Funding Daily: Vicarious

Artificial intelligence company Vicarious raked in some big money this Friday from a handful of prominent investors, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla founder Elon Musk. We’ve got the details on that financing and a few others below.

Artificial Intelligence startup Vicarious grabs $40M from Zuckerberg, Musk, Kutcher, & others

Vicarious, a company that produces artificial-intelligence technology, has closed a fresh $40 million round of funding today that includes a handful of notable investors: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Tesla founder Elon Musk, and actor/investor Ashton Kutcher. Formation 8 led the new investment, Vicarious’s second round. Founded in 2011, the Union City, Calif.-based startup has raised a total of $60 million in funding to date from Good Ventures, Founders Fund, and others.

Vicarious’ tech focuses on trying to digitally re-create the part of the brain, called the neocortex, that handles sight, controls the body, interprets language, and does math. The startup believes that by doing this, it will be able to create an artificial intelligence that actually thinks like a human does. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

Testbirds gets $2.9M as its Birdflight ‘crowdtesting’ product takes off

Testbirds, a German crowdtesting company, just raised €2.1 million ($2.9 million) as its first institutional funding, with French venture capital firm Senventure Partners leading this round. It’s also releasing a new product, BirdFlight, which enables customers to distribute and test their apps to a crowd of testers. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

Stealth startup Tapcentive raising $1M in debt

San Francisco-based startup Tapcentive has raised $350,000 of a planned $1 million debt financing, according to an SEC filing. The company is still in stealth mode, so product details remain scant, but it appears to be working on a marketing and advertising product focused on mobile devices.