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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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PO clarous Director General Zoom also uses AI avatar during a quarterly connection

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Zoom CEO Eric Yuan

General directors at the moment are so immersed in artificial intelligence that they send their avatars to cope with quarterly connections from earnings as a substitute, a minimum of partly.

After AI Avatar CEO CEO appeared on the investor’s conversation firstly of this week, the final director of Zoom Eric Yuan also followed them, also Using his avatar for preliminary comments. Yuan implemented his non -standard avatar via Zoom Clips, an asynchronous company video tool.

“I am proud that I am one of the first general directors who used the avatar in a call for earnings,” he said – or fairly his avatar. “This is just one example of how Zoom shifts the limits of communication and cooperation. At the same time, we know that trust and security are necessary. We take seriously the content generated AI and build strong security to prevent improper use, protect the user’s identity and ensure that avatars are used responsibly.”

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Yuan has long been in favor of using avatars at meetings and previously said that the corporate goals to create Digital user twins. He just isn’t alone on this vision; The CEO of transcript -powered AI, apparently, trains its own avatar Share the load.

Meanwhile, Zoom said he was doing it Avatar non -standard function available To all users this week.

(Tagstranslat) meetings AI

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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The next large Openai plant will not be worn: Report

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Sam Altman speaks onstage during The New York Times Dealbook Summit 2024.

Opeli pushed generative artificial intelligence into public consciousness. Now it might probably develop a very different variety of AI device.

According to WSJ reportThe general director of Opeli, Altman himself, told employees on Wednesday that one other large product of the corporate would not be worn. Instead, it will be compact, without the screen of the device, fully aware of the user’s environment. Small enough to sit down on the desk or slot in your pocket, Altman described it each as a “third device” next to MacBook Pro and iPhone, in addition to “Comrade AI” integrated with on a regular basis life.

The preview took place after the OpenAI announced that he was purchased by IO, a startup founded last 12 months by the previous Apple Joni Ive designer, in a capital agreement value $ 6.5 billion. I will take a key creative and design role at Openai.

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Altman reportedly told employees that the acquisition can ultimately add 1 trillion USD to the corporate conveyorsWearing devices or glasses that got other outfits.

Altman reportedly also emphasized to the staff that the key would be crucial to stop the copying of competitors before starting. As it seems, the recording of his comments leaked to the journal, asking questions on how much he can trust his team and the way rather more he will be able to reveal.

(Tagstotransate) devices

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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The latest model AI Google Gemma can work on phones

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It grows “open” AI Google, Gemma, grows.

While Google I/O 2025 On Tuesday, Google removed Gemma 3N compresses, a model designed for “liquid” on phones, laptops and tablets. According to Google, available in a preview starting on Tuesday, Gemma 3N can support sound, text, paintings and flicks.

Models efficient enough to operate in offline mode and without the necessity to calculate within the cloud have gained popularity within the AI ​​community lately. They will not be only cheaper to make use of than large models, but they keep privacy, eliminating the necessity to send data to a distant data center.

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During the speech to I/O product manager, Gemma Gus Martins said that GEMMA 3N can work on devices with lower than 2 GB of RAM. “Gemma 3N shares the same architecture as Gemini Nano, and is also designed for incredible performance,” he added.

In addition to Gemma 3N, Google releases Medgemma through the AI ​​developer foundation program. According to Medgemma, it’s essentially the most talented model to research text and health -related images.

“Medgemma (IS) OUR (…) A collection of open models to understand the text and multimodal image (health),” said Martins. “Medgemma works great in various imaging and text applications, thanks to which developers (…) could adapt the models to their own health applications.”

Also on the horizon there may be SignGEMMA, an open model for signaling sign language right into a spoken language. Google claims that Signgemma will allow programmers to create recent applications and integration for users of deaf and hard.

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“SIGNGEMMA is a new family of models trained to translate sign language into a spoken text, but preferably in the American sign and English,” said Martins. “This is the most talented model of understanding sign language in history and we are looking forward to you-programmers, deaf and hard communities-to take this base and build with it.”

It is value noting that Gemma has been criticized for non -standard, non -standard license conditions, which in accordance with some developers adopted models with a dangerous proposal. However, this didn’t discourage programmers from downloading Gemma models tens of tens of millions of times.

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(Tagstransate) gemma

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This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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