Microsoft Is Acquiring London’s AI-Driven SwiftKey For $250M

Microsoft is understood to be acquiring London-based SwiftKey, the startup which employed artificial intelligence to create a ground-breaking predictive smartphone keyboard, according to sources. The Financial Times is reporting that the deal is “around $250m”. TechCrunch understands the figure is just under that amount. UPDATE: Investor sources say the deal, which is all-cash, is definitely going through and will be announced imminently.

UPDATE 2: It’s confirmed.

The companies are understood to have been in talks for a number of months. Staff were told earlier today about the deal. SwiftKey declined to comment.

SwiftKey raised a total of $21.59 million from Octopus Ventures and Index Ventures, while UK celebrity Stephen Fry was an early angel investor.

SwiftKey’s keyboard and SDK is now on more than 500 million Android and iOS smartphones. And while its technology is hugely time-saving for users, the AI-powered platform could have far more uses for Microsoft than just keyboards. The predictive engine behind that keyboard could be put to many more uses.

Furthermore, by acquiring SwiftKey’s staf, and founders Dr. Ben Medlock (CTO) and Jon Reynolds (CEO), they are getting a kick-ass team which is so at the forefront of AI that even Professor Stephen Hawking has praised their work after they worked on a project to enhance the communication system used by the world-renowned scientist.

Here’s how SwiftKey works:

Comments

Best Web Design Company in Pondicherry

#Technology has two faces. We all feel it, but sometimes can’t find words to describe it. #Ebooks are the best example to show the 0-1 nature of emotions the #technology evokes. #itwhere provide a #Best #solutions to #Growyourbusiness feel free to drop a #Mail info@itwheretech.co.in www.itwheretech.co.in

Trump cites Facebook exec’s comments downplaying Russian ad influence on election

You’d be forgiven for missing Donald Trump’s multiple retweets of Facebook executive Rob Goldman over the weekend. Perhaps you were spending time with family, watching Black Panther or just attempting to forget politics for a moment by ignoring the manic flurry of social media updates from the leader of the free world. But in amongst a deluge of tweets that blamed Democrats for failing to preserve DACA, called out the FBI over the recent school shooting in Florida on the FBI and affectionately referred to a member of congress as “Liddle’ Adam Schiff, the leakin’ monster of no control,” the President cited Facebook’s VP of Ads as evidence against claims that his campaign colluded with Russia. “The Fake News Media never fails,” Trump tweeted over the weekend. “Hard to ignore this fact from the Vice President of Facebook Ads, Rob Goldman!” Trump was citing Goldman’s own Twitter dump over the past week, responding to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recent indictment of 13 Russian...

South Korea aims for startup gold

Back in 2011, when South Korea won its longshot bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics, the country wasn’t widely recognized as a destination for ski and snow lovers. It wasn’t considered much of a tech startup hub either. Fast forward seven years and a lot has changed. For the next 10 days, the eyes of the world will be on the snowy slopes of PyeongChang. Meanwhile, a couple of hours away in Seoul, a burgeoning startup scene is seeing investments multiply, generating exits and even creating a unicorn or two. While South Korea doesn’t get a perfect score as a startup innovation hub, it has established itself as a serious contender. More than half a billion dollars annually has gone to seed through late-stage funding rounds for the past few years. During that time, at least two companies, e-commerce company Coupang and mobile-focused content and commerce company Yello Mobile, have established multi-billion-dollar valuations. To provide a broader picture of how South Korea stacks ...

Workato Chat Bot Brings Enterprise Workflow Into Slack

As we head into 2016, enterprise chat applications like Slack are suddenly a hot commodity, and if you’re inside chat a good portion of the day the argument goes, you should be able to access other work without leaving the chat client. This is exactly what Workato’s newly announced chat bot, Workbot, is designed to do. Chat bots are small programs that integrate with a chat platform and provide some advanced type of functionality in a fairly easy fashion. The new Workbot-chat bot enables users to access and control over 100 enterprise applications such as a Salesforce CRM record, Quickbooks accounting information or Zendesk customer service interactions directly inside of Slack. One of the primary issues with early Enterprise 2.0 tools was that they were just another application busy employees needed to pay attention to. The idea here is to give users customer information directly in the context of the discussion they may be having...

Smart savings app Clinc is a new fintech startup from ex-CEO and founder of Numbrs

Last April, Julien Arnold quietly left his role as CEO of Numbrs, the mobile-first banking app he co-founded with Swiss company builder Centralway. Now, almost a year on, he’s on the verge of launching his next project: Clinc , a mobile app to make it easier to save money for a future purchase or financial rainy day. Using what Arnold describes as a “dynamic intelligence algorithm,” Clinc promises to track your current account spending and analyse the results to find the optimum amount to save each month, which is then automatically deposited into your Clinc savings account underpinned by the startup’s partner bank. The secret sauce, which he won’t go much into detail on, is that the app is dynamic, able to make on-the-fly adjustments to how much you transfer to your savings account based on how your spending has changed or are predicted to change. In other words, Clinc’s central proposition is to help you achieve your financial goals faster. “This is the bigges...

Exciting Technology

Search This Blog