Could a robot replace Jose Mourinho? The growing presence of artificial intelligence and machine learning in football December 19, 2017 If you pay attention to the countless academic studies devoted to the subject or the dire prophecies from Elon Musk or Stephen Hawking, an artificial intelligence (AI) age is rapidly approaching that promises to make most of our jobs redundant. A McKinsey and Company report published earlier this year estimated that more than half of [...]
MMC Ventures has just joined a $15m funding round for consumer services artificial intelligence company DigitalGenius December 19, 2017 The robots will soon be taking over call centres, as a company which develops consumer-focused artificial intelligence today nabbed almost $15m (£11.2m) of funding. San Francisco-based DigitalGenius, which works with companies including Unilever, KLM Airlines and Eurostar, has raised $14.75m of series A funding from a number of firms including London’s MMC Ventures. The business, [...]
JP Morgan and Barclays are exploring quantum computing technology with IBM December 14, 2017 JP Morgan will begin exploring the potential of quantum computing and how it might be applied to trading strategies, portfolio optimisation, asset pricing, and risk analysis in a new partnership with tech giant IBM. The investment bank is one of two financial institutions, along with Barclays, taking advantage of the commercialisation of quantum technology, which [...]
London startup Pace has raised £2.5m to help hotels boost revenues using artificial intelligence December 14, 2017 A London startup using artificial intelligence to help boost revenues for hotels has raised several million pounds of cash from early-stage investors. Seedcamp, SpeedInvest and Amadeus Capital Partners are among investors putting £2.5m into Pace, with InterGlobe – the company behind India’s larges airline IndiGo – leading the seed round. Read more: European fintech startup [...]
Open Banking: Meet 10 startups that just won cash for innovative ideas December 13, 2017 Nearly a dozen startups have been chosen for a cash prize totalling £5m for their innovative ideas for making banking easier for small businesses. A firm that is a current account for freelancers that can help them manage tax and expenses, called Coconut, and another, Funding options, a marketplace for financial products for small firms, [...]
11 tech startups to watch according to top insurers in Startupbootcamp’s insurtech accelerator December 11, 2017 Nearly a dozen startups looking to disrupt the insurance industry with technology such as artificial intelligence have been chosen for the latest cohort of a London programme, backed by Lloyds Banking Group, Allianz, Scottish Widows and Confused.com among several high-profile financial firms. The 11 early stage startups from nine countries around the world will join [...]
Could fintech be opening the door to more financial crime? December 8, 2017 Fintech startups aim to disrupt current practices and to do it fast. The emerging business model requires product managers find a buyer need, put out a minimum viable product, and iterate change in response to customer use. However, all this innovation—especially with entrepreneurs who have more tech savvy than experience in financial services—opens opportunities [...]
Google DeepMind’s “superhuman” artificial intelligence won top-level chess within four hours of learning game December 7, 2017 DeepMind’s artificial intelligence programme has beaten a top-level chess computer programme after learning the game in just four hours without human help. The Google owned tech company’s machine learning algorithm, which last year won a landmark game of Go against a human player in what has been described as a “superhuman performance”, was applied to [...]
Trump’s tweets have more of an effect on market volatility than North Korean missile tests, finds Goldman Sachs December 4, 2017 Whether US President Donald Trump is making any headway in his campaign to Make America Great Again is hard to gauge. But there is one area where he is having a quantifiable impact, according to Goldman Sachs: market volatility. Analysts at the investment bank noted that in a year when volatility seemed stubbornly flat, rare [...]
From Xero to Hero: Gary Turner has his head in the cloud December 4, 2017 It is the dream of every startup to overtake the incumbent, dominant player in its field. Facebook swallowed Myspace; Uber is usurping taxis; Spotifykilled the CD. London’s fintechs are chipping away at just about every area of financial services. We are witnessing an era of great technological change. Some of the present disruption is quite [...]