We’re just a few weeks away from kicking off our flagship event, Disrupt SF 2019, that takes place on October 2-4. If you’re an investor looking to increase your portfolio, it’s the perfect time to start planning your Disrupt strategy. Never fear, we’re here to help you make the most of your valuable time. But first, a housekeeping item. If you haven’t already done so, buy your pass to Disrupt right here.

You’re no doubt familiar with Startup Alley, our exhibition floor where you’ll find more than 1,000 early-stage startups showcasing their products and technologies. That’s an investor’s gold mine, is it not? Here’s the good news. We now have our first batch of Startup Alley exhibitors listed on our website. You can peruse the list, do your research in the comfort of your home or office and get a clear idea of who you want to meet at Disrupt.

The website list also includes our recently announced TC Top Picks. We vetted hundreds of applications and narrowed the field down to 45 exceptional startups representing the best of these tech categories: AI/Machine Learning, Biotech/Healthtech, Blockchain, Fintech, Mobility, Privacy/Security, Retail/E-commerce, Robotics/IoT/Hardware, SaaS and Social Impact/Education. You don’t want to miss seeing what these startups have to offer.

Ready for more good news? It’s CrunchMatch, our free business match-making platform available to Innovator, Founder or Investor passholders. It makes networking so much easier. Once the platform goes live (we’ll email notification), simply create your CrunchMatch profile outlining specific roles, goals and the type of people you want to meet. Founders would list category, stage, location, funding status, etc. Investor profiles might include investment categories, preferred funding stage, geographic preferences and the like.

CrunchMatch goes to work and suggests meetings and sends out invitations (which recipients can easily accept or decline). You also can use CrunchMatch to reserve dedicated (a.k.a. quieter) meeting spaces where you can network in comfort.

Researching our online list of exhibiting startups in advance and taking advantage of CrunchMatch will save you time and shoe leather. It also will free you up to experience more of what Disrupt SF offers. Like the Startup Battlefield. You know you’re going to want to check out those amazing founders.

Use some of your time to take in the world-class speakers. Here’s just one example, but you’ll find plenty more in the Disrupt SF agenda:

• How to Evaluate Talent and Make Decisions: Ray Dalio knows a thing or two about building successful startups. As founder of the firm Bridgewater, he helped build it into one of the most successful investment companies ever, managing a whopping $150 billion in assets. He recently wrote a book called Principles, and he’s coming to the TechCrunch Disrupt Extra Crunch stage in October to discuss the book and companion mobile app on how building a strong culture can lead to a flourishing startup.

Disrupt San Francisco 2019 takes place on October 2-4, and now you can start strategizing your Disrupt experience by researching the Startup Alley exhibitors listed on our website. Save time, make money. Now that’s an opportunity.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt San Francisco 2019? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Discover the startups exhibiting at Disrupt SF 2019

H2O.ai‘s mission is to democratize AI by providing a set of tools that frees companies from relying on teams of data scientists. Today it got a bushel of money to help. The company announced a $72.5 million Series D round led by Goldman Sachs and Ping An Global Voyager Fund.

Previous investors Wells Fargo, Nvidia and Nexus Venture Partners also participated. Under the terms of the deal, Jade Mandel from Goldman Sachs will be joining the H2O.ai board. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $147 million.

It’s worth noting that Goldman Sachs isn’t just an investor. It’s also a customer. Company CEO and co-founder Sri Ambati says the fact that customers Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs have led the last two rounds is a validation for him and his company. “Customers have risen up from the ranks for two consecutive rounds for us. Last time the Series C was led by Wells Fargo where we were their platform of choice. Today’s round was led by Goldman Sachs, which has been a strong customer for us and strong supporters of our technology,” Ambati told TechCrunch.

The company’s main product, H2O Driverless AI, introduced in 2017, gets its name from the fact it provides a way for people who aren’t AI experts to still take advantage of AI without a team of data scientists. “Driverless AI is automatic machine learning, which brings the power of a world-class data scientists in the hands of everyone. lt builds models automatically using machine learning algorithms of every kind,” Ambati explained.

They introduced a new recipe concept today, which provides all of the AI ingredients and instructions for building models for different business requirements. H2O.ai’s team of data scientists has created and open-sourced 100 recipes for things like credit risk scoring, anomaly detection and property valuation.

The company has been growing since its Series C round in 2017, when it had 70 employees. Today it has 175 and has tripled the number of customers since the prior round, although Ambati didn’t discuss an exact number. The company has its roots in open source and has 20,000 users of its open-source products, according to Ambati.

He didn’t want to discuss valuation and wouldn’t say when the company might go public, saying it’s early days for AI and they are working hard to build a company for the long haul.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | H2O.ai announces .5M Series D led by Goldman Sachs

A pair of digital news companies are teaming up, with PressReader acquiring News360.

PressReader was founded back in 1999 as Newspaper Direct. It now operates a platform that converts newspapers and magazines into digital formats, while offering a $29.99 monthly subscription that provides unlimited access to more than 7,000 of those titles.

News360, meanwhile, is relatively youthful, having been founded in 2010. It has also created a news aggregation app, but the announcement makes it sound like PressReader was particularly interested in the company’s NativeAI technology for analytics and personalization.

In a statement, PressReader CEO Alex Kroogman suggested that News360’s technology will be used to improve PressReader’s consumer experience and publisher tools:

In a world where news fatigue is a real and growing problem, and media literacy a global concern, it’s more important than ever for people to have access to the trusted content they need in an engaging environment. By understanding each person’s interests, and building advanced data science systems around content analytics, we will be able to give our millions of readers the trusted media they want, how they want it, when they want it, and where they want it, while building more audience intelligence into the data that drives our publisher and brand partnerships.

The News360 team will be joining PressReader and working out of the acquiring company’s Vancouver headquarters.

News360 CEO Roman Karachinsky told me via email that the combined company will continue to support the News360 app and “develop it alongside the PressReader apps,” but he added, “In the short-term[,] the team will be focused on adding News360 tech into PressReader, so I wouldn’t expect big changes to the News360 app until we’re done with this.”

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. According to Crunchbase, News360 has raised a total of $7.5 million from investors, including Ordell Capital.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | PressReader aims to add more personalization to its digital news platform by acquiring News360

NurseFly, a startup that created a job marketplace for short-term nursing positions, is announcing its acquisition by holding company IAC.

While the companies aren’t disclosing the deal terms, a source with knowledge of the acquisition said the price was $15 million.

Co-founder and CEO Parth Bhakta told me that hospitals often hire travel nurses (signed for contracts of 13 weeks or a few months) when there’s a staffing shortage, or just because of seasonal needs. He said job sites aren’t really designed to fill these positions, while the existing, offline hiring process is “opaque,” where a nurse’s application “kind of goes into a black hole.”

On NurseFly, on the other hand, nurses can compare multiple offers, chat with employers and research the cost-of-living in different locations. The startup works directly with staffing agencies, charging them a subscription fee (the nurses use the site for free) for access to a pool of qualified candidates who have already provided the necessary documentation.

The startup was founded in 2017 and says it currently has more than 30,000 active job listings, with revenue growing 6x year-over-year. It’s headquartered in San Francisco and recently opened an additional office in Denver.

Bhakta described IAC as the “perfect partner” to help NurseFly “really go after the opportunity with additional resources, really go after it more aggressively with a larger team and organization, to create the best place for healthcare job seekers.”

Bhakta and his co-founder/CTO Eric Conner will continue to lead NurseFly post-acquisition. The company will become part of IAC’s Emerging & Other segment, which already includes staffing platform Bluecrew, and Bluecrew CEO Adam Roston will become NurseFly’s chairman.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | IAC acquires nursing marketplace NurseFly for M

The Los Angeles-based gaming company Scopely is expanding its geographical footprint in Spain and Ireland.

The company is building out its Barcelona offices, tripling its office space and planning to significantly expand its 100-person-strong team in the city. Meanwhile, Scopely is also planning to invest heavily in expanding its strategy-focused game studio, DIGIT, in Dublin.

Scopely didn’t say how many jobs it would be adding in either location.

The company has now hit lifetime revenue of more than $1 billion across its franchises and recently launched “Star Trek Fleet Command” and “Looney Tunes World of Mayhem.” Scopely also has licenses to develop games for World Wrestling Entertainment and The Walking Dead franchise.

“We are thrilled to expand our European footprint to accommodate our exponential growth,” said Javier Ferreira, co-CEO of Scopely, in a statement. “I am excited to further lean in to the Barcelona market, which has top-quality talent. The same is true in Dublin with top tech talent flocking to the area, and both offices have amassed impressive highly-specialized expertise. Our Dublin and Barcelona teams play a critical role in the Scopely journey, and we are actively hiring across both markets.”

The company also plans to double its footprint in its hometown of Los Angeles in 2020.

The company has raised more than $250 million in financing to date, from investors including Greenspring Associates, Greycroft Partners, Revolution Growth, Evolution Media Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Horizons Ventures, Sands Capital Ventures, The Chernin Group, Take-Two Interactive, Kobe Bryant, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Peter Guber, Jimmy Iovine and Brendan Iribe.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | LA-based gaming company, Scopely, expands in Spain and Ireland

Starship Technologies invented the category of rolling autonomous sidewalk delivery robots, and to date, the company has made more than 100,000 commercial deliveries on behalf of customers. The milestone comes as Starship adds $40 million in Series A funding, bringing its total funding to $85 million. When it announced an additional $25 million in June 2018, Starship was also piloting its first university deployment — and now the company has a plan to expand to 100 university campuses over the next two years based on the strength of that pilot.

“When I came on board, I was testing a whole bunch of different go-to-market strategies,” explained Starship Technologies CEO Lex Bayer. “We were testing grocery delivery, university campuses, corporate campuses, industrial campuses, and we’ve actually seen tremendous traction on most of these environments. Our grocery business north of London, in Milton Keynes, is going exceptionally well […] But one of the experiments was to try university campuses. And I think, you know, as a company that’s a startup still, we have to always focus and have sequencing in terms of how we grow. And the university campus has just been pulling our business forward — not only our students pulling it, meaning there are more orders than the restaurant or the robots can keep up with and we had to add restaurants and add hours. And so we’ve seen signal from the students, but we’ve also seen signal from universities reaching out to us, and from the food service providers.”

This vertical focus on post-secondary schools will see Starship robots deployed at the University of Pittsburgh today, and Purdue University in Indiana on September 9, with many more to follow. Starship’s ambitious goal is to deploy at 100 schools within the next two years, as mentioned, and it’s going to be using this funding in pursuit of that expansion. The market appetite is strong, as Bayer notes, and it’s a way to show that the robots can operate in all kinds of environments, in and among campuses that blend seamlessly with public city streets and sidewalks. Plus, the student population has proven the ideal initial customer base.

“I think, you know, starting with the younger generation is always great for that,” Bayer said. “Because so much of the way they see the world is the way the world can be; they’re not encumbered by all of the past and the way things were done before. And so when you present them with a better solution, they just use it and they say, ‘Oh, this is how things should be normally. This is the way things should be moving forward.’ ”

And that perceived normalcy leads to high utilization: One of the robots serving one of the universities where Starship operates manages to drive the equivalent of the distance between San Francisco and New York City, which is quite an accomplishment when you consider that they only travel at a top speed of four miles per hour. Starship’s all-electric delivery robots have, in total, racked up 350,000 miles across its delivery trips, and delivered 9,000 rolls and 15,000 bananas, among various other grocery and food items.

“The first few years were really proving that this could be done, and that this technology is even possible,” Bayer explained. “And so it took us four years to get to the first 10,000 deliveries. And then it took us eight months to go from 10,000 deliveries to 50,000 deliveries, and now it’s taken us less than four months to get to 100,000. So that is a major milestone, and we’re the first autonomous vehicle company to do that. It’s something we’re obviously very proud of. But it really shows the sort of inflection that our company’s going through and how we’re really scaling up.”

Starship’s funding this round was led by Morpheus Ventures, and included existing investors Shasta Ventures, Matrix Partners, MetaPlanet Holdings and more, along with new investors TDK Ventures, Qu Ventures and others.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Starship Technologies raises M, crosses 100K deliveries and plans to expand to 100 new universities

The dog days of summer are upon us, and even busy startuppers across Europe are enjoying a well-deserved vacation. Down time’s important and so is saving money, so all this week we’re holding a 2-for-1 summer flash sale on passes to Disrupt Berlin 2019.

Disrupt Berlin takes place on 11-12 December and, depending on the type of pass you buy, our super early-bird pricing can save you up to €600. But now you can double your savings simply by purchasing an Innovator, Founder or Investor pass before our 2-for-1 flash sale ends on August 23 at 11:59 p.m. (CEST). Buy your 2-for-1 passes right here.

Experience all the early-stage startup excitement and opportunity that Disrupt Berlin offers and do it at a huge discount. Join your community — roughly 3,000 attendees from more than 50 countries, including European Union members, Israel, Turkey, Russia, Egypt, India, China and South Korea. Explore hundreds of early-stage startups exhibiting in Startup Alley. Listen to and learn from our roster of speakers — leading founders, technologists, investors and tech icons along with up-and-coming founders.

Be sure to watch — or even better apply to compete in — the Startup Battlefield pitch competition. TechCrunch editors will select some of the best early-stage startups to go head-to-head on the Disrupt Main Stage. Who knows, you might take home the $50,000 top prize or find your next investment opportunity.

More opportunity awaits in the form of TC Top Picks. Apply here to be one of a select few startups to represent these tech categories: AI/Machine Learning, Biotech/Healthtech, Blockchain, Fintech, Mobility, Privacy/Security, Retail/E-commerce, Robotics/IoT/Hardware, CRM/Enterprise and Education. If you’re chosen, you’ll receive a free Startup Alley Exhibitor Package, a VIP experience and a ton of media and investor exposure. What’s more, a TechCrunch editor will interview every TC Top Pick on the Showcase Stage. We’ll record that interview and promote the video across our social media platforms. That video will drive traffic to your site and come in mighty handy as a future talking point with investors.

Disrupt Berlin 2019 takes place on 11-12 December. Don’t let sleepy summer days distract you from serious summer savings. You have the rest of this week to double your savings on Innovator, Founder or Investor passes. Buy your 2-for-1 passes before our flash sale ends on August 23 at 11:59 p.m. (CEST). We’ll see you in December!

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt Berlin 2019? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Summer flash sale: Score 2-for-1 passes to Disrupt Berlin 2019