Memory, a startup out of Norway and maker of time tracking app Timely, has raised $5 million in further funding. Leading the round is Concentric, and Investinor, with participation from existing investor SNÖ Ventures. The company had previously raised $1 million in 2016 from 500 Startups, and SNÖ.

Founded by Mathias Mikkelsen, a designer by background and who I understand turned down a job offer at Facebook to try his hand at startup life, Memory is applying what it describes as AI and digital technology to create various tools to help solve “the abuses of time” that workers typically face in the modern workplace. The first of those abuses being tackled is the monotonous and time-consuming task of time tracking and filing time sheets — a meta problem if there ever was one.

“The problem we’re trying to solve is with time tracking, the most common currency of work that exists,” Mikkelsen tells me. “The problem is that people find it extremely painful to do and thus do it incorrectly. For example, what did you do last Friday? How long did it take? Humans are not built to remember that kind of detail and we shouldn’t be doing it. Harvard Business Review estimates that U.S. companies loose billions of dollars per day because of incorrect time tracking, so we think the potential is massive”.

The resulting product, dubbed Timely, is billed as a fully automatic time tracking tool. Powered by “AI”, it automatically records everything employees work on and then claims to create accurate time sheets on their behalf.

“We solve it with tons of data and machine learning,” says Mikkelsen. “We have built an ML model (recurring neural net) that literally tracks, completely privately and securely, everything you do in life. Files you work on, locations, websites, calendar, email, etc. Then we analyse all of that, make sense of it and automatically create a timesheet for you. We round up the time, choose projects, tags, all of it. It matches your individual pattern and the only thing our customers have to do is to hit an Accept button and you’re done with your timesheet”.

Mikkelsen says that Timely is currently used by more than 4,000 paying businesses across 160 countries, and that having created a complete “virtual memory” of time data, the Oslo startup is developing new tools to improve the “quality of time” and help businesses use time more effectively. As part of this effort, Memory will use the new funding to double its current 30-person team. It also plans on refining Timely’s AI model and to accelerate international growth.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Memory raises M to bring AI to time tracking

Formula E is so 2017. This year, it's all about Roborace, an upcoming F1-style competition. And the big new thing is that it's all about self-driving technology working with human drivers. I'm excited to announce that Roborace CEO Lucas DiGrassi will come to TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin to talk about this crazy idea.

DiGrassi may sound like a familiar name already as he's also a racing driver. He has competed in Formula One, Formula E and the World Endurance Championship. He’s also the current Formula E Champion. Clearly, DiGrassi is much better at parallel parking than I’ll ever be.

Racing has always been a great way to break new grounds for car manufacturers. Many of the technologies that you can find in your current car were first developed for endurance and Formula One competitions.

And it seems logical that the next radical step involves adding self-driving technology. Roborace will be a competition with self-driving cars that run using electric motors with the help of racing drivers. Cars will compete on the Formula E tracks.

Teams will share the same chassis, powertrain, sensors and Nvidia Drive PX 2 system on a chip. You can find radars, lidars and other sensors on each car. But, of course, each team will be able to customize their AI-powered algorithm to beat competitors. Right now, Roborace is testing the racing format alongside Formula E events.

I’m incredibly excited about meeting DiGrassi and talking about this new competition. And if you want to meet him too, you should buy your ticket to Disrupt Berlin to listen to this discussion and many others. The conference will take place on November 29-30.

In addition to fireside chats and panels, like this one, new startups will participate in the Startup Battlefield Europe to win the highly coveted Battlefield cup.

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Lucas DiGrassi

CEO, Roborace

Lucas DiGrassi is the CEO of Roborace, the world's first competition for human and artificial intelligent racing, making autonomous technology exciting and inspirational for a new generation of spectators.

Lucas is also a racing driver who has competed in Formula One, Formula E and the World Endurance Championship and is the current Formula E Champion.

He has been instrumental in building and growing the Formula E series over the past six years having joined as Special Advisor for the FE CEO Alejandro Agag back in 2012.

He is now bringing his business experience and extensive knowledge of racing, to Roborace, helping grow it into an established competition and cooperation of human and AI intelligence.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Roborace to augment racing drivers with robots at Disrupt

Samsung Electronics is betting that acquiring Zhilabs, a real-time networks analytics startup based in Barcelona, will ease its transition from 4G to 5G technologies. Financial details of the deal, which was announced today, have not been disclosed. Zhilabs will be fully owned by Samsung, but it will continue to operate independently under its own management.

The acquisition of Zhilabs is part of Samsung’s initiative, announced in August, to invest 25 trillion won (about $22 billion) in businesses working on AI, 5G, components for self-driving vehicles, and biopharmaceutical technologies.

In a statement, Youngky Kim, Samsung Electronic’s president and head of networks business, said “5G will enable unprecedented services attributed to the generation of exponential data traffic, for which automated and intelligent network analytics tools are vital. The acquisition of Zhilabs will help Samsung meet these demands to assure each subscriber receives the best possible service.”

Founded in 2008, Zhilabs’ products are used by customers including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Vodafone, and Telefonica to analyze and test network performance in real-time. Because its solutions allow service issues to be automatically detected and fixed, Zhilabs’ AI-based automation will help Samsung launch new services related to the industrial Internet of Things and smart cars.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Samsung acquires network analytics startup Zhilabs to help its transition to 5G