NEW YORK, Sept. 25, 2024 —  Quilvest Capital Partners (“Quilvest”), a dedicated global mid and lower mid-market alternatives investment manager with over $7bn in AUM and a century-long, seven-generation family shareholder heritage, today announces its exit from Metro Franchising (“Metro” or the “Company”), in a transaction with Beach Point Capital Management LP.

Metro is one of the largest franchisees in the Dunkin’ system and the largest Dunkin’ franchisee in the New York City metro region, with 105 units today. Dunkin’ is a leading global franchise in the quick service restaurant (“QSR”) segment, offering coffee, donuts, baked goods, and other snacks. 

Under Quilvest’s sponsorship, Metro grew from 44 units at entry to 105 today through seven acquisitions and 23 de novo unit openings, more than doubling its footprint across the New York City metro region and Long Island.

Quilvest supported Metro’s corporate infrastructure build-out by investing in human capital, financial, and IT systems, enabling the Company to scale successfully. Additionally, Quilvest established a professional board by appointing independent members with strong expertise in the QSR sector to support management with growth initiatives.

Metro’s sponsorship by Quilvest was driven by the firm’s industry mapping, alignment with the management team, and ability to leverage its sector expertise to deliver improved performance and growth from high-potential businesses.

Jared Nagae, Managing Director at Quilvest Capital Partners, said: “We are delighted by Metro’s transformation and growth under our sponsorship. This investment is a strong example of Quilvest’s strategy of identifying high-potential businesses, partnering with exceptional management teams, and driving value through strategic initiatives, such as unit growth through both de novo builds and acquisitions. We are confident that Metro is well positioned for continued growth and are excited to continue to see it prosper.”

Stuart Cohen, CEO of Metro, said: “Quilvest has been a tremendous partner for Metro. Together, we have grown the business substantially and have set the Company up to continue to flourish, in our next chapter.”

Kroll Investment Banking acted as the financial adviser, and Greenberg Traurig, P.A. acted as the legal adviser to the Company and Quilvest.

About Quilvest Capital Partners

Quilvest Capital Partners is a leading global investment firm focused exclusively on the mid-market. We operate four investment strategies: Buyout, Primaries, Co-Investments and Secondaries, Private Credit and Real Estate.

As one of the earliest pioneers in the alternative investment industry, we pride ourselves on our rich and extensive history, with decades of experience deploying capital across multiple business cycles and environments. We are trusted to manage over $7bn AUM for a prestigious base of global investors, including leading pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, and family offices. Our heritage dates back more than a century to 1917, managing the wealth of our founding shareholder, the Bemberg family, which we continue to do today.

With six offices worldwide, our team is focused on identifying the global trends and themes underpinning each investment strategy. We overlay this thematic approach with an extensive global network of highly valued relationships, enabling us to identify and invest in the best opportunities for our investors and partners.

Quilvest Capital Partners is committed to the highest standards of excellence. We offer best-in-class infrastructure and the professionalism of a leading global investment firm while retaining the deeply personal, entrepreneurial, nimble approach routed in our origins.

For more information, visit www.quilvestcapitalpartners.com

Media contacts

Greenbrook
Tashi Lassalle / Demi Kurban / Sofia Newitt
+44 (0) 20 7952 2000
[email protected]

SOURCE Quilvest Capital Partners

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Funding round led by Warburg Pincus with participation from SoftBank Vision Fund 2

SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 25, 2024 — Whatfix, a global leader among digital adoption platforms (DAPs), today announced it has secured $125 Million in a Series E funding round, led by Warburg Pincus with participation from existing investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The company is raising the new round at a significant premium, reinforcing its dominance as the leader in Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) and expanding into DAP adjacent offerings.

The investment will enable Whatfix to expand its category leadership and enhance its integrated product suite through organic growth and strategic acquisitions. The company also aims to expand its market presence in the US, EMEA, and APAC regions to strengthen its footprint in the global public sector.

Since its funding round in 2021, Whatfix has achieved remarkable growth, solidifying its position as a leader in the newly established DAP category. The company serves a marquee global clientele, including Arrow Electronics, Schneider Electric, and Avnet, along with partners like Microsoft, Salesforce, Infosys, and Accenture, who trust Whatfix to accelerate ROI on their technology investments. Supporting 80+ Fortune 500 companies, Whatfix registered top-decile performance with a 4.5X increase in annual recurring revenue (ARR) since its 2021 round, with new products contributing 15% of revenue.

Pioneering the concept of “Userization,” Whatfix shifts responsibility to technology, ensuring it adapts to users, not the other way around. By integrating GenAI throughout its product suite, offering digital adoption, product analytics, and application simulation, Whatfix accelerates this user-first approach, building an experience layer across the enterprise software stack. This empowers enterprises to maximize technology ROI while allowing employees to build greater efficiency.

“Enterprises are grappling with the complexities of digital transformation and the ever-increasing pressure to deliver exceptional user experiences,” said Khadim Batti, CEO and co-founder of Whatfix. “Whatfix’s innovation is evident through the launch of four new products since 2021, securing five US patents with 18 more in the pipeline. This investment will add more fuel to the tank, accelerating a new era of innovation for our industry, bolstering the unparalleled value we bring to our customers, and reshaping the future of software adoption.”

As per Gartner’s 2023 Market Guide, 70% of organizations are projected to use DAPs by 2025, highlighting the critical role digital adoption platforms play in driving enterprise success. Leading this transformation, Whatfix has been the top DAP on Deloitte Tech Fast 500™ for three consecutive years and is the only DAP vendor to receive Customer’s Choice in the Gartner Peer Insights 2024 Voice of Customers for DAP report. Additionally, Whatfix is consistently recognized as a market leader in DAP reports from Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and the Everest Group.

“As organizations rapidly adopt an evolving array of AI-enabled technologies, Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) have become essential for successfully navigating digital transformation,” said Amy Loomis, Research Vice President, Future of Work at IDC. “DAPs provide valuable insights, empower users to be more agile, and drive significant business outcomes by accelerating application adoption and optimizing workflows. DAPs will evolve to address a broader range of enterprise needs, including AI-specific challenges, solidifying their role as a preferred approach to maximizing software ROI. By 2027, IDC predicts that 80% of G1000 organizations will rely on DAPs to mitigate technical skills shortages.”

Narendra Ostawal, Managing Director, Head of India Private Equity, Warburg Pincus, said, “Whatfix’s unique digital adoption platform is revolutionizing how organizations implement digital transformation programs, create outstanding user experiences, and empower users to fully leverage software functionalities and enhance productivity. As a partner of choice for top global enterprises across industries, we believe Whatfix has immense potential to capitalize on the tailwinds and solidify its position in the high-growth DAP market. We are delighted to partner with the Whatfix team led by Khadim and Vara, as they steer the company towards its vision and goal.”

Narendra Rathi, Investment Director, from SoftBank Investment Advisers, added, “Since our initial investment in 2021, we are pleased to see Whatfix’s strong growth and sustained innovation. Their role in the digital transformation journeys of Fortune 500 companies is a testament to their customer focus. We are excited to continue backing Khadim and Vara as they enter their next phase of growth.”

“From day one, Whatfix has truly put us, the customer, first,” said Jochen Heidner, Project Manager of Purchasing Systems at Mercedes-Benz and Whatfix customer for the CERTUS CC project. “Their digital adoption platform (DAP) has been instrumental in the CERTUS digital transformation journey, simplifying complex processes and empowering our teams to achieve more. What’s truly remarkable is their exceptional customer support—they’ve been helpful, and genuinely nice and supportive every step of the way.” 

Adam P. Burden, Global Innovation Lead from Accenture LLP, said, “Software is more user-centric than ever, and Whatfix is at the forefront of this innovation in user enablement. With Whatfix, you can tailor applications to each user’s workflow, optimize efficiency and create great outcomes. By using Whatfix’s AI-powered product suite—including application simulation, analytics, and digital adoption—our clients can better leverage both their existing and new technology investments. With the capabilities of Whatfix, we’re able to build products where the software serves the user, not the other way around. We look forward to our continued success together.”

Whatfix has been contributing to the industry by developing over 4,100 DAP experts since 2021 and remains committed to cultivating more in the years to come.

About Whatfix
Whatfix is advancing the “userization” of application technology, by empowering companies to maximize the ROI of digital investments across the application lifecycle. Powered by GenAI, Whatfix’s product suite includes a digital adoption platform, simulated application environments for hands-on training, and no-code application analytics. Whatfix enables organizations to drive user productivity, ensure process compliance, and improve user experience of internal and customer-facing applications. With seven offices across the US, India, UK, Germany, Singapore, and Australia, Whatfix supports 700+ enterprises, including 80+ Fortune 500s like Shell, Microsoft, Schneider Electric, UPS Supply Chain Solutions, and Genuine Parts Company. Backed by investors such as Warburg Pincus, Softbank Vision Fund 2, Dragoneer, Peak XV Partners, Eight Roads, and Cisco Investments, software clicks with Whatfix. For more information, visit the Whatfix website.

About Warburg Pincus
Warburg Pincus LLC is a leading global growth investor. The firm has more than $83 billion in assets under management. The firm’s active portfolio of more than 225 companies is highly diversified by stage, sector, and geography. Warburg Pincus is an experienced partner to management teams seeking to build durable companies with sustainable value. Since its founding in 1966, Warburg Pincus has invested more than $117 billion in over 1,000 companies globally across its private equity, real estate, and capital solutions strategies. The firm is headquartered in New York with offices in Amsterdam, Beijing, Berlin, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Luxembourg, Mumbai, Mauritius, San Francisco, São Paulo, Shanghai, and Singapore. For more information please visit www.warburgpincus.com.

Media Contact
[email protected] 

SOURCE Whatfix

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Lundgren brings decades of experience building and advising cybersecurity companies to the firm’s growing portfolio of startups and scale-ups

BURLINGAME, Calif., Sept. 25, 2024 — Ten Eleven Ventures, the original venture capital firm dedicated to global, stage-agnostic cybersecurity investing, today announced that security industry leader Scott Lundgren has joined the firm as Operating Partner and CTO. In this new role, Scott will work with Ten Eleven portfolio companies to chart technical vision, collaborate with CISOs, launch new products, and navigate other strategic initiatives.

Lundgren brings twenty years of deep technical and cybersecurity product experience to the firm. Notably, he was a founding team member and CTO of Carbon Black, where he was part of the company’s growth from startup to IPO and later acquisition by VMware. At Carbon Black, Lundgren held technical roles of all types, including Chief Architect, SVP of Engineering, and SVP of Product Management, leading teams working on product design, roadmaps, coding and review, and R&D strategy. He oversaw the growth of the business from $0 to over $400M in ARR, and from zero to over 1,600 employees. Before Carbon Black, Lundgren worked in offensive and defensive security roles supporting Microsoft, the United States Air Force, and national intelligence operations. He has many years of experience as a threat hunter, performing operations and building capabilities to look for sophisticated, embedded attackers across worldwide networks. Lundgren also currently sits on the board of Ten Eleven’s portfolio company NetSPI.

“We’ve always admired Scott as an action-oriented operator, humble and compassionate leader, and visionary in our industry,” said Mark Hatfield, co-founder and General Partner at Ten Eleven Ventures. “His wealth of experience will enhance the strategic support and practical guidance we provide to our portfolio companies. Scott is a pleasure to work with and someone we deeply respect. We’re excited about his insights in identifying new investment opportunities and thrilled to work with him on how we can best support innovative cybersecurity founders.”

Lundgren shared his enthusiasm for the partnership: “Joining Ten Eleven Ventures is an exciting opportunity to contribute to the success of the next generation of cybersecurity founders. During my eleven years at Carbon Black, I learned a tremendous amount about building and delivering products, leading technical teams, and working with security buyers at large organizations. I also gained a first-hand understanding of the incredible amount of effort and energy needed to build something impactful. As a part of the Ten Eleven team, I can use what I’ve learned to support and empower cybersecurity founders so that they can create products that truly make a difference in the world. Ten Eleven is a firm with deep cybersecurity expertise, a focus on technically superior products, and a genuine commitment to supporting companies through every stage of their growth. I’m excited to be part of a team that truly understands and fosters success in this critical field.”

News of Lundgren joining the firm follows the appointment of several new members to the Ten Eleven team. Sid Subramanian, formerly of OpenView, has joined the Boston office as an Associate, and Hattie Egan-Young, formerly of Insight Partners, recently joined the firm as Senior Director of Marketing.

The firm has also made Strategic Advisory Board member Grace Cassy, co-founder of the cybersecurity investment firm CyLon and member of the UK government’s Strategic Defence Review team, Executive Chair of their Security Trust and Resilience (STAR) leaders network. The network offers opportunities for security professionals to build their knowledge and careers, connecting them with innovators and exploring current issues in technology, geopolitics, and global markets.

Alex Doll, co-founder of the firm and Managing Partner, noted, “Ten Eleven continues to grow by adding talented individuals we know will help us find and support the next generation of leading cybersecurity entrepreneurs. Empathy for the entrepreneurial journey plus deep industry knowledge in our specialized and highly technical industry continues to be the formula for building a world-class cybersecurity venture capital firm. We are grateful to have the opportunity to do this work, and look forward to our next chapter ahead.”

About Ten Eleven Ventures
Ten Eleven Ventures is the original cybersecurity-focused, global, and stage agnostic investment firm. The firm finds, invests, and helps grow top cybersecurity companies addressing critical digital security needs, tapping its team, network, and experience to help build successful businesses. Since its founding, Ten Eleven Ventures has raised over $US 1 billion and made over 50 cybersecurity investments worldwide, including KnowBe4, Darktrace, Axis Security, Twistlock, Verodin, Cylance, and Ping Identity. For more information, please visit 1011vc.com.

Media Contact
Monsy Carlo
Ten Eleven Ventures
[email protected]

SOURCE Ten Eleven Ventures

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Oak Essentials, the quintessential California-based beauty brand, has successfully raised its first round of funding from two prominent investors in the beauty sector. Silas Capital, known for its strategic investments in emerging consumer brands, and Unilever Ventures, the venture capital arm of the global consumer goods giant, have joined forces to provide inaugural funding for the promising skincare brand, which just had its 3-year anniversary.

With the backing of these industry veterans, Oak Essentials is poised to accelerate its mission of self-care, simplified—luxurious body and skincare that values efficacy alongside a sensorial, spa-like experience and minimalist aesthetic. The promise is simple: moisture-rich essentials that inspire intentional daily rituals for healthy, youthful skin.

“We love how Jenni Kayne has applied tasteful curation to create Oak Essentials as a luxurious beauty lifestyle brand centered around ritual, relaxation, and sensorial experiences reminiscent of a visit to the spa – at your own convenience. The brand delivers for consumers who are increasingly embracing the holistic wellness benefits of beauty products with an appreciation for self-care and beauty routines,” said Anna Ohlsson-Baskerville, Partner at Unilever Ventures.

Jenni Kayne, known for her eponymous fashion, lifestyle, and home collections, founded Oak Essentials in her vision. While the brands are separate entities, they occasionally collaborate for major moments—like the recent Jenni Kayne Farmhouse and Oak Essentials Wellness Club—to immerse customers in their tastefully curated worlds where they can engage their shared customer base and reinforce their shared aesthetic.

In the three years since Oak Essentials’ inception, the brand has launched 26 products, initially focusing on skincare before successfully expanding into body care. Oak Essentials has sold over half a million products since launch, with over 8,300 5-star reviews across all offerings. The brand’s hero products, including the cult-classic Moisture Rich Balm, Ritual Oil, and Dew Body Oil, have been consistent best-sellers since the initial product launch.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to announce our partnership with Silas Capital and Unilever Ventures. Their investment is a powerful endorsement of our vision to offer spa-like and effective skincare rituals for sophisticated consumers to experience in their own homes.  Having spent the last three years building our DTC business, we’re incredibly proud of how far we’ve come but are eagerly looking ahead to this next phase.  We are so grateful to have Silas and Unilever Ventures’ support and expertise as we place focus on the key areas that we believe will solidify us as leaders in prestige beauty; keeping product innovation at the forefront and building upon our existing assortment and categories, expanding our distribution channels with new and upcoming retail partnerships, and deepening our focus on sustainability as a core pillar of the brand.  This is such an incredible milestone for Oak Essentials and we’re so excited for what’s to come,” said Lauren Harris, CEO at Oak Essentials.

In January, Lauren Harris transitioned from COO at Jenni Kayne to CEO of Oak Essentials. In her new role, she leverages her extensive experience and passion for brand growth to drive Oak Essentials forward. Under her leadership, the brand has become a key player in the skincare industry. Lauren is committed to keeping the customer at the center of every decision, expanding retail partnerships, and enhancing the direct-to-consumer channel, resulting in significant revenue growth and a stronger market presence.

“Jenni is the consummate tastemaker, and over the past few years has artfully reflected her ethos in the development of Oak Essentials’ multi-category assortment of clean, luxe essentials,” said Brian Thorne, Partner at Silas Capital.  “Beyond the elevated aesthetic of these products, they truly do deliver on efficacy – which has been one of the key drivers of the brand’s tremendous growth to date. We’re thrilled to partner with Jenni and Unilever Ventures for this next chapter, supporting both Oak’s impressive e-commerce momentum, as well as its quickly scaling wholesale channel.”

2024 has been transformative for Oak Essentials, marked by substantial growth. The brand has evolved from being DTC only to being stocked at ShopBop and Nordstrom, with more retail relationships anticipated. Recognized as one of NewBeauty’s NB100, Oak Essentials is set to nearly double its revenue.

This summer saw a standout moment for the brand with the launch of The Jenni Kayne Farmhouse and Oak Essentials Wellness Club, an experiential lifestyle and wellness retreat and showcase in Tivoli, New York. Initially open to VIPs, editors, and influencers, and opening to the public this fall, the Wellness Club provides a brand-immersive skincare experience to forge lasting connections and to introduce the brand to the East Coast.

Most recently, Oak Essentials launched Renew Face Polish, which contains biodegradable, sustainably sourced ingredients and was the first to be packaged in eco-friendly tree-free paper cartons. Soon, all products in the line will be housed in these same environmentally conscious containers and clinical testing has been initiated to assure product quality and efficacy. Upcoming launches through the end of 2024 will include a moisturizing cleanser and a first foray into bath products.

“Oak Essentials was born from my lifelong pursuit of intentional living, a journey routed in nature, that inspired me to create a refined, botanical-based skincare collection inspired by the transformative power of spa experiences. As we celebrate Oak Essentials’ third year, this partnership with Silas Capital and Unilever Ventures marks an exciting new chapter for the brand. I’m thrilled for Oak Essentials to collaborate with these respected industry leaders as we push the boundaries of what clean, prestige beauty can be,” said Jenni Kayne, founder of Oak Essentials

About Oak Essentials
Oak Essentials was created by visionary tastemaker Jenni Kayne, renowned for her esteemed lifestyle brand. Her inherent style of luxurious living and years of perfecting her own clean skin-care routine led to the creation of Oak Essentials. Inspired by a transformative experience of indulgent treatments, our promise is simple: we offer a meticulous assortment of skincare essentials that value efficacy and results alongside experience and aesthetic. We deliver simple, spa-quality self-care, designed to elevate daily rituals effortlessly.

About Silas Capital
Since 2012, Silas Capital has been an active emerging growth equity and venture capital investor that partners with consumer brands, in order to help these companies achieve significant revenue growth and profitability, improve operational efficiency, and increase brand recognition and value. The complementary backgrounds of the firm’s partners comprise executive leadership roles across growth equity and venture capital firms, as well as operating companies, which allows the group to deliver on a unique value-add proposition to the management teams, founders and companies with whom Silas partners. The firm not only invests capital to help these companies grow, but also brings significant resources and capabilities to actively assist in the growth of revenue through its expertise in e-commerce and digital expansion, alongside its knowledge of traditional wholesale and retail channels. Previous and current investments for Silas include Bare Snacks, Bellroy, Boll & Branch, Cake, Chief, HATCH, Herbivore, ILIA Beauty, Makeup By Mario, RŌZ, Sakara Life, Vacation, Violette_FR and Wonderbelly to name a few. Learn more at www.silascapital.com.

About Unilever Ventures
Unilever Ventures, the venture and growth capital arm of Unilever, empowers a new breed of forward-thinking entrepreneurs with ground-breaking ideas and ambitions to transform the world. Our mission extends beyond mere capital provision; we enable these visionaries to cultivate distinctive brands and innovative technology solutions that resonate on a global scale. Unilever Ventures brings unrivaled expertise and leadership in the consumer goods industry, from the factory to the end user. Our investment focuses on early-stage opportunities that lie at the fascinating crossroads of consumer goods, commerce, and technology, primarily in North America, Europe, and Asia. For further information, please visit www.unileverventures.com.

Follow along: @oakessentials                                  
Oak Essentials Skincare is available at oakessentials.com, shopbop.com and nordstrom.com

SOURCE Oak Essentials

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 24, 2024 — Letta, a new generative AI startup spun out of UC Berkeley’s AI research lab, emerged from stealth today with a $10 million seed round led by Felicis with participation from Sunflower Capital and Essence VC. Notable angels include Jeff Dean (Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind), Clem Delangue (CEO of HuggingFace), Cristobal Valenzuela (CEO of Runway), Jordan Tigani (CEO of MotherDuck), Tristan Handy (CEO of dbt Labs), Robert Nishihara (co-founder of Anyscale), and Barry McCardel (CEO of Hex).

Letta’s focus is unlocking the next generation of AI through advanced memory systems and is led by the same research team that created the popular MemGPT open source project. Before MemGPT, the default information architecture of most AI agents was stateless, meaning that AI agents weren’t able to retain their memory (state) between user sessions. The MemGPT research paper first introduced the concept of self-editing memory for LLMs – enabling an LLM to update its own memory so that it can learn over time as it interacts with human users. If an AI agent can add relevant context to its understanding of the scenario and person it interacts with, keeping track of changes, updates, and new information over time, the agent becomes more useful and practically applicable in real world scenarios. Letta believes that truly useful AI can only be built with stateful APIs.

Letta co-founders Charles Packer and Sarah Wooders met during their PhD research at the Sky Lab at UC Berkeley under the same advisors, Joseph Gonzalez and Ion Stoica. Both professors are also joining Letta’s founding team in an advisory capacity.

“We are just starting to understand how to build compound AI systems around large foundation models,” said Stoica, Professor at UC Berkeley and one of the co-founders of Databricks. “Charles and Sarah’s PhD research at Berkeley laid the groundwork for how to build these stateful AI systems, and I’m excited to see them continue this research agenda at Letta.” Letta believes the most important unsolved problem in AI today is memory.

“The most powerful characteristics of a useful AI agent – personalization, self-improvement, tool use, reasoning and planning – are all fundamentally memory management problems,” said Packer, Letta’s CEO. “The key challenge with agents is understanding how to construct the context window of the LLM, which forms the AI’s ‘memory’, and developing an agentic loop around the LLM to manage the context window over time.” He adds, “Similar to how a microprocessor or CPU is just one part of a computer, LLMs are just one part of larger AI systems. At Letta, our vision is to build the complete AI computer around the LLM.”

Letta plans to use the funding to continue building a new hosted product, Letta Cloud, for developers to build and deploy agents with advanced memory systems. Letta Cloud includes a hosted agent service, which allows developers to deploy and run stateful agents in the cloud, accessible via REST APIs. Letta Cloud is “model agnostic”, meaning that developers can easily swap model endpoints and bring their agents to any LLM provider (even enabling a single agent to run on multiple models).

Additionally, Letta Cloud provides an “Agent Development Environment” (or “ADE”) for agent builders to develop and debug agents by directly viewing and editing both the agent’s prompts and its memory. This is enabled by Letta’s approach to “white-box memory”, which makes the exact prompts and memories being passed to the LLM on each reasoning step transparent to the developer, unlike many existing agent frameworks.

“AI memory shouldn’t be a black box. We want to make sure developers have full visibility into the memory and state of their agents, and have full control over what LLMs they want to use”, said Wooders, Letta’s CTO. “Developers shouldn’t have to choose between performance and model lock-in”.

Agents have attracted tremendous interest from startup founders and investors alike – 42 of the 260 companies (16%) in YC’s W24 batch explicitly mention “agent” in their company description. However, agents today face numerous issues in production – they are unreliable, hard to control, degrade over time (also known as “derailment”), and are generally unable to perform complex tasks involving executing many actions over an extended period of time. Letta believes these problems all stem from lack of proper memory management.

“We are thrilled to support Letta in their groundbreaking journey to advance multi-agent AI by building and enabling innovative memory systems,” said Astasia Myers, General Partner at Felicis. “Letta’s work addresses one of the most pressing challenges in AI today — effective memory management. By building on the transformative MemGPT research, Letta is poised to unlock a new generation of AI applications. At Felicis, we believe in investing in visionary teams that tackle fundamental problems and drive the future of technology. Charles, Sarah, and their team are exactly that, and we are excited to be part of their mission to redefine what AI can achieve.”

The company is releasing its new Agent Developer Environment and API platform for building and deploying AI agents for free today, and is onboarding early developers to the beta of its Letta Cloud hosted platform. Developers can install Letta’s open source software and sign up for the hosted beta at letta.com.

About Letta
Letta is an AI startup unlocking the next generation of AI through advanced memory systems, founded by the researchers behind the MemGPT project at UC Berkeley. Letta’s team believes that programming agents starts with programming memory. And they’re putting their deep expertise in research, systems, and AI behind building the stateful APIs of the future, in a way that is accessible to any developer using any AI model they want.

About Felicis
Founded in 2006, Felicis is a venture capital firm investing in companies reinventing core markets, as well as those creating frontier technologies. The firm was the first to offer a Founder Development pledge, providing needed resources to help founders scale themselves. Felicis focuses on early-stage investments and currently manages over $3B in capital across nine funds. The firm is an early backer of more than 49 companies valued at $1B+. More than 100 of its portfolio companies have been acquired or gone public, including Adyen, Credit Karma, Cruise, Fitbit, Guardant Health, Meraki, Ring, and Shopify. The firm is based in Menlo Park and San Francisco in California. Learn more at felicis.com.

Media Contact 
Ellie Tippett
[email protected]
(415) 328-8079

SOURCE Letta

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Decentralized liquidity marketplace and liquid staking platform aims to catalyze Move-based DeFi ecosystem

HONG KONG, Sept. 24, 2024 – Meridian, a decentralized liquidity marketplace and liquid staking protocol built on Movement, has raised $4 million in seed funding. The round, co-led by ParaFi Capital and Borderless Capital, saw participation from Amber Group, Saison Capital, Interop Ventures, and Oak Grove Ventures. Meridian aims to spearhead the Move-based DeFi ecosystem on Movement, a network of blockchains created by Movement Labs.

Meridian is poised to become the central liquidity and yield hub of the Movement ecosystem, enabling partner protocols to build deep liquidity in a capital-efficient manner while offering users secure, productive yield on their assets. The protocol is currently live on testnet and is scheduled to launch on day one of Movement’s mainnet, marking a significant milestone for the Move ecosystem.

Adam Cader, Co-Founder of Meridian, explained: “This funding round is a significant milestone for Meridian and the broader Move ecosystem. We’re building a platform that will not only enhance liquidity and yield opportunities but also showcase the unique advantages of Move-based smart contracts. Our goal is to create a seamless, efficient, and secure DeFi experience that will attract both users and developers to the Movement ecosystem.”

Rushi Manche, Co-Founder of Movement Labs, added: “Meridian’s successful seed round is a testament to the growing momentum behind Move-based DeFi. As the ecosystem matures, Meridian will play a crucial role in aggregating liquidity and providing essential financial primitives. This funding will accelerate the development of a robust, secure, and highly composable DeFi landscape on Movement.”

The Move ecosystem currently represents only a fraction of total on-chain liquidity and trading volumes compared to existing EVM and SVM solutions. Meridian aims to bridge this gap by leveraging the security and composability of the Move language. The platform will work closely with various restaking protocols and yield-bearing asset issuers to provide a highly secure and composable infrastructure for DeFi activities.

Alpen Sheth, Partner at Borderless Capital, added: Movement is enabling the next generation of secure, accessible blockchain platforms powered by MVM (Move Virtual Machine) and Meridian is building the financial primitives to power the entire ecosystem as a first mover. We are thrilled to back the team and their vision. 

With this injection of capital, Meridian plans to expand its global team, actively hiring across engineering, product, and marketing roles. This growth will support the platform’s ambitious roadmap and accelerate its go-to-market strategy.

About Meridian: 

Meridian is a decentralized liquidity marketplace and liquid staking protocol natively built on Movement, enabling users to seamlessly trade and earn with their assets. By providing a secure and efficient platform for DeFi activities, Meridian aims to become the cornerstone of the Move-based financial ecosystem.

About Movement Labs: 

Movement Labs is the innovative force behind Movement, an ecosystem of Next-Gen, Modular Move-Based Blockchains. It empowers developers to build secure, performant, and interoperable blockchain applications, bridging the gap between Move and EVM ecosystems.

For more information, please visit Meridian or follow us on X @Meridian_Money

SOURCE Meridian

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STOCKHOLM, Sept. 24, 2024 — EQT Foundation announces new call for proposals, reaffirming its commitment to supporting breakthrough science in underfunded areas. The Breakthrough Science grants program awards €25K – €100K to scientists to accelerate their innovative ideas for solving climate change and health inequities, with this call targeting the topic of methane. 

This call for proposals focuses on reducing methane emissions, identified as a critical area for developing impactful solutions to climate change. Methane’s warming effect in the atmosphere is 86 times stronger than CO2, and although 158 countries have committed to reducing their methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030, recent studies show a record increase in methane emissions over the past five years. According to the studies, 60 percent of these emissions originate from human activities, therefore representing an opportunity for new climate solutions. 

Application processes for research grants are often time-consuming, limiting the time scientists can spend in the lab working on what is truly breakthrough. EQT Foundation’s breakthrough science program is set up with the scientists in mind, both offering a simple application process and rapid response of no longer than 21 days from the closing date. 

“Our program aims to offer fast and flexible funding to scientists looking to explore breakthrough ideas at the periphery of their domain expertise – ideas that they would not be able to pursue with the fundamental research funding available through their universities or research affiliations. With this program, we aim to help close and spotlight an important funding gap, helping unlock new climate and health solutions at the intersections of research fields where EQT’s expertise can offer valuable feedback loops for the scientists.” Cilia Holmes Indahl, CEO EQT Foundation.

The Breakthrough Science program welcomes applications from researchers at all levels, from PhD students to professors, affiliated with academic or non-profit research institutions. It targets projects focused on significantly lowering methane emissions in areas like agriculture, industrial manufacturing, and waste management.

Applications will be reviewed by the EQT Foundation Grant Committee, with support from scientific and industrial experts within EQT’s global network.

Key Details of the Breakthrough Science Program:

• Application Period: September 24, 2024, to November 8, 2024
• Grant amounts: €25,000 to €100,000
• Eligibility: Researchers globally, affiliated with academic or non-profit organizations
• Research Focus: Projects aimed at reducing/controlling/capturing methane emissions 
• Decision Timeline: Applicants will receive a decision within 21 days after the application deadline

For more information about the science grants program and to apply, please visit EQT Foundation Breakthrough Science.

Contact
Email: [email protected] 
Phone: +46 73 465 5001

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/eqt-foundation/r/eqt-foundation-opens-global-call-for-scientists-developing-solutions-tackling-methane-emissions,c4042152

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SHANGHAI, Sept. 24, 2024 — LongBio Pharma (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. (“LongBio” or the “Company”), a Phase III-stage biotech company focused on the R&D of innovative antibody and fusion protein drugs for allergies and complement-mediated diseases, announced the completion of its Series B2 financing round, raising tens of millions of RMB. The round was led by Qiming Venture Partners, with continued support from existing investors. The funds will primarily be used to advance late-stage clinical studies in the company’s pipeline, strengthen team capabilities, and bolster working capital.

Leveraging its proprietary technology platform, LongBio has developed a range of innovative biologics with independent intellectual property rights.

LP-003, a best-in-class, high-affinity anti-IgE antibody, has demonstrated the potential for superior efficacy, lower dosing, longer dosing intervals, and greater cost-effectiveness. Existing data indicates that:

1. LP-003 can extend the dosing frequency of current drugs targeting the same target from once every 2-4 weeks to once every 3-6 months.
2. 100 mg of LP-003 showed comparable efficacy to 300 mg of omalizumab.
3. Subgroup analysis in Phase II study further revealed that LP-003 may offer superior efficacy compared to omalizumab under similar pollen density conditions.

LongBio has also initiated clinical studies in China for LP-003 in various other indications, including chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU), asthma, and food allergy. The company aims to present the topline results of the LP-003 Phase II study for CSU, using omalizumab as a positive control, at the 2025 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) meeting in San Diego, US, in February 2025. The US FDA IND filing for CSU and food allergy is currently in preparation, and will be submitted later this year.

LP-005, a potential first-in-class bi-functional anti-C3&C5 antibody, has entered Phase II clinical trials for paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) in China. By fully inhibiting all three pathways of the complement system, LP-005 may offer superior efficacy in diseases involving multiple pathways compared to other complement drugs that target only one. LongBio is also exploring LP-005 as a potential treatment for complement-mediated nephritis, eye diseases, and neurological disorders.

For more information, please visit www.longbio.com or contact [email protected]

About Qiming Venture Partners

Qiming Venture Partners was founded in 2006. Currently, Qiming Venture Partners manages eleven US Dollar funds and seven RMB funds with $9.5 billion in capital raised. Since our establishment, we have invested in outstanding companies in the Technology and Consumer (T&C) and Healthcare industries at the early and growth stages.

Since our debut, we have backed over 530 fast-growing and innovative companies. Over 200 of our portfolio companies have achieved exits through IPOs at the NYSE, NASDAQ, HKEX, Shanghai Stock Exchange, or Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or through M&A or other means. There are also over 70 portfolio companies that have achieved unicorn or super unicorn status.

SOURCE LongBio

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SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 24, 2024 — Atomicwork, the leading modern service management platform, today announced the successful closure of a new $3+ million strategic funding. This round was backed by more than 40+ seasoned industry veterans, including global CIOs and CTOs, demonstrating strong confidence in the company’s vision and strategic direction.

As hybrid work reshapes the modern enterprise, efficient IT service management and digital workplace automation have become essential to driving productivity and enhancing employee experience. With Slack and Microsoft Teams at the heart of workplace collaboration, Atomicwork delivers cutting-edge service management solutions directly to end users, simplifying IT operations and empowering businesses to scale faster and operate more efficiently.

Atomicwork has already strengthened its US leadership team with the recent appointments of Lenin Gali as Chief Business Officer and Vandana Rao as Head of Customer Growth, both seasoned leaders with extensive expertise in driving success within the enterprise software industry.

This investment will further accelerate Atomicwork’s progress towards investment in enterprise AI agents technology, and fuel its GTM team expansion in the United States over the next 3 years. This strategic round adds established and experienced enterprise IT, business and technology leaders to Atomicwork’s advisory board, and strengthens the company’s modern service management vision.

Atomicwork’s unique approach to enterprise service management has garnered significant attention, leading to a partnership with Microsoft, and now, this substantial backing from industry leaders. In the past year, Atomicwork has also announced its strategic partnership with Enterprise AI company Cohere to strengthen its AI technology.

“We are thrilled to have the support of such an esteemed group of CIOs, CTOs and CXOs”, said Vijay Rayapati, co-founder and CEO of Atomicwork. “This strategic round not only brings us the additional financial resources to support our next 3 years growth but also invaluable expertise from some of the brightest minds in enterprise IT and business technology. We are excited about what the future holds as we continue to innovate and deliver value to our customers,” he added.

Abhinav Dhar, former CIO of TransUnion, now an investor in Atomicwork, said, “Today’s enterprises are often trapped in a maze of fragmented information, disjointed business applications, and inefficient workflows. This fragmentation isn’t just a productivity drain; it stifles collaboration and innovation across the board. In this AI era, it’s clear that a modern approach to service management is essential. Atomicwork is pioneering a solution to this challenge, offering a platform that seamlessly unifies these disparate systems in an intuitive and engaging user experience that employees will love. By doing so, it liberates IT teams from the shackles of mundane tasks, allowing them to channel their energies into innovation and drive the strategic success that today’s businesses demand.”

Avanish Sahai, former ecosystem leader at Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Google Cloud, has also invested in Atomicwork as part of this round. He added, “Atomicwork’s AI-driven, user-centric approach to transforming enterprise workflows is exactly what modern businesses need, and I believe in their ‘follow the workflow’ strategy to build a modern service management platform. And seeing their prior experience, the team clearly knows how to build a successful and scalable company.”

Jay Ashok Modh, CEO of Intuitive Cloud, has also partnered with Atomicwork. “As a digital advisor to enterprises, every day we deal with the fragmentation of applications and workflows. At Intuitive Cloud, we are very excited to invest in Atomicwork on this journey and partner with them to deliver a modern service management platform to global businesses,” he said.

Rich Waldron, CEO of Tray.ai, has also invested in Atomicwork. He said “At Tray.ai, we’ve always believed in the power of automation to transform business performance. We’re excited to partner with Atomicwork as they redefine enterprise service management, bringing innovation and efficiency to the forefront. Together, we’re empowering businesses to streamline processes and unlock new levels of productivity”.

Atomicwork’s existing investors include Storm Ventures, Z47 (formerly Matrix Partners), Blume Ventures, and Neon Fund. All of them have participated in this new round.

Arun Penmetsa, Partner at Storm Ventures, said, “The lack of a modern and efficient service management solution has severely impacted employee performance and experience across the enterprise. Over the past two years, Atomicwork has built an incredible solution to address this pain point. It has been exciting to see the demand and adoption the product has seen from customers and IT leaders and we are thrilled to continue backing the team in this new round of financing.”

Pranay Desai, Managing Director at Z47 (formerly Matrix Partners), said, “We are delighted to support Atomicwork in this new strategic round. The company’s innovative AI-powered service management is transforming how enterprises operate, driving efficiency, and enhancing user experiences. With their remarkable traction among global CIOs, CTOs, and industry leaders, Atomicwork is well-positioned to lead the next wave of AI innovation in enterprise service delivery.”

For more information about Atomicwork and its latest developments, please visit atomicwork.com.

About Atomicwork

Atomicwork is on a mission to help companies unlock growth by automating enterprise workflows and employee support through our modern service management platform that goes beyond traditional IT Service Management (ITSM) and Enterprise Service Management (ESM) solutions.

The AI-powered modern service management platform seamlessly integrates with existing enterprise applications, internal processes, and business operations to deliver digital workplace automation to help businesses operate faster and scale better in their growth.

SOURCE Atomicwork Inc

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