New AI platform offers a trusted internet companion with age-appropriate guardrails, helping parents foster and support curious children

NASHVILLE, Tenn., May 16, 2024 — Angel AI, a parent-designed AI platform that provides an age-appropriate internet experience for children aged 5 to 12 years old, announces a $4.75 million Seed funding round led by Cortical Ventures with significant participation from Village Global and several other prominent angel investors. 

Angel AI uses the most powerful and advanced AI technology today, such as large language models, natural language processing (NLP), speech recognition and synthesis, and agent-based systems with memory. This technology allows Angel to generate age-appropriate answers to children’s questions, delivering compelling but safe content and entertainment. Additionally, Angel’s platform has the ability to learn, personalize, and understand the child over time. The AI supports children’s curiosity and encourages them to find answers by providing multi-modal content at their comprehension level, including video and audio, to enhance the learning experience.

Angel’s content is also free from distracting advertisements or predatory monetization tactics, which have become commonplace in children’s digital experiences–often to their detriment. In stark contrast to the status quo, Angel is also free of data collection for reselling and always will be.

“We have already seen how social media platforms and children’s content sources are too akin to ‘digital narcotics,’ designed to be addictive and feed children age-inappropriate content, leading to higher rates of depression and loneliness,” said Tim Estes, CEO and founder of Angel AI. “As a father of two young boys, I wanted something better for my kids. So did the many parents that make up the Angel team. Instead of fully disconnecting children from the internet, we’re advocating for an innovative and more effective approach. By using the Angel platform, parents can carefully integrate technology, letting their children explore safely while building healthy online and offline habits and promoting digital fluency.”

The Angel AI platform will also include a parent insight portal, offering unique insights about children’s interests online and offline. In addition to the platform’s current services, Angel will continue to roll out new capabilities in the coming months with the ultimate goal of creating a multi-faceted ecosystem that will redefine how children experience the internet.

“Angel AI is solving a problem that every parent in the world encounters and yet remains unsolved: allowing their kids to use the internet without exposing them to inappropriate and unsafe content,” said Jeremy Achin, general partner at Cortical Ventures, founder and CEO of NeoCybernetica and hOS and former CEO of DataRobot. “Changing this paradigm is a massive opportunity and one Cortical is excited to support as we continue to focus on the theme of AI-powered human engagement for good.”

The round will accelerate Angel AI’s investments in hiring, product development, and marketing initiatives. Over 100 parents are actively testing Angel’s platform, demonstrating significant interest and anticipation for the app. Others who are interested are encouraged to join Angel’s waitlist. Invitations to use the platform will be rolled out in phases this summer as a part of the company’s plan to continue expanding parent and child engagement with the platform.

“Village Global prides itself on carefully selecting partners who are both leaders and responsible stewards in their areas of expertise,” said Anne Dwane, co-founder & partner at Village Global. “Angel is changing the world by using AI for good. We are proud to partner with an organization that helps protect children and educates and empowers families while modeling behaviors of responsible digital citizens.”

For more information, please visit https://angelkids.ai.

About Angel AI
Angel’s AI platform offers age-customized content for children aged 5-12+, creating a protective and personalized online experience. This parent-designed platform ensures children can explore online resources and information customized to their age and parents’ values. Angel AI gives parents key insights to understand and develop their child’s interests. In short, Angel is the trusted online companion parents can rely on to foster and support curious children with appropriate guardrails. To learn more about Angel AI, please visit Angelkids.ai.

SOURCE Angel AI

NEW YORK, May 16, 2024 — PolyAI, a leading global provider of enterprise voice assistants, has raised $50 million in a Series C round of funding. The round is backed by new investors Hedosophia, Nvidia’s NVentures and Zendesk, with follow-on investments from Khosla Ventures, Georgian, Point72 Ventures, Sands Capital and Passion Capital. With this raise, PolyAI has now secured over $120 million in funding to continue redefining what’s possible with voice-first, AI-powered automation in enterprise contact centers.

The company spun out of Cambridge University’s preeminent Machine Intelligence Lab in 2017, and today serves close to 100 enterprise customers including FedEx, PG&E, Caesars, Marriott, Unicredit and other Fortune 500 companies. In the past year, a PolyAI enterprise customer launched one of the world’s first voice assistants to be fully powered by generative AI, now used by millions of consumers. With another global brand, PolyAI released the world’s most multilingual enterprise assistant, speaking 12 languages. PolyAI has grown 10x over the last two years, with US companies representing over 70% of their revenue.

Customer sentiment runs high: “I was extremely impressed with PolyAI’s intuitive and natural conversational abilities and the impact it will have on customer experience,” said Pavan Kapur, who partnered with PolyAI while Chief Commercial Officer at Caesars Entertainment. “As a customer-obsessed leader, I am excited to see PolyAI continue to innovate for businesses and customers alike.”

Reacting to the funding, PolyAI CEO and Co-Founder Nikola Mrkšić stated, “Anyone who has ever picked up the phone to get support from their favorite brands has experienced the frustration of dealing with bad customer service. Our mission is to make every company the best version of itself in every customer interaction. This raise is a testament to the work we’ve put in to make that mission a reality.” Of the company’s intention for the funds, Mrkšić stated: “We aim to be the voice that handles – and handles well – over half of all automated customer service calls within the next five years.”

The up round indicates VCs are sharing this enthusiastic vision. “We are experiencing a Cambrian explosion in AI that will impact every industry,” said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures. “We bet early on PolyAI and the team as a category creator for AI-powered, voice-based customer support, and are thrilled to continue supporting them in making customer service the top brand experience for any company.”

In addition to logos named above, PolyAI’s clients include global titans in logistics, banking, hospitality, home services, insurance, energy, retail, healthcare, manufacturing and telecoms, as well as organizations in the public sector. To learn more about PolyAI, please visit www.poly.ai.

About PolyAI :

PolyAI specializes in creating the most lifelike conversational AI voice assistants in the world. With a focus on delivering exceptional customer service, PolyAI serves a wide range of high-call volume industries and is committed to revolutionizing the ways customers interact with brands through advanced, remarkably human voice AI solutions. PolyAI’s performance has earned spots in Forbes AI 50, Gartner Cool Vendors and Market Guide for Conversational AI Solutions, as well as a Gold Stevie Award for Contact Center Solutions in 2024. For more information, visit their website at www.poly.ai.

SOURCE PolyAI

Funding will support Genesys Works’ strategic growth plan, including expansion to seven new markets by 2028

HOUSTON, May 16, 2024 — Genesys Works, a national youth career readiness program for students in underserved communities, announced today that it has received a $7 million grant from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.

The funding will support Genesys Works’ strategic growth plan to significantly extend its reach and impact. Over the next five years, the nonprofit will triple the number of students served in existing and new markets. It recently announced plans to launch a new site in Jacksonville, Fl., in the summer of 2025.

“This grant is a validation of our impact to date and our potential to scale and prepare more young people across the country to become the future-ready leaders and professionals our workforce needs,” said Jeffrey Artis, Genesys Works President and CEO. “Our proven approach provides participating students with the knowledge, support, access, and navigational skills that place them on a pathway to success.”

Genesys Works has served over 11,000 students to date and currently partners with high schools and over 200 companies in seven cities across the country. The nonprofit has a proven track record of connecting young people to higher education and livable-wage careers, as evidenced by its outcomes. More than 90% of participants enroll in college. Program alumni earn a median income of $60,000 per year six years after high school and are three times more likely to graduate with a bachelor’s degree than peers from their communities.

About Genesys Works
Genesys Works provides pathways to career success for high school students in underserved communities. Our program consists of 8 weeks of technical and professional skills training, paid year-long corporate internships, college and career coaching, and long-term alumni support to move individuals out of economic inequality and into professional careers. Founded in 2002, Genesys Works now serves thousands of students annually in Houston, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington’s National Capital Region, New York City, and Tulsa. To learn more, visit genesysworks.org.

SOURCE Genesys Works

New financing led by Bessemer Venture Partners will expand go-to-market operations and accelerate product roadmap

ANN ARBOR, Mich., May 16, 2024 — Voxel51, the leader in visual AI, today announced that it has closed a $30M Series B funding round. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from new investor Tru Arrow Partners and existing investors Drive Capital, Top Harvest Capital, Shasta Ventures and ID Ventures. Voxel51 will use this funding to scale up its go-to-market organization, expand its community, invest in AI research and accelerate its roadmap to meet the growing market demand for solutions that unlock the value of visual AI.

Voxel51 was founded by a team of machine learning and computer vision experts to help address the distressing failure rate of AI projects. While investments in AI have exploded, a recent article in Harvard Business Review reported that the failure rate of AI projects is estimated to be as high as 80%. With visual data, such as the image and video data that already make up over 60% of all data traffic, becoming an increasingly important part of AI projects, the complexity and difficulty of building successful AI applications only increases. All too often, the culprit behind these failures is the struggle to put visual data to work in building production-ready AI models and applications—today’s fragmented, inflexible tools and clunky manual processes lead to lengthy development cycles and painful errors in production.

Voxel51 offers the antidote to those headaches, transforming the way that AI engineers and teams build visual AI. Voxel51 provides the leading refinery for data + models, where AI builders can simplify and automate their workflows to explore, visualize, curate and test datasets and put them to use to build models and applications. Tens of thousands of AI builders rely on Voxel51’s open source FiftyOne and enterprise FiftyOne Teams offerings to build production-ready visual AI that is dramatically more accurate and robust, improving team productivity by up to 50% and model accuracy by up to 30%. Innovative organizations including LG Electronics, Berkshire Grey, Precision Planting, RIOS Intelligent Machines and Forsight use Voxel51 solutions to help them build innovative visual AI solutions that improve product quality, ensure safety and increase efficiency.

“Traditional enterprises have increasingly sophisticated AI and ML teams with complex workflows that still include painful manual processes,” said Lindsey Li, investor at Bessemer Venture Partners. “As soon as Brian described his vision at Voxel51, we could see the platform’s role as core enterprise AI infrastructure of the future. We’ve been impressed by the entire team and their elegant and differentiated solution as a true orchestration layer for customers to build AI-forward and AI-native applications, faster and more easily. We are thrilled to partner with the team to build and scale their continued success.”

“No one would build and tune a race car on a grass field and expect to win a Formula 1 race,” said Brian Moore, CEO and co-founder of Voxel51. “Yet, organizations building visual AI are all too often forced to build and fine-tune models with mislabeled, inadequate and under-representative data and then hope for success in production. We’re helping our customers and community build better AI applications by bringing their models and data together in one place, and we’re thrilled to have the support of great investors to accelerate our mission to make visual AI a reality.”

This new fundraising round is a milestone enabled by the momentum demonstrated since the close of its Series A funding round:

• 4x increase in community membership and engagement
• 6x growth to over 2 million downloads of the open source FiftyOne project
• 10x increase in ARR for the commercial FiftyOne Teams offering

That growth has been supported by continued innovation delivered by the Voxel51 team, including the following recent highlights:

• Integration of FiftyOne and NVIDIA Omniverse to help autonomous vehicle developers create, curate, and visualize robust synthetic training data to maximize AI model performance
• Native vector search integrations with engines including Pinecone, MongoDB, Redis, Qdrant and more to enable fast, easy search through billions of images
• Introduction of VoxelGPT, a natural-language interface to FiftyOne that makes it possible for users to leverage large language models (LLMs) to rapidly and easily gain insights about visual data

“FiftyOne Teams is critical to getting our AI models into the real world,” said Matt Shaffer, VP of Artificial Intelligence and Co-Founder at RIOS Intelligent Machines. “It’s the hub that powers our AI workflows, from data management to model refinement, enabling us to deliver AI-powered robotics into production lines rapidly and reliably to help our customers improve food packaging, reduce waste, and improve safety for any person on the factory floor.”

To learn more:

About Voxel51

Voxel51 is helping organizations make visual AI a reality. Our open source and commercial software enables teams to build high-quality datasets and computer vision models that power leading machine learning and artificial intelligence applications. Tens of thousands of engineers and scientists have integrated open source FiftyOne into their workflows, and enterprise customers spanning from automotive, robotics, security and retail to healthcare rely on FiftyOne Teams to securely collaborate on datasets and models. We’re building a fully-remote team of exceptional and diverse people who want to bring visual AI to life. To learn more, visit voxel51.com.

SOURCE Voxel51

Precision medicine biotechnology company for obesity secures additional institutional capital from prominent industry leaders to expand the use of its novel phenotyping test and advance clinical research in weight loss treatment.

MENLO PARK, Calif., May 16, 2024 — Phenomix Sciences (Phenomix), a precision medicine biotechnology company that brings data intelligence to the treatment of obesity, has secured $5.5 million in Series A funding from new investors, DexCom, Inc. and Labcorp, and existing investors, including Health2047. The company has also been awarded a $2.3 million Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grant through the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“As leaders in their respective fields of lab testing and patient empowerment, we are excited to add DexCom and Labcorp as investors as we continue to scale our company. In addition, Labcorp will provide laboratory testing services,” said Mark Bagnall, CEO of Phenomix. “After more than a decade of research from our founders, we are thrilled the wider industry is also seeing the need to treat the obesity epidemic seriously with clinically focused solutions. The substantial financial backing for Phenomix’s clinically validated precision obesity programs from prominent companies in the health industry underscores the importance precision medicine is poised to have on combating obesity.”

This capital will accelerate the commercialization and adoption of the MyPhenome™ test in the obesity specialist market and the wider industry. The MyPhenome test equips physicians with essential tools to develop effective treatment plans including lifestyle and diet intervention as well as medication and/or procedure recommendations. The MyPhenome test identifies obesity phenotypes, subtypes of the disease caused by the interaction of a patient’s genes and the environment. These phenotypes include Hungry Gut, Hungry Brain and Emotional Hunger. As demonstrated by Phenomix’s co-founders and Mayo Clinic physicians, Andres Acosta, M.D. Ph.D. and Michael Camilleri, M.D. D.Sc., obesity phenotypes help explain why people exhibit varying responses to different treatments.

The funds will also enable the company to develop and launch additional phenotyping tests, continue to support clinical studies and patent novel insights, and further strategic relationships with pharmaceutical companies and health care providers.

The SBIR grant allows the company to perform additional clinical studies demonstrating the value of obesity precision medicine. The sizable award from the NIH is a testament to the importance of this work on the future of obesity treatment as well as the esteemed reputation of Phenomix’s founders and significance of their prior studies. Specifically, the grant will fund a prospective study of the MyPhenome test and further prove its accuracy in predicting obesity treatment response.

The company recently launched its new three-in-one MyPhenome obesity phenotyping test,^, including Hungry Gut, Hungry Brain and Emotional Hunger, currently in use by U.S. providers. For more information, visit www.phenomixsciences.com.

About Phenomix Sciences
Phenomix Sciences is a precision obesity biotechnology company on a mission to conquer obesity globally through the use of our proprietary genetic tests, unique data sets, and advanced analytics. Mayo Clinic physicians, scientists, and researchers, Andres Acosta, M.D. Ph.D., and Michael Camilleri, M.D. D.Sc., founded the company after 10 years of rigorous clinical research focused on uncovering the pathophysiology behind the variability in response to obesity treatments. Phenomix believes that the key to understanding obesity is its unprecedented access to clinical and molecular information throughout all stages and phenotypes of the disease. Phenomix leverages data intelligence for yielding better accuracy in predicting individual patient response to specific weight loss interventions and reducing the variability in weight loss results for patients. For more information, please visit www.phenomixsciences.com.

Media Contact:
[email protected] 

SOURCE Phenomix Sciences

SYDNEY, May 16, 2024 — Australian music licensing startup, Melodie (www.melod.ie), has just secured $1M in fresh funds, ahead of a strategic capital raise planned for 2025.

As of 2024, this puts the company’s total funding at just under $3M from investors including early Atlassian employee and Code Barrel founder Nick Menere, and Peter Strain, co-owner of The Drop Festival.

The company’s continued growth and success has been acknowledged by The CEO Magazine where Evan Buist, Melodie’s Founder and Managing Director, was recently awarded ‘Highly Commended Entrepreneur of the Year’, ahead of Melodie taking out the prestigious ‘Product of the Year‘ award (Audio Production, Processing and Networking) at NAB Show in Las Vegas last month, as well as Acquisition International’s Global Excellence Award for ‘Music Platform of the Year 2024 – APAC’.

Melodie was founded in November 2017. Since then, from an investor’s perspective Melodie’s core numbers have been growing exponentially. In fact, they have had an impressive 96-229% YoY increase in revenue over each of the past three years, which includes snowballing broadcast royalty income and recurring revenue from creators, brands, broadcasters, production companies and API users (such as the US-based GoDaddy Studio).

Investors are paying attention, as Melodie just announced a convertible note bridging round ahead of a larger strategic equity raise planned for 2025. With $1M already committed, there is clearly strong investor confidence in the company’s continued growth.

Melodie’s Founder, Evan Buist, said the bridge round would help to fuel strategic partnerships and international growth, ahead of setting up Melodie’s first European office in France this year.

“As we mark our sixth year of operation, we are building closer relationships with our partners, and broadening our global presence. Three of the world’s four largest royalty markets are France, the UK and Germany. With more than 20 million minutes of our music now broadcast on FTA and VOD platforms in Australia alone, we are looking to replicate that success in key European markets, leveraging data to create long-term, powerful strategic alliances,” Buist claims.

Melodie will be exhibiting at IBC Amsterdam in September, and MIPCOM Cannes in October. Showcasing a catalogue that now sits at over 25,000 exclusive, high-quality tracks created by a roster of award-winning composers and independent artists from all around the world.

Melodie’s purpose of supporting a creative community remains at its core: every time a piece of music is downloaded at Melodie, an artist gets paid. Melodie continues to create income for countless independent musicians, in a way that places value on their creativity and acknowledges the arts as an income-generating industry.

“Melodie has demonstrated exceptional growth and innovation in the music licensing industry and we are proud to support them as they continue to revolutionize the music ecosystem and create significant value for both creators and investors,” shared Aly Madhavji, Managing Partner at Blockchain Founders Fund.

About Melodie
Melodie Music is an Australian company that provides a simple solution for content creators seeking to find and license high-quality music for their projects. With Creator, Pro and Enterprise subscription options, their exclusive and meticulously curated catalogue of original music is accessible through an online search platform equipped with AI-powered search tools. Founded by composers, musicians and sound designers with first-hand experience of the crucial role music plays in storytelling, Melodie delivers an intuitive, user-friendly music licensing platform that caters to the needs of content creators, while supporting the growth of the music creators themselves. Learn more at www.melod.ie

Melodie Contact Details:
●  Contact: Kat Tame, Marketing Manager
●  Email: [email protected]
●  Number: +61 (0)415 562 574
●  Website: https://melod.ie/

Download Images here.

SOURCE Melodie

New leaders bring deep industry expertise from former roles at Kyruus Health, Health Catalyst, Glytec, HubSpot, and Veeva

NEWTON, Mass., May 16, 2024 — Manifold, an AI-powered clinical research platform, today announced the expansion of its leadership team with veterans of the technology and healthcare industries. Following its $15 million Series A fundraising round, the expanded team will accelerate Manifold’s ability to automate the manual work of clinical study and data operations alongside its customers, including Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center and Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University.

The following executives are joining Manifold to accelerate the company’s growth:

• Chris McMahon joins as Chief People Officer, after previously leading the People function at Kyruus Health and Turbonomic through aggressive periods of growth and expansion. Chris will be responsible for developing and recruiting talent, building culture, and overseeing people operations.
• Alex Akers joins as Vice President, Growth, having previously served as VP, Sales at Health Catalyst as a part of their remarkable growth story, and before that as Director, Strategy and Institutional Partnerships at Grand Rounds. Leveraging his deep expertise in strategy and market development, Alex will spearhead growth and expansion efforts across key cancer research centers.
• Danielle Kowalski joins as Vice President, Legal, bringing extensive commercial go-to-market and compliance experience to Manifold after spending over 11 years at HubSpot where she most recently served as VP & Deputy General Counsel in their Legal & Compliance function.
• Megan Ahigian joins as Senior Director of Product and Partnerships, bringing experience building data-rich products across Healthcare and IT Infrastructure during periods of rapid growth. Megan previously served as VP, Product at Glytec and VP, Product at Kyruus Health.
• Taylor Gleason joins as Senior Director of Marketing, bringing deep knowledge of full-funnel marketing strategy in the healthcare technology space, following marketing roles at Kyruus Health, Press Ganey, Amwell, Boston Children’s Hospital and Cigna.

Manifold also welcomes two go-to-market veterans to its advisory team:

• Mike Longo joins as a go-to-market advisor, having previously served as the Vice President, North America R&D Sales at Veeva and an integral part of the leadership team that grew Veeva from its startup stage to over $1 billion in revenue.
• Chris Reisig also joins as a go-to-market advisor and brings extensive advisory experience with early-stage technology companies, having led the sales function at companies like Dyn, Turbonomic, Veracode and Endeca.

“We’re thrilled to welcome some of the industry’s strongest leaders to help us transform clinical study and data operations with our AI-powered platform,” said Vinay Seth Mohta, CEO and Co-Founder of Manifold. “Our team will be crucial to growing our partnerships and expanding our solutions – achieving our vision of making it ten times faster and one-tenth the cost to carry out modern studies and analytics.”

The growth and diversity of healthcare data is surpassing legacy data management and analytic tools as well as manual processes in clinical research. With Manifold, for the first time, clinical research teams have an advanced, AI-powered, purpose-built platform that makes it possible to enroll and engage study participants, harmonize and curate longitudinal data, find and analyze multimodal datasets, and collaborate securely across organizations — all in one easy-to-use platform.

About Manifold
Manifold is an AI-powered clinical research platform. We streamline the manual workflows of modern study and data management, enabling researchers to do more high-impact research and collaborations with fewer resources. Manifold works with research organizations across the country such as Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center and Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University. Our vision is to make it ten times faster and one-tenth the cost to conduct modern research studies that unlock insights never-before possible. For more information, visit us here, or follow us on LinkedIn.

Media Contact: Kayli Watson, [email protected]

SOURCE Manifold

MORRISVILLE, N.C., May 16, 2024 — Metabolon, Inc., the global leader in providing metabolomics solutions advancing a wide variety of life science research, diagnostic, therapeutic development, and precision medicine applications, announced that it has closed on a new $60 million credit facility. This significant investment, of which an initial $42.5 million was funded at closing, will be utilized to fuel the company’s growth initiatives and expand its research and development efforts to further enhance its metabolomics platform. The investment will also support the company’s global expansion plans, including market penetration initiatives and strategic partnerships.

The financing was led by Trinity Capital, Inc., and enabled early retirement of the Company’s previous $35 million debt facility. It follows a $25 million equity financing that closed in January of 2023.

“We are extremely pleased to announce this successful financing, marking a significant milestone for Metabolon. This infusion of additional capital and robust process leading up to it underscore the strong investor confidence in Metabolon’s vision, capabilities, and market potential within the multiomics and metabolomics industry” said Rohan (Ro) Hastie Chief Executive Officer at Metabolon. “As the life sciences embrace a sophisticated multiomics paradigm, Metabolon is emerging as an industry benchmark and an essential catalyst toward achieving true precision medicine. This investment will enable us to accelerate growth, drive innovation, and further solidify our position as a leader in the metabolomics space.”

“Despite relatively challenging capital markets environment, this investment of non-dilutive growth capital, combined with the equity round before it, are proof that top-performing companies like Metabolon continue to attract funding. We are thrilled to have this top-tier investor backing us, enabling us to advance scientific research, drive breakthrough discoveries, and further develop our technology as we bring market-leading metabolomics and bioinformatics solutions to the multiomics community,” said Gerry Haines, Chief Financial Officer at Metabolon.

“We are excited to partner with Metabolon, a company that has demonstrated innovation and excellence in the life sciences sector,” said Rob Lake, Senior Managing Director, Life Sciences at Trinity. “By leveraging their cutting-edge technology and extensive experience, the team has the potential to accelerate research and we look forward to supporting the company’s ongoing growth and expansion in the industry.”

To learn more about how Metabolon deciphers thousands of discrete chemical signals from genetic and non-genetic factors to discover biomarkers and reveal biological pathways, visit https://www.metabolon.com/.

About Metabolon
Metabolon, Inc. is the global leader in metabolomics, with a mission to deliver biochemical data and insights that expand and accelerate the impact of life sciences research and complement other ‘omics’ technologies. With more than 20 years, 10,000+ projects, 3,000+ publications, and ISO 9001:2015, CLIA, and CAP certifications, Metabolon has developed industry-leading scientific, technology, and bioinformatics techniques. Metabolon’s Global Discovery Panel is enabled by the world’s largest proprietary metabolomics reference library. Metabolon’s industry-leading data and translational science expertise help customers and partners address some of the most challenging and pressing questions in the life sciences, accelerating research and enhancing development success. The company offers scalable, customizable multiomics solutions, including metabolomics and lipidomics supporting customer needs from discovery through clinical trials and product life-cycle management. For more information, please visit www.metabolon.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

About Trinity Capital Inc.
Trinity (Nasdaq: TRIN), an internally managed business development company, is a leading provider of diversified financial solutions to growth stage companies with institutional equity investors. Trinity’s investment objective is to generate current income and, to a lesser extent, capital appreciation through investments, including term loans, equipment financings and equity-related investments. Trinity believes it is one of only a select group of specialty lenders that has the depth of knowledge, experience, and track record in lending to growth stage companies. For more information, please visit the Company’s website at www.trinitycap.com.

About Metabolomics
Metabolomics, the large-scale study of all small molecules in a biological system, is the only ‘omics technology that provides a complete current-state functional readout of a biological system. Metabolomics helps researchers see beyond the genetic variation of individuals, capturing the combined impact of genetic as well as external factors such as the effect of drugs, diet, lifestyle, and the microbiome on human health. By measuring thousands of discrete chemical signals that form biological pathways in the body, metabolomics can reveal important biomarkers enabling a better understanding of a drug’s mechanism of action, pharmacodynamics, and safety profile, as well as individual responses to therapy.

SOURCE Metabolon, Inc.

“On behalf of Chicago’s residents and businesses, I extend a sincere welcome and congratulations to Bedrock Materials for choosing our city as the location for its Research & Development headquarters,” said Mayor Brandon Johnson. “This decision reflects the strength of Chicago’s talent pool, our esteemed research and academic institutions, and the vibrant tech ecosystem emerging here. We look forward to the positive impact Bedrock Materials will have on our city’s growing tech sector.”

Bedrock Materials specializes in producing essential materials for low-cost, eco-friendly sodium-ion batteries. These batteries are seen as a next-generation alternative to lithium-ion versions, utilizing affordable, widely available materials. Last month, the company began R&D scale production of battery precursor materials at its facility in Near West Chicago. Plans are underway to open a larger, permanent site later this year.

Concurrent with this strategic move, Bedrock Materials also secured an incentives package from the Illinois state government under the Reimagining Electric Vehicles in Illinois Act, contingent upon achieving specific job creation and capital investment targets.

“Illinois is home to one of the most robust EV ecosystems in the nation, and I’m thrilled to welcome Bedrock Materials to our great state,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Their research and development headquarters will join our growing EV supply chain, bringing innovation and job creation to our EV economy.”

The company’s decision to locate in Chicago was driven in large part by the abundance of strong materials science research institutions in the area, including Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, and Illinois Institute of Technology. Moreover, Argonne National Laboratory, in Lemont, Illinois, is a key leader in the development of sodium-ion batteries.

“The choice to come to Chicago was an easy one. There is arguably one active laboratory in America that has produced a successful automotive battery chemistry, and it’s here” said Spencer Gore, CEO of Bedrock Materials, “Argonne National Laboratory wrote the book on modern sodium-ion technology. Today, pulling on the deep regional talent pool they have built, we are excited to perfect and scale it.”

Professor Shirley Meng of the University of Chicago commented, “It is truly exciting that the State of Illinois can attract startup companies like Bedrock Materials to be part of the clean tech community. The innovation ecosystem is growing, and we look forward to collaborating with and supporting startups.” Professor Meng is also the Chief Scientist of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science.

The $9 million financing round was led by Trucks Venture Capital, Refactor Capital, and Version One Ventures. Additional investment was provided by Hanover Technology Investment Management, SpaceCadet Ventures, Brainstorm Capital, Evergreen Climate Innovations, Expansion VC, Climate Capital, Quest Venture Partners, Meliorate Partners, Valia Ventures, Ritual Capital, and several individual angel investors with strong ties to the electric vehicle and battery industries.

Founded in 2023 by Rafael Vila, CTO and a distinguished battery scientist from Stanford University, and CEO Spencer Gore, a seasoned battery industrialist with experience at Tesla and Enovix, Bedrock Materials boasts a management and advisory team composed of current and former executives from Tesla, Volkswagen, General Motors, Samsung, Panasonic, QuantumScape, Sila Nanotechnologies, Enovix, and Apple.

About Bedrock Materials

Bedrock Materials is a battery technology startup that manufactures critical input materials for sodium-ion batteries, which promise to offer a cost-effective and environmentally sustainable alternative to traditional lithium-ion batteries. The company aims to leverage the rich resources and strategic positioning of Chicago to lead the next wave of battery technology innovation.

For additional information, please contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Bedrock Materials, Inc.