Daily Archives: July 25, 2017

Former DOJ Official on Evolution of Corporate Compliance | Big Law … – Bloomberg Big Law Business

Posted: July 25, 2017 at 12:20 pm

ByYin Wilczek, Bloomberg BNA

Hui Chen recently left the Justice Department after almost two years as the departments first-ever compliance counsel. While at the Criminal Divisions Fraud Section, she helped prosecutors evaluate corporate compliance programs in areas such as securities and financial fraud, health-care fraud, and foreign bribery. Her cases at the DOJ included BP PLCs Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Volkswagen AGs emissions scandal, and Odebrecht SAs Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations. Those prosecutions garnered some of the largest corporate fines ever levied by the DOJ. Chen, now a private compliance consultant, speaks to Bloomberg BNA about her former role, and what lies ahead for the Fraud Section.

Hui Chen.

Bloomberg BNA: When you left, what was the state of corporate compliance programs?

Hui Chen:For me to render an assessment on that, essentially youre asking a probation office who handles drunk driver cases how many people drive drunk. If youre not a company thats being investigated, I wont see you in that role. I saw presumably some of the worst, so thats not a representative view.

What I would say is that there is great variation in corporate compliance that goes from companies in large part doing a pretty good job but occasionally slipping, to companies that completely dont get it. There are companies that should be seeing the risk but arent doing anything about it, which I think would be a little bit surprising to some, and I think thats particularly true for companies that operate mainly outside the U.S.

I also think that many companies that are relatively small arent attuned to the risks they face when they expand. So lets say they found a niche market in the U.S. They then jump into opportunities for their niche business in other markets without giving enough thought to what that might mean in terms of business and people risks.

I also see companies that are obsessively focused on their particular regulated risks but are not attentive to fundamental risks.

BBNA: What sorts of fundamental risk?

Chen:Take financial services. There are companies that say, Were going to dot all the `is and cross all the ts, but they dont think that lying to customers is a problem. I think that problem is more widespread than Wells Fargo. So the fundamentals are lying, cheating and stealing, things your mother would have taught you when you were five.

BBNA: In a sense, your role at the DOJ was a sop to business because you once worked in-house and can represent the corporate view. Do you think you were effective in that role?

Chen:I dont see myself as representing the business view. I see myself as representing the business reality. So I think I was quite effective in working with the prosecutors to bring that reality to the discussion. Again, I cannot say better things about the prosecutorstheyre smart people with common sense. What most of them dont have is that experience of working in-house. And Im able to bring that reality to the table, and they very much get it and they appreciate it.

One of the results of that, for example, is that companies used to bring in binders full of their policies. Pretty early on at DOJ, I started asking the prosecutors to tell companies not to bring their policies to compliance presentations. I said to them, I really dont care what the policy says because I challenge them to show me a single employee who sat there and read them. I can tell you right now that nobody in the company reads the policies except for the people who drafted them. Im more interested in how the policies actually operate.

And the reaction from the prosecutors was, this was what we always thought but we just didnt feel like we had the credibility to say it because we havent been in the companies. Now, I think they routinely tell companies not to bring their policies in.

BBNA: So youve left a legacy?

Chen:I think so. TheEvaluation of Corporate Compliance Programsdocument I authored really reflected a lot of that view. The work that Ive been doing with monitors, and really, the most important thing is, the monitors got it, the prosecutors got it. We want to see evidence, we want to see data, of effectiveness.

BBNA: Under the new administration, how do you think the DOJ will operate? Were you already seeing changes when you were there?

Chen:Thats not an easy question to answer, only because I think people dont really appreciate how a large agency

works. Changes can come in very subtle ways; changes can happen very slowly. I know there are people out there who count the number of resolutions and say, oh my gosh, this is the first year under the Trump administration and the numbers either went up or went down, whatever it is.

White-collar cases take a long time. The cases that are being resolved now are cases that started years ago. You want to see the Trump administrations impact, you should look four years from now, not now. What I would watch is how theyre allocating resources. When Trump came in, he put a freeze on hiring but various agencies and their components got exemptions. I was a former Justice Department prosecutor when the administration transitioned from Bush I to Clinton. My impression is that the Criminal Division traditionally got an exemption, and its usually not impacted by political transitions.

Now, the Fraud Section, to my knowledge, hasnt got an exemption for hiring. And a number of people have departed. Ive been going to one departure party after another, including my own. So how are they replacing these people, and what happens when you go from, lets say, 40 prosecutors to 10?

BBNA: After your experience at the DOJ, what tips can you offer compliance officers who are interacting with the department?

Chen:Use common sense.

Make sure your program produces actual results that are measured thoughtfully.

Do assume the prosecutors are smart people with common sense who can see through charades. Prosecutors can detect the difference between a program thats designed to satisfy them versus a program thats designed to work.

BBNA: How do you think the Fraud Section will evaluate corporate compliance under the Trump administration?

Chen:I dont not see the Fraud Section changing one bit. All the current leadership are people who have been there for the past several years and so long as they stay in placeand as far as I know, none of them is planning to go anywherethe current acting chief and the acting deputy chief, and all the unit chiefs, theyre dedicated, committed, smart people, and I dont see their approach changing one bit.

Now, going forward, would they have to engage in more battles with their upper management? Thats to be seen. Again, once you get above the Fraud Section, youre dealing with political appointees, and who they are and what their priorities are will change things.

We all understand, anybodys whos worked in large organizations, if you have upper management that is generally supportive of what you do, then it makes your job so much easier. You know somebodys got your back and you go do what you believe is the right thing to do. If you have an upper management that is constantly challenging you, then youre going to have to pick your battles because you cant battle with them 100 percent of the time.

That does impact how effective you are and how far you can go. Right now, they still dont have a Criminal Division chief, and the acting chief is a career narcotics prosecutor, I believe. I do not know if hes ever handled a white-collar case. That will impact things; its a different set of assumptions that you have to carry into your meetings.

To contact the reporter on this story: Yin Wilczek in Washington atywilczek@bna.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Seth Stern atsstern@bna.com

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Wisconsin company to offer staff microchip implants: ‘The next evolution in payment systems’ – Washington Times

Posted: at 12:20 pm


Washington Times
Wisconsin company to offer staff microchip implants: 'The next evolution in payment systems'
Washington Times
Wisconsin-based Three Square Market will soon offer its employees the option of having microchips implanted under their skin. The technology will work in tandem with computers, allow employees to pay for food, and open doors. (KSTP-TV ABC-5 Wisconsin ...

and more »

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Why Aristotle and Aquinas? – Discovery Institute

Posted: at 12:20 pm

Heres a fair question: Why do I prattle on so much about scholastic philosophy? Of what genuine relevance is it to intelligent design, and how is it of help in our twilight struggle with Darwinism and materialism?

My quick answer (and quite honest) is that I love it. The metaphysical perspective of the great scholastic philosophers hylomorphismis the best idea anyone ever had. At least, the best secular idea anyone ever had. There is a deep beauty and encompassing rationality to the Aristotelian-Thomist way of understanding the world. It can be said that Aristotle was the last man to know everything that could be known in his time, and that Aquinas was the last great systematic philosopherthe last philosopher/theologian to put together a coherent system for understanding all of reality. It is a way of understanding the world that is at once true and beautiful (and St. Thomas would say that truth and beauty are really the same thing). And I think that he pretty much got it right.

How does this help in the struggle between design and Darwinian materialism? Do beauty and truth really play a role in this fight in the trenches of 21stcentury science and culture? I think they do, in a practical way.

The fundamental modernist error is Nominalism. Nominalism, which is a philosophical school that had a foreshadowing in antiquity but fruition in the 14thcentury, is the belief that universals dont exist independently of the mind. It is the view that such general things as justice or humanity or mathematics are merely concepts, with no real instantiation in the extra-mental world. Nominalism is the view that universals are just names, without instantiated reality. It is a view in contrast to the radical realism of Plato, who believed that universals existed in perfect Forms in a realm more real than our own, and to the moderate realism of Aristotle, who believed (in characteristically moderate fashion) that universals had an extra-mental reality in this world, but not in the Platonic world of Forms.

The problem with Nominalism is that it detached and eventually isolated the mind from the world, and evolved over time into the Cartesian dualist model of the mind that man was a composite of two separate substances, mental and physical. Modern materialists simply discarded Descartes mental substance, and built their metaphysical structure (tottering as it is) on matter merely a substance extended in space. It is through matter, and matter alone, that materialists try to explain the world. And of course stuff extended in space left no necessary room for God, which pleased newly emboldened atheists no end.

Materialism, the witless spawn of Nominalism and Cartesian dualism, provided passable grounding for some aspects of modern science, especially after Bacon discarded teleology as a principle of nature and Newton developed a rather successful cosmology based on the analogy of nature to a machine. Mechanical philosophy, the ideological substrate of materialism, became the default metaphysical stance of modern science.

But an explanation for life seemed beyond the reach of even most passionate materialist. Stuff extended in space seemed (to the unreflective atheist) adequate to investigate rocks and such, but living things manifest a breath-taking complexity and purpose that no one in their right mind could attributed to just extended stuff. Richard Dawkins got it right: materialism left an atheist intellectually unfulfilled.

Fulfillment came in 1859. Darwins survivors survived theory put life into the machine of nature, and seemed (if you dont really think about it) to explain the uncanny adaptation of living things to the natural world. If they didnt adapt, theyd die! thats how it all happened! The non-adaptive ones are dead, the adaptive ones are alive! Biology is explained! Atheisms shiny new creation myth put out pseudopods into science and culture, degrading both in ways painful to examine. Fairy tales became scientific explanations, and they werent even nice fairy tales. In the Darwinian myth, mans highest attributes evolved due to his lowest dispositions. Eugenics was and is the inevitable outcome of Darwins sanguinary anthropology.

If we are to defeat this madness, for the sake of science and culture and humanity, we must do more than grind Darwinism to dust, as necessary (and satisfying) as that is.

We must replace it. And the replacement must be something true and moral. Hylemorphism, the metaphysics of Aristotle and Aquinas, is the metaphysical system that Nominalism and Mechanical Philosophy and materialism and Darwinism replaced, yetit remains the one metaphysical system utterly opposed to the idiot and ugly errors of Darwins fairy tale.

My hope is that the ID movement can move toward an Aristotelian and Thomist critique of Darwinism. It is the most effective way I think the only really effective way to kick out the foundation of Nominalism and Mechanical Philosophy on which Darwin and his children built their fiction.

Photo: Carving of Aristotle, Chartres Cathedral, by Wellcome Images, via Wikicommons.

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ONC BOCES receives grant for robotics program – Oneonta Daily Star

Posted: at 12:19 pm

The Corning Incorporated Foundation has awarded agrant of $15,000 to Otsego Northern Catskills BOCES, according to a media release.

The money is to go toward an expected Fall 2018 launch of a Mechatronics/Robotics program.The program is designed to prepare students for entry-level manufacturing jobs and to go on to college for advanced training.

Robotics deals with the design, construction, operation, and application of robots. Mechatronics is a technology that combines electronics and mechanical engineering. Mechatronics/Robotics at ONC BOCES will be an interdisciplinary program focused on mechanics, electronics, motor control systems, and automation, which drive the design, operation and maintenance of all modern complex machinery, the release said.

Several area manufacturing firms and food-production facilities rely on mechatronics, but sometimes struggle to fill positions, according to the release. The new program is intended to help plug the middle skills gap, the release said.

Mechatronics/Robotics will provide students with the necessary information and skills sets to enter the emerging field of advanced manufacturing, ONC BOCES Superintendent Nicholas Savin said in the release. SUNY Delhi has recognized the employment need for this emerging field and has developed 2- and 4-year programs to prepare students for this work. Problem solving, mechanical and electrical design, automation and computer systems/logic represent areas of study. Broome Community College has also recognized the need in this emerging field and has begun to develop a degree program as well to help meet the skilled employment needs for this industry.

The Mechatronics/Robotics program offered at the high school level at ONC BOCES will allow for students to achieve a level of experience that will enable them to enter the workforce after graduation or position them to excel in a related course of study at a higher educational institution, the release said.

The grant was written by the Capital Region BOCES Grants Service.

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Sonam Kapoor Flaunts Ample Cleavage in Sexy Nude Strapless Bra Because She Can! See Picture – India.com

Posted: at 12:19 pm

Sonam Kapoor is one of the fearless celebrities of the industry. The Bollywood actress neither fears to speak her mind or doing what her heart pleases. Sonam recently posted a gorgeous picture on Instagram from her LOreal Paris campaign photoshoot, and it is everything graceful and hot. Known for her eccentric fashion sense, Sonam flaunted sexy cleavage-baring nude strapless bra wearing a gorgeous dotted dress. This picture comes just a few days after Sonam Kapoor was slut-shamed for posting a selfie with Anushka Sharma dressed in a floral outfit that put her ample bust on display. The Neerja actress is not the one to be meddled with has amicably shut the trolls down by uploading yet another sexy snap.Sonam Kapoors Cleavage Revealing Dress in Selfie With Anushka Sharma Receives Major Backlash from Online Trolls! See Hot Picture.

The actress who is currently vacationing in New York with her rumoured boyfriend, Anand Ahuja stunned her fans by posting a resplendent image on her official Instagram account. She captioned the image, Had an amazing time shooting for LOreal Paris Pure Clay Masks! Checkout my BTS images from LOreal only in my App! #InstaDetox @lorealmakeup @lorealindia. She wears a chic nude dotted with strapless outfit, highlighting her curves to the fullest. With a picturesque locale serving as the perfect background, this photograph will go down as yet another dreamy affair of Sonam Kapoor.Sonam Kapoor looks drop dead RAVISHING in this new photoshoot! View Pics and Video!

Sonam Kapoor is quite a busy bee these days courtesy her modelling assignments. After flooring the world with her silvery bridal avatar while walking the ramp for Ralph & Russos 2017 fall/winter Haute Couture collection at the Paris Fashion Week earlier this month, she recently became the showstopper for Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla for their new Couture and bridal collection. Sonam nailed both the events with her flawless and impactful walk that reflects the actress grace and poised personality.

Had an amazing time shooting for LOreal Paris Pure Clay Masks! Checkout my BTS images from LOreal only in my App! #InstaDetox @lorealmakeup @lorealindia

A post shared by sonamkapoor (@sonamkapoor) on Jul 24, 2017 at 3:55am PDT

The actress who will next be seen in Veere Di Wedding and Untitled Sanjay Dutt Biopic is presently taken some time off and spending quality time with her alleged beau, Anand Ahuja. The happy pair has taken over the New York streets, as they share new clicks on their Instagram accounts. There have been a lot of murmur about their impending marriage plans in the media, which was aptly shut down by Sonam in a detailed tweet addressed to gossip columnists. Well, this girl does not mince her words when giving a piece of her mind!

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Love Island’s Olivia Buckland hits back as ‘insecure’ fianc Alex Bowen is criticised for undergoing MAJOR image update – CelebsNow

Posted: at 12:19 pm

Our Love Island lady Olivia Buckland is no stranger when it comes to speaking her mind.

So when her fianc and reality co-star Alex Bowen came under fire for one of his latest selfies, the 23-year-old was not about to take the comments lying down.

Read: All the Latest TV news

Brummy-born, Alex showed off his brand new set of teeth last week after deciding to treat himself to some shiny veneers and why not?

Uploading a snap of his gnashers on Instagram, the tattooed star wrote: Massive thank you to @ask_the_dentist for giving me my dream smile.

But unfortunately some of the stars 1.1 million followers werent a fan of his bright while smile, and went on to criticise Alex in a BIG way.

One fan ranted: I LOVED your teeth. They were what made you so gorgeous and were so unique to you. Im gutted. But you still look hot. Just a bit more generic sadly!

And this obviously didnt down too well with Olivia who has now admitted the comments really angered her.

More: I was really struggling: Love Islands Olivia Buckland praises the raunchy show for healing her depression and anxiety

Some people commented, saying he looked generic after he posted a selfie on Instagram. It really angered me, Liv wrote in her new! magazine column.

Explaining the reason behind her fiancs decision to get the dental procedure, she continued: Hes always felt insecure about his teeth but hasnt stopped smiling since he got his new ones.

I hated seeing bad comments under the photo, so I went through 400 of them and deleted all the horrible ones.

Alex has been showing off his brand new teeth on holiday in Rome [Instagram]

If youre considering getting them done, be warned its so hard to eat afterwards. I couldnt bit into a crisp or a crust of bread.

And when I tried to eat soup, it kept dribbling out of my mouth because it was numb and I couldnt feel it. So attractive, ha ha! LOL.

Were pretty sure these two are going to have the whitest teeth in Essex.

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A small business internet approach the differing demands of the business spectrum – Real Business

Posted: at 12:19 pm

Most businesses these days rely on internet, yet no two businesses are alike. How do you pin down what your specific small business internet requirements are?

Different businesses need different things, but one thing most businesses will have in common is the need for a reliable internet connection.

Its something so intrinsic to our working lives, we almost take it for granted until, that is, we lose service. Suddenly we release how little we can get done we cant email, we cant use the cloud to access files and data, we cant use any online tools or Google.

Of course, the extent to which businesses rely on the internet will vary some may be based entirely online, while others may use it simply to sell its wares further afield. No two businesses are alike, and thats why when it comes to choosing your internet package there are a variety of factors to consider to make sure you get the best deal tailored for your specific set of needs. Small business internet: What kind of contract do you need?

Perhaps the first thing you will consider is what kind of contract you need residential or business internet? If you work from home, you may be inclined to go for the residential internet as it often comes with a cheaper price tag.

If you want to put the broadband through the company accounts, then a business broadband is the only option for you, says William Goodall, acquisition manager at Virgin Media Business.

Our business broadband also has a higher bandwidth than the residential side, so if thats key then business broadband might also be the best option.

The added customer service levels and increased security alone make it worth considering its definitely bad for business if you leak customer data. In addition, providers will often prioritise business internet customers, which is a great perk.

Depending on where youre at in your business for example, if you are fairly well established with a staff of about 50 or more employees you may look to consider Managed Internet Access (MIA).

Sometimes referred to as leased lines, MIA essentially means you have a line thats dedicated to you and uncontended; you dont have to share bandwidth with anyone else. It means fast speeds, so its perfect for businesses uploading and downloading lots of large files.

Its more expensive, but with faster speeds, greater reliability and enhanced customer service, it could be worth the price if your business is at a certain stage.

Small business internet: Nailing the basics

Once youve decided what kind of contract to go for, the next thing you look at should be speed and price of service.

There are some providers out there that offer significantly faster speeds which are worth paying for.

When a provider tells you what speed they offer, keep in mind thats often the maximum speed, and the actual service can dip below; always check the minimum speeds offered.

And while you absolutely need to think about what your business can afford to pay, its wise not to cut corners in case you end up losing money due down the line. Small business internet: Building your reputation

Something else to look at is whether you need a static or a dynamic IP address. An IP address is a number your provider uses to identify your device and your connection, but this number changes every time you log on if you have a dynamic IP address.

A static IP address is great for businesses, because it means you can host your own server. This allows you to have more control over your email and create a company specific address, and even host your own website. This can make your business seem professional and more established, all of which is good news for your reputation.

A micro business would absolutely be able to get by with residential broadband, however without a static IP they might struggle to make full use of the connection, and they would be unable to put the connection through the company accounts, making the business accounting more difficult, explained Goodall.

This might not be something you are ready to do yet, but a year or so down the line maybe youll want to run your website in-house, who knows? Its worth keeping scalability in mind, regardless of where youre at right now.

Wherever you sit on the business spectrum, there are benefits out there that could help you scale up and expand your horizons beyond the basic internet offering. Weigh up where your priorities are, do your due diligence, and make the deal that is right for you.

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Qualcomm opens up its AI optimization software, says dedicated mobile chips are coming – The Verge

Posted: at 12:16 pm

In the race to get AI working faster on your smartphone, companies are trying all sorts of things. Some, like Microsoft and ARM, are designing new chips that are better suited to run neural networks. Others, like Facebook and Google, are working to reduce the computational demands of AI itself. But for chipmaker Qualcomm whose processors account for 40 percent of the mobile market the current plan is simpler: adapt the silicon thats already in place.

To this end the company has developed what it calls its Neural Processing Engine. This is a software development kit (or SDK) that helps developers optimize their apps to run AI applications on Qualcomms Snapdragon 600 and 800 series processors. That means that if youre building an app that uses AI for, say, image recognition, you can integrate Qualcomms SDK and it will run faster on phones with compatible processors.

Qualcomm first announced the Neural Processing Engine a year ago as part of its Zeroth platform (which has since been killed off as a brand). From last September its been working with a few partners on developing the SDK, and today its opening it up to be used by all.

Any developer big or small that has already invested in deep learning meaning they have access to data and trained AI models they are the target audience, Gary Brotman, Qualcomms head of AI and machine learning, told The Verge. Its simple to use. We abstract everything under the hood so you dont have to get your hands dirty.

The company says one of the first companies to integrate its SDK is Facebook, which is currently using it to speed up the augmented reality filters in its mobile app. By using the Neural Processing Engine, says Qualcomm, Facebooks filters load five times faster than compared to a generic CPU implementation.

How exactly developers will use the SDK will vary from job to job, but the basic task of the software is to allocate tasks to different parts of Qualcomms Snapdragon chipset. Depending on whether developers want to optimize for battery life or processing speed, for example, they can draw on compute resources from different parts of the chip eg, the CPU, GPU, or DST. It allows you choose your core of choice relative to the power performance profile you want for your user, explains Brotman.

The SDK works with some of the most popular frameworks for developing AI systems, including Caffe, Caffe2, and Googles TensorFlow. Qualcomm says its designed not just to optimize AI on mobile devices, but also in cars, drones, VR headsets, and smart home products.

what were seeing is a tidal wave of AI workloads.

But deploying frameworks that adapt existing silicon is only the beginning. What were seeing is a tidal wave of AI workloads that are creating more demand for compute, says Brotman. To meet this demand, companies are working on entirely new architectural designs for AI-optimized chips. Microsoft, for example, is building a custom machine learning processor for the Hololens 2, while British chipmaker Graphcore recently raised $30 million to build its own Intelligence Processing Units for mobile devices.

For Qualcomm, this switch is further down the line, but its definitely coming. When were baking something into silicon, thats a very deliberate bet for us, and it doesnt come easy, says Brotman. Computes compute, and if we can optimize now what weve already got in our portfolio then were doing our job well. Longer term, though, is there going to be a need for dedicated neural computing? I think thats going to be the case, and the question is just, when do we place that bet.

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HubSpot acquires Kemvi to bring more AI into its sales and marketing platform – TechCrunch

Posted: at 12:16 pm

HubSpot is announcing that it has acquiredKemvi, a startup applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to help sales teams.

A few months ago, Kemvi launched DeepGraph, a product that analyzes public data so that salespeople can identify the best time (say, after a job change or the publication of an article) to reach out to potential customers. It also proactively reaches out to verify leads.

Our vision has been to empower sales and marketing professionals by building technology that can extract information from text about whats happening in the world, said Kemvi founder and CEOVedant Misra.

And from the HubSpot perspective, Chief Strategy OfficerBrad Coffey said the company had been looking for new ways to bring AI technology into its platform. He acknowledged that AI and machine learning are buzzwords that get thrown around a lot right now, but he found Kemvi particularly appealing because it addressed a real need among salespeople.

What we want to do is focus on delivering tangible value to our customers, Coffey said. Thats what theyre here for theyre trying to understand the right way to grow their business and reach their customer. Its not that we want to invest in machine learning and AI for the academic interest of it.

The two-person Kemvi team, including Misra, will be joining HubSpot to work on bringing the startups technology into the HubSpot platform. Misra also said theres a transition plan for current Kemvi/DeepGraph customers: I think theyll be excited for what were working on at HubSpot.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Kemvi previously raised $1 million in funding from Seabed VC, Neotribe Ventures, Kepha Partners and others.

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Agtech startup Prospera, which uses AI and computer vision to guide farmers, harvests $15M – TechCrunch

Posted: at 12:16 pm

Tel Aviv-based startup Prospera has raised a $15 million Series B to expand the scope of its technology, which uses computer vision and artificial intelligence to help farmers analyze data gathered from their fields. The round was led by Qualcomm Ventures, with participation from Cisco Investments, ICV and returning investor Bessemer Venture Partners, and brings Prosperas total funding to $22 million (its Series A was covered by TechCrunch in July 2016).

The startups new capital will be used enter more global markets, add people to its delivery and customer-facing teams and broaden its services to cover more crops, including making a key shift from indoor farms to outdoor farms, which has huge implications given that 40 percent of U.S. land is farmland, says co-founder and CEO Daniel Koppel.

Since its Series A, Prospera has added new customers in Europe, Mexico, and the U.S. and now claims thousands of users, including produce growers for Walmart, Tesco, Sainburys, and Aldi.

Its technology has also evolved from its focus on automatically detecting pests and diseases to every aspect of farm production, says Koppel. This includes agronomy (the science of soil management and crop production), operations and managing a farms labor to increase its bottom line.

Some of the most notable companies also looking at agtech include drone makers like DJI and Agribotix (interestingly, Prosperas new investors Qualcomm and Cisco are both working tech to support the development and manufacturing of drones).

Koppel doesnt see those companies as competitors, but as potential partners. Drones will provide another valuable data stream for our analyses, enriching our database and potentially helping us provide even more value to our clients, he says.

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