S2G Investments Leads Round with Participation from Canada Growth Fund

CALGARY, AB and HOUSTON, Sept. 16, 2026 — Kanin Energy (Kanin) today announced it has raised up to $100 million (~C$138 million) in new equity financing, with S2G Investments (S2G) leading the round with a commitment of up to $50 million (~C$69 million), alongside a commitment of up to $50 million (~C$69 million) from Canada Growth Fund (CGF). The capital will directly support Kanin’s development, construction, and operation of waste heat to power (WHP) and other on-site power projects across heavy industry in Canada and the United States, expanding on a commercial pipeline that already includes an operating facility and several in construction facilities.

The financing marks a significant milestone for Kanin as it scales its innovative Energy-as-a-Service business model, allowing Kanin to finance, develop, build, and operate power assets for industrial operators, reducing their cost of power, improving power reliability, and reducing emissions. With an operating WHP project now supplying zero-emission electricity to the University of Dayton and a growing project pipeline across midstream and other industrial sectors, including the Mewbourn WHP Power Project in Weld County, Colorado, Kanin’s model is commercially proven. The company’s commercial portfolio includes ~50 MW of WHP projects in construction or operation.

“Kanin was built on the belief that industrial facilities already hold the solution to their own energy challenges, they just need the right partner to execute,” said Janice Tran, CEO of Kanin. “We are proud to partner with S2G and CGF, who share this vision. Their investments will allow more WHP and on-site power projects to get built. At a time when power costs continue to rise, these solutions are an important tool for our industrial customers to manage their costs, operations and emissions.”

“Rising power prices, grid congestion, and reliability constraints are pushing industrial companies to rethink how they source power. Waste heat has largely been an underused solution, but as these constraints persist, there’s a clear and growing incentive to capture it and put it to productive use,” said Marisa Sweeney, Principal at S2G. “We view this as a category with real staying power, and believe that Kanin’s team has the experience and discipline to meet this rising demand at scale.”

“Investing in scalable cleantech solutions strengthens Canada’s economy and helps create new, reliable power for heavy industries,” said Yannick Beaudoin, President and Chief Executive Officer of Canada Growth Fund Investment Management (CGFIM). “Kanin Energy’s waste heat to power solutions turn an already-wasted resource into reliable, cost-effective, clean electricity for industrial operators, and we’re pleased to back a Canadian company with a proven, commercially operating track record across North America.”

About the opportunity

The industrial sector generates enormous amounts of waste heat as a byproduct of normal operations that is continuously vented to the atmosphere at thousands of facilities across North America in oil & gas operations, cement plants, steel mills, and other metals & minerals production. Capturing this waste heat and creating power requires no additional fuel and produces no additional emissions. It is a valuable but wasted resource that can offer a solution at a time when industrial facilities are finding ways to reduce their power costs and emissions.

Up to 58% of energy consumed in industrial processes is lost as waste heat. Kanin’s model converts this waste heat into baseload electricity delivered directly to the host facility or a local off-taker at below-market rates. Rather than developing new power generation technology, Kanin deploys a suite of well-established solutions at industrial sites. The waste heat offering is built around organic Rankine cycle (ORC) turbines with over four decades of deployment history. Kanin’s approach prioritizes bankability and reliability, with a focus on delivering projects customers can count on.

Kanin is positioned to bring its commercially proven model to industrial operators across the continent as industry faces increasing pressure to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions.

About Kanin Energy

Kanin Energy is a technology-agnostic developer, owner, and operator of industrial energy assets, including Waste Heat to Power (WHP) and Combined Heat & Power (CHP). They bring expertise in designing, building, and operating power generation and thermal systems, structuring long-term offtake and interconnection agreements, as well as sourcing capital to finance major infrastructure projects for industrial operators. For more information, visit kaninenergy.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. For more information about S2G, visit s2ginvestments.com or connect with us on LinkedIn.

About Canada Growth Fund 

CGF is a $15 billion arm’s-length investment vehicle designed to attract private capital to build Canada’s clean economy. It uses investment instruments that absorb certain risks to catalyze private investment in low-carbon projects, technologies, businesses, and supply chains. Visit http://www.cgf-fcc.ca for more information.

About Canada Growth Fund Investment Management

In Budget 2023, the Government of Canada appointed PSP Investments, through a wholly owned subsidiary, to act as the asset manager for CGF. CGFIM serves as the independent and exclusive asset manager for CGF.

SOURCE Kanin Energy

Backed and built by Eclipse, Noetive is an AI NeoLab for operational technology building a strategic brain for companies in the physical economy

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 16, 2026 — Noetive, an AI NeoLab building the intelligence of record for the physical economy, today emerged from stealth with $41 million in seed funding led by Eclipse, with participation from Craft Ventures, The Westly Group, Swish Ventures, Factory, Incite Ventures, Gigascale Capital, Operator Partners, Liquid 2 Ventures, and notable angel investors like Zach Frenkel, former investor at Founders Fund and Goldman Sachs.

AI has transformed IT and information work, but no company or technology has brought that same transformation to the $30 trillion global physical economy. Physical operations require coordinating thousands of constantly changing variables, from materials and machinery to transportation, inventory, labor, supplier networks, and dynamic on-the-ground conditions. Yet, critical decisions have been made based on data from siloed systems that were never designed to coordinate an entire business.

Noetive is building the intelligence of record for the physical economy, designed from the ground up for the complexity of physical operations. Noetive’s intelligence of record consists of a ‘brain’ – a self-improving AI that learns how a business truly runs and works alongside its team. It also includes the ‘eyes & ears’ – an advanced multi-modal sensing pod, a device that expands the brain’s ability to perceive and reason about the environment and the business.

“AI will transform and reimagine the potential of companies in the physical economy, but current AI solutions were designed for information work living on the internet,” said Amir Frenkel, CEO and co-founder of Noetive. “Unlocking that potential requires intelligence that learns alongside the operators running the physical business, coordinating people, machines, and digital systems so every decision makes the entire operation smarter. Noetive is an AI NeoLab for operational technology to bring that intelligence into the real world.”

Noetive brings together senior AI researchers, engineers, product leaders, and enterprise operators who have built and deployed technology at Meta, Google, Amazon and Fortune 500 companies. Frenkel previously served as a vice president at Meta for nearly a decade and held leadership roles at Alphabet and Amazon, while the broader team combines experience advancing state-of-the-art AI research, developing foundation models, building enterprise AI systems, and taking products from inception to global scale.

Noetive is already working with strategic design partners proving out the value and applicability of its technology in industries including manufacturing, logistics, energy, and data centers.

“Production planning has always been one of the most time-consuming parts of running our business because even small changes ripple across the operation,” said Menachem Katz, CEO of Steuben Foods. “By understanding both the data in our systems and what’s happening on the factory floor, Noetive gives us the ability to continuously plan and adapt as conditions change. Work that once happened monthly and took a week of planning now happens daily and takes minutes, allowing us to respond to new orders and changing market conditions in real time. It’s fundamentally changed the way we run our business.”

Noetive’s intelligence of record shows up as:

• Integrated inside existing systems, not around them. Noetive’s agents sit on top of the tools operators already use, taking on the hardest core operational problems and running them end-to-end across people, machines, and systems.
• Smarter with every deployment. It’s a self-improving collaborator that learns alongside the team running the operation, growing more capable through richer sensing, perception, and real-world deployment.
• Proven in the field. Noetive operates as an AI research lab embedded directly in real-world operations, built to tackle the messy, ever-changing, on-the-ground problems at the core of how a business actually runs.
• Reasoning paired with real-world perception. Self-improving AI that can reason and act pairs with proprietary multi-modal sensing pods to perceive the environment.

Noetive is the latest example of Eclipse’s company-building model in action. For more than a decade, Eclipse has partnered with founders building companies across physical industries like manufacturing, robotics, logistics, energy, and industrial infrastructure. That experience gave the Noetive founding team unique access to the real operational challenges facing physical industries and directly shaped the company’s founding thesis. Rather than serving solely as an investor, Eclipse partnered with Frenkel, the firm’s Chief AI Officer, from the earliest stages of company creation to shape the company’s vision, assemble the founding team, and take the thesis from idea to company.

“Company building has always been core to how we operate at Eclipse,” said Lior Susan, founder and CEO of Eclipse. “AI has transformed the digital world, but the $30 trillion physical economy has largely been left behind. We saw an enormous opportunity to change that, and built Noetive to go after it.”

Noetive’s funding round includes leaders with deep track records building and scaling hardware and technology companies, including Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth, CTO of Meta, Ahmad Al-Dahle, CTO of Airbnb and former VP of GenAI at Meta, Matt Rogers, co-founder of Nest and founder of Incite Ventures, and Mike Schroepfer, founder of Gigascale Capital. The round also brought together the cofounders of Decart AI: Dean Leitersdorf, Moshe Shalev, and Orian Leitersdorf.

Noetive’s funding will enable frontier research into self-improving AI for the physical economy, and toward proving it in the field. Noetive works with a curated set of design partners, taking on the problems at the core of how their businesses run. To support this work, Noetive is growing its talent-dense research and engineering team and actively hiring AI researchers and full-stack AI native engineers who want to bring frontier AI research into the physical world.

Contact
[email protected] 

About Noetive
Founded in 2026 by AI researchers and operators from Meta, Google, Amazon, and Fortune 500 companies, Noetive is an AI NeoLab building and applying frontier AI research to the physical economy’s most complex operational challenges through real-world deployments across manufacturing, logistics, construction, and other industrial sectors. Noetive is building the Intelligence of Record for the physical economy, pairing self-improving AI that can reason and act with foundational, world models, agents, and real-world perception to become more capable over time.

Noetive is backed by Eclipse, Craft Ventures, The Westly Group, Swish Ventures, Factory, Incite Ventures, Gigascale Capital, Operator Partners, and Liquid 2 Ventures, alongside individual investors including Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth; Airbnb CTO and former Meta VP of GenAI Ahmad Al-Dahle; Nest co-founder and Incite Ventures founder Matt Rogers; Carnegie Mellon professor and founding director of Meta Reality Labs Pittsburgh Yaser Sheikh; Gigascale Capital founder Mike Schroepfer; former Founders Fund and Goldman Sachs investor Zach Frenkel; co-founder and CEO of Bedrock Robotics, Boris Sofman, and Decart AI co-founders Dean Leitersdorf, Moshe Shalev, and Orian Leitersdorf. To learn more, visit noetive.ai.

About Eclipse
With over $12.5B in regulatory assets under management, Eclipse invests in entrepreneurs building the next generation of companies in the physical economy. With deep operating experience across company-building at every stage from idea to growth, Eclipse partners closely with founders to build and scale enduring companies in the industries that drive resilience, competitiveness, and security. For more information, visit www.eclipse.capital.

SOURCE Noetive

Backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Speedrun fund, N49P, and Garage Capital, the funding will expand the consumer launch of Bit, an intelligent assistant designed to manage the logistics of running a home.

TORONTO, Sept. 16, 2026 — Orbits, a Toronto and San Francisco-based developer of Bit, an AI household assistant, today announced it has closed nearly $2 million USD (about $2.6 million CAD) in pre-seed funding from the Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Speedrun fund, the early-stage arm of the world class venture capital firm, alongside N49P, Garage Capital, and angel investors, including a team member at Anthropic.

Founded by CEO Nomaan Ahmed and CTO Erik Tillberg, Orbits was created to solve a pervasive consumer problem: despite a boom in workplace productivity software, the home remains fundamentally unorganized. The founding duo brings a proven track record of scaling consumer ventures, having previously grown a platform from inception to over one million monthly subscribers and nine figures in ARR. Ahmed has successfully steered teams across the corporate spectrum, from early-stage startups to billion-dollar enterprises, while Tillberg contributed to the field as an AI researcher at the University of Toronto.

“I grew up one of four kids with two busy parents who somehow made it all work. Looking back, I can see what they gave up to keep everything running, and that was a second full-time job that nobody signed up for,” said Nomaan Ahmed, co-founder and CEO. “There’s a booming market of tools to simplify your 9-to-5 and almost nothing for your 5-to-9. A household manager used to be something only wealthy families could afford; Bit is one every family can have.”

At the core of Orbits is Bit, an AI household assistant capable of interacting in-app, via text messages, and beyond. Bit acts as a unified layer for family operations, consolidating calendars, lists, and communications while executing real-world tasks automatically.

Capabilities of Bit include:

• Real-World Execution: Bit can now browse the web, log into accounts, make authorized purchases, dinner reservations, reschedule appointments or collect quotes for things like a new roof or to fix an HVAC system.
• Industry Leading Security: All third-party account credentials are encrypted end-to-end and are never stored, offering the gold standard in privacy and security.
• Proactive Household Management: Texting family members with reminders for chores or coordinating external service providers like babysitters.
• Autonomous Action: Unlike standard AI agents that merely analyze communications to generate schedules and to-do lists, Bit bridges the gap between planning and real-world execution.

This initial funding round allows Orbits to expand beyond its early community of families, scale its infrastructure, and hire key talent. Orbits is available today on the App Store and Google Play.

“This capital and the support of world-class investors gives us the momentum to turn a clear, widespread consumer need into a category-defining product,” says Erik Tillberg, co-founder and CTO. “We are building an intelligent, shared layer for the home that evolves daily based on how our users live.” 

“Orbits is rethinking one of the most overlooked parts of everyday life: the work it takes to keep a household running,” said Fareed Mosavat, Partner, a16z Speedrun. “AI is becoming incredibly capable, but much of the attention so far has focused on work and productivity. Nomaan and Erik, and Bit, are bringing that capability into the home to take on one of the hardest jobs out there: managing a household.”

About Orbits
Orbits is an AI household assistant for iOS and Android. Using the AI assistant, Bit, families can save hours every week managing their homes. To learn more or to install the app, visit https://tryorbits.com.

Media Contact
Bill Tawson
[email protected]
(302) 600-2502

SOURCE Orbits

New platform unites healthcare signals, AI-powered engagement led by Grace, and a proprietary network of curated, bundled-payment care partners to help employers, TPAs and healthcare innovators lower costs and close care gaps before they become claims.

DALLAS, Sept. 16, 2026 — Lyric Health today announced the launch of its Healthcare Operating System, a platform built to help self-funded employers, third-party administrators (TPAs) and healthcare innovators turn fragmented healthcare data into coordinated member action.

Built on more than a decade of virtual care delivery and healthcare technology development, the operating system unites data integration, intelligent automation, AI-powered engagement, clinical services, an in-house and curated provider network, and care navigation within a single, connected platform — with one goal: identify meaningful healthcare opportunities earlier, engage members at the right moment, and guide them to the most appropriate, highest-value care.

A market with no shortage of data — and a coordination problem

Employers, TPAs and health plans are contending with a familiar set of pressures: healthcare premiums and out-of-pocket costs that continue to strain budgets, long wait times and provider shortages that delay care and frustrate employees, rising rates of stress, burnout and behavioral health need, a growing chronic disease burden, and persistent gaps in health equity and access. At the same time, the market has responded with a proliferation of disconnected point solutions — telehealth apps, navigation vendors, wellness programs and chronic-condition tools — each addressing a slice of the problem without ever being asked to work together.

“The healthcare industry does not have a shortage of point solutions. It has a coordination problem,” said Rey Colón, Founder and CEO of Lyric Health. “Our vision is to create the operating system that connects healthcare intelligence with action. When we identify a signal, the value is not simply knowing that the signal exists. The value is engaging the member, guiding them to the right care and helping ensure the next step actually happens.”

From fragmented data to coordinated action

Lyric’s operating system is designed to close that gap by connecting signals from sources such as eligibility, claims, pharmacy, labs, clinical interactions, connected devices and other available health data with intelligent workflows that can initiate engagement and navigation. The model runs on a continuous sequence — Data → Signals → Intelligence → Engagement → Navigation → Care → Outcomes — so that instead of requiring members to navigate a fragmented healthcare system on their own, Lyric proactively identifies opportunities and coordinates the next best action across virtual care, primary care, behavioral health, specialty programs, centers of excellence and trusted external partners.

Grace: an intelligent interface within the orchestration layer

Powering that coordination is Lyric’s orchestration layer — the intelligence and workflow engine that turns a signal into an action. Within it sits Grace, Lyric’s AI-powered healthcare companion, who gives members a conversational front door into their journey. Today, Grace can manage the whole member experience; help members understand their benefits, triage the members needs and steer them toward appropriate care at the right time, coordinate scheduling and next steps, and stay engaged with their care plan — all grounded in the data and workflows behind the broader platform, not as a standalone chatbot.

A proprietary, curated network built for value

For the highest-cost, highest-variability episodes of care — procedures such as joint replacement and other orthopedic and musculoskeletal (MSK) surgery, imaging, infusion therapy and specialty medications — Lyric has built a proprietary, curated network of trusted care partners under direct, bundled-payment contracts. Rather than routing members into the standard fee-for-service system, Lyric’s operating system identifies members who may need these services early and steers them to credentialed centers of excellence within its network, with pricing negotiated and guaranteed in advance.

In one example from Lyric’s bundled-payment network, a total joint replacement episode was priced at roughly 170% of the Medicare baseline through Lyric’s direct-contracted network, compared with roughly 210% of the Medicare baseline under standard major medical benefits — meaningful savings realized alongside a more coordinated surgical and recovery experience for the member.

Lyric’s operating system is also built to flex around a partner’s existing infrastructure. Lyric currently powers 130 white-label brands, with partners leveraging the platform’s tools to build custom virtual care initiatives tailored to their population. That flexibility extends to network design as well: partners can bring their own network and use Lyric’s as added capacity or wraparound coverage, and can structure engagement as utilization-based programs, subscription models or fee-for-service arrangements.

A measurable return on investment

Results from Lyric’s proactive care model point to a measurable return on investment for the organizations that adopt it. Across its member population, Lyric has been associated with the following outcomes:

• 4:1 ROI — Clients are realizing a 4-to-1 return on investment through Lyric’s virtual care platform steering members to the best care destination
• 73% reduction in unnecessary ED visits — When leveraging Lyric’s virtual consultations members avoided emergency department visits 73% of the time.
• 93% member satisfaction — Plan members rated their end-to-end virtual consult experience in the highest satisfaction tier

For plan sponsors, that combination of lower claims spend, reduced administrative burden and stronger member engagement translates into a defensible, measurable return on investment — not just the promise of one.

Lyric’s Healthcare Operating System is available now to self-funded employers, TPAs and health plans. Lyric will share more on Grace’s expanded capabilities, the orchestration layer and outcomes data in the weeks ahead.

About Lyric Health

Lyric Health is an award-winning healthcare technology company helping employers, TPAs and health plans lower healthcare costs and improve member outcomes through intelligent coordination. Lyric connects data, virtual care, clinical expertise, member engagement and a trusted healthcare ecosystem to identify healthcare signals and guide members toward the right care at the right time.  To learn more please visit www.getlyric.com

Media Contact

Isaiah Colon
[email protected]
469.647.9314
www.getlyric.com

SOURCE Lyric Health

Led by Neon, the oversubscribed-round accelerates expansion into AI precision digestive healthcare and autoimmune health, driven by rapid scaling across national health plans, jumbo employers and major benefit platforms.

BOSTON, Sept. 16, 2026 — Ayble Health, the nation’s leading AI-enabled virtual multidisciplinary GI clinic, today announced the close of a $16 million oversubscribed Series A round led by Neon, with participation from Unum Ventures, Upfront Ventures, M13, Cleveland Clinic Ventures, DigiTx, Accomplice and several individual strategic investors. The round brings Ayble’s total capital raised to over $27 million.

Undertreated, Underserved, and Enormously Costly
Digestive and autoimmune conditions are among the most common, costly, and under-addressed chronic diseases in the country. GI conditions alone affect more than 70 million Americans and drive $136 billion in annual U.S. healthcare spending, more than the total cost of diabetes or heart disease, while nearly 70% of U.S. counties lack a single practicing gastroenterologist. The two categories are also clinically intertwined: a 2025 study spanning more than 141 million patients found inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) associated with 24 distinct autoimmune comorbidities, underscoring the need for a care model built to treat patients across both conditions.

Meeting this dual burden requires a care model that can adapt to each patient’s overlapping conditions rather than treating them in isolation. This new capital will be used to advance Ayble’s proprietary AI+clinician precision care model, deepening data-driven personalization for patient engagement, enrollment, and care delivery. Additionally, the company will leverage its proven multidisciplinary model and data infrastructure to expand beyond its core gastrointestinal (GI) footprint into adjacent complex therapeutic areas, starting with autoimmune conditions.

Unprecedented Scale and Enterprise Access

That expansion is underpinned by several years of rapid commercial growth, positioning Ayble to bring its model to an even broader population. Ayble is now in-network with most commercial health plans and covers 80+ million Americans through payer, employer, and health system partnerships. Recently, Ayble was nominated for the Galien Prize, widely regarded as the highest honor in biomedical innovation, often described as the Nobel Prize equivalent for life sciences, biotechnology and digital health.

“I built Ayble because I’m an Inflammatory Bowel Disease patient,” said Sam Jactel, Founder and CEO of Ayble Health. “I’ve lived through the diagnostic delays, the care gaps, and the overall frustration of a system that isn’t designed for patients who need ongoing, coordinated care. Many patients are also managing autoimmune conditions, and too often, no one is treating the whole picture. This funding lets us close that gap: deepening our AI precision care capabilities and extending our multidisciplinary model into autoimmune, so patients get one team built for how these conditions actually show up in their lives. The growth we’ve seen and the partnerships we’ve built with leading employers, payers and providers demonstrates the need for our work is massive.”

A System Under Strain 

Beyond the direct cost of care, digestive disease is driving broader strain on the healthcare system. GI conditions are the leading cause of treat-and-release emergency room visits, and patients face average wait times of 40 days for an in-person specialty visit. For employers and payers, the burden is escalating: GI conditions consistently rank as a top-five driver of medical claims and represent one of the fastest-growing cost centers across commercially insured populations; closely following digestive costs are those linked to autoimmune conditions.

“I’ve been tracking the GI space closely for years, and what Ayble has built is different,” said Kimmy Scotti, Founding and Managing Partner at Neon, who previously co-founded 8VC, “Having invested early in top digital health companies, I’ve seen what it takes to build a category-defining company in healthcare. Ayble has spent years building the clinical evidence before they scaled the business. That earns trust from the full ecosystem: health systems, payers, and most importantly, patients, and it’s what makes a durable market leader.”

Setting the Gold Standard in Multidisciplinary Digestive Healthcare 

Ayble directly addresses this crisis by combining specialized clinical expertise with advanced technology. Its integrated, multidisciplinary care model pairs GI-trained providers, registered dietitians, behavioral health specialists, clinical pharmacists, health coaches, and care coordinators with proprietary technology powered by one of the largest GI datasets in the world. An independent analysis from the Peterson Health Technology Institute recognized Ayble’s clinical team as the broadest in the GI category.

Ayble’s care model is grounded in unmatched clinical rigor, with +16 peer-reviewed clinical studies across every major GI population – more than any other virtual digestive health company. Conducted in collaboration with leading academic researchers at the Rome Foundation, University of Washington, Cleveland Clinic, Northwestern Medicine and Sutter Health, this research validates Ayble’s ability to drive transformative clinical outcomes at scale. Across its book of business, Ayble achieves an average 47% improvement in GI symptoms for patients, typically within four weeks and sustained for at least a year. For enterprise partners, this clinically-validated care translates directly to reduced high-cost utilization, delivering a minimum 3:1 return on investment.

With this funding, Ayble will extend its clinically validated model, built on years of rigorous evidence, to millions more patients managing GI and autoimmune disease, at a moment when access to specialty care has never been harder to find. To learn more, please visit www.ayblehealth.com.

About Neon:

Neon is an early-growth stage venture capital firm investing best-in-class entrepreneurs innovating at the intersection of healthcare and consumer to envision a better future and change outcomes for American patients.

About Ayble Health

Ayble Health is the country’s most clinically-validated virtual clinic for chronic digestive and autoimmune conditions. Nominated for the 2026 Galien Prize and named to TIME’s 2024 Best Solutions for GI list, Ayble’s award-winning care model offers unlimited access to a specialized, multidisciplinary care team, a suite of AI-powered precision tools, and curated wellness support, all designed to drive sustainable symptom improvement for patients across the entire acuity spectrum. Ayble is backed by 16 peer-reviewed publications and independently evaluated by the Peterson Health Technology Institute and the Validation Institute. Ayble works with leading employers, health insurance plans, health systems, and community GI practices to scale access to multidisciplinary care, reduce healthcare costs, and improve the lives of millions of Americans with chronic digestive diseases. Visit www.ayblehealth.com to learn more.

CONTACT: [email protected]

SOURCE Ayble Health, Inc.

Alistair Pernigo receives an O’Shaughnessy Fellowship to research how machines can identify the chemicals in the air around them

GREENWICH, Conn., Sept. 16, 2026 — O’Shaughnessy Ventures LLC (OSV), an investment firm that empowers creators, has awarded an O’Shaughnessy Fellowship to Alistair Pernigo, a researcher and entrepreneur based in San Francisco, California.

Pernigo will use the fellowship to research how machines can detect and interpret the chemical signals in their surroundings. Over the next 12 months, he plans to further develop his working sensing prototype and validate its performance through controlled experiments with academic collaborators. His broader ambition is to make chemical perception a practical capability for machines, with potential applications in robotics, industrial safety and biosecurity.

Pernigo is a research affiliate in the Multisensory Intelligence group at the MIT Media Lab, where he works on machine olfaction and molecular sensing. He co-authored the SmellNet paper, which introduces a public dataset for smell recognition covering 50 substances and 43 mixtures across roughly 828,000 data points.  The paper was published at the International Conference on Learning Representations in 2026. He is also a co-founder of Timeless Way, a science and technology lab studying how living and engineered systems perceive and respond to their environments.

OSV’s founder and CEO, Jim O’Shaughnessy, commented, “Alistair’s approach to the stubborn problem of training machines to smell may just be the thing that finally unlocks it for researchers. We’re delighted to get the chance to support his work.”

“Being part of the OSV community means a lot to me,” said Pernigo. “It gives me the support and momentum to take our work further: making chemistry a native sense for machines. I’m excited to build alongside people who recognize strange ideas as early signals of what comes next.”

About the O’Shaughnessy Fellowships Program

Launched in 2023, the O’Shaughnessy Fellowships program discovers and empowers the world’s boldest creatives, builders and researchers. Fellows receive a grant of up to $100,000 and gain access to OSV’s network of founders, investors and experts.

Pernigo is the twenty-second fellow announced in 2026. More information about previous fellows is available at OSV’s website.

Applications for the O’Shaughnessy Fellowships are now closed and will reopen on Jan. 1, 2027. Individuals interested in applying can do so via OSV’s website.

About O’Shaughnessy Ventures

OSV is a creative investment firm that empowers creators to bring their ideas to life. Founded by Jim O’Shaughnessy, a pioneer in quantitative investing, founder of O’Shaughnessy Asset Management, and author of five books, OSV aims to provide financial support and to partner in growing the next life-changing creative ideas.

OSV combines Jim’s deeply rooted interest in all things art, science, investing and technology with his long-held desire to establish scenarios designed to help promising creators and their inspiring ideas succeed, regardless of age, location, job history or level of education. For more information, visit OSV’s website.

Media Contact:
Ena Gong
O’Shaughnessy Ventures LLC
(917) 355-7420
[email protected]

SOURCE O’Shaughnessy Ventures

This Milestone Marks a Decade of Investing in the Future of Financial Technologies & Services

TORONTO, Sept. 16, 2026 — Portage, a global fintech investment platform with US$7.0B¹ in assets under management, today announced the final close of Portage Ventures IV at approximately US$600M, cementing the firm’s position as one of the world’s leading fintech-focused venture investors.

This year marks Portage’s tenth year investing in financial technology and financial services. Over the last decade, Portage has expanded from its flagship Venture strategy into a global platform spanning Venture, Growth Equity, and Secondaries, with more than 140 portfolio companies across North America, Europe, and beyond. The Portage Ventures IV fundraise also saw new strategic Limited Partners join the platform, including Broadridge and Fifth Third Bank, reflecting the growing conviction among leading financial institutions in Portage’s approach. As Sagard’s fintech investment platform, Portage’s mission is to back founders building category-defining businesses across the financial services ecosystem, including wealth and asset management, banking, insurance, and payments.

“We founded Portage on the belief that financial services would undergo a profound technological transformation. Ten years later, that opportunity continues to expand as financial institutions modernize, new business models emerge and exceptional entrepreneurs build the technologies shaping the industry’s future,” said Adam Felesky, Co-Founder and CEO of Portage. “Wealth management is entering the same kind of structural disruption that transformed banking a decade ago. AI is being embedded into the core workflows of financial institutions at a pace we haven’t seen before. The institutions that once moved cautiously are now investing rapidly in modernization, and the founders we back are building the infrastructure that makes that possible. Launching Portage Ventures IV reflects our continued confidence in this space and our commitment to the entrepreneurs leading its next chapter.”

“Portage was built on a simple conviction: fintech has its own rulebook, and generic support won’t give founders the edge they need to win. Over the past decade, we’ve combined deep domain expertise and a disciplined investment approach with the commercial networks and partnerships that take fintech founders further, faster,” said Stephanie Choo, General Partner and Co-Head of Portage Ventures. “Portage Ventures IV reflects the strength of our team and the platform we’ve built over ten years alongside some of the most ambitious founders in financial services. As financial institutions modernize and technology reshapes the industry, founders need an investor who has mapped this terrain. That is the partner we have built Portage to be, and we look forward to continuing that work with the next generation of fintech founders.”

Legal counsel was provided by Debevoise & Plimpton.

About Portage
Portage is a global investment platform focused on fintech and financial services with US$7.0B under management, 140+ portfolio companies, and 25+ investment professionals.¹ Our firm has offices in Canada, the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. Our team partners with ambitious companies across all stages, through Portage Ventures,  and Portage Capital Solutions, and our Secondaries strategy. We provide flexible capital and deliver a global network of investors, commercial partners, advisors, and value creation experts. Our dedicated value creation team provides portfolio companies with hands-on support in go-to-market, tech and cyber, business acceleration and M&A, and partnerships to accelerate their paths to success. With deep industry knowledge and entrepreneurial experience, Portage is committed to supporting the leaders who are reshaping financial services. Portage is a platform within Sagard, a global multi-strategy alternative asset management firm with US$47B under management².

For more information, visit www.portageinvest.com.

Disclaimer

¹ As of June 30, 2026. US$7.0B AUM includes Portage Ventures IV.

²Sagard’s assets under management (“AUM”) as of June 30, 2026

This press release may contain forward-looking statements, which reflect current expectations but involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may vary significantly. Sagard disclaims any obligation to update these statements unless required by law.

Media contacts:

Portage Canada – [email protected]

Portage United States – [email protected]

SOURCE Portage

Technology, AI and media executive to lead growth across NewsBreak and its new AI
businesses, Nearby and NDot in newly created role

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 15, 2026 — NewsBreak today announced the appointment of Nicolas Zylberstein as Chief Business Officer, responsible for the strategic growth of NewsBreak and its new AI ventures Nearby AI and NDot AI.

The appointment comes as the company scales NewsBreak, its flagship local life and news platform, and builds two new AI-native businesses: Nearby AI is an agentic local intent marketplace that connects high-intent consumers with relevant local businesses and services–helping users discover what they need and complete real-world tasks while creating new ways for businesses to reach customers at the right moment. NDot AI is a B2B Media Tech Platform dedicated to publisher growth. It offers integrated technologies and services spanning audience and traffic growth, recommendation and personalization, engagement and retention, advertising technology and monetization.

Both new platforms draw on a decade of NewsBreak’s own experience operating media products and delivering personalization at scale for more than 40 million monthly active users. Both also reflect NewsBreak’s conviction that deep, domain-specific AI infrastructure can deliver considerable value, today and in the future. The decision to bring in NewsBreak’s first Chief Business Officer at this time signals how central this belief is to the company’s next chapter.

“As search, social, and other distribution channels become less predictable, publishers need a real growth partner to build, grow, and monetize their direct audiences — that’s the opportunity behind NDot AI. At the same time, local businesses are looking for new ways to reach customers at the right moment, which is what Nearby AI is built to do. Together, they represent a significant B2B opportunity for NewsBreak to build the technology and infrastructure that both media and local business ecosystems need in the AI era. Nicolas’ experience scaling partnerships and commercial strategy at some of the world’s largest technology companies makes him the leader to help us build both businesses at scale,” said Dr. Jeff Zheng, Founder and CEO of NewsBreak, Nearby AI and NDot AI.

Nicolas Zylberstein joins NewsBreak after six years at ByteDance, where he drove AI partnerships, strategy and corporate development, and worked on the early launch of TikTok Shop.

Earlier in his career, Nicolas Zylberstein held senior operating, strategy and corporate development roles at Pinterest, YouTube, and The Walt Disney Company. He played a key role in Pinterest’s IPO, contributed to the launch and growth of YouTube Premium and YouTube TV, and supported Disney’s transition to streaming, laying the foundations for Disney+.

“NewsBreak has already proven what deep, local personalization can do at scale for tens of millions of daily users across the U.S.,” Nicolas Zylberstein said. “The core business connects people directly to local content right down to their zip code, and Nearby AI and NDot AI extend those capabilities into how people discover and engage with nearby businesses and how creators and publishers grow their audiences. I look forward to helping turn those capabilities into scaled businesses and build what’s next for modern media and local life as part of the NewsBreak team.”

Nicolas Zylberstein began his career in investment banking at JPMorgan in London and in strategy consulting at McKinsey & Company in New York. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School, a Master of Finance from Sciences Po Paris, and a Master of Laws from Sorbonne University. He also serves on the Board of Art Explora, a European nonprofit dedicated to democratizing access to the arts and culture, and lives in the Bay Area with his wife and two children.

The company is hiring founding members across disciplines who are passionate about category-defining opportunities at the intersection of technology, local ecosystems, and the content industry. For more information on open positions or to get in touch, visit https://careers.newsbreak.com or email [email protected].

About NewsBreak

NewsBreak is a local life and news platform that helps people navigate their everyday world — from neighborhood safety alerts and gas prices to nearby jobs and community events, all matched to their needs and interests. Founded in 2015, the company uses AI and machine learning to deliver that personalization at scale, connecting more than 40 million monthly active users across the U.S. with trusted publishers, community organizations, local businesses, and their neighbors. Building on this foundation, NewsBreak is now expanding into two new AI-native businesses: Nearby AI, an agentic local intent marketplace helping consumers move from discovery to real-world action through local businesses and services, and NDot AI, a B2B Media Tech Platform helping publishers and creators grow, engage, and monetize their audiences.

For more information: [email protected]

SOURCE NewsBreak

Flare Capital Partners Leads the Round as ACOs and Health Systems
Face a 2027 Reset in Medicare Risk Models

NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 2026 — Kairon Health, the AI-native execution layer for value-based care, today announced $5 million in venture funding. The round was led by Flare Capital Partners, with participation from Tau Ventures and existing investors Lightbank, General Advance and Pave Health Ventures. Kairon helps ACOs, health systems, IPAs, MSOs, group practices and clinically integrated networks run the day-to-day work of value-based care. The new capital will fund AI development across Kairon’s five workflow clouds, deepen its care operations and patient outreach products, and expand the go-to-market team as Medicare’s accountable care programs enter their largest structural change in a decade.

Accountable care organizations and health networks have spent a decade buying analytic solutions that flag care gaps but closing them still falls to an army of staff working across disjointed data systems and spreadsheets. Kairon replaces those numerous solutions with a single system.

“I spent nine years at Aledade building the foundation of value-based care, and the problem was never visibility,” said Nick Bartz, Co-founder and CEO of Kairon Health. “Nobody’s core problem is that they can’t see the care gap. Clinical teams are already running flat out—care managers are carrying huge patient loads; liaisons are in the field all day, and the gap still doesn’t close because closing it takes another set of hands or more hours in the day. So, we built the execution layer that does the actual work and we measure whether it worked or not so a customer never has to take our word for it. Operators today are paying 5 to10X what we charge for software that simply hands the problem back to them in a prettier format. Flare gets this problem space and has real depth in value-based care, so they are the perfect partner to help us scale our solution.”  

Kairon ingests, normalizes and links claims, clinical records, ADT feeds, labs and pharmacy data alongside qualitative sources most systems discard, like meeting transcripts, filed notes and CRM logs. The company takes all this data and creates a single patient-to-practice model that is payer agnostic.

“We’ve known Nick and Evan for several years and admire their operating experience and commitment to pushing value-based care forward with the right technology,” said Tara Sullivan, Principal at Flare Capital Partners. “Kairon is already producing results for customers carrying real risk. With ACO REACH concluding and the LEAD model starting next year, the pressure on providers to execute will continue to rise. There’s never been a better moment for entrepreneurs who’ve lived through past value-based care transitions to build what’s next. We see the right team, the right technology, and policy timing aligned, and believe Kairon can define this category.”

Early Customer Traction & Policy Tailwinds

With CMS committing to placing all traditional Medicare beneficiaries in accountable care relationships by 2030 and the ACO REACH program being succeeded by the new LEAD performance model, provider-based organizations will be taking on more downside risk and committing to it for longer. Providers will need to get a better handle on how to bend the cost curve. Kairon helps practices turn data into prioritized workflows and close care gaps by measuring what actually moves the needle with patients and practice staff.

Kairon is live today across MSSP, ACO REACH, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and commercial contracts covering more than 1 million attributed lives in 30+ states, including one national ACO enabler customer who is managing 350,000+ Medicare lives and a hospital system managing value-based care for approximately 350,000 lives.

About Kairon Health

Kairon Health is an AI-native execution layer for value-based care, serving ACOs, health systems, IPAs, MSOs, group practices and clinically integrated networks. Its platform connects five workflow clouds — Practice Intelligence, Care Operations, Patient Activation, Portfolio Management and Impact Analytics — to turn field data into worklists, outreach and billed, measurable outcomes. Kairon is HIPAA compliant, SOC 2 Type II certified and NCQA PHM Prevalidated, with HITRUST certification in progress. To learn more about Kairon Health or to get a demo, please visit kaironhealth.com.

About Flare Capital Partners

Flare Capital Partners is a leading healthcare technology venture capital firm advancing innovation-driven companies to improve positive health outcomes, broaden care access, and lower healthcare costs. We partner with exceptional founders solving healthcare’s hardest challenges, supporting each with our deep sector expertise, unparalleled industry resources, and proven access to commercial opportunities. Our team of established investors and senior operating executives has invested in 80+ companies and has nearly $1 billion in assets under management. Learn more at www.flarecapital.com.

Media Contact: Evan Gogel, Kairon Health, [email protected], 914-424-9444

SOURCE Kairon Health