Briya Enables Hospitals to Increase Revenue While Research Organizations Capitalize on Most Comprehensive Anonymized Data to Develop and Implement Patient Treatments

NEW YORK, Sept. 18, 2023 — Briya, an end-to-end healthcare data exchange platform, today announced completion of an $11.5 million Series A round of financing, bringing the company’s total funding to $17 million. The round was led by Team8, includes existing investors Insight Partners, Amiti Ventures and Innocare Health Investments, and is joined by the George Kaiser Family Foundation.

The funding will support Briya’s mission to transform how data is exchanged between healthcare organizations and life sciences organizations, with particular emphasis on supporting the United States health ecosystem. The company’s scalable data exchange platform enables hospitals to capitalize on their patient data. It has been implemented in healthcare systems and academic institutions, primarily in Europe and Israel.

“By implementing Briya’s data platform, we can now quickly access relevant clinical and radiological data from various sources in mere seconds,” said Dr. Jawed Nawabi, a radiology specialist at the Institute of Neuroradiology at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, a Newsweek Top 10 global hospital, and Digital Clinician Scientist Fellow at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH). “This has not only increased our efficiency in clinical research but also improved our collaboration within our international research network, thanks to a decentralized approach, enhanced data security, and increased transparency in data processing. It ultimately enhances interoperability and data quality.”

The Briya platform connects clinics and hospitals with academic and pharmaceutical research teams, addressing the primary challenges faced by organizations in the collection and exchange of healthcare data. The highly secured data exchange empowers hospitals to effectively utilize their health data and safely share it, in compliance with all regulatory guidelines. At the same time, it provides life sciences organizations seamless access to high-quality, de-identified real-world data to expedite development and time-to-market for new therapies.

“Briya has developed the only end-to-end solution currently on the market that streamlines the entire process of data sharing between healthcare organizations and life sciences organizations. It not only handles discovery, formatting, de-identification, and securing transfer of data, but also solves operational hurdles such as contracting, payments and approvals,” said Sarit Firon, Managing Partner of Team8, leading the group’s investment arm. “This unique end-to-end vision, coupled with its cutting-edge technology, makes us confident that Briya will significantly improve the healthcare industry’s ability to make positive use of clinical data.”

Briya’s scalable blockchain-powered system standardizes all forms of electronic health records, enabling streamlined access to and exchange of live, anonymized healthcare data for life sciences organizations. The technology facilitates optimal use of a range of AI and machine learning tools, real-world data, and health economics studies to optimize clinical trials, ensure regulatory compliance, and accelerate drug discovery.

The timing of the funding highlights the confidence stakeholders have in the value Briya brings to the market by enabling healthcare organizations, researchers and pharmaceutical organizations to efficiently exchange real-world healthcare data.

“Despite the abundance of available healthcare data, the fragmented nature of the current system, combined with complex compliance issues and a lack of standardization, means healthcare organizations face significant challenges in sharing their data with pharmaceutical and research partners, impeding medical research and care,” said David Lazerson, CEO and Co-founder of Briya. “Briya’s data exchange platform provides a scalable and secure model that allows hospitals to take full advantage of all that patient data has to offer, with minimal additional effort, to promote greater collaboration while generating lucrative revenue streams.”

“Privacy and speed are top priorities when it comes to digital health and Briya provides both the confidentiality and fast queries simultaneously. It is the most comprehensive decentralized data platform we have seen in recent years, helping us establish smart contracts to share data and reduce data storage costs,” said Janet Meiling Wang-Roveda, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Arizona. “We expect to see Briya adopted as a scalable data exchange solution in institutes, hospitals, and organizations across the U.S. in the near future.”

Prof. Ronni Gamzu, CEO of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, said: “Briya has enabled us to concentrate on pioneering research and innovation while fostering strategic partnerships with academia and the industry – all vital elements for our continued relevance in the age of AI. It has become an integral part of the hospital’s legacy of excellence, as well as the broader Israeli innovation ecosystem.”

About Briya
Briya is a blockchain-secured data exchange platform that enables healthcare organizations to share anonymized patient data efficiently, securely, and compliantly, while generating new revenue streams. It facilitates the quick retrieval of accurate information by converting healthcare data into FHIR or OMOP standards and seamlessly de-identifying queried data. This access to high-quality real-world data promotes research collaboration and facilitates effective data analysis in life sciences and healthcare.
Briya was one of 10 startups selected for the 2022 Intel® Ignite accelerator program, among the 2022 intake for the Nashville Entrepreneur Center’s Project Healthcare Showcase, and participated in UC Berkeley’s Health Engine accelerator.
For more information, visit: briya.com
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Media Contact
FINN Partners for Briya
Danny Sudwarts
[email protected]
(+1) 469-297-2515

SOURCE Briya

Cato’s largest financing round to date brings total funding to $773M, underscoring investor confidence in the company’s leadership in the fast-growing single-vendor SASE market.

TEL AVIV, Israel, Sept. 19, 2023 — Cato Networks, provider of the world’s leading single-vendor SASE platform, announced that it raised $238M in equity investment, bringing total funding to $773M. The largest financing round to date was led by LightSpeed Venture Partners with the participation of Adams Street Partners, Softbank Vision Fund 2, Sixty Degree Capital, and Singtel Innov8. The round comes just weeks after adding Carlsberg as a major enterprise customer, Cato’s recognition as a ZTE/SASE Leader by Forrester Research, and as a Challenger in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Single-vendor SASE. This up-round’s valuation underscores investor confidence in Cato’s massive market opportunity and its SASE platform’s disruptive and transformative power.

Following the round, Ravi Mhatre, founder and managing director of LightSpeed Venture Partners, will join the Cato board. “Lightspeed has a proven track record of supporting innovative companies that successfully disrupted and transformed huge legacy markets,” says Mhatre. “I am excited to join Cato’s board of directors to help guide the company towards its next phase of growth as it continues to expand its product offerings and scales global sales, marketing, and branding.”

“This funding round reflects investor confidence in Cato’s leadership in the single-vendor SASE market,” says Shlomo Kramer, co-founder and CEO of Cato Networks. “Cato’s SASE platform uniquely enables organizations of all sizes to optimally secure their businesses without the cost, complexity, and risk of owning and maintaining a pile of point solutions. Cato provides the only SASE platform creating a seamless customer experience and empowers IT to move at the speed of business.”

Cato will use the new funds to scale its organization in three key areas: delivering Cato’s vision and customer success to a broader audience, expanding the partner ecosystem offering managed Cato SASE services, and growing the engineering and product team in charge of its high-velocity train of innovative capabilities.

Market Adopts Single-vendor SASE Architecture Pioneered by Cato

Founded in 2015 by industry luminaries Shlomo Kramer, co-founder of Check Point Software and Imperva, and Gur Shatz, co-founder of Incapsula, Cato was built to deliver enterprise security and networking capabilities through a converged cloud service. This vision inspired the creation of the SASE category four years later. SASE promises an indisputable value to all enterprises: the ability to use a world-class security infrastructure converged with a global private backbone for the entire business without having to ‘own’ the underlying infrastructure. Cato’s SASE stands as a glaring alternative to legacy and emerging approaches that fall short of delivering this outcome as enterprises struggle with skills, resources, and budget constraints.

Cato’s vision has been met with enthusiasm in the market. In 2022, the company crossed the $100 million ARR mark, growing revenues at over 60% year-over-year. Cato’s gross dollar retention rate of over 95% is a strong testament to the improvements in security, agility, and performance experienced by our customers.

More than 1,800 enterprise customers, including Carlsberg and the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E, trust Cato with their mission-critical security and networking infrastructure, demonstrating the robustness of Cato’s platform and its ability to support complex business and technical requirements. On Gartner Peer Insights™, IT leaders give high marks for the Cato Experience. As of 11 September 2023, the Cato SASE Cloud had the highest overall rating of any rated single-vendor SASE platform (4.7 out of 5) based on 10x more reviews than any other vendor in the Single-Vendor SASE market.

“Cato Networks is the poster child for ZTE and SASE,” writes Forrester Research in The Forrester Wave™: Zero Trust Edge Solutions Q3 2023 Report. “Founded by Shlomo Kramer of Check Point Software Technologies and Imperva fame, Cato Networks started with a strong security pedigree and built a global platform of distributed PoPs from which to deliver security as a service. Cato has a strong strategy paired with a truly unified networking and security solution and has shown real security innovation within its single-pass architecture platform.”

Looking ahead, Cato will expand its cloud-first, globally distributed secure network platform to deliver new security and networking capabilities without increasing the customer’s total cost of ownership. Cato’s unique visibility into massive, real-time traffic volumes underpins existing and upcoming AI/ML capabilities to detect and respond to threats in real time. Cato’s zero-touch deployment model is ideally suited to expand beyond the network to further increase Cato’s end-to-end visibility and control of all enterprise traffic.

To learn more about Cato Networks, visit https://www.catonetworks.com. 

Digital Assets

Supporting Resources

About Cato Networks

Cato provides the world’s leading single-vendor SASE platform. Cato creates a seamless and elegant customer experience that eliminates the complexity, rigidity, and risks long associated with enterprise networking and security. Using Cato, businesses easily replace costly and rigid legacy infrastructure with a modern, zero-trust SASE architecture based on SD-WAN and a distributed cloud-native security stack to secure and optimize their global hybrid workforce, mission-critical applications, and business-sensitive data. With Cato, any organization can reap the full benefits of SASE transformation and move at the speed of business.

SOURCE Cato Networks

NEW YORK, Sept. 19, 2023 — Nuveen, the $1.1 trillion asset manager of TIAA and one of the world’s largest real estate investment managers, today announced it has secured a $250 million commitment from the TIAA General Account to seed the Nuveen Real Estate U.S. Impact Housing Fund.

The core-plus, open-end fund is focused on generating strong risk adjusted returns and creating housing opportunities for low-income residents across the U.S., primarily by investing in a geographically diverse portfolio of properties, including housing with rent subsidies, rent restrictions, income restrictions and Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing (NOAH) assets. The fund also intends to invest in regenerative development and financing that supports minority and women developers of affordable housing.

Affordable housing is a compelling portfolio allocation, offering consistent income streams though different market cycles, strong demand and limited supply, due to guaranteed subsidized rent payments for a large portion of residents.

“As demand for affordable housing has intensified nationwide, more investors are seeking opportunities in this resilient housing sector that produces positive societal benefits and steady returns—both of which are also aligned to TIAA’s objectives,” said Pamela West, Portfolio Manager of Impact Investing at Nuveen Real Estate. “As a key component of healthy, sustainable communities, affordable housing also enhances economic activity and job creation.” 

Nuveen has extensive experience investing in U.S. affordable housing dating back to 1992. Nuveen also has unique capabilities as a vertically integrated affordable housing property manager, operator and developer. Through these capabilities, Nuveen has dedicated portfolio management support for its affordable housing assets and can work with local communities to preserve and develop more affordable housing.

“We are one of the few truly vertically integrated fund managers that can build, invest in and operate quality, safe affordable housing across the country,” said Nadir Settles, Global Head of Impact Investing at Nuveen Real Estate. “By consistently reinvesting in our properties, we not only help our residents, but also build quality assets, which helps sustain investment value.”

In alignment with Nuveen Real Estate’s underlying mission, the fund will aim to address the preservation of housing for residents earning less than 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI), with a large concentration of households earning less than 60% AMI.  

The U.S. Impact Housing Fund will also improve the quality of that housing through expenditures to help with environmental adaptability and enhance resident well-being through investment in resident services, like healthcare and education. All investments are expected to make a material step toward achieving important social and environmental outcomes in affordable housing in alignment with select UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Past performance of products associated with the Manager is not indicative of future results, and there can be no assurance that the Fund will achieve comparable results. In addition, an investment in the Fund and an investment in a securitization are different in many significant aspects, including structure, terms, fees and expenses. An investment in the Fund is subject to different risks and the result thereof may vary substantially.

Investing involves risk; principal loss is possible. Real estate investments are subject to various risks associated with ownership of real estate-related assets, including fluctuations in property values, higher expenses or lower income than expected, currency movement risks, environmental problems and liability, and risks related to leasing of properties. Please consider all risks carefully prior to investing in any particular strategy. The portfolio’s concentration in the real estate sector makes it subject to greater risk and volatility than other portfolios that are more diversified and its value may be substantially affected by economic events in the real estate industry.

Responsible investing incorporates Environmental Social Governance (ESG) factors that may affect exposure to issuers, sectors, industries, limiting the type and number of investment opportunities available, which could result in excluding investments that perform well. ESG integration is the consideration of financially material ESG factors in support of portfolio management for actively managed strategies. Financial materiality of ESG factors varies by asset class and investment strategy. Applicability of ESG factors may differ across investment strategies. ESG factors are among many factors considered in evaluating an investment decision, and unless otherwise stated in the relevant offering memorandum or prospectus, do not alter the investment guidelines, strategy or objectives.

Nuveen, LLC provides investment solutions through its investment specialists. Nuveen Securities, LLC, member FINRA and SIPC.

Nuveen Real Estate is a real estate investment management holding company owned by Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA). Nuveen Real Estate securities products distributed in North America are advised by UK regulated subsidiaries or Nuveen Alternatives Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor and wholly owned subsidiary of TIAA, and distributed by Nuveen Securities, LLC, member FINRA.

About Nuveen
Nuveen, the investment manager of TIAA, offers a comprehensive range of outcome-focused investment solutions designed to secure the long-term financial goals of institutional and individual investors. Nuveen has $1.1 trillion in assets under management as of 30 Jun 2023 and operations in 27 countries. Its investment specialists offer deep expertise across a comprehensive range of traditional and alternative investments through a wide array of vehicles and customized strategies. For more information, please visit www.nuveen.com.

Contact:
Rebecca Vignali
703.505.7954
[email protected]

SOURCE Nuveen

Investment enables HiBob to enhance its HR product suite and accelerate global expansion, further solidifying the company’s position as the platform of choice for modern, mid-size, and multinational organizations

NEW YORK and LONDON, Sept. 19, 2023 — HiBob, the company behind ‘Bob’, the HR platform transforming how organizations operate in the modern world of work, today announced it has secured $150M in new funding in a round that was led by Farallon Capital and included Alpha Wave Global and existing investors. 

In the constantly evolving world of work, companies increasingly require strategic adaptability to address the changing needs of their organizations. Business leaders face a dynamic set of challenges — such as managing global teams, balancing remote and hybrid work modalities, and improving talent retention – requiring them to seek a new HR technology stack that enables organizational flexibility and agility to drive sustainable growth.

HiBob offers customers an alternative to legacy Human Capital Management (HCM) platforms, enabling HR leaders, managers, and employees to collaboratively adjust their processes and keep pace with changes to when, where, and how they work. With more than 3,500 customers now onboard, HiBob continues to deliver powerful growth even amidst volatile market conditions, exceeding $100M in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) less than three years after celebrating its $10M ARR milestone. 

The new funding brings HiBob’s total capital raised to $574M. Supporting HiBob’s mission to help companies put people first and make culture a competitive edge in the future of work, this investment will maximize HiBob’s ability to deliver its best-in-class, flexible HCM platform to modern, mid-size, and multinational organizations. Further, it enables HiBob to accelerate its investment in product innovation and development, expand into new geographies, and increasingly serve customers at enterprise scale as it continues to gain market share globally. 

“The role of technology in human capital management is constantly rising, and HiBob has consistently proven its product excellence as a mission-critical, full-service solution serving a diverse global customer base,” said Ido Krakowsky, Investment Director at Farallon Capital. “In a dynamic environment, HiBob enables HR leaders to serve an increasingly strategic function and adapt nimbly to evolving HR priorities. HiBob has established itself as the go-to option for organizations looking to streamline HR processes while emphasizing talent retention, employee engagement, and data-driven decision making. We look forward to working with Ronni and the team as HiBob enters this next stage of growth.” 

“Our partnership with Farallon Capital and Alpha Wave Global is a testament to our continued leadership in the HCM software category. Modern HR leaders support teams across the business and across the globe, delivering agile, data-driven people solutions to today’s toughest business challenges. HiBob is enabling these teams with powerful HCM capabilities, helping our customers drive engagement and keep their people at the center of every strategic initiative. In a challenging economic climate, this new funding reflects the strength of our strategy, our business, and our ability to deliver results. We value the trust that Farallon Capital, as well as our existing shareholders, have placed in us,” said Ronni Zehavi, CEO and Co-Founder at HiBob.

HiBob has been named to the 2022 and 2023 Forbes Cloud 100, as well as TIME Magazine’s List of 100 Best Inventions of 2022. The Company recently received four HR Tech 2023 awards from Lighthouse Research, including Best Global Solution for Core HR, and was recognized earlier this year by Ventana Research as a Value Index Leader.

About Farallon Capital:
Farallon Capital Management, L.L.C. is a global institutional investment management firm founded in 1986. Managing approximately $39 billion in capital and commitments, it is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in London, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and São Paulo. Farallon Capital Management has a decades-long track record of forging long-term relationships with leading management teams of high-quality businesses in both the private and public markets. More information about the Farallon is available at www.faralloncapital.com 

About Alpha Wave global:
Alpha Wave is a global investment company that has three main verticals; private equity, private credit, and public markets. Its flagship private equity fund, Alpha Wave Ventures, aims to invest in best-in-class growth stage companies and endeavors to be helpful, long-term partners to exceptional founders and management teams. Alpha Wave was founded and is led by Rick Gerson, Navroz Udwadia, and Ryan Khoury and has offices in New York, Miami, London, Monaco, Madrid, Abu Dhabi, Tel Aviv, Bangalore, Jakarta, and Sydney.

About HiBob
HiBob is at the forefront of HR innovation, transforming the way organizations operate in the modern world of work with its award-winning HCM ‘Bob’. Its modular approach caters to the needs of multinational companies seeking agile technology and robust analytics to support operations across distributed workforces in the ever-evolving economic and workplace landscape. Companies using Bob are able to accelerate hiring, retain the best talent, upskill staff, and elevate employee experience.

More than 3,500 global businesses serving hundreds of thousands employees worldwide – including Uala, SugarCRM, The Josh Bersin Company, Fiverr, The&Partnership, and VaynerMedia – appreciate its ease of use, high configurability, and the ability to customize based on business requirements. The platform’s high adaptability and focus on people engagement and community creation are seen in its consumer-grade user interface, providing easy access to HR processes while fostering engagement.

Awarded one of the best places to work in 2023, HiBob’s global team of “Bobbers” come together to build the exceptional in an inclusive and empowering culture.

For more information about HiBob, visit www.hibob.com

SOURCE HiBob

Take Command is the first and largest company in the U.S. to offer an end-to-end individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements, or ICHRAs, administrative platform and access to an individual health marketplace. ICHRAs are a new alternative to traditional group health insurance. Historically, employees have had to enroll in coverage from prescribed, one-size-fits-all insurance plans, paying for benefits they may not need. ICHRAs instead provide employees with a tax-free stipend they can use to select the plan of their choice and provide employers a way to mitigate or avoid rate increases.

ICHRAs save employers an average of 10-20% in costs, while providing employees with unprecedented choice when picking a plan that is right for them and their family. They are compliant with the Affordable Care Act and their popularity has driven more than 10,000 employers to adopt this new benefits model since its inception in 2020, marking 355% growth. Based on a defined contribution model, the market transformation is often likened to the shift from pension plans to 401(k)s.

Companies of all sizes are offering ICHRAs through Take Command. Many small and medium sized employers are using this HRA model to bolster recruitment and retention in a tight job market and as an onramp to offer benefits for the first time. Large employers, Take Command’s fastest growing segment, are leveraging ICHRAs to mitigate annual renewals, improve minimum participation rates, and upgrade from more expensive one-size-fits-all traditional employer sponsored coverage.

“If you look at those growth statistics, it’s clear American employers are eager to invest in their employees while providing themselves the opportunity to take back control of how they spend their healthcare dollars,” said Jack Hooper, Founder and CEO of Take Command. “Our team is looking forward to partnering with Edison, with its reputation for strong, customized value creation support as Take Command continues to build its capabilities to meet the rising demand for ICHRAs as more companies learn about and adopt them.”

Take Command will deploy the investment to further build out an infrastructure that pioneered and continues to shape the future of health benefits. The company will specifically use the new funding to expand its go-to-market strategy, boost payment functionality across its platform, and innovate new marketplace offerings.

“As the first-in-market alternative health insurance solution, Take Command is well positioned to capitalize on ICHRA’s meteoric growth,” said Edison Partners General Partner Gregg Michaelson, who led the investment and will join the board of directors. “Edison is proud to play a role in helping the company scale into their next phase of growth and further accelerate Take Command’s journey to building the leading health benefits technology company.”

About Take Command
Take Command is a SaaS platform that helps companies reimburse employees for health insurance. Offering seamless administration for Individual Coverage HRAs (ICHRAs) and Qualified Small Employer HRAs (QSEHRAs), Take Command was the first end to end ICHRA solution on the market, the first to bring a viable partnership model to brokerage firms, the only HRA administrator invited to the White House when ICHRA was announced, the only company to offer in-house, personalized enrollment support for employees, and a founder of the HRA Council.

With clients in all 50 states and clients ranging from 3 to 3,000 employees, Take Command has helped more than 5,000 companies take command of their health benefits. Take Command is proud to be named a best place to work by Modern Healthcare, Builtin, and Dallas Business Journal, and has won countless awards in the startup and innovation sectors. For electronic press kit, please visit this link.

Media Contact
Name: Amy Skinner
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 214-866-7757

SOURCE Take Command

RALEIGH, N.C., Sept. 19, 2023 — CAPTRUST Financial Advisors (CAPTRUST) announced today a minority growth investment from funds managed by global investment firm Carlyle (NASDAQ: CG). Carlyle will provide growth capital to the firm which will be used to pursue strategic inorganic growth opportunities. Neither GTCR nor any of CAPTRUST’s executive leadership teams will be selling secondary shares as part of the transaction.

CAPTRUST added its first institutional capital partner, leading private equity firm GTCR, in 2020 to support its strategic plans to further expand the business nationally, at a valuation of $1.25 billion. Since that time, CAPTRUST has grown through the addition of 29 firms that broadened the company’s capabilities and geographic footprint and fueled the firm’s organic growth.

CAPTRUST’s valuation has increased to more than $3.7 billion, with its equity value increasing by more than $2 billion to more than $3 billion. Carlyle’s new growth equity will be used to further drive this M&A strategy. Carlyle and GTCR will be minority investors in CAPTRUST, both individually and collectively.

“CAPTRUST was founded on the belief that everyone is best served by working with financial advisors that serve as fiduciaries, providing objective, conflict-free advice. Fast-forward more than 25 years, and that core belief remains the foundation of our tremendous growth,” said Fielding Miller, Co-founder and CEO, CAPTRUST. “We remain focused on our clients first and have built out the infrastructure and advisor force to deliver world class solutions.”

“CAPTRUST has established a well-defined position within the RIA industry thanks to the firm’s scale across wealth management, retirement plans, and endowments and foundations,” said Collin Roche, GTCR Co-CEO and Managing Director. “We believe in the future of this business and are pleased to maintain our full commitment as an investor and a strategic partner. We look forward to continuing to work with the management team to further build on CAPTRUST’s growth.”

“CAPTRUST is one of the premier brands within the RIA industry, with a deep bench of expertise and resources that support a premium and ever-expanding service model,” said Jim Burr, Head of Global Financial Services at Carlyle. “The firm has the unique position of leveraging its size and scale to benefit not only clients, but also to benefit the communities it serves. This differentiated position, coupled with CAPTRUST’s vibrant culture and strong leadership, makes us incredibly excited to collaborate with our new partners.”

Mike Hollander, Managing Director at GTCR added: “CAPTRUST continues to expand its capabilities through a robust inorganic growth strategy combined with strong centralized capabilities, which has allowed the business to generate exceptional growth. We are excited to support Fielding and the team as they accelerate CAPTRUST’s path forward.”

Fielding Miller will continue to lead the firm and remains the largest individual shareholder. CAPTRUST also has one of the broadest employee ownership programs in the industry. Currently, more than half of CAPTRUST employees participate in one or more of the firm’s equity programs.

“The culture at CAPTRUST is driven by unity, or as we say, One Unified Practice. Our shareholder program is one of the ways that we show our people just how important they are to the success of our organization,” continued Miller.

Ardea Partners LP served as exclusive advisor to CAPTRUST. Alston & Bird LLP served as CAPTRUST’s legal counsel. J.P. Morgan served as lead advisor to Carlyle. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP served as Carlyle’s legal counsel. Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal advisor to GTCR.

Additional terms of the deal were not disclosed.

About CAPTRUST
CAPTRUST was founded in 1997 and registered CapFinancial Partners LLC as an independent registered investment advisor in 2003 in Raleigh, North Carolina. The firm provides investment management, financial planning, estate planning, and tax advisory and compliance services for individuals and families. The firm also offers a comprehensive suite of services for ultra-high-net-worth individuals to simplify their financial lives, mitigate risk, and perpetuate their legacies. For retirement plan sponsors, endowments, foundations, and religious entities, CAPTRUST offers investment advisory services, fiduciary support, plan design, provider analysis and fee benchmarking, and employee advice programs. With nearly 1,500 employees across 85 locations nationwide, CAPTRUST oversees more than $832 billion in assets, including just over $688 billion in nondiscretionary assets under advisement and just over $143 billion in discretionary managed account assets (as of June 30, 2023).

About Carlyle
Carlyle (NASDAQ: CG) is a global investment firm with deep industry expertise that deploys private capital across its business and conducts its operations through three business segments: Global Private Equity, Global Credit and Global Investment Solutions. With $385 billion of assets under management as of June 30, 2023, Carlyle’s purpose is to invest wisely and create value on behalf of its investors, portfolio companies and the communities in which we live and invest. Carlyle employs more than 2,200 people in 29 offices across five continents. Further information is available at www.carlyle.com. Follow Carlyle on Twitter @OneCarlyle.

About GTCR
Founded in 1980, GTCR is a leading private equity firm that pioneered The Leaders Strategy™ – finding and partnering with management leaders in core domains to identify, acquire and build market-leading companies through organic growth and strategic acquisitions. GTCR is focused on investing in transformative growth in companies in the Business & Consumer Services, Financial Services & Technology, Healthcare and Technology, Media & Telecommunications sectors. Since its inception, GTCR has invested more than $25 billion in over 270 companies, and the firm currently manages more than $35 billion in equity capital. GTCR is based in Chicago with offices in New York and West Palm Beach. For more information, please visit www.gtcr.com. Follow us on LinkedIn.

SOURCE CAPTRUST Financial Advisors

Funding round led by Florida Funders, with participation from Home Depot Ventures, Community Investment Management (CIM), Companyon Ventures and MS&AD Ventures

MIAMI, Sept. 19, 2023 — Flex, formerly known as Flexbase, today announced the closing of a $120M Series A debt and equity funding round, which includes debt financing from CIM with an agreement to fund up to $100M, and $20M in equity capital led by Florida Funders with participation from Home Depot Ventures™, MS&AD Ventures, Companyon Ventures and others. In addition to the funding news, the company has launched its Flex Credit Card, Flex Banking and finance super app for business owners to streamline the finance back office of businesses and accelerate their growth.

“While enterprises and modern tech companies have seen significant innovation in the last five years, very little has come to our main street small businesses that have been the backbone of this country, driving our economy forward,” said Zaid Rahman, founder and CEO of Flex. “Most B2B FinTech companies serve Silicon Valley tech startups or large enterprise companies, neglecting small businesses that are struggling to find the credit and tools they need to effectively manage their finances. Flex’s new offerings focus on supporting small businesses by giving them the credit they deserve and providing the essential finance back office tools they need to achieve success.” 

“Until now, no one has been able to consolidate all the financial services and workflows required to effectively build, manage and protect business owners’ finances in one platform,” said Hadi Solh, co-founder of Flex. “Flex is introducing the future of FinTech by bundling services into one super app empowering founders, business owners and CFOs to grow their businesses. We look forward to rolling out even more transformational offerings in the coming months.”

This announcement comes as SMBs continue to power the U.S. economy, creating two-thirds of all new jobs and accounting for 99.9% of all U.S. businesses. Flex’s core product is a credit card that caters to traditional small businesses that have historically been underserved by financial institutions and up-and-coming FinTech platforms. The company offers 0% interest for 60 days on all purchases, providing Net-60 float and flexibility for businesses to grow. Flex is redefining credit and finance management by providing business owners with a credit card and financial ecosystem designed to reduce the hassle of expense reports, minimize administrative headaches, simplify employee card management and accelerate growth. The platform bundles every aspect of the back office, from banking to receipt capture, employee cards with specific limits, expense tracking and more, all in one place. With a significant demand from over 20,000 companies, Flex has moved beyond its initial construction focus to service industries such as logistics, trucking, farming, mom-and-pop service businesses, digital businesses, e-commerce companies, restaurants, real estate and more.

“Flex is reimagining how finance is done at businesses and has a proven track record when it comes to supporting businesses to provide more than just a credit card but a platform to manage their entire financial life,” said Saxon Baum, partner of Florida Funders. “We couldn’t be more pleased to invest in such a cutting-edge FinTech company and look forward to seeing their tremendous growth.”

Flex Key Features and Benefits

• Flex Credit Card and Credit Flexibility: Flex Credit Cards come with 0% interest for 60 days on every single purchase. With Flex, businesses can get unlimited employee physical and virtual cards with category and spending limits to manage business spending in real time without slowing down growth. Unlike other cards, Flex cards have no monthly or annual maintenance fees and no late fee charges. Flex also offers credit limits that grow as a business grows – the more customers use Flex, the more credit limit they may be able to obtain. The Flex Credit Card is issued by Patriot Bank, N.A. Flex extends the credit for the Flex Credit Cards, and the cards are subject to Commercial Cardholder Agreements. Flex Credit Cards are available to businesses operating within the United States (except CA, NV, SD, ND, and VT at launch) and Puerto Rico.
• Flex Banking: With Flex Banking, businesses can manage cash all from one place. Flex provides banking with up to 4% yield on idle cash. There are no annual, monthly or late fees, and wire transfers, ACH and insufficient fund fees are also a thing of the past. Flex’s debit cards offer 1% cashback on transactions. Flex enables businesses to have multiple free accounts under one entity for increased agility. The Flex Banking Debit Card is issued by Thread Bank, member FDIC.
• Flex Treasury Management: Flex’s Treasury Management, through partner American Deposit Management (ADM), enables businesses to diversify cash across multiple financial institutions and eliminate bank-run risk. Flex customers can access up to $75M in FDIC/NCUA insurance – a considerable increase over the FDIC/NCUA’s standard deposit insurance limit of $250K. With Flex Treasury, funds are spread across up to 400 FDIC-insured financial institutions to maximize FDIC/NCUA insurance.

“As investors focused on providing capital to small businesses in underserved communities, we are excited by Flex’s potential to provide small businesses with access to responsible credit and the flexibility they need to manage their cash flow and growth,” said Jeff Hilton, managing director of CIM. “We’re eager to continue to support Flex as they provide innovative cash flow management products and solutions.” 

For more information, please visit www.Flex.One

About Flex
Flex (a Flexbase Technologies, Inc. brand) is the B2B FinTech company redefining credit and finance management by providing a financial ecosystem that empowers SMBs to expand their business and accelerate growth. Flex bundles every single aspect of the back office into one finance super app to seamlessly control finances. The company offers Flex Credit Card with 0% interest for 60 days on all purchases and built-in employee expense management, as well as Flex Banking with up to 4% yield on idle cash. The addition of Flex’s Treasury Management, through partner ADM, enables businesses to diversify cash across multiple banks to efficiently move funds and mitigate risk, all while delivering up to $75M in FDIC insurance. Flex aims to be the financial platform that all small businesses use to build, manage and protect their finances.

About Community Investment Management
Community Investment Management (CIM) is an institutional impact investment manager that provides strategic debt capital to demonstrate and scale responsible innovation in lending. CIM is dedicated to supporting organizations that drive positive change and foster financial inclusion, economic growth, and social impact. For more information, visit https://cim-llc.com/.

SOURCE Flexbase Technologies, Inc.

The Startup is Focused on Secure, Turnkey Gen-AI Solutions for the Enterprise

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 19, 2023 — Yurts, the enterprise-ready Generative AI platform, today announced a $16 million Series A to support its acceleration into the market. The oversubscribed funding round was led by Nava Ventures, with additional investments from XYZ Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Mango Capital, and Essence VC. Yurts will leverage the capital to continue to build its secure AI platform and expand its technology team. This announcement follows a strategic partnership Yurts announced earlier this year with Nvidia and Lambda Labs to bring the secure GenAI platform to the market.

“At Nava Ventures we invest in companies that address deep needs and evolve to products that become a part of everyday life,” said Manish Patel, Founder of Nava Ventures. “Yurts takes the power of AI and makes it practical and accessible to the modern enterprise. Its full-stack turnkey solution enables the average employee to become a 10x employee, changing the  game for small and large businesses alike.”

Yurts is on a mission to help connect people to their best work. By leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) and the practical power of GenAI applications, the company is transforming knowledge management and enterprise workflows at scale. Yurts can go wherever you work and be deployed across any cloud environment, within private data centers, or on individual workstations.

“In these early stages of using Generative AI, enterprise CXOs must reimagine how they think about the knowledge within their organization, and how that knowledge turns into productivity and outcomes,” said Ben Van Roo, CEO and co-founder of Yurts. “We want to partner with them and ultimately make their job easier, so they can focus on empowering their organizations and reshaping how work gets done.”

With a founding team that built products that served regulated industries and national security customers, Yurts understands the importance of secure, explainable AI solutions. Recognizing that language-based AI is essential to the evolution of government – and any large organization – Yurts set out to build a solution customers can trust with their most mission-critical data. By starting with the portions of the market with the highest standards, Yurts set a foundation to raise the bar for Generative AI security, reliability, and trustworthiness worldwide.

The Yurts platform unlocks the following potential for enterprises:

• The information you care about: The platform converges documents from various spaces like SharePoint, Teams, Slack, Google Docs, molding them into an accessible repository that allows flexibility and control. With roots as the go-to solution for the defense industry, the technology also delivers best-in-class security and reliability.
• Farewell to scattered searches & data silos: The platform helps people find, connect, and communicate faster across the vast black hole that is enterprise systems, applications and documents. Turning what used to take hours into minutes.
• Work faster where you are: Yurts accelerates workflows through Yurts application interfaces or within pre-existing applications. The models can be tuned to be on brand, reduce hallucinations, and provide accurately cited sources.
• Cost and complexity are no longer a barrier: Work smarter NOT harder. The platform seamlessly integrates with existing systems. Without long implementation timelines, high GPU costs, or in-house machine Learning/AI experts.

Yurts already counts both private sector companies and public sector organizations as a part of its customer base, including contracts with the Department of Defense and Department of Energy. “We see data security as table stakes and know that when deploying AI privacy is top of mind for nearly every CXO,” added Van Roo.

To learn more about Yurts please visit www.yurts.ai.

About Yurts
Founded in 2022, Yurts is an enterprise-ready GenAI platform on a mission to help connect people to their best work. By leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) and the practical power of GenAI applications, Yurts is transforming knowledge management and enterprise workflows at scale. Yurts was co-founded by Ben Van Roo Guruprasad Raghavan, and Matt Thomson. To learn more please visit www.yurts.ai.

About Nava
Nava Ventures was founded in 2021 with a focus on Series A technology investing.  Nava is a lead investor, built on a craftsman-like approach to venture capital.  Our team has more than a decade of experience investing in early stage start-ups, and has been fortunate to partner with exceptional entrepreneurs who have scaled their businesses from idea to IPO.  We look to invest in those technologies that transform industries and reshape our everyday lives. For more information, please visit www.nava.vc.

SOURCE Yurts AI

SACRAMENTO, Calif., Sept. 19, 2023 — OnSight Technology, a leading robotics and computer vision company for the PV solar industry, is thrilled to announce the successful completion of its Seed round.

With this injection of funds, OnSight Technology is poised to propel its computer vision and autonomous driving initiatives to new heights. The investment enables the company to strengthen its research and development capabilities, attract top-tier talent, and forge strategic partnerships to further refine and enhance their AI algorithms. By leveraging cutting-edge technologies, OnSight aims to unlock the true potential of artificial intelligence in streamlining and optimizing solar operations.

Moneta Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm, led the round, with Stäubli, the global market leader in solar connections and renowned player in robotics and industrial automation, joining as a strategic investor and board member. There was additional participation from previous investors, including the Sacramento-based Growth Factory.

“We are grateful to Moneta Ventures, Stäubli, and the Growth Factory for their support,” said Derek Chase, CEO of OnSight Technology. “This round will propel us forward as we continue to innovate and revolutionize the robotics and computer vision landscape for the solar industry.”

Moneta Ventures, known for its expertise in early-stage investments, recognizes the enormous potential of OnSight Technology’s cutting-edge solutions. By leveraging its strong network and resources, Moneta Ventures aims to guide OnSight Technology toward sustainable growth and industry leadership.

“OnSight’s platform will enable the rapidly growing utility solar market to dramatically reduce commissioning and maintenance costs while improving accuracy and asset performance,” said Lokesh Sikaria, Managing Partner of Moneta Ventures. “OnSight’s solution is truly differentiated, as their robots enable data capture beneath the panels, where many equipment failures occur. We are proud to be backing an incredible team of industry veterans and technological experts.”

Stäubli’s investment solidifies the strategic partnership between the two companies. As the global market leader for solar connections, and a renowned player in robotics and industrial automation, Stäubli brings valuable expertise and industry insights to further fuel OnSight Technology’s success on the way to increasing a safer future for the photovoltaics industry.

“We are thrilled to participate in OnSight Technology’s development of innovative Computer Vision and AI solutions to enhance safety in the solar industry”, explains Franco Delvecchio, EP of Stäubli Electrical Connectors. “It’s part of Stäubli’s DNA to push forward innovation and future-oriented technologies to make our customers’ operations easier and safer.”

The Growth Factory’s 3rd investment into Onsight Technology showcases their commitment to fostering innovation and driving economic growth in the Sacramento region. Their ongoing investments demonstrate the belief in the company’s vision and potential.

“At Growth Factory, we are proud to identify world class founders in the Sacramento Region and support them with the funding, connections, and programming it takes to build their business. As the first check in to Onsight, we are excited to double down and continue supporting their journey to build a world class company!” Rick Spencer, Founder and Managing partner of GF Ventures.

About OnSight Technology:

OnSight Technology is a leading robotics and computer vision company that specializes in developing advanced solutions for Utility and Commercial Solar Industry.  By combining state-of-the-art technology with deep industry knowledge, OnSight Technology aims to transform traditional processes and drive efficiency, productivity, and safety.

Media Contact:
Jeff Struhm
VP Marketing
[email protected]
916.761.4205

SOURCE Onsight Technology