the span of three years, the project will make use of long-read sequencing technology to analyze up to 7,000 human genomes. The primary focus is to gain insights into the causes of rare diseases, generate analytical methods for genetic data, and discover potential treatments.</p>
 <p>Pacific Biosciences of California (PacBio), a biotechnology firm, specializes in creating advanced sequencing systems. The company has developed its Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) sequencing technology, providing accurate long-read sequencing. PacBio's products support numerous scientific applications, ranging from human genomics and microbial genomics to plant and animal sciences.</p>
</div>

Ambry Genetics and PacBio partner to advance rare disease research in pediatric genomics

<div>
 <p>Navigo Proteins and Oncodesign Precision Medicine have formed a partnership, with the goal of enhancing the development of new systemic radiotheranostic agents used in cancer treatments. The collaboration aims to develop treatments for metastatic and resistant cancers by creating radiotheranostic agents which can detect and eradicate tumor cells. The partnership will initially focus on developing two targets in oncology to the stage of drug candidates, with plans of extending the collaboration to additional targets in the future.</p>
 <p>Navigo Proteins is a German biotechnology company specializing in protein engineering, with a focus on the development of precision affinity ligands and biotherapeutics. Navigo uses its proprietary platforms, Precision Capturing and Precision Targeting, to create custom affinity chromatography solutions and develop novel biotherapeutics.</p>
</div>

Oncodesign Precision Medicine and Navigo Proteins partner for systemic radiotheranostic agents development

Sustainably solving the food shortages of the future

Smart Farming

<div>
 
 <p>Stara, an agribusiness solutions provider, has collaborated with One Smart Spray, a joint venture from Bosch and BASF, to launch Stara's Imperador 4000 Eco Spray in Latin America. One Smart Spray develops precise and intelligent herbicide spraying solutions.</p>
 <p>This new crop protection sprayer incorporates the precision weed management system designed by One Smart Spray. It can identify and spray weeds in real-time using AI technology and a camera-based system from Bosch. This system includes xarvio Digital Farming Solutions which are used for herbicide programs and automated documentation.</p>
 <p>According to Stara, this smart sprayer offers precision weed management and selective herbicide application. It also allows for herbicide application in different agronomic stages and conditions.</p>
 
</div>

Stara partners with One Smart Spray to launch Imperador 4000 Eco Spray

Data Infrastructure & Analytics

<div>
 
 <p>Alteryx, a cloud-based data analytics platform with AI-powered automation, has introduced Alteryx AiDIN Copilot. This AI assistant is designed to aid in the production of analytical workflows.</p>
 <p>The AiDIN Copilot employs Google Cloud's Gemini AI models, providing a conversational data interaction interface, leading to enhanced efficiency and quicker data insights.</p>
 <p>The AI assistant is intended to accelerate business problem-solving for both novice and experienced data workers. It does this by simplifying tools and minimizing manual configurations. Furthermore, it enables all employees to make data-informed decisions via a conversational AI interface and ensures that IT can deploy AI in a secure, governed environment, following Alteryx's Responsible AI Principles.</p>
 
</div>

Alteryx launches AiDIN Copilot, an AI assistant to build analytical workflows

<div>
 
 <p>Elastic, an analytics solution provider, has introduced a new product named "Search AI Lake".</p>
 <p>"Search AI Lake" is a cloud-based architecture tailored for real-time, low-latency applications like search and security. It's the underlying technology for the new Elastic Cloud Serverless offering, designed for effortless scaling and workload management.</p>
 <p>Main features of Search AI Lake consist of unlimited scaling, separate computing and storage, and real-time low-latency performance. The platform deploys smart caching and segment-level query parallelization to decrease latency and expedite data retrieval. It can self-scale to accommodate workload requirements and includes AI-based relevance, retrieval, and reranking capabilities.</p>
 <p>Being a distributed platform, Search AI lake allows users to pull data across different regions, cloud instances, or hybrid environments.</p>
 
</div>

All Updates