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October 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 19
Vedomosti daily reminds that similar services domestically were launched by Sberbank state- controlled bank with ambitious digital strategy and Rostelecom integrated telecom major. Rostelecom representatives previously told the daily that cloud services market in Russia is far from saturation and different players take on various specialisa- tion within the segment.
WayRay secures $80 million from international consortium, targets $1 billion valuation in 2019
Wayray, a startup with Russian origins which has developed holographic AR displays for cars, has attracted $80 million in a Series C round led by Porsche and China Merchants Capital, a major Chinese investment firm.
The other investors are Hyundai Motor, Alibaba Group, JVCKENWOOD and a consortium of sov- ereign funds. These include the Russia-Japan Investment Fund, established last year, alongside the Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, and Bahrein funds.
Now headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, Way- Ray offers “a virtual world around the car that moves and continuously changes in sync with the route and the driver’s preferences.”
The technology offers wide viewing angles while requiring less space for hardware and control systems, the company says. The solutions may be “customized for both drivers and passengers, conventional vehicles and self-driving cars, con- sumers (aftermarket) and businesses (OEMs).”
The new funding will be used to “bolster the com- pany’s focus on R&D, industrialization and team expansion to become a supplier of holographic AR solutions for car manufacturers,” according to WayRay’s press release.
Under plans, an affiliate with a pilot production line will be set up in Germany. The startup will also seek to diversify the application of its AR technol- ogy across different sectors — “from transporta-
tion to smart glass in the smart home business and construction industry.”
The startup, which has raised more than $100 million since its inception in 2012, aims to “be- come a unicorn by the end of 2019.”
Skolkovo to cooperate with Japan in the fields of AI, Big Data and IoT
Earlier this week, on the eve of the Eastern Eco- nomic Forum, the Skolkovo Foundation signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan’s IoT Acceleration Consortium. The agreement followed talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinz Abe in Rus- sia’s Far Eastern port city of Vladivostok.
The IoT Acceleration Consortium aims to foster the development of technologies related to the Internet of Things, Big Data and artificial intelligence.
Skolkovo, the international tech hub under com- pletion on the outskirts of Moscow, opened a Far East branch in Vladivostok in 2015. It is located on the campus of the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU).
During last year’s edition of the Eastern Eco- nomic Forum, the Skolkovo Foundation and FEFU launched a joint project: the Russky Technopark. In the last year, nearly 60 startups have become residents of the technopark, which for now con- centrates more on the range of services it offers than physical infrastructure, as reported by the Skolkovo Foundation.
Six months after initial investment, Grishin Robotics injects more millions into Brazilian bike-sharing service
Grishin Robotics, an international venture fund with Russian roots, has taken part in a $63 million funding round for the Brazilian stationless bicycle- sharing platform Yellow.