Most of America’s roads, utility poles, and power lines were designed to last 50 years. That was 70 years ago. There has never been more to build and rebuild.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 21, 2026 — Mach9, the AI CAD software for civil engineering, today announced a $34 million Series A co-led by First Round Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Prudence and continued participation from Quiet Capital. The new financing brings Mach9’s total funding to $49 million. The company will use the capital to expand its AI software for surveying and civil engineering as America faces a growing need to rebuild and maintain aging infrastructure.

Much of America’s infrastructure was built in a single generation, designed to last 50 years. That was 70 years ago. Today, roads, utility poles and power lines across the country are reaching the end of their intended lives. In response, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocated $1.2 trillion to rebuild and repair these critical systems. But before engineers can build what’s next, they need an accurate blueprint of what’s already there.

Creating that initial blueprint is the job of survey teams, and it’s one of the first bottlenecks in nearly every infrastructure project. Advances in LiDAR mean teams can scan miles of roadway in a day, but turning those scans into engineering drawings remains manual and can take weeks or months. And there are fewer people to do the work, with resident surveying licenses down 24% between 2011 and 2025.

Mach9 is AI CAD software for civil engineering that turns reality capture data into digital blueprints up to 10x faster at one-fifth the cost. Civil engineering and surveying teams upload 3D scans of roads, utilities and construction sites collected with the equipment they already use. Mach9 then automatically drafts physical features like curbs, signs, poles, lane markings and wires with centimeter-level accuracy. Surveyors and engineers review, refine and finalize the drawings using Mach9’s editing tools.

“We need to rebuild aging roads and utilities while expanding the power, transportation and communications networks people will rely on for decades to come,” said Alex Baikovitz, co-founder and CEO of Mach9. “We’re expanding the world’s capacity to build and maintain the infrastructure that people depend on.”

Mach9 was founded by Baikovitz, Haowen Shi, Michael Mong and Zach Sussman after meeting at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute. They previously worked on systems that perceive and navigate the physical world at Tesla, SpaceX, Apple, NASA and Google X.

Engineering teams have now used Mach9 across more than 2,500 projects in all 50 states, surveying over 100,000 miles of infrastructure corridors — enough to cross the continental United States roughly 35 times. Its customers include civil engineering firms WSP, HNTB and NV5 and transportation agencies such as Caltrans, Minnesota DOT and the Maryland State Highway Administration.

On Interstate 8 in San Diego, Caltrans is using Mach9 to inventory rumble strips and other road-safety features, helping engineers identify gaps and plan improvements. In San Francisco, Kier + Wright is using Mach9 to increase pedestrian safety around schools. In Louisiana, Fibersmith is using Mach9 to help connect 125,000 homes and businesses that lacked high-speed internet.

“There are 4.2 million miles of public roads in the U.S. alone, before you count the power lines, fiber networks, railways and other infrastructure we rely on every day,” said Bill Trenchard, Partner at First Round Capital. “Mach9 is building the software layer that will turn our physical world into information engineers can understand and act on. It will become a foundational tool for how our country’s infrastructure gets built and maintained.”

“AI is creating the opportunity for a new generation of CAD software. Just as software transformed construction, AI CAD will transform how infrastructure is surveyed, designed, built and operated. Mach9 can become the platform that brings civil engineering into the AI era,” said Caty Rea, Vice President at Bessemer Venture Partners. Rea led Bessemer’s investment in Mach9 with Brian Feinstein, who previously led the firm’s investment in Procore, one of the biggest successes in the architecture, engineering, and construction market over the past decade.

“Demand for infrastructure work keeps growing, but experienced engineering and surveying talent is finite,” said Rob Ashley, HDLS Technology Director at Pennoni. “Mach9 enables us to do 50% more work with the same experienced team. That means we can take on projects we otherwise wouldn’t have the capacity to deliver.”

About Mach9

Mach9 is the AI CAD platform for civil engineering, built to expand the world’s capacity to build and maintain critical infrastructure. Its software turns 3D scans into engineering-ready CAD drawings, helping teams work up to 10x faster and at one-fifth the cost. Mach9 has been used across more than 2,500 projects in all 50 states, surveying over 100,000 miles of infrastructure. Founded by engineers from Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute who built systems for the physical world at Tesla, SpaceX, Apple, NASA and Google X, Mach9 is headquartered in San Francisco. Learn more at mach9.ai.

David Huang, Mach9, [email protected]

SOURCE Mach9

Strategic engagement strengthens CXC Horizon Fund’s financial leadership, operational oversight and institutional infrastructure.

HOLLYWOOD, Fla., Oct. 21, 2026 — CXC Investments, LLC, investment manager of CXC Horizon Fund, LP, today announced the engagement of Silver Fern Financial LLC as its outsourced Chief Financial Officer partner, marking a strategic investment in the Fund’s financial and operational infrastructure as the firm continues to grow.

Through the engagement, Silver Fern Financial will work alongside CXC’s management team and existing service providers, bringing senior financial leadership and specialized alternative investment management expertise to support the Fund’s ongoing operations and long-term development.

Founded by William Bruce, CA, CFA, Silver Fern Financial is a boutique financial and operational services firm serving hedge funds, private equity firms and other alternative investment managers. Bruce brings nearly three decades of industry experience, including senior CFO and CCO leadership positions at investment management firms, as well as earlier roles at Goldman Sachs and Ernst & Young. His experience encompasses building institutional operating infrastructure, financial reporting, fund administration oversight, regulatory compliance and operational due diligence.

“As CXC Horizon grows, we’re strengthening the financial and operational foundation supporting the Fund,” said Benjamin Cohen, Founder and Managing Partner of CXC Investments. “Silver Fern brings experienced financial leadership to work alongside our team and existing service providers.”

“We’re excited to partner with Benjamin and CXC Horizon as they continue building the firm,” said William Bruce. “Having spent much of my career building and managing the financial and operational infrastructure of investment firms, I understand the importance of establishing a strong foundation early. We look forward to working alongside CXC’s leadership, bringing experienced financial oversight and practical operational expertise to support the firm’s continued development.”

CXC Horizon Fund launched in July 2025 and employs a fundamental, valuation-driven long/short equity strategy. The Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation by identifying undervalued companies with high barriers to entry and durable competitive advantages, maintaining flexibility across sectors and market capitalizations while emphasizing disciplined risk management.

About CXC Investments

CXC Investments, LLC is a Miami-area investment management firm founded by Benjamin Cohen. The firm manages CXC Horizon Fund, LP, a long/short equity fund focused on fundamental research, valuation discipline and high-conviction investment opportunities across sectors and market capitalizations.

For more information, contact [email protected].

About Silver Fern Financial

Silver Fern Financial LLC is a boutique financial and operational services firm providing outsourced CFO, COO, CCO, Cayman Directorships, and related operational support to hedge funds, private equity firms and alternative investment managers.

Founded by William Bruce, CA, CFA, the firm brings senior-level financial and operational expertise to investment management businesses through an integrated, hands-on partnership model.

For more information, visit www.silverfernfinancial.com.

Disclaimer

This press release is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation with respect to any investment vehicle or strategy managed by CXC Investments, LLC (the “Adviser”). Nothing contained herein should be construed as investment advice.  

Any investment in the Fund involves significant risks, including but not limited to market risk, liquidity risk, and the risks inherent in a concentrated long/short equity strategy. Prospective investors should review the Fund’s offering documents, including the Private Placement Memorandum, for a complete description of risks, fees, and other material terms prior to making any investment decision.

SOURCE CXC Investments, LLC

Proven software finance leader joins as Wiser advances its AI-powered competitive intelligence platform and pursues ambitious growth strategy

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 21, 2026 — Wiser Solutions, a leading competitive intelligence platform trusted by brands and retailers globally, today announced the appointment of Rick Buffington as Chief Financial Officer. Buffington joins Wiser at a pivotal point in the company’s evolution, following a comprehensive business transformation that has strengthened its operating foundation and positioned the company to pursue a new phase of growth, innovation and market leadership.

Buffington brings extensive financial and operational leadership experience across enterprise software and technology companies. Most recently, he served in a senior finance leadership role at MultiTracks.com, where he helped guide the business through a period of change and significant expansion. His previous experience includes leadership roles at Accruent and Community Brands, where he developed deep expertise in scaling software businesses, building high-performing finance organizations and driving operational performance.

“We’ve fundamentally transformed Wiser over the past year, and we’re entering our next chapter with a much stronger foundation and a clear ambition to lead the evolution of competitive intelligence,” said Michael Richards, Chief Executive Officer of Wiser Solutions. “The opportunity ahead is significant. Advances in AI are changing what’s possible in how competitive data is collected, connected and turned into actionable intelligence, and Wiser is exceptionally well positioned to capitalize on that shift. Rick has proven he can help scale recurring revenue businesses while building the financial and operational discipline needed to sustain that growth. He’s exactly the kind of leader we want helping shape and execute our strategy.”

Wiser is accelerating the development of its next-generation competitive intelligence platform by combining its extensive global data infrastructure with increasingly sophisticated AI capabilities. The company is fundamentally changing how competitive information is collected and delivered, enabling brands and retailers to respond faster to market developments and make better commercial decisions. With a more efficient operating model and a sharper strategic focus, Wiser is positioned to capitalize on growing demand for accurate, actionable competitive intelligence at scale.

“Wiser has a tremendous opportunity to redefine how brands and retailers use competitive intelligence to drive business performance,” said Buffington. “The company has made significant progress in building a more focused and scalable business, and its combination of data assets, technology and customer relationships creates a powerful foundation for growth. I’m excited to partner with Mike and the leadership team to realize that potential and build a business that delivers sustained value to customers and stakeholders.”

As CFO, Buffington will lead Wiser’s global finance organization and serve as a key strategic partner to the CEO and executive leadership team. His priorities will include strengthening financial and operational performance, supporting strategic investments in technology and go-to-market capabilities, and building the financial infrastructure to support Wiser’s long-term growth ambitions.

About Wiser Solutions

Wiser is the competitive intelligence platform brands and retailers trust to win more sales, starting where it matters most: Price. Its intelligence spans pricing, promotions, shipping, availability, ratings, reviews and market execution, giving customers a comprehensive view of the competitive landscape and the tools to act with confidence. Powered by advanced AI and a global data infrastructure, Wiser helps businesses make smarter decisions, respond faster to market changes and deliver stronger commercial outcomes.

For more information, visit www.wiser.com.

SOURCE Wiser Solutions, Inc.

Company’s ARR grew 17x since January, with more than 10,000 startups and enterprise companies running builds and tests on its platform.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 21, 2026 — Blacksmith, the infrastructure platform for building and testing code, today announced a $66M Series C led by Sequoia Capital at a $1 billion valuation, with participation from Premji Invest and existing investors Peak XV Partners, GV and Y Combinator. The round brings Blacksmith’s total funding to $125 million and will enable the company to grow its team and expand its compute footprint.

For years, writing code was the slow part of shipping software. With AI coding agents now producing a large and growing share of the world’s code, the burden has changed from writing code to validating it. Every change still has to be built and tested before it can be merged, a step known as continuous integration, or CI.

Most companies run CI on general-purpose cloud infrastructure that was never designed for it. As developers push more code, teams hit longer waits for compute, slower builds on older-generation CPUs, and a constant fight between over- and under-provisioning. Anthropic reported last month that its own CI volume grew 25x in six months as Claude took over most of its code output.

“Since Claude Code took off in March, almost every conversation we’ve had with a large engineering team has started the same way. Developers who used to push three or four pull requests a day are now pushing orders of magnitude more and their CI infrastructure can’t keep up. We’re grateful to our customers who are trusting us to solve this bottleneck, and excited to partner with Sequoia to solve it at scale,” said Aditya “JP” Jayaprakash, co-founder and CEO of Blacksmith.

CI is the most variable workload a company runs: a single customer’s demand regularly jumps from zero to tens of thousands of CPUs and back again. Blacksmith has designed every part of its infrastructure stack to absorb those spikes as a matter of routine. Customers switch with a one-line change to their workflow file and never provision, scale or maintain their CI infrastructure again. Developers using Blacksmith see their CI jobs complete twice as fast and at 60% lower cost on average, with zero operational overhead. Since January, the number of CI jobs running on Blacksmith each week has grown from 5 million to more than 90 million, and annual recurring revenue has grown 17x.

“JP and team understood early that as AI agents wrote more code, the infrastructure to build and test it would need to change,” said Isaiah Boone, Partner at Sequoia Capital. “What stood out to us was their deep systems expertise and speed of execution. That has translated into a product that helps their customers test and ship their software faster. We believe that foundation gives Blacksmith room to build much more as the demands of software development change.”

Blacksmith was founded in 2024 by Jayaprakash, Aayush Shah and Aditya Maru, who met as undergraduates at the University of Waterloo. Shah and Maru were early engineers at Cockroach Labs, and Jayaprakash was an engineer at Faire. All three are developers who have run spiky, large-scale infrastructure before, and they built Blacksmith on the bet that testing code, not writing it, would become the constraint on shipping software.

More than 10,000 companies, including Ashby, Granola, Handshake and LangChain, now run their CI on Blacksmith. The company manages nearly 10 MW of compute across data centers in the United States and Europe and is on track to grow that footprint at least 5x in 2027.

“Blacksmith has significantly reduced the burden of managing our CI runners while cutting our runner costs by roughly 40%, and that doesn’t even account for the engineering time we’ve saved,” said Joaquin Borggio, Infrastructure Engineer at LangChain.

To learn more or move your CI to Blacksmith, visit blacksmith.sh. Blacksmith is hiring engineers in New York and San Francisco at blacksmith.sh/careers. Follow Blacksmith on LinkedIn and X.

About Blacksmith

Blacksmith is the infrastructure platform for building and testing code. Companies bring Blacksmith their builds and tests, and Blacksmith runs them twice as fast and at 60% lower cost on average, on infrastructure purpose-built for CI workloads. More than 10,000 companies, including Ashby, Granola, Handshake and LangChain, run their CI on Blacksmith. The company was founded in 2024 by Aditya (JP) Jayaprakash, Aayush Shah and Aditya Maru and is backed by Sequoia Capital, Premji Invest, Peak XV Partners, GV and Y Combinator. For more information, visit blacksmith.sh.

SOURCE Blacksmith

Northwind’s new flagship real estate credit fund doubles its $500 million target while adding new institutional investors amid strong demand for durable, income-oriented real estate credit

NEW YORK, Oct. 21, 2026 — Northwind Group (“Northwind”), a New York-based real estate private equity and debt fund manager, today announced the final close of Northwind Debt Fund III (“NDF III” or the “Fund”) with $1 billion in committed capital, doubling its $500 million target and making it the largest fund in Northwind’s history.

NDF III continues Northwind’s flagship real estate credit strategy, which the firm launched in 2017. The Fund primarily originates senior-secured bridge loans across major U.S. gateway markets, with a focus on acquisition, bridge, condo inventory, construction, office-to-residential conversions, pre-development, lease-up and other specialized financing solutions.

The successful capital raise reflects the depth of Northwind’s existing investor base and its growing institutional presence. Many of Northwind’s longstanding investors returned to NDF III with increased commitments, and the Fund welcomed a significant number of new institutional investors. NDF III’s investor base includes leading pension funds, insurance companies, banks, family offices and ultra-high-net-worth individuals, both domestic and international. NDF III is designed to generate consistent current income for investors through senior-secured floating-rate loans structured to prioritize capital preservation and backed by high-quality real estate and sponsors in supply-constrained markets.

The strength of the raise also reflects investors’ growing appetite for durable, asset-backed credit strategies with strong downside protection. As banks continue to pull back from transitional, construction and bridge lending amid heightened regulatory capital requirements and balance sheet constraints, borrowers are increasingly turning to private lenders that can provide reliable capital and certainty of execution. Northwind views this shift as structural rather than cyclical and expects demand for its lending solutions to remain strong for years to come.

NDF III is Northwind’s third real estate debt fund and fifth credit fund overall, building on the successful deployment of its predecessor funds and a track record of more than $11 billion in transaction volume across all Northwind vehicles. Since holding its first close in January 2025, the Fund has already originated $1.5 billion in loans across markets including New York City, South Florida, Los Angeles and Chicago. Notable investments include: (i) a $401 million senior completion-to-condo inventory loan for the Ritz-Carlton-branded residences in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, (ii) a $208 million first mortgage construction loan for an office-to-residential conversion in Downtown Brooklyn, (iii) a $180 million acquisition loan, including a future good-news funding facility, secured by a 55-story, Class A office tower with 1,700 parking spaces in the Bunker Hill submarket of Los Angeles, and (iv) a $98 million senior loan for the acquisition and pre-development of an existing condominium building in the South Beach submarket of Miami Beach, Florida, which will ultimately be demolished and redeveloped into a 100-unit luxury residential condo building.

“The final close of NDF III is a defining milestone for Northwind and a strong endorsement of our growing credit platform,” said Ran Eliasaf, Founder and Managing Partner of Northwind Group. “We are grateful to our longstanding investors for their continued support and proud to welcome a new group of partners. I’m especially proud that we completed this capital raise entirely in-house, without the use of a third-party placement agent. We believe the current environment presents one of the most attractive lending opportunities we have seen, and NDF III positions us to capitalize on it on a greater scale than ever before. Sponsors increasingly look to Northwind as a dependable source of capital, and NDF III allows us to meet that demand while staying true to our disciplined investment philosophy. Our ability to underwrite complex situations, from condo inventory to office-to-residential conversions, and to close with speed and certainty is what continues to set us apart.”

“Demand for flexible, reliable bridge capital remains strong in New York City and other supply-constrained markets across the U.S., as sponsors navigate a shifting interest rate environment and a wave of upcoming loan maturities,” said Michael Ainbinder, Partner and Head of Commercial Real Estate Credit at Northwind Group. “The market dislocation we’ve seen over the past several years has fundamentally changed the role private lenders play in commercial real estate finance. With NDF III, we have greater capacity to step into that gap, support high-quality sponsors and capitalize on opportunities where complexity and speed matter. We believe this is an especially compelling time to be deploying capital in real estate credit.”

About Northwind Group
Founded in 2008 by Ran Eliasaf, Northwind Group is a New York-based real estate private equity and credit fund manager. In 2017, Northwind launched its real estate credit platform, providing senior bridge financing secured by residential and commercial properties in major U.S. gateway markets. Through its healthcare credit platform, Northwind provides structured financing and bridge-to-HUD loans secured by income-producing portfolios of skilled nursing and senior living properties. Across its strategies, Northwind has transacted on more than $11 billion in real estate debt and equity investments. For more information, visit www.northwind-group.com.

Media Contact
5WPR for Northwind Group
[email protected]

This press release is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any interest in any fund managed by Northwind Group or its affiliates.

SOURCE Northwind Group

The fresh capital comes at a pivotal moment for venture. Companies are staying private longer, and more of their value is being created before the public markets ever see it. Meanwhile, AI is accelerating innovation, helping create a new generation of high-growth technology companies that are reaching significant scale while remaining private. Capital is also concentrating at the very top of venture. According to the Q2 2026 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, just three firms accounted for nearly half of all venture capital raised in the first half of 2026. As capital concentrates among a relatively small number of firms, access becomes increasingly difficult to earn, and Vintage has spent more than two decades earning its place within that ecosystem.

“More value is being created in private markets, over shorter timelines, than at any point in the history of venture,” said Asaf Horesh, Co-Managing Partner. “In a moment like this, one thing hasn’t changed, it’s only become more decisive: many of the most successful founders continue to partner with a relatively small group of highly sought-after venture managers. That is exactly where we invest, and earning a seat with them is the hardest, most important work we do. With more than $1.1 billion raised over the past three years across primary, secondary and co-investment strategies, we can support fund managers, companies and investors in more ways, while helping address the growing demand for liquidity across the venture ecosystem.”

Focused exclusively on venture and with offices in Tel Aviv, London, and New York, Vintage has built long-standing relationships with many of the venture ecosystem’s most sought-after managers in the U.S., Europe and Israel, while developing proprietary data and insights across thousands of venture funds and companies it tracks. The raise also marks another step for Vintage, as alongside current partners Asaf Horesh, Abe Finkelstein, Amit Frenkel, Iren Reznikov and Leyla Holterud, the firm has promoted Tzlil Kovetz to Partner, recognizing her progression from Associate to Partner and reflecting her contributions across the investment platform for the last five plus years. In addition, Ilan Leiferman, Vintage’s Chief Value Officer was also promoted to Partner. Ilan leads Value+, Vintage’s value creation platform, which connects portfolio companies with global enterprises from our network of hundreds, and has helped generate hundreds of millions of dollars in commercial opportunities across the firm’s ecosystem. Vintage also recently appointed Brachie Sprung as Chief Investor Relations Officer, bringing two decades of global experience across venture capital, fundraising, investor relations and strategic communications.

“We are deeply grateful to our LPs for the trust they continue to place in Vintage,” said Abe Finkelstein, Co-Managing Partner. “We never assume our place in the room; we earn it, by doing the work, holding a very high bar for how and where we invest, and putting years of relationships and market understanding to work for our investors. In a market like this, that discipline matters more than it ever has. The promotions of Tzlil Kovetz and Ilan Leiferman to Partner, and the appointment of Brachie Sprung as Chief Investor Relations Officer, reflect our commitment to building a multi-generational institution and strengthening the team that will help lead Vintage’s next chapter.”

About Vintage Investment Partners

Vintage Investment Partners is a global venture capital platform managing $4.8 billion and focused exclusively on venture. We invest in venture funds and venture-backed companies through long-standing relationships with many of the venture ecosystem’s most sought-after managers. Our Fund of Funds, Secondaries, and Growth investment strategies provide multiple access points across the venture market, bringing together deep relationships, proprietary data, and signals from enterprise demand. Value+ puts that platform to work, connecting the companies and managers we back with a network of more than 650 leading enterprises.

Past investment experience, manager relationships, fundraising success and portfolio company outcomes are not indicative of future results.

Disclaimer: This communication is provided for informational purposes only. Any statements regarding market opportunities, investment strategies, industry positioning, portfolio companies, manager relationships, or future prospects reflect current views and are subject to change. Past experience and achievements are not indicative of future results. Additionally, the views and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the Firm and do not constitute a guarantee of future results or performance.

SOURCE Vintage Investment Partners

New real-time, high-performance index engine enables marketplaces to quickly launch and evolve indices supporting emerging asset classes and new investment products.

STOCKHOLM, Oct. 21, 2026 — Vermiculus, a global independent provider of market infrastructure technology, has today launched VeriIndex, a real-time index engine that lets exchanges and marketplaces launch, run, and grow index offerings built around their own markets. As demand shifts towards more specialized indices, VeriIndex gives index operators the speed to bring new indices to market and the flexibility to extend into new asset classes.

The Vermiculus index engine brings index calculation, corporate-action processing and approved index changes together in a single system. At launch, it supports price-return and total-return indices.

Key capabilities include:

• Real-time calculation: the index calculator continuously calculates and publishes index values based on live market activity, distributed through standardized export interfaces.
• Next-business-day simulation: operators can preview the impact of scheduled corporate and index actions, and correct them, before the changes take effect.
• Extensible framework: configurable index administration, with support for adding new calculation and adjustment methodologies, instrument coverage and pricing capabilities.

“For index operators, control matters as much as speed. VeriIndex gives them direct control of day-to-day index operations, the ability to test changes before they go live, and a platform that can grow with their index offering,” says Fredrik Ohlsson, Senior Index Specialist at Vermiculus.

“The index market is evolving rapidly. Demand is moving beyond traditional flagship indices towards a much broader range of specialized index products, fueled by new investment products, emerging asset classes such as prediction markets, tokenized assets and perpetuals, and changing market needs. VeriIndex is our answer to that shift. Combined with our modular technology and unique delivery model, it allows us to respond quickly to market changes and turn new needs into new solutions,” says Henrik Rouet-Leduc, Deputy CEO of Vermiculus.

The index system is natively integrated with the VeriTrade™ exchange trading system. It can also be deployed on its own and integrated with other trading and post-trade systems. This launch further expands Vermiculus’ portfolio of cloud-native market infrastructure systems supporting trading, clearing, post-trade processing, and CSD operations.

About Vermiculus
About Vermiculus Vermiculus Financial Technology AB provides best-in-class trading, clearing, and CSD solutions to market participants around the world. Vermiculus’ solutions are the first to bring state-of-the-art advances in dynamic microservice architecture together with vast experience in clearing house, exchange, and CSD business requirements.

The company started its operation in 2020 and is founded by industry experts with the incentive to revolutionize the technology of exchanges, clearing houses, and CSDs. With its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Vermiculus consists of hand-picked teams, trained to deliver mission-critical solutions. Learn more at www.vermiculus.se

For further information, please contact:
Amelie Hedenstierna – PR & Communications 
Vermiculus Financial Technology
Tel +46-(0)73 622 24 54
[email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/vermiculusft/r/vermiculus-launches-veriindex–a-real-time-index-engine-for-the-next-wave-of-specialized-indices,c4411809

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CHICAGO, Oct. 21, 2026 — WayUp, the job search and recruiting marketplace built exclusively for college students and early-career job seekers, today announced the launch of its redesigned mobile app for iOS and Android. The app sends real-time alerts the moment a followed company posts a new internship or entry-level role, and lets candidates apply using the resume, education, and experience already saved to their WayUp profile, removing the need to rebuild an application from scratch for every role.

The launch comes as the market for early-career hires has tightened measurably: recent-college-graduate unemployment reached roughly 5.6% in the second quarter of 2026, among the highest readings in a decade outside the pandemic, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. With fewer no-experience entry-level openings available and employers moving quickly once applications start arriving, how fast a candidate sees and acts on a posting has become a meaningful factor in getting noticed.

“Right now, nearly half of entry-level jobs that used to require zero experience have disappeared, and recent grad unemployment just hit its highest point in a decade outside the pandemic,” said Amy Farr-Jones, VP Growth at WayUp. “Students aren’t losing out because they’re not qualified—they’re losing out because they see the role three days too late. We built the new WayUp app so the moment a great entry-level role opens, the right person sees it first and can move on it immediately.”

The app is free to download and use, available now on the App Store and Google Play. Existing WayUp users can log in with their current account and keep their saved profile; new users can sign up directly in the app.

For more information, visit wayup.com.

About WayUp WayUp is a marketplace connecting college students and recent graduates with internships and entry-level jobs at companies ranging from startups to the Fortune 500. Candidates build a free profile and are matched to relevant openings, with employers able to reach out directly. WayUp also hosts Virtual Info Sessions connecting candidates with recruiters from companies including CVS Health, L’Oréal, and HSBC.

Media Contact:
Amy Farr-Jones
+61423947944
[email protected] 

SOURCE WayUp powered by Yello

NEW YORK, Oct. 21, 2026 — Braavo Capital, the leading non-dilutive financing platform for mobile apps and games, has committed more than $60 million to UA cohort financing facilities this year, building on over a decade of underwriting experience in the category.

Committed UA capacity

Braavo’s UA Cohort Financing facilities provide committed capital for monthly user acquisition spend. Companies draw as they spend, and Braavo is repaid from the revenue each cohort generates. Each advance is scoped to its own cohort rather than to company revenue or the balance sheet.

“The mechanics of cohort financing aren’t complicated. The harder part is understanding how a company can scale user acquisition, how its ROAS curves will evolve over time, and how much flexibility you can responsibly build into a facility,” said Mark Loranger, CEO of Braavo Capital. “Our experience lets us structure around a customer’s actual economics rather than starting with a predetermined template.”

Customer validation

Recent UA financing commitments include $15 million for the leading children’s tutoring app Buddy.ai, and $15 million for AI skincare app Lovi.

Buddy.ai has worked with Braavo since 2019 and completed six previous user acquisition financing transactions.

“Even when we considered alternatives for a larger cohort financing facility, Braavo still came out on top,” said Ivan Crewkov, CEO of Buddy.ai. “Seven years in, I know how they work and even what to expect if something doesn’t go to plan.”

“A committed facility means we can scale user acquisition without tying up equity to do it,” Crewkov added. “We know the terms, we know how the cohorts have to perform, and we can plan a year of user acquisition instead of a quarter. Equity goes into the product and the team.”

Since closing its facility in June, Lovi has already tripled its advertising spend.

“I was really impressed with Braavo’s analytical capabilities, the depth of their understanding of the subscription business, and how quickly they developed financing terms tailored to our specific needs,” said Alexey Shagraev, CEO of Lovi. “Their integration layer and experience meant they could move quickly as soon as they received our data. It was smooth sailing, and that gave me confidence that we were working with a partner who really understood our business.”

About Braavo Capital

Braavo Capital is a non-dilutive financing platform for mobile app companies, founded in New York City in 2015. Braavo has tracked more than $5 billion in app earnings across 10,000 apps and more than $1.5 billion in user acquisition spend.

Media Contact
Anna Butuzova, Marketing
[email protected] 

SOURCE Braavo Capital Inc.