HONG KONG, Aug. 13, 2025 — HolmesAI, a Persona-based AI Agent service platform, has successfully completed its Seed+ funding round with participation from prominent investors, including Bitrise Capital, Waterdrip Capital, and CGV Fund. To date, HolmesAI has raised a total of $3 million. The project received early-stage incubation support from both HashKey Group and a leading cloud computing company in the industry.
At HolmesAI, “Persona” represents a personalized knowledge base that enables Agents across various scenarios to really “think and act like users,” thereby unleashing human creativity.
The key to creating AI Agents with authentic “human-like” qualities lies not in algorithmic complexity, but in Persona – the unique personality framework that determines an Agent’s tone, expertise, and behavioral patterns. HolmesAI’s groundbreaking Persona system fundamentally addresses the personalization limitations of traditional AI Agents.
Through HolmesAI, users can build comprehensive Personas that include knowledge bases, language styles, thought patterns, and behavioral preferences, enabling Agents to accurately simulate users’ cognitive and expressive patterns, achieving true human liberation from repetitive tasks.
The platform’s revolutionary innovation transforms each Persona into tradable digital assets. Blockchain technology ensures data sovereignty, allowing Personas to be deployed on multiple Agents. The more frequently a Persona is used, the greater the economic rewards for its creator.
“HolmesAI empowers everyone to own hyper-personalized Agents that truly reflect their individuality, finally freeing humanity from repetitive cognitive tasks,” said Chris, Founder of HolmesAI. “We’re starting with social media platforms, especially X, given how integral they are to modern digital life, before expanding to other industries.”
HolmesAI has officially launched its Persona-powered application for the X platform. This integration allows users to create their own personalized X Agents, enabling automated and tailored post generation. The platform will also roll out an “Ignition Program,” offering participants a variety of benefits.
The latest funding round, backed by several well-known institutions, underscores strong market confidence in decentralized AI Agents. “Autonomous AI is emerging as a key direction for the industry,” said Kevin, Partner at Bitrise Capital. “HolmesAI’s innovative Persona system enables a precise understanding of users’ needs, making personalized Agents accessible to all. We believe it holds long-term value in the Web3 ecosystem.”
Emotional AI Meets Fortune Cookie to Spark a New Kind of Legacy Conversation
NEW YORK, Aug. 13, 2025 — OpenFortune, the world’s largest fortune cookie media network, has announced a strategic partnership and investment with Reflekta, the Soul Tech platform transforming memories into interactive digital legacies. Together, they’re launching a first-of-its-kind national awareness campaign that blends nostalgia, family connection, and technology, served up inside more than hundreds of thousands of fortune cookies annually.
The campaign invites people to pause and reflect at one of the most shared spaces where emotion lives:
At the dinner table. After a shared meal. In a quiet moment sparked by one small slip of paper.
Fortunes That Stir The Soul
Breaking from the typical cheeky predictions, these custom fortunes prompt thought-provoking questions that reach straight to the heart, reflecting on memory, connection, and the voices we wish we could hear again:
“If you could have one more conversation… who would it be with?” “Is there a shoebox in your attic filled with memories worth reviving?” “Would you welcome someone passed back to the family dinner table?”
Each message includes a QR code that leads to Reflekta’s platform, where people can explore the idea of Elders – digital companions powered by personal memories and AI, designed to preserve legacy and keep loved ones’ voices alive.
A Strategic Investment in Human Legacy
In addition to the media collaboration, OpenFortune has joined Reflekta’s Seed Round as a strategic investor, aligning both companies around a shared belief:
The future of technology isn’t just smart — it’s soulful.
“This is one of the most unexpected and powerful campaigns we’ve ever been part of,” said Shawn Porat, CEO of OpenFortune. “Reflekta doesn’t just use AI, it uses it to bring people closer to what matters. That’s a story worth telling, and an investment worth making.”
Together, Reflekta and OpenFortune are starting a new kind of conversation – a campaign that bridges the past and present, begins with a whisper of a question, and ends with connection.
About Reflekta
Reflekta is pioneering the category of Soul Tech — a multi-agent AI that turns memories, media, and personal traits into dynamic digital companions called Elders. These Elders enable people to reconnect, preserve wisdom, and pass down stories across generations.
About OpenFortune
OpenFortune is a media platform that connects brands to consumers at scale – via fortune cookies. Our clients’ branded fortune cookies are distributed to over 47,000 restaurants and delivery platforms nationwide. Through our mass distribution network and sophisticated targeting capabilities, OpenFortune reaches the hands, hearts, and minds of up to 135M consumers every month. We work with major brands to spark curiosity and conversation through messages that matter.
Media Contact: Nicole Christopoul Director of Integrated Marketing [email protected]
Backed by Cortical Ventures, Firsthand, Company Ventures and angel investors, the Company also shared proprietary research validating widespread addressable markets
NEW YORK, Aug. 13, 2025 — 2nd Set AI, a company providing AI solutions for enterprises looking to deploy generative images and video to enhance creativity while protecting IP and brand guidelines, today announced its formal launch along with pre-seed funding led by Cortical Ventures with participation from Firsthand.vc and Company Ventures as well as a collection of AI expert angels. The new capital will allow 2nd Set AI to accelerate hiring, build new business relationships and open up an Early Access Program to help top entertainment organizations generate images and videos from their valuable IP.
2nd Set AI Team
The company also released proprietary research around accuracy, responsibility, and efficiency of image generation. Its team studied the major image generation models in use in industry and found substantial issues with inaccuracy, particularly in more complex compositions. Aside from broad inaccuracies and off brand content, the research found a range of issues with unauthorized replication (IP piracy), toxicity, and bias. Finally, it found that the above issues combine to create a much higher fully loaded cost of deploying generative images once the above issues are taken into account.
Founded in 2024 by AI veterans Jeffrey Smith and Saurav Pandit, 2nd Set AI offers a suite of generative visual capabilities for enterprises, chiefly IP rights holders and licensees. Its platform allows entertainment and sports media companies to use images of people and characters for which they control the rights to generate new images and videos from those owned images. Uniquely, the 2nd Set AI platform is constantly checking and revising its own work to ensure the highest quality outputs available, greatly exceeding the accuracy of solutions provided by even much larger companies. This enables traditional media companies to use generative media with confidence that generative media produced from their valuable IP will honor their business goals and protect their brand equity.
“When founding 2nd Set, we recognized that this was a huge moment for the impact of generative media on traditional media sectors like entertainment, advertising and marketing, stock media, and more,” said Smith, CEO & co-founder. “But as practitioners, we recognized that there was a huge mismatch between the outcomes that were promised and the extant models on the market. Most providers were greatly overpromising their capabilities and users were getting frustrated and disillusioned. One major advertising organization we talked to was producing 96 image contact sheets to cherry pick one good image, and that was after a human reviewed all of them! We recognized that there was a major missing component in the generative media stack: a multimodal reasoning model that understood business requirements. We serve organizations seeking to transform existing imagery they already own or license and use it in new ways using generative visual models.”
In his prior role, Smith spent six years at Facebook/Meta where he managed the PyTorch team, and led key acquisitions and research. He remains an active angel investor and LP in venture capital funds. Pandit has worked for years at the intersection of AI and creativity, including NLP and Computer Vision AI, and in the world of stock media at Pond5 and Shutterstock. Smith and Pandit have partnered before in two previous startups, Intent Media (still in operation as Black Crow Labs) and John Done, an early vocal agent startup.
“One thing that stands out from our research is that there is not one single model that is good at doing everything, and is well behaved in every possible way,” said Pandit, chief science officer & co-founder. “For example, for superior spatial layout and scene coherence, Open AI’s GPT-4o, with its powerful native LLM reasoning, seems to be a good choice. But it collapses with an increasing number of object attributions in the prompt. Conversely, Google’s recent Imagen models are more robust to increasing the count of things, but don’t get spatial relationships. The flagship 4 Ultra version of Imagen performs better than Imagen 4 in some ways, but of course it costs more. And both of them struggle generating crowds. The newest Flux Kontext models provide balanced performance, but are heavily guard-railed and aggressively block prompts.So you can see that choosing the right set of AI tools for your task could require your org to have a team of AI engineers constantly onboarding and testing new image and video gen models – which by the way come out every other week! Our team knows this pain because we lived it!”
2nd Set AI is already partnering primarily with several large IP rights holders, primarily across entertainment, sports, and licensed media, across large bodies of content including images, logos, videos, comic character libraries, even entire sports leagues. The company has rolled out an intelligent agent that allows IP rights holders to request a report – delivered via an in-depth analysis and shareable infographic – that illustrates how often their IP is generated by various commercially available generative models. IP rights holders who would like to check for unauthorized replication of their owned imagery are encouraged to try it by going to this page or email it directly at [email protected].
“Having come up through the technical ranks in the early stages of the AI revolution and with years of startup and big tech experience at companies including Meta and Shutterstock, Jeff and Saurav are exactly the kind of founders we look to partner with,” said Jeremy Achin, cofounder and managing partner, Cortical Ventures. “This is a massive challenge not solvable without the right technical underpinnings. In contrast to overly optimistic and risky generative AI technologies from other companies, 2nd Set has developed a platform that reasons throughout the entire generative process to ensure accuracy and compliance.”
About 2nd Set AI
Founded by AI experts from Meta and Shutterstock, 2nd Set AI is a dedicated team of researchers and creative technologists in New York City, backed by experienced AI investors including Firsthand.vc, Cortical Ventures, and Company Ventures, as well as notable AI angel investors. For more information, visit 2ndset.ai.
About Cortical Ventures
Cortical Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs building the next generation AI Companies. The firm was started by DataRobot founder Jeremy Achin and Igor Taber, who previously led Corporate Development at DataRobot and was an early investor in the company while he was at Intel Capital. Cortical Ventures was started to invent, incubate and invest in the companies leading the AI revolution. The firm is backed by leading VC firms and partners, AI luminaries and top founders and operators in the industry.
NEW YORK, Aug. 13, 2025 — Tiburon Subsea Inc. has reached another company milestone having been granted a Patent for their innovative JETTE propulsion system for autonomous underwater vehicles.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has allowed the company’s application, U.S. Patent No. 12,365,432, foreign patents pending, for the JETTE “Vector Control Assemblies for Underwater Vehicles, clearing the way for advanced retrofit kits that make existing autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) and similar subsea drones far nimbler and more reliable.
Tiburon Subsea’s Patented JETTE AUV Thruster Control System
Tiburon Subsea Patented JETTE AUV Thruster Control System
Using only two custom thrusters, this groundbreaking control technology enables underwater drones to: stop and hover, vertically ascend and descend, move sideways, back up, or hold position in a fast-moving current. The new thruster design allows for increased maneuverability transforming torpedo-shaped AUVs into agile, five-direction craft for defense and commercial use.
Tiburon Subsea’s patented design can replace or be retrofitted to a vehicle’s external control hardware with two shrouded pods — one forward, one aft — whose internal vectored jets redirect water flow instantaneously. Working in unison, the pods deliver full five-degree-of-freedom control while preserving the vehicle’s hydrodynamic form.
Tiburon Subsea CEO and Founder, Tim Taylor states, “This is a momentous time for our company. My vision for this technology has come to fruition and we have reached a pivotal milestone. I firmly believe that our thruster design will alter the current landscape of how we work with AUV’s and take AUV technology to the next level.”
Incorporating this new thruster assembly, an AUV can hover inches above the seabed while inspecting a pipeline, rock sideways along a harbor wall, or reverse into a submarine’s torpedo tube for recovery, all without the delicate external control planes and exposed propellers that continuously break or foul among debris and infrastructure. Tiburon Subsea’s JETTE system opens doors to faster mine counter-measure missions, safer port surveillance, and more precise offshore-wind surveys.
The company is currently in talks with US Navy, prime defense contractors, and investors who see the potential surge of capabilities this new technology can deliver. This is a game changer for the industry!
Media Contact: Christine Dennison Tiburon Subsea Inc. Business Relations Director 917-423-1369 [email protected]
Loftia will bring live service, cross-platform multiplayer, and community-driven development to the cozy space
Company releases trailer of the “Hanging Gardens” region of Loftia
SYDNEY, Aug. 13, 2025 — Qloud Games, the independent studio behind the upcoming massively multiplayer online game Loftia, today announced a $5 million seed funding round led by BITKRAFT Ventures and GFR Fund, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), 1UP Fund and Gaingels. The new funding follows Loftia‘s record-breaking Kickstarter campaign, which has become Australia’s most successful gaming crowdfunding effort.
Loftia: A New Kind of MMO for a New Generation
Loftia: A cozy online world to explore, relax, and build a brighter future together.
Founded by Michael Su, Martina Qin and Eric Mallon, Qloud Games is pioneering the first cozy MMO set in a vibrant solarpunk world. Unlike traditional MMOs or life-sim games, Loftia is designed from the ground up to foster positive, collaborative, and eco-conscious gameplay.
Players will work together to create eco-friendly cities, design personalized community spaces, and collaborate on sustainability projects that evolve the game world over time. From farming and foraging to crafting with green technologies like hydroponics, wind turbines, and biofuel, every system in Loftia reinforces its themes of environmental stewardship and cooperation. The game also introduces large-scale community quests, where players participate in server-wide initiatives that drive collective progress and deepen social bonds. With robust customization options for homes, outfits, gadgets, and even pets—each infused with solarpunk-inspired aesthetics—Loftia invites players to relax, express their creativity, and engage at their own pace in a non-competitive, welcoming environment designed to foster belonging.
“With Loftia, we’re creating the kind of world we wish existed—one where people work together to create a brighter future,” said Michael Su, CEO and co-founder of Qloud Games. “Thanks to the support of BITKRAFT, GFR Fund, a16z, and our Kickstarter backers, we’re excited to bring Loftia to life.”
A Genre-Defining Opportunity
The cozy gaming genre has exploded in popularity in recent years, but most top titles remain primarily single-player experiences. Loftia is pioneering a new path by bringing live service, cross-platform multiplayer, and community-driven development to the cozy space, filling a gap in the market for players seeking meaningful social gameplay.
“Michael and Martina have put everything into Loftia—investing over $500,000 of their own capital earned from a Canva ESOP, rallying a record‑breaking Kickstarter, and building a 600,000‑strong community before launch,” said Jasper Brand, Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures. “With a successful Alpha already behind them, funding secured through launch, and a real distribution edge in the massive but underserved cozy genre, they’re poised to bring live service, cross‑platform, and social play to a new generation of players—and build a world‑class studio from Australia with global impact.”
Community at the Center
Loftia’s success is rooted in its close relationship with its player community. The studio raised $1.3 million on Kickstarter in 2024, and over 600,000 fans already follow Loftia across TikTok, Instagram, Discord, and Reddit—platforms where Qloud Games actively collaborates with players to shape the game’s development. Unlike many traditional game studios, Qloud is building Loftia with its players, not just for them. This collaborative approach has led to meaningful changes, from letting the community decide on Kickstarter stretch goals to adding NPCs inspired by real community members, introducing specific gameplay features players requested, and even removing NPC romance after thoughtful conversations with fans. Loftia’s audience is primarily young adults looking for a relaxing, social escape, and Qloud Games meets them where they are—engaging authentically and making players feel like true co-creators, not just customers.
About Qloud Games Qloud Games is a Sydney-based independent game studio founded by a couple who left the corporate world to create their dream game. Along the way, they’ve built a passionate team of 30 developers who come from both indie and AAA game studios all over the world. Focused on community, sustainability, and human connection, Qloud is building Loftia, the first-ever cozy solarpunk MMO.
About BITKRAFT Ventures
BITKRAFT Ventures is a global investment platform at the intersection of games, immersive technology, Web3, and AI. With over $1B in assets under management and more than 130 portfolio companies, BITKRAFT is built by founders for founders. The firm leverages deep domain expertise, a decentralized global presence, and institutional-grade infrastructure to back visionary teams building in interactive media and adjacent verticals. BITKRAFT’s core belief is that gaming is not just the largest entertainment sector—it is a catalyst for consumer and technology innovation and a blueprint for the future of digital experiences.
Founded by industry veterans with decades of entrepreneurial experience, BITKRAFT delivers a unique combination of high-conviction investing, hands-on operational support, and a strong network of strategic LPs. We’ve raised and deployed capital across multiple fund strategies—venture, growth, Web3, and emerging markets—consistently outperforming benchmarks with top-quartile returns. Our thesis centers on “Synthetic Reality™,” a future where digital worlds are central to life, work, and identity. By investing at the frontier of this shift, BITKRAFT is shaping the companies and infrastructure that will define the next generation of entertainment and human interaction. For a full list of public investments made to date, view BITKRAFT’s portfolio here.
About GFR Fund
GFR Fund is a San Francisco-based and globally-oriented venture capital fund backing founders pioneering in consumer technology. With decades of experience in operating and investing in entertainment and consumer tech, GFR is committed to empowering visionaries shaping the future of digital communities and cultures.
GFR values the power of community-building. Whether they have a product with an existing community or are in the early stages of building one, we seek entrepreneurs who understand the significance of fostering dedicated communities. We focus on pre-seed, seed, and Series A investments, providing crucial support to startups in their formative years.
GFR is backed by strategic investors from Asia. We are based in San Francisco, New York, and Singapore, investing across North America, Europe, Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. View all our companies here.
Institutional Investor Commitments from the US, Canada, Korea and Japan Underscore the Historic Investment Opportunity to Meet Growing Energy and Power Demands
NEW YORK, Aug. 13, 2025 — Nuveen, a global investment manager, has completed its first close with $1.3 billion of initial capital commitments to the Energy & Power Infrastructure Credit Fund II (EPIC II), a $2.5 billion target private credit strategy providing private infrastructure credit solutions to companies in support of the growing demand for energy and power arising from digitalization, electrification and the reindustrialization of North America, Europe and other OECD countries.
EPIC II delivers directly-originated credit solutions supporting the build-out of secure and reliable energy and power generation while also focusing on credit opportunities involving sustainable infrastructure. This multi-pronged approach invests across the entire energy and power ecosystem, from renewables and energy storage to hydrocarbons, midstream and liquified natural gas. Further, the strategy focuses on investments with projected strong cashflows while seeking to mitigate downside risks through hard asset collateral protection, long-term contracts with strong counterparties and strong pricing protection. EPIC II investments involve bespoke project and corporate financings to fund equipment and growth capital as well as acquisition financings, recapitalizations and structured credit solutions.
“Bringing together the resiliency of infrastructure assets and the private credit playbook that utilizes covenant protection and structural flexibility has unlocked a strong level of investor demand across the globe,” said Don Dimitrievich, Senior Managing Director & Portfolio Manager, Energy Infrastructure Credit. “Investors are increasingly interested in strategies that capitalize on their conviction in the growing global energy demand brought on by digitalization, electrification and reindustrialization while also seeking downside risk mitigation to guard against macro volatility, and inflationary and geopolitical risk. As we reach this latest milestone, we remain focused on deploying capital into resilient companies and projects across the energy and power ecosystem that capture this historic market opportunity while providing durable income potential.”
EPIC II is anchored by commitments from a leading Canadian pension fund manager and TIAA. With nearly half of the commitments coming from outside the US, the first close also includes a global roster of prominent institutional investors including global insurers, Japanese and Korean public and corporate pensions, asset managers and other limited partner investors. EPIC II employs the same strategy and builds on the strong track record of Energy & Power Infrastructure Credit Fund I (EPIC I).
Nuveen’s Energy Infrastructure Credit (EIC) platform is led by industry veteran Don Dimitrievich and supported by a team of 13 investment professionals with the senior members averaging 20 years of investment experience. The EIC team has collectively invested over $13 billion across multiple market cycles employing the same investment strategy utilized in EPIC I & II. With deep credit expertise and a time-tested investment approach, EPIC II offers investors access to one of the most sought-after asset classes at an attractive risk return balance.
Nuveen is a top 20 infrastructure manager1. Its diversified infrastructure investing platform is built on more than 30 years of private debt and equity investing experience and has more than $35 billion of infrastructure assets under management as of 31 March 20252.
About Nuveen Nuveen, the investment manager of TIAA, offers a comprehensive range of outcome-focused investment solutions designed to secure the long-term financial goals of institutional and individual investors. Nuveen has $1.3 trillion in assets under management as of 31 March 2025 and operations in 32 countries. Its investment specialists offer deep expertise across a comprehensive range of traditional and alternative investments through a wide array of vehicles and customized strategies. For more information, please visit www.nuveen.com.
EPIC II is only available to accredited investors.
EPIC I is now closed to new investors.
This material is not intended to be a recommendation or investment advice, does not constitute a solicitation to buy, sell or hold a security or an investment strategy, and is not provided in a fiduciary capacity. The information provided does not take into account the specific objectives or circumstances of any particular investor, or suggest any specific course of action. Investment decisions should be made based on an investor’s objectives and circumstances and in consultation with his or her advisors.
Nuveen, LLC provides investment solutions through its investment specialists
1 Top 20 ranking is based on the IPE Real Assets 2025 July/August report. 2 As of 31 Mar 2025. Nuveen assets under management (AUM) is inclusive of underlying affiliates. Private infrastructure debt AUM is comprised of project finance debt, utilities, C-PACE, European energy transition credit and Energy Infrastructure Credit. Listed infrastructure AUM includes the Global Infrastructure strategy and the Real Asset Income strategy infrastructure allocations.
CAVA makes first-ever investment alongside existing investors to support Hyphen’s production ramp with Re:Build Manufacturing and expand field service nationwide
SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 13, 2025 — Hyphen, the foodservice platform for automated meal production, today announced the closing of its $25 million Series B financing, including participation from CAVA Group, Inc. (NYSE: CAVA). The financing will speed Hyphen’s Automated Makeline from factory floor to restaurant floor—scaling production and deployment across the U.S.
Digital demand continues to surge, and three out of four customers choose a competitor when their preferred restaurant isn’t available, according to a Service Management Group study. At the same time, persistent labor shortages are straining operations. Hyphen’s platform—combining advanced robotics with AI—expands peak‑hour capacity, improves order accuracy, and frees teams to focus on hospitality.
“This new funding is a testament to the impact Hyphen’s team and technology are having on restaurant operations,” said Stephen Klein, Co‑Founder and CEO of Hyphen. “We are galvanized by this investment to scale our manufacturing, support our growing customer base, and continue innovating as we build the future of foodservice.”
“As we continue to scale, we’re eager to invest in and test technology that can enhance—not replace—the human experience,” said Brett Schulman, Co‑Founder and CEO of CAVA. “By piloting Hyphen’s automated digital makeline, we have the opportunity to increase order accuracy and speed during peak digital hours, while reducing complexity for our team members. That means more time spent delivering exceptional hospitality and crafting the Mediterranean flavors our guests love. It’s a meaningful step in our commitment to operational excellence and innovation that supports both our growth and our people.”
Hyphen will ramp production with Re:Build Manufacturing, a U.S. manufacturing company co‑founded by Miles Arnone and Jeff Wilke. To ensure reliable nationwide installs and ongoing support, Hyphen selected Ricoh USA, Inc. as its field service partner—tapping a network of 15,000+ certified technicians trusted by global leaders.
ABOUT HYPHEN:
Hyphen automates digital order production for foodservice. Our Automated Makeline increases throughput and accuracy, shortens peak wait times, and augments staff so teams can focus on guests. Learn more at usehyphen.com or email [email protected].
ABOUT CAVA GROUP:
CAVA is the category-defining Mediterranean fast-casual restaurant brand, bringing together healthful food and bold, satisfying flavors at scale. Our brand and our opportunity transcend the Mediterranean category to compete in the large and growing limited-service restaurant sector as well as the health and wellness food category. CAVA serves guests across age groups, genders, and income brackets and benefits from generational tailwinds created by consumer demand for healthy living and a demographic shift towards greater ethnic diversity. We meet consumers’ desires to engage with convenient, authentic, purpose-driven brands that view food as a source of self-expression. The broad appeal of our food combined with these favorable industry trends drive our vast opportunity for continued growth. To learn more, visit CAVA.com.
As birth rates decline and US IVF access falls further behind, Gameto recruits first Phase 3 patients for cutting-edge biotechnology to reignite reproductive health possibilities
Company’s $127 million in total funding represents one of the largest investment in reproductive US biopharma sector to date
AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 12, 2025 — Gameto, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing stem cell-derived therapies for reproductive health, today announced the completion of a $44 million Series C financing round led by Overwater Ventures, with participation from Insight Partners, RA Capital, Two Sigma Ventures, BOLD Capital Partners, Future Ventures, Ingeborg Investments, Arcadia Investment Partners, PAGS Group, Pontiva Healthcare Partners, Portfolia, and additional investors.
Video courtesy of Gameto
The financing brings Gameto’s total capital raised to an industry-leading $127 million, reflecting both the potential of the company’s platform and the speed with which it has progressed its scientific vision toward final stages of clinical development. The Series C funding enables Gameto to complete the ongoing Phase 3 trial for its lead program, Fertilo, and file for regulatory approvals globally. Fertilo is already cleared to commercialize many ex-U.S. jurisdictions and is currently used in clinics in Peru, Mexico and Australia, with additional clearances in Japan, India, Singapore, Guatemala, Argentina, Dominican Republic, and Paraguay. Five babies have been born with Fertilo so far and over 20 pregnancies have been recorded.
Beyond its first-in-class status for infertility, Fertilo is also the first induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived therapy to reach late-stage clinical development in the United States, a long-awaited milestone following Shinya Yamanaka receiving the Nobel Prize for iPSC technology in 2012. Gameto’s novel technology is redefining reproductive care, with opportunities to shift the paradigm from IVF and egg freezing to ovarian therapeutics and delaying menopause.
“This is a defining moment for Gameto and for our broader mission of advancing women’s and family health,” said Dr. Dina Radenkovic Turner, CEO and co-founder of Gameto. “With this fundraising round we are now positioned to complete our robust Phase 3 trial of Fertilo and evaluate its safety and efficacy across leading U.S. study sites. Fertilo In Vitro Research Study and Trial (FIRST)1 is the first randomized, controlled, double-blind trial to evaluate the maturation of eggs outside the body in the U.S., despite this technique’s decades of clinical use, as well as the first to explore stem cell technology in IVF. This funding enables us to advance and expand our pipeline of next-generation therapeutics and solidify our position as an emerging biopharma innovator in a field that remains deeply underserved, underresearched, and ripe for modernization.”
Gameto’s Fertilo represents a fundamental advancement in how eggs mature for IVF. The therapy uses engineered ovarian support cells (OSCs) derived from iPSCs to mature eggs outside the body, reducing the standard ovarian stimulation protocol from two weeks of daily hormone injections to 2-3 days.
The Fertilo Phase 3 trial is the first randomized, controlled, double-blind study evaluating ex vivo egg maturation, building on decades of clinical learnings. The trial will enroll patients at up to 20 U.S. sites, including Shady Grove Fertility, part of US Fertility and the largest fertility clinic chain in the country. It is expected to expand to other leading centers, such as Columbia University and Prelude Fertility, one of the nation’s largest clinic networks and part of Inception. The company anticipates an interim readout from FIRST in late 2026, evaluating both the safety and efficacy of Fertilo and positioning the product for potential market entry as birth rates continue declining and demand for fertility services expands.
“We believe Gameto has the potential to drive the biggest transformation in women’s health since the birth control pill,” said Kristina Simmons, Founder and Managing Partner at Overwater Ventures. “We have yet to see another company with the rare combination of determination, breakthrough science, and the potential to create a strong consumer brand in biotech. At Overwater, we invest in category-defining technology, and few areas of healthcare are more overdue for reinvention than female biology itself. The implications and impact go far beyond reproduction. This is why we’ve written our largest check to date.”
Beyond Fertilo, Gameto is developing therapies for menopause through its Ameno program, which recently received funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) as part of the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research. The program includes both an implantable cell therapy designed to restore ovarian hormone production and a next-generation vaginal ring enabling cyclical hormone release patterns that more closely approximate natural physiology, and the company is hoping to bring the vaginal ring to Phase 1 clinical trials in the near future. The foundation of the company’s technology comes from Gameto’s AI-powered in vitro organoid platform of the female reproductive system for disease modeling, drug discovery and safety testing, designed to improve and accelerate the development of therapeutics for women.
“As someone who has built fertility clinic networks around the world, I know firsthand how urgently patients and physicians need better tools,” said Martin Varsavsky, co-founder & Chairman of Gameto and founder of Inception Prelude, the largest fertility clinic chain in North America (U.S. and Canada). “Fertilo has the potential to transform IVF, making it faster, safer, and more accessible to patients. This financing round marks a major step toward realizing that vision.”
About Gameto
Gameto is a women’s health biotechnology company advancing programs from a cell engineering platform developed with George Church’s lab at Harvard Medical School. Founded by Dr. Dina Radenkovic, a medical doctor-turned-entrepreneur, and Martin Varsavsky, founder of one of North America’s largest fertility clinic network, Inception Prelude, Gameto has raised $127 million from leading investors to develop therapies that address fertility, menopause, and women’s and family health. The company’s lead program, Fertilo, is currently in Phase 3 clinical trials. For more information, visit gametogen.com.
Funding to support development of proprietary * a -Klotho *protein therapeutic targeting cognitive decline in neurodegenerative diseases
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Aug. 12, 2025 — Jocasta Neuroscience, Inc., a preclinical stage, longevity-focused company, with its lead asset, a proprietary formulation of the longevity protein, a – Klotho, for the treatment of conditions, including cognitive impairment in neurodegenerative diseases, today announced it has raised $35 million in a Series A financing.
The funds will be used to support development of Jocasta’s lead a – Klotho compound, JN-0413, through Phase 1 development (including both the Single Ascending Dose and Multiple Ascending Dose studies), with an IND submission slated for Q4 2026.
The round was led by early-stage venture capital firm True Ventures and joined by Moore Strategic Ventures, SC8 Investments, Glentura, Yagan Family Foundation, and others. Kevin Rose of True Ventures will join Dr. Michael Davidson, COB, and Dr. Albert Agro (CEO) on the Jocasta Board of Directors.
The original technology was developed at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) by Dr. Dena Dubal, MD, PhD, a professor of neurology, and the David A. Coulter Endowed Chair in Aging and Neurodegenerative Disease as well, a Cofounder of Jocasta Neurosciences Inc. It was then licensed to Unity Biotechnology, Inc., a publicly traded company based in San Francisco, in 2018. Unity developed Klotho protein for several years in multiple pre-clinical models before licensing the Klotho intellectual property and data package to Jocasta.
“We were gratified by the exceptional investor interest during our raise and are delighted by the composition of the syndicate that includes both seasoned biotech investors as well as funds and individuals who believe our program has an opportunity to improve the lives of those who are stricken with cognitive decline — a testament to the potential of Klotho and the solid scientific foundation from Dr. Dubal’s work at the University of California at San Francisco,” said Albert Agro, PhD, CEO of Jocasta.
Co-founder Michael Davidson has been integral to the company’s mission by helping to articulate the potential of a – Klotho in promoting longevity. The team is comprised of leading experts in neuroscience and drug development, including Dr. Dubal, who will collaborate closely with management to advance the company’s proprietary a – Klotho formulation through both preclinical and clinical development, with the goal of addressing cognitive decline linked to neurodegenerative diseases.
a – Klotho’s robust cognition enhancement has been demonstrated in multiple species, 11 cognitive tasks, and at five institutions. Jocasta is the leading company with an active program and exclusive IP with this novel therapeutic target. Clinical trials evaluating the effect of Jocasta’s proprietary a – Klotho formulation are planned to begin in the next 18 months.
“Having closely followed research in longevity for many years, we’re thrilled to back this founding team as they tackle cognitive decline through a fundamentally different approach,” said Kevin Rose, partner at True Ventures and media personality focused on the intersection of health and technology. “Rather than treating symptoms, Jocasta is addressing the underlying biology with a -Klotho — a protein pathway that’s shown remarkable potential but has been largely unexplored therapeutically. The team’s deep expertise in both the science and clinical realities of aging gives them a unique advantage in translating this research into meaningful interventions for neurodegenerative disease.”
About Jocasta Neuroscience Jocasta Neuroscience, Inc. is a pre-clinical stage biotech company focused on developing a proprietary formulation of a-Klotho protein (JN-0413) to manage cognitive decline associated with various forms of neurodegenerative-induced dementia. Jocasta’s foundational data demonstrates the critical role of a-Klotho in health and disease. Results ranging from human genetics (effect of KL mutations in humans) to robust cognitive enhancement in healthy rats, rodent disease models and non-human primates strongly support the advancement of JN-0413 into clinical trials in patients with dementia and cognitive decline.
