Joyce Shen’s picks: musings and readings in AI/ML, August 18, 2025
5-minute weekly must-read on data science and artificial intelligence news, funding, and research, curated by Joyce J. Shen.
📌 Musings and Readings
Margaret Boden, Philosopher of Artificial Intelligence, passed away in the UK. (Link)
AI-generated models shake up the fashion industry and raise concerns. (Link)
C.E.O.s Want Their Companies to Adopt A.I. But Do They Get It Themselves? (Link)
Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Gateway, a competitor to MCP and Agent2Agent. (Link)
Scaling LLM Reinforcement Learning with Prolonged Training Using ProRL v2. (Link)
👏 Deals
Alkymi, a NYC-based company leveraging AI and machine learning to automate the extraction, transformation, and processing of business data, has raised strategic financing of an undisclosed amount.
Certivity, a Germany-based RegTech company offering identity verification and authentication solutions to streamline compliance, secure digital transactions, and enhance customer onboarding, has raised €13.3M in Series A financing.
Stackgini, a Germany-based company focused on streamlining accounting, reporting, and auditing processes for regulatory compliance, has raised in pre-seed financing.
Xpand, an Israel-based retail technology startup providing AI-powered, cloud-based solutions to automate sales, customer engagement, and workflow management, has raised $6m in financing.
DealOps, a CA-based company focused on sales lifecycle automation, has raised $7m in financing.
Mako, a NYC-based company developing an AI-powered platform that automates and optimizes DevOps processes, has raised $8.5m in seed financing.
Tilk, a London-based company providing an AI-driven marketing automation platform that enables businesses to personalize customer engagement, optimize campaigns, and increase conversions across multiple channels, has raised $2.2m in pre-seed financing.
Continua AI, a NYC-based company that enables activity planning among group conversations, has raised $8m in seed financing.
Drivepoint, a MA-based company building a FP&A platform that helps consumer brands automate financial forecasting, scenario planning, and reporting, has raised $9m in financing.
Infinity Loop, a NYC-based company developing an AI-native contract intelligence platform that helps enterprises uncover savings, assess risk, and optimize vendor negotiations, has raised $5m in seed financing.
Studio Atelico, a CA-based AI-first gaming startup creating on-device generative AI tools that enable developers to build immersive, dynamic game worlds, has raised $5m in seed financing.