NEW YORK, Aug. 18, 2026 — J.P. Morgan Life Sciences Private Capital, the life sciences venture and growth equity arm within J.P. Morgan Asset Management, today announced the appointment of Bruce N. Rogers, Ph.D., as Venture Partner. Dr. Rogers will leverage his extensive background in medicinal chemistry, translational science, neuroscience, and immunology to develop and scale innovative companies with Life Sciences Private Capital.

Dr. Rogers is a seasoned drug discovery and development expert with a strong track record of building innovative companies that deliver therapies across biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Rogers currently serves as President and CEO of an emerging precision immunology firm and a portfolio company of J.P. Morgan Life Sciences Private Capital.

Prior to that, Dr. Rogers was President of Morphic Therapeutic, where he originally joined as Chief Scientific Officer in 2016, built the company’s platform, and delivered a portfolio of assets including MORF-057. Following Morphic’s acquisition by Eli Lilly in 2024 for $3.2 billion, he transitioned to Eli Lilly as Senior Vice President and CEO of Morphic, overseeing the integration of Morphic’s portfolio and team. Before his tenure at Morphic, Dr. Rogers served as Head of Neuro-Opportunities at Pfizer and spent 16 years within the medicinal chemistry divisions at Pfizer and Pharmacia, where he led teams that advanced over a dozen small molecule candidates into clinical trials across multiple neuroscience indications.

“Dr. Rogers has built a career that spans a diverse range of therapeutic areas and drug modalities, and that breadth of experience is a real asset to our team,” said Dr. Stephen Squinto, CIO of Life Sciences Private Capital. “We look forward to working alongside him as we continue to grow our platform and support the next generation of life sciences companies.”

Biography

Bruce N. Rogers, PhD, serves as President and CEO of an emerging precision immunology company focused on developing therapies that selectively target disease-driving T-cell populations. Previously, Dr. Rogers was President of Morphic Therapeutic, a biopharmaceutical company developing integrin therapies for serious chronic diseases, having initially joined the company as Chief Scientific Officer in 2016, building its platform and delivering a portfolio of assets including MORF-057. Following Morphic’s acquisition by Lilly in 2024 for $3.2 billion, he transitioned to Lilly, where he held the roles of Senior Vice President and CEO of Morphic, overseeing the integration of Morphic’s portfolio and team. Dr. Rogers brings deep experience in drug discovery and development, encompassing preclinical and clinical programs, medicinal chemistry, structural biology, translational science, DMPK, strategic partnering, and R&D planning. Before his tenure at Morphic, he served as Head of Neuro-Opportunities at Pfizer, leading innovative initiatives for central nervous system (CNS) disorders, including direct brain delivery of protein therapeutics for Parkinson’s disease and oncology-oriented approaches. He also spent 16 years in progressively senior roles within the medicinal chemistry divisions at Pfizer and Pharmacia, leading teams that advanced over a dozen small molecule candidates into clinical trials for various neuroscience indications, such as tavapadon for Parkinson’s disease and emraclidine for schizophrenia. Dr. Rogers has co-authored more than 60 scientific publications, reviews, and abstracts, and is credited as a co-inventor on over 85 patents and patent applications. He holds a BA in Chemistry from the University of Minnesota and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine. Additionally, he was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at the University of California prior to entering the pharmaceutical industry.

About J.P. Morgan Life Sciences Private Capital

J.P. Morgan Life Sciences Private Capital (“LSPC”), is the life sciences platform of J.P. Morgan Private Capital, the investment arm for private companies across the capital structure with a focus on venture and growth investing within J.P. Morgan Asset Management. LSPC partners with leading early-stage biotherapeutics and late-stage healthcare companies. The early stage biotechnology practice is focused on company creation, Seed and Series A investments across all therapeutic areas in biotechnology. The late-stage healthcare practice is focused on Series B through pre-IPO investments within biotechnology, medical devices, tools, diagnostics, healthcare technology and pharmaceutical services.

About J.P. Morgan Asset Management

J.P. Morgan Asset Management, with assets under management of $4.6 trillion as of June 30, 2026, is a global leader in investment management. J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s clients include institutions, retail investors and high net worth individuals in every major market throughout the world. J.P. Morgan Asset Management offers global investment management in equities, fixed income, real estate, hedge funds, private equity and liquidity. For more information, visit: www.jpmorgan.com/am.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is a leading financial services firm based in the United States of America (“U.S.”), with operations worldwide. JPMorganChase had $5.0 trillion in assets and $375 billion in stockholders’ equity as of June 30, 2026. The Firm is a leader in investment banking, financial services for consumers and small businesses, commercial banking, financial transaction processing and asset management. Under the J.P. Morgan and Chase brands, the Firm serves millions of customers in the U.S., and many of the world’s most prominent corporate, institutional and government clients globally. Information about JPMorgan Chase & Co. is available at www.jpmorganchase.com.

SOURCE J.P. Morgan Asset Management

Facility expected to support approximately $900 million in funding to ecommerce brands over the next two years

TORONTO, Aug. 18, 2026 — Clearco, the leading provider of non-dilutive funding for ecommerce brands, today announced a new $100 million asset-backed financing facility from Macquarie Group. The facility expands Clearco’s ability to provide qualified brands with up to $10 million in funding and estimated terms of 4 to 12 months. It is expected to support approximately $900 million in funding to ecommerce brands over the next two years.

The facility is structured to support ecommerce brands as they grow across DTC, wholesale, retail, marketplaces and social commerce. It expands Clearco’s ability to provide larger amounts of funding over longer terms for inventory, marketing, major purchase orders and other growth initiatives.

“Ecommerce growth no longer happens through a single channel,” said Andrew Curtis, CEO of Clearco. “Brands are making larger inventory commitments, expanding across wholesale and retail, and investing in new ways for customers to discover and buy their products. This facility gives us the capacity to support those investments over longer terms and grow alongside ambitious operators as their businesses become more complex.”

Macquarie’s New York-based Fixed Income and Currencies team, part of the company’s Commodities and Global Markets business, provided financing for the transaction.

“Clearco combines deep ecommerce specialization with the disciplined underwriting required to serve this market at scale,” said Eli Nafisi, Senior Managing Director in Macquarie’s Commodities and Global Markets business. “This facility demonstrates Macquarie’s ability to deliver tailored financing solutions across a range of asset classes, and we are pleased to support Clearco as it enhances access to flexible capital for ecommerce brands.”

The facility marks Clearco’s next stage of growth, expanding its capacity to support ecommerce operators as their funding needs become larger and more complex.

For more information about Clearco, please visit www.clear.co.

About Clearco

Clearco introduced non-dilutive funding to ecommerce and remains its leading provider. Built for the realities of ecommerce, its flexible funding supports inventory, always-on marketing, major purchase orders, and expansion across DTC, wholesale and retail. Qualifying brands can access up to $10 million with estimated terms of 4 to 12 months, no personal guarantees and no all-asset liens. To date, the company has provided more than $3.3 billion in funding to over 11,000 businesses.

Media Contact
Ryan Hecker
PANBlast for Clearco
[email protected]

SOURCE Clearco

$5.2 million round co-led by J2 Ventures and Stormbreaker Ventures will scale Mobile Coverage as a Service across underserved enterprise properties.

LOS GATOS, Calif., Aug. 18, 2026 — InfiniG, the company modernizing enterprise cellular through its Mobile Coverage as a Service (MCaaS) platform, today announced a $5.2 million Seed round co-led by J2 Ventures and Stormbreaker Ventures. The investment will expand enterprise deployments, automate mobile-operator integration, scale InfiniG Insights, and advance the platform’s foundation for automation and physical AI.

Reliable mobile coverage has become a foundational infrastructure for employees, customers, emergency responders, connected devices, and business-critical applications. Whether enterprises provide phones or use Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), they increasingly need dependable coverage from all three nationwide mobile operators and their MVNO partners.

Three forces are colliding: people and critical operations are more dependent on mobile phones, modern buildings increasingly use energy-efficient materials such as dense concrete, steel, and low-emissivity glass that block outdoor cellular signals, and mobile operators are no longer able to fund enterprise deployments at the scale required. The industry needs a modern model built for this new reality.

Traditional indoor cellular solutions were designed primarily for the largest venues, leaving millions without an economical path to multi-operator coverage. Many carrier-funded Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) are reaching an end of life, while mobile operators generally no longer fund replacements or new enterprise DAS deployments. Enterprises are left to finance complex upgrades requiring separate signal sources, engineering, approvals, and coordination for each participating operator. Repeaters may seem like a quick fix for very small buildings, but their performance depends on the outdoor macro network, creating a variable user experience.

InfiniG was created to disrupt that model. MCaaS uses shared CBRS spectrum, advanced multi-operator (MOCN) technology, and common neutral-host infrastructure to deliver enterprise-funded, carrier-grade coverage through one fully managed service. InfiniG standardizes design, installation, operator onboarding, macro-network and 911/PSAP integration, activation, analytics, and 24/7/365 operations – turning a process that took months or years into a repeatable model deployed in weeks.

“Enterprises need to build cellular infrastructure for the next 10 years, not recreate models designed for the last 10 or 20,” said Joel Lindholm, co-founder and CEO of InfiniG. “MCaaS provides one shared, managed foundation for all participating operators. It solves today’s coverage problem while giving enterprises a flexible path toward 5G, private networks, automation, and physical AI.”

MCaaS protects the enterprise’s investment by combining immediate coverage with a cloud-managed, 5G-upgradeable foundation. InfiniG Insights provides visibility into availability, call performance, mobility, traffic, and utilization across individual properties or entire portfolios. The same foundation can evolve toward enterprise-prioritized and private networks supporting connected operations, robotics and physical AI – without replacing the system for each technology cycle.

“InfiniG is modernizing a market still constrained by deployment models designed for a small number of premier venues,” stated Said Mia, Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Stormbreaker Ventures. “The InfiniG team is uniquely qualified to recognize and solve this problem, having developed and operated this model at Meta, one of the world’s largest, most complex and security-conscious enterprises. That experience gives InfiniG a rare perspective on enterprise needs and requirements, not simply the technology and uniquely positions the company to deliver MCaaS at scale.”

InfiniG has spent three years building and deploying MCaaS with large enterprises across healthcare, retail, manufacturing, hospitality, education, and critical infrastructure. Its platform builds on the founders’ experience deploying multi-operator enterprise cellular at Meta. The financing is primarily growth capital for deployments, operator automation, analytics, and partner expansion rather than years of foundational product development. 

“The U.S. military and public sector increasingly need commercial technologies that strengthen critical infrastructure, healthcare, and communications,” said Alexander Harstrick, managing partner and co-founder at J2 Ventures. “That is central to J2 Ventures’ dual-use investment thesis, and InfiniG fits it well: the company is building resilient, scalable cellular infrastructure for today’s essential operations and tomorrow’s AI-enabled systems.”

InfiniG works with mobile operators, system integrators, and technology providers to make multi-operator cellular coverage practical across portfolios of buildings and campuses.

To learn more about InfiniG, visit www.infinig.io.

About InfiniG

InfiniG delivers Mobile Coverage as a Service (MCaaS), enabling enterprises and property owners to deploy reliable, multi-operator cellular coverage through shared CBRS spectrum and cloud-managed infrastructure. Its enterprise-funded, fully managed neutral-host platform integrates with participating U.S. mobile operators while providing visibility, analytics, and an upgradeable foundation for 5G, private networks, automation, and physical AI. Founded by enterprise networking and cellular infrastructure veterans, InfiniG makes carrier-grade coverage simple to deploy, operate, and scale. For more information, visit www.infinig.io.

About Stormbreaker Ventures

Stormbreaker Ventures is an early-stage venture firm investing in the connectivity infrastructure powering AI, including Open RAN and AI-RAN, private 5G, satellite-cellular convergence, edge compute, IoT, connected mobility, and U.S. manufacturing modernization. Led by veteran operators and founders like Glenn Lurie, former President and CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Operations; Wade Oosterman, founder of Clearnet Communications; Derek Aberle, former President of Qualcomm; and Andy Funk, a three-time founder who built and sold Virtela and OverWatchID, Stormbreaker brings decades of experience building and scaling category-defining companies across telecommunications, mobility and enterprise technology. For more information, visit www.stormbreaker.vc.

About J2 Ventures

J2 Ventures is a dual-use early stage venture capital fund investing at the intersection of government and the private sector. Currently deploying out of their third fund, the firm manages over $800M of assets under management. J2 companies have gone on to raise over two dollars of government non-dilutive leverage for every dollar invested and billions in follow-on investment. More information can be found on www.j2vp.com.

Media Contact

BAM for Stormbreaker
[email protected] 

SOURCE InfiniG

Managed upskilling program helps engineering teams build and verify advanced AI coding skills

WESTLAKE, Texas, Aug. 18, 2026 — Pluralsight, the leading technology skills development company, today announced the launch of Pluralsight AI Ready, a fully managed upskilling program designed to turn AI coding tool investments into stronger engineering performance. Through live instruction, hands-on practice, and verified assessment, AI Ready helps teams build, apply, and prove advanced AI skills.

While many organizations invest heavily in generative AI software, they often struggle to move beyond basic code autocomplete and experimentation. Research has found that 95% of AI pilots fail. This failure can often be attributed to skill deficits and strategic misalignments within an organization. Organizations also need the workforce capabilities and operating discipline required to move AI from experimentation into repeatable engineering practice.

AI Ready helps CIOs and engineering leaders understand where capability gaps exist, build advanced AI coding skills across their teams, and turn AI investment into verified capability, measurable engineering output, and ROI that organizations can defend.

“Organizations have moved quickly to put AI coding tools in developers’ hands, but access alone doesn’t drive results,” said Michael Ross, Chief Product Officer at Pluralsight. “Engineering leaders need to know their teams can use those tools effectively and turn AI investment into stronger performance. AI Ready builds and verifies those skills through hands-on practice, real-world application, and Skill IQ assessment.”

From AI Tool Adoption to Verified Engineering Capability

AI Ready helps engineering teams progress from foundational AI-assisted development to advanced, repeatable engineering capability through a structured progression with three stages: AI-assisted coding, AI agent development, and orchestrating multi-agent systems. The progression is designed to move teams beyond inconsistent, individual experimentation and toward more consistent application of AI across engineering workflows.

The solution expands Pluralsight’s enterprise AI capability portfolio alongside Pluralsight AI Academy. AI Academy helps technical and non-technical teams establish foundational AI fluency, while AI Ready is designed for engineering organizations that have already deployed AI coding tools and need to build, scale, and verify more advanced engineering capability.

AI Ready includes a managed learn-practice-do model designed to build capability and verify that engineers can apply what they have learned:

• Keep teams on track: Dedicated program management drives rollout, scheduling, and execution.
• Build advanced AI skills: Instructor-Led Training combines live seminars and code-alongs to move engineers beyond basic prompting.
• Know where teams stand: Skill IQ assessments reveal readiness, identify gaps, and verify progress.
• Prove skills in practice: The Capstone Challenge puts engineers on a real codebase to build an end-to-end multi-agent workflow.

“AI advancements are transforming the way we work, yet many organizations remain stuck on the sidelines because their teams lack the practical, hands-on experience to use these tools effectively,” said Josh Meier, Senior Generative AI author at Pluralsight. “To get real value from AI, organizations need more than access to the tools. Engineers need hands-on practice applying AI to real development work. That’s how teams move from experimentation to repeatable engineering implementation.”

Click here to learn more about AI Ready. Learn how Pluralsight helps organizations assess readiness, close critical skill gaps, and build workforce capability at Pluralsight.com.

Media Contact
Ryan Sins
Senior Communications Manager
[email protected]

About Pluralsight
Pluralsight provides the only learning platform dedicated to accelerating the technology skills and capabilities of today’s tech workforce. Thousands of companies, government organizations, and individuals around the world rely on Pluralsight to support critical technology skill development in areas that are crucial to innovation, including artificial intelligence, cloud computing, cybersecurity, software development, and machine learning. Pluralsight offers highly curated content developed by vetted technology experts, industry leading skill assessments, and hands-on, immersive learning experiences designed to help individuals skill-up faster. The company is headquartered in Westlake, Texas with a global office in Dublin, Ireland. For more information, visit pluralsight.com.

SOURCE Pluralsight

Stop Networking. Start Moving Capital.

For women entrepreneurs seeking capital, this is the room that matters.

NEW YORK, Aug. 18, 2026 — The Women Business Collaborative (WBC) today announced the Women’s Capital Summit, a high-impact gathering designed to move women from conversations about capital to real relationships, real commitments, and real investment.

Taking place October 6–7 in New York City, the Women’s Capital Summit will bring together a deliberately curated room of women entrepreneurs, institutional and individual investors, corporate leaders, athletes, philanthropists, and ecosystem builders who are changing who receives capital—and who gets to deploy it.

This is the room where founders meet the people who can write checks, where investors discover investment-ready businesses, and where women with influence learn how to build ownership, invest in founders, and reshape the capital system.

The program will feature leading voices from high-growth brands, billion-dollar companies, and successful exits—including Merrilee Kick, Founder and CEO of BuzzBallz, alongside founders, investors, and operators who have built unicorns, scaled category-defining businesses, and created meaningful exits. Conversations will focus on the practical decisions behind growth, access to capital, ownership, investment readiness, venture debt, AI, consumer brands, health, sports, and the future of women’s wealth.

“Women do not need another room where people simply acknowledge the capital gap,” said Gwen Young, CEO of Women Business Collaborative. “They need access to the investors, partners, knowledge, and opportunities that close it. The Women’s Capital Summit is built to create that access—and to turn powerful connections into investment, ownership, and growth.”

Among the Summit’s featured panel discussions:

• From Influence to Ownership: How athletes, creators, executives, and other influential women can turn platform, earnings, and networks into long-term wealth and ownership.
• The Founder–Investor Match: What investors are looking for now, how founders can build the right capital relationships, and how both can move from introductions to diligence.
• Unicorns, Exits, and What Comes Next: Lessons from women who have scaled businesses, built enduring value, and created liquidity—and how they are investing back into the next generation.
• Capital Beyond Venture: Practical pathways through venture debt, private credit, revenue-based financing, corporate partnerships, and philanthropy.
• Women’s Sports as an Ownership Opportunity: Why one of the fastest-growing markets in business is creating new pathways for investors, founders, and athletes.

The Summit is designed for women founders actively raising capital; investors looking for compelling opportunities and co-investors; corporate and philanthropic leaders committed to building durable capital pathways; and women who are ready to become angel investors, fund investors, owners, or strategic partners.

With a targeted audience of 150 investors and 150 women entrepreneurs, the Women’s Capital Summit offers the kind of access, candor, and purposeful connection that is increasingly difficult to find in larger conferences.

“Capital moves through relationships,” Young added. “We are making sure women are not simply invited into the room—they are helping to define it, lead it, and deploy it.”

Registration is now open. Space is limited.

Register for the Women’s Capital Summit: https://wbcollaborative.org/wbc-events/womens-capital-summit-2026/

Event Details
Women’s Capital Summit
October 6–7, 2026
New York City
Wells Fargo Connections

150 East 42nd Street

Concourse Level

New York, NY 10017.

About Women Business Collaborative

Women Business Collaborative is a leading action-driven organization advancing equal position, pay, and power for women in business. Through cross-sector collaboration, WBC brings together business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, and allies to create measurable progress for women in leadership, entrepreneurship, capital access, and the future of work.

SOURCE Women Business Collaborative

As colleges shift from digital literacy to AI literacy, Codio introduces a practical framework for teaching responsible AI use and judgment.

BOSTON, Aug. 18, 2026 — Codio, the learning experience platform that helps higher education institutions deliver applied, work-ready technical education, today announced its new AI Literacy offering, alongside the completion of a $5 million strategic growth financing led by long-term investor, Armada Investment.

As employers increasingly expect graduates to work confidently and responsibly with AI, colleges are shifting from digital literacy to AI literacy across disciplines. Codio’s AI Literacy offering provides a practical framework for teaching students not only how to use AI, but when to use it, how to evaluate its outputs, when its use should be disclosed, and why human judgment remains essential.

Aligned with the U.S. Department of Labor’s AI Literacy framework, the curriculum is built around Codio’s “Notice, Test, Verify, Explain and Defend” methodology, helping students develop the judgment and critical thinking needed to work responsibly with AI.

Delivered through Codio’s next-generation learning experience platform, students interact with leading AI models while faculty maintain visibility into assignments, AI interactions and student progress. The platform integrates with leading learning management systems, including Canvas, enabling educators to incorporate AI into existing coursework while maintaining instructional oversight.

“This isn’t just a course about learning AI tools,” said Doug Hughes, CEO of Codio. “It’s a course about building judgment. Students learn when AI adds value, how to verify its outputs, when to disclose its use and why they’re ultimately accountable for the results. Those are the skills employers and educators increasingly expect as AI becomes part of everyday work.”

The offering extends Codio’s long-standing hands-on learning model beyond computer science, helping institutions prepare students across disciplines for careers where AI is becoming a core workplace capability.

This fall, after redesigning its required digital literacy curriculum, the University of Tampa will launch a new required AI literacy course using Codio’s AI Literacy offering, helping prepare students across disciplines to use AI responsibly before they enter the workforce.

“Students don’t just need to know how to use AI—they need to know how to evaluate it, improve their work without outsourcing their judgment, and recognize when human oversight matters most,” said Jessica O’Brien, Coordinator for Spartan Studies Online Learning & Digital Literacy at the University of Tampa. “AI literacy is becoming a foundational skill for today’s workforce, and bringing it into the curriculum gives students the practical experience they’ll need long after they graduate.”

Codio plans to follow its foundational AI Literacy course with an Applied AI for Business Schools offering, combining foundational AI literacy, discipline-specific assignments and instructional tools that help educators integrate AI into existing coursework.

“Every organization is trying to understand how AI will reshape the workforce, and that transformation starts with education,” said Daniel S. Aegerter, Chairman & Principal of Armada Investment. “We’re investing in Codio because we believe AI literacy—and especially the judgment to use AI responsibly—will become a foundational skill for every graduate entering the workforce, as well as the workforce at large.”

Codio’s AI Literacy foundational course is now available, with institutions able to request early access and learn more at  https://www.codio.com/ai-literacy.  

About Codio

Codio is a learning experience platform that helps higher education institutions and workforce learning organizations deliver applied, work-ready technical education. Used by more than 150 universities and educational institutions worldwide, Codio has helped more than 3 million learners build technical skills through hands-on learning.

The platform enables educators to deliver real-world software environments where students complete assignments using the same technologies they will encounter in industry, including cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity platforms and AI tools. Rather than relying on simulations or static coursework, students build projects in live environments that mirror professional workflows and can be carried directly into their portfolios.

For more information, visit www.codio.com.

Media Contact:

Nina Felicidario
Ditto Public Relations
[email protected] 

SOURCE Codio

Building on years of strategic technology investing, Aprio Ventures will connect the firm with emerging solutions to evaluate, implement, and scale to enhance client service

AI Summary:

• Aprio launches Aprio Ventures to invest in emerging AI and technology companies.
• The program will help evaluate and scale technologies that enhance client service.
• Since 2019, Aprio has invested in nearly 20 technology companies.

ATLANTA, Aug. 18, 2026 — Aprio, the 20th largest business advisory and accounting firm in the U.S., today announces the launch of Aprio Ventures, a strategic investment program created to identify and accelerate technologies to strengthen Aprio’s services and enhance the client experience. Through Aprio Ventures, Aprio will invest in emerging technology companies, work alongside founders, and evaluate innovative solutions that can strengthen its services, empower its professionals, and create a better experience for clients.

Since 2019, Aprio has invested in nearly 20 companies and worked alongside founders to evaluate, pilot, and scale technology across the professional services landscape. Aprio Ventures brings greater focus to that work, allowing the firm to pursue more opportunities across AI, automation, and enterprise software while gaining a broader view of the technologies shaping accounting and advisory services.

Aprio’s investments through Aprio Ventures will be paired with strategic and technical support, giving Aprio professionals an opportunity to help shape how the solutions work in practice and founders the support to scale their businesses. The goal is to equip teams with tools that will benefit our clients, giving our professionals more time to focus on strategic advice and the issues that matter most to our clients.

“Aprio Ventures is about building the firm our clients will need in the future,” said Richard Kopelman, CEO of Aprio. “By investing in emerging technology and putting promising solutions to work inside Aprio, we can improve how we serve clients and give our professionals more time to focus on meaningful advice. This is another way Aprio is staying ahead and helping lead the profession forward.”

Aprio Ventures, part of Aprio’s Corporate Development Team, will be led by Kyle Kling. Kyle brings more than a decade of experience building corporate venture programs and investing across AI, enterprise software, fintech, and emerging technologies. He will lead the firm’s efforts to identify investment opportunities, build relationships with founders and other investors, and connect promising technologies with leaders across Aprio.

Aprio Ventures expects to invest alongside established venture capital firms and other investors. In addition to capital, Aprio can offer founders access to the perspective of professionals working across accounting, tax, advisory, wealth, legal, and talent solutions, as well as opportunities to evaluate how their technology performs in a growing professional services firm.

Aprio Ventures supports Aprio’s broader growth strategy and the firm’s five-year, $300 million commitment to technology and automation. Together, these investments are designed to strengthen how Aprio delivers its services, expand the capabilities available to clients, and help the firm continue to lead as technology reshapes the accounting and advisory profession.

To learn more about Aprio Ventures, visit ventures.aprio.com.

About Aprio
Aprio is redefining what it means to be a global advisory and accounting firm. We help businesses and individuals Account for Anything™ — delivering clarity and confidence in a world full of unknowns. Aprio is the brand name under which Aprio, LLP, and Aprio Advisory Group, LLC deliver professional services to clients worldwide. Aprio Advisory Group, LLC provides advisory, tax, legal, wealth, and talent solutions to help build value, drive growth, manage risk, and protect wealth, while Aprio, LLP delivers audit and attest services with uncompromising quality and integrity. With more than 3,400 team members serving clients in 50+ countries and $5.8B in assets under advisement as of June 30, 2026, Aprio, the 20th largest business advisory and accounting firm in the U.S., is consistently recognized as a Top Workplace, celebrated for transformative growth on the Inc. 5000 and Inc. Power Partners lists, and led by Richard Kopelman, named to Accounting Today’s Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting. Learn more at Aprio.com.

Follow Aprio:
Aprio Website: https://www.aprio.com/
Aprio Ventures Website: https://ventures.aprio.com/
Aprio Careers: https://www.careers.aprio.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aprio/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aprioadvisors/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aprioadvisors/ 

SOURCE Aprio

Funding follows more than 200% year-over-year growth as CAMO helps hotels capture a share of the estimated $5 billion guest spend annually on delivery to U.S. hotel rooms

ANAHEIM, Calif., Aug. 18, 2026 — CAMO Hospitality, the infrastructure platform powering hotel-branded room service, today announced the closing of its $4 million seed funding round to accelerate its expansion across the U.S. The funding follows more than 200% year-over-year revenue growth and growing demand from hotel brands, owners and managers.

CAMO will use the funding to enter additional U.S. markets, support portfolio-wide deployments currently in pilot, and continue developing its robust technology platform.

Investors in the round include Anthony Lacavera, founder and chairman of Globalive; Rajan Hansji, CEO of Hansji Corporation; Azim Jamal, CEO of Pacific Reach; Parsa Rohani, co-founder of Neudesic/Timu; Evan Weiss, co-founder of LWHA; and a group of hotel owners currently using CAMO at their properties.

 “Hotels have digitized everything except the transaction that happens inside the room,” said Lacavera. “That is a large market with no incumbent. CAMO is building the infrastructure to own it.”

The investment comes as hotels look for new ways to capture guest spending and gain greater visibility into guest behavior during the stay. CAMO estimates that guests spend more than $5 billion annually on restaurant delivery to U.S. hotel rooms, while roughly nine in 10 hotels don’t offer traditional room service. Much of that spending currently flows through third-party delivery platforms, leaving hotels without the revenue, guest data or control over the experience.

“Guests never stopped wanting food delivered to their rooms,” said Kevin Rohani, CAMO founder and CEO. “The traditional model just became too expensive and operationally complex for most hotels to support. We built CAMO to give hotels a way to meet that demand without the fixed costs of traditional room service. After years of proving the model, this funding gives us the ability to bring it to hotel brands and management companies at scale.”

CAMO provides hotels with fully managed room service under their own brands, handling the ordering technology, local kitchen fulfillment, delivery logistics, and guest support behind the scenes. The model requires no kitchen buildout, capital expenditure, or additional hotel headcount. Hotels retain control of the branded guest experience while gaining a new revenue stream and visibility into guest ordering behavior that traditionally sits outside the hotel ecosystem.

Orders average approximately $45, with most hotels earning $1,000 to $5,000 in net monthly profit through CAMO’s revenue-share model. CAMO also manages delivery and guest support, with average delivery times of approximately 22 minutes, while providing hotels with order-level data on what guests purchase, when they order, and how their behavior changes throughout the stay. Hotels access order-level data through CAMO’s hotel portal, and many direct their revenue share toward staff and guest tools like guest recovery credits, employee recognition, and local sales efforts that fall outside an approved operating budget.

The company currently operates across more than 60 hotel properties in six U.S. markets and is working with several major hotel brands and management companies for broader portfolio rollouts. Longer term, CAMO plans to expand the in-room commerce model beyond dining into other areas of on-demand services for guests.

“There is a commerce layer inside every hotel room that nobody has claimed,” Rohani said. “Dining, wellness, transportation, experiences, services. A guest wants all of it during a stay, and today most of it reaches them without the hotel involved at all. We are building the layer that routes every one of those transactions back through the hotel.”

CAMO has also expanded its advisory board with leaders across hospitality, payments, and off-premises dining, including Paul Tuscano, former KFC Chief Digital Officer and Marriott International executive; Mike Cohen, former Square and Meta executive; and Alex Canter, founder of Ordermark and Nextbite.

“Hotel brands invest millions to make the guest’s experience just right,” said Tuscano, who led onsite digital and mobile product development at Marriott. “To hand-off the in-room moment to an outside marketplace kills the guest’s relationship with the brand. CAMO keeps the guest experience on-brand and inside the hotel ecosystem.”

About CAMO
CAMO Hospitality, Inc. is the infrastructure platform powering hotel-branded room service. The company provides the end-to-end infrastructure for hotels to offer branded room service to guests without the need for a kitchen or kitchen staff, including ordering technology, kitchen fulfillment, delivery coordination, and guest support. CAMO operates on a revenue share model and is live under major brands and independent hotels in key U.S. markets. The company was founded by Kevin Rohani and is headquartered in Anaheim, CA. Learn more at camoeats.com.

Contact:
CJ Arlotta
CJ Media Solutions for CAMO Hospitality
Ph: 631-572-3079
E: [email protected] 

SOURCE CAMO Hospitality

KRAKOW, Poland, Aug. 18, 2026 — DefendEye, developer of fully autonomous drone systems, today announced the closing of a major investment round led by NovaCapital. Backed by a premier syndicate of international venture capital and strategic investors, this capital infusion empowers DefendEye to aggressively scale production of its flagship Overwatch Drone, an advanced aerial intelligence system built primarily for first responders.

To accelerate international growth, the funding round features a distinguished group of global backers:

• NovaCapital (Italy): Investment holding company backing ambitious entrepreneurs to accelerate growth in B2B companies across Europe and the USA.
• ff Venture Capital (Poland): Prominent early-stage venture firm with a Warsaw-based European fund, empowering founders to scale emerging technologies.
• Hard2beat (Poland): Specialized early-stage fund focusing on complex, hardware-enabled deep-tech and dual-use technologies.
• Sunfish Partners (Germany): Berlin-based early-stage firm backing ambitious deep-tech, space, and defense startups across Central and Eastern Europe.
• In-Q-Tel (USA): Independent, not-for-profit strategic investor accelerating the development and delivery of cutting-edge technologies to U.S. national security agencies and allies.

“This investment and support will allow us to scale and expand operations,” said James Buchheim, CEO of DefendEye. “We are excited to bring to market the world’s first AI drone designed from the ground up for First Responders. We manufacture our entire drone and NDAA subcomponents ourselves, including PCB assembly, in our Hallandale Beach, FL facility.”

When emergencies strike, every second counts. DefendEye is revolutionizing how emergency personnel respond by providing instant, life-saving situational awareness. Unlike traditional drones requiring trained pilots and setup time, DefendEye offers a fully autonomous, pilot-free system that deploys in seconds directly from a rugged, weather-proof tube.

Engineered for high-stakes environments, the smart base station features a built-in tactical LTE modem securely connecting the drone to the cloud. This connectivity allows incident commanders, dispatchers, and remote teams to instantly access live video feeds worldwide, ensuring rapid decision-making before personnel arrive on scene.

Security and supply chain resilience are central to DefendEye’s mission. The company manufactures its hardware at state-of-the-art facilities in Krakow, Poland, and Hallandale Beach, Florida. By maintaining strict end-to-end control over manufacturing and conducting printed circuit board (PCB) assembly entirely in-house, DefendEye ensures full National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) compliance. This offers government and public safety agencies a secure, trusted platform free of foreign supply chain vulnerabilities.

With this new financial backing, DefendEye is positioned to become the premier standard in autonomous aerial overwatch for emergency services worldwide, redefining crisis management from the sky.

About DefendEye DefendEye is a global technology company specializing in fully autonomous, pilot-free aerial intelligence systems. With dual manufacturing facilities in the United States and Europe, DefendEye delivers instant, secure, and NDAA-compliant drone technology engineered to protect first responders. For more information, visit www.defendeye.com

Media Contact: DefendEye Email: [email protected] Phone: +48 730 731 802

SOURCE Defendeye