SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 26, 2025 — Scrum Ventures and Scrum Studio today announced 11 startups selected to join Hokkaido F Village X (HFX), a global acceleration program designed to foster collaboration between international startups, leading Japanese corporations, and local municipalities in Hokkaido, Japan. The program will focus on implementing cutting-edge technologies in Hokkaido and within the F Village, a mixed-use urban development project and home of the Nippon-Ham Fighters professional baseball team. The goal is to leverage innovative technology to enhance the region’s appeal and address local challenges.

The program attracted more than 300 applications from 29 countries, from which 11 startups were selected. Through the program, these startups will collaborate with HFX partners, including Yamato Holdings Co., Ltd., JTB Corp., and newly joined Tokyu Land Corp. and The Hokkaido Bank, Ltd., as well as municipal partner Kitahiroshima City, to drive business co-creation.

Operational support is provided by Fighters Sports & Entertainment, Co., Ltd. Moreover, Hokkaido Startup Future Creation Development by Mutual Support Networks (HSFC), led by Hokkaido University, has joined HFX as a resource partner.

Selected Startups

• Apptronik (U.S.) — Developing and commercializing a general-purpose, AI-powered humanoid robot called Apollo that is designed to collaborate thoughtfully with humans and transform the way we live and work
• Eztia (U.S.) — Advanced material HydraVolt that can be integrated into clothes and gear to cool user skin passively by up to 10°C for up to 8 hours
• Fainders.ai (South Korea) — The most economical retail AI automation.
• Mori (U.S.) — Makes food more resilient with a natural and edible protein from silk
• Nature Coatings (U.S.) — High-performance, bio-based black pigments that are both carbon negative and devoid of toxic chemicals
• Pontosense (Canada) — AI-based wireless sensing for safety, health, and wellness
• Seoul Dynamics (South Korea) — Autonomous robots for heavy-duty tasks with a foundation model trained on real industrial data
• STREAMING HOUSE (THE HYUIL) (South Korea) — Regional development and revitalization workation platform connecting companies, local governments, and communities
• Trip to Japan (Iceland) — Bookable trip builder for an effortless Japan trip, combining tours, transfers, and hotels into a personalized itinerary
• TechMagic (Japan) — AI and robotics solutions for commercial kitchens and food factories
• Waymap (U.K.) — Accessible, step-by-step navigation indoors, outdoors, and underground, with no external signals or special equipment required

HFX Kickoff Week in Hokkaido

On August 25, all 11 startups gathered in Hokkaido for HFX Kickoff Week. The week featured working sessions on go-to-market strategy, sharing of best practices for implementing new technologies in the region, site visits to local organizations, and business development meetings with corporate and municipal partners. The goal was to help startups understand how their technology can address local needs and contribute to Hokkaido’s prosperity.

About Hokkaido F Village X (HFX)

Launched in March 2025, HFX is a three-year global acceleration program running through 2028. Scrum Ventures and Scrum Studio manage the program in partnership with Fighters Sports & Entertainment Co., Ltd. Program partners include Yamato Holdings Co., Ltd., JTB Corp., and newly joined Tokyu Land Corp. and The Hokkaido Bank, Ltd., with support from JETRO, ERIA, Smart City Institute Japan, British Embassy Tokyo, HSFC (Hokkaido Startup Future Creation), along with municipal partners Startup Hokkaido and Kitahiroshima City. Hideki Kuriyama, Chief Baseball Officer of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, serves as a program advisor. Official website: https://hfx.jp/

About Scrum Ventures

Scrum Ventures is a U.S.-Japan venture capital firm investing in early-stage startups across sectors such as mobility, fintech, sports & entertainment, healthcare, and deeptech. With a portfolio of more than 140 companies worldwide, it supports founders with capital, global market access, and connections to strategic partners. Website:https://scrum.vc/ja/

About Scrum Studio

Scrum Studio helps Japanese corporations co-create new businesses with global startups. Leveraging open innovation, it runs global co-creation programs, supports international market entry, and accelerates new business development. Website: https://scrum.vc/ja/studio/

Media Contact
Scrum Ventures
Contact: Mie Yaginuma
Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Scrum Ventures

Over the past two years, Attio has grown to 5,000 paying customers, including AI leaders like Lovable, Granola, Modal, and Replicate

Funding from GV accelerates Attio’s mission to reinvent CRM for the AI era

LONDON and SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 26, 2025 — Attio, the AI-native CRM for the next era of companies, today announced it has raised $52 million in Series B funding. The round was led by GV (Google Ventures), with participation from existing investors Redpoint Ventures, Balderton Capital, Point Nine, and 01A. Attio has raised $116 million to date.

This investment will accelerate Attio’s mission to build the first AI-native CRM that understands every customer and gives teams the power to build their go-to-market systems exactly as they need, at scale.

“CRM is one of the most important categories in B2B, but it’s been stuck in the past,” said Nicolas Sharp, CEO and co-founder of Attio. “AI-native CRM needs a completely different foundation — one that allows you to truly understand every customer, take action fast, and gives you the freedom to build the exact go-to-market systems you need at scale. That’s what we’re building with Attio, and this funding will allow us to accelerate our vision.”

Since its launch two years ago, Attio has become the CRM of choice for the next generation of companies. 5,000 customers are now building their go-to-market on the platform, including leading AI companies like Lovable, Granola, Modal, and Replicate. The company is on track to 4x ARR this year.

Shaping the next era of CRM

CRM has been the backbone of B2B software for decades, but its foundations haven’t kept up with how business actually works today. As a result, many core go-to-market capabilities were built outside the system, spawning a fragmented ecosystem of thousands of point tools that companies have had to stitch together at great cost. The result for go-to-market builders has been inflexible systems, expensive integrations, and slow innovation.

That era is ending. Two powerful forces are colliding to reshape the market:

1. AI is exposing the limits of legacy architecture. Today’s CRMs were built for a world of static workflows, manual data entry, and human-only operators. Bolting AI onto those foundations can automate tasks, but it can’t remove the structural constraints.
2. AI is empowering a new generation of go-to-market builders and leaders. They’re building alongside AI, creating in days what once took months, and are no longer constrained by vendor roadmaps or 12-month rollouts.

“Today’s go-to-market builders expect platforms that they can shape to fit their vision, not rigid systems they’re forced to work around,” said Alexander Christie, CTO and co-founder of Attio. “To truly capture the opportunities AI creates in CRM, it has to be deeply integrated into the architecture of the platform, not just bolted on as an afterthought. Retrofitted solutions will always be less effective because the foundations of legacy CRMs weren’t designed for the scale, autonomy, and extensibility that AI demands.”

That’s why Attio was built differently from day one: to remove those constraints entirely and give teams an AI-native CRM platform for go-to-market (GTM) that has complete customer context, is endlessly adaptable, and can be shaped by its users.

The primitives of AI-native CRM

To make this possible, Attio is built from the ground up on a new foundation, with AI-native primitives that give teams the freedom to build go-to-market systems that fit exactly how they work. These core building blocks define all next-generation software and are essential for any AI-native CRM:

• Native data ingestion – clean, real-time GTM data from every source, unified in one place — no duplicates or stale records
• Intelligent workflow engine – powerful automation that scales across systems and teams, end-to-end
• Programmable surfaces – APIs, SDKs, and natural language interfaces for building applications, features, integrations, and workflows directly inside the CRM
• Agent collaboration – designed for humans and AI to operate together across every GTM process
• Granular permissions – fine-grained access control across users, data, and AI agents
• Predictive intelligence – context that continuously learns and surfaces the right insights and actions at the right moment

Customers are using native data ingestion to unify accurate, real-time data from across their go-to-market stack, intelligent workflows to automate complex processes in record time, and programmable surfaces like Attio’s App SDK (now in beta) to build and launch apps and new features directly within the platform. Additional primitives, including agent collaboration and advanced permissions, are in active development and will expand capabilities even further as they are released.

What’s next

With its Series B, Attio will scale engineering, fast-track product development, and deliver on its vision to build the CRM that powers the next generation of go-to-market — one that understands every customer, adapts to any team, and gives them the power to shape it to their business.

On the engineering side, Attio will invest heavily in R&D to ship product faster than ever before, with a focus on advanced agent collaboration, granular permissions, and predictive intelligence.

On the go-to-market front, the company will double down on reaching the new generation of GTM builders — giving them the freedom to build and deploy the exact tools they need, without waiting for vendor roadmaps or long implementation cycles.

As part of the round, Michael McBride, General Partner at GV and former CRO of GitLab, joins Attio’s Board of Directors, bringing deep expertise in scaling one of the most successful software companies of the last decade.

“It’s been 25 years since the last major platform shift in CRM, one of the largest software markets. Attio has the AI-native architecture, vision, and rapid customer growth to define the future of CRM and go-to-market software,” said Michael McBride, General Partner at GV. “For decades, innovation in go-to-market software was incremental and fragmented across countless point solutions. With the ability to build, automate and extend directly in the platform, Attio is the foundation for go-to-market for the AI era.”

About Attio

Attio is the AI-native CRM for the next era of companies. Built to adapt to any business, Attio gives companies the power to understand every customer, automate at scale, and build their go-to-market systems exactly as they need. Thousands of companies, including category-defining AI leaders like Lovable, Granola, Modal, and Replicate use Attio to power their go-to-market. Learn more at attio.com.

Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2757690/Attio_logo.jpg

SOURCE ATTIO LIMITED

Kira builds the all-in-one infrastructure powering Fintech 3.0, where AI agents meet stablecoins

MIAMI, Aug. 26, 2025 — Kira, the global payments infrastructure platform, today announced the closing of a $6.7 million seed funding round led by Blockchange Ventures, Vamos Ventures, Stellar Blockchain, Grit Ventures, Credibly Neutral Ventures, Michael Seibel, and Oso Trava.

Strategic investment for regional expansion

The funding will accelerate Kira’s expansion across Latin America, with initial focus on South America. Kira provides the underlying infrastructure that allows companies to quickly launch fintech products in emerging markets. The capital will also finance the technical team’s growth and development of new fintech products.

Kira, founded by Edrizio De La Cruz (former founder of Arcus, acquired by Mastercard), Beto (payments and blockchain expert), and Camilo (fintech specialist), has operated in stealth mode for over a year, developing its payments infrastructure that combines stablecoins, artificial intelligence, and enterprise APIs.

Revolutionizing Global Fintech Access

Kira enables big enterprises or small startups to offer their customers blockchain powered financial services through an all-in-one API. Kira opens up a wide variety of financial products, including payments, remittances, savings, and more

“This funding allows us to accelerate building the infrastructure, starting in Latin America needs to compete in the global digital economy,” said Edrizio De La Cruz, CEO and co-founder of Kira. “Our vision is to leverage stablecoins and AI to provide modern financial services to the 1 billion underbanked.”

Strategic investor backing

The round includes participation from Blockchange Ventures, a venture fund focused on blockchain-enabled businesses that will define new categories and dominate their markets.

“Bringing blockchain powered financial services to any enterprise is a potentially massive new category of business,” commented Rob Schmults, General Partner at Blockchange Ventures. “The team at Kira was not only well positioned to have seen this, but bring an ideal combination of experience, expertise, and connections to actually make it happen”

Stellar Development Foundation’s participation reinforces Kira’s technical strategy, leveraging Stellar’s blockchain for fast, low-cost payments. Vamos Ventures brings Latin American market expertise, while Oso Trava adds his experience as an entrepreneur and reach within the region’s tech ecosystem.

Post-Funding Roadmap

The company will accelerate strategic partnerships with regional banks and payment processors to expand its reach, positioning Kira’s AI agent infrastructure as the backbone for Latin America’s digital financial transformation.

About Kira

Kira is a next-generation fintech infrastructure platform enabling any businesses – enterprises or startups – to launch embedded financial products — seamlessly powered by stablecoins and Vertical AI Agents. With $3 million in revenue in its first year, Kira provides a unified stack that includes AI-driven payments, treasury automation, compliance workflows, and global payouts. Its infrastructure removes technical friction, allowing clients to build compliant, scalable fintech solutions across use cases like remittances, global payroll, and treasury management. Founded by veteran fintech leaders from Arcus, Clip, Stori, and Littio, Kira is backed by proven execution and trusted by large enterprises and startups.

Learn more: kirafin.ai

Press Contact

Catalina Valencia
Kira
9173923137
[email protected]

For general inquiries:
[email protected]

About the Investors

Blockchange Venture Capital is a venture capital fund focused on blockchain infrastructure and enterprise fintech, with a portfolio including startups that have democratized financial services globally.

Stellar Development Foundation is a non-profit organization supporting the development and growth of the Stellar network, an open blockchain platform for payments and digital assets.

Vamos Ventures invests in Latin American technology startups, focusing on fintechs and platforms that drive regional financial inclusion.

SOURCE Kira

With over 3 gigawatts of grid assets already under management, Splight aims to use the fresh capital to accelerate the deployment of Dynamic Congestion Management™ on grid systems across U.S. and Europe

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 26, 2025 — Splight, a U.S.-based grid technology company deploying machine-learning solutions that unlock capacity on congested electric grids, today announced a $12.4 million SAFE funding round led by Blue Bear Capital, with participation from ZOMA Capital. The funding will support Splight’s continued expansion in North America and Europe, with a focus on scaling both its commercial and technical teams at a time of unprecedented growth in demand for power from electric grids across the globe.

“Our technology solves one of the most urgent problems facing the grid today: how to deliver more electricity without waiting years for new transmission to be built,” said Fernando Llaver, CEO and co-founder of Splight. “This new capital allows us to scale deployments of our flagship Dynamic Congestion Management™ product, unlocking the kind of transmission capacity that is urgently needed by grid participants like AI data centers and utility-scale grid resources.”

The new funding will enable Splight to:

• Accelerate the deployment of its Dynamic Congestion Management™ (DCM) in the U.S., where grid congestion and decades-long transmission construction timelines are resulting in the curtailment of renewable energy resources and multi-year grid interconnection queues for new generation and large loads alike.
• Launch new technical capabilities, including:
  • AI-Enabled Electrical Studies for Data Centers: Splight’s brand-new approach to electrical studies brings the antiquated process into the 21st century and considers new capabilities based on real-time data to shorten data center interconnection timelines.
  • Enhanced DCM™ algorithms: New capabilities to help grid participants navigate the evolving requirements for integrating new large loads.
  • DCM™ Sandbox: A new modeling tool that streamlines the ability of operators to visualize potential DCM-enabled transmission gains in a virtual grid environment, which will include a demo control center in Splight’s expanded SF office.
  • Real-Time Simulation (RTS): A new feature for solution validation which allows engineers to conduct Hardware-in-the-Loop testing directly in the Splight Technology platform.
• Expand the footprint of its headquarters in San Francisco, relocating to a new office space along the Embarcadero and growing the headcount of its Bay Area-based technology and product teams.

Using its advanced machine-learning algorithm to safely and reliably unlock capacity on existing transmission lines, Splight’s DCM™ solution has seen rapid adoption across various geographies and regulatory environments. Unlike Dynamic Line Rating (DLR) solutions – which depend on weather and other variable conditions, resulting in a limited increase to capacity – DCM™ introduces an entirely new layer of grid reliability by ingesting real-time grid data and using a proprietary machine-learning algorithm to turn every Fast-Responding Asset (FRA) on the grid into a source of added robustness for the system. Using Splight’s DCM™ technology, FRAs, such as battery storage and data centers, become operational tools that can reliably respond to varying grid conditions to consistently unlock up to 100% more transmission capacity on existing infrastructure (dependent on system characteristics).

“From the moment we met the Splight team, we were impressed with the team’s deep operational knowledge of the grid and their machine learning expertise,” said Carolin Funk, partner at Blue Bear Capital. “That unique background and their proven track-record of global deployments provide operators of critical energy infrastructure with the confidence to deploy Splight’s cutting-edge technology across grid assets that form the backbone of our economies and societies.”

Commercially, the new capital will support Splight’s go-to-market strategy for its DCM™ technology as the company works to alleviate transmission congestion for both renewable generators and large loads in specific nodes across North America and Europe. DCM™ can be deployed by utilities to provide extra transmission capacity or to increase operational reliability across their systems, or by individual renewable power plants or large loads that are constrained by their inability to access transmission, providing them with a targeted approach to achieve speed to power and the option to BYOTC (Bring Your Own Transmission Capacity).

About Splight
Splight is a grid technology company headquartered in San Francisco, CA, with offices in Texas, Chile, and Spain. Its flagship product, Dynamic Congestion Management™ (DCM™), safely unlocks more transmission capacity to accelerate the deployment of clean energy and interconnection of new loads without requiring new lines or hardware. Splight works with utilities, renewable developers, and large loads to reduce curtailment, shorten interconnection timelines, increase reliability and maximize the use of existing infrastructure. To learn more, visit www.splight.com.

About Blue Bear Capital
Blue Bear is a venture capital and early growth equity firm driving digital technologies and machine intelligence into multibillion-dollar verticals across the energy, infrastructure, and climate industries. The team comes from leading energy private equity firms, startups, and large industrial technology developers. Blue Bear typically leads Seed through Series B rounds, with a portfolio covering operational AI, IoT, and cybersecurity technologies, all deployed with enterprise customers to drive connectivity and intelligence across the world’s most critical industries. More information can be found at www.bluebearcap.com.

SOURCE Splight

Seed Round Led by Zero Infinity Partners (ZIP) and CIV; Industry and Financial Veterans Added to Board of Directors

HOUSTON, Aug. 26, 2025 — AiGent, Inc., a leading developer of AI-driven distributed power plants (DPP), announced it has raised $6 million in seed funding from ZIP and CIV, in record time, to integrate 185 GW of the highest reliability set of existing generation assets into American power markets.

AiGent’s AI-based technology platform aggregates, orchestrates, and monetizes distributed generation infrastructure at commercial, industrial, and mission-critical facilities, including AI data centers, to deliver rapidly dispatchable, highly-reliable DPPs. By tapping into existing behind-the-meter distributed generation assets during system stress, AiGent helps keep the lights on, lowers costs, and provides new revenue streams to asset owners, all without the need, cost, delays, and dislocation required to build new power plants or energy infrastructure.

“Backup generators are an untapped reliability resource sitting idle across the grid,” said Stephanie Hendricks, CEO and Co-Founder of AiGent. “AiGent turns liabilities into assets, at scale, to improve grid reliability and reduce consumer costs. This support so quickly from leading investors at ZIP and CIV validates both the urgency of the problem and our team’s approach to solving it.”

Patrick Maloney, Co-Founder and CEO at CIV, added, “AiGent is unlocking a massive, underutilized fleet of 185 GW with AI-based software, controls, and market integration. The team is executing with incredible velocity and we believe their model can deliver reliability at a lower cost while creating meaningful value for generator owners and the grid.”

“At ZIP, we love backing repeat founders who know what it takes to go from zero to one, and we don’t know a better team than AiGent in that regard. Together with our friends at CIV, we’re excited to support their bold vision, in an era where satisfying power demands, increasing grid resiliency, and bringing AI to the physical infrastructure world are among the greatest imperatives,” said John Kwaak, Founder and Managing Partner at ZIP.

In addition to securing its seed funding, AiGent has added Dan Leff and Alex Demeulenaere to its board of directors. Leff is an industry veteran with more than 40 years of leadership and experience in energy and technology, and will help guide AiGent’s leadership team and strategic vision. Alex Demeulenaere joins the AiGent board as an investor and Managing Director at ZIP.

About AiGent, Inc.

Using its AI-based technology platform, AiGent aggregates, orchestrates, and monetizes distributed generation resources in power markets, delivering significant reliability, economic, and sustainability benefits to large energy users, utilities, and grid operators. To learn more visit www.aigent.energy.

About Zero Infinity Partners

ZIP is pioneering the infra-tech investing category. ZIP invests in founders and companies looking to deploy innovative technologies and business ideas in the global infrastructure sectors, including energy, power, mobility, logistics, data, water, and waste. Learn more at www.zeroinfinitypartners.com.

About CIV

CIV is an investment firm that backs and builds technology companies in critical industries. Founded by serial entrepreneurs and investors, CIV unites deep operating expertise, catalytic capital, and a unique global network to help founders create enduring companies that shape the future. CIV was founded on a simple belief: the future belongs to those who build it. Learn more at www.civ.co.

Media Contact
[email protected]

SOURCE AiGent, Inc.

• Series A co-led by Xora Innovation and Capricorn marks OpenLight’s transition from a Synopsys subsidiary to a high-velocity, venture-backed company
• Covered by more than 360 patents, OpenLight’s PDK gives customers access to a library of passive and active components
• Foundry-validated PDK accelerates time-to-market and enables scaled manufacturing of heterogeneously integrated III-V photonics

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 26, 2025 — OpenLight, a leader in custom Photonic Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (PASIC) chip design and manufacturing based on heterogeneous integration, today announced the close of its oversubscribed $34M Series A. The round is co-led by Xora Innovation and Capricorn Investment Group. Other participants include Mayfield; Juniper Networks, now part of HPE; Lam Capital, the corporate venture arm of Lam Research Corporation; New Legacy Ventures; and K2 Access.

This round of financing completes OpenLight’s transition from a Synopsys subsidiary to a high-velocity, venture-backed company positioned to address the growing demand for faster and more energy-efficient data movement in AI data center networks. As the shift from electrical to optical interconnects accelerates to support AI-scale workloads, integrated photonics is emerging as a core enabler of next-generation data center infrastructure. Additional applications for OpenLight’s technology include telecom, automotive and industrial sensing, IoT sensing, healthcare and quantum computing.

OpenLight’s Process Design Kit (PDK), based on the heterogeneous integration of indium phosphide and silicon photonics, gives customers access to a library of passive and active components covering integrated lasers, modulators, amplifiers and detectors. This PDK has been validated at the leading photonics foundry, Tower Semiconductor, ensuring designs are production-ready from day one. This enables customers to create custom PASICs using proven building blocks, simplifying advanced chip development and accelerating time-to-market. OpenLight currently holds more than 360 patents covering its PDK and the manufacturing of heterogeneously integrated III-V photonics. The OpenLight PDK is already being used by over 20 companies to design and fabricate PASICs across a wide spectrum of applications.

With the new capital injection, OpenLight will expand its PDK library of active and passive photonics components, including its leading-edge 400Gb/s modulator and indium phosphide heterogeneously integrated on-chip laser technology. OpenLight will also ramp up its standard-based reference PICs at 1.6Tb/s and 3.2Tb/s to provide customers with the most flexible and leading-edge component design library available in the market. In addition, the company will scale its team to support customers as they transition to volume production over the next 12 months.

“As we enter this next phase of our company’s growth, we are excited to be adding such strong investors with deep roots and expertise in the semiconductor and photonics industry,” said Dr. Adam Carter, CEO of OpenLight. “With this strong syndicate of investors, we can push the boundaries of innovation and deliver transformative solutions to our customers. This funding will allow us to scale our operations, deepen our R&D efforts and bring our groundbreaking products to market faster. We believe heterogeneous integrated silicon photonics will transform the way data is processed and transmitted, and we’re excited to be at the forefront of this revolution.”

“Xora has conviction that the field of photonics is going to see exponential growth in the coming years, and III-V heterogeneous integration is one of the foundational capabilities that will enable this growth,” said Phil Inagaki, Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer, Xora. “We see OpenLight not only as a technology leader in this field, but also as a company positioned to quickly scale manufacturing with foundry partners. One of the critical challenges for the photonics industry in the back half of this decade will be achieving scale, and we see OpenLight’s PDK as an important part of the solution.”

“Optical connectivity in data centers has become critical for next-generation scale-up and scale-out AI architectures. OpenLight’s heterogeneous integration delivers on all three axes of performance, reliability and cost, which will enable the explosive growth of optical IO,” said Dipender Saluja, Managing Partner at Capricorn’s Technology Impact Funds. “With the industry’s leading team, open PDKs, strong foundry and customer relationships, OpenLight is best positioned to meet the scale of demand that is needed for next-generation AI hardware.” 

About OpenLight
OpenLight is the world leader in custom PASIC design. OpenLight’s PASIC technology integrates all the components of silicon photonics devices, both active and passive components, into one chip. Our executive and engineering teams deliver the world’s first open silicon photonics platform with integrated lasers, modulators, amplifiers and detectors to improve the performance, power efficiency and reliability of designs for datacom, AI, high-performance computing, telecom, automotive and industrial sensing, IoT sensing, healthcare and quantum computing applications. With over 360 patents, OpenLight is bringing optical solutions to places it has never been before and enabling technologies and innovation that weren’t previously possible. The company is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, with offices in Silicon Valley. Read more at www.openlightphotonics.com.

About Xora Innovation
Xora provides capital and commitment to exceptional entrepreneurs transforming essential industries and powering the AI revolution. The firm invests across three key sectors: Compute & Communications, Energy and AI in Physical Industries. Xora supports its portfolio companies for the long term through its expertise and by leveraging the extensive network of its anchor LP, Temasek. For more information, visit xora.vc.

About Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund
The Technology Impact Fund (TIF) is a venture capital partnership that invests in companies developing and scaling novel engineering-based solutions to global challenges. TIF’s investment process is grounded in comprehensive perspectives on long-term, global trends in technology, transportation, power, storage, efficiency, semiconductors, aerospace, sensors, earth data and analytics. TIF is an early investor in iconic companies including Tesla, Joby Aviation, SpaceX, QuantumScape, Redwood, Planet Labs, Saildrone, Helion, Nuvia, Innovium, and Raxium.

Capricorn Investment Group is an investment firm founded to demonstrate that it is possible to invest profitably while driving sustainable positive change. Capricorn manages about $12B in assets for investors who strive for extraordinary investment results by leveraging market forces to accelerate large scale impact.
Learn more at www.capricornllc.com 

About Mayfield 
Mayfield partners with founders from day zero who see limitless possibilities where others see constraints. Drawing on our 55-year legacy of company building and people-first philosophy, we bring founder-to-founder expertise because we’ve built and scaled companies ourselves. We don’t just write checks — founders say our unwavering commitment sets us apart. We’ve celebrated over 120 IPOs and 225+ acquisitions, including breakthrough companies like HashiCorp, Lyft, Mammoth Biosciences, Marketo, Nuvia, Poshmark, ServiceMax and SolarCity. From our Silicon Valley home, with $3 billion in assets under management, Mayfield is more excited than ever to back founders building the AI future where potential knows no bounds. Join us at mayfield.com.

About HPE
HPE (NYSE: HPE) is a leader in essential enterprise technology, bringing together the power of AI, cloud and networking to help organizations achieve more. As pioneers of possibility, our innovation and expertise advance the way people live and work. We empower our customers across industries to optimize operational performance, transform data into foresight and maximize their impact. Unlock your boldest ambitions with HPE. Discover more at www.hpe.com.

About New Legacy Ventures
New Legacy Ventures is the venture arm of New Legacy Group, a multifaceted investment firm spanning direct investments, public equities, wealth advisory and fund allocation. The firm invests across industries and stages, focusing on founders who see uncommon opportunity and pursue it with purpose. For more information, please visit www.newlegacy.com.

About K2 Access
The K2 Access Fund invests in early-stage startups, primarily alongside Tier-1 venture firms, and provides hands-on support with product-market fit, customer acceleration and strategic growth. With a focus on high-growth sectors including AI, cybersecurity, cloud and advanced enterprise technologies, the fund helps startups scale faster, build market traction and position for long-term success.

SOURCE OpenLight

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Aug. 25, 2025 — Roadrunner Venture Studios, a leading venture studio for deep tech innovation, today announced its selection by the New Mexico Economic Development Department (EDD) to lead a $25 million initiative to accelerate quantum innovation and commercialization in the state.

The Roadrunner-led Coalition will bring together premier quantum researchers, funders, and innovators to create a quantum campus in Downtown Albuquerque’s Innovation District. This campus will include a multi-node quantum network, dilution refrigerators, a quantum testbed, quantum packaging and demonstration facilities, and a rapid prototyping facility. This infrastructure will create conductive circumstances and valuable resources for the next generation of quantum companies.

Roadrunner has pledged to match this build with a new quantum branch of its venture studio. At the center of this effort will be a flagship Founder-in-Residence program designed to identify and recruit the best entrepreneurial talent in the country to launch quantum companies in New Mexico. In parallel, Roadrunner will bring the most promising quantum startups from around the U.S. to establish operations in New Mexico and work closely with the studio — a process already underway with pioneering startups like Qunnect, QuEra, and Maybell. To support these efforts, Roadrunner will stand up a dedicated capital network explicitly for investing in New Mexico-based quantum startups that engage with the studio.

“New Mexico has long lived in the public imagination. It’s a place that has led America in the most important times with the most critical innovations — a fulcrum for national endeavor,” said Adam Hammer, Co-Founder and CEO of Roadrunner Venture Studios. “In this pivotal moment of technological  change, we are stepping forward to help lead the coming quantum revolution. To win in something as high-stakes as quantum, we need to find exceptional people, forge breakthrough companies, and fuel the second wave of great American quantum companies for global scale.”

Roadrunner’s coalition comprises nearly a dozen official partners, including Elevate Quantum, national laboratories (Sandia, Los Alamos), pioneering quantum startups (QuEra, Maybell, Qunnect, and Resonance), academic centers (University of New Mexico), and top-tier venture capital firms (DCVC, Playground Global, Quantonation). The effort will make Albuquerque a national launchpad for quantum startups—deepening the state’s growing emergence as a hub for advanced technology commercialization.

“Quantum technology will reshape the future, and New Mexico is ready to lead that transformation,” said Nora Sackett, Director of the Technology and Innovation Office at EDD. “By creating an environment where the top scientific minds have the tools and collaboration they need, New Mexico is backing the bold quantum startups and partnerships that will fuel breakthroughs.”

A request for proposal (RFP) was published by the EDD on May 27, 2025. The EDD designed the RFP “for the procurement of operational support for a quantum venture studio … and for a physical space or facility accessible to multiple entities that enables and accelerates the maturation and commercialization of quantum technologies” in New Mexico. The bid and negotiation process was competitive and included a comprehensive application. Finalists engaged in multiple interviews and a site visit by a state-appointed evaluation committee.

Roadrunner and its coalition intend to announce new initiatives and the details of the quantum campus and studio in the coming months.

“Quantum technology represents a once-in-a-generation chance to bring a touch of the Jetsons age into our time,” said Zach Yerushalmi, CEO of Elevate Quantum. “While New Mexico has pioneered world-class research for decades, this venture-studio and infrastructure strategy positions the state to unlock broad economic opportunity for all New Mexicans. Elevate Quantum is excited to partner with Roadrunner and a broad coalition of stakeholders from the national labs, industry, and academic communities to realize what many are coming to call ‘the quantum state.'”

“With a $25 million investment from the State Economic Development Department and the leadership of Roadrunner Venture Studios, we’re at the forefront of the next wave of critical technology right here in Albuquerque,” said Tim Keller, Mayor of Albuquerque. “By uniting our labs, universities, venture capital, investors, and innovators, Albuquerque can be the global leader in quantum computing and all the companies, good jobs, and long-term economic growth that come with it.”

The global market for quantum technologies is expected to reach nearly $200 billion by 2040, according to a 2024 McKinsey report, with the steepest growth experienced in defense, telecommunications, and enterprise computing. What once seemed theoretical is now a race to build quantum science as critical infrastructure that will underpin the next era of computing and communications.

To remain competitive, the U.S. must move from leadership in science to leadership in execution. New Mexico’s initiative provides a blueprint that links world-class research to real-world company formation and commercial infrastructure.

About Roadrunner Venture Studios
Roadrunner Venture Studios is the nation’s first venture studio purpose-built for hard science commercialization. Based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Roadrunner identifies breakthrough research with national importance and transforms it into scalable, venture-backable companies. With deep ties to the national labs, leading research institutions, and top-tier venture capital firms, Roadrunner specializes in spinning out companies in advanced energy, robotics, precision manufacturing, and now quantum. The studio combines founder development, operational mentorship, and early-stage capital to accelerate company creation at the frontiers of American innovation. For more information, visit www.roadrunnerventurestudios.com.

Media Contact: [email protected]

New Mexico EDD <> Roadrunner Quantum Initiative Public Press Kit

SOURCE Roadrunner Venture Studios

With $10.7M in funding from Founders Fund and Coatue, early aerospace wins, and support from Siemens, Dirac has built the first automated work instruction platform to drive Context-Aware Production Planning and build the bridge from engineering to manufacturing execution.

NEW YORK, Aug. 25, 2025 — As factories return home and reshoring accelerates, one truth becomes clear: you can’t ship know-how as easily as you can ship machines. Dirac is rebuilding the operational backbone of American manufacturing, one work instruction at a time. Earlier this year, Dirac announced the general launch of BuildOS, the first automated platform for creating and managing model-based work instructions. This release comes alongside a swell of momentum for the company, including $10.7M in funding and a new strategic partnership with Siemens to accelerate digital transformation for manufacturers around the world. Tomás Klausing, Siemens Director for Technology Partnerships put it best: “Dirac has built the first and only automated work instruction platform.”

America Has Forgotten How to Build Great Things: Dirac Remembers

Dirac’s mission is simple: to rebuild the memory of American manufacturing. Across aerospace, shipbuilding, and defense manufacturing, many frontline operations still rely on printed PDFs, outdated SOPs, and manual walkthroughs for training and task execution. Critical process knowledge—how to torque a joint, how to set up for a test, which sequence to follow when things go wrong—lives almost entirely in the heads of senior technicians. As retirement rates surge and production targets climb, defense and Tier 1 suppliers face a growing bottleneck: engineering files exist, but they’re unusable without extensive onboarding.

This isn’t just inefficient. It’s strategically dangerous. While the U.S. produces just 1.5 submarines per year, China produces over 10 per month. Modernizing U.S. manufacturing isn’t just an economic priority. It’s a national security imperative.

“We don’t have a labor crisis; we have a context crisis,” said Dirac CEO and founder Filip Aronshtein. “You can’t reshore production if nobody remembers how to build. That’s what BuildOS is for. It turns engineering intent into repeatable execution and tribal knowledge into institutional knowledge, automatically.”

Jogging America’s Memory: CAD to Clarity in Minutes

Artificial Intelligence alone is not always the solution. BuildOS replaces static documentation with automated, animated, physics-aware, interactive, and dynamically updated work instructions. The platform automatically translates CAD files and BOMs into shareable step-by-step build instructions, complete with 3D models, tools, and embedded tribal knowledge.

What CAD did for mechanical engineers, BuildOS is now doing for manufacturing engineers: giving them tools to encode, standardize, and scale their processes across a new generation of builders. Early adopters like Ancra Aircraft, which supplies cargo loading systems to more than 60% of the global freighter fleet, have already seen major gains:

• Work instruction creation time dropped from 3 days to 2 hours, a 95% time savings
• Quality errors dropped due to increased process standardization
• Tacit knowledge from senior technicians was preserved and distributed to new hires in a single session

“America is investing billions in industrial capacity—but without platforms like Dirac’s BuildOS, we’re just recreating the same bottlenecks that made offshoring attractive in the first place. BuildOS gives manufacturers the intelligence layer they’ve never had to make reshoring successful,” said Trae Stephens, Partner at Founders Fund. “We backed Dirac because they’re giving manufacturers the tooling to compete on intelligence, not just incentives, and re-architecting American manufacturing from the ground up.”

BuildOS isn’t tech designed in a vacuum. The co-founders recruited a team with hardware backgrounds from industry—building planes, cars, and submarines—who experienced the problem first-hand. Dirac didn’t build a platform for Silicon Valley’s idea of manufacturing. They built it for the shop floors that form the foundation of American prosperity.

As a result, the platform is already being adopted across aerospace, defense, automotive, agriculture, and heavy industrial equipment, supporting companies navigating low-volume, high-mix production with increasing complexity and compliance burdens.

Dirac x Siemens: Closing the Loop Between Design and Production

Siemens and Dirac have established a partnership to optimize the connection between product design and physical manufacturing. Dirac’s technology creates a bridge between PLM and CAD systems on one side and ERP and MES solutions on the other.

“The partnership with Dirac enables us to provide additional efficiency to our customers,” explains Klausing. “Initial implementations of our integrated products have already led to improvements in work instructions generation, optimized manufacturability and more agile production planning. Based on these results, we will expand the partnership and deepen the integration of the Dirac platform into our digital manufacturing portfolio.”

The partnership supports Siemens’ strategic objectives to bring emerging technologies to market faster and to assist manufacturers in their digital transformation through flexible partnerships.

A Smart Labor Future, Not a Cheap Labor One

As the manufacturing industry transitions from mass to smart labor, BuildOS offers a bridge: a way to take the best of experienced operators’ knowledge and make it accessible to every new hire from day one. In the face of a workforce transition and mounting geopolitical pressure, the most valuable asset a factory can protect is its memory and its ability to learn faster than it forgets.

“Our edge isn’t just speed. It’s repeatability,” said Aronshtein. “BuildOS gives every engineer, technician, and team the ability to build something once, and then build it right every time after that.” In doing so, Dirac aims to relight an industrial engine that’s missing its wiring diagram.

About Dirac

Dirac is a leader in assembly automation software, dedicated to advancing American industry through innovative solutions that streamline and enhance the production process. Its flagship product, BuildOS, automatically generates precise assembly work instructions directly from CAD files, enabling companies to quickly transition from design to production. Dirac is committed to strengthening America’s manufacturing sector by providing tools that enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and ensure the highest levels of productivity. 

All press inquiries should be directed to [email protected]

SOURCE Dirac, Inc.

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 25, 2025 — Nest Health, the nation’s leading in-home, whole-family care provider for families on Medicaid, today announced its $12.5M+ Series A funding. The round was co-led by returning investors 8VC and Blue Venture Fund, alongside new investor Amboy Street Ventures, with participation from Alumni Ventures, Health 2047, Nicholas Jarboe, and others.

This investment comes at a defining moment for Medicaid. The rollout of H.R. 1, known as the “One Big, Beautiful Bill”, is reshaping eligibility, work requirements, and coverage renewal processes while states face growing budget pressures. Managed Medicaid organizations need proven, scalable solutions that can deliver better outcomes for lower cost. Nest Health’s model has proven to do exactly that by serving the whole family in the home with integrated medical, behavioral, and social care.

Nest also helps families maintain coverage, reducing churn in half by navigating enrollment and access timely care. Even as eligibility rules narrow, Nest focuses on the areas that states still prioritize and protect, including children’s health, maternal care, and addiction treatment.

“Care starts at home, where trust is built,” said Dr. Rebekah Gee, Founder and CEO of Nest Health. “Our care model meets families where they are and walks with them through every step of their health journey, so no one is left behind.”

The approach is already showing results. In partnership with AmeriHealth Caritas Louisiana, Nest reduced emergency room visits, doubled vaccination rates, completed 91 percent of postpartum visits within 30 days, and achieved a two-to-one return on investment. Nest expanded its footprint through a new partnership with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona’s Health Choice, providing 18,000+ Medicaid enrollees in Maricopa and Mohave counties access to its integrated in-home and virtual care.

Nest’s model stands apart by offering a comprehensive solution for the entire household, avoiding the need to juggle between pediatric, adult, or mental health and other point-based care providers. Every family receives in-home visits aligned with ages and stages of development, supplemented with virtual care when that is the best fit. Services include primary care, mental health and substance use treatment, social support such as help with housing or utilities, 24/7 access to clinical support, and care coordination with specialists.

With the Series A funding, Nest plans to expand its family-focused clinical products, using AI to automate care at the right time for the right need, and to grow both in current states and into new geographies through additional payer partnerships. The round officially closes on October 5.

About Nest Health
Nest Health is the first value-based healthcare provider built for families. Nest is making comprehensive medical, social, and behavioral care radically accessible to America’s highest-risk families through in-home visits and wraparound virtual care.

Nest’s multidisciplinary and diverse care team delivers longitudinal care at the right time and place to the entire family, from birth to post-partum women, addressing the root cause of unnecessarily high hospital utilization and poor-quality outcomes. Increasing member satisfaction and appropriate engagement, Nest’s comprehensive care model ultimately reduces the cost of care and improves quality measures. Learn more at www.nesthealth.com. To learn more about the Nest care model, watch this video by Katrina Babies filmmaker Edward Buckles, Jr.

Media Contact: Catherine Sanderson; [email protected]

SOURCE Nest Health