MIAMI, Sept. 9, 2025 — Waterpoint Lane (“WPL”), a premier venture capital and growth equity firm with a proven track record of backing transformative innovation opportunities, proudly announces its lead investor role in Heritable Agriculture Inc. (“Heritable”), a pioneering company delivering breakthrough solutions to revolutionize agriculture.

Waterpoint Lane’s leadership is deeply rooted in innovation. Brad Zamft, CEO of Heritable and former project lead at X, the Moonshot Factory—Google’s elite innovation arm famed for developing “moonshot” technologies—brings expertise in identifying and scaling technologies that have the potential to  reshape entire industries. At X, Brad led high-impact projects focused on audacious goals with massive market potential, equipping him to drive Heritable’s next phase of growth in the agtech sector.

Heritable, an emerging leader in genetic and computational technologies, has developed proprietary tools that significantly accelerate the timelines and lower the cost of crop improvement, unlocking applications to enhance crop resilience, reduce environmental footprints, and improve yield efficiency, positioning the company to transform global agriculture supply chains.

“At X, I witnessed firsthand how bold ideas, combined with visionary investment, can create game-changing outcomes,” said Brad Zamft. “Heritable channels this ethos, marrying cutting-edge science with scalable impact potential. Partnering with Waterpoint Lane accelerates our mission to deliver solutions addressing urgent global challenges while creating meaningful value for stakeholders.”

Waterpoint Lane’s Fund I, successfully closed at the end of 2024, has already secured stakes in multiple high-potential companies poised at the forefront of food and agriculture innovation. The firm’s approach integrates rigorous financial discipline with a deep passion for scalable impact, demonstrating that sustainable innovation and thoughtful investment can coexist.

Meifan Shi, Co-Managing Partner and CSO at Waterpoint Lane, emphasized the firm’s strategic focus:
“Our strategy centers on identifying visionary founders and breakthrough platforms with the capacity to scale and lead entire sectors. We seek companies with differentiated technology, strong leadership, and a fundamental ability to drive systemic change in all aspects of the food systems. Heritable fits our approach, and we are excited to actively support its growth journey within our broader portfolio.”

Ben Gibbons, Co-Managing Partner and CIO at Waterpoint Lane, shared insight on the firm’s investment philosophy:

“Our financial discipline is grounded in thorough due diligence and portfolio construction that balances innovation and risk. We look for companies with compelling economics, scalable business models, and capital efficiency. Heritable’s unique positioning and growth potential align closely with our philosophy of supporting entrepreneurs who can deliver disciplined, sustainable growth.”

This partnership further cements Waterpoint Lane’s role as a top-tier investor at the forefront of innovation, combining integrity, financial rigor, and a vision for transformative global impact across the agrifood ecosystem.

About Waterpoint Lane

Waterpoint Lane is a venture capital firm investing in the technologies shaping the future of food, health, and wellness.  We partner with entrepreneurs building transformative solutions, from next-generation food platforms to health and wellness innovations, that redefine how people eat, live, and thrive.

Our approach combines disciplined investing with a forward-looking vision: targeting high-growth opportunities at the intersection of science, technology, and consumer demand. Waterpoint Lane is dedicated to delivering lasting value for our investors, empowering our portfolio companies, and strengthening the communities we serve.

Media Contact:
[email protected]

SOURCE Waterpoint Lane

DALLAS, Sept. 9, 2025 — MCatalysis, Inc., a pioneering deep tech company poised to disrupt the sustainable fuels and chemicals sector, today announced the successful closing of its seed funding round led by HL Energy Ventures (HLEV). The investment will accelerate the development and scale-up of its innovative microwave catalysis technology, for which MCatalysis has secured an exclusive worldwide license agreement from Oxford University Innovation (OUI), the technology transfer arm of the University of Oxford.

MCatalysis is on a mission to produce low-cost, clean synthetic fuels and chemicals by upcycling waste carbon resources, such as agricultural residues, plastic waste, and waste gas streams. The technology, born out of world-class research from the University of Oxford, utilizes high-efficiency industrial microwave processes combined with unique catalysts. This novel approach promises to significantly enhance processing times and product selectivity, yielding more cost-effective and energy-efficient production for a wide range of sustainable fuels and chemicals.

“This seed funding from HLEV and exclusive licensing agreement with OUI mark a pivotal moment for MCatalysis,” said Michael Irwin, CEO of MCatalysis, Inc. “We are now positioned to rapidly advance our vision of a circular economy, where waste carbon is upcycled, or transformed into new, valuable products, democratizing the petrochemical supply chain. The investment from HLEV provides not only the necessary capital but also invaluable expertise in scaling deep tech ventures.”

“MCatalysis represents the very best of what HLEV looks for in an investment: creative and brilliant co-founders with a game-changing technology that has the potential for both substantial commercial success and profound positive impact on our planet,” stated Victor Liu, CEO of HLEV.

The exclusive licensing agreement with OUI grants MCatalysis the global rights to the foundational intellectual property in microwave catalysis developed at the University of Oxford. OUI has over 30 years of experience commercializing the University’s ground-breaking knowledge and research.

“At OUI, our mission is to enable impact – for the economy, for people, and for the planet – by licensing Oxford’s world-leading knowledge and research to ambitious and capable partners,” said an OUI spokesperson. “The exclusive agreement with MCatalysis exemplifies how existing companies can be powerful engines of innovation when paired with Oxford IP. We are proud to support the journey of this ground-breaking technology from lab to market, where it can contribute meaningfully to a more sustainable future.”

About MCatalysis, Inc. MCatalysis, Inc. is a Dallas-based deep tech company founded in 2025. The company develops novel, high-efficiency industrial microwave processes and catalysts to produce low-cost, clean synthetic fuels and chemicals from waste carbon resources. By commercializing these breakthrough technologies, MCatalysis aims to accelerate the transition to sustainable, circular economies. https://www.mcatalysis.com/

About HL Energy Ventures HLEV is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in mission-driven founders building inspiring and valuable companies. With a focus on deep tech and impactful solutions, HLEV partners with entrepreneurs from inception to exit, providing not just capital but also hands-on support to navigate the challenges of scaling a business. https://www.hlenergyventures.com/

About Oxford University Innovation OUI is the research commercialisation office of the University of Oxford, recognised worldwide for its ability to engage academic prowess through licensing, catalyse innovative solutions through consulting services, and support the creation of spinouts, start-ups, and social ventures. OUI is dedicated to showcasing these transformative technologies on the global stage, bridging the realms of academia and the commercial world, thereby weaving a future where knowledge, innovation and partnership drive forward solutions to global challenges. https://innovation.ox.ac.uk/

Media Contact: Michael Irwin, [email protected]

Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2766878/MCatalysis_Logo.jpg

–  Follows successful completion of pre-clinical activities by Alchemab as part of earlier licensing deal with Eli Lilly and Company for ATLX-1282 
–  Financing included participation from Eli Lilly and Company and Ono Venture Investment alongside significant support from world-class existing investors  

CAMBRIDGE, England, Sept. 9, 2025 — Alchemab Therapeutics (Alchemab), a biopharmaceutical company which identifies and develops naturally occurring therapeutic antibodies from resilient individuals, today announced initiation of a Phase 1 first-in-human study of ATLX-1282. ATLX-1282 was licensed to Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly) in May 2025 as part of an exclusive global licensing agreement, which included a milestone payment to Alchemab following the initiation of the Phase 1 first-in-human study. Alchemab will conduct the first-in-human study for ATLX-1282 and Lilly will lead further development and commercialisation of the therapy. The Company also announced a $32 million Series A extension financing, bringing the Company’s total Series A investment to date to $114 million. The round included participation from Ono Venture Investment (OVI) alongside a blue-chip syndicate of existing specialist investors which includes RA Capital, SV Health Investors, DCVC Bio and Lightstone Ventures and strategic investment by Lilly. 

Alchemab’s proprietary, AI-enabled platform is transforming drug discovery by identifying protective auto-antibodies and novel targets from individuals that are naturally resilient to various diseases. The platform operates like a search engine for the immune system, leveraging advanced machine learning models and proprietary data to interrogate the largest database of patient-derived antibodies, known as the DataCube, comprising over 6,000 highly curated patient samples from more than 30 global collaborators across metabolic, immune and neurological conditions.

The additional capital will enable Alchemab to advance ATLX-2847, a wholly-owned program for muscle atrophy derived from the platform, into clinical development. ATLX-2847 is a first-in-class program targeting the prostaglandin pathway. The financing will also support Alchemab to advance highly novel earlier programs for immune and neurological conditions towards clinic, and further expand its AI-enabled, disease resilience-led platform.  

This financing follows a separate research collaboration with Lilly announced in January 2025 for the discovery, development and commercialisation of up to five novel therapeutic candidates for neurodegenerative disease.   

“As a founding investor in Alchemab, we are thrilled to close this financing and initiate clinical development, which together mark a very successful year for Alchemab and the Company’s novel platform to identify protective auto-antibodies,” said Kate Bingham, Alchemab Chair and SV Health Investors Managing Partner. “We’re extremely pleased to welcome new investors who share our commitment to novel drug discovery and development approaches and are proud to support Alchemab’s continued progress.”   

Jane Osbourn, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Alchemab, commented: “Reaching the key milestone of our first drug candidate into the clinic is great validation of Alchemab and our AI enabled next generation antibody platform. Through our collaboration with Lilly, we hope to get this, our first clinical candidate and a potentially transformative therapy, to as many patients as possible, as quickly as possible.”

Mike Hutton, Senior Vice President, Genetic Medicines and Neurodegeneration at Lilly, commented: “I am excited about the rapid progress we have made with this candidate as part of a joint team effort with Alchemab and look forward to seeing its performance in the clinic.”

About Alchemab

Alchemab studies the natural antibody responses of individuals who are highly resilient to disease and identifies antibodies uniquely shared in the resilient groups and not seen in disease progressors. The targets to these antibodies are then identified and the antibodies developed into therapies for hard-to-treat diseases which do not have disease modifying approaches. Alchemab’s platform integrates data mining and machine learning models of patient-derived immune responses with in vitro and in vivo drug discovery approaches to understand what keeps people well. The goal is to unlock nature’s immunological response to disease and harness our highly evolved human immune system to find breakthrough drugs.  Alchemab was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in London, UK with labs in Cambridge, UK.   

For more information, visit www.alchemab.com.

SOURCE Alchemab Therapeutics

This Series Seed establishes Labs’ “1 Company, 7 Labs” vision — a multidisciplinary system built to pioneer entirely new categories of superintelligence and human-enhancement technologies.

Within this architecture, Yuhmmy App 2.0 is Labs’ flagship product: the World’s 1st Social-Taste Super App where people come together for fun, funny and flavorful culinary conversations around eating, drinking and snacking — at Breakfast, Lunch, Brunch, Dessert and Dinner through audiovisual Tasterooms and ultra short-form Taste Reactions with friends, family, and new connections.

As the flagship, Yuhmmy also serves as the blueprint for how future products will grow, fueled by the combined strength of all seven (7) labs.

Together, these interconnected labs each advance a distinct frontier:

• lab1: Labs Intelligence (superintelligence)
• lab2: Labs Realities (immersive spatial computing)
• lab3: Labs Blocks (blockchain infrastructures)
• lab4: Labs Crypto (cryptographic finance)
• lab5: LabsX (experimental sciences)
• lab6: LavLabs (consumer experiences)
• lab7: Factory5227 (wearables / frontier hardware)

Based on this framework, Yuhmmy App 2.0 originates from lab6: LavLabs, and quickly became fueled by lab1: Labs Intelligence through proprietary Social-Taste AI Models (STAMs) and Social-Taste Agents (STAGs) with YuhmmyAI, and lab2: Labs Realities through Spatial-Taste with Yuhmmy AR/VR and the Yuhmmyverse. This early fusion of consumer experience and AI marks the birthplace of the Social-Taste Graph, and defines new digital categories: Tasteintelligence and Tasteimmersion.

Over time, Yuhmmy will draw on the full power of all seven (7) labs — from hardware and wearables to blockchain, crypto, immersive realities, and experimental sciences — evolving into a living demonstration of Labs’ superintelligence architecture.

This fall, that vision advances with a major step forward. Yuhmmy App 2.0 will open with initial access for USC and UCLA students, launching with a go-to-market strategy that makes the app available only during mealtimes — Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner Monday–Saturday, and Brunch, Dinner, and Dessert on Sundays. Outside these windows, Yuhmmy closes, creating rhythm and anticipation that echo the way meals have always anchored human communities.

In its first phase, USC and UCLA students will shape the culture of Yuhmmy by being the first to gather around its digital tables. From there, the community will expand — with students nationwide, along with brands, creators, media, and investors, able to join the waitlist for priority access. The broader vision is to evolve Yuhmmy into a living ritual, where digital and physical tables merge into one shared experience.

Yuhmmy will also introduce a suite of Social-Taste Features — including Taste Reactions, Tasterooms, Tastechat, Cravecash T2T/Taster-to-Taster payments, Taste Sports, Taste Drops and TNPL (Taste Now, Pay Later) that will form the Commercial-Taste Industry (CTI).

Together, these features make Yuhmmy App 2.0 the first consumer expression of Labs’ “1 Company, 7 Labs” vision.

“We’re building a new category called social-taste,” said Duránd F. Davis Jr., Founder, Executive Chairman & CEO of Labs. “We’re also building an entirely new kind of industry—one that runs on what we call commercial-taste.“

“Every lab was built around the belief that technology should serve as an extension of the human senses, human perception and human cognition,” added Maya E. Davis, Co-founder, Vice Chairwoman, President & Chief Ecosystem Strategy Officer (CESO). “This funding brings us closer to reimagining how people crave, create, and connect with taste.“

About Labs Companies, Inc.

Labs Companies, Inc. (branded and doing business as Labs) is an American global human-enhancement technology company headquartered in Santa Monica, Calif. Formed in 2025 through a restructuring of LavLabs Inc., Labs now serves as the parent company to a multidisciplinary innovation system spanning seven core labs: Labs Intelligence, Labs Realities, Labs Blocks, Labs Crypto, LabsX, LavLabs, and Factory5227, operating across superintelligence, immersive realities, digital economies, experimental sciences, consumer internet, and wearable hardware. Yuhmmy App is Labs’ flagship consumer platform.

Each Lab is dedicated to advancing human capabilities through transformative products, services, platforms, and technologies (PSPTs) in superintelligence, digital economies, immersive realities, consumer internet, wearables, and social experiences.

Labs’ ecosystem spans FinTaste (Labs Financial Group), venture and fund infrastructure (Labs Investor Group), culinary real estate (Labs Realty Group), education (Labs Learn), entertainment (Labs Entertainment), and digital media (Labs Media).

Labs’ mission is to inspire creativity to shape futures that help build communities and advance human capabilities. Its signature emblem, Chemí (/kim-me/), is inspired by chemistry’s test tube, symbolizing wonder, excitement, testing, and openness.

Learn more at: 
LabsCompanies.com 

For the full Series Seed Brief story, visit:

Labs Newsroom:
labscompanies.com/newsroom/writings/seriesseed

Download the Full Series Seed Brief Announcement: 
https://labscompanies.com/seriesseedbrief/Labs_Series_Seed_Announcement_Brief_Full_Official_Doc.pdf

Labs Press Room:
Labs.press 

About Yuhmmy

Yuhmmy is the flagship brand of Labs — building the infrastructure for a new Social-Taste Internet powered by craving, not clicks. At the center is Yuhmmy App, the world’s first Social-Taste™ Super App, which transforms everyday eating, sipping, snacking, and savoring into expressive, shareable, and transactional moments. Through Taste Reactions, Tasterooms, Tastechat, Cravecash, and TNPL (Taste Now, Pay Later), Yuhmmy turns flavor into a form of identity, commerce, and craveable self-expression.

Yuhmmy’s deeper engine is YuhmmyAI — a real-time, perception-based intelligence layer powered by STAMs (Social-Taste AI Models) and STAGs (Social-Taste Agents). These contextual AI systems personalize every interaction, taste-search, and flavor-fueled recommendation across the app. Together, they form the first emotional-reasoning AI designed for the language of taste.

Alongside YuhmmyAI, the company is launching Yuhmmy AR/VR — a mixed-reality platform for immersive taste exploration. From campus-based Taste Hunts to global Taste Battles, Yuhmmy AR/VR blends virtual and real-life experience into what Labs calls Tastertainment™.

With the launch of Yuhmmy App 2.0 this fall, Yuhmmy App becomes the central node of a new global Tasteconomy™ — connecting communities through flavor, culture, and crave-tech innovation.

Learn more about the Yuhmmy Brand, Yuhmmy App, YuhmmyAI and Yuhmmy AR/VR at: Yuhmmy.com 

Labs’ August Series Seed II closed a $35 million EDGE Note in debt financing at a $12.5 billion post-money valuation; that $12.5 billion valuation reflects a 25% valuation increase since our Series Seed April 18th.

Read Our Series Seed II Announcement here: https://labscompanies.com/newsroom/writings/seriesseed2

SOURCE Labs

The Series Seed established the company’s ‘1 Company, 7 Labs’ vision, with Yuhmmy App 2.0, the world’s 1st Social-Taste Super App for fun, funny, and flavorful conversations, as the first expression of that system.

Series Seed II builds directly on that foundation, highlighting Labs’ momentum and fueling the public release of Yuhmmy App 2.0, opening this fall with exclusive first access for USC and UCLA students.

Yuhmmy App will allow people to share food, drinks, sweets, snacks and recreational flavors through live audiovisual Tasterooms and ultra short-form Taste Reactions, turning everyday tasting into a time to connect with friends, family, and new communities around the globe.

Initially, Yuhmmy App 2.0 will open only during mealtimes — Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner Monday–Saturday, and Brunch, Dinner, and Dessert on Sundays. Between those windows, the app closes, building anticipation and giving every session the feel of a shared meal. On-campus activations will spark excitement, guiding students directly into the app to taste, create, and stream together.

Alongside the product rollout, Labs will introduce Yuhmmy Characters — a taste-native layer of expressive, collectible identities that members can use across Taste Reactions, Tasterooms, and Tastechats.

Characters such as Palatepups, FlavorFriends, and TasteToons function as Digital & Physical Taste Valuables (DPTVs), unlocking premium content, GrubGems, PalatePoints, PalatePerks, real-world collaborations, and Yuhmmy Rewards. Yuhmmy Characters also create new surfaces for what we call Cravecreator taste-merchandising, taste-branded partnerships, and character-based taste-ad formats inside Yuhmmy Promote, also igniting Yuhmmers to become Tastetrepreneurs.

While USC and UCLA lead the launch, everyone else — students nationwide, brands (e.g., Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Doritos), creators, media, and investors — can join the waitlist to reserve their place at the table.

At its core, Yuhmmy App is fueled by proprietary STAMs (Social-Taste AI Models) and STAGs (Social-Taste Agents) — the Tasteintelligence layer that ingests cravings, interprets flavor, and powers new ways for people to share meals together. From this tasteintelligence, Social-Taste Apps will emerge, carrying taste into events, shopping, maps, music, and more — all connected through the universal language of flavor.

Together, they establish Yuhmmy App as the world’s first Social-Taste Super App and the foundation of a new superindustry: the Commercial-Taste Industry (CTI).

“This capital puts Yuhmmy App 2.0 directly into people’s hands — starting at USC and UCLA — while we deepen YuhmmyAI, Yuhmmy AR/VR and ready our ecosystems and economies for scaled SAT economics,” said Duránd F. Davis Jr., Founder & CEO of Labs.

“Labs is defining a taste-native category. This Series Seed II extension provides speed now and a clear path for our firm to retrieve equity up-side at Series A, without slowing product cadence, as Labs prepares for their Pre-Series A and Series A Rounds,” said James E. Thomas, Head of the JET entities.

“This next chapter will catapult the Social-Taste Graph and Commercial-Taste Industry — where taste, technology, and community merge to redefine how the world comes together around eating, drinking, snacking, and enjoying taste recreationally,” said Maya E. Davis, Co-founder & President of Labs.

This financing also underscores Labs’ strategy to accelerate revenue ecosystems across SAT (Subscriptions, Advertising, Transactions) within its BREMS (Business, Revenue, Economic, Monetization, Sales) framework, including Yuhmmy Premium tiers (Premium Pilot $5, Premium Pulse $15, Premium Plus $20, Premium Pro $100), Yuhmmy Promote (TasteAds, STEBA, YAN!, TAP!), and Yuhmmy Marketplace (Taste Shop, Taste Store, Taste Mart, TNPL, and Tastebank).

About Labs Companies, Inc.
Labs Companies, Inc. (branded and doing business as Labs) is an American global human-enhancement technology company headquartered in Santa Monica, Calif. Formed in 2025 through a restructuring of LavLabs Inc., Labs now serves as the parent company to a multidisciplinary innovation system spanning seven core labs: Labs Intelligence, Labs Realities, Labs Blocks, Labs Crypto, LabsX, LavLabs, and Factory5227, operating across superintelligence, immersive realities, digital economies, experimental sciences, consumer internet, and wearable hardware. Yuhmmy App is Labs’ flagship consumer platform.

Each Lab is dedicated to advancing human capabilities through transformative products, services, platforms, and technologies (PSPTs) in superintelligence, digital economies, immersive realities, consumer internet, wearables, and social experiences.

Labs’ ecosystem spans FinTaste (Labs Financial Group), venture and fund infrastructure (Labs Investor Group), culinary real estate (Labs Realty Group), education (Labs Learn), entertainment (Labs Entertainment), and digital media (Labs Media).

Labs’ mission is to inspire creativity to shape futures that help build communities and advance human capabilities. Its signature emblem, Chemí (/kim-me/), is inspired by chemistry’s test tube, symbolizing wonder, excitement, testing, and openness.

Learn more at: 
LabsCompanies.com

For the full Series Seed II story, visit:

Labs Newsroom:
labscompanies.com/newsroom/writings/seriesseed2 

Download the Full Series Seed II Announcement: 
https://labscompanies.com/seriesseedbrief/Labs_Series_Seed_II_Announcement_Full_Official_Doc.pdf

Labs Press Room: 
Labs.press

About Yuhmmy
Yuhmmy is the flagship brand of Labs — building the infrastructure for a new Social-Taste Internet powered by craving, not clicks. At the center is Yuhmmy App, the world’s first Social-Taste Super App, which transforms everyday eating, sipping, snacking, and savoring into expressive, shareable, and transactional moments. Through Taste Reactions, Tasterooms, Tastechat, Cravecash, and TNPL (Taste Now, Pay Later), Yuhmmy turns flavor into a form of identity, commerce, and craveable self-expression.

Yuhmmy’s deeper engine is YuhmmyAI — a real-time, perception-based intelligence layer powered by STAMs and STAGs. These contextual AI systems personalize every interaction, taste-search, and flavor-fueled recommendation across the app. Alongside YuhmmyAI, the company is launching Yuhmmy AR/VR for immersive taste exploration, and Yuhmmy Characters — expressive, collectible identities and effects that travel across the entire Yuhmmy ecosystem and unlock digital-to-physical rewards, collaborations, and marketplace benefits.

With the rollout of Yuhmmy App 2.0 beginning this fall, Yuhmmy becomes the central node of a global Tasteconomy — connecting communities through flavor, culture, and crave-tech innovation.

Learn more about the Yuhmmy brand, Yuhmmy App, YuhmmyAI, Yuhmmy AR/VR, and Yuhmmy Characters at:
Yuhmmy.com 

Labs’ April Series Seed closed at $22.5 million and a $10 billion post-money valuation; today’s $12.5 billion reflects a 25% valuation increase.

Read Prior Series Seed Brief here: 
https://labscompanies.com/newsroom/writings/seriesseed

SOURCE Labs

florrent’s material breakthrough enables supercapacitor solutions to unlock more performance from today’s grid, while preparing for the demands of tomorrow

NORTHAMPTON, Mass., Sept. 8, 2025 — florrent, Inc., an energy technology company helping to solve the $150B/year power quality problem by providing economical power quality and reliability (PQ&R) solutions for a stable and decarbonized grid, today announced the successful closure of an oversubscribed $9.5M Seed-2 funding round. The round was led by MassVentures, with significant participation from Raven Indigenous Capital Partners, MassMutual Catalyst Fund, Boston Impact Initiative, Sky Foundation, Elbezius, Maroon Venture Partners Fund, and a group of mission-aligned angel investors.

This funding will accelerate florrent’s production scale-up of Contoured Carbon™, their next-generation activated carbon material, which, when applied into supercapacitors, enables high-power solutions with lower total cost, smaller footprint, and a reduced carbon footprint when compared with existing technologies. As the electrical grid undergoes its most significant transformation in over a century, florrent’s technology provides a crucial solution to the stability challenges posed by today’s dynamic loads and aging infrastructure.

“The need for grid stability is accelerating to an unprecedented scale, driven by the rapid growth of dynamic loads and the wide distribution of energy resources,” said Jose LaSalle, CEO of florrent. “florrent’s supercapacitor solution is a critical addition to the toolbox that enables better use of existing infrastructure to meet these evolving needs. A defining hallmark of this energy transition will be unlocking new economic opportunities that are shared widely—especially among communities historically marginalized or most impacted by environmental degradation. At florrent, we’re driven to join other companies demonstrating that it is possible to build a profitable business founded on innovative technology that wins on unit economics while contributing to the well-being of people and the planet.”

The foundation of florrent’s technology is a material innovation that diverts domestic biomass waste from landfills, sequestering carbon as high-value, active power media that provide critical stability for an increasingly unstable grid. Importantly, this sourcing strategy also creates opportunities to partner with—and drive meaningful economic participation for—historically underserved communities within florrent’s value chain. 

“Having led florrent’s Seed-1 funding round, we’re excited to lead again and continue our strong partnership with this exceptional team,” said Charlie Hipwood, CEO and President of MassVentures. “florrent continues to deliver impressive results while advancing their ambitious social and environmental impact mission. We’re proud to support their continued growth and help them scale solutions that create meaningful change.”

“We’re thrilled to continue to partner with Jose, Alex, Joe and the entire florrent team,” said Althea Wishloff, General Partner at Raven Indigenous Capital Partners. “As a big supporter of Indigenous- and Native-led entrepreneurs and businesses, Raven sees florrent as a means to drive positive environmental change while benefiting Tribal Nations and Peoples in raw material procurement and grid stabilization.”

florrent’s supercapacitors are made in the US and designed to integrate seamlessly into existing infrastructure, providing both front-of-the-meter and behind-the-meter resilience. They enable grid-forming capabilities, fast frequency response, and improved power quality, making them an indispensable tool for modern grid management.

florrent will use this $9.5M in new funding to hire key roles, including engineers and technicians to support their scaling manufacturing processes, scientists to expand their product development capabilities, operations specialists to drive efficiencies as they grow, and a business development leader to accelerate this next phase of commercialization. The company will be building out a new pilot manufacturing facility in Northampton, MA, which is scheduled to begin operations in 2026.

For more information about florrent and their groundbreaking work, please visit www.florrent.com or contact [email protected].

About florrent
florrent is an energy technology company helping to solve the $150B per year power quality problem by providing economical power quality and reliability (PQ&R) solutions for a stable and decarbonized grid. florrent’s proprietary bio-derived activated carbon enables its supercapacitor solutions to lead the industry and enable widespread decarbonization and electrification.

About MassVentures
MassVentures is a leading venture capital firm focused on investing in early-stage, high-growth companies in Massachusetts. With a commitment to fostering innovation and economic development, MassVentures supports entrepreneurs who are transforming industries and creating lasting impact.

Learn more at:
https://www.mass-ventures.com/ 

About Raven Indigenous Capital Partners:
Raven is an impact-focussed venture capital fund investing in early-stage businesses led by Indigenous and Native Peoples. With $150M in assets under management and four offices across the United States and Canada, Raven’s mission is to improve the wellbeing of Indigenous entrepreneurs.

To learn more and apply for venture funding, visit Raven’s website: https://ravencapitalpartners.com/ or reach out to: Althea Wishloff, General Partner, [email protected]

Media Contact:
Joe Hastry
Co-Founder, Director of Finance & Operations
[email protected]

SOURCE florrent

Cassidy enables non-technical teams to rapidly design, deploy, and evolve AI workflows & agents that deliver measurable ROI

NEW YORK, Sept. 8, 2025 — Cassidy, the fast-growing context-powered AI automation platform for non-technical teams, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by HOF Capital, with participation from The General Partnership, Neo, Alumni Ventures, and others. Cassidy enables business users to automate complex, high-value workflows ranging from customer support triage to automating CRM updates from sales calls to instant knowledge-sharing in Slack, all without writing any code.

“From the start, our thesis has been simple: when the people closest to the work become the builders, automation reflects the reality of the process and adoption spreads quickly across organizations. Our mission is to turn every team into a high-leverage operator and it is working,” said Justin Fineberg, co-founder and CEO of Cassidy. “Teams don’t want AI in theory, they want to be empowered to drive efficiencies. Cassidy’s context-rich workflows and agents turn complex processes into automations that scale company-wide, unlocking work that no off-the-shelf SaaS tool could capture, and delivering real impact where automation was never possible before.”

Since launch, Cassidy has achieved rapid expansion within customer organizations, often moving from one high-value workflow to company-wide adoption in months. 

Philippe Jardin, Vice President of Innovation, Solutions and Services at NTT Data said, “We’re building automations across the business from RFP automation that knows our brand voice and how we like to respond, to prospecting that researches and scores leads based on our ideal customer profile, to reference finders that instantly surface the right client stories and case studies. Cassidy understands our processes and priorities like no other tool could replicate. Workflows that once took hours now run instantly, and adoption has taken off and it was all built without technical resources.”

“AI in the enterprise has been stuck in pilots for too long and the land and expand model that Cassidy is experiencing has been tremendous,” said Hansae Catlett, Partner at HOF Capital. “Justin and his team are putting knowledge workers in control of automation and it is driving rapid adoption and real business outcomes.”

The new capital will be used to expand the Cassidy platform and grow the team to help more enterprises unlock the full value of their institutional knowledge. To learn more about Cassidy and see our open roles, visit our website.

About Cassidy

Cassidy is a context-powered automation platform that puts non-technical teams in control of building AI workflows. By combining enterprise knowledge, real-time data, and large language models, Cassidy enables businesses to automate complex, nuanced processes that off-the-shelf SaaS tools or legacy automation platforms can’t handle. Trusted by companies like Justworks, Multiverse, and NTT Data, Cassidy helps organizations turn institutional knowledge into scalable automations — without writing a line of code. Cassidy is headquartered in NYC and has raised $14M from leading VC firms including HOF Capital, The General Partnership, Neo, and others.

Media Contact:

[email protected]

SOURCE Cassidy

Over $80K in Funding Supports Promising Studies Targeting Two Critically Underserved Conditions

DANBURY, Conn., Sept. 8, 2025 — The National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD^®), in a move to accelerate breakthroughs for rare diseases lacking effective treatments, has awarded more than $82,000 in seed funding to two international scientists to support cutting-edge research in systemic and metabolic disorders.

By targeting early-stage research with high potential for impact, NORD’s seed grants aim to jumpstart scientific discovery and pave the way for larger-scale investments. These competitive awards are designed to spark novel ideas, generate critical preliminary data, and drive momentum in areas where patients often have few — if any — therapeutic options.

The 2025 recipients of NORD’s seed grants are: 

• Dr. Ilkka Paatero, senior researcher and head of the Zebrafish Core Facility at the University of Turku and Abo Akademi University in Turku, Finland, was awarded $40,000 to advance research in Levy-Yeboa syndrome (LYS). LYS is a rare genetic condition characterized by a combination of muscular and bone abnormalities, skin (dermatological) issues, hearing loss, and gastrointestinal distress.
• Dr. Margherita Romeo, senior scientist at the Instituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri in Milan, Italy, was awarded $42,000 to advance research in amyloidosis, usually a multisystem disease resulting in a wide spectrum of clinical presentations.

“Congratulations to this year’s award recipients, Dr. Paatero and Dr. Romeo, whose research represents meaningful progress for the many individuals affected by Levy-Yeboa syndrome and amyloidosis,” said Tracey Sikora, NORD Vice President of Research and Clinical Programs. “We’re honored to support innovative research that addresses the vast and urgent unmet needs of those with rare diseases. We look forward to the insights and impact their work will have on advancing research for these two patient populations.” 

Paatero’s research project, titled “Zebrafish Model of Levy-Yeboa Syndrome,” aims to generate and analyze a genetic zebrafish model for LYS. The anticipated outcomes of the study are: gaining novel insights into the disease mechanism, identification of potential drug targets, and establishing a disease model suitable for testing drugs. Ultimately, this research aims to improve understanding and treatment of Levy-Yeboa syndrome.

Romeo’s study, titled “Decoding Cardiac Toxicity in AL Amyloidosis: Insights from a Novel Transgenic C. elegans Model,” investigates how light chains cause heart damage in AL amyloidosis even before amyloid deposition occurs. This study uses Caenorhabditis elegans, a small nematode (roundworm) commonly used in medical research because many of its biological systems are similar to those of humans. Remarkably, the worm’s pharynx functions like the human heart, allowing researchers to model cardiac damage in a simple and cost-effective way. By understanding how light chains affect this “ancestral heart,” the study aims to uncover early molecular events of the disease and identify new targets for treatments that could protect the heart in people living with this rare and life-threatening condition.

NORD’s Rare Disease Research Grant Program provides funding to qualified researchers to support new or existing scientific research studies or clinical trials with the potential to attract larger funding from agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), or corporate sponsors.

Since 1989, NORD has awarded more than $9 million in research grants to advance scientific discovery for rare diseases that lack treatment and funding. With fewer than 5% of the approximately 10,000 known rare diseases having an FDA-approved therapy, and the millions of dollars required to develop a prescriptive medication, early-stage funding plays a critical role in unlocking progress. NORD’s grant program has jump-started critical rare disease research, supported numerous peer-reviewed publications, and contributed to the development of two FDA-approved treatments. 

To learn more, visit https://rarediseases.org/advancing-research/research-grant-programs/.  

About the National Organization for Rare Disorders  

Founded in 1983, the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD^®) is a leading independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit patient advocacy organization dedicated to improving the health and lives of over 30 million Americans living with rare diseases. In partnership with more than 350 disease-specific member patient organizations, NORD drives progress in rare disease research, care, and policy. Learn more at https://rarediseases.org/

SOURCE National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD®)

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 8, 2025 — JetBlue Ventures today announced its rebrand to SKY VC following its acquisition by SKY Leasing (“SKY”) in May 2025. The transition marks the firm’s evolution into an independent investment platform with expanded capabilities to back founders and scale transformative technologies, leveraging SKY’s global network, deep industry relationships, and access to capital.

As part of SKY, a premier aviation alternative asset manager with relationships spanning more than 100 airlines, MROs, and OEMs, SKY VC’s portfolio companies will gain expanded market access worldwide. The firm will also continue to maintain a strategic partnership with JetBlue.

“We’re excited about our next chapter as we continue to drive innovation across travel and transportation,” said Amy Burr, CEO of SKY VC. “We’ve built a winning formula of combining deep sector expertise with industry connectivity to help startups succeed. While JetBlue is no longer reflected in our name, they remain an important strategic partner to our team. Looking forward, our goal is to continue to bridge the gap between disruptive startups and established leaders, moving technologies from concept to global adoption.”

SKY VC will continue under the same leadership and team, maintaining a focus on enterprise and frontier technologies with broad applications across travel and transportation. Since its founding in 2016, the team has invested in more than 50 early-stage startups and achieved eight successful exits through acquisitions and public offerings.

About SKY VC

SKY VC invests in early-stage companies powering the future of travel and transportation with enterprise and frontier technologies. Founded in 2016 as JetBlue’s corporate venture capital arm, the team has deployed capital across more than 50 startups. In 2025, SKY VC became an independent platform following its acquisition by SKY Leasing. Learn more at www.sky-vc.com.

About SKY Leasing

SKY Leasing (“SKY”) is an alternative investment manager dedicated to providing asset-focused capital solutions to airlines globally. With a global presence across five offices in San Francisco, Dublin, New York, Miami, and Singapore, SKY leverages a 30-year history of global aviation relationships, technical asset management expertise, and a disciplined investment framework, to originate unique investment opportunities with an emphasis on seeking downside protection and stable cash flow. The company’s fund management business was founded in 2019 with a minority investment from M&G Investments. As of March 2025, the company manages over $5 billion of aviation assets. For more information about SKY, visit www.skyleasing.com.

Contact
SKY VC 
Anna Shimoda
[email protected] 

SOURCE SKY VC