March 25, 2022
Bridgestone backs May Mobility and U.K.’s AI office head quits.
AI Business brings you the latest in deals and products from across the AI world.
This week’s roundup covers a managerial bust-up at Ati Motors, Bored Ape’s big metaverse plans and more!
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Bored Ape makers raise $450M to fund ambitious metaverse platform
Yuga Labs, which is behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible token (NFT) collection has raised $450 million.
The startup is now planning on building its own metaverse called Otherside. The platform will also be ape-centric and is being created alongside Animoca, the developer of the blockchain-based game The Sandbox.
Also announced by Yuga was plans for a new cryptocurrency, dubbed ApeCoin, which will be used to power Otherside’s in-platform marketplace.
Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz led investors backing the startup, with crypto firms TX, Coinbase and MoonPay also splashing the cash on the NFT firm.
The funding announcement came a few weeks after it announced plans to acquire IP rights to the collection of popular NFT collections CryptoPunk and Meebit from Larva Labs.
While Yuga Labs values itself to be worth $4 billion, investor Mark Cuban told a panel at the recent SXSW conference that “insane” volume of NFTs is akin to the dotcom rush, and that it’s not sustainable.
Bridgestone backs Michigan AV developer
Tire makers Bridgestone have invested in autonomous vehicle developer May Mobility.
The Michigan-based firm will use its newly struck relationship with Bridgestone to expand its AV tech to new markets.
May Mobility will also be able to leverage support from Bridgestone’s mobile service provider Firestone Direct.
The AV startup will be able to integrate Bridgestone’s predictive tire wear modeling technology, which monitors tire health, pressure and temperature.
The decision to take a minority stake in May Mobility comes after Bridgestone recently announced partnerships with tire sensor firm Tyrata and Yoshi, a last-mile delivery platform for car care services.
Pitney Bowes to deploy more robotic parcel sorters in $23M expansion
Global shipping and mailing company Pitney Bowes is working alongside robotics firm Ambi to deploy units to sort parcels.
The pair announced a $23 million deployment expansion of AmbiSort systems in Pitney Bowes e-commerce hubs across the U.S.
The robots will help it speed parcel sortation to last-mile delivery providers, “while improving productivity, accuracy and worker safety.”
Ambi units have already been deployed at the mailing firm’s California e-commerce hub. The robots reportedly almost doubled the number of successfully sort parcels during the 2021 peak holiday season
The investment in Ambi’s Robot as a Service (RaaS) will be made over the next four years.