Series A Round Co-Led by CMT Digital and Lightspeed Faction, with participation from SixThirty Ventures, Stellar Development Foundation, Tech Council Ventures, Onigiri Capital and BitRock Capital

JERSEY CITY, N.J., Sept. 3, 2026 — Diameter Pay, a fintech platform building the infrastructure for global U.S. dollar payments and virtual accounts, today announced a $10 million Series A financing round co-led by CMT Digital and Lightspeed Faction, with participation from SixThirty Ventures, Stellar Development Foundation, Tech Council Ventures, Onigiri Capital and BitRock Capital.

Diameter Pay gives banks, fintechs, digital asset exchanges and their customers around the world access to U.S. dollar accounts and payment rails through a single API. The platform supports virtual accounts, domestic and international payments, stablecoin on- and off-ramps, and embedded compliance controls across multiple U.S. banking partners. Diameter Pay has processed more than $10 billion year-to-date in 2026.

The U.S. dollar remains the foundation of global trade and payments, but accessing it has become increasingly difficult in many parts of the world. Correspondent banks have pulled back from entire markets amid rising sanctions and anti-money laundering risk. The result is a global financial system in which legitimate businesses can be excluded alongside the bad actors those safeguards are designed to stop.

“The world is becoming more global, but the financial system is becoming more fragmented,” said David Lighton, founder and CEO of Diameter Pay. “Diameter Pay takes a different approach: rather than asking banks to accept more risk, we provide the technology, data, and compliance infrastructure to understand and manage that risk with greater precision. That’s the bridge we’re building, between traditional finance and digital finance, so money can move at the speed people and businesses actually need in a world that now runs 24/7.”

Stablecoins are amplifying the need for solutions. They enable dollar value to move globally, around the clock, but institutions still need regulated, reliable connectivity between digital dollars and the U.S. banking system, especially to fight financial crimes. Diameter Pay provides that connective tissue, giving banks the technology, data, and compliance infrastructure to manage digital risk with more precision.

The financing will accelerate Diameter Pay’s mission to expand access to the U.S. dollar for financial institutions around the world. The company will use the capital to expand its banking and payment capabilities, deepen its stablecoin and FX infrastructure, and continue investing in the technology and compliance capabilities required to safely move dollars across borders.

“Stablecoins are transforming how dollars move globally, but they don’t replace the need for trusted access to the U.S. banking system,” said Charlie Sandor, Partner at CMT Digital. “Diameter provides that connective layer, combining traditional payment rails, stablecoin infrastructure, and compliance in a platform built for regulated financial institutions.”

“The challenging part of modernizing global payments with stablecoins isn’t just technology. It’s building reliable and trustworthy compliance and banking infrastructure,” said Tim Khoury, Partner at Lightspeed Faction. “Diameter started with a relentless focus here, and has won the trust of a growing number of clients as a result. We’re thrilled to be backing the company for its next leg of growth.”

“The modern payments stack is no longer just about speed-to-market; it’s about speed-to-trust. The components: verified counterparties, transactions screened before they move, and licensed settlement behind them,” said Evan Thorpe, Principal at SixThirty Ventures.  “Diameter is the settlement layer that ties each of those critical parts together, turning a trusted counterparty and a clean transaction into dollars that actually arrive, compliantly, across borders. It reflects a conviction we hold about this market: trust, not transport, is the product in modern money movement. Diameter delivers it.”

About Diameter Pay
Diameter Pay’s mission is to expand global financial institutions’ and fintechs’ access to the U.S. dollar through compliance-first infrastructure trusted by banks and regulators. The platform provides U.S. virtual accounts, domestic and international payment rails, stablecoin on- and off-ramps, and embedded compliance controls across multiple banking partners. Diameter Pay is led by a team of banking, payments, technology, and regulatory veterans with decades of experience building and operating financial systems, including former senior executives and founders from Deutsche Bank, Fidelity Investments, Segovia Technology, Reserve Trust, and the World Bank.

Media Contact
[email protected]

SOURCE Diameter Pay

On Disruption Interruption, Joe Helfrich explains why AI’s surging power demand is exposing the limits of the energy grid and how innovation could turn data centers from energy drains into accelerators of cleaner energy. Through NosTerra Venture Capital, Helfrich is backing technologies to make that shift possible.

TAMPA BAY, Fla., Sept. 3, 2026 — U.S. data center energy use is expected to double or triple by 2028, with these facilities projected to consume up to 12% of total U.S. electricity, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. As artificial intelligence (AI) adoption grows, the constraint is no longer models, chips, or software. It is whether power generation, transmission, storage, and cooling infrastructure can keep up. On this episode of Disruption Interruption, host Karla Jo Helms (KJ) speaks with Joe Helfrich, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of NosTerra Venture Capital, an AI infrastructure investment firm, about why AI compute is forcing an energy reckoning, why data centers may accelerate innovation rather than block it, and how investors can separate real physical-layer solutions from AI hype. “The demand is still outstripping capacity,” Helfrich says, “and the current existing energy grid can’t meet that need.”

Why AI’s Power Problem Is Bigger Than Data Centers

For Helfrich, the AI infrastructure problem starts with physical limits of the energy system. Data centers consume a great deal of electricity, cooling, and grid capacity to turn energy into compute. As AI workloads grow, the pressure moves beyond the technology sector and into the systems that generate, move, store, and use power.

That pressure is why server facilities are often cast as energy villains. They can strain local grids, increase electricity demand, require heavy cooling, and raise concerns about water use and local resource competition. Helfrich argues that this framing captures only part of the picture. “Data centers really could be a challenge to energy innovation,” Helfrich says. “We take a contrary view and think this is a unique opportunity.”

The issue will become more complicated as AI moves from centralized model training to real-time use by people, devices, and machines. That will require compute to happen closer to the end user because delays of even milliseconds can matter in applications such as autonomous vehicles, industrial systems, and machine-to-machine communication. “They’re not going to wait for that inference to go across the country,” Helfrich says.

Investing in the Physical Layer of AI

Helfrich sees AI’s power crunch as an opening for companies solving real problems across the energy chain: generation, transmission, storage, and the way data centers use power. “It’s going to be an all-of-the-above solution,” he says. “Data centers are really just factories that take energy and convert that into compute.”

That view shapes how NosTerra evaluates companies. Helfrich says the fund looks for technologies solving urgent infrastructure problems, not incremental improvements that get lost in the noise. A solution that delivers a small efficiency gain may be useful, but the strongest opportunities are the ones that can materially change capacity, cost, or speed to market. “We look for these mind-blowing, out-of-the-box opportunities,” he says.

One example is a Boston-area company out of MIT that uses carbon-capture technology inside modular edge data centers. Helfrich says the system improves cooling efficiency while producing beverage-grade CO2 as a byproduct, which can then be sold to bars and restaurants. That revenue can help support the economics of the facilities powering AI workloads. “It’s that crazy out-of-the-box thinking,” he says, “solving two problems at one time.”

For Helfrich, the same pressure that makes data centers controversial could also make them useful. The demand for compute creates customers, urgency, and capital for energy technologies that might otherwise move slowly. “This is not about AI,” Helfrich says. “These innovations can make energy more abundant, resilient, and available across the economy.”

Links

Disrupting the AI Power Bottleneck: Turning Data Centers into Energy Transition Heroes with Joe Helfrich

Disruption Interruption is the podcast where you will hear from today’s biggest Industry Disruptors. Learn what motivated them to bring about innovation and how they overcame opposition to adoption.

https://omny.fm/shows/disruption-interruption/disrupting-the-ai-power-bottleneck-turning-data-centers-into-energy-transition-heroes-with-joe-helfrich

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joehelfrich/
Company Website: https://nosterracapital.com

About Disruption Interruption^™
Disruption is happening on an unprecedented scale, impacting all manner of industries — MedTech, Finance, IT, eCommerce, shipping, logistics, and more — and COVID has moved their timelines up a full decade or more. But WHO are these disruptors and when did they say, “THAT’S IT! I’VE HAD IT!”? Time to Disrupt and Interrupt with host Karla Jo “KJ” Helms, veteran communications disruptor. KJ interviews bad asses who are disrupting their industries and altering economic networks that have become antiquated with an establishment resistant to progress. She delves into uncovering secrets from industry rebels and quiet revolutionaries that uncover common traits — and not-so-common — that are changing our economic markets… and lives. Visit the world’s key pioneers that persist to success, despite arrows in their backs at www.disruption-interruption.com.

About Joe Helfrich
Joe Helfrich is the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of NosTerra Venture Capital, an investment firm focused on AI infrastructure, energy optimization, and the technologies needed to support large-scale compute. A former commercial litigation attorney and technology founder, Helfrich has co-founded software, legal tech, and fintech companies with exits to strategic and private equity acquirers. At NosTerra, he focuses on infrastructure technologies that can help AI scale while advancing cleaner, more resilient, and more affordable energy systems.

About Karla Jo Helms
Karla Jo Helms is the Chief Evangelist and Anti-PR^® Strategist for JOTO PR Disruptors™. Karla Jo learned firsthand how unforgiving business can be when millions of dollars are on the line — and how the control of public opinion often determines whether one company is happily chosen, or another is brutally rejected. Being an alumnus of crisis management, Karla Jo has worked with litigation attorneys, private investigators, and the media to help restore companies of goodwill into the good graces of public opinion — Karla Jo operates on the ethic of getting it right the first time, not relying on second chances and doing what it takes to excel. Helms speaks globally on public relations, how the PR industry itself has lost its way, and how, in the right hands, corporations can harness the power of Anti-PR to drive markets and impact market perception.

References

• U.S. Department of Energy. (2024, December 20). DOE releases new report evaluating increase in electricity demand from data centers [Press release]. energy.gov/articles/doe-releases-new-report-evaluating-increase-electricity-demand-data-centers

Media Inquiries:
Karla Jo Helms
JOTO PR™ 
727-777-4629

SOURCE Disruption Interruption

Winery owner, winemaker and filmmaker enters a new chapter of entrepreneurship spanning consumer brands, socially driven filmmaking and artificial intelligence

NEW YORK, Sept. 3, 2026 — Entrepreneur, winery owner, winemaker and filmmaker Eunice Chiweshe Goldstein, today announced the expansion of her entrepreneurial portfolio, bringing together ventures across wine, film and emerging technology as she enters the next phase of her career.

Chiweshe Goldstein, whose work has crossed entrepreneurship and storytelling, is developing a broader portfolio built around three areas: the continued growth of her wine business, the advancement of film, television and documentary projects, and the development of a new artificial intelligence venture addressing emerging challenges surrounding it.

Rather than viewing the three industries as separate careers, Chiweshe Goldstein sees them as interconnected parts of a larger strategy centered on ownership, intellectual property and the creation of enduring brands.

“A person does not have to remain inside the category where the world first discovers them,” said Chiweshe Goldstein. “Film taught me the extraordinary power of storytelling. Wine taught me how to build a physical product and a brand. Technology creates an opportunity to build at tremendous scale. I see all three as different expressions of the same entrepreneurial instinct.”

Building a Brand Through Wine

Chiweshe Goldstein’s entrepreneurial journey includes building the Eunice Chiweshe Goldstein Winery, an independent wine business through which she has combined winemaking, entrepreneurship and storytelling.

Her Zimbabwean heritage has informed her perspective as an entrepreneur building within the American wine industry.

For Chiweshe Goldstein, developing a winery has required far more than producing wine. It has meant navigating the realities of building an independent consumer business, including production, compliance, distribution, marketing, branding and customer acquisition.

Those experiences helped shape a broader philosophy that Chiweshe Goldstein is now applying across other industries.

“Building a company teaches you that an idea is the beginning,” Chiweshe Goldstein said. “You have to create the product, survive the journey and keep executing when nobody else can see the entire picture.”

Film With a Purpose

Alongside her entrepreneurial work, Chiweshe Goldstein has continued developing projects as a filmmaker and producer.

Her film interests include narrative and documentary projects examining consequential social issues through deeply personal stories.

Among her projects in development is documentary work examining lead exposure in America’s water systems and its impact on families and children.

Chiweshe Goldstein’s approach emphasizes human storytelling rather than treating large social issues simply as statistics or policy discussions.

“The issues that affect millions of people ultimately happen to individuals,” Chiweshe Goldstein said. “Film gives us the ability to take something enormous and allow an audience to experience it through another person’s life.”

Eunice Chiweshe Goldstein Studios is building a robust slate of original television and feature film projects as it expands its development and production activities. The studio is advancing several projects through development, including an original television sitcom now entering the casting process as it moves toward production.

Entering Artificial Intelligence

Chiweshe Goldstein is now extending that entrepreneurial philosophy into technology.

She is developing an artificial intelligence venture focused on challenges surrounding AI adoption through Chiweshe Artificial Intelligence / Chiweshe Group.

The venture is exploring opportunities to help organizations navigate an environment in which artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly embedded in business operations and decision making.

Chiweshe Goldstein believes the rapid advancement of AI will create significant opportunities not merely for companies developing increasingly capable artificial intelligence, but also for businesses developing the infrastructure necessary to support its responsible use.

“As AI becomes more powerful, trust becomes increasingly important,” Chiweshe Goldstein said. “The next generation of technology will not merely be about what artificial intelligence can do. It will also be about creating confidence around how businesses use it.”

Specific details regarding the venture’s technology, methodology and product development remain confidential during development.

A Portfolio Built Around Ownership

The expansion reflects Chiweshe Goldstein’s larger vision of becoming a portfolio entrepreneur rather than being defined by a single industry.

The strategy places particular emphasis on intellectual property and ownership.

Wine provides a consumer product and brand.

Film creates stories and intellectual property capable of reaching audiences globally.

Technology creates opportunities for significant scale.

Together, Chiweshe Goldstein sees the three areas as the foundation of a long-term entrepreneurial portfolio.

“The common denominator for me is growth and ownership,” Chiweshe Goldstein said. “Ownership of ideas, ownership of intellectual property and ownership of the businesses we create. I want to build things that can keep growing long after the original idea.”

Chiweshe Goldstein plans to keep developing her wine and film businesses while advancing the artificial intelligence venture during the next phase of her entrepreneurial career.

The expansion represents an evolution.

Eunice Chiweshe Goldstein said, “I want to keep building, keep creating and keep entering spaces where I believe something meaningful can be made.”

About Eunice Chiweshe Goldstein

Eunice Chiweshe Goldstein is an entrepreneur, winery owner, winemaker, filmmaker and producer whose work spans wine, entertainment and emerging technology. Through her entrepreneurial and creative ventures, Chiweshe Goldstein focuses on building independent brands, developing original intellectual property and pursuing projects at the intersection of business, culture and social impact.

Her current work includes the continued development of the Eunice Chiweshe Goldstein Winery, film, television and documentary projects, and an emerging artificial intelligence venture.

SOURCE CHIWESHE GROUP

The buildout of energy and compute infrastructure demands a scale and certainty of execution that legacy capital markets cannot support. Plural was built for this moment.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 3, 2026 — Plural, the financial services and technology firm serving the builders meeting unprecedented demand for energy and compute infrastructure, today announced a year of significant growth. Over the past 12 months, the company brought more than $1 billion in infrastructure assets to market¹, ran competitive processes engaging more than 130 institutional investors and lenders², grew to 25 active mandates³, and nearly tripled its headcount.⁴ The growth Plural is seeing reflects a new reality: much of today’s highest-demand infrastructure is being built by small teams taking on the biggest projects of their company’s history.

Traditional project finance was built for large developers with deep benches of in-house finance and capital markets teams, and even for them, manual processes take months to execute. Plural exists to make that scale of execution possible for teams that don’t have those benches.

The company works with clients to structure capital stacks and match them with institutional investors,⁵ then continues to run the deal as software for the life of the asset, with covenants, distributions, compliance, and reporting executed automatically. Rather than assembling a chain of intermediaries, clients get one accountable team running the whole capital stack—and the financing back office they never had to hire.

“Our clients are small teams about to do the biggest thing their business has ever done—a research lab becoming a manufacturer, a developer ready to own and operate assets, real estate developers financing powered land for data centers. Plural exists to remove process and money as impediments to that,” said Adam Silver, CEO and Co-Founder of Plural. “The companies creating the infrastructure this economy depends on should be the ones who own it, and we’re building the financial tool kit that lets them.”

A Year of Momentum Across the Infrastructure Economy

Plural’s recent growth has touched nearly every corner of the infrastructure economy, from the assets it financed to the investors and partners it brought to the table. In the last year, Plural:

• Brought over $1 billion of infrastructure assets to market across 25 active mandates¹, running competitive processes that engaged more than 130 institutional investors and lenders² across a widening range of asset types.⁴
• Served developers ranging from first-time institutional issuers to programmatic sponsors, in several cases taking a team from a single self-funded asset to an institutionally backed, multi-tranche capital program within a year.
• Took on mandates spanning distributed and community solar, battery storage, compute and data-center infrastructure, EV charging, and natural gas, structured as project equity, tax equity, debt, and preferred equity, and ranging from single-asset raises to programmatic, multi-tranche portfolios.⁵
• Began a partnership with a U.S. public infrastructure authority to bring a multi-sector pipeline of state assets, spanning energy, transportation, defense, and critical minerals, to a national pool of investors.

Expanding Capital Markets and Engineering Expertise

The surge in headcount spans both sides of Plural’s business, matching the demands of a new kind of financial services firm focused on the next wave of infrastructure:

• On the capital markets side, the company brought on experienced dealmakers to structure and place capital.
• On the engineering side, Plural added senior infrastructure and backend engineers to build out Plural Intelligence and AssetOS, the technology that lets a small team operate like a much larger one.

What the Momentum Signals for Infrastructure Finance

Plural’s focus for the remainder of 2026 rests on three priorities:

• Deepening execution capacity so client mandates move from structuring to close on a shorter timeline.
• Continuing to build out Plural Intelligence and AssetOS so more of the deal lifecycle, including structuring, investor matching, and ongoing administration, runs through software.⁵
• Deepening coverage of the infrastructure economy, from distributed energy to data centers and compute, alongside selective public-sector and transportation mandates.

For more information about Plural, please visit www.pluralfinance.com.

ABOUT PLURAL

Plural is the financial services firm for the builders of energy and compute infrastructure. Purpose-built so developers building energy, compute, transportation, and adjacent assets can create a financial program once and deploy it at any scale, Plural combines investment banking and advisory services with proprietary software to structure, execute, and permanently run the capital programs that fund next-generation infrastructure. Securities-related services are offered through Plural Brokerage LLC, a broker-dealer registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a member of FINRA and SIPC, which also operates an SEC-registered alternative trading system. Transfer agency services are provided by Plural Transfer Services LLC, a transfer agent registered with the SEC. Since launching in 2024, Plural has received investor term sheets representing more than $600 million of proposed capital for its clients⁴ while managing the full asset lifecycle, from investor onboarding and compliance to distribution processing, secondary trading, and ongoing administration. The company’s team brings experience from Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Standard Chartered, EDF Renewables, and other leading institutions, having collectively raised or managed over $35B.

MEDIA CONTACT
Tess Pawlisch
608-333-9788
[email protected]

NOTES
All figures are drawn from Plural’s transaction records as of September 2, 2026 and are stated on the bases described below.

1. Capital brought to market. $1.008 billion, being the sum of the target or expected raise recorded for each of Plural’s mandates (see note 3). “Brought to market” means capital sought under mandates Plural has been engaged to raise and begun introducing to allocators; it does not imply that every mandate has capital raised, committed, or closed.
2. Institutional investors and lenders engaged. 132 distinct counterparties that advanced into deal exploration across Plural’s offerings between October 2025 and September 2026.
3. Active mandates. 25 offerings at Structuring, Compliance Approved, Live/Open, or Term Sheet stage as of September 2, 2026, excluding Plural’s public-private partnership infrastructure program. A single client may account for several mandates.
4. In some cases, these figures represent securities business that was conducted through Plural Brokerage, a FINRA Member Broker Dealer.
5. In cases where securities are involved, Plural’s structuring work is done through Plural Brokerage LLC, a FINRA Member Broker Dealer.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES
Plural is a trade name for Plural Everything, Inc. and its subsidiaries. Securities-related products and services are offered through Plural Brokerage LLC, a broker-dealer registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a member of FINRA and SIPC. Transfer agency services are provided by Plural Transfer Services LLC, a transfer agent registered with the SEC. Plural Everything, Inc. is not a registered broker-dealer or transfer agent. Plural is not a bank, and does not accept deposits or extend credit as a bank.

This announcement is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security, nor shall it constitute an offer, solicitation, or sale in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful. Any securities referenced were offered and sold in private placements exempt from registration under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, were not registered under that Act or under any state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration. Prior transactions are not indicative of future results.

Statements in this release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements that reflect Plural’s current expectations. Such statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed. Plural undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement.

SOURCE Plural

Platform to accelerate investment in next generation ag-tech innovation 

JOHNSTON, Iowa, Sept. 3, 2026 — Vylor, the advanced seed and genetics company that will spin-off from Corteva on October 1, 2026, today announced the launch of Vylor Edge, a new investment platform dedicated to accelerating the development of advanced technologies in global agriculture. Vylor Edge will collaborate with start-ups, entrepreneurs, universities and the wider innovation ecosystem through equity investments and strategic partnerships. 

“Vylor Edge will partner with the global scientific community to deliver breakthrough innovations that advance global agriculture and mitigate key production challenges,” said Sam Eathington, chief technology officer of the future Vylor. “Pairing Vylor’s world class expertise with other technology leaders from around the world will help drive innovation and equip farmers with the tools they need to be successful.”

Vylor Edge will initially focus on identifying opportunities across strategic verticals aligned with Vylor’s priorities, including gene editing and advanced breeding; protein engineering; as well as artificial intelligence and digital technology platforms. It will also explore opportunities in other areas and sectors to harness technologies applicable to Vylor’s business and mission to help farmers feed and fuel the world.

“We are excited to collaborate with entrepreneurs who can benefit from the deep expertise of our dedicated team, as well as Vylor’s leading R&D capabilities, global footprint, and go-to-market infrastructure,” said Mat Muller,  head of Vylor Edge. “We look forward to supporting the development and commercialization of promising technologies and delivering new innovations to growers.”

The Vylor Edge portfolio will be launched with a strong foundation of investments and collaborations that were previously part of Corteva Catalyst and are now transitioning to Vylor as part of the company’s spin-off from Corteva. Through Vylor Edge, Vylor will continue to support and expand these partnerships while identifying new opportunities to accelerate innovation across global agriculture.

About Corteva

Corteva, Inc. (NYSE: CTVA) is a global pure-play agriculture company that combines industry-leading innovation, high-touch customer engagement and operational execution to profitably deliver solutions for the world’s most pressing agriculture challenges. Corteva generates advantaged market preference through its unique distribution strategy, together with its balanced and globally diverse mix of seed and crop protection products. With some of the most recognized brands in agriculture and a technology pipeline well positioned to drive growth, the company is committed to maximizing productivity for farmers, while working with stakeholders throughout the food system as it fulfills its promise to enrich the lives of those who produce and those who consume, ensuring progress for generations to come. More information can be found at www.corteva.com.

Cautionary statement 

This release contains certain estimates and forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, which are intended to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and may be identified by their use of words like “may,” “expects,” “will,” “aims,” “believes,” “intends,” or other words of similar meaning. All statements that address expectations or projections about the future, including statements about the parties’ expectations related to regulatory matters, product development and commercialization, product offerings and product, financial or sustainability performance are forward-looking statements. No obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, except as required by applicable law, is hereby undertaken and any such obligation is specifically disclaimed. A detailed discussion of some of the significant risks and uncertainties which may cause results and events to differ materially from such forward-looking statements or other estimates is included in the “Risk Factors” section of Corteva’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, and as modified by subsequent reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K and Vylor’s Registration Statement on Form 10.

SOURCE Corteva Agriscience

SEATTLE, Sept. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Resect Artificial Intelligence (Resect™ AI), the company building the accountability layer for AI, today launched out of stealth with $25 million in funding from private equity investors. The funding will fuel research and development, go-to-market initiatives, and local talent acquisition in the greater Seattle and Portland markets.

The AI Trust and Compliance Problem

The rapid adoption and evolution of AI is creating excessive enterprise risk and unprecedented problems in governance and compliance. Specifically, AI hallucinations cost businesses tens of billions of dollars globally, with that figure continuing to grow as adoption accelerates. While experimentation is booming, enterprises do not trust taking AI into production and customer-facing environments. This trust gap threatens everything from fast-food chains to aerospace giants, risking massive economic loss, compromised brand reputations, and wasted capital across the global economy. With regulations continuing to evolve at lightning speed, enterprises are under pressure to meet uncompromising compliance standards or face massive financial risk.

“AI has prematurely been put in a position of trust. Adding labels such as ‘use at your own risk’ flies in the face of proper governance or compliance,” said Kevin Owens, CEO of Resect AI. “AI must be anchored in truth to be widely adopted across the enterprise. We are building the next large enterprise AI company to bring transparency and accountability to AI for industries such as publishing, finance, healthcare, research, and education where factual accuracy is absolutely critical.”

Bringing Accountability to AI

Until now, AI has been a black box that offers no clear picture of how it creates answers, or why it is so confident providing wrong answers. Resect AI’s forthcoming open source offering and enterprise product suite provide the ability to look deep inside LLMs and observe, detect, interpret, audit, and modify the behaviors of AI models to bring an accountability layer to AI.

“Many argue that understanding the black box internals of LLMs is out of reach, but we fundamentally disagree,” said Tim Walton, Chief AI Officer at Resect AI. “We’ve spent an extensive amount of time and resources researching how models think, and what causes them to choose the answers that they do. Through this process, we’ve developed technology that observes exactly when and how models fail, and surgically fixes them.”

FAQs

Why do enterprises lack trust in AI?
Enterprises are hesitant to trust AI due to persistent model inaccuracies and unpredictable hallucinations. Until AI output can meet stringent governance and compliance standards, widespread enterprise adoption will remain limited.

What can be done to accelerate adoption of AI in the enterprise?
LLM providers need to eliminate hallucinations and optimize their models for factual accuracy and consistency to make AI measurable, scalable and dependable for the enterprise.

Is Resect hiring?
Yes, Resect is hiring engineering and research roles in the greater Seattle and Portland markets.

About Resect Artificial Intelligence
Resect™ AI was established by a team of serial entrepreneurs with deep roots in AI and data science. The company’s mission is to build the accountability layer for artificial intelligence by removing or ‘resecting‘ hallucinations and improving the factual accuracy of large language models. Resect AI is led by a highly passionate and experienced business and research team in the Pacific Northwest with an office in the greater Portland area. For more information, please visit https://resect.ai/.

SOURCE Resect AI

Guardio surpasses one million customers and $150 million ARR after four consecutive years of triple-digit growth 

TEL AVIV, Israel, Sept. 3, 2026 — Guardio, a leader in consumer cybersecurity, today announced it has reached a valuation of $1.1bn. This, following a funding round of $40 million, which included investment from Co-Founder and CEO of Wiz, Assaf Rappaport, along with existing investors ION Crossover Partners, Union Tech Ventures, Vintage Investment Partners, Cerca Partners and Emerge Ventures, brings Guardio’s total funding to $167 million to date.

The same AI that empowers consumers has armed cybercriminals, unleashing a wave of attacks that traditional security was never built to stop. Amid this shift, Guardio has grown its revenue more than 100% year-over-year for four consecutive years, reaching one million paying customers and $150 million in ARR. The company will use the new funding to enhance and strengthen its suite of protection for consumers’ total digital presence.

AI has effectively democratized cybercrime, collapsing the cost and skill once required to run attacks that were the exclusive domain of sophisticated hacking teams. Mass-scale personalized phishing campaigns, pixel-perfect brand impersonations and deepfake voice calls have become incredibly efficient and have left consumers outgunned.

Nearly three out of four U.S. adults experienced some kind of scam or attack last year, the FBI logged 22,000 AI-related complaints, and losses from cybercrime in the U.S. hit a record $20.9 billion.

Guardio protects the person rather than the device, monitoring messages, email, calls and web activity, and shutting down the scam before the victim ever opens the link. Guardio safeguards digital accounts and assets with actionable protection applied where needed to strengthen digital hygiene and lower the probability of an attack. Guardio also detects attack and scam scenarios that combine multiple devices and channels – like a phone call leading to a malware download on a PC. Combined, this gives individuals the caliber of protection a Fortune 500 security team takes for granted.

“Scammers stopped hacking computers years ago – they hack people, and with AI, it’s cheap and easy. Cybercrime is essentially democratized,” said Amos Peled, CEO and Co-Founder of Guardio. “Nobody is losing their savings to a virus. People are losing savings to a scam that AI wrote, voiced and dialed – while their antivirus reports that their laptop is perfectly clean. Consumer security has to be rebuilt around the person, not the device. That’s what one million people are already paying us for, and this round is a stepping stone to bring it to the tens of millions who are still protected by software built for a decade ago.”

“Guardio has proven once again, and now at scale, that its DNA brings together three core elements that rarely coexist in one company: deep cybersecurity expertise, a consumer-first product mindset, and a best-in-class distribution machine,” said Gilad Shany, Managing Partner at ION Crossover Partners. “The results speak for themselves: four consecutive years of triple-digit growth, and >$150 million in ARR. Very few businesses in security run this well at this speed, and we are proud to double down on our investment in Guardio.”

“Security wins when it deeply understands context. In the AI era, scams are more sophisticated and personal than ever and Guardio is bringing that depth of protection to the billions of people left to fend for themselves online.” said Assaf Rappaport, Co-Founder and CEO of Wiz. “I’m thrilled to back this team as they make the world a bit safer.”

About Guardio

Guardio is redefining consumer cybersecurity in the age of AI. By moving beyond outdated, device-based tools, Guardio delivers real-time, person-centric protection that neutralizes modern AI-driven threats like phishing and complex scams. Our mission is to bring the caliber of security found in global corporations to your daily digital life, safeguarding millions of users wherever they interact online. Discover a safer digital life at guard.io.

Media contact
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SOURCE Guardio

HAMILTON, Bermuda, Sept. 2, 2026 — Qapture Investments, a Bermuda-based investment manager led by Frederick Pye, founder of 3iQ Corp, today announced the completion of two strategic transactions: the acquisition of Flammarion Partners Ltd., a British Virgin Islands Approved Manager, now renamed Qapture Investments (BVI) Ltd.; and the integration of Hermetik Trading Technologies Inc.’s on-chain yield strategies and operational infrastructure, including the appointment of Founder Brendan MacNeil as Head of DeFi.

Together, the acquisitions position Qapture to be a regulated investment manager and a leading on-chain strategy provider, expanding both its regulatory footprint and product capabilities.

Hermetik and Brendan MacNeil

Qapture recently purchased the on-chain yield strategies and operational infrastructure of Hermetik Trading Technologies Inc., a Canadian DeFi technology company, and appointed its founder, Brendan MacNeil, as Head of DeFi.

Mr. MacNeil brings a decade of experience working in the digital asset sector. He founded and operated Hermetik Trading Technologies Inc. as a Decentralized Finance (DeFi) technology company for three years with backing from East Valley Ventures, an angel investor group based in Atlantic Canada. His strategies are designed for investors seeking consistent returns, in contrast to the frequent volatility and drawdowns often experienced throughout the sector.

The acquisition adds a three-year track record in on-chain yield strategies, complementing Qapture’s existing eight-year track record in directional digital asset strategies. Brendan’s addition to the team strengthens Qapture’s position as a data-driven active manager building the new standard of investing for a digital future.

“Brendan’s track record of designing reliable on-chain strategies aligns perfectly with our vision of offering next-generation products as on-chain asset managers,” said Daniel Pye, President and COO at Qapture. “Together, Qapture is now equipped to service clients across the full spectrum of risk tolerance with strategies flexible to help achieve our client’s goals.”

As Head of DeFi, MacNeil will join Qapture’s Research and Investment Committees, leading the development of all on-chain strategies and product initiatives. The integration brings Hermetik’s proprietary systems and operational infrastructure into Qapture’s platform, enhancing the firm’s capabilities in yield optimization, risk management, and automated execution.

“Digital assets are going through a generational inflection point – evolving from speculation to sophisticated asset management strategies. Qapture brings a depth of expertise and success in bridging these two worlds. Combined with Hermetik’s on-chain yield strategies, there is a real opportunity here to capture the institutional transition from traditional to on-chain markets,” said Brendan MacNeil, Head of DeFi at Qapture.

BVI Approved Manager

Concurrently, Qapture completed the acquisition of Flammarion Partners Ltd., a British Virgin Islands company registered as an Approved Manager by the BVI Financial Services Commission. The entity has been renamed Qapture Investments (BVI) Ltd. and will serve as the investment manager for Qapture’s Bermuda-domiciled funds and separately managed accounts (SMAs).

The BVI Approved Manager regime authorizes Qapture to manage professional funds and discretionary managed accounts up to US$400 million in aggregate assets, providing an efficient regulatory framework that complements Qapture’s existing Bermuda private fund while the firm builds toward obtaining an investment-business licence from the Bermuda Monetary Authority and establishing a Bermuda-domiciled Segregated Accounts Company.

“The path is clear,” said Frederick Pye, Director at Qapture. “We went through the front door to bring digital assets to public markets at 3iQ. We intend to lead with the same institutional quality as we position Qapture for the opportunity ahead.”

“We are building Qapture for the new age of investment management,” says Daniel Pye. “Once all value moves on-chain, managers will need to be modular, ready to offer emergent strategies with high liquidity while preserving institutional quality. Our regulatory status is a major milestone as we prepare for this Imminent Upgrade.”

About Qapture Investments

Qapture Investments Ltd. is the Bermuda-based digital asset management arm of the Pye family office. Founded by Frederick Pye — the Canadian pioneer behind 3iQ Corp, who bridged BTC and ETH into public markets through early exchange-listed products — Qapture Investments Ltd operates as a proprietary trading firm, and investment management is conducted through Qapture Investments (BVI) Ltd., a BVI company registered as an Approved Manager by the Financial Services Commission, operating under exemption pending formal approval of the application filed on September 12th, 2025. The firm manages Qapture Digital Asset Fund Ltd. (QDAF), a BMA-regulated private fund, as well as separately managed accounts. For more information, visit www.qapture.io.

Media Contact:
Christopher Siedentopf
Head of Business Development
Qapture Investments Ltd.
[email protected]

Important Notice / Disclaimer

This press release is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, or tax advice, nor an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any security, fund interest, or digital asset. Any offering will be made only to eligible investors by means of the relevant fund’s confidential offering documents. Nothing in this release creates any advisory, fiduciary, or client relationship. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Digital assets are volatile and involve risk of loss, including the potential loss of the entire amount invested.

SOURCE Qapture Investments

Funding from Sequoia Capital, S32, Canapi and Alumni Ventures will expand empirik.ai’s Autonomous Infrastructure Engineer

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 2, 2026 — Today, empirik.ai  launched from stealth and announced $21 million in funding from Sequoia Capital, S32, Canapi Ventures and Alumni Ventures. The company is introducing the industry’s first AI agent for infrastructure change, enabling enterprises to proactively understand engineer’s intent, deterministically compute its impact and safely execute complex infrastructure at machine speed.

The rise of AI coding agents has dramatically accelerated the velocity of software creation. However, the underlying infrastructure operating model remains manual, reactive, and reliant on human-speed change review boards and ticket queues. As machines produce code at unprecedented speed, manual infrastructure governance creates a critical operational bottleneck and elevates the risk of severe production failures.

empirik.ai addresses this risk by understanding infrastructure changes and their impact before execution. Using empirik.ai, customers can answer the question, “What will happen if I make this change?” When an engineer or AI agent initiates an action from a pull request, ticket, or pipeline, empirik.ai captures the intent at the source, projects the mutation across the live environment, and computes the exact impact before anything is deployed. With a continuously updated infrastructure graph with governed execution workflows, teams can assess risk, prevent/block unsafe changes and safely move at machine speed. empirik.ai thus flips how infrastructure is managed, moving teams from reactive firefighting to proactive execution.

“Running infrastructure at Salesforce taught me that teams were always forced to choose between moving fast or staying reliable,” said Kartik Chandrayana, CEO of empirik.ai. “Now, AI coding agents are shipping software at machine speed, but infrastructure is still managed by hand. You cannot put autonomous software upstream of manual infrastructure and expect the system to hold. empirik.ai builds the living memory and operational layer for infrastructure – giving teams the ground-truth context to understand intent, evaluate risk, and safely automate operations before changes cause downtime.”

“Managing infrastructure complexity is a problem that founders Avon Puri and Sudheer Dhurjati have faced throughout their careers, and one that I am intimately familiar with from my many years at VMware,” said Bogomil Balkansky, Partner at Sequoia Capital. “That shared conviction is why Sequoia incubated empirik.ai. As AI takes over the software development process, and dramatically speeds it up, the old way of change management with service tickets and human approvals becomes obsolete. empirik.ai is the new foundation for change management at machine speed: it understands change intent and computes its potential impact before it’s executed. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Kartik, Avon, Sudheer, and the entire team as they make proactive, autonomous infrastructure a reality.”

empirik.ai is already actively powering complex production environments across leading enterprises, including Guardant Health, Avahi Systems, TCBPay, a Fortune 50 CPG enterprise, and a Fortune 500 financial data services leader.

To learn more or request a demo, visit https://empirik.ai

About empirik.ai

empirik.ai is the AI agent for infrastructure change. By continuously modeling the complete application environment, across cloud, on-prem, Kubernetes, VMs, IAM, CI/CD, and SaaS, empirik.ai enables engineering teams to understand intent behind a change, compute its blast radius, and execute changes safely within governed workflows. This helps enterprises prevent incidents, and resolve incidents faster. Headquartered in San Francisco, empirik.ai is backed by Sequoia Capital, S32, Canapi Ventures, and Alumni Ventures. For more information, visit https://empirik.ai.

SOURCE empirik.ai