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Insight Partners supports Canary Technologies’ mission to enhance the quality of hotel guest experiences

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Harman Singh Narula and SJ Sawhney, co-founders of Canary Technologies

The hospitality industry is back, baby. And with that comes a chance for tech startups to not only help hotels streamline their operations, but in addition concentrate on how they’ll improve the guest experience.

“The modern traveler was born in a time when he is very good at using technology” – Harman Singh Narula, Canary Technologies said co-founder and CEO. “They have expectations. For example, they want to text the front desk instead of answering the phone.”

And with other options available, akin to Airbnb, hotels face competition in the market — competition that’s “really good at technology,” Narula said — and hotels have to take care of that.

Narula, together with long-time friend SJ Sawhney, founded Canary Technologies to provide this technology in order that hotels can offer higher, technology-enhanced guest experiences. Narula previously worked at Starwood Hotels & Resorts and was a management consultant at Bain & Company. Sawhney, the company’s president, led product and technology at Stayful, a reservation platform for independent and boutique hotels founded by the former president of Hotels.com.

They were part of Y Combinator’s summer 2018 cohort, and through that point they were developing software to handle offline booking processes and get rid of paper contracts.

Today, the hotel guest management technology company’s platform digitizes the hotel guest journey from booking to checkout with tools to manage mobile check-in/check-out, registrations, upsells, guest messaging and digital tipping.

It’s an idea that has caught on. Canary currently works with over 20,000 hoteliers worldwide across brands including Marriott International, Four Seasons, Choice Hotels, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Rosewood and Intercontinental Hotel Group.

The company has also grown over the past few years as hotels adopt additional Canary tools. Narula said that since 2022, the company’s revenue has increased by greater than 100%.

Venture capitalists are taking notice. In March, Mews, a hotel SaaS startup, raised $110 million at a valuation of $1.2 billion to help hotels higher manage IT. There can also be Life House, which offers software for hotel operators and owners, which last raised $60 million in 2021.

Now it’s Canary Technologies’ turn. The company has closed $50 million in Series C funding to support the broad rollout of AI technology for guests.

Narula said the financing led by Insight Partners was acquired by internal investors. While he didn’t provide a particular valuation, Narula said the valuation has greater than doubled since its $30 million Series B round in 2022. Insight also led that round.

In addition to Insight Partners, existing investors F-Prime Capital, Thayer Ventures, Y Combinator and Commerce Ventures joined the Series C round. This recent investment brings Canary’s total funding to date to nearly $100 million.

“In what has proven to be a challenging year for growth and performance in the technology ecosystem, we have seen Canary thrive and exceed its ambitious goals, prompting us to double down on spending,” Thomas Krane, managing director at Insight Partners, said in a press release. “We continue to be impressed by Harman, SJ and their tenacity and ability to deliver the best-in-class solutions hoteliers need most, and we are honored to be a part of the company’s journey.”

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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US medical device giant Artivion says hackers stole files during a cybersecurity incident

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Artivion, a medical device company that produces implantable tissue for heart and vascular transplants, says its services have been “disrupted” resulting from a cybersecurity incident.

In 8-K filing In an interview with the SEC on Monday, Georgia-based Artivion, formerly CryoLife, said it became aware of a “cybersecurity incident” that involved the “compromise and encryption” of information on November 21. This suggests that the corporate was attacked by ransomware, but Artivion has not yet confirmed the character of the incident and didn’t immediately reply to TechCrunch’s questions. No major ransomware group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Artivion said it took some systems offline in response to the cyberattack, which the corporate said caused “disruptions to certain ordering and shipping processes.”

Artivion, which reported third-quarter revenue of $95.8 million, said it didn’t expect the incident to have a material impact on the corporate’s funds.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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It’s a Raspberry Pi 5 in a keyboard and it’s called Raspberry Pi 500

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Manufacturer of single-board computers Raspberry Pi is updating its cute little computer keyboard device with higher specs. Named Raspberry Pi500This successor to the Raspberry Pi 400 is just as powerful as the present Raspberry Pi flagship, the Raspberry Pi 5. It is on the market for purchase now from Raspberry Pi resellers.

The Raspberry Pi 500 is the simplest method to start with the Raspberry Pi because it’s not as intimidating because the Raspberry Pi 5. When you take a look at the Raspberry Pi 500, you do not see any chipsets or PCBs (printed circuit boards). The Raspberry Pi is totally hidden in the familiar housing, the keyboard.

The idea with the Raspberry Pi 500 is you could connect a mouse and a display and you are able to go. If, for instance, you’ve got a relative who uses a very outdated computer with an outdated version of Windows, the Raspberry Pi 500 can easily replace the old PC tower for many computing tasks.

More importantly, this device brings us back to the roots of the Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi computers were originally intended for educational applications. Over time, technology enthusiasts and industrial customers began using single-board computers all over the place. (For example, when you’ve ever been to London Heathrow Airport, all of the departures and arrivals boards are there powered by Raspberry Pi.)

Raspberry Pi 500 draws inspiration from the roots of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a non-profit organization. It’s the right first computer for college. In some ways, it’s a lot better than a Chromebook or iPad because it’s low cost and highly customizable, which inspires creative pondering.

The Raspberry Pi 500 comes with a 32GB SD card that comes pre-installed with Raspberry Pi OS, a Debian-based Linux distribution. It costs $90, which is a slight ($20) price increase over the Raspberry Pi 400.

Only UK and US keyboard variants will probably be available at launch. But versions with French, German, Italian, Japanese, Nordic and Spanish keyboard layouts will probably be available soon. And when you’re in search of a bundle that features all the things you would like, Raspberry Pi also offers a $120 desktop kit that features the Raspberry Pi 500, a mouse, a 27W USB-C power adapter, and a micro-HDMI to HDMI cable.

In other news, Raspberry Pi has announced one other recent thing: the Raspberry Pi monitor. It is a 15.6-inch 1080p monitor that’s priced at $100. Since there are quite a few 1080p portable monitors available on the market, this launch is not as noteworthy because the Pi 500. However, for die-hard Pi fans, there’s now also a Raspberry Pi-branded monitor option available.

Image credits:Raspberry Pi

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Apple Vision Pro may add support for PlayStation VR controllers

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Vision Pro headset

According to Apple, Apple desires to make its Vision Pro mixed reality device more attractive for gamers and game developers latest report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

The Vision Pro was presented more as a productivity and media consumption device than a tool geared toward gamers, due partly to its reliance on visual and hand controls moderately than a separate controller.

However, Apple may need gamers if it desires to expand the Vision Pro’s audience, especially since Gurman reports that lower than half one million units have been sold to this point. As such, the corporate has reportedly been in talks with Sony about adding support for PlayStation VR2 handheld controllers, and has also talked to developers about whether they may support the controllers of their games.

Offering more precise control, Apple may also make other forms of software available in Vision Pro, reminiscent of Final Cut Pro or Adobe Photoshop.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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