Utrip raises $4M to build out artificial intelligence-based travel planning platform

Monica Nickelsburg | GeekWire | 20 February 2017

“Utrip, a Seattle startup that uses machine learning to help travelers plan their trips, just closed a $4 million funding round.

Investors in the Series A round include Plug and Play, Tiempo Capital, Acorn Ventures, and executives from companies such as Apple and Costco, participating as angel investors. The cash will go toward Utrip’s machine learning and data science operations, which fuel the platform’s recommendation engine.

“One of the things that our travelers love about Utrip is the depth with which we curate destinations and go beyond those top 10 lists that are available everywhere to offer experiences that are really unique and local and authentic for that destination,” said Utrip CEO Gilad Berenstein. “That’s one big priority, continuing to build out our machine learning capabilities as well as our human expert network, our chefs, artists, historians, etcetera.”

Utrip also plans to grow its team by about a third this year, primarily focusing on sales and marketing. The startup currently employs 18 in Seattle.”

Read more here.

View Utrip job openings here.

 

Search for Qualified Talent, Tech Advancement Driving Contact Center Demand This Year.

Champaign Williams | Forbes.com | 21 February 2017

“Millennials can be reluctant to talk to a live person. They prefer text, live chats or social channels like Twitter to get their issues resolved,” said Kyle Harding, JLL’s Contact Center Group co-lead. “This shift in consumer preference makes the U.S. contact center real estate market more important than ever. U.S. locations feature greater access to a tech-savvy workforce that is now required for the industry.”

The Philippines and India remain the primary markets for contact centers, JLL said in a recent report, but growing digital savvy and rising political uncertainties in these nations are shifting demand toward North America, with the U.S. becoming an increasingly attractive destination thanks to its abundance of young talent. Fifty-three percent of call center providers now have at least one-quarter of their employees in the U.S., an 18% increase in just five years.”

Read more here.

 

Q&A: Former EagleView CEO Chris Barrow on launching a $150M venture fund in Seattle

Jillian Stampher | GeekWire | 20 February 2017

“When Bothell, Wash.-based EagleView Technology Corp. was acquired in 2015, EagleView CEO Chris Barrow wasn’t sure what he would do next. He planned to move on from EagleView — a powerhouse in aerial imagery and analytics — but he didn’t know where to invest his time.

Ultimately, investment opportunities ended up being what he stuck with. Last month, Barrow and EagleView’s former CFO John Polchin launched the $150 million venture capital fund Imagen Capital Partners with a $5 million investment in Vioguard, the Bothell company that makes a self-sanitizing keyboard. Imagen will focus on emerging software and hardware companies in the Seattle area and other U.S. technology hubs.”

Read more here.

Interested in EagleView Technologies? Check out its job openings here.

 

Data Meets Fashion: How One Man Used Coding to Excel in the Art World

Chris Outcalt | Tech.co | 16 February 2017

“The capstone project that helped Aaron Lichtner land a job as data scientist at Nordstrom almost never happened. Last spring, when Lichtner was considering how to spend his last few weeks in the Galvanize program, he came up with something that is quintessential Seattle. He wanted to build a computer model that would predict the location of new Starbucks stores and determine whether there was any correlation to nearby property values. At the last minute, however, Lichtner abandoned the project.

“It seemed like that was going to be a lot of work to prove something that wasn’t really that exciting,” Lichtner says.

In talking with his instructor and classmates, he learned that a local art startup had recently approached Galvanize with a concept they needed help executing. The startup’s main offering was a website that created digital representations of a how a piece of art might look hanging in your home. The company was looking to grow its business by adding a feature that would recommend new pieces of art based on customer’s previous viewing behavior and purchases. Lichtner gladly jumped at the opportunity.”

Read more here.

 

Madrona spinoff ReplyYes snags $4M, signs major deal

Casey Coombs | Puget Sound Business Journal | 16 February 2017

“Conversational commerce company ReplyYes has raised $4 million in Series A funding to grow its headcount and scale operations.

Lead investors in the round include Madrona Venture Group, Seattle-based Arnold Venture Group and Los Angeles-based firms Cross Culture Ventures and Lowercase Capital.

The Seattle startup provides text-based services that send out personalized product recommendations to customers and allows them to instantly purchase the offers by replying ‘Yes.’

The 20-employee company plans to use the funding to add at least 10 new hires over the next 18 months.”

Read more here.