Securly CEO Uses Artificial Intelligence to Keep Kids Safe Online
*By Tracey Cheek*
Securly is a start-up with a simple mission: to keep kids safe online. And the artificial intelligence company has just raised $16 million in series B funding to expand the reach of its social media tracking capabilities to more parents and schools.
“We are going to take this money and invest in research and development and scaling up sales and distribution across America,” CEO and co-founder Vinay Mahadik told Cheddar.
The funding round was led by Defy Partners with participation by Owl Ventures. The infusion brought Securly’s total venture capital raised to date to $24 million.
Securly looks for online signs of cyberbullying, self-harm, and other digital threats both at school and at home. It currently has over 500,000 parents on its parent portal and serves more than 7 million total students and over 5,000 schools. It has a market penetration of over 10 percent of U.S. public school districts.
While big digital players like Facebook's ($FB) Instagram and Google ($GOOGL) have implemented their own tools for blocking unsafe content from kids, Mahadik says there is little evidence of adoption by parents.
“What we have seen over the past five years is schools and parents don't have the time to try and use all the solutions by each of the different giants out there,” Mahadik said. “Google, Microsoft ($MSFT), Apple ($APPL) all came out with their own solutions and we have not seen any evidence that parents actually using these solutions together in a typical household.”
With products both for school and home, Mahadik said Securly can offer a unified solution keep kids safe throughout their day.
"That's allowed the company to be a five-year-old startup competing with 20-year-old incumbents and still be extremely successful," he said.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/securly-using-artificial-intelligence-to-keep-kids-safe-online).
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global, breaks down September’s CPI print and inflation trends, explaining what it means for markets.
A big-screen adaptation of the anime “Chainsaw Man” has topped the North American box office, beating a Springsteen biopic and “Black Phone 2.” The movie earned $17.25 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend. “Black Phone 2” fell to second place with $13 million. Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million, respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on the manga series about a demon hunter. It's another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released a “Demon Slayer” film last month that debuted to a record $70 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration says flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility. The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports on Sunday morning soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. The hold on planes taking off for LAX lasted an hour and 45 minutes and didn't appear to cause continued problems. The FAA said staffing shortages also delayed planes headed to Washington, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
Boeing workers at three Midwest plants where military aircraft and weapons are developed have voted to reject the company’s latest contract offer and to continue a strike that started almost three months ago. The strike by about 3,200 machinists at the plants in the Missouri cities of St. Louis and St. Charles, and in Mascoutah, Illinois, is smaller in scale than a walkout last year by 33,000 Boeing workers who assemble commercial jetliners. The president of the International Association of Machinists says Sunday's outcome shows Boeing hasn't adequately addressed wages and retirement benefits. Boeing says Sunday's vote was close with 51% of union members opposing the revised offer.
The stunning indictment that led to the arrest of more than 30 people — including Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and other NBA figures — has drawn new scrutiny of the booming business of sports betting in the U.S. The multibillion-dollar industry has made it easy for sports fans — and even some players — to wager on everything from the outcome of games to that of a single play with just a few taps of a cellphone. But regulating the rapidly-growing industry has proven to be a challenge. Professional sports leagues’ own role in promoting gambling has also raised eyebrows.
