BALTIMORE, May 27, 2025 — Cerebro Capital, a fintech company transforming access to debt capital for middle market businesses and helping lenders generate new borrower relationships, is pleased to announce the completion of its Series A funding round led by JAM FINTOP. The new equity capital comes on the heels of the platform facilitating $1B in cumulative loan closings. With this new investment, Cerebro Capital plans to invest in greater lead generation capacity, expand its deal-related AI tools and lender solutions, and continue growing its capital markets team.

As part of the investment, Ryan Zacharia, Managing Partner at JAM FINTOP, will join Cerebro’s Board of Directors.

“We are excited to partner with Cerebro Capital as they digitally-enable the analog process middle market companies and their lenders use to find and vet one another,” said Ryan Zacharia, Managing Partner at JAM FINTOP. “We’re also thrilled to help accelerate the company’s growth as they develop an enterprise solution for lenders.”

Cerebro Capital was founded to bridge a critical gap in middle market lending, giving borrowers an easier way to access debt capital and lenders a better way to deploy it – all through one streamlined platform. Cerebro has grown rapidly since its inception and has connected thousands of borrowers to lenders from over 2,200 lending institutions to provide loans ranging from $2 million up to $100 million. Borrowers have closed over $1 billion in loans through Cerebro’s platform, and lenders have provided borrowers with over $7 billion in loan proposals to review.

“This milestone reflects the incredible momentum we’re seeing from both borrowers and lenders,” said Matt Bjonerud, CEO of Cerebro Capital. “JAM FINTOP’s deep fintech and banking experience makes them an ideal partner as we continue to scale. We’ve had significant traction with their Limited Partners, closing nearly $100 million of loans with them and already signing a number of their Limited Partner banks to our new enterprise access tier.”

By leveraging Cerebro’s technology, borrowers gain speed, transparency, and actionable insights into which lenders best fit their unique financing needs, while lenders can source quality deals with greater precision. As its customer base expands, Cerebro is helping lenders tailor their loan programs using market intelligence and borrower demand signals captured through the platform to meet unmet demand.

About Cerebro Capital

Cerebro Capital is the premier loan marketplace for mid-sized corporate borrowers and lenders, helping the middle market efficiently secure and manage corporate financing.

By combining patented AI technology, an extensive lender network, and deeply experienced capital markets experts, Cerebro provides a proven corporate loan sourcing and placement solution that streamlines the commercial lending process, bringing data-driven efficiency to the corporate debt market.

Learn more at www.cerebrocapital.com

About JAM FINTOP

JAM FINTOP is a joint venture between JAM Special Opportunity Ventures and FINTOP Capital. The partnership brings together banking expertise and seasoned fintech entrepreneurs to invest in companies changing the way financial institutions and their customers move, track, and interact with money. For more information, visit www.jamfintop.com

SOURCE Cerebro Capital

ICN wins investment from tech VC to expand decentralized cloud services

ZUG, Switzerland, May 23, 2025 — Impossible Cloud Network (ICN), Web3’s leading decentralized cloud network, is announcing a new investment from NGP Capital, the venture capital firm that invested in Helium, is backed by telecommunications giant Nokia, and has just valued ICN at $470 million. 

Led by tech entrepreneur Kai Wawrzinek, founder of NASDAQ Unicorn Goodgame Studios, ICN is meeting increasing demand for data-sovereign cloud solutions. The funding round from NGP has attracted substantial interest from Web2 leaders keen to expand into this growing sector. 

Commenting on this significant milestone, Wawrzinek says: “With NGP Capital, we’ve found a perfect partner with deep expertise in cloud and edge computing that can advise on large-scale infrastructure projects. We are thrilled to be partnered with an investor who believes in ICN’s vision.”

With over $5 million of annual recurring revenue, ICN is already proving the case for decentralized cloud models, which offer significant cost savings compared to centralized providers. ICN’s research shows decentralized cloud solutions are 80% cheaper for enterprises than Amazon Web Services (AWS), while network performance is often superior.

More than this, decentralized cloud services are immune to centralized data control, manipulation, and information loss. By their very nature, decentralized networks also promote user empowerment and foster data sovereignty – both increasingly important factors in the age of AI.

NGP Capital has a history of backing transformative Web2 and Web3 companies, including Xiaomi and Helium. The firm has over $1.6 billion of assets under management and boasts 19 unicorns and 11 IPO exits. As such, its investment in ICN is a strong signal that data sovereignty and decentralized architecture are crucial future technologies.

Ossi Tiainen, Partner of NGP Capital, says, “We believe ICN’s innovative decentralized approach has the potential to reshape the global cloud landscape, providing data protection and data sovereignty where it doesn’t exist now. The company’s impressive traction and experienced team make ICN a serious contender among the next generation of cloud infrastructure providers, and we’re excited to be on board.”

ICN is currently poised to list its native token $ICNT, which will play a pivotal role in the ecosystem by rewarding independent node operators and providing governance rights to key stakeholders. The token’s upcoming launch on leading centralized exchanges will boost both accessibility and ecosystem growth as the firm expands globally.

About Impossible Cloud Network (ICN)

Impossible Cloud Network (ICN) is building a permissionless, open cloud network to rival Big Tech giants like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google. With resilient, high-performance decentralized cloud services, ICN is laying the foundation for a scalable, secure, and community-driven global cloud that supports enterprise, AI, gaming, applications, and end-users. With real-world adoption already generating million-dollar revenue and a vision for 200+ decentralized cloud services, ICN offers a true alternative to monopolistic hyperscalers.

Users can learn more about ICN: https://www.icn.global  

About NGP Capital

NGP Capital is a global VC that invests in early-stage technology companies across Europe and the US. For over two decades, NGP has invested in more than 120 companies, of which 19 became unicorns and 11 went on to IPO. Some of the companies NGP has backed include Lime, GetYourGuide, Helium, Deliveroo, The Exploration Company, and Xiaomi.

Users can learn more about NGP Capital at: https://www.ngpcap.com/ 

Contact
Rebecca Jones
Block3 PR
[email protected]

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2694465/Impossible_Cloud_Network.jpg

SOURCE Impossible Cloud Network

 – Pre-seed round backed by Early Game Ventures, Hartmann Capital, and Overwolf –

LONDON, May 23, 2025 — PlaySafeID, the platform for gamers that keeps cheaters, hackers, bots, and predators out of games, has raised $1.12M (€1 million) in pre-seed funding to bring trust, fairness, and accountability to gaming communities, without compromising player privacy or freedom.

The round was led by Early Game Ventures, with participation from Hartmann Capital and Overwolf. The raised capital will fuel rapid expansion and strategic platform integrations, as the company gears up for a major go-to-market push and targets 250,000+ users in the coming months.

“This round gives us the firepower to move fast, expand our world-class team, and partner with games that want the most fair and safe environment for players to enjoy,” said Andrew Wailes, CEO of PlaySafe ID. “This is now more important than ever before. With cheating in games as a mass-epidemic that ruins fun for players daily, and the Online Safety Act ushering in long overdue requirements for child protection in gaming, PlaySafe ID’s mission to safeguard gamers isn’t just relevant – it’s now essential for compliance and the future of global gaming.”

Built with a privacy-first mindset, PlaySafe ID issues a verified, anonymised, and game-agnostic digital ID that proves a user is real and hasn’t been caught cheating or being inappropriate to children in games. These are core problems that continue to erode online experiences across games. By offering a single, secure identity layer, the platform empowers both developers and communities to enforce fair play across titles, without sacrificing player anonymity, or the open and creative nature of games.

Early Game Ventures, which led the round, is known for backing early-stage frontier tech. “We believe PlaySafeID is building the trust layer for gaming—and beyond. In a world where AI and anonymity are eroding safety and fairness, PlaySafeID restores balance with identity, transparency, and accountability,” said Cristian Munteanu, Managing Partner at Early Game Ventures. “PlaySafeID builds a network-effects flywheel. Once a gamer is verified through PlaySafeID, that identity becomes portable across games, platforms, and genres. The more developers adopt it, the more valuable it becomes to players—and vice versa. Eventually, the verified identity becomes a default layer of the gaming stack, just like your Steam account or your Xbox Live profile. It’s a winner-takes-all kind of play.”

Hartmann Capital, an investment firm focused on emerging digital ecosystems, also participated in Playsafe ID’s pre-seed round. “Gaming has quickly become the new social center of our world, with over 3 billion active gamers globally. Despite its immense social and economic value, the gaming ecosystem remains largely ungoverned. Accountability is fragmented across platforms, allowing bad actors to evade consequences by simply creating new accounts or migrating between games.” said Felix Hartmann, Managing Partner at Hartmann Capital. “Playsafe introduces a judicial system for the digital world—ensuring accountability, safety, and fairness in online spaces that have grown increasingly toxic and uninhabitable. As a universal authority beyond any single game or even nation, Playsafe establishes a digital rule of law across multiplayer platforms worldwide.”

PlaySafe ID is currently in integration talks with several major gaming platforms, with first partnerships set to launch later this year. 

For further information:
Raptor PR for PlaySafe ID
Emma Weeks
+44(0) 7985 320 179
[email protected]

About PlaySafe ID

PlaySafe ID stops cheating, botting, and child abuse in games. The company enables players to enjoy gaming at its fairest by issuing anonymised ‘PlaySafe IDs’ to users who verify themselves. With a single ID issued to each user, penalties can now be issued to users who are caught cheating or being inappropriate to children across all PlaySafe Protected games. The company was founded in response to the cheating and bots prolific in online games, and the growing need to keep children safe from predators and bad-actors.

SOURCE PlaySafe ID; Hartmann Capital

Led by SignalFire, the round fuels growth of AI-powered conversation intelligence platform built for face-to-face sellers

NEW YORK, May 22, 2025 — Siro, the AI-powered conversation intelligence platform for in-person sales, today announced it has raised $50 million in Series B funding led by SignalFire, with participation from 01 Advisors, StepStone Group, and existing investors CRV, Fika Ventures, and Index Ventures. The funding will be used to accelerate product development and expand the team across engineering, sales, and customer success.

While technology has advanced rapidly for remote work and digital sales, field sales teams have been largely left behind. Siro changes that by turning real-world conversations into structured, searchable data – giving companies visibility into what’s actually happening at the kitchen table, on the job site, or in the showroom.

Using Siro’s mobile app, reps record their in-person sales conversations. AI then transcribes and analyzes the recordings, surfacing key insights, coaching opportunities, and revenue-driving behaviors. Sales teams using Siro have seen 36% higher close rates, 30% lower rep turnover, and 10x faster coaching cycles.

“As an AI and data company ourselves, we at SignalFire are very interested in companies building vertical specific data moats,” said Wayne Hu, Managing Director at SignalFire. “Siro’s solution is helping digitize the ‘dark matter’ of offline conversations comprising field sales engagements, which has broad extensibility across verticals and depth in downstream actions that can be instrumented from this data – such as customer and product insights.”

Founded in 2020, Siro has grown rapidly, with hundreds of customers across industries like home improvement, med spas, and wholesale distribution. Siro CEO Jake Cronin, a former top Cutco rep and McKinsey alum, started Siro to make in-person sales a more accessible path to financial freedom.

“Sales changed the trajectory of my life,” said Cronin. “This raise helps us build the tools to help others do the same.”

About Siro
Siro is AI-powered conversation intelligence for in-person sales. Its mobile app records, transcribes, and analyzes real-world conversations – turning them into actionable insights that help reps close more, managers coach better, and companies grow faster. Learn more atwww.siro.ai.

SOURCE Siro

NORCROSS, Ga., May 22, 2025 — Koning Health, the commercial-stage medical imaging company behind the revolutionary Vera Scan, announced the launch of its official Series C fundraising round in coordination with Sage Tap Poder SPV. The raise is being conducted as a Rule 506(c) offering under Regulation D and is open exclusively to verified accredited investors.

Sage Tap Poder’s SPV (special purpose vehicle) will directly invest in Koning, supporting the company’s next phase of growth as it scales the rollout of the Koning Vera Breast CT (Koning Vera)—the first and only FDA-approved 3D breast imaging system for diagnostic use that delivers high-resolution images without compression or discomfort.

“This Series C round marks a major milestone in our mission to transform breast imaging and empower women with a more accurate, comfortable, and accessible alternative to traditional mammography,” said Matthew Stack, CFO of Koning. “Partnering with Sage Tap Poder allows us to bring a broader base of accredited investors into the Koning family at a pivotal time in our commercial expansion.”

The funding will accelerate deployment of the Koning Vera in clinics and hospitals across the US, drive reimbursement strategy and adoption among radiologists, and fuel ongoing innovation in 3D imaging technology.

Koning’s unique approach replaces the decades-old standard of painful breast compression with a fast, comfortable, and patient-friendly scan that captures a full 360-degree view of breast tissue in 7 seconds per breast—ideal for dense tissue, calcification detection, and routine imaging.

“We’re proud to support a company that’s redefining women’s health through breakthrough imaging technology,” said Kirk Honour, Managing Partner at Sage Tap Poder. “This opportunity gives accredited investors the chance to invest in a category-defining medical device company with strong commercial traction and a clear path to scale.”

About Koning Health

About Koning: Koning is a global Health Technology company focused on improving the breast imaging industry with its patented Koning Vera Breast CT. Koning’s vision is to create a revolution in medical imaging through advanced computed tomography technology that dramatically improves the way clinicians visualize and evaluate breast tissue. The Koning Vera is expected to optimize early disease detection, diagnosis, and intervention by the clinician.  For more information, please visit Koning’s website.

Accredited investors interested in participating in the offering can contact Kirk Honour at [email protected] or 888-558-5228 x803 to learn more about the opportunity.

SOURCE KONING CORPORATION

SAN FRANCISCO, May 22, 2025 — StackHawk, the shift-left API security platform, today announced it has taken on $12 Million in additional funding from Sapphire and Costanoa Ventures to help security teams keep up with the pace of AI-driven development. With this funding, StackHawk will expedite shipping products and features that make it simple for modern teams embracing AI-driven development to scale safely, especially in data-sensitive industries such as healthcare and fintech. Sapphire and Costanoa Ventures also co-led StackHawk’s Series B funding in 2022, bringing the company’s total funding to $47.3 million.

“We’re seeing our customers embrace AI-driven development tools like Cursor and ship new applications faster than ever,” said Joni Klippert, CEO and Co-Founder of StackHawk. “Security professionals were already outnumbered by developers 100:1 and struggling to keep up with the backlog of issues – we need new solutions to help engineering teams identify the most important security issues and help engineers actually fix those issues being generated by the speed of AI.”

Developers now deploy code 70% faster using AI (according to the latest DORA report), and 30% of that code contains security weaknesses (Cornell University). AppSec teams spend hours prioritizing issues, creating tickets, and chasing busy developers, causing vulnerability backlogs to balloon as time is spent on non-remediation tasks. As a result, applications and clouds grow less secure, and hackers exploit the widening productivity gap between development and security teams.

According to Imperva’s 2024 State of API Security Report, 71% of internet traffic is driven by API calls. StackHawk was recently named the outstanding API security platform by the Global Infosec Awards at RSA 2025. These prestigious global awards, by Cyber Defense Magazine, recognize innovators with compelling value propositions for their products in competitive infosecurity industries. StackHawk is reimagining API security testing by empowering developers to find and fix security vulnerabilities before they hit production.

“StackHawk is the only API security solution that ensures the most important vulnerabilities are identified and addressed during the development stage of software delivery, before they are shipped to production and can impact customers,” said Greg Sands, Founder and Managing Partner at Costanoa Ventures. “They are in the ideal position to innovate with new solutions that ensure enterprises maintain a strong security posture in the age of AI.”

About StackHawk
StackHawk is making API and application security testing part of software delivery. The StackHawk platform offers engineering teams the ability to find and fix application bugs at any stage of software development and gives security teams insight into the security posture of applications and APIs being developed. Built by a strong founding team with deep experience in security and DevOps, and funded by some of the best venture investors in the business, StackHawk is leading the shift left movement by putting API and application security testing into the hands of engineers the moment they build code. Learn more and sign up for a free trial at www.stackhawk.com

Media Contact
Adam LaGreca
Founder of 10KMedia
[email protected] 

SOURCE StackHawk

Investment Will Accelerate Product Development to Meet Surging Demand for Home-Based Healthcare

Company Reports 900% Growth Over FY 2024

Proprietary AI-Powered Platform Allows Home Health Providers to Optimize Care Delivery Operations

LOS ANGELES, May 22, 2025 — Axle Health, the pioneering technology company transforming home healthcare operations, today announced a Series A financing round of $10M. The investment was led by F-Prime, with participation from Y Combinator, Pear VC, and Lightbank.

This funding round will fuel Axle Health’s aggressive expansion plans, including scaling its proprietary healthcare logistics platform, enhancing its AI-powered scheduling and routing algorithms, accelerating development of its generative AI patient engagement solutions, and growing its engineering and operations teams.

“The healthcare industry is experiencing a fundamental shift toward home-based care, accelerated by changing patient preferences, value-based care initiatives, and advances in remote monitoring technologies,” said Adam Stansell, CEO of Axle Health. “With this investment, we’re positioned to meet the explosive demand for home healthcare by giving providers the technological infrastructure they need to scale operations efficiently. Our mission is to make high-quality home healthcare accessible to everyone who needs it, regardless of location or socioeconomic status.”

Axle Health’s platform solves the critical operational challenges that have historically limited the scale and efficiency of home healthcare. The company’s EMR integrated software solution enables healthcare organizations to seamlessly deploy clinicians for in-home visits through smart scheduling, route optimization, and automated patient engagement. This technology-first approach has led to increases of up to 30% in overall clinician productivity.

“Axle Health’s intelligent platform addresses the complex logistical challenges that have hindered the home healthcare industry for decades,” said Carl Byers, Partner at F-Prime. “What impressed us most was how the team, with several executives bringing deep operational expertise from their time at Uber, has applied sophisticated logistics principles to healthcare, creating a solution that seamlessly integrates with existing systems while delivering measurable improvements in efficiency and patient outcomes.”

“Caring for patients in the home with constrained clinical resources and administrative complexity is a challenge I’ve seen firsthand,” said Julia McDowell, Venture Partner at F-Prime. “Axle is addressing urgent problems that in-home providers are facing every day, and their platform unlocks financial and operational improvements almost immediately. The ROI is both substantial and rapid – we’re excited to invest in Axle to bring this solution to more providers and their patients.”

At the core of Axle Health’s competitive advantage lies its patent-pending healthcare logistics engine, which combines sophisticated machine learning algorithms with years of healthcare operations expertise. The proprietary system processes millions of data points – including traffic patterns, provider credentials, patient needs, and geographic constraints – to optimize routing in real-time and predict potential bottlenecks before they occur.

“What sets Axle’s technology apart isn’t just its computational power, but how seamlessly it integrates with existing healthcare workflows,” noted Mar Hershenson, Partner at Pear VC. “Many healthtech solutions create additional friction for providers, but Axle’s platform actually reduces administrative burden while improving outcomes. Axle’s logistics engine creates a continuously optimizing system that becomes more valuable over time, and the unique combination of healthcare domain expertise and technical sophistication makes Axle an exceptionally promising investment.”

About Axle Health
Axle Health is a healthcare technology company on a mission to revolutionize home-based care delivery through its comprehensive operations platform. Founded in 2020 by healthcare and technology veterans, including several former Uber executives who brought their logistics expertise to the healthcare industry, Axle Health’s AI-powered logistics platform enables healthcare organizations to efficiently deploy clinicians for in-home visits, improving patient outcomes while reducing operational costs. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. For more information, visit www.axlehealth.com.

Media Contact
[email protected]

SOURCE Axle Health

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. and EDMONTON, AB , May 22, 2025 — CureDuchenne Ventures announced an initial $1M investment in Entos Pharmaceuticals Inc (Entos), a biotech company that develops genetic medicines utilizing its non-viral, redosable Fusogenix PLV delivery platform. Entos will use this funding to create a muscle-targeting therapeutic to deliver full-length dystrophin for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). 

Entos’ Fusogenix PLV platform is a delivery system that combines the best aspects of viral and non-viral approaches. Using a completely new mechanism for intracellular delivery of RNA, DNA and gene editing therapies, Fusogenix PLV is suitable for a wide range of best-in-class genetic medicines. Entos is committed to using this technology to develop cures and improve the lives of patients and their families. 

Entos will share information about this platform and their plans in Duchenne with families at the CureDuchenne 2025 FUTURES National Conference, held on May 22-25 in San Antonio, Texas. The session will be held on Friday, May 23 at 11:50 a.m. CT and will also be livestreamed.

“We are very excited by the potential of Entos Pharmaceuticals’ technology and look forward to collaborating with Entos in pursuit of a gene therapy that overcomes the limitations of current AAV-based approaches—one that would not exclude individuals with pre-existing immunity, allow for redosing, and, crucially, deliver full-length dystrophin to all of the necessary muscle tissues,” said Debra Miller, founder and CEO of CureDuchenne. “CureDuchenne has long been a leader in funding innovative therapeutic approaches, and this investment underscores our continued use of venture philanthropy to catalyze progress towards transformative treatments for Duchenne. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our donors and the Duchenne community—your support has made this investment possible and continues to drive progress toward a cure.”

“The Fusogenix PLV platform enables the safe, effective, and redosable delivery of full-length functional genes, like dystrophin, to muscle cells throughout the body. Given that Fusogenix PLV-based treatments can be given more than once, if needed, this could be a real game-changer,” said John Lewis, CEO of Entos Pharmaceuticals. “We’re hopeful this approach will make a real difference for people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and their families.”

About Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a rare, progressive, inherited neuromuscular disease that occurs in approximately one in every 3,500-5,000 males. It is caused by a mutation in the gene that encodes instructions for dystrophin, a key structural protein in muscle. Symptoms of DMD usually appear in infants and toddlers as difficulty in walking, climbing stairs, or standing from a sitting position. Most individuals with DMD will require full-time use of a wheelchair in their teens, and as muscle weakness and degeneration progresses to their upper limbs, lose the ability to perform other activities of daily living.  Cardiopulmonary complications are the primary cause of death.

About Entos Pharmaceuticals Inc
A new reality in genetic medicine lies ahead, one that will be ushered in with the advent of safe, effective, and redosable nucleic acid delivery technologies. Since its inception in 2016, Entos® has been dedicated to advancing next-generation genetic medicines using our proprietary Fusogenix™ PLV™ drug delivery system. The Fusogenix PLV platform is formulated with FAST proteins to enable the delivery of nucleic acid to target cells through direct fusion. Entos is pioneering the development of life-changing medicines for patients and has partnered with global companies, such as Eli Lilly, to accelerate and expand the impact of our platform. Entos Pharmaceuticals Inc. is headquartered in Edmonton, Canada, with its wholly owned U.S. and U.K. subsidiaries based in San Diego, California, and London, United Kingdom, respectively. For more information, visit www.entospharma.com, or follow Entos on LinkedIn. Entos^® word mark and design logo, Fusogenix™ and PLV™ are registered trademarks of Entos Pharmaceuticals Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

About CureDuchenne Ventures  CureDuchenne Ventures, LLC is the investment arm of CureDuchenne, a non-profit patient advocacy organization and global leader in funding research, patient care, and innovations for improving and extending the lives of those with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). CureDuchenne Ventures has supported transformative treatments for DMD, including 19 projects that advanced to human clinical trials, and multiple equity investments in companies striving to overcome the limitations of first-generation exon-skipping and gene therapies. For more information, please visit cureduchenne.org. 

SOURCE CureDuchenne

• The O-RAN ALLIANCE successfully concludes its seed funding initiative launched in November 2023
• Evolved O-RAN Digital Twin platform enables lab deployment of O-RAN-based networks in a few clicks
• The platform is designed for the research community to accelerate innovation at the intersection of AI, open RAN and network optimization

BONN, Germany, May 22, 2025 — The O-RAN ALLIANCE and the Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things at Northeastern University have successfully concluded the seed funding initiative, launched by O-RAN ALLIANCE in November 2023 to support research and development of next generation open Radio Access Network (RAN) infrastructure.

The funding initiative was led by O-RAN ALLIANCE’s next Generation Research Group (nGRG). Its objective was to provide a forum to facilitate O-RAN related 6G research efforts and determine how O-RAN may evolve to support mobile wireless networks in the 6G timeframe and beyond, by leveraging industry and academic 6G research efforts worldwide. The purpose of the seed funding was to be a significant enabler for broader funding of research platforms for next generation infrastructure.

The Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things at Northeastern University, as the funding awardee, utilized the 200,000 USD sponsorship to evolve its Colosseum lab and research platform. The result is a comprehensive, automated O-RAN Digital Twin (O-DT) platform designed for the research community to accelerate innovation at the intersection of AI, open RAN and network optimization.

The evolved O-RAN Digital Twin platform enables researchers to deploy O-RAN-based networks—including base stations, user equipment, and Radio Intelligent Controllers (RIC)—in just a few clicks. The platform automatically initiates data collection, training, and testing pipelines for RIC-based xApps and rApps, and plays a key role in continuous validation of open-source protocol stacks. It is also ready to support future development of dApps for real-time network control and other cutting-edge use cases.

“The O-RAN ALLIANCE seed funding supported the efforts to advance Colosseum into a state-of-the-art platform that effectively enables the research community to develop innovations for the RAN,” said Michele Polese, Research Assistant Professor at Northeastern University and PI of the O-RAN O-DT project. “This initiative has sparked the creation of new solutions to tackle the next fundamental challenge toward fully realizing the Open RAN vision, i.e., intelligent and dynamic network control and optimization. We look forward to further evolving the O-RAN Digital Twin to address future needs of modern RANs.”

“It is exciting to see the outcomes of the O-RAN ALLIANCE seed funding initiative delivering tangible value to RAN researchers,” said Ravi Sinha, VP Technology and Solution Development at Reliance Jio and co-chair of nGRG. “These research outcomes form basis for future specification development within the O-RAN ALLIANCE, enabling a global market of scaled, innovative and competitive solutions, advancing our mission towards an open, intelligent, virtualized and fully interoperable RAN.”

About O-RAN ALLIANCE
The O-RAN ALLIANCE is a world-wide community of mobile operators, vendors, and research & academic institutions operating in the Radio Access Network (RAN) industry. As the RAN is an essential part of any mobile network, the O-RAN ALLIANCE’s mission is to re-shape the industry towards more intelligent, open, virtualized and fully interoperable mobile networks. The new O-RAN specifications enable a more competitive and vibrant RAN supplier ecosystem with faster innovation to improve user experience. O-RAN based mobile networks at the same time improve the efficiency of RAN deployments as well as operations by mobile operators. To achieve this, the O-RAN ALLIANCE publishes new RAN specifications, releases open software for the RAN, and supports its members in integration and testing of their implementations.
For more information, please visit www.o-ran.org.

About the Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things at Northeastern University
Researchers and students at the Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things (WIoT) envision a future in which people and their environment are wirelessly connected by a continuum of AI-powered devices and networks, from driverless cars and search-and-rescue drone swarms to implantable medical devices and smart cities. The institute is home to world-leading expertise, facilities, and technologies dedicated to making wireless communications exponentially faster, more energy efficient, and more secure. Within WIoT, Open6G is a one-stop shop for Open RAN innovation. Located at the Northeastern University Boston and Burlington, MA campuses, Open6G is a hub for research, development, and testing of advanced wireless networks using Open RAN and AI technologies, and hosts world-leading experimental facilities for 5G research.

SOURCE O-RAN Alliance