CLEVELAND, June 10, 2024 — OnStation, the leading provider of digital stationing solutions for the heavy highway industry, announced the close of their $8.5 million Series A round. The funding round was led by JumpStart Ventures (NEXT II Fund) and included participation from VisionTech Partners, Frontier Angels, Up2 Opportunity Fund, JobsOhio Growth Capital Fund, Next Chapter Ventures, North Coast Ventures, New Dominion Angels and other angel investors.

OnStation’s platform offers a unique, location-based project record from bid to close, providing users instant access to stationing, design layers, and plans through a mobile app. The company serves multiple Department of Transportation (DOT) clients and over 200 contractors, integrating seamlessly with major industry software to streamline communication and data management.

“Ninety-six percent of construction data is unstructured and unused, while workers spend 18% of their time finding data. OnStation’s solution is essential for improving efficiency and accuracy,” said Patrick Russo, CEO of OnStation. “While each state builds its own solution, OnStation offers an integrated platform to enhance any project. Our solution has the potential to be used in every road project in the country, and this investment is allowing us to scale to meet the incredible demand.”

This investment will empower OnStation to accelerate its growth, expand its customer base, and enhance its innovative platform, designed specifically for civil engineering and roadway projects.

“In a very short time, Patrick and his team have become market leaders in digital stationing,” said Hardik Desai, Managing Partner at JumpStart Ventures. “Their solution is used nationwide to improve accuracy and efficiency. JumpStart Ventures is proud to support OnStation’s mission to become the leading app for all roadway projects, and we are thrilled to lead this round and be part of their growth story.”

The funds from this Series A round will accelerate OnStation’s growth strategy, including expanding its market presence across the United States and continuing to innovate its platform to meet the evolving needs of the heavy highway industry. For more information about OnStation and its solutions, please visit onstationapp.com.

About OnStation
OnStation is a collaborative digital stationing platform that offers location-based project records from bid to close. Specifically designed for the heavy highway industry, OnStation’s mobile app centralizes communication, boosts productivity, enhances worker safety, and improves project quality. Users benefit from instant jobsite stationing, milepost, and LRS capabilities. They can overlay design layers on the project map and communicate via a custom chat platform that organizes and records project events at their locations. OnStation is available on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store and is supported on all desktop systems.

About JumpStart Ventures
JumpStart Ventures invests in Seed and Series A-stage technology startups across Ohio. With four investment funds under management, the organization provides capital and strategic resources to high-growth, early-stage companies as they navigate critical growth phases. One of Ohio’s most active seed-stage investors, JumpStart Ventures has generated 2.5X+ returns via nationally recognized exits. To learn more, visit JumpStart.vc.

SOURCE OnStation

Funds will further accelerate product development and support the company’s already rapid growth into public golf, resorts, “eatertainment” and activity management

MILL VALLEY, Calif. , June 10, 2024 — Whoosh, Inc., the most advanced club operations software solution, today announced the closing of its $10.3 million Series A funding round, led by AlleyCorp. Additional institutional investors participating in the round include 8VC, Alaris Capital, Bienville, Craft Ventures, Eberg Capital, Operator Partners, and Raptor Group.

Other notable investors include Larry Fitzgerald Jr., Alison Lee, Howard Lindzon, Kurt Kitayama, Andy Roddick, and Mike Walrath. The backing of golf operators and industry professionals is evidence of the value Whoosh’s current solutions create for customers and the power of its strategic vision.

Since the company’s launch in 2022, Whoosh has remained steadfast in its mission of creating the most intuitive operations and hospitality solutions for private golf and racquet clubs and public/daily-fee facilities. The business has evolved to become the best-in-class provider for the industry, powering the most premier clubs and “Top 100” golf courses in the country.

With this investment, Whoosh will continue its expansion into public/daily-fee clubs, alternative golf facilities, “eatertainment” venues, resorts, and other time-based activity operators. It will also support further development efforts to improve its already innovative technology, in addition to increasing team capacity to meet the surging customer demand for its software solutions.

“Whoosh is the most innovative and intuitive operations and activity management solution for private facilities,” said Colin Read, Whoosh’s co-founder and CEO. “This investment enables us to further develop our product and bring these best-in-class hospitality and operational tools to public golf, racquet and ‘eatertainment’ venues worldwide. The vast majority of recreation and leisure companies operate with outdated technology, leading to revenue loss, staff inefficiency and siloed data. Whoosh has streamlined operations and enabled better hospitality at the most prestigious private facilities in the country, and our expansion will extend these solutions to facilities that put hospitality first.”

This financing comes following Whoosh’s announcement of its integration with Square, a move designed to revolutionize the way public golf courses and daily-fee facilities manage operations and commerce. The company has plans for new integrations to be completed later this summer, alongside further refinement of its public product before year end, further solidifying its position as the leader in omni-channel data experiences.

Doug Band, a Venture Partner at AlleyCorp, will join the company’s Board of Directors as part of this funding round. “Whoosh is bringing cutting-edge technology to club managers and hospitality providers in ways that have largely gone overlooked for years,” Band shares. “Through its modernized digital platform, Whoosh has created a better way to communicate with members and customers, while streamlining workflows for operations staff.”

From the beginning, Whoosh’s ethos has been “for industry, by industry,” focused on gathering data and interviewing key stakeholders at golf facilities all around the country to best understand challenges and build a solution to streamline workflows and provide the best member experience possible. As legacy technologies have lagged to innovate, Whoosh quickly emerged as the best cloud-based reservation system on the market, integrating clubs’ tech stacks, streamlining staff workflows, enhancing on-site hospitality and improving club communications.

Whoosh has received prestigious accolades from leading industry publications including Boardroom’s “Excellence in Achievement” and Golf Inc.’s “Best In Golf Technology.” The team also brought home “Best in Show: Business Solutions” at the first ever Golfweek Tech Lab earlier this year at PGA Headquarters in Frisco, TX.

For more information, please visit www.whoosh.io, or contact Whoosh directly at [email protected].

ABOUT WHOOSH
Whoosh provides the most advanced reservation and operations software to manage everything from the course to the clubhouse. Our solution offers the industry’s first cloud-based, tablet-focused tee sheet and booking tools for private and public/daily-fee facilities that puts reservation control in players hands for golf, racquets, simulators, lessons, fitness and more. For more information, visit www.whoosh.io.

CONTACT
Jenn Burgess
Whoosh, Director of Marketing
[email protected]

Bo Wood
Golf Space Collective
[email protected]

SOURCE Whoosh, Inc.

Co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pantera Capital, Nexus is pioneering zero-knowledge proofs to advance critical digital infrastructure, optimizing for next-generation performance

SAN FRANCISCO, June 10, 2024 — Nexus Laboratories, Inc. (Nexus), a zero-knowledge cryptography company, today announced it secured $25 million in Series A financing co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pantera Capital. The round included participation from Dragonfly Capital, Faction Ventures, and Blockchain Builders Fund. Nexus’ initial $2.2 million seed funding was led by Dragonfly in late 2022, and included Alliance, SV Angel, and Blockchain Builders Fund. This latest investment brings the company’s total funding to $27.2 million and underscores the growing interest in verifiable computation and zero-knowledge cryptography. The funds will help accelerate the company’s go-to-market efforts and expand its engineering team.

“Nexus aims to bring truth to the Internet,” said Daniel Marin, founder and CEO of Nexus. “We want to bring to market an entirely new form of computation – verifiable computation. We believe this is a fundamental step for humanity, as was the advent of the Internet, cloud computing and AI. Our goal is to make zero-knowledge proofs accessible to any developer, and drive the cost of zero-knowledge proofs down by orders of magnitude.”

Nexus is scaling zero-knowledge cryptography to make it faster, more secure, and easier to use by developers. Zero-knowledge cryptography is a method that allows users to prove that statements and/or data are true without revealing the data that attest to the statements’ validity.

The company sees the largest source of demand for proof generation coming from companies scaling and securing decentralized infrastructure. Nexus expects to be able to support interest emerging in other areas too, including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cloud computing, privacy-enhancing technologies and other areas of Internet infrastructure.

“Nexus is pioneering the widespread adoption of zero-knowledge proofs, ensuring computations and data are not only protected but also verifiable,” said Ravi Mhatre, founder and managing partner of Lightspeed. “With the rise of AI and the increasing need for privacy preservation, verifiable computing is becoming essential. Nexus’s innovative approach promises to make these advanced cryptographic techniques practical and scalable, reducing costs dramatically and setting new standards for secure and efficient computation. Together with Faction, a Lightspeed joint venture, we are excited to partner with Nexus to advance the boundaries of cryptography and make verifiable computing accessible and practical on an unprecedented scale.”

“We expect that every decentralized network will see mission critical applications of zero-knowledge proofs,” said Lauren Stephanian, general partner with Pantera Capital. “Nexus is focused on enabling zk-rollups, the largest source of demand for proof generation today. We believe there will be thousands of rollups powered by zk-proofs in the very near future, all which will require proof generation. Nexus has the team and technology to become a leading infrastructure player in this field.”

Earlier this month, the company announced the Nexus 1.0, the first major release of its zero-knowledge virtual machine. Central to the Nexus 1.0 is the introduction of a new cryptographic technique enabling highly efficient proof aggregation. The system features a modular design to optimize and parallelize verifiable computation across clusters of machines. The Nexus 1.0 is available for developers to use today under MIT license. The company is working with early adopters to integrate the system for a number of use cases.

“We first met Daniel when he was a computer science and cryptography student at Stanford,” said Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner with Dragonfly. “My firm led the seed investment in Nexus when Daniel graduated because we were impressed with his vision of a new paradigm for verifiable computation. He has assembled a world class team and we are really excited to support the company’s work to commercialize the Nexus 1.0 zero-knowledge virtual machine.”

The Series A round marks a pivotal moment for Nexus, enabling it to rapidly expand its product offerings, support early stage users in production deployments, and continue its engagement with the scientific community. The company will also initiate support for the Nexus Network – a system powered by volunteer computing that will seek to break the record for the largest computation ever performed.

As Nexus enters this new stage, it remains steadfast in its commitment to bringing the most advanced cryptography and engineering to enable a future shaped by verifiable computation.

About Nexus
Nexus is a venture-backed company at the forefront of scientific breakthroughs in verifiable computation. We are building the infrastructure for a verifiable world with our core technology, the Nexus Zero Knowledge Machine, an open source virtual machine system capable of generating proofs for any computation. Based in San Francisco, Nexus is actively seeking exceptional scientists and engineers to shape the future of verifiable computation. Learn more and get involved at nexus.xyz.

About Lightspeed
Lightspeed Venture Partners is a multi-stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise, Consumer, Health, and Fintech sectors. Over the past two decades, the Lightspeed team has backed hundreds of entrepreneurs and helped build more than 500 companies globally including Affirm, Carta, Cato Networks, Epic Games, Faire, Forty Seven, Guardant Health, Mulesoft, Navan, Netskope, Nutanix, Rubrik, Sharechat, Snap, Udaan, Ultima Genomics and more. Lightspeed and its global team currently manage $25B in AUM across the Lightspeed platform, with investment professionals and advisors in the U.S., Europe, India, Israel, and Southeast Asia. www.lsvp.com

SOURCE Nexus

Led by G2 Venture Partners, funding will fuel Relay’s rapid growth and innovation of new products to serve industries ranging from hospitality to healthcare

RALEIGH, N.C., June 10, 2024 — Relay, the cloud-based communications platform designed to improve productivity and safety for frontline teams, today announced $35 million in Series B funding, led by G2 Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors including Wind River Ventures and Sovereign’s Capital. The new funding will be used to fuel Relay’s expansion into new markets and accelerate its product roadmap.

Relay is a solution designed specifically for deskless workers in frontline industries, like hospitality, healthcare, facilities management, education, manufacturing and warehousing. Known for replacing traditional two-way radios with a modern cloud-connected Relay+ communication device, Relay’s platform also offers smart features that enhance worker safety.  With Relay, team members can initiate a safety alert, which automatically notifies relevant staff, provides the exact location of the alert, and creates an instant communication channel for staff to coordinate their response to the safety incident.  The entire incident can be logged in Relay’s cloud, and reviewable after the fact for operational improvement purposes.  This capability, which is used in thousands of hotels and hospitals, has already helped to save lives. 

“This funding round marks an inflection point for Relay, as we look toward our next stage of growth,” said Chris Chuang, CEO of Relay. “Our team is on a mission to unleash frontline productivity with our transformative breakthrough technology. Importantly, we are making these innovations accessible for the first time to traditionally disconnected frontline teams through the unique simplicity, reliability, and affordability of our solution.  Relay enables frontline teams to seamlessly connect no matter where they are, what device they are using, or even what language they speak.  And, we do all this in an affordable model through which businesses can see rapid time-to-value.”

Relay has gained rapid adoption among frontline teams due to its powerful yet easy-to-deploy technology, eliminating the traditional need for third-party installers or technicians.  Developed by the creators of Consumer Report’s top-rated prepaid carrier, Republic Wireless, Relay is an enterprise-grade platform delivered through a consumer-grade simple user interface design.  Adding to its simplicity, Relay seamlessly utilizes multiple cellular networks and WiFi to provide maximum reliability and nationwide coverage on a turnkey basis.  Relay’s platform is also accessible via a smartphone app or web interface, enabling frontline teams spread across different locations and physical contexts to now connect with each other regardless of what type of device they are on.  All of these product innovations have enabled the company’s rapid revenue growth, placing Relay among the 500 fastest-growing companies in North America per the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list for 2023.

“Relay has an exceptional customer-focused team that has built a platform for frontline workers that its users love,” said David Mount, partner, G2 Venture Partners, who will join the Relay board of directors. “As we spoke to customers, we heard time and again that Relay is delivering increased connectivity, safety and productivity among frontline workers. Its product ushers in a significant paradigm shift for customers who have not seen substantial innovation around communications devices for decades. Relay’s modern product and customer-first approach are driving outstanding growth for the company. The platform empowers frontline workers to do their best work, whether in hospitals, hotels, warehouses, or manufacturing environments. We are excited to partner with Relay in their next phase of growth, modernizing frontline work throughout the economy.”

Relay makes frontline teams more productive, by making it simple, fast, and affordable for them to stay connected with their teammates. 72% of Relay customers report that Relay enables them to be more responsive to customers’ needs.  77% of customers report that Relay helps efficiency, both by communicating more effectively, but also by automating mundane error-prone tasks, like logging security rounds or automatically recording task completion. Relay is already operating at scale, serving thousands of frontline businesses and hundreds of thousands of deskless workers, who collectively exchanged more than 2.5 billion messages using the Relay platform.

“We received overwhelming investor interest in our Series B round, and are thrilled that the process enabled us to find the perfect partner in G2, whom we are confident can help us accelerate our vision to connect millions of frontline workers and give them access to the transformative power of the cloud to make their work safer and more productive,” concluded Chris Chuang.

The Series B funding follows the recent launch of Relay’s new translation product in April 2024, TeamTranslate™, which uses AI to automatically detect and translate voice and text messages between team members into each user’s preferred language. In 2023, the company raised a $13M Series A funding round.

About Relay

Relay is a cloud-based technology platform that helps frontline teams improve communications, increase employee safety, and improve their productivity. Relay helps frontline teams digitally transform their operations with the modern tools which supports actionable real-time data needed to track performance and improve their operations. Software has not yet transformed the frontline world, and Relay is on a mission to change that. For more information, visit www.relaypro.com.

SOURCE Relay Inc.

Global early-stage fund to catalyze development of the next generation of treatments

Backers include the leading spinal cord injury foundations in the U.S., U.K., and EU

NEW YORK and LONDON, June 10, 2024 — SCI Ventures, a new venture philanthropy vehicle dedicated to funding and commercializing innovative treatments for spinal cord injury, today announced the launch of its first fund. SCI Ventures’ mission is to advance breakthroughs for people living with paralysis by supporting promising cure-oriented therapies and emerging technologies. The fund launches with $27 million in commitments and anticipates raising $40 million by year-end. 

Spinal cord injury (“SCI”) affects more than 15 million people globally, and options to address the dramatic impact on their quality of life are currently limited.¹ Beyond the loss of movement, paralysis impacts bowel, bladder and sexual functions—and comes with massive financial costs. SCI is one of the most expensive medical conditions to manage: average lifetime costs range from $2.9 million for paraplegia and up to $6 million for high tetraplegia.²

SCI Ventures is led by a team of professionals with expertise in venture capital, technology, and science with deep personal connections to the cause and it’s advised by world-class neuroscientists. By serving as an early-stage investor with extensive sector expertise, SCI Ventures aims to catalyze funding for the SCI space. There are many commonalities between spinal cord injuries and adjacent conditions such as stroke and neurodegenerative disorders. Therefore, SCI Ventures is confident the technologies backed by the Fund will yield high impact beyond the SCI community.

The launch of SCI Ventures marks the first time that five of the leading foundations addressing spinal cord injury in the U.S., U.K. and EU have come together in support of a novel investment vehicle. Co-Founders are the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, Wings for Life, the International Spinal Research Trust (“Spinal Research”), the Promobilia Foundation and Shepherd Center. The venture philanthropy fund model was pioneered in SCI by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, which led SCI Ventures’ first investments in the technology company ONWARD® Medical and AXONIS Therapeutics. SCI Ventures is building on this progress and industrializing the model.

“Recent scientific and technological advancements have made recovery from paralysis a real possibility for the first time in history. However, while treatments to restore function for people with spinal cord injury have shown promise in lab settings, transferring these treatments to clinical settings remains a stubborn barrier,” said Adrien Cohen, Founding Managing Director of SCI Ventures.

“We’re bridging that gap by providing financial and operational support to promising early-stage companies. As an expert investor, we plan to attract more capital to the SCI space by lowering the investment risk through the combined network and knowledge of our backing foundations,” he added.

SCI Ventures is an independently managed fund focusing on seed and Series A financing rounds. It will redeploy 100% of its investment gains into additional companies working toward the mission to cure paralysis. SCI Ventures plans to support up to 20 companies and has already established a growing portfolio of investments, including:

• ONWARD^® Medical, which provides targeted stimulation of the spinal cord to restore movement and other functions, alone or in combination with brain-computer interface (BCI) technology for thought-driven movement
• AXONIS Therapeutics, which focuses on advancing drug discoveries for neuron revival and neuromodulation
• Sania Therapeutics, a gene therapy company that can selectively target dysfunctional neural circuits, starting with spasticity
• AUGMENTAL, which is developing the MouthPad^: an in-mouth interface for hands-free human-computer interaction

“We’re proud to continue innovating and leading in our shared mission to restore function to people with spinal cord injuries and eventually cure paralysis,” said Maggie Goldberg, President and CEO of the Reeve Foundation. “SCI Ventures is a unique model and an opportunity to bring together leaders from across the SCI and paralysis fields to offer resources and expertise that, when combined, can create lasting, positive impact.”

“We have experienced first-hand the immense challenges people with paralysis face each day, so Wings for Life is incredibly proud to be a co-founding member of SCI Ventures and an enabler of breakthrough treatments,” said Anita Gerhardter, Global CEO of Wings for Life. “We see great potential in the emerging companies in SCI Ventures’ portfolio, and we are more confident than ever that people who are injured today will be the first generation that does not have to live with paralysis for the rest of their lives.” 

About SCI Ventures
SCI Ventures is the first venture philanthropy fund focused on innovative therapies for people living with paralysis. Co-founded by leading global foundations and advised by world class neuroscientists, SCI Ventures aims to catalyze the development of the next generation of treatments with an emphasis on technology to restore function and cure-oriented therapies. The fund shares the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt registration of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. To learn more about SCI Ventures, please visit https://www.sciventures.com. Follow us on LinkedIn here.

Media Contact
Prosek Partners
[email protected]

¹ https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/spinal-cord-injury
² https://www.nscisc.uab.edu/public/Facts%20and%20Figures%202024%20-%20Final.pdf 

SOURCE SCI Ventures

The firm’s fifth fund focuses on asset-based finance and opportunistic credit investments to provide flexible capital to niche and emerging companies with low correlation to mainstream markets.

PALM BEACH, Fla., June 7, 2024 — Harlan Capital Partners (“Harlan Capital” or the “Firm”), a leader in opportunistic private credit investments, announced today the successful close of Harlan Special Opportunities Fund V LP (“HSOF V” or the “Fund”) and its associated vehicles, raising approximately $130 million.

The new fund surpasses its predecessor, HSOF IV, which raised approximately $115 million.

HSOF V attracted a diverse group of investors, including family offices, high-net-worth individuals, wealth management firms, fund-of-funds, and nonprofit endowments. These investors share Harlan Capital’s vision of providing flexible capital solutions to niche and emerging companies and assets that have a low correlation to mainstream markets.

The Fund seeks to identify and exploit market inefficiencies by leveraging Harlan Capital’s proprietary network and extensive market expertise. It focuses on non-traditional companies, borrowers, and asset types across diverse sectors such as media, technology, telecommunications, and specialty finance. This approach is believed to position Harlan Capital as a leader in providing tailored financial solutions to underrepresented markets.

“We are thrilled to have raised $130 million for HSOF V, which we feel reflects our commitment to sourcing and investing in niche alternatives,” said Josh Harlan, Founder and Managing Partner of Harlan Capital. “We believe our deep experience in private credit enables us to navigate and capitalize on the current market landscape and provide our investors with unique opportunities that are uncorrelated to mainstream markets. We look forward to the opportunities ahead and remain committed to identifying and investing in unique and underrepresented markets.”

Harlan Capital is investing HSOF V’s capital in high-growth sectors, including technology, media, and intellectual property. Notable investments include:

• Connext Networks: A rapidly growing fiber-to-the-home network targeting over 100,000 homes in the Interstate 15 corridor outside Salt Lake City.
• Collective Ace Group: An innovative video game aggregator acquiring and operating leading independent video game development studios and game IP.
• Gray Cube Sports: A specialty finance platform providing structured credit to soccer teams collateralized by non-traditional revenue streams such as player transfer fee receivables.
• Augusta Distillery: Kentucky Bourbon inventory finance facility in partnership with the distillery that won Best Bourbon in the World for 2023 at the San Francisco World Spirits Award.

The Firm believes the pullback in bank financing, rising interest rates, and increasing demand to monetize intellectual property, make the closing of HSOF V timely. With 13 years of experience investing in niche alternative assets and lower middle market companies, Harlan Capital believes to be positioned well to navigate and succeed in the current market environment.

ABOUT HARLAN CAPITAL PARTNERS
Harlan Capital Partners is an investment advisory firm formed in 2010 by Joshua D. Harlan and Leonard M. Harlan. Headquartered in Palm Beach, FL, Harlan Capital focuses on asset-based finance and opportunistic credit investments in niche and emerging asset classes and business models within the lower middle market. For more information, please visit www.harlancapital.com.

SOURCE Harlan Capital Partners

ANTWERP, Belgium, June 7, 2024 — Scilife, a quality management system transforming the life sciences sector, is thrilled to announce a strategic growth investment from Five Elms Capital, a leading software investment firm. Quality management ensures the continuous delivery of high-quality products and services that meet quality objectives, regulations, and customer requirements.

This partnership will allow Scilife to bolster market presence and adoption of its innovative electronic quality management system (eQMS).

Scilife, known for its dynamic Smart Quality Platform, has been instrumental in redefining quality management by integrating advanced data analytics, augmented learning, and gamification. This approach simplifies compliance and positions quality as a key driver of value creation and competitive advantage. The platform’s impact has been significant, offering clarity and efficiency in quality management processes, reducing compliance risk, and enhancing operational transparency.

Filip Heitbrik, CEO at Scilife, shared, “We’re excited to work with the like-minded team at Five Elms—a partner who is as committed as we are in making Smart Quality an instrumental catalyst for value creation. This approach ensures that every team member not only understands their role in upholding quality but is also equipped to contribute effectively.”

Scilife has garnered trust from hundreds of leading life sciences companies worldwide, including Novartis, Biocartis, Yusen Logistics, Polpharma, and Pendulum, among others. These organizations have leveraged Scilife to manage their quality processes effectively, empowering employees to take ownership of quality, enhancing efficiency, and ultimately improving patient outcomes. Organizations using Scilife have seen up to a 50% reduction in the total cost of quality assurance and accelerated their time to market by up to 30%.

“Quality is not just a compliance requirement; it’s a strategic asset that can significantly differentiate life sciences companies in the market,” said Joe Onofrio, Partner at Five Elms Capital. “Our investment in Scilife underscores our belief in their vision to embed quality into the DNA of every organization. We are excited to support Scilife in its next phase of growth and innovation.”

About Scilife

Founded in 2017, Scilife is the leading quality management solution, providing comprehensive tools to transform quality into a competitive advantage for life sciences. Scilife’s Smart Quality framework enables organizations to seamlessly manage their complex workflows, reducing the burden on quality teams and allowing them to focus on driving value.

Trusted by global quality-focused organizations, including Novartis, Biocartis, Yusen Logistics, Polpharma, and Pendulum, Scilife is committed to improving efficiency, simplifying regulatory compliance, and making quality an engaging culture for everyone on board. The impact? Improving patients’ lives.

Visit scilife.io for more information.

About Five Elms Capital

Five Elms Capital is a global growth equity firm that invests in fast-growing B2B software businesses that users love. Five Elms provides capital and resources to help companies accelerate growth and further cement their role as industry leaders.

Since firm inception in 2007, Five Elms has focused exclusively on software investing, building an unmatched network and deep domain expertise. Today, with over $2.4 billion in assets under management and a global team of over 70 investment professionals, Five Elms has invested in more than 65 software platforms globally.

For more information about Five Elms Capital, visit fiveelms.com.

SOURCE Five Elms Capital

TOKYO, June 6, 2024 — Global innovation platform, Plug and Play Japan KK (Japan office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Representative: Phillip Vincent, Hereinafter “Plug and Play Japan”) has selected 68 startups from Japan and overseas for the Summer/Fall 2024 Batch accelerator program, which will be carried out from June 2024 to September 2024.

The ratio of startups selected in this batch was 50% from Japan (34 startups) and 50% overseas (34 startups). Geographical breakdown for selected overseas startups include 17 from North America, 12 from Europe, 4 from Asia (excluding Japan), and 1 from the Middle East.

Plug and Play Japan provides accelerator programs to accelerate innovation by connecting Plug and Play Japan’s corporate partners with Japanese and international startups. Through these programs, corporate partners will connect with participating startups with technologies and services that could accelerate their innovation activities. For startups, they will have the opportunity to collaborate with a wide range of major corporations.

For information about the selected startups in the participating verticals, please refer to the corresponding links:

During the program, the chosen startups will have full access to various events and seminars that assist their business development such as:

• Business matching meetings
• Networking
• Mentoring sessions
• Workshops and more

About Plug and Play Japan
Plug and Play Japan is the Japanese branch of the world’s leading accelerator/venture capital. We are a global innovation platform headquartered in Silicon Valley, 40+ leading companies of each sector participate in our programs as official corporate partners. Our major expertises are “support corporate partners creating innovation”, “cross-industrial accelerator programs”, “startup investment” and “support overseas business expansion of startups with the Japanese government”, making the best use of our extensive global network. Plug and Play Japan supports the co-creation and collaboration between Japanese/international startups with innovative technology/ideas and industry-leading corporations enabling them to generate innovation.

About the Accelerator Program in Plug and Play Japan
Plug and Play Japan provides accelerator programs to accelerate innovation by connecting Plug and Play Japan’s corporate partners with Japanese and international startups. Through these programs, corporate partners are able to connect with participating startups with technologies and services that could accelerate their innovation activities. For startups, they have the opportunity to collaborate with a wide range of major corporations.

Company Overview
Company: Plug and Play Japan KK
Founded: 2017/7/14
Address: Shibuya Center Place 3F 1-16-3, Dogenzaka, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan
Representative: Phillip Vicent
URL: http://japan.plugandplaytechcenter.com/

Inquiry Regarding this Press Release
Plug and Play Japan KK
Person in charge: Midori Abe Mail: [email protected]

SOURCE Plug and Play

Investment fuels development of Cube Cloud, leading universal semantic layer

SAN FRANCISCO, June 6, 2024 — Cube, providers of the universal semantic layer for every data app, today announced it has completed a $25 million funding round with new investor Databricks Ventures and joined by all the previous investors including Decibel, Bain Capital Ventures, Eniac Ventures, and 645 Ventures. In addition, 645 Ventures Co-founder and Managing Partner Nnamdi Okike is now a board observer for Cube’s Board of Directors.

Cube Cloud is now installed on 90,000 servers and used by 4.9 million users. Twenty percent of Fortune 1000 companies use Cube. The company is experiencing significant growth. From 2023 to 2024 Cube has seen:

• 4x growth in new customers.
• 3x growth in average deal size.
• 3x growth in bookings.

The $25 million adds to the company’s $15.5 million most recent funding round in 2021. Including all rounds, the company has raised $48 million to deliver the leading universal semantic layer that unifies business logic, centralizes governance and security, optimizes query performance, and integrates with any data endpoint.

“We look forward to further advancing Cube Cloud’s capabilities and reaching more companies struggling to create consistent data to fuel their BI tools, AI programs, and data apps,” said Artyom Keydunov, Co-founder and CEO of Cube. “This funding will pave the way for us to help more companies bring consistency, context, and trust to all their analytics.”

Cube is growing rapidly, spurred by the needs of every organization to better manage the demand for data from BI tools, embedded analytics, chatbots, and LLMs. The company’s universal semantic layer, Cube Cloud, works seamlessly with the modern data stack to bring a single source of truth to every data experience. Cube will use the funding to strengthen go-to-market activities and advance Cube Cloud’s capabilities, including a roadmap full of new AI functionality.

“Databricks and Cube are both working towards an intelligent, AI-enabled future. Cube has been a standout partner for Databricks and the Cube Cloud universal semantic layer complements what we offer customers with the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform,” said Andrew Ferguson, VP, Databricks Ventures. “The semantic layer is critical to data intelligence and provides necessary context for AI agents to analyze data with higher accuracy. We’re thrilled to deepen our partnership with Cube and participate in this round as we continue to invest in the data and AI ecosystem.”

Added Nnamdi Okike, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of 645 Ventures and new board observer for Cube, “Cube team has demonstrated outstanding performance since we first invested in the company in 2020, and their growth has only accelerated in the past year. Cube is an emerging leader in providing software for the semantic layer that simplifies the data stack and enables a broad range of AI use cases for enterprises. We’re excited to continue to invest in the company and grow our partnership.”

Recently, Cube announced seamless support for Microsoft BI solutions, making it easier for companies using Microsoft’s world-class cloud analytics solutions to build a universal semantic layer that serves the Microsoft ecosystem of tools as well as any other tools business units inevitably require. The company also unveiled new intelligent capabilities to accelerate the development of AI and embedded analytics solutions, including AI API and chart prototyping for Cube Cloud.

Anyone can try Cube Cloud today with the free developer instance.

About Cube
Cube’s universal semantic layer, Cube Cloud, helps companies manage and optimize their analytics workflow. Any data source can be optimized for performance, accuracy, and consistency before being fed into any data application: internal, external, human, or bot-facing. Cube Cloud is installed on 90,000 servers and used by 4.9 million users. Customers include 203 companies in the Fortune 1000. Based in San Francisco, Cube is backed by Decibel, Bain Capital Ventures, Eniac Ventures, 645 Ventures, Databricks Ventures, and Betaworks. To learn more, visit cube.dev.

SOURCE Cube