Startup’s TSP1 State Space Accelerator Chip Delivers On-Device Voice AI for AR, Robotics, Wearables, Medical Devices, and Automotive Applications

WATERLOO, ON, Jan. 12, 2026 – Applied Brain Research (ABR), the leader in low latency real-time on-device voice AI solutions, announced today the successful closure of its oversubscribed seed funding round. The investment round was led by Two Small Fish Ventures (TSF), with Eva Lau joining the ABR board. The investment will fuel continued development and commercialization of ABR’s breakthrough TSP1 state space accelerator chip and software models for edge AI inference applications. ABR is a unique full-stack edge AI company, delivering patented state space models and purpose-built silicon to enable unmatched real-time, low-power voice AI fully on-device.

The oversubscribed seed round closed following the successful release of ABR’s TSP1 chip, the company’s first-generation state space accelerator purpose-built for real-time time series processing at the edge. The TSP1 enables on-device automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), and advanced digital signal processing applications – capabilities that have traditionally required cloud connectivity or significantly more powerful hardware.

“Voice is becoming the default interface for the next wave of edge devices but using cloud voice AI solutions is a terrible experience, plagued by delays, reliability and privacy concerns while also being very expensive. And most edge devices are constrained by their battery life and computational resources limiting on-device capabilities,” said Kevin Conley, CEO of Applied Brain Research. “We’re elevating the experience of super responsive on-device voice interaction with low power solutions that also significantly reduce device operating costs.”

As was seen the past week at CES, ABR’s technology addresses critical pain points across multiple product segments where reliable, low-latency voice processing is essential but cloud connectivity is impractical, unreliable, expensive, and poses privacy concerns. There was clear resonance for ABR solutions in several categories:

• Augmented Reality Glasses: Elevating on-device voice control and responsive agent integration
• Robotics: Enabling zero delay cloud agent integrations and eliminating crippling operating costs
• Wearables: Unlocking a new level of AI voice control possibilities
• Medical Devices: More powerful biosensor on-device inference that protects sensitive data
• Automotive: Consistent in-vehicle voice experiences regardless of network connectivity

The TSP1’s architecture, optimized for state space model inference, represents a fundamental advance in efficient AI computation, enabling complex neural network inference at a fraction of the power budget required by conventional approaches. Full vocabulary speech-to-text and text-to-speech are now possible at under 30mW of power consumption, 10–100 times less than other available alternatives.

“The embedded AI market is at an inflection point,” said Eva Lau, General Partner at Two Small Fish Ventures. “Applied Brain Research has demonstrated that sophisticated voice AI doesn’t require the cloud. Their technology unlocks entirely new product categories and use cases that weren’t previously viable.”

ABR is currently engaging with partners across the AR, robotics, wearables, medical device, and automotive sectors. The company offers both the TSP1 chip and optimized software models tailored to specific application requirements.

About Applied Brain Research

Applied Brain Research Inc. (ABR) is an AI solution company focused on dramatically reducing the cost, latency and power consumption of edge AI applications. The company’s patented State Space Model  (SSM) technology improves the user experience and economics of everything from AR glasses to sophisticated robots. ABR’s SSM technology solves the computational resource constraints that limit edge AI solutions by enabling deployment of powerful real-time AI, alleviating the constraints, latency and costs of cloud-based AI. ABR licenses SSM software for existing hardware applications and sells its accelerator ASIC, the TSP1 for industry leading lowest power levels.

Additional details about ABR’s SSMs and the TSP1 can be found at https://www.eetimes.com/applied-brain-research-demos-first-silicon-for-state-space-models/

Corporate information can be found at www.appliedbrainresearch.com.

SOURCE Applied Brain Research Inc.

• Novel use of Causal AI revives long-stalled development pathways across complex generics and next-generation medicines for chronic disease
• Allos bends the cost-risk curve of drug development and formulation for complex generics, making specialty medicines easier to take, optimized for long-term use, and economically viable
• Allos’ approach gives drug developers, innovators, and generic manufacturers a reason to reinvest in complex drugs that have historically failed to progress

OXFORD, United Kingdom, Jan. 12, 2026 — Allos AI today announced $5 million in seed financing led by Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE) to commercialize the industry’s first “glass-box” Causal AI platform, accelerating the end-to-end reformulation of complex generic drugs. The round also included participation from Habico Invest, the family office of Danish pharmaceutical group Orifarm, and the University of California accelerator Berkeley SKYDECK. The funding will support expansion across formulation development and data science as the company focuses on hard-to-genericize small-molecule medicines.

Millions of people with chronic, complex conditions take specialty drugs as part of daily life. These medicines often do what they are meant to do clinically, but how they are formulated and delivered can make them difficult to tolerate, adhere to, or sustain over time. When formulation and delivery create friction for patients, improving an approved drug often requires rebuilding the development and clinical pathway.

Despite clear opportunities in drug life-cycle management to improve delivery, tolerability, and long-term outcomes, most drugs are rarely revisited once they reach the market, including approved generics and early new chemical entities (NCEs). Patients remain on suboptimal formulations for years, while manufacturers hesitate to invest in changes that carry high development cost, clinical risk, and regulatory uncertainty. This gap persists even as the global specialty generics market rapidly grows, rising from $77B USD in 2023 to a projected $275B USD by 2032, underscoring the scale of unmet clinical and commercial opportunity.

Allos applies Causal AI to reformulate complex small-molecule drugs by modeling how formulation, dosing, delivery, and patient biology interact to drive clinical outcomes. By modeling how formulation, dosing, and delivery choices influence outcomes across stratified patient populations, Allos identifies reformulation paths that produce more predictable clinical benefit.

This approach enables clinical studies that are smaller, faster, and more interpretable for partners while reducing inter-patient variability. Using real world evidence to account for patient and disease heterogeneity upfront, Allos reduces development uncertainty, shortens timelines, and lowers the burden associated with reformulating complex drugs, creating a more predictable path to approval and licensing.

“For decades, the pharmaceutical system has treated approval as the finish line, even though for patients it marks the start of a much longer journey,” said Aditya Iyer, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Allos AI. “What’s been missing is a practical way to keep improving medicines after they reach the market, without relying on workarounds or intuition. With Causal AI, we’re building a development platform that allows improvement to be intentional, evidence-driven, and repeatable. Over time, that has the potential to fundamentally change how complex drugs are developed, maintained, and experienced.”

“Most AI efforts in drug development focus on discovering new molecules, but that’s not where the near-term opportunity lies,” said Joel Schoppig, Health Tech Investment Principal, Oxford Science Enterprises. “AI has been pointed at problems that take decades to commercialize, while the biggest barriers in patient care stem from how existing drugs are formulated and delivered. Allos applies Causal AI where it can have immediate impact: improving medicines that already work but remain limited by tolerability, bioavailability, or delivery. By turning reformulation into an evidence-driven engineering discipline, Allos has the potential to reshape how complex generics and high-risk NCE programs advance.”

About Allos AI
Allos AI uses Causal AI to transform existing complex drugs into more bioavailable, safer, and easier-to-take medicines. Founded by a team that brings together an Oxford-trained quantum physicist, applied AI researchers, and industry veterans in complex generics, Allos combines deep scientific expertise with real-world drug development experience. The AI-native company reformulates small-molecule drugs and designs clinical studies grounded in real world evidence from health records that bring molecules to market faster and with greater confidence. Allos collaborates with pharmaceutical companies to modernize legacy assets, unlock stalled programs, and expand access to complex generics. Learn more at allos.ai.

Media Contact:
[email protected]

SOURCE Allos

PORTLAND, Ore., Jan. 12, 2026 — Elevate Capital announced continued momentum across its Oregon investment strategy, with $1.6 million deployed into five Oregon-based startups through a state-backed venture capital initiative.

The investments reflect Elevate’s ongoing commitment to backing high-potential founders, expanding access to early-stage capital, and supporting long-term economic growth across Oregon. The capital was deployed through Oregon’s Venture Direct program, supported by the federal State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI).

Since receiving the fund’s first tranche of capital, Elevate has completed investments in:

• Overwatch Imaging – $500,000
• CleanHaus – $250,000
• PortalSphere – $250,000
• StrateSea – $350,000
• Osheru – $250,000

“From day one, Elevate understood what we’re building and the challenges founders face at this stage. Their hands-on approach and long-term perspective made a meaningful difference for CleanHaus,” said Nat Parker, founder of CleanHaus.

All investments were selected through Elevate’s rigorous diligence process and supported by matching private capital at the time of investment, ensuring strong market validation and long-term scalability.

“We launched this program with the shared goal of expanding access to early-stage capital for Oregon entrepreneurs,” said Nitin Rai, Elevate Capital Founder. “These first investments demonstrate the quality of emerging companies in Oregon and the catalytic power of pairing public capital with private investment.”

Elevate was selected by Business Oregon to manage the venture capital component of SSBCI based on its strong performance managing the state’s Innovation Gap Funds I & II, deep roots in Oregon’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, and commitment to supporting diverse and underserved founders.

“Deploying capital into early-stage companies is already strengthening Oregon’s innovation ecosystem,” said Ben Nahir, Venture Principal at Elevate Capital.  “We’re excited to see Elevate supporting new founders with the resources and guidance needed to scale.”

About the Program
The SSBCI Venture Direct Program provides federally funded, state-managed capital designed to stimulate economic growth. Companies must be headquartered in Oregon, have a majority of employees in Oregon, or maintain a principal Oregon business location.

How to Apply
Oregon-based founders seeking early-stage funding can apply through Elevate’s website at elevate.vc.

About Elevate Capital
Founded in 2016, Elevate Capital is the nation’s first institutional venture capital fund primarily targeting investments in underestimated founders and those with limited regional access to capital and opportunities. Through the SSBCI and Innovation Gap Funds, Elevate also supports high-risk research-driven innovation in Oregon by investing at the earliest stages in startups from healthcare, life sciences, cleantech, sustainability, and other target-traded sector industries.

Visit elevate.vc or follow Elevate Capital on X, Facebook and LinkedIn.

SOURCE Elevate Capital

Saama Capital Founder Ash Lilani and Former Procter & Gamble Chief Innovation Officer Jerry Porter Join DaVinci Commerce Board of Directors

SAN MATEO, Calif., Jan. 12, 2026 — DaVinci Commerce, formerly named Jivox, today announced that it has raised a strategic round of financing to invest in the growth of its AI-native DaVinci Commerce platform designed to help large global brands and commerce media networks scale consumer engagement and acquisition through agentic commerce marketing. This financing follows accelerating adoption of DaVinci Commerce, as large consumer goods and retail enterprises seek to deploy agentic AI to scale commerce marketing. DaVinci Commerce meets this demand with an agentic commerce marketing platform that brings together AI-powered commerce content optimization and agentic commerce media activation—automating campaign activation in minutes across commerce media networks through an architecture enforced by enterprise guardrails. DaVinci Commerce is recognized as a Top 50 innovation at the 2026 National Retail Federation (NRF) Innovators Showcase, highlighting its leadership in bringing agentic AI to commerce marketing.

Commerce media continues to be one of the fastest-growing segments in digital advertising, based on eMarketer’s May 2025 forecast projecting U.S. commerce media ad spend at a 15.3% CAGR from 2025–2029. While eMarketer’s forecast reflects the scale and pace of category growth, market adoption is widely understood to be shaped by broader industry dynamics, including the increasing convergence of commerce media, programmatic buying, and closed-loop measurement. At the same time, enterprises are rapidly adopting AI—and increasingly, agentic AI—to automate complex, multi-step workflows that previously required significant human coordination. DaVinci Commerce was designed from the ground up to operate at this intersection.

“Commerce media growth is no longer limited by media spend but constrained by the ability to handle speedy launches, multi-retailer complexity, and compliance,” said Diaz Nesamoney, Founder & CEO of DaVinci Commerce. “We built the DaVinci Commerce platform from the ground up to be AI-native, enabling brands to lower the cost and complexity of creating and running commerce campaigns across multiple retail media networks while improving performance through personalized commerce ads—all with enterprise-grade guardrails. As demand for agentic commerce marketing continues to accelerate, we raised this round of financing to further invest in product innovation and expand our go-to-market efforts.”

This round of investment in DaVinci Commerce is backed by a distinguished group of technology and enterprise leaders, including:

• Saama Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm focusing on AI and Commerce technologies as a key investment area.
• Amit Singhal, formerly Senior Vice President and Google Fellow who led Google’s core search team for over 15 years, overseeing the development and quality of the company’s search algorithms and shaping the evolution of Google Search.
• Sohaib Abbasi, a technology executive who served as CEO and Chairman of Informatica—where he led substantial growth. Sohaib was also part of the early founding team and held several executive leadership roles at Oracle. He has since served on multiple technology company boards and in senior advisory roles.
• Cosmos Nicolau, a senior engineering leader at Akamai, Fabric7, Google, GRAIL Bio and Neeva. As an early VP at Google he led teams that worked on search and cloud infrastructure, as well as consumer products including Shopping, News, Video, and Image Search.

DaVinci Commerce also announced that Ash Lilani, Founder and Managing Partner of Saama Capital, and Jerry Porter, who was recently Chief Research and Innovation Officer at Procter & Gamble Fabric & Homecare, have joined the board of directors. DaVinci Commerce’s board also includes Greg Archibald, VP of Global Ad Sales at PayPal, and Robert Chatwani, President of DocuSign and was previously CMO of Atlassian and CMO of eBay North America.

“I am very excited to be teaming up with Diaz who is a seasoned serial entrepreneur with several prior successful ventures. AI is transforming the world of commerce marketing and DaVinci Commerce hit the market at exactly the right time when all enterprises are wanting to leverage AI to adapt to the rapidly changing consumer landscape of LLM-driven conversational commerce,” said Ash Lilani of Saama Capital.

“CPG brands globally are seeing tremendous opportunity to leverage first-party consumer data and conversational signals to engage with and acquire customers in a personalized way,” said Jerry Porter.  “Prior to commerce media and LLM powered Agentic Commerce, brands were often flying blind with little visibility into or engagement with the actual purchase. DaVinci Commerce makes it easy for brands to engage consumers and connect the dots between exposure, discovery and purchase, delivering powerful insights to brands and personalized experiences to consumers.”

DaVinci Commerce enables brands to operationalize agentic AI across commerce marketing through two core capabilities:

• Commerce Content Optimization: Use AI to generate, optimize, and deliver ads and content for programmatic media, enabling personalization without sacrificing scale.
• Commerce Media Activation: Launch AI-powered commerce media campaigns in under five minutes, dramatically reducing time-to-market while preserving brand, legal, and retailer guardrails.

Originally launched in August 2023, DaVinci Commerce now supports agentic shopping experiences that connect consumers directly with AI-driven shopping agents. Rather than sending users to crowded product landing pages, the platform generates personalized prompts and guided shopping conversations and discovery that help consumers evaluate options and complete purchases in real time—linking ad exposure to verified transaction data and incremental sales measurement.

The rebrand to DaVinci Commerce reflects the company’s commitment to leading the next era of commerce marketing—one where AI agents work alongside humans to accelerate execution without sacrificing trust or control.

About DaVinci Commerce
DaVinci Commerce is an Agentic Commerce Marketing platform built for the next era of AI-powered commerce. Formerly Jivox, the company enables global brands and commerce media networks to use agentic AI to scale customer engagement and acquisition across digital and in-store commerce environments.

DaVinci Commerce brings together generative AI, agentic workflows, and enterprise guardrails to help enterprise customers move from creative to activation in minutes, not weeks. Its platform supports commerce content optimization, rapid commerce media activation, and agentic shopping experiences that connect marketing exposure to measurable sales outcomes.

Trusted by Nestlé, Diageo, Giant Eagle, Nordstrom, and many more, DaVinci Commerce delivers speed, scale, and precise personalization to make digital commerce a sales growth engine.

For more information, visit www.davincicommerce.ai.

SOURCE DaVinci Commerce

Cytotheryx’s Series A financing, alongside strategic debt funding, will advance its cell therapy programs toward clinical development and support GMP manufacturing scale-up.

ROCHESTER, Minn., Jan. 12, 2026 — Cytotheryx, Inc. , a preclinical cell therapy company developing cell-based treatments for liver disease, today announced a lead term sheet from Ouroboros Family Founders Fund I, LP for its $60 million Series A financing, positioning the Company to advance multiple programs into the clinic. In parallel, Cytotheryx secured additional debt financing from QRS Investments, LLC to expand its real estate footprint, enable GMP manufacturing capacity and support continued operational scale-up.

These financings highlight the durability and increasing relevance of next-generation cell therapy platforms despite a challenging biotech investment environment. Cytotheryx’s differentiated platform addresses a substantial unmet need in acute, chronic, and rare liver diseases by delivering a scalable supply of clinically relevant, fully functional human hepatocytes, or liver cells, and leveraging those cells across multiple therapeutic applications.

“Securing a lead Series A term sheet alongside complementary debt financing represents a pivotal milestone for Cytotheryx,” said Dr. John Swart, Chief Executive Officer. “This financing positions us to accelerate multiple programs into the clinic and underscores strong investor confidence in our cell therapy platform and its potential to meaningfully advance the treatment paradigm for liver disease.”

Cytotheryx’s technology portfolio spans a proprietary bio-incubator platform for scalable liver cell production, a bioartificial liver support system for the treatment of acute liver failure, and a universal liver cell therapy designed for transplantation in patients with rare genetic and chronic liver diseases. Together, these technologies position Cytotheryx as a leader in liver cell therapy innovation and underscore its potential to deliver transformative therapies to patients worldwide.

To learn more, the Company will present at the Biotech Showcase during JPM Week in San Francisco on Monday, January 12, at 2:30 p.m. PST. 

Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding Cytotheryx’s financing, development plans, and anticipated advancement of its cell therapy programs. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. No undue reliance should be placed on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release.

About Cytotheryx
Cytotheryx, Inc. is a preclinical cell therapy company leveraging proprietary technology to address acute, chronic, and rare genetic liver diseases. A Mayo Clinic spinout, Cytotheryx has developed a differentiated platform that enables the scalable production of clinically relevant, fully functional primary human hepatocytes for therapeutic use.

SOURCE Cytotheryx, Inc.

LONDON, Jan. 12, 2026 — Trybe, a leading provider of spa, bathhouse, leisure, and activity management software, today announced a $30 million USD Series A investment from Five Elms Capital. This investment will enable Trybe to expand globally, accelerate development of its next-generation platform, incorporate AI- powered workflows to enhance guest experiences, and scale its go-to-market organization to meet growing demand.

“Spa and leisure operators are facing increasingly complex operations, payments, and guest-experience challenges. Legacy systems simply haven’t kept up,” said Ricky Daniels, Co-Founder of Trybe. “We built Trybe to give operators a flexible, modern operating system that maximizes revenue, reduces friction, and unlocks exceptional guest experiences. As we look ahead, we see meaningful opportunities to introduce AI-assisted scheduling, forecasting, and personalization into the platform, capabilities that will further streamline operations and capture revenue previously lost to manual inefficiencies. Partnering with Five Elms allows us to accelerate this roadmap and deliver even more value to our customers.”

Trybe has experienced rapid growth in recent years, driven by strong demand from both single-location spas and large multi-site operators seeking to modernize their technology stacks. Today, the company supports hundreds of spa and leisure operations worldwide and is expanding quickly across resort groups, wellness brands, and luxury hotel operators.

“Trybe stands out as the clear modern alternative in a market long constrained by rigid, outdated systems,” said Ryan Mandl, Partner at Five Elms Capital. “The Trybe team has built a configurable, intuitive platform that customers genuinely love, and their traction across geographies and spa and leisure segments reflects that. We’re thrilled to support Trybe as they scale globally, deepen their payments capabilities, and continue building a category-defining product.”

The investment will support initiatives including:

• Geographic expansion across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
• Advancement of payments and embedded financial products, including enhanced settlement flexibility and expanded card-present capabilities.
• Product innovation, particularly in reporting, memberships, spa package booking functionality, and guest experience tools.
• AI-assisted feature development across yield management, scheduling, operations, and guest experiences.
• Sales, marketing, and customer success scaling to meet accelerating demand.

About Trybe

Founded in 2020, Trybe is the modern end-to-end platform powering the complex operations of spas, resorts, hotels, bathhouses, wellness centers, and leisure facilities around the world. Supporting 325+ properties across 33 countries. Trybe delivers a fully integrated suite spanning online bookings, scheduling, staff management, memberships, POS, guest communications, reporting, and payments, all within a modern, configurable cloud architecture. With over 4.5M transactions processed representing $1.1bn+ of revenue volume processed, 50% of all bookings occurring outside office hours, and 74% of bookings captured as part of a broader spa package, Trybe consistently proves its impact on revenue, utilization, and the guest experience.

About Five Elms Capital

Five Elms Capital is a growth investor in software businesses that users love, providing capital and resources to help companies accelerate growth and further cement their role as industry leaders.

With over $3 billion in assets under management and a team of over 80 professionals, Five Elms has invested in more than 70 software platforms worldwide. Beyond providing capital, Five Elms delivers strategic and operational expertise, focused on executing initiatives that move the needle on growth, retention, product, and AI to set companies up for long-term success. For more information, visit fiveelms.com.

SOURCE Five Elms Capital

• EQT Life Sciences invests in U.S.-based Kinaset Therapeutics – a clinical-stage biopharma company developing a novel and differentiated inhaled therapeutic to treat serious respiratory diseases       
• Proceeds from the oversubscribed USD 103 million Series B round to help advance frevecitinib – a single-capsule dry powder inhaler delivering therapeutic lung concentrations, with the potential to treat the broad asthma population
• EQT Life Sciences’ Daniela Begolo to join Kinaset Therapeutics’ Board of Directors

BOSTON, Jan. 12, 2026 — EQT Life Sciences is pleased to announce that the LSP 7 Fund has invested in Kinaset Therapeutics (the “Company”), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in Boston, U.S. developing a novel and differentiated inhaled therapeutic to treat serious respiratory diseases.

The investment was made as part of Kinaset’s oversubscribed USD 103 million Series B financing, led by RA Capital Management and Forge Life Science Partners, with participation from new investors EQT Life Sciences, Vivo, Schroders, Willett Advisors, Pictet, and Sixty Degree Capital, as well as existing investors Atlas Venture, 5AM Ventures, and Gimv.

Asthma affects millions of patients worldwide, yet a significant proportion remains inadequately controlled on existing therapies. Today’s biologic treatments mainly help patients with certain types of inflammation, leaving many with severe asthma without effective options. This has created a clear unmet need for broadly effective, safe, and inhaled anti-inflammatory therapies that can address the full spectrum of asthma disease.

Kinaset Therapeutics’s Series B will be used to help advance frevecitinib, a novel inhaled dry powder in development for patients with asthma that remains inadequately controlled by standard of care inhaled maintenance therapies. Frevecitinib is an inhaled pan-JAK inhibitor – an immune-modulating medication – designed to deliver therapeutic concentrations directly to the lungs via a single-capsule dry powder inhaler, while minimizing systemic exposure.

Daniela Begolo, Managing Director at EQT Life Sciences, who will join Kinaset’s Board of Directors, said: “Kinaset is taking a highly differentiated approach to asthma by pairing validated JAK biology with an inhaled delivery designed to maximize lung exposure while minimizing systemic risk. Backed by a strong and experienced management team, Kinaset has the potential to address a broad asthma population, including patients not well served by current therapies, making frevecitinib a particularly compelling program to advance into later-stage development.”

Robert Clarke, CEO of Kinaset Therapeutics, said: “Since day one, our goal has been to establish a best-in-class therapeutic for the treatment of severe inflammatory respiratory diseases. Critically, and unlike the majority of existing therapeutics, frevecitinib can provide benefit to all patients with severe asthma including those with a non-eosinophilic phenotype who continue to suffer from an absence of safe and effective therapies. This financing marks a significant milestone for Kinaset to execute our vision of advancing frevecitinib through a Phase 2 dose-ranging clinical study in severe asthma and potentially beyond. The participation of leading life science investors underscores both the strength of our team and the critical unmet need we aim to address.”

Contact
EQT Press Office, [email protected] 

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WASHINGTON, Jan. 12, 2026 — Nanochon, a Washington, D.C.-based orthopedic device company developing an implant for treating articular cartilage defects in the knee, has secured commitments to close an oversubscribed funding round, bringing its total capital raised to date to $11.3 million.

The round was led by cultivate(MD), with significant contributions from The University of Virginia UVA Seed Fund, WSGR, Wealthing VC Fund, and others. While the majority of funding came from a strong group of current investors, several new individuals and funds were welcomed onto the cap table.

Nanochon intends to use the funds to sustain its first in-human clinical study in Canada, deepen research and development efforts, and begin planning for its future pivotal trial.

“We’re both honored and humbled to oversubscribe another funding round,” says Ben Holmes, CEO and co-founder. “The capital commitments from our investors speak volumes about their confidence in the work we’re doing to shift the paradigm of cartilage restoration. Not only do we have strong financial backing, but these partners also offer us support in commercial and regulatory strategies as well. As we step up to the start line of our clinical journey, Nanochon is powered by an exceptional team whose dedication, creativity, and execution make this moment possible. With the right people, partners, and capital in place, we’re excited to translate years of innovation into meaningful outcomes for patients.”

Nanochon will commence a phase I trial in Canada in the coming weeks for its patented knee implant Chondrograft™ which will evaluate safety and efficacy in a prospective, 10 patient, early feasibility study for use in knee cartilage restoration in eligible patients between 22 and 60 years of age having femoral condyle and/or trochlea articular cartilage lesions who have failed conservative therapy, in addition to meeting other criteria.

“cultivate(MD) Capital Funds is proud to have a significant portion of the oversubscribed Nanochon funding round,” said R. Sean Churchill, MD, MBA. “Making a follow on from our initial investment in 2023 was an easy decision as we continue to watch CEO, Ben Holmes, lead Nanochon with his forward planning and executional excellence. The current round will not only support the first in human clinical trial in Canada as well as accelerate their manufacturing capabilities, but it will set the stage for a greater North American pivotal trial leading to FDA clearance. In addition to making a revolutionary product in the cartilage regeneration space, Nanochon understands the value of preoperative planning and has launched a partnership with ProVoyance to develop a full MRI based preoperative surgical planning software tool. The combination of a revolutionary product and best in class enabling software is positioning Nanochon to truly change the future for focal cartilage defects in the knee.”

About Nanochon

Nanochon is a biotech and medical device company focused on developing innovative orthopedic solutions. Chondrograft™ is a minimally-invasive implant that allows for immediate weight-bearing and motion, meaning less time spent recovering. Nanochon has the potential to deliver more successful and longer-lasting recovery for patients than current standard of care. Our mission is to develop a new approach to treat cartilage replacement and repair so that the hundreds of thousands of young, active patients with joint damage can return to their lifestyles without having to undergo costly and invasive short-term fixes.

https://nanochon.com

SOURCE cultivate(MD)

New partnership broadens secure software innovation into biometrics, identity, and AI-powered commerce experiences

NEW YORK, Jan. 11, 2026 — NRF — MagicCube, the leader in software-based security for payments and device integrity, announced today that it has raised $10 million in committed new funding to accelerate its expansion beyond tap-to-phone technology and into emerging areas such as biometrics, identity verification, and AI-driven device security. The round includes new strategic participation from Verifone, one of the world’s leading payment solution providers, as well as continued support from existing investors Bold Capital, Mosaik Partners, and ID Tech, along with a major global investor based in EMEA that will be announced on second closing.

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Cupertino, California, MagicCube delivers Software Defined Trust (SDT) — a breakthrough technology that brings hardware-grade protection to mobile devices through software alone. Its software Trusted Execution Environment (sTEE) allows smartphones, tablets, and IoT devices to perform secure computations and protect sensitive data without requiring specialized chips or hardware modules.

“With this round and with Verifone joining as both an investor and partner, we are moving beyond payments into securing the next era of digital identity, IoT, and AI-driven computing,” said Sam Shawki, CEO and co-founder of MagicCube. “Our mission is to make trusted environments available anywhere — from phones to cars to connected systems at the edge.”

“Our mission is to give our partners, their merchants, and their ISVs peace of mind, knowing they are using the most advanced technology to secure the digital experiences they deliver to their end users—pure software with hardware‑grade security and global scalability,” said Nancy Zayed, CTO and co‑founder of MagicCube. “This is the fastest path to delivering trusted digital services—not just for payment acceptance, but also for identity, biometrics, and AI‑driven edge security at global scale.”

Since launching its flagship product i-Accept®, which turns everyday mobile devices into compliant contactless payment terminals, MagicCube has become a trusted partner for major acquirers and financial institutions, including JPMorgan Chase, Global Payments, Fiserv, and Dojo by Paymentsense. The company’s infrastructure platform provides a flexible path for merchants and service providers to deploy secure, scalable payment acceptance solutions without the cost or complexity of new hardware.

Prasanna Narayan, Executive Vice President and Head of Product at Verifone, highlighted the strategic value of the partnership:

“Our investment in MagicCube expands our ability to serve clients seeking secure, identity-verified commerce across new and emerging form factors. By integrating MagicCube’s technology, Verifone can bring trusted innovation to every step of the digital commerce experience.”

The new funding will be used to accelerate R&D in software-based trust technologies, further strengthen MagicCube’s AI security offerings, and deepen integrations within global payment and identity ecosystems.

About MagicCube
MagicCube provides software-based isolation solutions that protect sensitive data and transactions everywhere. Its patented Software Defined Trust (SDT) platform is deployed globally by leading financial institutions enabling secure payment acceptance and trusted computing without hardware dependencies. For more information, visit www.magiccube.co.

SOURCE MagicCube