 German biotech company BioNTech and AI firm InstaDeep developed an AI-based "early warning system" to identify potentially dangerous coronavirus variants. In testing, the data-driven computational method flagged 12 of the 13 variants that the World Health Organization later classified as dangerous. On average, the system identified them two months before they received the designation. More: - The Early Warning System, or EWS, combines AI algorithms with spike protein structural modeling to detect and monitor high-risk variants of SARS-CoV-2.
- The system flagged Omicron on the same day its genomic sequence was uploaded to the Gisaid database in 2021, several days before the WHO labeled it a "variant of concern."
- It also detected the alpha, beta, gamma, theta, and eta variants within a week of upload.
Zoom-out: - A non-peer-reviewed paper detailing the system was published today on the academic repository bioRxiv.org. It was submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.
- BioNTech plans to make the tool freely available.
- The CDC and other public health organizations say new variants of the coronavirus "will continue to emerge."
FORTUNE 
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AI talent search engine SeekOut is now a unicorn following a $115M investment round led by Tiger Global Management. The Bellevue-based recruiting firm is now valued at $1.2B+, a 2.6x increase since its $65M Series B round in March. More: - Founded by former Microsoft execs and engineers in 2016, SeekOut uses machine learning and natural language to scrape the web and develop profiles of potential employees based on publicly available data.
- Its database contains 700 million+ profiles of candidates whose information was gleaned from GitHub, research papers, patents, Kaggle, LinkedIn, and elsewhere.
- The Washington-based company said revenue has grown 300%, its customer base has doubled, and its ARR has tripled to $25M-$50M in the past year.
- Globally, the HR recruitment market is projected to surpass $770B in 2022.
VENTUREBEAT
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 Nuro introduced a new driverless delivery vehicle with an external airbag to lower the risk of injuries from accidents. The third-generation flagship vehicle, also called Nuro, navigates roads using lidar, cameras, radar, and thermals. More: - Nuro has double the cargo volume of the company's second-gen vehicle, the R2, which launched two years ago.
- China's BYD North America will source the vehicle's hardware to help manufacture the units at Nuro's southern Nevada facility and test track, set to go online later this year.
- Nuro investor Kroger Co. signed a deal to use the new vehicle to deliver groceries in Houston.
- In November, Nuro announced a $600M funding round, led by Tiger Global Management, and a five-year partnership with Google Cloud to boost its vehicles' machine-learning capabilities.
THE ROBOT REPORT
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Placer.ai, a foot traffic data and location analytics platform, raised $100M at a $1B valuation. Product Hunt CEO Josh Buckley led the funding round, which included institutional backers such as Fifth Wall Ventures and Array Ventures, as well as angel investors. More: - Placer.ai's platform sources cell phone data to measure foot traffic at brick-and-mortar stores and gauge how they're performing.
- The data is analyzed to generate insights, such as the impact of marketing campaigns and sales performance over seasons.
- Real-estate companies also use the platform to identify potential acquisition opportunities. Other clients include manufacturers, office landlords, and residential companies.
- The new capital will allow Placer to double its headcounts, expand its R&D, and add new data types like vehicle and web traffic to its platform.
- Placer.ai has raised $166M to date.
CTECH BY CALCALIST
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The U.K. government has tapped its Alan Turing Institute, British Standards Institution, and the National Physical Laboratory to develop and shape global AI standards. The internationally recognized standards will help decide what rules are adopted to govern AI technologies. More: - The Alan Turing Insitute is the U.K.'s national research institute for AI and data science.
- Together, the three entities will form a newly announced AI Standards Hub as part of the U.K.'s 10-year National AI Strategy to become a global AI superpower.
- The Hub will develop the AI standards and lead an online platform and educational materials to help organizations learn more.
- The standards are meant to help the U.K. identify and develop good practices for AI development, governance, and use.
Zoom-out: - In 2020, U.K. businesses spent £16.7B ($23B) on AI technology and AI related-labor, according to Capital Economics.
- At least 432,000 businesses had adopted at least one AI technology in 2020.
- By 2040, the agency predicts 1.3 million+ U.K. businesses will use some form of AI. AI spending is expected to surpass £200B ($274B) that year.
COMPUTERWEEKLY.COM
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🍋 FRESH FUNDING 🍋 - Qraft Technologies (Seoul, South Korea), AI-based money management platform: $146M from SoftBank. The company was valued at $1.7B.
- Labelbox (San Francisco, Calif.), training data platform for enterprise machine learning applications: $110M D led by SoftBank's Vision Fund 2, participation from Snowpoint Ventures, Databricks Ventures, B Capital Group, Andreessen Horowitz and Catherine Wood, et al.
- iProov (London, U.K.), online biometric face authentication: $70M led by Sumeru Equity Partners.
- Avataar (Bangalore, India), AI/Computer Vision platform focused on spatial visual discovery: $45M B led by Tiger Global, participation from Sequoia Capital India.
- Doosan (Seoul, South Korea), collaborative robots for manufacturing use: $33.7M from Praxis Capital Partners, Korea Investment Partners.
- VeriSIM (San Francisco, Calif.), AI-based de-risker for breakthrough drug development: $15M A led by Morpheus Ventures, participation from Debiopharm Innovation Fund, Colorcon Ventures, et al.
- ReadyWorks (New York, N.Y.), AI-based risk reduction for IT infrastructure transformation: $8M A led by Credit Suisse Asset Management's NEXT Investors.
- Protai (Tel Aviv, Israel), AI-enabled drug discovery platform: $8M Seed led by Grove Ventures, Pitango HealthTech.
For the latest on AI startup funding and more in the VC community, subscribe to our newsletter Inside Venture Capital.
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- The World Economic Forum released an AI toolkit for C-Suite executives to help guide their organizations to use the technology responsibly.
- DeepScribe, an AI-enabled transcription platform for patient-doctor conversations, landed a $30M Series A led by Nina Achadjian at Index Ventures.
- AI sales coaching platform Second Nature secured $12.5M from Venture Capital, StageOne Ventures, Cardumen Capital, and Zoom Video through its Apps Fund.
- Digital mental health firm Headspace Health acquired Sayana, a developer of an AI and chat-based self-care app.
- ML drug discovery and development firm insitro hired former Facebook research scientist Theofanis Karaletsos as its VP of data science/machine learning.
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 |  | Beth is an Inside Analyst and a former public policy/investigative reporter. She has covered AI, VR, technology, and e-commerce for Inside. When she's not busy writing, she's hiking in Arizona's desert, playing pickleball, or trying out new Mexican food recipes. |   | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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