Top tech startup news stories you need to know on the first day of 2018

Happy New Year! It’s a slow day of the year. Here are top tech startup news stories you need to know on the first day of 2018.

Silicon Valley AI chip startup Gyrfalcon Technology competes with Intel with its newly launched USB stick. Gyrfalcon Technology Inc, a Silicon-Valley-based AI chip maker startup has launched its Laceli™ AI Compute Stick.  This is the startup’s first ultra-low power, high performance AI processor Lightspeeur® 2801S, the Laceli™ AI Compute Stick. It runs a 2.8 TOPS performance within 0.3 Watt of power, which is 90 times more efficient than the Movidius USB Stick (0.1 TOPS within 1 Watt of power). Gyrfalcon Technology is the world’s leading developer of low-cost, low-power, high-performance Artificial Intelligence (AI) processors. Founded by veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Gyrfalcon Technology aims to expand the power of cloud Artificial Intelligence to local devices with greater performance and efficiency.

Amazon may back online insurance startup Acko.  Amazon is in the final stages of investing in India-based online-only insurance startup Acko, people familiar with the matter said. Besides being its distributor, Amazon will work with Acko to jointly create financial products with Acko.

Alibaba to invest $100 million in logistics startup XpressBees. Alibaba is investing $100 million in the backbone of Indian-based commerce logistics startup, XpressBees. With This Deal, Alibaba’s Total Investment In India Will Reach Over $1.7 billion.  XpressBees was founded in 2015 by Amitava Saha and Supam Maheshwari. The startup provides   last-mile delivery, reverse logistics, payment collection, drop shipping, vendor management, cross-border services, fulfillment services and tailored software solutions.

AI startup ObEN wants to make a digital copy of every person in the world.  Germanny-based startup ObEN, has raised $5 million for advance technology that gives ultimately everyone in the world a 3D avatar that looks and sounds like them. ObEN’s latest funding was led by Tencent last summer. “Oben,” in German means “above,” or to be on top. ObEN was founded by its CEO Nikhil Jain.

Japan’s NEC and Tel Aviv University Launch Cyber Startup Incubator. Japanese information technology provider NEC Corporation is partnering with Tel Aviv University to launch a mentorship program for early-stage cyber startups, the university announced Monday.

New Washington DC-based AI startup, Fastfood.ai, launches artificially intelligent SMS chatbot for restaurant fans.  New Washington-based startup, Fastfood.ai, has developed an Ai-powered SMS chatbot that automates restaurant takeout and delivery service. Foodies can now text takeout or delivery orders while restaurants easily manage the orders and view live sales analytics from the web and mobile app.