Top tech startup news stories you need to know this Monday, April 9

Good morning! Here are some of the top tech startup news stories today Monday, April 9.

Porsche Buys Minority Stake In Mobility AI Startup Anagog. Porsche Digital has bought a minority-stake position in the Israel-based mobility sector AI startup Anagog to complement its existing “digital innovation” portfolio. Anagog’s AI algorithms help app developers understand the mobility status and location of smartphone users and enable global real-time data analytics. Its system architecture provides on-device mobility status detection, with cloud-based processing power, deep learning, and an analytics platform.

China’s SenseTime raises $600 million to become the most valuable artificial intelligence (AI) startup in the world. China’s SenseTime is now the most valuable artificial intelligence (AI) startup in the world with new US$600 million Series C round of funding. The current funding round is led by Alibaba Group with participation from Temasek and Suning. The new funding will be used to build SenseTime’s AI platform, advancing the company’s technological innovation and opening up new business opportunities.

Tencent partners with education startup Age of Learning to bring popular English learning app, ABCmouse, to China. Tencent, the China’s web giant, has partnered with education startup Age of Learning, to bring the popular ABCMouse English learning app to China. ABCMouse is an expert-designed immersive language learning app that provides Chinese children with an essential foundation for English conversational fluency and literacy.

Noon Home, an IoT startup is calling for lower cost AI chips.  Noon Home designs  lighting system for smart homes called for cheaper SoCs and DRAMs to bring machine learning to the Internet of Things. Noon Home is currently not using neural networks yet because of high cost of AI chips. The company is calling for low cost for AI chips. “We look to single-digit component costs…[and] a lot of AI apps require a lot of memory bandwidth,” said Saket Vora, a former engineering manager on the first Apple Watch and now head of hardware engineering at Noon Home said.

Antler secures $3 million to groom startups in Singapore and Asia. Founded by Zalora co-Founders, the Singapore-based startup Antler announced today that it has closed a US$3 million seed round to fund its operations. Its investors include John Riady, Director of the Lippo Group in Indonesia, Ole Ruch, Managing Director at WeWork (previously Managing Director of northern Europe Airbnb), Birger Nergaard, founder of Verdane Capital, and Andreas Ehn, first CTO at Spotify. Antler describes itself as a ‘startup generator’, and has the aim of turning “the world’s best talent into great founders of great companies” by formalising the “first stage in the business building ecosystem of incubators and accelerators.”

Facebook announces ad changes and suspended another data firm. As Zuckerberg prepares his testimony and meet with U.S. lawmakers today, the social network giant announced it would verify the identity of an organization running political or social issue ads.

Mexican startup Flyr raised a total of $6 million to democratize social-TV advertisement. Flyr, a Mexican startup in Silicon Beach, announced it has raised the additional US $1 million through a strategic alliance with Renderfam Studios. The startup initially raised $5 million to build a social network. Flyr employs a dozen graphic designers in Mexico, creating more than 10,000 stunning video templates ready to be customized and shared in social networks.

The Saudi crown prince finished his tour in Silicon Valley. As Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, concluded his visit to the United States, he visited Apple, Facebook, Alphabet and met investor Peter Thiel.