Artificial Intelligence
Ben Franklin Tech Partners to Invest $407K in PA Companies
BETHLEHEM, Pa., Oct. 27, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s (BFTP/NEP) Board of Directors has approved the investment of $407,130 in support of regional economic development. Nine companies in BFTP/NEP’s 21-county service area received funding. BFTP/NEP announces the following early-stage company investments, which are provided in the form of loans with warrants.
Hanish Water, Inc., https://www.hanishwater.com/, Hazleton, Luzerne County
Ben Franklin Investment: $100,000
Develop Hanish’s Watercrest water filtration system by supporting drawings, prototypes, testing, and patenting proprietary materials and approaches. Using NASA-derived technology, the WaterCrest whole-house physical water treatment systems provide comprehensive water filtration using no salt, no electricity, no moving parts, requiring no back-washing, and wasting no water. There is a growing global market for effective and efficient water treatment due to industrialization and population growth.
IntelliGreen, https://intelligreen.net/, West Hazleton, Luzerne County
Ben Franklin Investment: $50,000
Expand sales and marketing efforts for a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform to work in tandem with IntelliGreen’s products, which were developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Intelli-Temp devices can detect and identify a person’s face, including for an individual wearing a mask; direct a person to put on a mask as a requirement to entry; detect a reference temperature within 0.5 degrees accuracy; and provide alerting for fever conditions; all within one second. The Intelli-Temp MAX features a 22’’ screen that enables a display of user-generated content. The investment will allow IntelliGreen to leverage its relationships with four distribution partners and launch the SaaS product and gate-monitoring solution.
NexUS 1, LLC, https://www.nexii.com/, Hazleton, Luzerne County
Ben Franklin Investment: $100,000
Support marketing and human resource development to leverage state-of-the-art Green building technology and patented materials in the construction of new buildings and retrofit industries. Nexii’s whole-building solution utilizes a patented material, Nexiite, and the proprietary Nexii design and assembly process, which together enable the construction of sustainable, costefficient, durable, and disaster-resilient buildings. Nexii materials can be used for buildings of all heights and sizes, and are suitable for commercial/institutional/industrial, mixed-use, multi-family residential, and single-family detached homes, as well as for retrofitting existing buildings. The NexUS facility will be the first Nexii-certified manufacturer of the system in the U.S., serving the northeast and mid-Atlantic states, and will employ 176 Pennsylvanians.
Raven Biomaterials, LLC, Ben Franklin TechVentures, Bethlehem, Northampton County
Ben Franklin Investment: $50,000
Develop and test initial samples of a fundamentally new type of magnetic beads with significantly higher magnetic capability. Raven’s proprietary beads will change the way manufacturers of cellular therapeutics isolate targeted cells within complex mixtures such as blood. The company’s initial target application is to improve cell-based therapeutic manufacturing to enhance performance, reduce costs, and accelerate patient access to emerging treatments such as cell and gene therapy.
Ben Franklin provides 1:1 matching funding for work with a college or university partner on technology-based innovation in established manufacturers.
Brenntag Northeast, Inc., https://www.brenntag.com/en-us/about/locations-entities/brenntag-northeast/, Reading, Berks County
Ben Franklin Investment: $15,000
University Partner: Lehigh University’s Enterprise Systems Center
Improve warehouse and operating efficiencies at the Reading plant. Brenntag Northeast is a chemical distributor that provides custom-made distribution solutions for industrial and specialty chemicals. The company delivers specific application technology, extensive technical support, and value-added services including just-in-time delivery, product mixing, formulation, repackaging, inventory management, and drum return handling. With more than 10,000 products and a comprehensive supplier network, Brenntag serves 195,000 customers globally.
Oldcastle APG Anchor Central, http://www.oldcastleapg.com/, Easton, Northampton County
Ben Franklin Investment: $15,000
University Partner: Lehigh University’s Enterprise Systems Center
Improve order fulfillment processes, optimize throughput, and enhance facility layout to increase competitiveness at this manufacturer of precast pavers, bricks, and concrete. Oldcastle’s products are used in a broad range of commercial and residential applications.
To help companies accelerate the recovery from the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) provided a $1 million disbursement in May that was matched by Ben Franklin. BFTP/NEP’s Return to Health funding program has included emergency regional investments in 19 start-ups and 19 established manufacturers. The three investments below will complete Ben Franklin’s Return to Health funding.
Rebuilding Northeastern PA Manufacturers Investments allow BFTP/NEP’s recent established manufacturer clients with 250 or fewer employees to develop and implement plans for recovery. Many of these manufacturing firms were partway through the development of innovative production and process enhancements, and failing to complete them would hinder their recovery and growth. These clients will facilitate job retention and creation.
Ben Franklin announces the following Rebuilding Northeastern Pennsylvania Manufacturers Investments in two companies, which are provided as matching funding.
B. Braun Medical, Inc., www.bbraunusa.com, Allentown, Lehigh County
Ben Franklin Investment: $25,000
University Partner: Lehigh University’s Enterprise Systems Center
Analyze, test, and develop intravenous (IV) tubing materials and manufacturing processes that will provide a consistent product with the desired properties for longer IV tubing. Additional length is required to separate patients with infectious diseases including COVID-19 from caregivers who monitor the IV pumps and fluids.
Reitnouer, Inc., https://reitnouer-trailers.com/, Birdsboro, Berks County
Ben Franklin Investment: $15,000
Adjust operations to improve production flow and operational efficiencies following decreased sales due to COVID-19. Reitnouer is a leading manufacturer of aluminum flatbed and drop deck trailers. The company utilizes an innovative approach in building the structures that improves product strength and durability. Prior to the pandemic, sales were growing, but the transportation industry has been strongly affected. The investment will improve the company’s productivity and position it for recovery and growth.
Also part of BFTP/NEP’s Return to Health Funding, Next-Generation Pandemic Defense Investments support new Ben Franklin clients that are creating tools and techniques that could help us recover from COVID-19 and/or protect us from future infectious disease outbreaks. BFTP/NEP invested in one early-stage firm with a three-year, 0% interest loan.
ParoAI Inc., http://heyparo.com/, Ben Franklin TechVentures, Bethlehem, Northampton County
Ben Franklin Investment: $37,130
Continue to build Paro’s existing conversational artificial intelligence (AI) healthcare platform by developing Paro Rapport, which will provide healthcare providers, patients, healthcare manufacturers, and health networks a simple-to-use method for asynchronous communication via voice technology. This will address an unmet communication system need that can be leveraged during the COVID-19 pandemic and in future public health crises that limit in-person interactions.
About the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania
The Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/NEP) creates and retains highly paid, sustainable jobs by investing in and linking companies with experts, universities, follow-on funding, and other resources to help them prosper through innovation. It is part of a four-center economic development initiative of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development and is funded by the Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority.
BFTP/NEP’s strategy encompasses three key areas:
- developing and growing early-stage technology-oriented companies;
- supporting established manufacturers as they creatively apply new technology to help them succeed globally by producing better, faster, and at a lower cost;
- promoting an innovative community-wide infrastructure that supports Pennsylvania’s business technology ecosystem.
Since beginning operations in 1983, BFTP/NEP has helped to create 19,257 new jobs for Pennsylvania workers and to retain 43,880 existing jobs, to start 525 new companies, and to develop 2,113 new products and processes. Since 2007, BFTP/NEP clients have generated more than $1.6 billion in follow-on funding. The Pennsylvania Ben Franklin Technology Partners network has returned $3.90 to the state treasury for every $1.00 invested in the program.
BFTP/NEP owns, manages, and is headquartered in Ben Franklin TechVentures®, an award-winning business incubator/post-incubator facility on Lehigh University’s campus in Bethlehem. BFTP/NEP also owns and manages the Bloomsburg Regional Technology Center. Applying more than 35 years of experience and two international awards for excellence in business incubation, BFTP/NEP leads a 13-member business incubator network that is among the largest in the nation.
Laura S. Eppler
Chief Marketing Officer
Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania
Cell 610.417.5261
[email protected]
Artificial Intelligence
Tencent Announces Winners of Flagship CarbonX Program to Combat Climate Change
SHENZHEN, China, May 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Tencent (00700.HK) is awarding 13 exceptional teams that won the first phase of its groundbreaking CarbonX Program, which is aimed at boosting promising new climate technologies. The winners, which emerged from a pool of 30 finalists and more than 300 initial applications, will receive a total of around RMB 100 million (US$14 million) in financial support from Tencent. It showcases the company’s commitment to driving sustainable social innovations in the fight against climate change.
CarbonX was launched in March 2023 to advance the next generation of low-carbon technologies. Tencent has committed RMB 200 million (US$28 million) in catalytic funding over the next three years to innovative ideas that might otherwise languish or fail to gain traction.
CarbonX’s first phase focused on carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), as well as technology-based carbon removal. These solutions were chosen for their unique ability to curb emissions from hard-to-abate industries such as steel and cement, mitigate the continued reliance on fossil fuels, and reduce legacy emissions created from decades of industrialization.
Backed by Tencent’s mission of Tech for Good and an alliance of like-minded industry partners, CarbonX aims to help these cutting-edge technologies make the leap from the research or early startup stage to commercial scale. The ultimate goal is supporting them in making a significant impact toward the targets outlined in the Paris Agreement, which includes a 45 percent reduction in emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Dr. Hao Xu, Tencent’s Vice President of Sustainable Social Value and Head of Tencent’s Carbon Neutrality Lab, said: “Technology innovation serves as the driving force to accelerate our progress toward achieving carbon neutrality. CarbonX program is aimed at fostering the growth of these technologies, driving positive impact across society, and laying the groundwork for a more sustainable future.”
Professor Jerry Yan, Chair Professor of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Co-chairman of the CarbonX expert committee, said: “To pave the path for a greener economy, we must champion the development of cutting-edge low-carbon technologies. Just as solar and wind power were nurtured in their infancy, emerging solutions like CCUS and tech-based carbon removal demand our early support.”
The program assembled a panel of experts from academia, industries, and the investor community as the jury, and welcomed submissions from diverse participants across three distinct tracks:
CarbonX Lab: Designed to incubate research institutions, universities, or labs that bring in game-changing climate solutionsCarbonX Accelerator: Designed to accelerate the growth of climate-tech startups that exhibit commercialization potentialCarbonX Infrastructure: Designed to support capacity building to facilitate industry developmentThe finalists comprise four projects from the Lab track, six from the Accelerator track, and three from the Infrastructure track. These projects explore innovative solutions, such as using steel slag to capture and store carbon directly from furnace exhaust, converting CO2 into sustainable aviation fuel and valuable chemicals through electrochemical reactions or microorganisms, and employing new approaches to directly capture CO2 from the atmosphere with the hope of slashing the cost to less than US$150 per ton.
Meanwhile, Tencent is also collaborating with Tsinghua University to develop a comprehensive system of Measure, Reporting and Verification (MRV) tools to accurately gauge progress toward decarbonization.
Aside from receiving financial and advisory support, several projects will also have the opportunity to collaborate with industry partners and test their research beyond the laboratory setting.
Building upon the success of the first phase, Tencent is poised to launch the second iteration of CarbonX globally as early as later this year in pursuit of early-stage climate tech innovation.
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/tencent-announces-winners-of-flagship-carbonx-program-to-combat-climate-change-302153596.html
Artificial Intelligence
NEXCOM Delivers Exceptional Performance in Edge AI Video Analytics
TAIPEI, May 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — NEXCOM, a leading supplier of network solutions, published AI and storage performance test results of its NSA 7160R: high-performance Edge server. NSA 7160R is powered by dual Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors for high computing, and enhanced with DDR5 memory, high-bandwidth PCIe Gen5 LAN modules, and high-capacity NVMe storage modules. The test results show the efficiency of the NSA 7160R in processing edge video server workloads and were explained in the accompanying paper.
Edge AI Is the Future
With the rise of smart cities, processing data from cloud to the edge is becoming increasingly critical. Imagine the surge of visual data from ubiquitous security cameras – that information needs real-time analysis right where it’s collected. This is just the tip of the iceberg. As artificial intelligence permeates our lives, certain AI tasks will also need edge computing for efficient, lightning-fast performance. The key is to avoid bottlenecks in the data center by keeping things localized and streamlined.
Your Turnkey Solution Awaits
When it comes to Edge video servers, you need top-notch hardware and software that can handle all the “heavy lifting”. To speed up the total solution bringing up Intel comes in with their Intel® Edge Video Infrastructure (Intel® EVI) reference design. NEXCOM ran a bunch of tests using this design to evaluate its NSA 7160R for essential tasks including storage, image retrieval, and AI features such as inference and feature matching.
After conducting all tests, the results have shown that NSA 7160R meets all performance expectations with outstanding results. For a detailed breakdown of the solution description, test configuration, and results, please refer to the accompanying paper.
Intel, the Intel logo, and other Intel marks are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries.
About NEXCOM
Founded in 1992 and headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, NEXCOM integrates its diverse capabilities and operates six global businesses, including the Network and Communication Solutions (NCS) unit. NCS focuses on the latest network technology and helps to build reliable network infrastructure, by delivering professional design and manufacturing services for customers all over the world. NCS’s network application platform is widely adopted in Cyber Security, Load Balancing, 5G uCPE, SD-WAN, SASE, Edge Computing, OT Security, Storage, NVR, and other network applications for businesses of all sizes.
Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WlO8fyWnu4
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/nexcom-delivers-exceptional-performance-in-edge-ai-video-analytics-302153555.html
Artificial Intelligence
Qiming Venture Partners Promotes Alex Zhou to Managing Partner
SHANGHAI, May 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Qiming Venture Partners, a global-leading venture capital firm, is pleased to announce the promotion of Alex Zhou to Managing Partner.
As a Qiming home-grown Managing Partner, Alex first joined the firm in 2014 as a Vice President and has since emerged as one of the most active investors in frontier technologies, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. Alex will join fellow Managing Partners Duane Kuang, Nisa Leung and William Hu in managing Qiming’s operations.
In the past few years, Alex has actively participated in or led investments in many outstanding technology companies across the artificial intelligence, robotics, semiconductors, new energy vehicles, and software sectors. Notable among these include Roborock, UBTech, Unisound, Biren Technology, ROX Motor, VIEWTRIX Technology, Zhipu AI, Mech-Mind Robotics, Axera, HyperStrong, DeepWay, etc.
“I am deeply grateful for the guidance and trust I received from Qiming over the past 10 years.” Alex said. “We are at the forefront of a new wave of technological revolution. This era will undoubtedly bring about many bold innovators who will shape the future. Together with all the Managing Partners and colleagues at Qiming, I am excited and fully committed to seize the opportunities, embrace any potential challenges, explore new possibilities and build a better Qiming.”
Since its inception 18 years ago, Qiming has always committed to upgrading its institutional capabilities and team development in order to stay ahead in an ever-evolving technological and market landscape. The success achieved in the fields of healthcare, mobile internet and frontier technology is a testament to this strategic approach. Alex’s promotion to the most senior position in the firm demonstrates Qiming’s continued confidence in the future of technology innovation.
About Qiming Venture Partners
Qiming Venture Partners was founded in 2006. Currently, Qiming Venture Partners manages eleven US Dollar funds and seven RMB funds with $9.5 billion in capital raised. Since our establishment, we have invested in outstanding companies in the Technology and Consumer (T&C) and Healthcare industries at the early and growth stages.
Since our debut, we have backed over 530 fast-growing and innovative companies. Over 200 of our portfolio companies have achieved exits through IPOs at the NYSE, NASDAQ, HKEX, Shanghai Stock Exchange, or Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or through M&A or other means. There are also over 70 portfolio companies that have achieved unicorn or super unicorn status.
Many of our portfolio companies are today’s most influential firms in their respective sectors, including Xiaomi, Meituan, Bilibili, Zhihu, Roborock, Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals, Tigermed, Zai Lab, CanSino Biologics, Schrödinger, APT Medical, New Horizon Health, Sanyou Medical, AmoyDx, Berry Genomics, SinocellTech, UBTech, Yuanxin Technology, Caidya, Belief BioMed, WeRide, among many others.
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/qiming-venture-partners-promotes-alex-zhou-to-managing-partner-302153306.html
-
Artificial Intelligence6 days ago
Japan Data Center Market Investment to Reach $14.48 Billion by 2028 – Watch Out Exclusive Insight on Japan & Hong Kong Data Center Market – Arizton
-
Uncategorized5 days ago
Coca-Cola: The future is ‘AI meets human ingenuity’
-
Artificial Intelligence6 days ago
Strava Unveils New Chapter of Accelerated Product Development at Brand’s Flagship Event
-
Artificial Intelligence5 days ago
More than $9 Million Awarded to High School Scientists and Engineers at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair 2024
-
Artificial Intelligence6 days ago
Data Center Colocation Market Worth USD 58.4 Billion to 2031 – Exclusive Report by InsightAce Analytic Pvt. Ltd.
-
Uncategorized5 days ago
The rise of intelligent automation as a strategic differentiator
-
Uncategorized6 days ago
SoftBank looks at ‘softening’ angry customer calls with AI
-
Artificial Intelligence7 days ago
IoT Sensors Market to be Worth $71.6 Billion by 2031- Exclusive Report by Meticulous Research®