Top tech startup news stories you need to know this Tuesday, November 6

Good morning! Here are some of the top tech startup news stories for today, Tuesday, November 6.

CSIRO drone spinoff Emesent raises US$2.5 million. Emesent, a drone startup spun out of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), has raised US$2.5 million in a funding round to commercialize its Hovermap product and grow its staff of 23 people. The round was led by the CSIRO Innovation Fund, and joined by mining executive Andy Greig. Hovermap enables mapping of underground mines without GPS. Hovermap uses a drone and lidar to autonomously create 3D maps for underground areas. Emesent uses off-the-shelf DJI drones fitted with LIDAR sensors and enough computing power to autonomously navigate and map underground mines. “Hovermap enables the mining industry to safely inspect inaccessible areas of underground mines while improving the type and quality of data collected to unlock new insights,” Dr Stefan Hrabar, co-founder and CEO of Emesent, said. Hovermap is already used in Australia, the United States, Canada, China, and Japan, and last year completed a beyond line-of-sight drone flight in a mine 600 metres below the surface in Western Australia.

VMWare acquires opensource startup Heptio in enterprise Kubernetes adoption push. VMWare announced it has acquired Heptio, a tech startup built to support and advance the open Kubernetes ecosystem, in a bid to speed up the adoption of Kubernetes services in the enterprise. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 2016 by two of the creators of Kubernetes, Joe Beda and Craig McLuckie, Heptio is a contributor to the Kubernetes project, an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications, and the technology’s deployment by organizations. Heptio has gone through two funding rounds a raised a total of $33.3 million. Kubernetes is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.

Precision farming startup Taranis bags $20 million Series B funding for its crop monitoring technology. Taranis, a Tel Aviv, Israel precision agriculture intelligence platform startup that will help you monitor your fields, make informed decisions and then act on them, has raised $20 million in Series B funding for its crop monitoring technology. The latest round is led by Viola Ventures, with participation from existing investors Finistere Ventures, Vertex Ventures, OurCrowd, Eyal Gura and Gal Yarden. The round is also joined by strategic investors – Nutrien, Cavallo Ventures, the venture capital arm of Wilbur-Ellis, and Sumitomo Corporation Europe. Taranis uses deep-learning technology and agronomic understanding to offer insights that create a more sustainable farming ecosystem. The startup was founded in 2015 by CEO Ofir Schlam, Asaf Horvitz, Eli Bukchin, and Ayal Karmi. To date, the company has raised a total of $30 million.

Symantec buys Israeli cybersecurity startup Javelin Networks. Info security giant Symantec today has acquired Javelin Networks, an Israeli startup which Eliminate breaches by protecting Active Directory, Domain Controllers,Domain Identities, Domain Credentials, and all Domain resources. The price for the acquisition was not disclosed, but market sources believe it is in the $20-30 million range. Javelin develops protection for an Active Directory (AD) package of services tools used to manage organizational networks. Founded in 2014, Javelin has raised $5 million in two financing rounds. The company’s main shareholders are founders CEO Roi Abutbul, Guy Franco, and Almog Ohayon, and Ron and Lior Prosor with RSL Venture Partners. Other investors in the company include Hillsven Capital and Tomer Weingarten, CEO of Sentinel One and UpWest Labs. Javelin enables users to stop Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) in their tracks before they happen.

AI-powered marketing analytics startup Aiden.ai raises a €1.4 million seed round. Aiden.ai, a London-based AI-powered marketing analyst, has raised €1.4 million seed round to accelerate its rapid growth. Founded in 2016 Marie Outtier and Pierre-Jean (PJ) Camillieri, Aiden is an AI-powered virtual colleague who helps marketers make better decisions. The round was led by Partech, along with angels Sophia Bendz and Nicolas Pinto. Unlike traditional dashboards, Aiden proactively handles the analysis, reports results, and makes suggestions to improve customers’ ROI.

Data startup PredictHQ raises $10M for its global events API. PredictHQ, a San Francisco-based PredictHQ that helps companies such as Uber Technologies Inc. to keep track of its data, has raised a $10 million funding round led by Aspect Ventures. PredictHQ operates a cloud platform that aggregates information about events with potential business significance. The startup monitors weather reports, airport delays, concert tours, elections and a wide range of other developments around the world that may influence customer behavior. PredictHQ makes this data available through an application programming interface that organizations can integrate into their analytics workflows. PredictHQ is the world’s largest source of intelligent event data. Originally founded in New Zealand three years ago, PredictHQ combines real-world events into one global source of truth to help businesses better understand demand, and plan for the future.