NASHVILLE, Tenn., July 30, 2026 — Today, Eileen, a leading last mile retail intelligence platform that tells CPG brands what is actually on their shelf, is pleased to announce a series of notable initial milestones for the business, such as the recent close of an oversubscribed pre-seed round led by Top Shelf Ventures with strategic participation from DisPact Ventures, 105% revenue growth in Q2 alone and a database over 35,000 active shoppers in network across all 50 states.

All of the recent wins come on the heels of Eileen launching a slew of new platform capabilities, including gamified mobile capture, proprietary computer vision models, real-time competitive benchmarking and authorization SKU gap detection.

“Doubling our revenue in a quarter tells us the pain is universal and nobody was serving it. Brands were being asked to choose between an enterprise contract they couldn’t afford and flying blind. With Eileen, the brand knows there’s a problem before the distributor does, and often before the store does,” states Jordan Karcher, Founder & CEO, Eileen.

Karcher grew up in beverage alcohol, his father ran Charmer Sunbelt houses, now Breakthru Beverage, and went on to Korbel Champagne Cellars and William Grant & Sons before founding and selling Grounds & Hounds Coffee Co. As a founder scaling into national retail, he found no tool that could answer the one question that mattered: what is on my shelf right now? He built Eileen to answer it.

Eileen’s network of 30,000+ everyday shoppers captures photo-verified, GPS-timestamped store data on demand, covering inventory, pricing, placement, and display compliance. Results come back in two to five days, with no contract and no minimum for as low as $5/store.

Brands send a store list and SKUs; independent shoppers deploy through a mobile app, and every submission is geo-fenced, time-stamped, computer-vision verified, and human-enriched before the brand sees it.

The Campaign Hub surfaces out-of-stocks, missing SKUs, price variance, facings, promotional compliance, and competitive benchmarking by store, chain, and region. Reports and insights are shared in a collaborative format, photos and timestamps included, so brands and distributor partners work from the same evidence.

Brands of all sizes leveraging Eileen’s capabilities are seeing tremendous impact.

In a recent real-time case study, Eileen was able to successfully surface 19 authorization gaps in a single state for emerging RTD cocktail brand, The Original Southside, in Whole Foods, in which there were SKUs the brand was authorized to sell that were not on the shelf.

Meredith Mills-Merritt, Founder of The Original Southside, states, “Just looking at Whole Foods California alone – we had 19 authorization gaps. We brought this discrepancy up to our buyer which helped trigger a 117-case reorder for us.”

To learn more visit www.shopwitheileen.com.

About Eileen
Eileen is a retail intelligence platform that gives CPG brands real-time visibility into what is actually on their shelf. Through a network of more than 30,000 everyday shoppers and a proprietary computer vision layer, Eileen delivers GPS-timestamped store audits inventory, pricing, placement, display compliance, and competitive context, in as little as 24 hours, with no contracts or minimums. Founded by beverage-alcohol operator and CPG founder Jordan Karcher, Eileen is a fully remote company headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee.

Know thy shelf.

Company Contact 
Jordan Karcher
Founder & CEO
Eileen 
[email protected]
412-889-2381 

Media Contact 
[email protected]

SOURCE Eileen Inc.

A curated day of programming for founders, investors, and executives spotlights wealth building and Black economic power, with 100% of proceeds benefiting Blavity.org.

EDGARTOWN, Mass., July 30, 2026 — AFROTECH™ will host AFROTECH™ House at Martha’s Vineyard, a gathering in Edgartown. This is year two of an experience that convenes an influential community of founders, venture capitalists, and business leaders for a full day of candid conversation, high-intent networking, and connection on one of the country’s most storied summer destinations for excellence. Together, the investors in the room represent more than $1 billion in assets under management, making the House one of the most concentrated gatherings of Black capital and decision-making power of the summer.

Built as a premium extension of the AFROTECH™ platform, the AfroTech House pairs the brand’s signature energy with a boutique, high-touch setting. The day is designed for depth over volume: with daytime programming and an evening reception, with an emphasis on curated introductions and meaningful deal flow.

A Day Designed for Wealth Building

Toyota Motor North America joins as the official Automotive sponsor of AFROTECH™ House 2026, anchoring an experience built around economic empowerment and long-term wealth creation. Toyota’s support underwrites the full arc of the day, from morning programming through the evening reception, and reflects a shared commitment to investing in founders, leaders, and the communities they build.

Dynamic Conversations and Network

Programming runs from a curated morning breakfast through an evening reception, structured around fireside conversations on investing, ownership, and generational wealth. The format is intentionally conversational and advanced, built for an audience of decision-makers who want substance. The day includes investors and experts from Mass Mutual, Mac Venture Capital, Collide Capital and more.

The reception, sponsored by Amazon, shifts the energy toward celebration and connection. It features a fireside conversation and extended networking designed to close the day with lasting relationships.

Together, these partners make possible a first-class experience while advancing a shared mission of expanding access, capital, and opportunity across the AFROTECH™ community.

Giving Back

One hundred percent of proceeds from AFROTECH™ House at Martha’s Vineyard benefit Blavity.org, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, extending the day’s impact well beyond the venue and reinvesting directly in the community the platform serves.

Event Details

What: AFROTECH™ House at Martha’s Vineyard, presented by Toyota

When: Sunday, August 16, 2026

Where: Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

Who: Founders, venture capitalists, C-suite executives, and high-net-worth individuals

Tickets: $200 for AFROTECH™ Insider members; $350 general. 100% of proceeds benefit Blavity.org.

About AFROTECH™

AFROTECH™, a Blavity, Inc. brand, is the leading platform for tech, business, and culture. Through its flagship conference, year-round experiences, and the AFROTECH™ Insider community, the brand connects founders, technologists, investors, and executives to the people, capital, and opportunities that power the next generation of Black innovation and wealth.

Media Contact

Blavity, Inc. Communications | [email protected] 

SOURCE AfroTech

Voice-first AI follow-up platform is growing 45 percent month over month with zero churn nine months after launch, as new client Prestige Kia adds $20,320 in gross profit in its first 21 days

NEW YORK, July 30, 2026 — Lokam.ai, the voice-first AI follow-up platform built for automotive dealerships, today announced a series of major expansion milestones, including the appointment of automotive industry veteran Jason Kozak as Sales Director, the signing of new dealership clients, including Prestige Kia and Joseph Airport Hyundai, and its integration as the first native agentic partner on QoreAI’s unified dealership data platform.

Nine months after launching in October, Lokam.ai is growing 45 percent month over month with zero customer churn. The momentum follows the company’s $350,000 funding round announced earlier this year, led by customer-turned-investor Scott Falcone, Owner of World Kia Joliet and World Hyundai Matteson (World Auto Group), who invested after seeing the platform’s results firsthand in his own dealerships.

Record-Setting Results for New Client Prestige Kia

Lokam.ai’s newest results underscore why dealerships are adopting the platform. In its first 21 days working with Prestige Kia, Lokam.ai’s autonomous voice agents re-engaged 110 unsold showroom prospects, achieving approximately an 80 percent call completion rate and a 66 percent contact rate. The outreach escalated 27 qualified leads to the dealership’s sales team, resulting in four closed deals that would have otherwise been lost and $20,320 in added gross profit, the fastest return on investment Lokam.ai has recorded to date. The dealership is on track to sell ten additional vehicles from unsold traffic next month, projected to add more than $40,000 in gross.

Joseph Airport Hyundai Joins the Lokam.ai Platform

Lokam.ai also welcomed Joseph Airport Hyundai as a new customer. The dealership is part of the Joseph Auto Group, Cincinnati’s leading automotive retailer with 18 dealership rooftops representing premier brands including Audi, Acura, Honda, Toyota, Chevrolet, Cadillac, Porsche, Infiniti, GMC, Subaru, Hyundai, and Volkswagen. Through the partnership, Lokam.ai will systematically re-engage every unsold showroom lead to help bring customers back and close, while its voice agents follow up with every customer after service, escalate dissatisfied customers to management instantly, and automatically request Google reviews from promoters, driving more revenue from customers the dealerships have already paid to acquire.

“The proof is in the numbers,” said Muhammed Saleeq (who goes by Saleeq), Founder and CEO of Lokam.ai. “Dealerships generate enormous demand, but follow-up is where revenue quietly slips away. When a brand-new client adds more than $20,000 in gross profit in three weeks simply by re-engaging the traffic they already had, it validates everything we built this platform to do. Every dollar of that growth came from opportunities the dealership had already paid to acquire. We are just making sure none of it gets left on the table.”

Jason Kozak Joins as Sales Director

Lokam.ai has appointed Jason Kozak as Sales Director to lead the company’s U.S. dealership expansion. Kozak brings deep experience across both the retail and vendor sides of the automotive industry, including roles with West Herr Automotive Group (New York State’s largest automotive group), Greenway Automotive Group, AAA National, Streamline Automotive Solutions, and TrueCar.

“What sets Lokam.ai apart from every other AI company in this space is that we are not here to replace the workforce; we are here to complement it,” said Kozak. “Lokam.ai solves two major operational pain points every dealer feels: showroom visitors who leave and never hear from the store again, and service repair orders that go without follow-up. Dealerships understand that the lifeblood of survival is the service experience, and Lokam.ai lets their teams stay customer-facing while the AI handles the follow-up that too often falls through the cracks. That is one of the many reasons why I am excited to join this team.”

First Native Agentic Partner on the QoreAI Platform

In June, QoreAI, the unified data infrastructure platform for automotive retail, announced Lokam.ai as the first agentic AI application to operate natively on its platform. The partnership allows dealers to activate Lokam.ai’s autonomous voice agents against their existing unified data, with no separate integration or secondary data pipeline required. Lokam.ai’s agents read from the same clean customer record QoreAI assembles from the dealer’s DMS and CRM, and the intelligence they generate, including CSI (Customer Satisfaction Index) trends, customer objections, and re-engagement outcomes, writes back into the platform for every other connected tool to use. The combined solution is compatible with Dealertrack, DealerVault, CDK, and Authenticom.

Customers Are Seeing the Results in Real Time

Scott Falcone, Owner of World Kia Joliet and World Hyundai Matteson, invested in Lokam.ai after experiencing the platform’s impact firsthand at his own stores. World Hyundai Matteson was recently named a 2025 Hyundai Motor America Global Top 100 Dealer of the Year, one of just 26 dealers honored across sales, service retention, and customer experience, and ranked #2 in the Central Region for new car sales volume.

“I’ve been running Lokam.ai in both my stores for a stretch now. Our Google ratings moved from 4.0 and 4.1 to 4.8 across World Kia Joliet and World Hyundai Matteson,” said Falcone. “On the sales side, we’re selling an additional 15 vehicles a month from unsold traffic the AI is calling back. The numbers are real, and I’m watching them in real time at my own stores.”

About Lokam.ai

Lokam.ai is a voice-first AI follow-up platform built to help automotive dealerships retain service customers and sell more cars. After every service visit, Lokam.ai’s voice agents call customers for a natural conversation in place of a survey, flag unhappy customers to management in real time so the dealership can act before they defect, and send Google review links to happy ones automatically. On the sales side, Lokam.ai re-engages unsold showroom traffic, uncovers the honest objections that never surfaced on the floor, and hands the team deals that are still worth closing. For more information, visit lokam.ai.

Media Contact:

Nabeela Aysen

845-842-8088

[email protected] 

SOURCE Lokam.ai

Financing supports the launch of PIVOT™, Lydian’s modular, standardized platform designed to cut synthetic aviation fuel costs while reducing lifecycle emissions by up to 95%

BOSTON, July 30, 2026 — Lydian, the company redefining the economics of synthetic aviation fuel, today announced the close of a $43 million Series A financing led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures with participation from AP Ventures, Builders Vision, and continued support from existing investors including Congruent Ventures, Galvanize, Grok Ventures, Overture, Union Square Ventures, and Voyager Ventures.

The financing supports the launch of PIVOT™, Lydian’s full-stack production platform that enables developers to build and operate synthetic fuel facilities at dramatically lower cost than conventional approaches and gives customers a direct path to buy fuel from Lydian’s own projects. PIVOT reduces plant capital costs by more than 50% compared to competing technologies, can deliver up to 95% lifecycle emissions reductions, and creates a commercially viable pathway for synthetic fuels to compete with biofuels on price within this decade.

The investment also marks the first announced deployment from Breakthrough Energy Ventures’ oneworld BEV Fund, a strategic investment fund supported by leading global airlines and members of the aviation industry to address the limited availability and high cost of today’s sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The fund seeks to accelerate the global development of long-term aviation fuel solutions that are cost-effective, scalable, and have lower emissions than conventional fuels.

“PIVOT represents a fundamentally different approach to synthetic fuel production,” said Joe Rodden, CEO and Co-founder of Lydian. “By designing every part of the system for lower capital costs, greater operational flexibility, and faster deployment, we’ve created a platform for commercially competitive synthetic fuel projects. This financing gives us the resources to bring that vision to market.”

Unlike many synthetic fuel projects, which adapt legacy gas-to-liquids technologies into large, bespoke plants, PIVOT was purpose-built for low-cost renewable electricity and the realities of modern power markets. The platform combines Lydian’s proprietary reactor technologies, catalysts, process design, software, and balance-of-plant into standardized, factory-built modules that reduce project complexity while improving economics.

The result is a turnkey platform that:

• Cuts project development timelines by up to two years through pre-engineered modules.
• Operates flexibly alongside intermittent renewable power, significantly lowering electricity costs.
• Produces ASTM-approved, drop-in sustainable aviation fuel with up to 95% lower lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions.
• Delivers a credible pathway toward cost-competitive synthetic aviation fuel at commercial scale.

“Decarbonizing aviation will require advanced fuels that compete on cost, work within today’s aviation infrastructure, and deliver the performance flyers and airlines expect,” said Carmichael Roberts, Breakthrough Energy Ventures. “Lydian is taking on that challenge with a purpose-built approach to synthetic aviation fuel production. Its PIVOT platform combines strong technical innovation with a practical path to better project economics, offering the aviation industry a low-carbon fuel capable of cost-competitive, commercial-scale production.”

This announcement comes as governments and airlines increasingly recognize the strategic importance of synthetic fuel production. Recent geopolitical disruptions have highlighted the vulnerabilities of conventional jet fuel supply chains, reinforcing demand for secure, domestically produced alternatives.

Lydian is already operating a tonne-scale pilot plant at its Boston-based R&D Center of Excellence. The company is advancing a commercial demonstration facility targeted for operation in 2028, with its first full-scale commercial deployment expected in 2030.

To learn more about PIVOT™ and Lydian’s approach to delivering cost-competitive synthetic aviation fuel at commercial scale, visit https://www.lydianlabs.com/.

About Lydian
Lydian is making cost-competitive sustainable aviation fuel a reality. The company’s PIVOT™ platform converts captured carbon dioxide and hydrogen into ASTM-approved, drop-in sustainable aviation fuel using a fully integrated, modular production system. By dramatically reducing capital costs, improving operational flexibility, and simplifying project deployment, Lydian is enabling a faster, lower-cost pathway to synthetic aviation fuel production at commercial scale.

Media Contact
[email protected]

SOURCE Lydian

BROOKLYN, N.Y., July 30, 2026 — Fundraise Up, the fundraising platform used by thousands of nonprofits globally, today introduced Agentic Giving – a new category describing a fundamental shift in how donors discover causes, evaluate organizations, and complete gifts. CEO and Co-founder Peter Byrnes framed the category in his presentation at Bridge to Integrated Marketing & Fundraising Conference, the sector’s leading fundraising technology event, where he shared that donors will soon be moving from navigating websites and donation forms to delegating that entire process to AI assistants they trust.

“Today, a donor comes to your website, finds your donation form, completes a gift. Tomorrow, a donor tells their AI assistant what they care about. It finds your organization, compares it against others, and completes — or proposes — the gift on their behalf. The donor is the same. The gift is the same. What changes is everything in between.”
— Peter Byrnes, CEO & Co-founder, Fundraise Up

The Shift From Navigation to Delegation

For twenty years, digital fundraising optimized what happens after a donor arrives at a website – reducing friction, personalizing the ask, and maximizing the conversion moment. Fundraise Up has been at the forefront of that transformation, embedding AI into fundraising since 2018 – years before it became a mainstream conversation – and processing billions of dollars in donations while continuously optimizing every step of the giving journey.

Agentic Giving describes what comes next: as AI assistants become more capable, donors increasingly begin with intent rather than navigation, delegating discovery and execution to systems they trust. In its most advanced form, this means an AI assistant discovering a cause, confirming intent, and an authorized agent completing the gift without the donor ever visiting a website or opening a form.

This creates a new challenge. A traditional search engine ranks organizations by how easy they are to find. An AI assistant instead synthesizes an answer from a nonprofit’s website, annual report, press coverage, and partner pages, and presents that answer to a donor who may never visit the site directly. An organization with inconsistent or unclear information won’t be ranked lower. It will be left out entirely.

“Agentic Giving is the next evolution of donor experience,” said Byrnes. “The form was never the destination – it was the best interface donors had. Now the interface is changing. And the organizations that make it easy for donors to find them, understand them, trust them, and give to them will be the ones that see exponential fundraising growth.”

What Fundraise Up Is Building

Fundraise Up is investing in three areas. The first is AI discovery and Agentic Giving: infrastructure that helps AI assistants understand a nonprofit’s current campaigns and move from a donor’s confirmed intent to a secure, authorized donation. The second is AI for nonprofit teams: permissioned ways for Fundraising staff to work with Fundraise Up data in plain language. The third is new conversational fundraising formats, including an AI fundraiser in its new P2P product that can explain a campaign and answer donor questions. Fundraise Up isn’t naming specific agentic products or timelines today – it’s introducing the Agentic Giving category.

The front door of fundraising is moving. Fundraise Up is showing the sector what’s possible.

Sign Up for Early Access

About Fundraise Up

Fundraise Up exists to unlock the world’s generosity. Founded in 2017, Fundraise Up is the AI-powered fundraising platform helping leading nonprofits create better donor experiences and raise more for their mission. Combining industry-leading conversion optimization with intelligent automation, Fundraise Up enables organizations to maximize every giving opportunity while reducing operational complexity. Backed by Telescope Partners and Summit Partners, nonprofit organizations including The Salvation Army UK, USO and American Diabetes Association use Fundraise Up to turn more supporters into donors and more donors into lifelong advocates. Learn more at fundraiseup.com

Additional Resources: • Peter Byrnes keynote article https://fundraiseup.com/blog/the-shift-is-from-navigation-to-delegation/

SOURCE Fundraise Up

Appointments and new investment — bringing total funding to $463 million — reflect Gravie’s growing momentum in transforming employer health benefits.

MINNEAPOLIS, July 30, 2026 — Gravie, the health benefits company redefining how employers and their employees access and pay for healthcare, today announced the appointment of Eric Murphy, a veteran healthcare executive and former Optum leader, to its Board of Directors. The company also announced the closing of a new funding round led by General Atlantic, bringing Gravie’s total capital raised to $463 million.

Eric Murphy Joins Gravie Board of Directors

Murphy brings deep expertise from his tenure at Optum, the health services arm of UnitedHealth Group, where he held numerous positions during his tenure, including Chief Executive Officer of OptumInsight. His firsthand knowledge of the payer and health services landscape, combined with his relationships across the broker and benefits community, positions him to provide meaningful strategic guidance as Gravie continues to scale.

“Eric’s experience at the highest levels of the healthcare industry gives our board exactly the perspective we need,” said Steve Wolin, Chief Executive Officer of Gravie. “He understands the complexity of this market and the opportunity in front of us, and we’re thrilled to have him at the table.”

Murphy added: “Gravie is doing something genuinely different in the benefits space. I’m excited to join the board at such an important moment in the company’s trajectory and to help support its continued growth.“

New Funding Round Reinforces Gravie’s Market Momentum

The board appointment comes alongside a new funding round led by General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm, which brings Gravie’s total capital raised to $463 million. The investment reflects continued confidence in Gravie’s model and will support the company’s ongoing expansion, product development, and go-to-market efforts.

“This investment, combined with the addition of Eric to our board, puts Gravie in a strong position heading into our next chapter,” said Wolin. “The continued partnership of FirstMark and General Atlantic gives us the resources to accelerate our mission of making healthcare more affordable and accessible for employers and their employees.”

About Gravie

Gravie is a health benefits company on a mission to make healthcare more affordable and accessible for employers and their employees. Gravie uniquely offers both level-funded group health plans and Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRA), giving employers the flexibility to choose the right benefits model for their workforce. Gravie partners with brokers and employers of all sizes across the country to bring smarter, more sustainable benefits solutions to market. For more information, visit www.gravie.com.

About General Atlantic

General Atlantic is a leading global growth equity firm with more than four decades of experience providing capital and strategic support to growth companies. For more information, visit www.generalatlantic.com.

SOURCE Gravie, Inc

Former Federal Prosecutor, Cybercrime Trailblazer, and Stripe Executive Joins Cytactic to Help Shape the Future of Cyber Incident Response Management

NEW YORK, July 30, 2026 — Cytactic, the leader in Cyber Incident Response Management (CIRM), today announced that Shawn J. Chen, one of the leading experts in cybercrime, crisis management, regulatory investigations, and enterprise risk, has joined the company’s Advisory Board and made a strategic investment in the company.

Over a career spanning nearly three decades, Mr. Chen has been at the forefront of some of the most consequential developments in cybercrime and crisis management. As a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut, he helped lead one of the first major cross-border cybercrime cases in U.S. history, successfully prosecuting Russian hackers and helping establish legal precedents that continue to shape cybercrime enforcement today. At a time when cybercrime was still largely uncharted territory, Mr. Chen also became one of the first academics to teach courses on cybercrime and cyberterrorism.

“From prosecuting cybercriminals to advising global financial institutions through regulatory and operational crises, I’ve learned that successful outcomes depend on more than technical expertise, they depend on coordination, preparation, and decision-making under pressure,” said Shawn J. Chen. “As cyber-incidents increasingly become business-critical events, organizations need a structured way to align security, legal, risk, communications, and executive leadership. Cytactic is pioneering that approach, and I’m excited to help advance the future of Cyber Incident Response Management.”

As cyber-incidents become business crises, organizations need management capabilities that extend beyond traditional incident response.

“Shawn has spent his career at the intersection of cybercrime, regulation, crisis management, and executive decision-making,” said Dr. Nimrod Kozlovski, Founder and CEO of Cytactic. “From pioneering cybercrime prosecutions to leading organizations through complex crises, he brings a unique perspective on what it takes to manage high-pressure events. His experience aligns perfectly with Cytactic’s vision for Cyber Incident Response Management.”

Today, Mr. Chen serves as Global Head of Litigation, Financial Crime & Risk Legal, IP and Cyber & Data Privacy at Stripe. Previously, he served as Global General Counsel for Litigation, Regulatory Enforcement, and Investigations at HSBC, helping to guide the organization through several major regulatory, financial crime, and operational crises.

Mr. Chen joins Cytactic’s advisory board alongside cybersecurity and crisis management leaders including Tim Brown, former CISO of SolarWinds; Dr. Yonesy Núñez, six-time CISO and cybersecurity executive; Moty Cristal, globally recognized crisis negotiation expert; and Timothy Youngblood, former CISO of McDonald’s and T-Mobile.

About Cytactic

Cytactic’s agentic Cyber Incident Response Management (CIRM) platform enables organizations to prepare for, manage, and recover from cyber incidents through AI-powered orchestration, response planning, stakeholder coordination, and real-time decision support. By connecting security, legal, communications, executive leadership, and operational teams within a single platform, Cytactic helps organizations respond faster, reduce risk, and improve resilience when incidents occur.

For more information, visit cytactic.com and follow us on LinkedIn.

SOURCE Cytactic

Chartway Ventures leads Strivve’s expected final raise, joining Velera and Reseda Group behind a CUSO-rooted model built for sustainable growth.

SEATTLE, July 30, 2026 — In a fintech landscape dominated by venture capital and private equity, Strivve, Inc. is breaking the mold. Today, Strivve and its Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO) subsidiary, Strivve CUSO LLC, announced Chartway Ventures as the lead investor in what is expected to be the company’s final capital raise. This strategic investment adds to a roster that includes Velera (formerly PSCU/Co-op Solutions) and Reseda Group. The investment will fund Strivve’s continued expansion of card-on-file placement across more issuers and more online merchant and bill-pay destinations.

“Meeting members where they are means removing friction and making it easier to engage with their finances in everyday moments,” said Rob Keatts, President of Chartway Ventures and EVP and Chief Growth Officer at Chartway Credit Union. “Strivve’s technology does exactly that. Through Chartway Ventures, we’re intentional about investing in innovative, scalable solutions that not only enhance the member experience, but also position our organization—and the broader credit union ecosystem—for long-term growth.”

Strivve’s capital model is as deliberate as its technology is proven: no traditional VC, no PE. Instead, it is backed by seasoned financial services executives, family offices, and founders. Co-founders David Pool and Chris Hopen, tech pioneers with deep roots in internet innovation, recognized early that the fast-money playbook of Silicon Valley didn’t fit the long-game needs of digital payments infrastructure. Their strategy is paying off.

“Members shouldn’t have to update their card merchant by merchant. Strivve makes it automatic,” said Rob Keatts, EVP and Chief Growth Officer at Chartway Credit Union. “Through Chartway Ventures, we invest in solutions that improve the member experience and scale across the credit union ecosystem. Strivve does both.”

Through its Top of Wallet® platform and CardLinks™, Strivve automates the placement of any payment card at any e-commerce or bill-payment site from any digital application or cardholder communication. With more than 200 live issuer customers and signed agreements covering payment card accounts approaching 100 million, Strivve draws on an industry-leading directory of hundreds of merchant and bill pay sites, expanded regularly and on request. In production, issuers achieve card placement success rates as high as 96%.

“We’ve built a business designed for sustainable growth, not just headlines,” said David Pool, Strivve co-founder. “The strategic backing of Velera, Reseda Group, and now Chartway Ventures reinforces our belief that fintech can thrive outside of the VC treadmill.”

Winning the Race to Capture More Commerce™

Consumer reliance on stored payment methods continues to rise, making it essential for financial institutions to secure the primary payment position for zero-friction checkouts. Visa reports that guest checkout, where a shopper manually enters card details, has fallen from 44% of its e-commerce transactions in 2019 to about 16% in fiscal 2025.

“As more and more spending moves to stored cards at online checkout, the card saved on file is the one that gets used,” said Chris Hopen, Strivve co-founder and CEO. “This investment lets us put more issuers in that position and give their cardholders a simple, secure way to keep their card working across the merchants they use most.”

About Strivve
Strivve is a FinTech innovator empowering financial institutions with solutions to enhance digital payments and cardholder engagement. With a mission to empower payment card issuers to Capture More Commerce™, Strivve is simplifying and accelerating card usage in online payments. Strivve partners with top issuers and payment networks to drive seamless, secure, and scalable card-on-file experiences. Learn more about Strivve at strivve.com or follow the company on the Strivve Blog, LinkedIn, and X.

About Chartway Ventures
Established in 2023, Chartway Ventures is a credit union service organization (CUSO) focused on investing in organizations that align with Chartway Credit Union’s purpose of unlocking the potential of individuals and families so they can thrive. Investments are chosen for their innovative approach, scalability, compatibility with Chartway operations, and potential for strong economic returns for members

About Reseda Group
Headquartered in East Lansing, Mich., Reseda Group is a wholly-owned credit union service organization of MSU Federal Credit Union (MSUFCU). Formed in 2021, Reseda Group changes the way people interact with their finances and how financial institutions engage with their consumers. By leveraging innovative products developed in-house and through its partnership ecosystem, Reseda Group is making financial technology and engagement solutions more accessible and approachable to the industry. Learn more at resedagroup.com.

About Velera
Velera is the nation’s premier payments credit union service organization (CUSO) and an integrated financial technology solutions provider. With over four decades of industry experience and a commitment to service excellence and innovation, the company serves more than 4,000 financial institutions throughout North America, operating with velocity to help its clients keep pace with the rapid momentum of change and fuel growth in the new era of financial services. Velera leverages its expertise and resources on behalf of credit unions and their members, offering an end-to-end product portfolio that includes payment processing, fraud and risk management, data and analytics, digital banking, instant payments, strategic consulting, collections, ATM and POS networks, shared branching and 24/7/365 member support via its contact centers. For more information, visit velera.com.

SOURCE Strivve

• The $1 billion is the largest single funding round among fusion energy companies since CFS’ $1.8 billion round in 2021.
• The capital brings the total invested in CFS to $4 billion, cementing the company’s position as the global leader in fusion.
• Investors include significant institutional investors, such as pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and infrastructure and industrial corporate partners.
• The company’s practical approach to commercial fusion, which is based on decades of experience and over 150 tokamaks built to date; ongoing track record of transparent and consistent execution; and commitment to peer-reviewed science led to the widening diversity of CFS’ investors and the maturation of its capital stack.

DEVENS, Mass., July 30, 2026 — In another first for the fusion industry, global leader Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) today announced that it raised $1 billion of additional equity financing.

This capital raise is the single largest funding round among fusion energy companies worldwide since CFS announced its $1.8 billion Series B round in 2021. With this capital, and the $863 million the company raised last year, CFS has now raised a total of $4 billion. This $4 billion represents about 30 percent of the total capital raised by the fusion industry to-date, reinforcing CFS’ position as the world’s largest and leading fusion company.

“CFS is making what once was impossible into inevitable. In the 2030s, we will put commercial fusion on the grid. We have the science that works and the proven execution that’s consistently validated by the market. We regularly welcome investors from around the world to our headquarters in Devens, Massachusetts, where they see real and tangible progress as we ready support systems and finalize the assembly of SPARC,” said Bob Mumgaard, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder. “In unlocking commercial fusion energy, we’re on a path to make an impact at a civilizational level.”

CFS’ global network of private investors expanded with the addition of a growing number of institutional investors, including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, infrastructure investors, and industrial corporate partners. This widening diversity and maturation of CFS’ capital stack reflects the real evidence investors see in the assembly of SPARC and parallel development of its ARC power plant. In this concrete progress, investors see that CFS is maturing and have expressed trust in CFS’ focused approach to commercializing fusion.

CFS will use the funds raised to further accelerate its progress to commercialization. In parallel to completing the assembly of its SPARC fusion demonstration machine, CFS continues to move forward with development of the world’s first grid-scale fusion power plant, called ARC, at the company’s Fall Line Fusion Power Station in Chesterfield County, Virginia.

Having become the first fusion company to submit an application to PJM Interconnection, the largest wholesale electricity market in the U.S., CFS is on track to put power on the grid in the early 2030s, bolstered by strategic partnerships with Dominion Energy as well as Google and Eni, two investors in CFS that also signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) to buy more than half the power the plant will produce.

About Commonwealth Fusion Systems
Commonwealth Fusion Systems is the world’s largest and leading private fusion company. The company’s marquee fusion project, SPARC, will generate net energy, paving the way for limitless carbon-free energy. The company has raised $4 billion in capital since it was founded in 2018.

SPARC®, ARC™, and Fall Line Fusion Power Station™ are trademarks of Commonwealth Fusion Systems®.

Media contact:
Christine Dunn
Commonwealth Fusion Systems
[email protected]

SOURCE Commonwealth Fusion Systems