Brian Kabot talks Momentus on Halftime Report
Ryan Sommer
Scott Wapner of Halftime Report talked with Brian Kabot, chief investment officer of Stable Road Capital. The company is taking Momentus public through a $1.2 billion SPAC deal.
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CNBC Deep Dive's Momentus SPAC
Ryan Sommer
MaintainPR client Momentus and Stable Road Acquisition Corp. today announced that they have entered into a business combination agreement, which puts Momentus on the path towards becoming a publicly traded company.
CNBC’s Michael Sheetz did a deep dive on the most exciting space investment since Virgin Galactic hit the market.
Pyka Announces $11M Seed Round for Autonomous Flight
Ryan Sommer
MaintainPR client Pyka are designing and manufacturing large electric aircraft for a variety of real world autonomous applications — right out of Oakland! They currently fly the world's only commercially approved autonomous electric aircraft in use for agricultural sprayers in rural environments.
TechCrunch recently covered this innovative young startup’s seed led by Prime Movers Lab and with participation from Y Combinator.
“Pyka and its autonomous, electric crop-spraying drone land $11M seed round” — TechCrunch
Lily AI Announces $12.5M Series A
Ryan Sommer
MaintainPR client Lily AI is a female led (and coded) platform focused on using deep learning to help brands better convert customers through emotionally tailored recommendations.
The experienced team, including SXSW Award winner Purva Gupta and former Box/Yahoo tech lead Sowmiya Chocka Narayanan, have recently announced a $12.5 million Series A led by Canaan Partners. Prior investors NEA, Unshackled and Fernbrook Capital also took part in the funding event.
Read more on TechCrunch for how a personal shopping pain point from Purva led to leading AI and Machine Learning solving multiple issues for big brands and retailers.
“Lily AI raises a $12.5M Series A led by Canaan to accelerate its e-commerce recommendation tech” — TechCrunch
Momentus Announces $25.5 Million Series A
Ryan Sommer
MaintainPR client Momentus are transforming the business implications of getting around in orbit. They recently announced a $25.5MM series A investment round led by Prime Movers Lab and featuring investment from Y Combinator, the Lerner Family, the University of Wyoming Foundation, Quiet Capital, Mountain Nazca, ACE & Company, Liquid 2 Ventures, Drake Management, and others. This brings the total investment sum for Momentus to $34MM.
View some of the coverage we secured.
“Momentus Raises $25.5M for In-space Shuttle Services” — Space News
“In-space Shuttle Service Momentus Raises $25.5 Million” — TechCrunch
“Startup that wants to ferry items in deep space raises $25.5M” — Forbes
Lily AI Featured in TechCrunch
Ryan Sommer
MaintainPR client Lily AI recently unveiled more about their plans for applying AI and machine learning to several problems facing the online apparel industry. The 2017 SXSW Award Winner features a former Box/Yahoo! heavyweight as CTO, and this piece in TechCrunch lets her expertise shine.
“The AI Stack That’s Changing Retail Personalization” — TechCrunch
LDV Capital Featured in Axios
Ryan Sommer
By 2025, manufacturing and logistics will be faster, cheaper and more flexible because of visual technologies. That’s the main takeaway from MaintainPR client LDV Capital’s most recent report in their Insights series https://www.ldv.co/insights
We helped get the report in the hands of Kaveh Waddell, Axios’ lead AI writer, and he used several citations to back up an excellent piece on teaching robots to see.
MaintainPR & Noble.AI
Ryan Sommer
Corporate R&D spending in 2018 reached $782 billion among the top 1000 companies, representing a 14% increase relative to 2017 and the largest figure deployed firms to R&D ever. Despite this, most AI-as-a-service is designed and targeted toward marketing and commerce.
Enter MaintainPR client Noble.ai (https://noble.ai/), AI software that helps enterprises do R&D with 10x lower cost. Since founding the company in 2017, Matthew C Levy and his team have worked with many of the largest and most forward-thinking enterprises – across verticals like chemistry, automotive, and materials science – using their unique technology to help them lower the cost of R&D and invent faster.
We are excited about the future announcements from this stellar SF-based startup. You can read more about the seed fundraise from Prime Movers Lab and Solvay Ventures (the venture arm of world-leading chemical company Solvay) on TechCrunch below.
Big data AI startup Noble.AI raises a second seed round from a chemical giant — TechCrunch
Momentus Featured in MIT Tech Review
Ryan Sommer
MaintainPR client Momentus has very big plans about the future of space. MIT Tech review recently included them in this great explainer on steam-powered spacecraft.
Steam-powered spacecraft could jump-start asteroid exploration — MIT Tech Review
Fullstack Academy Featured in InfoWorld
Ryan Sommer
A Fullstack developer understands the entire software stack, from the GUI front end to the database back end. Read more on Fullstack Academy’s value proposition in this great InfoWorld piece.
Fullstack Developer: What It Is, and How You Can Become One — InfoWorld
Momentus Announces Contracts for New In-space Transportation
Ryan Sommer
Satellite ridesharing has reached hyper-growth thanks to pioneers like SpaceX. But, not all payloads want to be in the same orbit. Enter MaintainPR client Momentus, who today announced that they are taking orders for their Vigoride and Vigoride Extended services — orbital repositioning for satellites with masses up to 250kg.
The press seems to think they are onto something!!
Water-powered Rockets Aim to Give Satellites a Nudge — The Wall Street Journal
Momentus Announces First Vigoride Customer — Space News
Momentus Is a Water-powered Space Startup - Silicon Valley Business Journal
Contract Initiated Between Momentus and EXOLAUNCH for SmallSat LEO Support — Satellite News
Exolaunch backs Momentus’ Vigoride service for bespoke in-orbit transportation — SpaceWatch Global
Momentus Announces Orders are Open for the Vigoride Orbit Transfer Service — Space Daily
Fullstack Academy Featured in City A.M.
Ryan Sommer
Want a job working at Amazon? City A.M. covers tech training in NYC, including MaintainPR client Fullstack Academy.
Want a Job at Amazon? Here is Where to Get Tech Training in NYC — City A.M.
Momentus -- Pioneering In-space Transportation
Ryan Sommer
MaintainPR is excited to announce our new working relationship with Momentus.
Formed by veteran space entrepreneur Mikhail Kokorich, Momentus provides in-space connecting flights for satellites between various orbits and deep space. Their mission is to provide the most efficient in-space transportation, powered by deep space resource utilization services and propulsion technologies.
You can read more in TechCrunch now.
Fullstack Academy Supports NYC Cybersecurity
Ryan Sommer
MaintainPR client Fullstack Academy is a part of NYC’s new cybersecurity initiative. The city is investing $30M into “Cyber NYC,” a job development initiative focused on five key technology programs, including a cyber boot camp through its partnership with Fullstack.
Fullstack’s founders have always been at the forefront of “new collar” jobs and giving back to their city. Read more in the press below.
NYC plans cybersecurity industry push that could add 10,000 jobs — Fast Company
NYC Wants to Build a Cyber Army — TechCrunch
City kicks off massive cybersecurity venture — Crain’s New York
NYC Venture Seeks to Spur Jobs, Innovation in Cybersecurity — PC Mag
Why NYC is investing millions in 5 cybersecurity programs — TechRepublic
NYC Invests $30 Million in Cybersecurity — Security Today
Fullstack Academy Co-founders on More Women in Tech
Ryan Sommer
Fullstack Academy's Co-founders recently penned an oped for Vox Media's recode on how to get more women in tech.
The piece is a great read on how to dismantle tech’s gender gap in two straightforward steps.
Check it out: We need more women in tech in order to get more women in tech -- recode
LDV Capital on the Rise of Synthetic Data in Tech
Ryan Sommer
MaintainPR client LDV Capital (http://www.ldv.co/), is a venture fund investing in people building visual technology businesses at the seed stage.
Today, General Partner Evan Nisselson was published in TechCrunch around an advantage disrupting the ability for anyone to create and leverage synthetic data to train computers across many use cases.
See: Deep learning with synthetic data will democratize the tech industry -- TechCrunch
LDV Capital Raises 2nd Fund for Visual Technology
Ryan Sommer
MaintainPR client LDV Capital is having a great start to 2018 with the announcement of a second fund with $10 million for investing at the pre-seed or seed stage.
Dedicated to supporting and investing in deep technical teams that leverage computer vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze visual data, Evan Nisselson and his team at LDV also helm the LDV Vision Summit
Check out coverage of the news in WSJ, Strictly VC and more.
GumGum's Incredible Growth Spotlighted in Forbes
Ryan Sommer
GumGum's computer vision platform for in-image advertising is expanding beyond media and ad verticals. By helping sports sponsors evaluate ROI across untapped opportunities in social media, this MaintainPR client has seen a record year, surpassing $100M in revenue.
Read more in Forbes.
Arago's CEO Chris Boos in WSJ on Positive Future with AI
Ryan Sommer
With all of the dire predictions that some AI-practitioners like to dispel in order to drum up press, it's nice to hear a more balanced and productive counterpoint.
Marketwatch's Rachel Koning Beals recently spoke with MaintainPR client Arago on what a realistic future would look like with automation.
No need to squirm in your seat here because Chris Boos (Arago's CEO) has already been implementing AI for Fortune 100 companies in finance/IT and telecom for years!
AI is too smart and busy to knock off humans - WSJ/Marketwatch
Astro Digital on NPR's Planet Money
Ryan Sommer
Space is easier to get to than ever and it will change life on earth. That's the premise of NPR's recent series featuring MaintainPR client Astro Digital
In Episode 3, the Planet Money team explores new options and a redefined landscape for launch services. Having synced up with the Astro Digital team during Small Sat Symposium in Utah, the results include some thought compelling commentary.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/12/01/567267573/planet-money-goes-to-space