Andrew Ng officially launches his $175M AI FundAs the founder of the Google Brain deep learning project and co-founder of Coursera, Andrew Ng was one of the most recognizable names in the machine learning community when he became Baidu’s chief scientist in 2014. He left there in early 2017 and quickly launched a number of new AI projects, including the Deeplearning.ai course and Landing.ai, a project that aims to bring AI to manufacturing companies. It turns out that what he was really working on, though, was his AI Fund (which isn’t really a fund in the traditional sense), which we first reported last summer. NEA leads $21m round for Drop, a rewards app for millennialsEveryone loves free stuff, apparently including VC investors. Toronto-based Drop, whose app allows consumers to collect points for transactions they make and then receive reward offers, has secured a $21 million Series A round led by Rick Yang at NEA. The company has previously raised about $5 million in seed capital over the past year. [ Tech Crunch ] 20 Paytm Employees Turn Millionaires After Sale of Company SharesOver 100 former and current Paytm employees became millionaires, as the country’s second largest start-up completed stock sales worth Rs 500 crore, Hindustan Times reported. This includes Rs 300 crore from the latest secondary sale of shares, which valued the company at $10 billion. [ The Quint ] Wag — with the heavy imprint of SoftBank — is replacing its CEO and accepting $300 million in cashThe dog-walking company Wag is replacing its CEO as it prepares to accept an investment from SoftBank that would offer the Japanese investor substantial control in the startup. Wag said on Tuesday that Hilary Schneider, an experienced executive who most recently led LifeLock, would replace the company’s co-founder, Josh Viner, as its CEO. Viner’s departure comes as Wag accepts $300 million in an unusual deal that is expected to give SoftBank a 45 percent stake in the company. [ Recode ] Early Coinbase employee is a raising a VC fundPolychain Capital, a cryptocurrency hedge fund founded by early Coinbase employee Olaf Carlson-Wee, is raising a traditional venture capital fund, per an SEC filing. Why it matters: Fundraising via digital tokens—known as "initial coin offerings"—has been hailed as the new way for startups to get funding, but Polychain's VC fund suggests that there's still a place for traditional equity investing. [ Axios ] SERIES 24: Fireside Chat with Karl Ronn5 Tips for Scaling Tech Teams from an Instagram Vet“SF has all the great engineering talent.” It’s a decades-old myth that’s permeated NYC Tech, and one that people can’t seem to easily shake. We field questions all the time from concerned founders about how to find great engineers, where they’re hiding in NYC, and their particular areas of expertise. Our answer to them? Our city is rife with world-class talent, and it continues to attract high-caliber engineers from across the country. To help founders find those top-flight technicians - and to help those engineers get to know each other - we built the Primary100, a curated community of the city’s leading principal and senior engineers. [ Primary VC ] Secrets or Knowledge? Uber-Waymo Trial Tests Silicon Valley CultureAfter nearly a year of legal wrangling, dramatic last-minute delays and uncooperative witnesses, a jury will soon hear arguments in Waymo’s high-profile lawsuit accusing Uber of stealing driverless car technology. The trial, which is scheduled to start with jury selection on Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, pits Waymo, a spinoff of Google and one of the most successful companies from the dot-com boom, against Uber, the ride-hailing giant and today’s most valuable start-up. At stake is a leading role in the intense competition among tech and auto companies to create autonomous vehicles. The dispute hinges on the actions of a former star engineer at Google who started his own company and then sold it to Uber within a year. Did he steal thousands of Google computer files as he headed out the door and bring those files with him to Uber? [ NY TImes ] Suitsupply Braves Silicon Valley With New StoreIn the era of street style stardom, the concept of suit and tie may begin to seem dated. However, even social media data suggests otherwise. Instagram account Daily Suits has over one million followers and curated pages such as Mensuits, Men.In.Suits and SuitSharks enjoy a healthy followership in the tens of thousands. Hollywood’s “hardest worker in the room”, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson frequently delights his nearly 100 million followers with suited looks from the set of HBO’s highest rated show Ballers! The suit is not only here to stay; it’s enjoying a commercial Renaissance. In fast fashion retail paradigm, one brand committed to fine tailoring is rising out of the sartorial ashes: Suitsupply. In fact, they just scored a bespoke coup d'état by opening a new store in the heart of Silicon Valley. The 34th Stateside location lands on Santana Row in San Jose, California. With Apple, Adobe, EBay and other tech giants headquartered in the Santa Clara county, the Dutch label is confident in its creative millennial appeal. [ Forbes ] Hawaii Missile Alert Wasn’t Accidental, Officials Say, Blaming WorkerStartup Of The Week: QuizletMeet Andrew Sutherland, the founder and CTO of Quizlet, the user-powered learning platform used by more than 30 million students and teachers each month. Andrew founded Quizlet in 2005 while a sophomore at Albany High School in California, originally building a simple website to help himself study French vocabulary. He studied computer science at MIT, which he left after three years to continue working on Quizlet. As CTO, Andrew is in charge of building the technology that powers more than 200 million study sets and allows millions of students to learn more efficiently. In 2012 and 2013, he was featured in Forbes Magazine's 30 under 30 List for Education. [ Forbes ] Just your type: This fitness startup draws inspiration from the online dating worldRead This Before Joining as Employee 1 to 20 at a StartupWeChat Flourishes At Home While Tencent Invests AbroadInterview with Peggy Johnson, Executive VP of Business DevelopmentUber sells its Xchange Leasing portfolio to car leasing startup FairRed Hat acquires CoreOS for $250 million in Kubernetes expansionFive Things To Consider When Launching Your StartupFor the past seven years, I have engrossed myself in the entrepreneurial world. During these years, I have run three startups, which has provided me with invaluable knowledge so early in my career. Throughout my time running various startups in different sectors, I've learned five things I feel all entrepreneurs should consider when starting a business: Product Need: AI still has a long way to go before it can completely replace humans, says Clara Labs’ CEO Maran NelsonFools and their crypto |