Investment will expand production and innovation as WILDE builds on more than $100 million in sales and a footprint of 35,000+ retail locations nationwide

LEXINGTON, Ky., Oct. 22, 2026 — WILDE, the brand challenging the traditional snack aisle by building salty, craveable snacks from all-natural chicken breast, today announced a $40 million investment from S2G Investments (S2G). The funding will catapult WILDE’s next phase of growth across product innovation, manufacturing, and brand building as the company expands its position in the fast-growing protein snacking category.

The investment comes as WILDE enters its next chapter, with the scale to reinvent what snacking can be on a much bigger stage. The company has surpassed $100 million in sales, expanded to more than 35,000 retail locations nationwide, and recently opened a 130,000-square-foot production facility, the only USDA-regulated salty snack manufacturing facility in the world. The new facility expands WILDE’s production capacity sixfold as the brand continues to grow.

The new capital from S2G will fuel that momentum, enabling WILDE to scale production and extend its nutrient-dense, protein-forward approach beyond its core Protein Chips. Following the recent launch of Protein Crackers, the company has additional snack formats in development designed to bring WILDE’s approach to more occasions and consumers. The investment will also support an evolution of the brand’s visual identity, packaging, and marketing capabilities.

“Building WILDE has never been easy. We started this company to prove that protein snacks don’t have to taste like punishment, and we’ve spent years betting on an idea that didn’t fit neatly into the snack aisle. We stuck with it, built something people crave, and this investment proves that hard work and conviction pay off. Now we have the firepower to go bigger, move faster, and shake up a whole lot more of the snack aisle,” said Jason Wright, Founder and CEO of WILDE.

S2G’s investment comes as consumers increasingly seek snacks with more functional nutritional value, such as protein. For S2G, WILDE’s growth, retail footprint, and expanding product platform create an opportunity to build a larger brand around that shift.

“WILDE has shown you can have better products with high quality ingredients without sacrificing the taste experience that makes people love salty snacks,” said Arthur Chow, Principal, Food & Agriculture at S2G. “Jason created a standout product with Protein Chips, but what excites us most is the opportunity ahead as a snacking platform. Protein Crackers is among my favorite CPG innovations ever. We’re excited to partner with Jason and the team as WILDE scales into a household brand.”

About WILDE
Founded in 2015 by Jason Wright, WILDE is reimagining the salty snack aisle with chips and crackers made from real chicken breast, egg whites, and bone broth. WILDE Protein Chips and Protein Crackers deliver 10+ grams of protein per serving, bringing together satisfying crunch, craveable flavors, and ingredients that set them apart from traditional snacks.

Based in Lexington, Kentucky, WILDE is built on a simple idea: people should be able to enjoy the snacks they love while getting more from every bite. From familiar favorites to new flavor combinations, the brand puts taste at the center of its approach to innovation, creating snacks that surprise people with what they’re made from and keep them coming back for how they taste.

WILDE is available at more than 35,000 retail locations nationwide and online at wildebrands.com.

About S2G Investments
S2G Investments is a multi-asset investment firm focused on scaling durable, market-defining businesses across food & agriculture, energy, and oceans. We provide capital and value-added resources to companies commercializing solutions designed to improve efficiency, resilience, and long-term value across industries powering the global economy. Through fit-for-purpose financing and a systems-focused investment approach, S2G is committed to driving measurable, sustained outcomes with tailored solutions that span late-stage venture, growth equity, structured finance, and infrastructure. To learn more, visit www.s2ginvestments.com or connect with us on LinkedIn.

For media inquiries, samples, or interviews, contact Taylor Hirz, 714-943-5296, [email protected] 

SOURCE WILDE

About the Engage Program

Engage runs a 10-week Enterprise Accelerator Program twice a year, in the spring and fall. Cohort 17 brings together eight startups from across the United States, working in AI, robotics, cybersecurity, logistics, and water reuse. Engage speaks with thousands of startups year-round and only selects a small cohort each season. nicklpass was selected for Cohort 17.

Participants build an enterprise sales playbook with direct access to senior leaders at Engage’s corporate partners, including The Coca-Cola Company, Delta Air Lines, The Home Depot, UPS, Goldman Sachs, Chick-fil-A, Georgia-Pacific and more. Engage has backed 122 portfolio companies, which have raised more than $3.1 billion in follow-on capital.

In-Person Sessions and Expected Outcomes

The program is hybrid and brings founders to Atlanta twice during the cohort for in-person sessions with corporate executives and fellow founders. In-person sessions will take place all throughout the end of 2026. nicklpass will use the program to:

• Refine its enterprise go-to-market strategy and sales playbook
• Meet IT, procurement, and finance leaders at Engage partner companies
• Explore pilot engagements with corporate partners

“Being selected for Engage is an honor and a real vote of confidence in what we’re building. Enterprises are adding software faster than ever, especially AI tools, and the teams paying for it deserve clear answers about what they own and what it’s worth. We’re excited to work alongside Engage’s corporate partners to bring that clarity to some of the largest and most important organizations in the country.”

— Sumorwuo Zaza, Co-Founder & CEO of nicklpass

Solving a Problem Every Enterprise Shares

Engage’s corporate partners are moving past AI as a feature and adopting it as infrastructure, with a focus on specific, high-stakes operational problems. Every new AI tool adds another subscription, and large organizations often lack a single view of what they pay for and who actually uses it.

nicklpass gives finance, IT, and procurement teams one place to see every SaaS subscription, track license usage, and assign clear ownership for each renewal. The result is fewer unused seats, fewer surprise renewals, and spending decisions backed by real usage data. By leveraging nicklpass’ usage visibility and bulk purchasing tools, companies have saved, on average, 30% of their software spend.

Learn more about nicklpass by requesting a demo.

The Team Behind nicklpass

nicklpass is built by a distributed team spanning the United States, Mexico, Ukraine, Germany, and the Philippines, bringing together experience in enterprise software, finance operations, product, and design. That range of perspectives shapes a product built for how global companies actually buy and manage software across offices, departments, and time zones.

About nicklpass

nicklpass is a B2B SaaS and AI license management platform based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 2017. It gives companies visibility and accountability over software subscription spend, helping finance, IT, and procurement teams cut waste and manage renewals with confidence.

Learn more at www.nicklpass.com

Media Contact

Bassam Kaado
Business Operations, nicklpass
[email protected] ● 732-947-9060

SOURCE nicklpass

Public Benefit Innovation Fund and Recoding America Fund fund Holly and 17A to help Oklahoma and Virginia ready their workforce for AI

NEW YORK, Oct. 22, 2026 — Holly, the AI-powered workforce platform for government agencies, today announced that its joint proposal with 17A, a government consulting and technology firm, has been awarded a $1.1 million grant from the Public Benefit Innovation Fund (PBIF), part of the Center for Civic Futures, and the Recoding America Fund (RAF). Holly and 17A will help Oklahoma and Virginia’s government agencies to identify how AI will change government work, define the skills employees will need, and modernize job classifications to better align hiring and compensation.

The 18-month project, “Designing the AI-Ready Government Workforce,” will develop and test a repeatable approach to organizational design and workforce planning that other states can adopt. The partners will publish the methodology and an open-source tool, giving government HR teams a way to review and update roles as AI capabilities evolve. The award was made under PBIF’s Priority 3 track, Modernize Tech Infrastructure, which the Recoding America Fund co-funds to support projects that strengthen the technical and organizational foundations of government service delivery.

State governments are starting to introduce AI into their operations, but their job descriptions and hiring processes often reflect how work was done years ago. To keep up with constantly changing classification and compensation structures, HR leaders need a way to determine which roles should expand, which need to change and how to prepare for future staffing needs within civil-service rules and bargaining agreements.

“Governments’ ability to deliver depends on the people doing the work,” said Brendan Hellweg, co-founder of Holly. “States are investing in AI, and this project will help them better understand and update the roles and skills needed for the AI economy, so they can make informed decisions about where to hire and invest.”

The project will begin by examining how the nature of work will evolve in the coming years, and focus on identifying the skills and capabilities each job function will need as part of that evolution. In Oklahoma, the project will serve the Office of Management and Enterprise Services’ (OMES) central IT organization, while in Virginia, the project will support the Department of Administration, which oversees IT, HR, and other management functions for the state.

The partners are members of the PBIF 2026 Spring cohort and were selected from a national pool of over 300 applicants. Holly will lead the technology and data analysis, drawing on its experience helping government agencies modernize classification, compensation and labor relations. 17A will lead the future-state capabilities and organizational design, development of the new skills taxonomy, and support for transition planning. All partners will heavily engage leadership and staff throughout the project.

“State and local leaders are on an AI-transformation journey for the next several years whether they choose it or not. Our hope is to support leaders and state employees to feel prepared and enabled by AI through this work.” said Annie Rittgers, Founder of 17A.

A central deliverable will be VOKA, an open-source tool that compares a state’s job classifications with a public library of future workforce skills. Alongside the tool, the partners will publish guidance, templates and evaluation criteria so other states can conduct their own reviews without contracting with either firm. The name comes from the two states engaged as partners in this work.

The award is Holly’s largest contract to date and marks the company’s entry into state government. The platform has grown rapidly, from under 10 to nearly 100 agency partners over the last 12 months. In August 2026, following its expansion into Marin County, Holly announced that its California customer footprint represented nearly 50% of the state’s 40 million residents.

With this award, Holly can continue building on its work helping city and county agencies modernize classification, compensation, hiring and regulatory compliance. By partnering with Oklahoma and Virginia, Holly will now be supporting over 35 million residents across the United States.

About Holly
Holly is an AI-native workforce modernization platform helping governments build the workforce capacity needed to serve their communities. The company streamlines workforce planning, compensation analysis, labor operations, hiring, and organizational decision-making through AI-powered software and data infrastructure. Founded by former public servants and civic technology leaders out of the Harvard Innovation Lab, Holly believes government capacity starts with workforce capacity. The company’s platform enables agencies to operate more efficiently, make data-driven decisions, and deliver better outcomes for the millions of residents they serve. Holly currently serves agencies across 12 states, supporting workforce operations for more than 200,000 public sector employees and helping organizations that collectively serve approximately 10% of the U.S. population. Learn more at www.hollygov.com.

Media Contact
Liang Zhao
[email protected] 

SOURCE Holly

AKRON, Ohio and BOULDER, Colo., Oct. 22, 2026 — Sequoia Financial Group, LLC (Sequoia Financial), an SEC-registered wealth manager with more than $36 billion in assets under management as of Sept. 30, 2026, has acquired Quish, a Boulder, Colorado-based independent family office and wealth management firm. Mariah Quish, founder and principal, has joined Sequoia Financial and will be part of the firm’s Sequoia Sentinel Family Office team. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 2008, Quish provides bespoke portfolios and legacy planning for families and individuals. As of Sept. 30, 2026, Quish managed more than $175 million in client assets.

Through the acquisition, Quish clients now have access to expanded solutions tailored to the complexity and source of their wealth. This includes Sequoia Financial’s diverse advisors and specialists who integrate investment, retirement, tax, estate, risk management, and charitable giving disciplines into a holistic plan, a broad platform of investments, and a range of services through Sequoia Sentinel Family Office that are personalized for multi-generational wealth. Quish will operate under the Sequoia Financial brand.

“Mariah has built an exceptional advisory practice centered on a highly personalized client experience, and we are thrilled that she and the families she serves are joining Sequoia Financial,” said Tom Haught, chairman and CEO of Sequoia Financial. “Together, we can continue to broaden the resources we offer to clients as we expand in the western United States.”

Quish added, “There is nothing I enjoy more than working directly with families to help them accomplish their goals and use their wealth for good. I’m honored to partner with a team that shares my passion and approaches this meaningful work with integrity and care.”

Sequoia Financial’s transaction with Quish follows the firm’s September acquisition of BSW Wealth Partners, another Boulder-based wealth management firm with $2.3 billion in client assets under management as of June 30, 2026. In August, Sequoia Financial acquired All Star Financial, a Twin Cities-based wealth manager with $1.3 billion in client assets under management and advisement as of June 30, 2026.

Sequoia Financial now supports approximately 11,000 client households from more than 40 offices, with clients in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Warner Norcross + Judd LLP served as Quish’s legal advisor.

About Sequoia Financial Group

Sequoia Financial Group, LLC, founded in 1991, takes an integrated, client-centered approach to wealth management, including investment management, tax planning, retirement planning, estate planning, risk management and charitable giving. The firm is a fiduciary advisor with a team-based service model focused on long-term planning to help clients reach their financial and life goals. In 2026, Sequoia was named by Barron’s as one of the top RIA firms in the U.S. for the eighth consecutive year. Sequoia Financial has more than $36 billion in assets under management as of Sept. 30, 2026. For more information, visit www.sequoia-financial.com.

Investment advisory services offered through Sequoia Financial Advisors, LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training.

In September 2026, Sequoia placed 20th on the Barron’s 100 Top RIAs list for 2026. Barron’s weighs dozens of qualitative and quantitative components, including assets managed, the size and experience of teams, regulatory record of the advisors and firms, succession planning, technology spending, and staff diversity based on a 102-question survey. Investment performance isn’t an explicit component because not all advisors have audited results and because performance figures often are influenced more by clients’ risk tolerance than by an advisor’s investment-picking abilities. No fees in any years awarded were paid or incurred to receive this recognition. $53,658 was spent in 2026 to promote the award in marketing collateral.

Media Contacts:

Newton Park PR, LLC

Margaret Kirch Cohen

+1 847-507-2229

[email protected]

Kathy Panagopoulos

+1 773-710-7433

[email protected]

SOURCE Sequoia Financial Group, LLC

Seed investment will accelerate Maveric AI, giving autonomous systems the speed, agility, and adaptive control to pursue, evade, and outmaneuver dynamic threats.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Oct. 22, 2026 — Colorado ONE Fund, a venture arm of ONE Funds, is excited to announce its seed investment in Code19 Autonomy, a veteran-founded, dual-use technology company developing high-dynamic autonomy for defense applications.

Code19’s core technology, Maveric AI, is designed for environments where speed, maneuverability, and rapidly changing conditions demand continuous prediction and adaptation. Rather than building autonomy around a single vehicle, Code19 develops software that integrates with third-party vehicles, sensors, and command-and-control systems, helping each platform make the most of its speed, agility, and maneuverability.

The investment comes as the Department of War accelerates the integration of autonomy across its formations. At last week’s Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting, senior Army leaders emphasized applications beyond drones, while Secretary of War Pete Hegseth underscored the importance of putting systems in warfighters’ hands and pairing them with technical experts to drive continuous improvement. These priorities align with Code19’s established approach: adaptable autonomy software, rigorous physical testing, and rapid iteration informed by operational needs.

“Code19 is solving a class of autonomy problem that becomes increasingly important as systems get faster, more maneuverable, and more contested,” said Kevin O’Neil, CEO of ONE Funds. “The team has paired a distinctive technical foundation with meaningful early government traction, and we see significant potential for that capability across defense applications.”

Code19’s first major defense application is intercept autonomy as a payload: bringing Maveric AI to aircraft that must pursue and intercept maneuvering airborne threats. The software continuously adapts as targets change speed, direction, or behavior. Code19 also offers Maveric Interceptor, a complete interceptor system powered by Maveric AI.

That application also addresses an increasingly important cost problem. Counter-UAS missions can require expensive defensive systems to engage comparatively low-cost threats. By bringing advanced autonomous control to lower-cost platforms, Code19 creates another path to field-capable systems at greater scale.

And intercept is only the starting point. Code19 is also developing sense-and-evade capabilities, applying the same high-dynamic autonomy to help one-way attack and ISR aircraft evade interceptors and continue their missions.

Code19’s autonomous racing heritage forged a team built for rapid iteration and disciplined execution in a high-stakes, high-risk environment. Racing demanded close collaboration and the ability to learn and adapt under pressure. That experience carries into defense, where the team moves quickly, tests rigorously, and stays focused on mission outcomes.

“Our mantra is simple: the hardest problems get solved when failure is public and unforgiving,” said O.G. Wells, co-founder and COO of Code19 Autonomy. “That means physical testing, rapid iteration, and proving performance under real-world conditions. We bring urgency and discipline to that process because warfighters need capabilities they can count on to accomplish the mission.”

The company has already established traction with government customers and partners. Maveric AI has been designated “Award Ready” through the U.S. Army’s DevX Autonomy program. Code19 is also a finalist in the Department of War’s Low-Cost Interceptor Challenge, prototyping under OUSW (R&E) and has a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane.

The Colorado ONE Fund investment will support continued development and scaling of Maveric AI as Code19 expands its defense applications and government partnerships.

About Code19 Autonomy
Code19 Autonomy is a veteran-founded, venture-backed company with heritage in professional autonomous racing. The company develops high-dynamic autonomy software for defense platforms. Its Maveric AI technology delivers predictive, adaptive control to systems operating at speed in demanding, rapidly changing environments. Code19 also operates Code19 Racing, the world’s first professional autonomous racing team. Learn more at www.code19autonomy.com.

About ONE Funds
Founded in 2023, ONE Funds invests in critical dual-use technologies, connecting defense innovators with government and industry partners to support growth. Colorado ONE Fund, part of ONE Funds, partners with the Colorado Venture Capital Authority to invest in early-stage, high-impact technologies supporting national defense. Learn more at www.onefunds.com.

SOURCE ONE Funds

Mave turns an enterprise’s existing, fragmented security tools into one agentic defense system that streamlines threat detection, investigation, and response, without needing to ingest data or requiring enterprises to centralize data into a single, expensive database.

TEL AVIV-YAFO, Israel, Oct. 22, 2026 — Mave, the agentic security operations platform, today announced it has raised $34 million in funding. This includes a $28 million Series A led by Red Dot Capital Partners with participation from Lumir Growth Partners. Existing investors Dell Technologies Capital and Emerge Ventures, which led Mave’s $6 million seed round, also doubled down on their investment and participated in the Series A. The funding will be used to accelerate Mave’s frontier AI research, strengthen the enterprise product lines and increase the company’s global presence.

Enterprise security teams are overwhelmed by huge amounts of data and dozens of security tools, and still cannot respond fast enough when a real incident occurs. A majority of analysts report falling behind, while almost one quarter of security leaders claim the lack of enterprise-wide visibility is the single biggest barrier to effective security operations. U.S. businesses lose $30 billion per year from breaches caused by control failure, largely due to insufficient insight into the complex and rapidly changing digital landscape.

AI has changed the speed of attack. Techniques that once took hours or days to execute can now unfold in minutes, breaking the assumptions behind the SIEM, the centralized platform for a company’s security data – which has been relied on for decades to anticipate threats.

The SIEM only contains a partial view of the environment, and much of the context required to understand an incident, such as configuration, identity state, ownership, and what is running right now, lives elsewhere. Analysts are forced to jump between systems and manually reconstruct what happened while the attack is still moving. The problem is no longer simply collecting more data – it is giving defenders a complete, live understanding of their environment at the speed modern attacks demand.

Mave starts from a simple first-principles idea: a skilled analyst with access to every security system could correlate the evidence and solve the problem, if they had enough time. Mave turns that reasoning into a single agentic defense system. It queries each tool in its native language, reconciles the results into one account of what happened, and investigates 100% of alerts within minutes. It removes false positives, identifies relevant active campaigns, and carries out approved response actions under rules set by the security team.

Working directly across the existing security stack, Mave pulls live context from each system as the investigation unfolds, while recording every query, decision, and action for full traceability. Underneath, purpose-built workflows, fine-tuned SLMs, and frontier LLMs work together to handle high-volume tasks and complex reasoning, giving teams a decision and a path to action in near real time.

“Security teams still investigate threats one tool at a time, manually piecing together evidence before they can reach a verdict. Attackers do not wait. Every pivot adds delay, and every delay creates risk.” said Raziel Oren, Co-Founder and CEO of Mave. “Mave is built to reduce risk, by giving security teams AI that can keep pace with attackers, show its work, and know when human judgment is required. Security operations is where we start, but the goal is more ambitious – to make AI a responsible and accountable part of how the modern enterprise protects itself.”

“The SecOps market is overdue for reinvention. Incumbent platforms and the startups that tried to replace them share the same flaw: coverage is a budget decision, not a security one, and neither was built for a world run by AI agents,” said Atad Peled, Partner at Red Dot Capital Partners. “The team behind Mave saw that before anyone else, and built around it – decouple the security work from the data layer, and you close the gap between what teams can collect and what they can act on, getting smarter with every system added.”

Fortune 50 companies and global MSSPs are using Mave to reinvent major components of their security operations and protect hundreds of customers. Mave also operates in highly regulated financial and healthcare environments, where security teams trust the company to investigate and contain incidents. Mave has served as the last line of defense in multiple live attacks, isolating systems, disabling compromised identities, and blocking malicious activity before they became breaches.

Mave is already closing 7-figures deals, growing its ARR more than 400% over the last year. Mave’s platform is generally available today – https://www.mave.com/platform.

About Mave

Founded in 2025 by cyber veterans Raziel Oren and Guy Eshel, Mave is building the agentic defense system for the modern enterprise. Raziel, an ex-8200 Captain, previously led go-to-market at Wing Security, while Guy, an ex-8200 Major, was the first employee and later VP of R&D at Alterya prior to its acquisition by Chainalysis. Mave has grown to more than 30 employees and plans to continue expanding its team following this funding round, with hiring focused on go-to-market and AI research.

Learn more at: mave.com 

Media Contact

[email protected] 

SOURCE Mave

Round led by Thomvest Ventures, with new investors Intuit Ventures and Small World Capital

NEW YORK, Oct. 22, 2026 — Coast, the financial platform built for the physical economy, today announced it has raised $35 million in new growth equity funding. The round was led by Thomvest Ventures and joined by new investors Intuit Ventures, Small World Capital, and Alpha Square Group, with participation from existing investors ICONIQ Growth, Accel, Insight Partners, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Avid Ventures, Vintage Investment Partners, Colle Capital, Synchrony, RXR, and The Fintech Fund.

The funding will expand Coast into a broader financial operating system for the physical economy. Coast will use the proceeds to reach more customers and to invest in AI-powered expense automation, new Bill Pay and Accounts Payable products, and embedded partnerships with the fleet and field service platforms its customers already use.

The AI data center boom is pulling construction, HVAC, electrical, utility, and transportation into overdrive. Job postings for HVAC engineers have risen nearly 78% since 2022, and openings for electricians, welders, and construction specialists are up 30%. As these industries grow, their businesses are getting more complex. But the tools they rely on haven’t evolved. Most are still forced to piece together generic corporate cards, banking, and fleet tools that weren’t designed for how they operate.

Coast is the financial platform built for the physical economy: construction, HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, electrical, pest control, solar, transportation, energy, oil and gas, utilities, and more. The company started with America’s top-rated fuel card, then expanded into corporate cards, expense management, and bill pay, all designed for how these businesses actually operate.

“The millions of field businesses that keep the physical economy running still lack a financial platform built around the way they work,” said Daniel Simon, Founder and CEO of Coast. “Coast is that platform. We’re excited to deepen our partnership with Thomvest, who first backed Coast in 2024, and to welcome Intuit Ventures, a deep integration partner that’s a critical part of so many of our customers’ businesses as they grow.”

Coast’s industry focus gives customers controls and data that go far beyond a typical corporate card: vehicle- and driver-level visibility, telematics-enabled controls, fuel grade and gallon-level detail, job costing, and payments for trade-specific workflows and fuel, field, supplies, and office needs. That depth extends to accounting, with integrations that automate reconciliation and coding for finance teams. Taken together, the Coast platform saves a customer tens of thousands of dollars and weeks of work that could instead be spent growing their business.

“The physical economy has been underserved by financial software for decades, and Coast is changing that with a platform that brings payments and credit controls into the workflows that businesses already use,” said Don Butler, Managing Director at Thomvest Ventures. “We believe that software that acts as a control plane for payments and credit, embedded in the workflows of vertical industries, is one of the most important shifts happening in financial services. Coast is a clear leader on both fronts.”

Coast steers drivers to the fueling and purchase options that are most efficient for the company, with approvals and reconciliation running automatically through the systems each customer already relies on. New Bill Pay and Accounts Payable products bring vendor invoices onto the same platform as card spend, giving customers one view of all outgoing money and marking the first step toward a full financial services suite for physical economy businesses. Through partnerships with telematics, fleet management, and field service providers like Samsara and Fleetio, operators can use vehicle location, driver identity, and odometer data to catch an off-route fuel purchase or shut off a card without leaving the software they use to run the fleet.

About Coast

Coast is the financial platform built for the physical economy, serving businesses in construction, HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, electrical, pest control, solar, transportation, energy, oil and gas, utilities, and more. Starting with America’s top-rated fuel card, Coast offers corporate cards, expense management, Bill Pay, and Accounts Payable products designed for how field businesses operate, with vehicle- and driver-level controls, job costing, and accounting integrations. Coast is backed by ICONIQ Growth, Accel, Insight Partners, BoxGroup, Avid Ventures, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Thomvest Ventures, Vesey Ventures, Intuit Ventures, Synchrony, Small World Capital, Alpha Square Group and others. Learn more at https://coastpay.com/.

Media Contact
[email protected]

SOURCE Coast

Rally Ventures and Skyward Group co-led the round with participation from additional P&C industry veterans to unlock the untapped, high-growth embedded market

MINNEAPOLIS, Oct. 22, 2026 — Slingshot Insurance, the AI-native insurance company built for the embedded economy, today emerged from stealth with $27 million in seed financing co-led by Rally Ventures and Skyward Group. Several P&C industry veterans also participated in the oversubscribed round, including Jim Hays, who will join the company’s Board of Directors.

Embedded insurance is emerging as one of the fastest-growing segments of the P&C market. Industry forecasts suggest it could grow from roughly 3% of global P&C premiums today to nearly 20% over the next decade, significantly outpacing the broader market. Slingshot, co-founded by Rally Ventures and Ethan Genteman, former Chief Actuarial Officer at Palomar Holdings, is purpose-built to help those serving the embedded insurance market, including industry vertical software platforms, managing general agents (MGAs), and insurance distributors, capitalize on that shift. The platform gives them the technology, capacity, and speed to launch and scale insurance products for niche and rapidly evolving embedded opportunities, such as amateur sports, travel, and the gig- and independent-work economy.

“Traditional carrier infrastructure wasn’t built for embedded insurance’s risk and economic model. Embedded products tend to be higher-frequency, lower-severity risks, often with smaller premiums, while incumbent systems and operating models carry fixed costs designed for a much different market,” said Ethan Genteman, co-founder and CEO of Slingshot. “Our infrastructure changes those economics by dramatically lowering the cost of administering policies and accessing capital. That makes products viable that historically were not, creating value for customers and capital providers while opening up entirely new embedded insurance opportunities.”

Slingshot has developed an AI-native infrastructure designed for the unique demands of the embedded insurance market. High-volume products create transaction and data complexity that traditional spreadsheets, email, and disconnected legacy systems were never designed to manage efficiently. Slingshot replaces that patchwork with a single integrated system that uses AI to automate complex workflows and APIs to connect seamlessly with MGAs, distribution platforms, and capital providers. The result is infrastructure designed to operate embedded products profitably and at scale. Every decision is auditable, reconcilable, and explainable, giving MGAs and capital providers greater transparency, speed, and insight.

Rally Ventures co-founded Slingshot alongside Genteman, betting early on embedded insurance as a large and fast-emerging market. “The real growth opportunity in insurance today is in the small, everyday policy sold right at checkout,” said Justin Kaufenberg, managing director at Rally Ventures. “We built Slingshot to provide MGAs and others serving the embedded market with the infrastructure to launch new products at a speed that simply has not been possible before.”

Vertical Insure, an embedded insurance MGA serving 750,000+ customers at a $25 average premium, signed on as an early customer and design partner because it needed faster, technology-enabled carrier support.

“We can design the products our customers need almost overnight, but the industry is highly regulated, and we need delegated authority just to write and distribute what we’ve built. The antiquated approval process on the carrier-side slows everything down,” said Brock Noland, co-founder and CEO of Vertical Insure. “Our business really comes down to technology and good data – traditionally, carriers haven’t had either, and that’s exactly what Slingshot brings to the table.”

Those serving the embedded insurance market can learn more about Slingshot at www.slingshotinsurance.com.

About Slingshot Insurance

Slingshot Insurance is an AI-native insurance company built for the embedded economy. For managing general agents (MGAs) and others looking to capitalize on the fast-growing embedded insurance market, Slingshot provides the infrastructure to replace the fragmented legacy tools and inefficient processes that have historically hindered innovation in higher-frequency, lower-severity insurance products.

The AI-native platform automates complex, data-heavy workflows while ensuring every decision is fully auditable, reconcilable, and explainable, providing the transparency and speed required to operate embedded products profitably and at scale across emerging markets such as travel, amateur sports, and the gig economy.

For more information, visit www.slingshotinsurance.com.

SOURCE Slingshot

With more than 400 therapists credentialed across the country, working in tandem with the company’s 800+ full-time psychiatrists, Talkiatry spans more than 100 insurers, covers over 170 million lives, and has delivered over 4 million patient visits

NEW YORK, Oct. 22, 2026 — Talkiatry, the nation’s largest private employer of psychiatrists and the preferred in-network psychiatry partner for more than 70 U.S. health systems, today announced that its therapy services are now available in all 50 states. The company now directly employs over 400 therapists, 85% of whom are licensed in multiple states, enabling consistent access to care for Talkiatry’s more than 170 million covered lives nationwide. Following Talkiatry’s partnership with AMGA (American Medical Group Association) to expand access to in-network psychiatric care nationwide and the company’s $210M Series D funding round earlier this year, this expansion marks the next step toward Talkiatry’s vision of providing comprehensive behavioral health care across the acuity spectrum, from low to high.

“Telehealth made mental healthcare more accessible almost overnight, but it also created a patchwork of quick fixes,” said Dr. Georgia Gaveras, co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Talkiatry. “Multistate licensure has become a moving target since the pandemic, and it’s created real inconsistency for patients who move, travel, or live near a state line. What patients need is centralized, high-quality care across the full spectrum of mental healthcare – psychiatrists and therapists working collaboratively, leading to the best care outcomes possible. This expansion of our therapy offering nationwide enables a more coordinated behavioral health experience for patients and clinicians.”

Fragmented care remains one of the biggest barriers to effective mental healthcare. Nationally, only around 50% of the nearly 60 million adults with a mental illness receive treatment in a given year. In the U.S., the average wait time to receive behavioral health services is 48 days. For patients who do receive care, many see a therapist and psychiatrist through separate provider networks, with little to no communication between the two. Talkiatry’s model is designed to close that gap, with therapy utilized as a targeted tool psychiatrists and care teams can leverage alongside medication management to support patients in improving mental health outcomes.

Talkiatry has demonstrated the impact of this model. Patients who see both a Talkiatry therapist and psychiatrist maintain their connection to care two times longer than those receiving psychiatric care alone. Additionally, nearly 85% of Talkiatry therapists build a positive therapeutic relationship with their patients within the first month of care, based on the company’s clinical quality measurement.

Talkiatry’s approach is designed to deliver a more connected care experience by bringing psychiatry and therapy together under one coordinated care team. The company has now delivered 4 million visits, surpassing the 3 million mark announced earlier this year. With this continued momentum, Talkiatry is making a broader range of mental health services available to every patient throughout their mental health journey.

“Patients often come to us after bouncing between a therapist and a psychiatrist who’ve never spoken. That disconnect is where care falls through the cracks,” said David Guggenheim, National Director of Psychotherapy at Talkiatry. “Being able to expand our coordinated model into therapy nationwide means offering every patient a consistent care experience from the start of their mental health journey.”

Talkiatry’s therapy expansion applies the same full-time clinician model that has allowed the company to become the nation’s largest private employer of psychiatrists. By employing clinicians full-time, Talkiatry empowers providers to build meaningful, long-term relationships with patients, while fostering greater continuity and collaboration across care teams. This approach has solidified Talkiatry as a trusted partner for health systems, payers, and referring physicians across the care continuum.

To learn more about Talkiatry’s therapy services, visit talkiatry.com.

About Talkiatry

Talkiatry is a full-stack provider group delivering in-network psychiatric and therapy care across the United States. The company directly employs more than 800 full-time psychiatrists, making it the largest private employer of psychiatrists in the country, and has delivered 4 million patient visits to date. Talkiatry serves as the preferred psychiatry partner for health systems, payers, and employers seeking dependable access and superior outcomes. The company’s care model is underpinned by proprietary AI-powered technology to manage care delivery, streamline clinical operations, and engage members. Talkiatry was co-founded by Robert Krayn and Georgia Gaveras, DO.

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SOURCE Talkiatry