SHANGHAI, May 27, 2026 — Viewtrix Technology, a portfolio company of Qiming Venture Partners and a leading display chip design enterprise in China, successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, marking the sixth IPO for Qiming Venture Partners since the beginning of the year. Viewtrix Technology (03310.HK) offered its shares at a price of HK$20.81 per share and opened at HK$25.48 per share with a market capitalization of HK$10.9 billion.

As early as 2019, Qiming Venture Partners led the Series C financing of Viewtrix Technology and continued to support the company’s development in the subsequent Series D financing.

Founded in 2012, Viewtrix Technology is committed to providing reliable and high-performance display driver solutions for consumer electronics brands. Adopting a Fabless business model, the company offers AMOLED display driver chips mainly for smartphones and Micro-OLED display backplanes/drivers mainly for VR/AR devices. With years of technological accumulation and product iteration, Viewtrix Technology has firmly established itself as a key player in the display driver chip industry. It is not only the first company based in Chinese mainland to receive brand company certification for AMOLED DDICs, but also the only one to have shipped over 10 million units to these companies.

Viewtrix Technology’s AMOLED DDICs have been mass-produced and delivered to various top smartphone companies globally featuring in over 10 different product series. These smartphone companies collectively hold more than a quarter of the global market share. According to Frost & Sullivan, Viewtrix Technology is the fifth-largest supplier, and the largest Chinese mainland-based supplier, in the global smartphone AMOLED DDIC market in terms of sales volume in 2024. In addition, Viewtrix Technology is a key supplier in the Micro-OLED display backplane/driver, ranking second in global sales volume, and it is also the largest independent supplier headquartered in China in this field.

Alex Zhou, Managing Partner of Qiming Venture Partners stated: “In 2019, China’s semiconductor industry was entering a period of rapid growth, and China’s mobile phone industry had taken a leading position globally. Tracing upstream from downstream terminal demand, the display chip sector featured strong industrial logic and growth potential. Back then, Viewtrix Technology focused on the core business of display driver chips, which highly aligned with our investment thesis and represented a promising niche segment we were very optimistic about. During the seven years partnering with Viewtrix Technology, Qiming Venture Partners has stood by the company with a long-term mindset, supporting it all the way to its IPO. Today, Qiming Venture Partners maintains an increasingly focused investment strategy, sticking to our proven circle of competence and steadily executing our investment layout. In the technology investment sector, Qiming Venture Partners has long been committed to two core investment themes: First, artificial intelligence, as a General Purpose Technology, will surely reshape all industries. Second, China’s world-class capabilities in product design, engineering R&D, and advanced manufacturing deliver global competitiveness. Anchored by these two themes, we will focus on two key areas: AI technology and industrial applications, and hard tech.”

About Qiming Venture Partners
Qiming Venture Partners was founded in 2006. Currently, Qiming Venture Partners manages eleven US Dollar funds and seven RMB funds with $9.5 billion in capital raised. Since our establishment, we have invested in outstanding companies in the Technology and Healthcare industries at the early and growth stages.

Since our debut, we have backed over 580 fast-growing and innovative companies. Over 210 of our portfolio companies have achieved exits through IPOs at the NYSE, NASDAQ, HKEX, Shanghai Stock Exchange, or Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or through M&A or other means. There are also over 80 portfolio companies that have achieved unicorn or super unicorn status.

Many of our portfolio companies are today’s most influential firms in their respective sectors, including Xiaomi, Meituan, Bilibili, Zhihu, Roborock, Hesai Technology, UBTech, WeRide, HyperStrong, Insta360, Unisound, Biren Technology, Z.ai, Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals, Tigermed, Zai Lab, CanSino Biologics, Schrödinger, APT Medical, Sanyou Medical, AmoyDx, SinocellTech, Insilico Medicine, AusperBio, Yuanxin Technology, Medilink Therapeutics, LaNova Medicines, StepFun, among many others.

The report finds that venture debt has become a structural pillar of the venture ecosystem as startups seek flexible, non-dilutive capital in a more disciplined funding environment.

MENLO PARK, Calif., May 26, 2026 — Runway Growth Capital LLC (“Runway”), a leading provider of growth loans to venture and non-venture-backed companies seeking an alternative to raising equity, today announced the release of the 2025-2026 Venture Debt Review, produced in partnership with PitchBook.

The annual report provides a comprehensive look at the evolving venture debt landscape, pairing PitchBook’s proprietary market data with Runway’s perspective on how startups, lenders, and investors are navigating today’s venture debt market.

This year’s report finds that venture debt reached a record $68.8 billion in the U.S. in 2025, even as annual deal volume remained stable at roughly 1,000 transactions. The result is a clear signal that venture debt has become a larger, more strategic and more institutionalized part of the venture ecosystem.

U.S. venture investments reached $321.6 billion across more than 17,000 deals in 2025, but capital remained highly concentrated in Artificial Intelligence (AI), which accounted for 63.5% of deal value. Outside the market’s most heavily funded AI companies, startups are operating in a more selective environment where equity investors and lenders are placing greater emphasis on revenue quality, capital efficiency, operating performance and path to profitability.

In turn, venture debt is increasingly being used by companies with strong fundamentals as a strategic financing tool to extend flexibility, preserve ownership and support growth without relying solely on dilutive equity capital.

“Venture debt has moved from the margins of the venture ecosystem toward its core,” said David Spreng, Founder and CEO of Runway Growth Capital. “The fact that venture debt reached a record level while deal count remained stable shows this market is getting bigger and more sophisticated. High-quality companies are using debt as a strategic tool to extend flexibility, preserve ownership, maintain control and scale with discipline.”

Among the most notable findings in the report:

• Venture debt reached a record high
  • U.S. venture debt reached $68.8 billion in 2025.
  • Annual deal volume remained stable at roughly 1,000 transactions, signaling durable adoption rather than a broad expansion in borrower count.

• Larger and repeat financings are driving the market
  • Deal sizes rose across the distribution, with the 75th percentile reaching $27.7 million and the median increasing to $5.5 million.
  • Follow-on financing volume increased from $4.7 billion across 129 deals in 2024 to $12.3 billion across 156 deals in 2025.

• Venture debt is becoming part of capital planning
  • The report finds that debt is increasingly being used by later-stage and scaled borrowers as part of deliberate financing strategies, rather than as a last-mile liquidity option.
  • Companies with stronger revenue visibility, customer retention, margin profiles and contracted cash flows are better positioned to access capital.

• The market is expanding beyond SaaS
  • AI and SaaS continue to anchor activity, with SaaS exceeding $28 billion in financing for the second consecutive year.
  • Growth in healthtech, cleantech and asset- or IP-heavy companies shows how debt is being tailored to a broader range of business models.

• Debt-backed companies are participating in the exit rebound
  • Exit activity reached $286.9 billion in value in 2025.
  • Venture debt-backed companies accounted for 37% of total exit value and 18% of exit count, both increases from the prior year.

The report also underscores that venture debt’s expansion is not indiscriminate. While access to debt is improving, lenders remain focused on companies with underwritable fundamentals. In sectors such as cleantech and healthtech, debt is increasingly being structured around contracted revenue, recurring usage, asset-backed cash flows and other durable sources of value.

“The common thread is not sector,” Spreng added. “It is underwritability. Companies that can demonstrate revenue quality, capital efficiency and clear paths to cash flow are finding that venture debt can be a powerful tool and amplify strong fundamentals.”

Looking ahead to the rest of 2026, the report suggests that venture debt will continue to play a larger role as equity markets remain concentrated and companies seek more efficient ways to finance growth. The report concludes that in a venture environment defined by divergence, venture debt is emerging as both a source of discipline and a strategic advantage.

The full report, including charts and commentary, is available for download at: https://runwaygrowth.com/venture-debt-review/

About Runway Growth Capital LLC

Runway Growth Capital LLC is the investment adviser to investment funds, including Runway Growth Finance Corp. (Nasdaq: RWAY), a business development company, and other private funds, which are lenders of growth capital to companies seeking an alternative to raising equity. Led by industry veteran David Spreng, these funds provide senior term loans of a target of $10 million to $150 million to fast-growing companies based in the United States, Canada and Western Europe. For more information on Runway Growth Capital LLC and its platform, please visit www.runwaygrowth.com.

About PitchBook

PitchBook is a financial data and software company that provides transparency into the capital markets to help professionals discover and execute opportunities with confidence and efficiency. PitchBook collects and analyzes detailed data on the entire venture capital, private equity, and M&A landscape—including public and private companies, investors, funds, investments, exits, and people. The company’s data and analysis are available through the PitchBook Platform, industry news, and in-depth reports. Founded in 2007, PitchBook operates globally with more than 3,000 team members. Its platform, data, and research serve over 100,000 professionals around the world. In 2016, Morningstar acquired PitchBook, which now operates as an independent subsidiary.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements included herein may constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Statements other than statements of historical facts included in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements and are not guarantees of future performance, condition, or results and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including those described from time to time in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission made by Runway and Runway’s affiliated funds. Neither Runway nor Runway’s affiliated funds undertake a duty to update any forward-looking statement made herein. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release.

SOURCE Runway Growth Capital LLC

The quarter was led by JVP’s exit from its position in DealHub, delivering a return of more than 6x on invested capital, with the company valued at hundreds of millions of dollars — a significant validation of the original investment thesis. JVP was instrumental in helping launch DealHub from Margalit Startup City Jerusalem in its early stage and is proud of the achievements that Eyal Elbahary and the DealHub team were able to achieve.

An AI-powered revenue automation platform that helps enterprise sales teams manage increasingly complex deal cycles, DealHub reached meaningful scale and customer adoption among mid-market and enterprise buyers, ultimately positioning the company as an attractive acquisition target in the fast-growing RevOps category.

In parallel, ServiceNow announced the acquisition of JVP portfolio company Pyramid Analytics, an Israeli-founded AI-driven decision intelligence platform led by Omri Kohl, in an undisclosed transaction. JVP led Pyramid Analytics’ round in 2020 and partnered closely with the company through its growth phase, helping it break into new international markets and become a global leader in enterprise decision intelligence. Gartner named the company the most innovative vendor in its category on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, leading 4 out of the 4 product categories.

JVP also marked a major milestone with the merger of Covera Health, backed by Insight Ventures, and JVP’s portfolio company Medmo. The combined company will deliver an end-to-end diagnostic imaging platform, integrating scheduling, imaging, and quality assurance into a single unified offering. Medmo was a New York–originated initiative led by  founder Lucas Takahashi, who launched the company out of Columbia University through its partnership with JVP’s scale up hub in New York.

Everpure (formerly Pure Storage) also announced the acquisition of 1touch.io, a JVP portfolio company founded and incubated within JVP’s Cyber Labs in Beer Sehva. 1touch.io pioneered enterprise data intelligence at the source – the foundation for AI-ready data – pairing data discovery with semantic context so enterprises can move generative and agentic AI initiatives safely from pilot into production. Joining Everpure, 1touch.io will extend the Everpure Platform’s data management capabilities, an essential foundation in the AI era, while drawing on Everpure’s enterprise storage to enrich its knowledge graph. The deal validates JVP’s early conviction in the convergence of data, privacy, and AI, and underscores the growing demand for AI-native security infrastructure.

These deals were valued at hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, respectively, and were able to achieve a significant multiple for the JVP investments.

Erel Margalit, JVP’s Founder and Executive Chairman: “I’m proud of the JVP team and especially my partners Yoav Tzruya and Gadi Porat for leading these deals. These deals reflect more than a strong financial performance. They demonstrate the need of some of the largest international technology leaders to bring AI to operational levels of managing the enterprise, to bring the data sources within the enterprise to a level which the AI application can work on, and to bring vertical AI into the different categories of business.”

JVP’s performance in Q1 2026 builds on its long-standing model of thematic investing through dedicated innovation platforms, alongside a distinctive ecosystem-to-ecosystem strategy connecting Israel, U.S., and Europe. As global demand accelerates for cybersecurity resilience and vertical AI for highly regulated industries, JVP is positioned to continue driving growth across its portfolio and delivering value to its investors and partners.

ABOUT JVP

JVP™ is an international venture capital firm with over three decades of experience scaling more than 165 companies into category-leading businesses. JVP has led some of the most significant IPOs and M&A transactions to emerge from Israel and the U.S. and Europe including CyberArk, recently sold to Palo Alto Network for $25B, Qlik’s $3B sale, and Cogent Communications’ $3.5B sale. Today, JVP is the leading shareholder in companies like Earnix, ControlUp, Nanit, ThetaRay and many others, growing the group of portfolio companies surpassing $100 million in revenue, known as the JVP $100M Club. JVP combines venture-capital company-building with private equity-style leadership: maintaining significant ownership positions across its portfolio, investing thematically in cybersecurity and vertical AI, and opening international markets for its CEOs through the JVP Triangle Method — ecosystem-to-ecosystem networks across Israel, the US, and Europe that create a unified path for international growth. JVP operates regional innovation hubs in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and New York that fuel both economic growth and social impact. Learn more: www.jvpvc.com

Contact details:
Raoul Wootliff
[email protected]

SOURCE JVP

Capital commitment establishes Rain as one of the top three largest prediction markets globally by TVL, positioning it alongside industry leaders Polymarket and Kalshi.

PANAMA CITY, May 26, 2026 — Rain, the decentralized prediction markets protocol, announces a $100 million liquidity commitment to support the launch of Rain V2 ahead of the FIFA World Cup. This major liquidity injection will be completed by the time of the event, which is expected to drive massive global activity in prediction markets.

The initiative, split into $50 million in USDT and $50 million in RAIN tokens, is designed to provide deep market depth and scalable infrastructure. This move immediately positions Rain as one of the top three largest prediction market ecosystems globally by Total Value Locked (TVL), emerging as a major new player in a category rapidly entering mainstream adoption across sports, politics, finance, and forecasting.

Unlike centralized competitors, Rain is built as a fully decentralized and permissionless infrastructure layer. This allows anyone – including developers, communities, companies, and AI agents – to create public or private prediction markets and launch custom forecasting applications across all languages without requiring centralized approval.

Rain’s upcoming V2 protocol includes major infrastructure upgrades to enhance scalability, liquidity efficiency, and trading performance. A key addition is a new on-chain order book designed for both users and professional market makers, which enables deeper liquidity, larger trade execution, and a more advanced trading experience across the ecosystem. The protocol also leverages AI-powered systems to streamline market creation, categorization, moderation, and resolution workflows, supporting scalable global forecasting markets across virtually any category.

Roy Shaham, CEO of Rain, stated, “This is a defining moment for Rain and decentralized prediction markets. The World Cup is expected to bring massive global attention to the space, and V2 is being built to support that scale from day one. Committing $100 million in liquidity positions Rain among the largest players and signals a new era for decentralized forecasting infrastructure.”

Shaham added, “Until now, the market has largely been dominated by a very small number of players. Rain changes that dynamic. We are building an open protocol where anyone can create and participate in markets across any language, topic, or region.”

Rain’s real time TVL data on Dune can be viewed here: https://dune.com/rain_predictions/rain

About Rain: Rain is a decentralized prediction markets protocol designed to power the next generation of forecasting applications. Built on Arbitrum with account abstraction infrastructure, Rain enables seamless onboarding, gas abstraction, cross-chain deposits, and scalable market creation for both crypto-native and mainstream users.

Rain allows anyone to launch public or private prediction markets on virtually any subject, while developers can build fully customized forecasting platforms and niche applications on top of the protocol. The protocol supports multilingual experiences, AI-powered market infrastructure, and deep liquidity designed for large-scale global events.

For more information, visit: https://www.rain.one

Contact:
Alona Stein
[email protected]

Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2987918/Rain_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Rain

TOKYO and PALO ALTO, Calif., May 26, 2026 — bitBiome, a pioneering force in the field of discovery, design and engineering of novel enzymes, proteins, strains, and ingredients, today announced that it has closed an oversubscribed seed extension round. This investment underscores bitBiome’s traction and global relevance in the engineering biology and bio-manufacturing landscape.

With this investment, bitBiome is poised to accelerate its mission to discover and engineer microbial enzymes and pathways at scale, leveraging its deeply curated and fast-expanding microbial database, cutting-edge modeling and predictive capabilities, and high-throughput enzyme, pathway and strain engineering platforms. The collaboration aligns with their partners’ strategic focus on engineered biology and the bioeconomy, as a frontier technology with both commercial and strategic implications. 

“This investment reflects our conviction that bitBiome’s unique microbial database-and-model stack is a differentiator in the enzyme and strain engineering space,” said Yuji Suzuki, CEO of bitBiome. “With this added strategic support, bringing our total equity and non-dilutive funding including grant to over 45 million USD, we will deepen our modelling-first approach to provide much higher probabilities of success, continue to expand our global presence, and drive partnerships across industrial biotech, pharma and life science, synthetic biology and advanced biomanufacturing.”

As biology becomes increasingly data-driven, investors are placing greater emphasis on platforms with differentiated datasets, predictive modeling capabilities, and scalable commercialization pathways. bitBiome’s integrated approach—combining microbial biodiversity, AI, and high-throughput engineering—positions the company at the forefront of this shift.

“We are thrilled to partner with bitBiome. The company has amassed a uniquely diverse microbial database, which combined with its advanced modeling capabilities, gives them an edge in enzyme discovery, engineering, and biomanufacturing,” said Olivia Jones, Managing Director, IQT. “We believe this capability is strategically important, not only for commercial enzyme innovation, but also for advancing the frontier of engineered biology and biosecurity. We’re excited to see bitBiome scale globally.”

Shinya Kasuga, General partner of IT-Farm said, “IT-Farm is proud to make our follow-on investment in bitBiome, a leading applied AI company in data-driven bioscience, leveraging the world’s largest proprietary microbial genome database to drive novel enzyme discovery for biosynthesis applications. We are particularly excited by the company’s pioneering approach to scalable genome AI commercialization, built upon its unprecedented mass of data and unique strengths in microfluidics & biosynthesis technologies. As a Tokyo-based cross-border deeptech VC since 1999, we look forward to further supporting the company’s global fundraising and business development by leveraging our international network and decades of experience.”

“We are excited to partner with bitBiome as it builds a foundational data and discovery platform for the next generation of biomanufacturing,” said Andrew Hyung of Valuence Ventures. “By combining proprietary single-cell microbial genome sequencing, one of the world’s largest microbial gene databases, and AI-enabled enzyme discovery and engineering, bitBiome is unlocking microbial biodiversity that traditional approaches cannot reach and turning it into actionable commercial solutions. The company has paired a differentiated technology moat with real customer traction, strong capital efficiency, and a clear path toward products, data licensing, and scalable biomanufacturing applications. We are proud to support the bitBiome team as they expand globally and help establish microbial biodiversity as a new infrastructure layer for the bioeconomy.”

“We at Darwin highly value the unique and globally rare technological foundation bitBiome has built in the field of synthetic biology. A major competitive advantage is the company’s ability, through its proprietary technology platforms—”bit-MAP,” “bit-GEM,” and “bit-EVO”—to conduct end-to-end exploration, analysis, and implementation—from the discovery of useful genes to the development of enzymes and microbial production strains—with high precision and speed, utilizing the vast, untapped resources of microorganisms. We highly appreciate the progress of their multiple product development pipelines using synthetic biology, while anticipating future customer demand. We are pleased to be able to continuously support the company’s growth through this investment,” said Kazuaki Konno, Partner of Darwin Ventures.

About bitBiome
bitBiome is a biotechnology company unlocking the full potential of our planet’s microbes to power the future of the bioeconomy. bitBiome’s platform is built on their proprietary single-cell microbial genome analysis technology, bit-MAP ^®, which has enabled the creation of bit-GEM: an extensive and groundbreakingly diverse and growing microbial database of over 3 billion sequences, sourced primarily from environmental samples and predominantly containing sequences not present in public databases. Leveraging their expertise in bioinformatics, machine learning and unique use of AI technologies, the company practices a comprehensive and differentiated enzyme discovery and enzyme, pathway and diversified strain engineering platform, bit-EVO, to rapidly develop and manufacture bio-based products. bitBiome is committed to improving existing biomanufacturing industries and creating new ones by delivering unique nature-inspired bio-based products that cannot be enabled elsewhere.

To learn more about bitBiome’s platform and services, visit www.bitbiome.bio.

Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE bitBiome

Sofinnova Partners leads oversubscribed round joined by new and returning strategic investors, fueling expansion of P2’s award-winning beauty and personal care portfolio and entry into performance polymers, home care, coatings, and crop care

WOODBRIDGE, Conn., May 26, 2026 — P2 Science, Inc., a leading green chemistry company transforming sustainable feedstocks into high-performance ingredients, today announced the close of an oversubscribed $23 million up round led by Sofinnova Partners. Sofinnova is a leading European life sciences venture capital firm based in Paris, London, and Milan. The financing will accelerate P2’s commercial growth in beauty and personal care ingredients and expand the company’s green chemistry platform into new markets, including aroma technologies, performance polymers, home care, coatings, and crop care.

New investors Emerald Technology Ventures and GS Futures joined the round alongside continued backing from existing investors including Lewis & Clark Partners, dsm-firmenich ventures, Connecticut Innovations, Elm Street Ventures, Chanel, BASF, and Safer Made, L.P. The strong participation from both new and returning partners reflects growing confidence in P2’s commercial traction, proven innovation leadership, and the scalability of its green chemistry platform.

“This milestone validates the strength of our technology and the urgency of global demand for clean, scalable manufacturing solutions,” said Oihana Elizalde, CEO of P2 Science. “With this new funding, we are positioned to supercharge our beauty business and bring real green chemistry solutions to entirely new industries. We are deeply grateful to our existing investors, whose continued partnership has been instrumental in getting us here, and we are thrilled to welcome Sofinnova Partners, Emerald Technology Ventures, and GS Futures to the P2 family as we begin this next chapter of growth.”

The financing continues a period of significant commercial and scientific momentum for P2. The company was named to Fast Company’s annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies in both 2025 and 2026 and was recently selected for L’Oréal’s €100M sustainable innovation accelerator, L’AcceleratOR. P2 also launched two breakthrough beauty ingredients, Citrolatum® P, a 1:1 plant-based replacement for petrolatum, and CitroComplex® Nourish, a high-performance natural oil blend for skin and hair care and entered a strategic partnership with Algenesis to develop 100% biobased, biodegradable polyurethanes. Most recently, P2 was awarded $2.8 million in non-dilutive funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s ARPA-E to accelerate catalyst innovation through AI-enhanced autonomous laboratories.

“P2 Science has demonstrated that green chemistry can compete on performance, not just sustainability credentials. The commercial foundation the team has built in beauty is strong, and the platform has real reach into adjacent markets. We are excited to support this next phase of growth,” said Michael Krel, Partner at Sofinnova Partners.

The capital raise comes at a pivotal moment for sustainable and advanced manufacturing. As brands and consumers demand higher-performing, healthier products and as global markets accelerate the shift away from petrochemicals, P2 Science is uniquely positioned to lead; combining a commercially proven beauty ingredients portfolio, a versatile green chemistry platform, and the manufacturing capabilities to scale. Backed by a world-class syndicate of strategic and financial investors and complemented by competitive non-dilutive funding from federal partners, P2 is the chemistry company of the next generation, rooted in performance, sustainability, and scale.

About P2 Science

P2 Science is a green chemistry company, co-founded by Professor Paul Anastas and Dr. Patrick Foley at the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale, that designs and manufactures renewable specialty ingredients for the personal care, flavor & fragrance, and performance materials markets. Using the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry as its foundation, P2 develops proprietary chemical processes and products inspired by nature’s chemistry to deliver high performance with sustainability at scale. For more information, visit www.p2science.com.

Media Contact:

Oihana Elizalde
P2 Science, Inc.
Email: [email protected]

SOURCE P2 Science

As Q1 2026 data from altshare shows founders navigating tighter fundraising conditions, the company is entering the U.S. market, offering founders a more connected and centralized approach to equity management

NEW YORK, May 26, 2026 — altshare, an AI-powered Equity Management Intelligence platform, announces its expansion into the U.S. market alongside the release of its Q1 2026 “The New Rules of Private Funding: Capital Is Selective” report, examining how tighter capital markets are reshaping startup funding and equity strategy. Drawing on data from more than 3,000 companies across the altshare ecosystem, the Q1 report found that investors remain active but are directing capital toward fewer, stronger companies with greater strategic relevance. For founders, that shift is making early financing decisions more consequential across Seed and Series A.

As more startups navigate increasingly selective fundraising conditions, altshare is bringing its Equity Management Intelligence platform to the U.S., giving founders, CFOs, and legal teams clearer visibility into how fundraising affects ownership, control, and long-term growth. Unlike legacy systems that separate workflows across multiple tools, altshare centralizes cap table management, 409A valuations, scenario modeling, waterfall analysis, and stakeholder visibility into a single, AI-powered platform.

Key findings of the Q1 2026 report include:

• Founder ownership and dilution: Founder ownership saw its sharpest stage-to-stage decline between pre-seed and Seed, when early dilution from SAFEs, prior financing, option pool adjustments, and new investments are often formalized in the cap table. Consequently, these metrics underscore how early-stage structuring and financing vehicles heavily shape a founding team’s long-term corporate control.
• Seed funding trends: Seed activity slowed in Q1 2026, with a median investment of $4.8 million and a median pre-money valuation of $10.4 million, landing at the lower end of altshare’s forecast range. altshare’s Q2 2026 projections point to stabilization, though the pace of recovery remains tied to global conditions.
• Series A market reset: Series A rounds also pulled back, with median investment falling to $9.6 million from $12.8 million in Q4 2025, signaling that investors are becoming more selective at the Series A stage.
• Sector performance: AI and cyber remain the strongest categories in Seed and Series A, maintaining premium valuations despite Q1 pullbacks, reflecting growing investor selectivity even in high-demand sectors. The fintech sector continued to decline in Q1 2026, with median investment sizes falling below the 2025 average. HealthTech remains one of the more stable sectors, with relatively modest declines in investment and valuation, attracting investors willing to operate on longer timelines and driven more by clinical and regulatory milestones than by broader market sentiment.
• Liquidity conditions: Liquidity conditions improved, with the share of companies exiting as planned rising to 36.7%, the highest level in the dataset compared to previous years.

The report also found that geopolitical instability, including the Iran conflict during Q1 2026, further shifted capital toward cyber and other defense-adjacent industries. This made the market’s K-shaped recovery more pronounced, with strategically critical sectors attracting capital flows while other industries experienced slower growth.

“Equity is one of the most critical and complex components of building a company,” says Ronen Solomon, Founder and CEO of altshare. “The Q1 2026 report shows that investors aren’t stepping away from private funding, but are responding to a changing global environment by backing companies that are directly relevant to today’s market and geopolitical realities. We are excited to bring U.S. founders a more connected way to manage equity, replacing outdated and fragmented processes with a platform that gives companies greater clarity and control as they grow.”

About altshare: altshare is an AI-powered, controlled equity management platform built for founders, CFOs, and finance teams who need a single system of record for equity operations. From early stage through IPO and beyond, altshare automates compliance, valuations, modeling, and reporting, enabling companies to scale without complexity. altshare meets the world’s most demanding standards as PwC’s Global Vendor of Choice and is trusted by market-leading clients for efficiency, accuracy, and compliance at scale.

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2987761/altshare.jpg

Media Contact
Inbar Kneller
ReBlonde for altshare
[email protected] 

SOURCE Altshare

With 10x revenue growth and the trust of over $15B of GMV across more than 1,000 customers, Stord deepens its investment in physical intelligence, launching Stord Labs to advance robotics and next-generation AI across the full commerce stack, so every independent brand can deliver consumer experiences that surpass Prime.

ATLANTA, May 26, 2026 — Stord today announced a $250 million Series F funding round at a $3 billion valuation, led by existing investors doubling down on the company’s accelerating growth and expanding market leadership. The round included Strike Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Franklin Templeton, Baillie Gifford, G Squared, Bond, and Lux, among others. Alongside the raise, Stord announced Stord Labs, its dedicated environment for advancing physical AI and robotics. Stord is building what independent commerce has always needed and never had: the physical intelligence layer.

“For years, every independent brand has been left to figure out on their own how to compete against the consumer experience Amazon has spent decades and hundreds of billions building. By every measure, independent brands have been losing. Stord exists to level that playing field. We give independent brands the complete commerce stack: the fulfillment network, software, and AI, to deliver a consumer experience that surpasses Prime. Our vertical integration and scaled network create compounding advantages that deliver better, faster, cheaper outcomes with every order we touch. As AI and physical intelligence advance across our platform, that advantage for our customers is rapidly accelerating.” — Sean Henry, Founder and CEO of Stord

Announcing Stord Labs

Stord Labs is a physical intelligence lab at Stord’s Atlanta headquarters where the company builds and validates agentic AI, robotics, and advanced automation against real orders, on the same live operating system powering Stord’s production network, before deploying proven innovations across nearly 100 facilities immediately, with no re-integration. The next generation of physical intelligence cannot be built in simulation or vendor demos. It requires real operational complexity, and Stord Labs is where that work gets done.

The connection between physical infrastructure, vertically integrated technology, and a massive and growing dataset creates a critical and compounding advantage. Training models on live fulfillment data across nearly 100 facilities, $15 billion in annual GMV, and 8 billion data points per year means every order processed makes the network smarter, faster, and cheaper to operate. Stord Labs is where that flywheel accelerates.

Physical Intelligence at Scale

Stord’s revenue has grown approximately 10x over the past four years. That growth has a clear inflection point: 2023, roughly six months after the launch of ChatGPT. Owning the fulfillment network, the software platform, and the data layer simultaneously positioned Stord to move faster on AI than the broader industry. The company’s software business tripled in 2025 and is growing faster than its overall business, with new bookings more than doubling quarter over quarter in Q1 2026. Stord has completed 8 acquisitions, each exceeding its targets, because the same platform, operational excellence, and applied intelligence powering Stord’s network rapidly transforms every facility and customer base it acquires. Today, Stord operates a network of more than 4,000 people with over 200 dedicated to software engineering, product, data science, and physical infrastructure.

“Commerce infrastructure gets built once. From our earliest conversations with Sean Henry, it was clear Stord was assembling something rare: software, physical infrastructure, and AI combined in a way that turns fulfillment into a competitive advantage rather than a cost center. We believe the rise of agentic purchasing will increasingly favor platforms where software and physical operations are deeply integrated. Stord is building that infrastructure. That is why Strike is proud to deepen our partnership in this round.” – John Lagomarsino, Strike Capital

“We believed in that vision when Kleiner Perkins first backed Stord in 2019, and our conviction has only grown as Stord turns fulfillment into a source of speed, clarity, and customer trust.” — Ilya Fushman, Partner, Kleiner Perkins

The Battleground for Independent Commerce

Amazon’s dominance, controlling more than one-third of U.S. online commerce, was built not on a superior storefront or payment system, but on Prime: the promise of fast, reliable, trackable delivery that permanently reset consumer expectations. Every consumer who has experienced Prime now carries that expectation to every other checkout, on every other website, for every other brand.

The most consequential layer of commerce, what happens after checkout, has been left to every brand to figure out on its own. When a brand wins a customer directly, they capture the full margin, the full data, and the full relationship. The moment a platform controls the customer, margin compresses, data disappears, and the brand becomes a commodity.

“I’ve run over $50 million in product sales through Amazon FBA. Amazon makes you feel like a SKU. Stord makes us feel like a brand. That’s the gap, and Stord is exactly built to fill it.” — Imran Jawaid, doingwell

About Stord

Stord is The Consumer Experience Company. Stord provides the fulfillment network, software, and AI that independent brands need to compete on the quality of their direct consumer relationships, from the delivery promise shown at checkout to the return that converts into a repurchase. Through Stord Labs, Stord is advancing the physical intelligence layer that makes its network faster, smarter, and more reliable with every order. With nearly 100 fulfillment locations worldwide, more than 1,000 customers, and over $15 billion in GMV processed annually, Stord’s packages touch nearly one in four U.S. households every year. Stord is headquartered in Atlanta, GA. For more information, visit stord.com.

SOURCE Stord

140-unit Class A BTR community advances to lease-up under institutional management; Phase II launches early 2027

COLLIERVILLE, Tenn., May 26, 2026 — Forest Creek Partners, a family-office-backed real estate platform, today announced the $15 million recapitalization of Phase I at Villages at Forest Creek, a 140-unit Class A build-to-rent (BTR) community on the Germantown/Collierville border — two of Greater Memphis’s most affluent submarkets. The facility covers the 48 delivered units and supports lease-up; Phase II’s remaining 92 units break ground in early 2027.

SIP Ventures served as exclusive strategic advisor, building the institutional operating plan, onboarding a national property management firm, and leading the capital markets process. Genesis Capital provided the bridge facility.

Class A Asset, A+ Submarket

Villages at Forest Creek is the owners’ second Class A BTR community in the area, built to for-sale specification. The 140 three-bedroom, 2.5-bath townhomes average ~1,600 sq ft with attached garages, nine-foot ceilings, masonry façades, fully tiled baths, stainless appliances, luxury vinyl plank, and smart-home technology. The community offers a resort-style pool and clubhouse, with top-rated schools and major employment centers nearby.

Strong Renter & Capital Markets Demand

Lease-up is off to a strong start, consistent with Sun Belt trends where Class A BTR continues to outperform on absorption and rent growth. The SIP-led process drew competitive interest from multiple lenders before closing with Genesis on the most flexible terms.

“No comparable Class A rental product exists in this market,” said John Porter, principal at Forest Creek Partners. “Two A+ submarkets, top schools, demand that supports institutional rental economics long term.”

“Residents are validating the thesis — this area needed a true Class A townhome community, and renters will pay for quality,” added principal John Gallina.

“Forest Creek is what institutional BTR wants right now — Class A product, A+ location, for-sale build, credible sponsor,” said Sherzod Ibragimov, Managing Principal of SIP Ventures. “We wrapped institutional infrastructure around their expertise: operating plan, national PM partner, capital structure on their terms.”

About Forest Creek Partners Forest Creek Partners brings nearly a century of local homebuilding experience to Class A BTR in Greater Memphis.

About SIP Ventures Founded in 2025, SIP Ventures creates Class A+ BTR communities and partners with leading institutional allocators, developers, and homebuilders.

Contacts:

Forest Creek Partners

Wayne Sparks

[email protected]

SIP Ventures

Sherzod Ibragimov

[email protected]

SOURCE SIP Ventures