Published : 7 years ago, on 01/06/2018

FinancialBuzz.com News Commentary

According to data published by Grand View Research, the global artificial intelligence market size is projected to reach $35.87 billion by 2025, while growing at a CAGR of 57.2 percent. The report indicates that rapid improvements in fast information storage capacity, high computing power, and parallelization are some of the factors that are contributing to the rapid innovations of robotics and artificial intelligence technology. AI becomes prominent in end-use industries such as automotive and healthcare. In addition, there is strong demand for understanding and analyzing visual contents and gaining meaningful insights, which is also expected to provide strength to the market over the forecast period. Internet of Things Inc. (OTC: INOTF), Gopher Protocol Inc. (OTC: GOPH), Remark Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARK), Veritone, Inc. (NASDAQ: VERI), ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ: PIXY)

A report by the McKinsey Global Institute surveyed companies about their use of AI. Their findings show that only few companies have incorporated AI into their value chains at scale, as most of companies that had awareness of AI technologies are still in experimental or pilot phases. Out of the 3,073 respondents, only 20 percent said they had adopted one or more AI-related technology at scale or in a core part of their business. Ten percent reported adopting more than two technologies, and only 9 percent reported adopting machine learning. Some industry experts are more optimistic. Elon Musk wrote in a comment on Edge.org that, “The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. Unless you have direct exposure to groups like Deepmind, you have no idea how fast-it is growing at a pace close to exponential.”

Internet of Things Inc. (OTC: INOTF) also listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the ticker (TSX-V: ITT). Last week the company announced breaking news that, “Is pleased to provide a corporate update detailing its recently accomplished milestones and current growth initiatives. Appointment of President & COO – IoT Inc. recently announced the appointment of James Sutcliffe as President & COO. Mr. Sutcliffe will oversee operations, investee companies and merger & acquisition opportunities.

Mr. Sutcliffe brings more than 20 years’ experience in global operational and financial leadership. Earlier in his career, he was as a key member of a management team that grew a Fortune 150 Tier 1 automotive supplier’s Asian operations ten-fold. During this time, Mr. Sutcliffe held senior corporate development, finance and executive management roles. Spearheading entry into new markets in Asia, he was instrumental in guiding start-ups and acquisitions in China, India and Korea.

Mr. Sutcliffe commented, “IoT Inc. is at a critical inflection point given its growth opportunities in Asia and North America. I am excited to leverage my relationships and operating experience as the company pursues very compelling and complementary accretive acquisitions.”

Corporate Repositioning: The Company has developed a new website designed to encourage investor signups and inbound business opportunities and enhanced marketing collateral including a new corporate presentation. In addition, IoT Inc. has signed up to participate in investor focused conferences over the next few months to raise awareness. This corporate repositioning reflects the new strategic vision of the Company and will serve as the foundation to expand its strategic plan to acquire and operate growth-ready technology companies.

Equity Financing: After the original public announcement of a private placement financing in December 2017, the Company closed an over-subscribed funding round of $2,300,000. This working capital provides a sufficient runway to continue execution of its long-term corporate growth strategy and to pursue strategic acquisitions.

Portfolio Company Updates: Weather Telematics Inc. The Company announced that it has entered into a letter of agreement to acquire Weather Telematics Inc. (“WTX Inc.” or “Weather Telematics”), a data science company offering real-time advanced AI-based predictive road condition weather analytics for safer, connected and autonomous transportation. For further details read the May 14, 2018 press release. Weather Telematics recently announced a partnership with Teletrac Navman, a global software-as-a-service provider that leverages location-based technology for GPS tracking solutions, to provide dynamic weather data including a real-time view of hazardous road conditions to the DIRECTOR® fleet management platform.

New Hope IoT Intl. Inc. (or the “JV”) – Management is pleased with the progress that continues to be made with factory automation initiatives as IoT Inc. expands its presence in Greater China. The JV continues to make headway with artificial intelligence in China and pending the closing of WTX Inc., the Company will look to leverage their unique data and technology by integrating it into its manufacturing process optimization platform to turn traditional manufacturing operations into smart industrial IoT enabled facilities.

BLOCKStrain Technology Corp.(“BLOCKStrain”) – The Company made a strategic investment in BLOCKStrain Technology Corp. (TSX-V: DNAX). BLOCKStrain delivers a secure and immutable blockchain platform to establish global certainty for cannabis strains and their ownership. BLOCKStrain closed a non-brokered private placement raising gross proceeds of $10,500,000, and also completed its go public transaction earlier this week. Based on yesterday’s closing price of BLOCKStrain, IoT Inc’s position in the company is worth more than 250% of its original investment. The Company is in discussions with BLOCKStrain and is evaluating how to deploy and leverage its strategic technology applications into the BLOCKStrain ecosystem.

Braingrid Corp. (“Braingrid”) – In December 2015, IoT Inc. acquired an 8.33% minority equity position in Braingrid for $500,000. Braingrid recently closed a $2,500,000 equity financing and continues to work on its public listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange. Braingrid intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, such as continuing expansion of its R&D department as well as furthering the execution of its long-term roadmap. Management expects that Braingrid’s go-public transaction will be accretive to IoT Inc.

New Opportunities – IoT Inc. looks to capitalize on new opportunities when they fit the Company’s core investment criteria. There are occasionally new legislation and regulatory guidelines that open new markets, particularly the recent Supreme Court of the United States ruling that struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA), an act that largely outlawed sports betting outside of Nevada. This change in legislation effectively clears a path for the legalization of sports betting in the United States. Research firm Eilers & Krejcik Gaming estimates a regulated United States sports betting market could generate $6.03 billion in annual revenue by 2023. Additionally, the Canadian Gaming Association estimates that Canadians are wagering approximately $10 billion annually through illegal bookmaking operations in Canada, and more than $4 billion through offshore online sports gambling websites, meaning that many people are betting through illegal and nefarious channels. As a result of these regulatory changes, IoT Inc. has formed a strategy to capitalize on the opportunity to develop, commercialize and monetize an AI-based platform using the Company’s innovative technologies within the sports wagering marketplace.

About Internet of Things Inc. – Internet of Things Inc. is a strategic investor in growth-ready companies with innovative technology solutions. The Company creates value through its portfolio companies’ expertise in the IoT, AI and Blockchain solutions, by turning data into actionable intelligence to drive more efficiency into organizations. The Company has a joint venture partnership, New Hope IoT Intl Inc., with New Hope Data Technology Co. Ltd. Internet of Things Inc. also has strategic investments in Braingrid Corp. and Blockstrain Technology Corp. and has its headquarters in Toronto, Canada.”

Gopher Protocol Inc. (OTCQB: GOPH) is a development-stage company which consider itself Native IoT creator, developing Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence enabled mobile technology. Recently, the company announced that it is developing a new web interface for Avant!, its Artificial Intelligence Platform. Avant! is Gopher’s software that incorporates artificial intelligence, which it intends to use to control its GEO MESH system when fully developed. It is based on mathematical algorithms in the domain of machine, deep learning. Avant! uses natural language processing and cognitive computing to identify data objects during our MESH communication. When fully developed, it is intended to be used to control the system’s nodes, that may be used in a wide variety of applications, for example, navigating a self-driving car. It is expected that Avant! will have the ability to harness vast amounts of data and computing power, learning GEO conditions, analyzing the data and making decisions in real time.

Remark Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARK) primarily focuses on the development and deployment of artificial-intelligence-based solutions for businesses and software developers in many industries. Additionally, the company owns and operates digital media properties that deliver relevant, dynamic content. On March 5, 2018, the company announced that they are partnering to deploy Remark’s KanKan data intelligence and AI technologies in approximately 11,000 7-Eleven stores that CP ALL operates throughout Thailand. Remark and CP ALL will hold a press conference (the details of which appear below) on March 6, 2018, in Bangkok to launch the partnership. The Remark/CP ALL partnership will utilize KanKan’s AI-based facial recognition and behavior analysis technologies to provide enhanced customer support, business analysis, employee management and security in CP ALL’s 7-Eleven stores in Thailand, which generate more than $14 billion in revenue. KanKan’s technologies can monitor product levels on store shelves, suggest products and services to customers, provide real-time operations performance and competitor analysis, check in and check out employees, identify unauthorized personnel, and assess crowd size and crowd flow for safety, among myriad other services

Veritone, Inc. (NASDAQ: VERI) is a leading artificial intelligence company that has developed aiWARE, an AWS-certified platform offering orchestrated cognitive computing to transform and analyze structured and unstructured data for clients in a variety of markets, including media and entertainment, legal, compliance and government. On April 11, 2018, the company announced that its aiWARE™ platform has set the standard for how enterprises and institutions can effectively and profitably engage with AI. The open and extensible platform allows clients to configure cognitive capabilities based on organizational needs – prioritizing accuracy, speed, and cost while enhancing workflows. The recent introduction of the aiWARE real-time framework, coupled with the platform’s ever-growing ecosystem of 185 cognitive engines and applications, enables users to unlock new insights and economic value from virtually any type of data.

ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ: PIXY) is a disruptive human capital management platform, revolutionizing employment in the Gig Economy by delivering a next-gen mobile engagement technology to help businesses with shift-based employees navigate regulatory mandates, minimize administrative burdens and better connect with a ready-for-hire workforce. On March 27, 2018, the company has leveraged the powerful Watson’s artificial intelligence engine across its platform to achieve an active and personal user experience. ShiftPixy’s current mobile gateway app uses Watson to power its entire employee enrollment process.

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