Die Finanzierung wird Forschung und Entwicklung, die weltweite Markteinführung sowie den Aufbau einer bedeutenden Präsenz im Silicon Valley beschleunigen, während Brahma AI das Betriebssystem für audiovisuelle Inhalte in Unternehmen entwickelt

LOS ANGELES, LONDON und MUMBAI, 23. September 2026 — Brahma AI, das KI-native Betriebssystem für audiovisuelle Unternehmensinhalte, gab heute bekannt, dass es durch die Ausgabe von Vorzugsaktien 150 Millionen US-Dollar eingeworben hat, wobei Multiples Alternate Asset Management 100 Millionen US-Dollar investierte. Das Unternehmen hat zudem weiteres Investoreninteresse in Höhe von 100 Millionen US-Dollar verzeichnet.

Brahma AI konzentriert sich auf vier globale Branchen: Medien und Unterhaltung, Sport, Gesundheitswesen und Werbung. Zu den globalen Ankerkunden zählen Warner Bros., die NBA und die Mayo Clinic, während Google, Hakuhodo und DNEG zu den strategischen Vertriebspartnern gehören.

Brahma AI wurde von Prabhu Narasimhan gegründet und wird von ihm als Gründer und CEO geleitet. Brahma AI entstand aus Narasimhans Vision, die bei DNEG, Metaphysic und Prime Focus Technologies entwickelten Technologie-Stacks und Kompetenzen zu bündeln, um eine KI-native Plattform für die weltweit größten Unternehmen zu schaffen. Unter seiner Führung hat Brahma AI seine KI-native Plattform rund um Brahma AI Core und Brahma AI Studio entwickelt, wichtige globale Kunden und Partnerschaften gewonnen und den Einsatz seiner Technologie in den Bereichen Medien und Unterhaltung, Sport, Gesundheitswesen und Werbung ausgeweitet.

Heute verbindet Brahma AI Content-Intelligence und -Management für Unternehmen mit hochentwickelten KI-Technologien zur Inhaltserstellung, die visuelle KI, digitale Menschen, Sprachausgabe und mehrsprachige Darbietungen umfassen. Die Technologie des Unternehmens hat bedeutende Branchenauszeichnungen erhalten, darunter einen Technology & Engineering Emmy^®Award 2026.

Jo Plaete, Mitbegründer und CTO sowie einer der weltweit führenden Experten für KI, visuelle KI, digitale Menschen und hochauflösende synthetische Medien, leitet den Technologie- und F&E-Bereich von Brahma AI, während das Unternehmen seine KI-Plattform weiterentwickelt und ausbaut.

Renuka Ramnath, Gründerin, Geschäftsführerin und Vorstandsvorsitzende von Multiples

„Brahma AI gestaltet die Content-Lieferkette im Zeitalter der KI neu. Aufbauend auf einem einzigartigen Erbe aus Technologie auf Hollywood-Niveau und unternehmerischer Innovation unterstützt das Unternehmen Organisationen dabei, durch KI-gestützte Inhalte, intelligente Lösungen, Lokalisierung, digitale Menschen und Workflow-Automatisierung einen höheren Mehrwert zu erschließen. Die starke Kundenakzeptanz, die einzigartigen Kompetenzen und die damit verbundene Anerkennung – darunter ein 2026 Technology & Engineering Emmy^® für 2026 – bestärken uns in unserer Überzeugung, dass das Unternehmen in der Lage ist, die Marktchancen im Wert von mehreren Milliarden Dollar für sich zu nutzen.

Unsere Investition basiert auf der Überzeugung, dass jedes Unternehmen zu einem Content-Unternehmen wird. Prabhu, Jo und das gesamte Team verfügen über ein tiefes Verständnis der Branchen, die sie bedienen, und haben modernste KI in hochrelevante Lösungen umgesetzt – von der Ermöglichung mehrsprachiger visueller Erlebnisse für Filme bis hin zur Entwicklung digitaler Zwillinge für Ärzte. Multiples Private Equity wird ein aktiver Partner sein, während das Unternehmen durch Investitionen in Forschung und Entwicklung, globale Marktexpansion sowie den Ausbau von Talenten und Prozessen die nächste Wachstumsphase meistert. Das Unternehmen verfügt über alle notwendigen Voraussetzungen, um eine beständige globale Institution in einer Branche aufzubauen, die gerade erst Gestalt annimmt.”

Namit Malhotra, Gründer und CEO von DNEG

„Brahma AI entstand aus Prabhus kühner Idee: die bei DNEG, Metaphysic und Prime Focus Technologies entwickelten Technologie-Stacks und Kompetenzen zusammenzuführen und ein neues, unabhängiges Technologieunternehmen zu schaffen, das für das KI-Zeitalter ausgelegt ist. Was er und sein Team auf dieser Grundlage in so kurzer Zeit aufgebaut haben, ist bemerkenswert.

Unter Prabhus Führung hat Brahma AI eigene Technologien und Produkte entwickelt, bedeutende internationale Kunden und Partnerschaften gewonnen und eine klare eigene Identität sowie eigene Ziele etabliert. Dieser Moment hat zudem eine besondere Symbolik. Prabhu, die United Al Saqer Group und Thor Björgólfsson haben Prime Focus Limited, DNEG und mich in einer wichtigen Phase unserer Entwicklung unterstützt und in uns investiert. Heute stehen wir alle gemeinsam mit neuen Investoren unter der Führung von Multiples hinter Brahma AI und Prabhu.”

Prabhu Narasimhan, Gründer und CEO von Brahma AI

„Was mich an dieser Investition am meisten begeistert, ist das, was wir damit als Nächstes aufbauen können. Wir stehen kurz vor der Einführung interaktiver digitaler Menschen, wir entwickeln Brahma AI so, dass es modellunabhängig ist, und wir erschließen mit unserer Technologie völlig neue Anwendungsfälle. Und Sicherheit, Authentizität und Herkunft sind ein so wichtiger Teil dessen, was wir aufbauen.

Was uns an Multiples besonders angesprochen hat, ist unsere gemeinsame Überzeugung, dass branchenprägende Unternehmen durch eine Kombination aus mutigem Ehrgeiz, disziplinierter Umsetzung und langfristigem Denken entstehen. . Ich könnte nicht begeisterter sein, Multiples an unserer Seite zu haben, während wir global skalieren und die Grenzen der Unternehmens-KI weiter verschieben.”

Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. fungierte bei dieser Eigenkapitalfinanzierung als alleiniger Platzierungsagent.

Informationen zu Brahma AI

Brahma AI ist das KI-native Betriebssystem für audiovisuelle Unternehmensinhalte. Die Plattform kombiniert „Brahma AI Core”, die Content-Intelligence- und Management-Ebene für Unternehmen, mit „Brahma AI Studio”, der KI-gestützten Kreativplattform, die visuelle KI, digitale Avatare, Sprachausgabe und mehrsprachige Darbietungen umfasst. Brahma AI arbeitet mit einigen der weltweit führenden Content-Anbieter und Unternehmen zusammen und wurde für seine visuelle KI-Technologie mit einem „2026 Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award” ausgezeichnet.

Mind² – Menschliche Emotionen. Maschinelle Umsetzung.

Infomationen zu Multiples

Multiples ist Indiens führendes Unternehmen im Bereich der Verwaltung alternativer Vermögenswerte und zeichnet sich durch seine langjährige und erfolgreiche Erfahrung in der Zusammenarbeit mit Unternehmern aus. Multiples hat über 35 Unternehmen dabei unterstützt, ambitionierte, unverwechselbare und verantwortungsbewusste Unternehmen aufzubauen. Multiples identifiziert Chancen, die von großen Veränderungen in den ausgewählten Branchen profitieren, und arbeitet mit außergewöhnlichen Unternehmern und Managementteams zusammen, um transformatives Wachstum zu schaffen.

Multiples konzentriert sich auf die Kernbranchen Finanzdienstleistungen, Pharma und Gesundheitswesen, Konsumgüter und Technologie sowie seit kurzem auch auf die grüne Wirtschaft. Zu den herausragenden Investitionspartnerschaften von Multiples zählen ACKO, Delhivery, Encube Ethicals, India Energy Exchange, Kogta Financial, Licious, Milltec, MoEngage, PVR, Quantiphi, TI Clean Mobility, Vastu Housing Finance, VIP Industries und Zenex.

The platform replaces a growing stack of provider accounts, credits and keys with one key, one balance and one invoice, at 60–90% of official list prices

SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 23, 2026 — Flatkey (https://flatkey.ai), the AI infrastructure platform that brings models, tools and data together behind one API key, today announced that Flatkey and Realset AI have raised $10 million in Series A funding. The company also said that more than 10,000 developers have adopted the platform in the two months since its July 2026 launch, using a single API key and a single balance to access more than 100 official AI models and more than 1,000 AI tools. The Series A funding will go toward adding more official models and tools to the platform and scaling the infrastructure that routes developer traffic to them.

Flatkey is built as production infrastructure for AI developers, not a convenience layer. Every call is routed to the provider’s official endpoint, and because Flatkey buys upstream capacity in volume, most models are priced at around 80% of the providers’ official list prices, with some at 60% or lower as part of ongoing promotions. Developers pay less than they would going direct, and they do it through one key and one balance across models and tools.

Why It Matters: Models, Tools and Data Are Becoming One Layer

AI is shifting from answering questions to completing work. The agents doing that work depend on three things: the models that reason, the tools that act, and the data they act on. Each of those is fragmenting into more providers every quarter, and every provider adds an account, a top-up, an API key, a rate limit and an invoice.

Flatkey’s bet is that these three converge into a single layer developers reach through one key. A production application today rarely depends on one model: it combines several models across text, image, audio and video and pairs them with tools such as search, browsing and data enrichment. A team using models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and DeepSeek, a video model such as Seedance, and a search and a browser tool would ordinarily manage seven or more provider relationships. With Flatkey that becomes one key, one balance and one invoice, and a new model or tool is a parameter change rather than a new vendor.

What Developers Get

• More than 100 official models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek, Kimi, GLM and others, plus image and video models such as Seedance. Every call is routed to the provider’s official endpoint. Flatkey does not self-host modified or quantized versions and label them as the original model.
• More than 1,000 tools on the same balance: search, browsers, data enrichment, media generation and actions, with no separate billing setup per vendor.
• Simple pricing. Subscription plans start at $10 per month, and pay-as-you-go credits cover both models and tools on one balance.
• A one-line migration. Flatkey is a drop-in replacement for any OpenAI-compatible client: developers change the base URL and their existing code works.
• New models on release day. Flatkey adds new models through official channels as soon as they are released, so teams do not open a new provider account every time something new ships.

“AI development is becoming less about choosing one model and more about combining models, data and tools across text, image, audio and video,” said Hunter Guo, founder of Flatkey. “If developers can reach all of that through one key, the platform stops being a convenience layer and starts to look like infrastructure. That is the company we are building.”

Availability

Flatkey is available today at https://flatkey.ai. New users start with $1 in free credit and can continue with pay-as-you-go credits or a monthly plan.

About Flatkey

Flatkey is an AI infrastructure platform that gives developers access to more than 100 official AI models and more than 1,000 AI tools through one key and one balance. Headquartered in San Jose, California, Flatkey launched in July 2026. Learn more at https://flatkey.ai 

Media Contact

Xingru Ren
Head of Marketing, Flatkey
+1 424 356 6176
[email protected]
https://flatkey.ai 

SOURCE Flatkey

Real-world data lab captures expert human demonstrations, builds RL environments from real workflows and evaluates agents with domain experts; first open benchmark on household manipulation due Q4 2026

SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 23, 2026 — Realset AI (https://realset.ai), a real-world data lab that produces training data for LLMs, frontier models and embodied agents, today announced that Realset AI and Flatkey have raised $10 million in Series A funding. The funding will expand Realset’s capture network of real workplaces and studio environments, grow its pool of expert demonstrators and domain experts, and support open benchmarks that measure whether AI policies work outside the lab.

Why It Matters: The Internet Is Exhausted, the Physical World Is Not

Frontier labs and robotics companies have largely consumed the text available on the internet. The next gains come from data about people doing real tasks in real places: how a worker folds laundry, loads a dishwasher, packs an order or handles a customer return. That data does not exist on the web, and simulation does not reproduce it.

Realset’s answer is that every dataset starts with a real person doing a real task in a real place. The company uses expert demonstrators rather than crowd annotators, real environments rather than simulation, and delivers de-identified data to US-hosted cloud buckets, with quality measured at every step of a single pipeline.

Three Ways to Produce Ground Truth

• Realset Body: embodied data for physical policy models. Egocentric and third-person capture of skilled workers performing manipulation tasks in homes, kitchens, warehouses and light assembly lines, plus bimanual teleoperation episodes with synchronized stereo video, IMU and action logs. Delivered with dense action-level annotation optimized for vision-language-action (VLA) training.
• Realset Field: LLM and agent training data from RL environments built on real workflows. Environments that mirror e-commerce operations, customer support, logistics dispatch and manufacturing SOPs. Domain experts generate trajectories, preference pairs and rubrics inside the environment, with verifiable rewards from real business outcomes and bilingual English/Chinese expert pools.
• Realset Judge: expert evaluation for agents in production. Evaluation design, failure diagnosis and continuous monitoring by people who do the job the agent is replacing, with targeted fix-data for the top failure modes and re-scoring as models and prompts change. The same services are offered to data integration and AI solution companies that deploy agents for their own clients.

The Realset Workspace

All three run on the Realset Workspace, where domain experts in six languages (English, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Arabic) answer real tasks, attach evidence and screen recordings, and pass an independent quality review before a record is approved. Every approved record exports as JSONL with provenance that customers can verify.

Open Benchmarks on Real Tasks

Realset publishes open benchmarks so the field can measure what matters: whether a policy works outside the lab. The Realset Household Manipulation Bench evaluates open-source VLA policies including π0, OpenVLA, GR00T and Octo on folding, loading, sorting and wiping tasks captured in real kitchens and laundry rooms, scored by success rate over three trials per task, with results expected in Q4 2026. A Light Assembly Bench, scored by the line workers who trained on the tasks, and a Commerce Ops Agent Bench for computer-use agents on real e-commerce seller operations are planned.

“The easy data is gone. What is left is the physical world, and you cannot scrape it,” said Hunter Guo, founder of Realset AI. “You have to put a camera on a skilled person doing real work, structure what they did, and check it with people who know the job. That is a capture and quality problem, not a labeling problem, and it is the problem we are building a company around.”

About Realset AI

Realset AI is a real-world data lab and training data provider for LLMs and embodied AI. It captures expert human demonstrations, builds RL environments from real workflows and evaluates AI agents with domain experts, for frontier labs, robotics companies, and data integration and AI solution providers. Realset is headquartered in San Jose, California. Learn more at https://realset.ai 

About Flatkey

Flatkey is an AI infrastructure platform that gives developers access to more than 100 official AI models and more than 1,000 AI tools through one key and one balance. Learn more at https://flatkey.ai 

Media Contact

Xingru Ren
Head of Marketing
+1 424 356 6176
[email protected]
https://realset.ai 

SOURCE Realset AI

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 23, 2026 — Fuel Cycle, Fuel Cycle, a US-based AI-powered consumer insights and market research platform, today announced the opening of its Global Capability Center (GCC) in Navi Mumbai, marking an expansion of the company’s global technology and product operations. Located in Vashi, Navi Mumbai, the center will serve as a strategic hub for Engineering, AI and Product Development. The GCC is being set up with an initial planned capacity of 50, with room to scale further over the coming quarters. The company aims to invest in scaling the centre, which is expected to become a key part of Fuel Cycle’s global product and technology organization.

The Navi Mumbai GCC is part of Fuel Cycle’s broader vision to build the technology infrastructure for the next generation of market research. As organizations look to understand customers faster and make decisions using a wider set of consumer signals, Fuel Cycle is bringing AI, research methodologies, owned customer communities and behavioral data into a connected platform. The India centre will contribute to this vision by building core product capabilities and strengthening engineering and data infrastructure and working closely with teams across the US and other global markets. The expansion also reflects the company’s long-term focus on tapping India’s technology and AI talent to build products for a global customer base.

Commenting on the announcement, Daryush Laqab, Chief Product and AI Officer, Fuel Cycle, said, “The way enterprises understand consumers is entering a fundamental transition. AI is creating an opportunity to move from fragmented research and point-in-time insights towards systems that learn continuously and help teams make decisions much faster. Our Navi Mumbai centre will be an important part of building that future. We see India not simply as a delivery location, but as a strategic product and AI hub where teams can help shape the technologies that will define the next generation of market research. Over the coming years, we intend to build deep capabilities here across AI, engineering and product development while creating opportunities for teams in India to work on technology with global impact.”

Going forward, Fuel Cycle plans to focus on hiring talent across AI/ML, data engineering, product engineering, UX, research technology, cloud infrastructure, etc. Over the next 3-4 years, the GCC is expected to take on greater ownership of global product development, supporting Fuel Cycle’s broader roadmap to build a more AI-native and continuously learning consumer insights platform.

About Fuel Cycle

Fuel Cycle helps leading brands build deeper, more continuous understanding of their customers. Our AI-powered platform brings together owned customer communities, behavioral and insights data, and every research method, including quantitative, qualitative and UX research, helping teams get to better answers faster. With every study building on what came before, Fuel Cycle helps organizations learn continuously, move faster and make more informed business decisions.

Media Contact 

Kalyn Stockman

Manager, Corporate Marketing

[email protected] 

SOURCE Fuel Cycle

El Paso, Little Rock and Oakland make up the inaugural cohort for the multiyear initiative connecting local government with mission-driven, gap-closing startups

OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 23, 2026 — Today at the Clinton Global Initiative, the Kapor Center announced El Paso, Texas; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Oakland, California, as the first cohort selected to overhaul how their governments partner with the startups working to solve urgent public problems in order to improve millions of American lives. As part of the Kapor Center’s PRIME Alliance, the initial cohort will take on a multiyear initiative connecting government with gap-closing startups building solutions to urgent challenges in areas such as housing, child care, health care, education, workforce development, and financial stability. Together they form the inaugural cohort that will help build a practical model for how governments and mission-driven entrepreneurs can work together.

“Oakland is where this work was born, and we intend to be the city that proves it can work,” said Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee. “Too many good solutions stall before they ever reach the people who need them. By joining this alliance, we’re committing to open our doors to the founders solving real problems in areas that make a difference, and make it easier for them to partner with the city that’s been their home.”

The selections mark the moment the PRIME Alliance moves from research to implementation. Over the coming months, the Kapor Center will work with leaders in each jurisdiction to identify priority challenges, connect governments with gap-closing founders, and test new approaches to partnership and adoption that other jurisdictions can learn from. The PRIME Alliance follows a Kapor Center report, Breaking Down Barriers, based on more than 60 entrepreneurs and investors who together hold over 3,000 public-sector contracts.

“Little Rock is proving that a capital city in the heart of the country can lead on innovation,” said Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott, Jr. “We’ve already moved to put smart, responsible technology to work for our residents, and this alliance lets us go further — opening our doors to founders whose solutions can make government faster, fairer, and more effective. This is an investment in Little Rock’s future as a place where entrepreneurs know their work can matter.”

The report found that the main barriers founders face are drawn-out contracting timelines, hard-to-find government buyers, inconsistent applications, and compliance requirements that are difficult for small companies to meet. It estimates that gaps in sectors such as housing, education, health care, and child care cost the U.S. economy more than $5 trillion a year, and that a 2 percent improvement would add about $100.7 billion annually. The report also points to early results at the state level: a partnership with Binti drove a 33 percent increase in the share of foster youth placed with families in Maryland.

“El Paso has always been a city that builds. Our problem has never been a shortage of good ideas; it’s the systems that slow them down,” said El Paso Mayor Renard U. Johnson. “We’re changing that. We want the folks who are solving real problems for our families to work with the City effectively and often, and this initiative is a step in the right direction.”

“Founders kept telling us the same thing: the hardest part of solving a public problem isn’t building the solution, it’s getting through the government’s front door,” said Chike Aguh, Head of Innovation and Strategy for Gap-Closing Startups at the Kapor Center. “El Paso, Little Rock, and Oakland are choosing to change that, pairing the speed of a startup with the scale of government, so good ideas reach families in months, not years.”

For more information, visit: https://www.kaporcenter.org/primealliance/ 

About the PRIME Alliance
The PRIME Alliance is a multiyear Kapor Center initiative that brings local and state governments together with gap-closing startups — companies whose products are designed to close opportunity gaps in areas such as child care, housing, health care, education, workforce development, and financial stability. Led by Chike Aguh, the Alliance grew out of the Kapor Center’s 2026 report, Breaking Down Barriers: Overcoming Government Hurdles for Gap-Closing Founders, which drew on more than 60 entrepreneurs and investors with experience across over 3,000 public-sector contracts and estimated as much as $100.7 billion in potential annual economic gains from faster, more effective public-private partnerships. Learn more at kaporcenter.org/primealliance.

About the Kapor Center
The Kapor Center works to make the technology and entrepreneurship ecosystem more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. Its work spans expanding access to technology and computer science education, conducting research on access and opportunity in computing, investing in community organizations and gap-closing ventures, and broadening access to capital for entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds.

SOURCE Kapor Center

Veteran technology and finance executive of Nielson, Amazon, Delta Airlines, NBC to chair the board’s audit committee

LOUISVILLE, Colo., Sept. 23, 2026 — Sierra Space, a defense-tech space company delivering solutions for the nation’s most critical missions and advancing the future of security in space, today announced the appointment of Warren Jenson to its board of directors. Jenson will serve as chair of the board’s audit committee, bringing more than three decades of financial, operational and technology leadership experience at some of the world’s leading companies.

“Warren’s experience spans technology, media, aviation and entertainment, giving him a rare, cross-industry view of how businesses navigate complex private and public capital markets,” said Fatih Ozmen, founder and chair of the board of Sierra Space. “That breadth of perspective, paired with his deep financial expertise and public-company rigor, makes him exceptionally well suited to chair our audit committee. We are pleased to welcome Warren to the board as Sierra Space continues to execute its strategy and strengthen the company for what lies ahead.”

Jenson has held senior executive roles across the technology, media, aviation and entertainment industries. He currently serves as chief financial officer of Polymarket. Most recently, he served as president and chief financial officer of Nielsen. Previously, he was president, CFO and executive managing director of international at LiveRamp. Earlier in his career, Jenson served as CFO of Electronic Arts, Amazon, Delta Air Lines and NBC. Jenson currently serves on the boards of DigitalOcean, Ripple, Dropbox, bringing extensive corporate governance experience across technology and global businesses. He also chairs the audit committees of DigitalOcean and Dropbox.

“I’ve spent my career helping companies grow from ambitious ideas into disciplined, enduring businesses—from Amazon and Electronic Arts in their growth years to Nielsen and LiveRamp,” said Warren Jenson. “Sierra Space is at a similarly pivotal stage, with an opportunity to translate extraordinary technical capability into sustained growth. I’m looking forward to helping the board and management team build the financial discipline this mission demands.”

“Warren understands what it takes to build and operate complex businesses at scale,” said Dan Jablonsky, CEO of Sierra Space. “His perspective as both a seasoned global operator, executive and experienced board director will be invaluable as we continue to strengthen our business, expand our capabilities and deliver on increasingly complex missions for our customers. I look forward to working with Warren and drawing on his experience as we position Sierra Space for long-term growth.”

About Sierra Space
With more than three decades of spaceflight heritage and a track record supporting more than 500 missions, Sierra Space is a defense-tech space company headquartered in Colorado, with operations nationwide. Across our two business segments—Satellites & Spacecraft Missions and Space Subsystems—we design, manufacture, and deliver a diverse portfolio of satellites, space transportation vehicles, and space subsystems, including power and precision systems, hypersonics and propulsion, and in-space infrastructure.

With expansive classified and unclassified infrastructure and flight-proven technology, Sierra Space supports national security, civil, and commercial customers, safeguarding the nation, protecting space-based assets, and supporting space exploration and economic development.

MEDIA CONTACT: 
[email protected]

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SOURCE Sierra Space

• $450 million debt financing led by J.P. Morgan, Capital One and Citi comprises a $400 million term loan and $50 million revolving credit facility.
• Revamped Bird platform builds on giving AI agents access to the outer world in a regulated compliance-focused Agentic Harness to send messages, make calls, and manage email directly, as Bird accelerates its push into the US.
• Bird generated $165 million EBITDA in 2025 following extensive automation across the business.

NEW YORK and AMSTERDAM, Sept. 23, 2026 — AI communications infrastructure company Bird.com has completed a $450 million debt financing, led by J.P. Morgan, and unveiled a revamped Agentic Harness platform that now lets AI agents send messages, place calls, manage email, and even get their own eSIM phone plan on Bird’s network without custom integration.

The platform forms part of Bird’s broader repositioning to serve the growing agent economy as the company accelerates its push into the US.

This follows a two-year period during which the company continued to grow, generated $165 million EBITDA in 2025 and extensively automated its operations.

Bird’s headcount has fallen from more than 1,000 at its peak to 120 today, driven by extensive automation across the business rather than a retreat from the market. The automation drive has resulted in higher productivity and lower prices for customers, with some channels costing 90% less than competitors.

Robert Vis, founder and CEO of Bird.com, said:

“This is the direction the global economy is heading in, and we as a company have demonstrated how automation can work. We didn’t automate to cut headcount, we did it to become more productive, and the headcount came down as a result.”

“Half the apps on your phone rely on our infrastructure, and yet we’re running this business at a fraction of the size we used to be. You can’t do that unless you’re automated in a way that would have sounded crazy a few years ago.“

The $450 million financing comprises a $400 million term loan and $50 million revolving credit facility. It is structured as a dividend recapitalization, providing liquidity to Bird’s existing shareholders, including current and former employees with equity in the company. The financing involved seven banks, including J.P. Morgan, Capital One and Citi.

Shikha Goyal-Allain, Managing Director and Market Executive, Innovation Economy, Commercial Banking at J.P. Morgan, said:

“We’re seeing significant growth in agentic AI, and we expect that to keep accelerating as agents transact and communicate on people’s behalf. Bird has built a business combining scale, a lean operating model and sustained profitability. Leading this financing reflects our confidence in Bird’s fundamentals and in Robert’s track record of running a highly efficient, profitable business as it takes on its next chapter.”

Bird’s revamped platform includes a new layer — its Agentic Harness — specifically designed for AI agents to use Bird’s products via the technical protocols they rely on to connect to software, with full access to create, update and manage information across Bird’s systems on their own, so no human needs to log in. Operational mechanics that previously had to be handled manually by developers, including how message delivery differs by country and how to reach an inbox differently depending on the provider, can now be executed without a human in the loop. Agents’ ability to manage the Harness end-to-end is a significant differentiator versus competitors such as Twilio where agents’ access is more limited. Further, the platform connects to multiple major AI models rather than a single one, giving Bird’s customers enormous flexibility.

Robert Vis added:

“The world is filling up with AI agents. They can reason, plan and decide. But an agent that can’t send the email, fire the text or pick up the phone never actually achieves anything. We’ve built the layer that lets AI take actions in the real world. With Bird, every app or web application can communicate through ChatGPT, Claude or Cursor, making the agent economy work.”

Notes to editors

J.P. Morgan led the financing as joint lead arranger, joint bookrunner and administrative agent, with Capital One and Citi as joint lead arrangers and joint bookrunners. Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), Flagstar and Huntington are also in the lender syndicate.

About Bird.com

Bird.com is an AI communications infrastructure company founded in 2011 by Robert Vis. It is the messaging infrastructure of the modern internet, moving trillions of messages a year. It offers one API for email, SMS, WhatsApp, voice and RCS, built so that developers and AI agents can reach the world in a few lines of code. It is trusted by enterprises across 150+ countries and is dual-headquartered in New York and Amsterdam. Learn more at bird.com.

CAMDEN, Del., Sept. 23, 2026 — The latest round was led by Electric Capital, with participation from New Form Capital, Generative Ventures, Fasanara Capital, 2Square, 4th Revolution Capital, DCFGod, The Rollup and others.

Since launching in June 2025, infiniFi has generated over $9M in yield while reaching an all-time high of $180M in TVL.

In a little over a year, infiniFi has now generated more yield than the company has raised in outside capital.

From Thesis to a Live Financial System

When infiniFi emerged from stealth in February 2025 with its initial $3M pre-seed, the thesis was straightforward: bring the capital efficiency of fractional reserve banking on-chain without bringing the opacity of traditional banking with it. 

Traditional banks deploy depositor capital across assets with different durations to generate returns, while keeping much of that upside themselves. infiniFi was built to automate that process transparently on-chain and return more of the economics to depositors.

What was a thesis in 2025 is a thriving ecosystem today.

infiniFi has generated more than $9M in yield while expanding across Ethereum, Arbitrum, Katana, Base and more to come, all while building an ecosystem spanning DeFi protocols and institutional asset managers.

For infiniFi, DeFi is only the beginning. With infiniFi Prime, we’re building the infrastructure to take the infiniFi system beyond crypto-native users, bringing diversified, institutionally managed private credit into Earn accounts across neobanks and consumer financial apps. With this next phase of growth, we’ll be bringing on-chain returns to off-chain users, dramatically increasing our potential market.

Partners and integrations include Ethena, Pendle, Morpho, Aave, Fasanara, FalconX, Accountable, Steakhouse Financial, Silo, Curve, Euler, and others.

“With this raise, infiniFi has secured funding to continue our mission to revolutionize how your typical person earns interest on their dollars. Through our forthcoming release of infiniFi Prime, we are expanding distribution for our offerings, while simultaneously diversifying the offerings that earn our users their returns. infiniFi stands positioned to be the leading conduit for off-chain money seeking the higher returns and greater transparency of on-chain sources and we look forward to many more years of innovation!”

– Rob Montgomery (CEO/ Founder – infiniFi)

More Yield Generated Than Capital Raised

With more than $6M raised across its pre-seed and seed rounds, infiniFi has already generated over $9M in yield, more than the company has raised in outside capital. 

The new funding will accelerate a system that is already working at scale.

Building Toward TGE

The raise comes as infiniFi enters its next stage of growth, with infiniFi’s token generation event confirmed for Q4 2026.

The additional capital will support continued protocol development, new integrations, multichain expansion, and the broader rollout of infiniFi’s products as the protocol moves toward TGE.

infiniFi started with a thesis for rebuilding fractional reserve banking on-chain. 

Today, with $50M+ in TVL, $9M+ in yield generated for users, and more yield generated than outside capital raised, that thesis is operating at scale.

Next stop: TGE.

SOURCE infiniFi

Former Paul, Weiss partner and longtime trusted advisor to Grain joins the Firm as it advances its institutional development and expands its multi-strategy investment platform.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23, 2026 — Grain Management, a leading global investment firm specializing in digital infrastructure, today announced the appointment of Amran Hussein as General Counsel. Based in New York, Hussein will lead the Firm’s legal and governance functions and serve as a member of and strategic advisor to Grain’s leadership team.

A highly regarded private funds attorney, Hussein brings more than two decades of experience advising some of the world’s leading investment firms on fund formation, governance, strategic transactions, and organizational growth. Prior to joining Grain, she spent 23 years at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, where she advised sponsors of private investment funds across a broad range of strategies. Her work included the formation and operation of multi-investor funds, separately managed accounts, co-investment vehicles, secondary transactions, strategic joint ventures, and investment management M&A transactions.

“Amran’s appointment reflects the continued evolution of Grain as a global investment platform,” said David J. Grain, Founder and CEO of Grain. “She has been a trusted advisor to our team for many years and possesses a rare combination of legal expertise, business judgment, and strategic perspective. As Grain continues to expand its investment capabilities and institutional infrastructure, Amran will be an invaluable partner in helping us navigate our next phase of growth.”

Hussein has worked alongside Grain for more than a decade as outside counsel. Her deep familiarity with Grain’s business, culture, investment approach, and leadership team positions her to seamlessly transition into the role of General Counsel. During her career, she advised numerous emerging and established asset managers, often serving as a trusted counselor on matters extending beyond fund formation to broader business strategy, governance, and organizational development.

“After spending much of my career advising investment firms through periods of growth and transformation, I am excited to join Grain at such an important moment in its evolution,” said Amran Hussein. “Having worked closely with David and the Grain team for many years, I’ve had a unique opportunity to witness the Firm’s growth firsthand. Grain has built an exceptional platform, strengthened its organizational capabilities, and established a remarkable culture.”

Widely recognized as one of the leading attorneys in private funds, Hussein was named a Fund Formation MVP by Law360 and received the “Best in Investment Funds” distinction at the Euromoney Americas Women in Business Law Awards. She has been recognized by Chambers, The Legal 500, IFLR1000, Who’s Who Legal, and Lawdragon for her work in private equity funds and investment management. She is also an active thought leader on issues affecting the private funds industry and frequently speaks on industry panels and educational programs hosted by leading legal and professional organizations. As part of her community involvement, Hussein has served on the boards of education non-profits and has been recognized for her advocacy and mentorship efforts.

The appointment reinforces Grain’s continued investment in its leadership team and institutional infrastructure as the Firm expands its platform, broadens its investment capabilities, and pursues new growth opportunities across digital infrastructure.

About Grain Management

Founded in 2007, Grain Management is a leading global investment firm. We believe broadband and digital infrastructure are foundational to the tech-enabled transformation occurring across all industries and facets of society. Our global team of seasoned and diverse professionals share a collective passion for the power of connectivity to strengthen communities and unlock human potential for all.

We specialize in digital infrastructure and are a trusted solutions provider to the broadband and communications industry. Our unique combination of sector knowledge, experience as operators, and disciplined analytical approach guide our differentiated investment strategy across fiber networks, data centers, wireless spectrum, cell towers, as well as managed and infrastructure services. For more information, visit graingp.com.

Media Contact

Grain Public Relations
[email protected]

SOURCE Grain Management, LLC