Backed by Charge VC, Inspired Capital, Red Swan Ventures, and Prospeq, Queen One is building performance and presence for all brands.

BROOKLYN, N.Y., July 24, 2025 — Queen One, a powerful brand technology platform that brings life, energy, and revenue to websites and communication portals, announced today that it has raised more than $5.5 million in a Friends & Family funding round. The round was led by operator-backed funds Charge VC, Inspired Capital, Red Swan Ventures, and Prospeq, alongside a group of entrepreneurs, past collaborators, and close supporters.

At the heart of Queen One is a simple, powerful belief: every product has a story. Not just how it was made—but how it’s used, loved, and shared. In a world where products are often reduced to SKUs and data points, Queen One sees them as goods. And when goods are at their best, they vibrate. They connect.

“Commerce has been stuck in the past. Queen One is pushing it forward — fast,” said Brett Martin, Managing Partner at Charge VC. “What Figma unlocked for designers, Queen One is now unlocking for brands. They’re turning static pages into living, breathing experiences. And they’re doing it with unmatched creativity, momentum, and care — for brands and for people.”

“From our very first conversation, it was clear that Queen One was building something special,” said Kamran Ali, Principal at Inspired Capital. “The founding team brings unmatched experience, clarity, and ambition — with a track record of scaling hypergrowth businesses while building best-in-class culture. Reimagining how people experience commerce is a bold and timely mission, and Queen One is the team to lead it. We’re thrilled to be on this journey with them.”

Queen One has already built powerful brand technology and released their first offering, Connect (powered by Dragon Tiles), secured $6 million in state support for job creation and long-term economic impact in New York, and scaled to a team of 33. Construction is underway on the Rise & Fly Vision Centre — a 30,000 sq. ft. Brooklyn headquarters designed to accelerate product development, brand growth, and cultural momentum.

“The Time is Now. New York is rising,” said Ryan Urban, CEO and Founder of Queen One. “I can’t think of a better place to build a worldscale company. Queen One is New York – you’ll start to see, hear, and feel our presence. Coming to a neighborhood near you.”

Sandy Cass, Managing Partner at Red Swan Ventures added, “Queen One is the kind of company we get excited about — bold vision, experienced operators, and palpable energy. They’re not iterating on the past — they’re architecting the future of commerce. We’re proud to support this founding team as they bring performance and presence to every brand online.”

“We’re a company built by builders and we know what it takes to work hard and ship big,” said Maricor Resente, COO and Founder. “Together with our investors, we’re ready to show the world what’s possible when you combine relentless execution with a clear vision. We can’t wait to deliver immense value to every brand globally – get ready to see what the best looks like.”

To stay connected with the Queen One team and learn more about what’s next, visit queen.one.

SOURCE Queen One

The investment, one of the largest in Utah this year, will help further HeroDevs’ commitment to securing legacy software applications, ensuring enterprise technology infrastructure remains compliant and protected

HeroDevs will dedicate $20 million of capital towards the HeroDevs Open Source Sustainability Fund to support open source creators, maintainers, and projects that follow end-of-life best practices.

SALT LAKE CITY, July 24, 2025 — HeroDevs, a leading provider of security and compliance solutions for deprecated open source software (OSS), today announced it has secured a $125 million strategic growth investment from PSG, a leading growth equity firm that specializes in partnering with software and technology-enabled services companies to capitalize on transformational growth. Existing investor Album also participated in the growth investment round.

Rapid AI adoption is accelerating the proliferation of OSS in enterprise security stacks — the average commercial codebase includes 911 open source components – and with this proliferation, 86% of those codebases contained OSS with known vulnerabilities, according to Black Duck. A separate report from Qualys found 48% of vulnerabilities stem from known vulnerabilities in OSS that are no longer supported or maintained.

This investment will help HeroDevs secure enterprise security stacks against these threats by strengthening its Never-Ending Support solutions, which help provide seamless and secure replacements for vulnerable unsupported or outdated OSS versions. By enabling enterprises to protect their infrastructure without overhauling entire applications, HeroDevs helps protect against vulnerabilities that often lead to data breaches and cyberattacks, while giving teams the flexibility to plan secure software transitions on their own timeline.

“In our view, open source software runs the world. Through this investment, we’re doubling down on our mission of ensuring everyone—from developers to startups to enterprises and governments—has the tools and support to stay safe and compliant, even when they find themselves stuck running end-of-life open source software,” said Aaron Frost, Founder and CEO of HeroDevs. “We believe that the lifeline we provide to our customers saves them thousands of hours and hundreds of millions of dollars, not to mention the loss in trust that comes from security breaches. Our team is proud to use this investment to solve two of the biggest challenges we face in the open source software community: funding the next generation of open source development and improving visibility around end-of-life security risks.”

“The acceleration of the adoption of open source software across enterprises highlights the growing demand for solutions that not only help companies meet strict security and compliance standards but also aim to preserve and strengthen the value of the broader open source ecosystem,” commented Marco Ferrari, Managing Director and Co-Head of North America, and Paul Russ, Principal, at PSG. “We believe the platform Aaron and the HeroDevs team have built empowers enterprises to secure vulnerable areas of software applications’ code without disrupting operations, while also fostering continued innovation across the open source community.”

HeroDevs will also dedicate $20 million of capital towards its Open Source Sustainability Fund to support open source creators, maintainers, and projects that follow end-of-life best practices. The Open Source Sustainability Fund is officially open and accepting applications. Developers and projects can now apply for the donations, ranging from $2,500 to $250,000. To be accepted, applicants must demonstrate strong community adoption, commit to following security best practices when announcing and conducting end-of-life motions for versions of their software, and agree to the program’s requirements. To apply for funding and learn more about the program, visit herodevs.com/sustainability-fund.

The Sustainability Fund builds on HeroDevs’ legacy of providing new funding models for the open source community. The company donates a portion of its revenue to open source creators and projects, including $4 million to date, and $2 million in 2024.

D.A. Davidson and Ampleo served as financial advisors to HeroDevs, and Foley & Lardner LLP served as legal advisor to HeroDevs. Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP served as legal advisor to PSG.

About HeroDevs
HeroDevs is a trusted leader in providing secure, never-ending support for deprecated open-source software. The company’s mission is to keep these critical technologies running smoothly, securely, and in compliance long after their official end-of-life. From AngularJS to .NET and Spring, HeroDevs Never-Ending Support (NES) solutions give businesses the freedom to plan migrations on their terms while staying protected against vulnerabilities and compliance risks.

Serving industries where security and uptime are non-negotiable, including finance, healthcare, and government, HeroDevs has earned the trust of over 800 companies, including nearly a third of the Fortune 100. With a team of open-source experts, proactive vulnerability remediation, and enterprise-grade support, HeroDevs empowers organizations to keep moving forward without disruption.

About PSG
PSG is a growth equity firm that partners with software and technology-enabled services companies to help them navigate transformational growth, capitalize on strategic opportunities, and build strong teams. Having backed more than 150 companies and facilitated over 520 add-on acquisitions, PSG brings extensive investment experience, deep expertise in software and technology, and a firm commitment to collaborating with management teams. Founded in 2014, PSG operates out of offices in Boston, Kansas City, London, Madrid, Paris, and Tel-Aviv. To learn more about PSG, visit www.psgequity.com.

SOURCE HeroDevs

VANCOUVER, BC, July 24, 2025 — Bitzero, the company redefining sustainable Blockchain and High-Performance Compute (HPC) data centers, today announced it has secured $25 million in funding to drive immediate revenue growth and further its mission of setting a new global standard for clean, community-centered mining operations. The investment marks a major step forward in Bitzero’s commitment to transforming cryptocurrency‘s energy reputation, while delivering strong returns for investors.

The first drawdown of the funding will be allocated to the purchase of 2,900 Bitmain S21 Pro miners, one of the most advanced machines available, operating at an industry-leading 15 joules per terahash. Deployment of this high-efficiency hardware will be completed within four to six months, generating an estimated $10 million in additional annual revenue and driving Bitzero’s market-leading breakeven point even lower.

This funding arrives as Bitzero’s innovative approach to sustainable mining has already proven successful in Europe, positioning the company to capitalize on the booming cryptocurrency market, while addressing its environmental challenges head-on.

“Our mission has always been to prove that Blockchain infrastructure can thrive in harmony with investors, communities, and the environment,” said Bitzero’s President and CEO Mohammed Bakhashwain. “This new funding allows us to build on our success, accelerate deployment of best-in-class mining technology, and extend our leadership in sustainable, profitable data centers.”

Amid growing excitement around the cryptocurrency market — and rising concerns about its energy footprint — Bitzero stands apart with a proven, future-ready approach. Its Namsskogan data center in Norway runs entirely on hydropower.

Bitzero’s momentum underscores its position at the forefront of a new era in digital asset infrastructure, where renewable energy and community partnership come together to deliver financial value for stakeholders and environmental stewardship.

About Bitzero
Bitzero Blockchain Inc. is an ESG-focused provider of IT energy infrastructure and sustainable power generation for data centers. Headquartered in Vancouver, BC, the company owns and operates facilities in North America and Europe, supporting high-performance compute and blockchain workloads using hydroelectric and low-carbon energy sources. Visit www.bitzero.com for more information.

Media Contact:
[email protected] 

SOURCE Bitzero

Funding will accelerate expansion of AI-powered audience tools, contextual quality scoring, and premium demand curation solutions

NEW YORK, July 23, 2025 — ArcSpan, the leading publisher-first audience monetization platform, today announced it has raised $5.2 million in a Seed Extension round. The capital will support ArcSpan’s mission to help digital publishers maximize revenue by transforming first-party data into high-performance, advertiser-ready audience and curation solutions.

The funding round, backed by both new and existing investors, underscores growing demand for publisher-centric data platforms that deliver actionable audience segmentation, content intelligence, and direct monetization tools as the industry transitions beyond third-party cookies.

“Publishers are sitting on powerful audience signals but lack the tools to efficiently activate and monetize them,” said Art Muldoon, Co-Founder and CEO of ArcSpan. “This investment enables us to fast-track our AI development and scale new capabilities like contextual quality scoring, audience curation, and turnkey PMP activation, all while putting publisher control at the center.”

ArcSpan will use the funding to accelerate development and go-to-market efforts for several new innovations:

• Audience Builder 3.0 – AI-powered segmentation and modeling engine for real-time, agentic audiences
• PMP Activation Hub – pre-qualified publisher deal packaging and campaign enablement with SSP and DSP integrations
• ArcSpan QualityCloud^™ and AQI – contextual and ad placement quality scoring for inventory curation, planning, and optimization

Since launching the ArcSpan AMS enterprise data platform in 2023, ArcSpan has partnered with leading media companies and SSPs to streamline the path from data to demand. The AMS platform’s Triple-A Framework – Aggregation, Amplification, and Activation – gives publishers a simplified yet powerful approach to harnessing first-party data and driving premium yield.

“We believe ArcSpan is solving one of the most pressing problems in digital media – how to enable scalable, high-fidelity targeting and monetization of publisher audiences and first-party data signals for advertiser outcomes,” said Al Muzaurieta, Co-Founder at Good Apple. “Their vision, expertise, and traction in the market made this a compelling investment.”

With this raise, ArcSpan plans to expand its product, data science, and publisher success teams while deepening integrations across the advertising ecosystem.

To learn more about ArcSpan or to explore partnership opportunities, visit www.arcspan.com.

About ArcSpan

ArcSpan is an AI-powered audience monetization platform built for premium publishers. Through its Audience Monetization System (AMS), ArcSpan builds stronger data signals, activation outcomes, and comprehensive programmatic analytics to unlock the full value of their first-party audience data. Headquarted in NYC, with an office in London, ArcSpan partners with digital media leaders to drive performance, transparency, and control across the programmatic landscape.

SOURCE ArcSpan Technologies

Company Plans to Accelerate Development of Data Center Campuses and AI Infrastructure to Establish a Leading Digital AI Infrastructure Provider

MONTREAL and NEW YORK, July 23, 2025 — (version française) — 5C, a next-generation AI infrastructure and data center solutions provider, today announced it has successfully secured $835 million of capital to fuel its rapid growth. The funding includes equity financing led by Brookfield Asset Management and debt financing led by Deutsche Bank. 

Brookfield is investing through its Infrastructure Structured Solutions strategy, alongside affiliated entities. This capital will accelerate the development of 5C’s state-of-the-art data centers and scalable AI infrastructure across North America, addressing the rapidly growing demand for AI compute capacity and digital infrastructure. The company’s ability to quickly and reliably deploy AI infrastructure has positioned it as a key player in the AI ecosystem.

5C designs, develops, and operates advanced data centers and AI compute infrastructure purpose-built at scale for AI training, fine-tuning, and inference workloads. The company has rapidly emerged as a market leader in providing data centers tailored for the latest generation of liquid-cooled GPU clusters, offering comprehensive AI infrastructure solutions for neo-clouds, foundation model companies, AI-native enterprises, and more.

“5C is positioned to play a pivotal role in the AI revolution, and we are excited to welcome Brookfield as a strategic partner in our journey,” said Jonathan Ahdoot, Chief Executive Officer of 5C. “With this investment, we will accelerate the deployment of next-generation AI factories, delivering scalable infrastructure that can meet the needs of AI-driven industries. We look forward to working with Brookfield to drive the future of AI at scale and with speed.”

“5C is exceptionally well-positioned to capitalize on the next wave of infrastructure needs driven by AI,” said Hamish Kidd, Managing Director in Brookfield’s Infrastructure business. “We’re excited to support the company’s growth, and partner with its outstanding leadership team, to scale its platform across key markets.”

Fred Rosenberg, Head of U.S. Private Credit & Infrastructure at Deutsche Bank, said, “Digital infrastructure lending is critically important in today’s environment. Our partnership with 5C Group reflects a long and fruitful relationship, and our shared commitment to driving innovation and supporting the next generation of digital infrastructure and AI.”

Moelis & Company LLC acted as financial advisor and placement agent to 5C, with Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP serving as its legal counsel. Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett LLP served as legal counsel to Brookfield. Milbank LLP served as legal counsel to Deutsche Bank.

About 5C

5C Group is a next-generation AI Digital Infrastructure provider established from the acquisition of 5C Data Centers by Hypertec Cloud. With over 2 gigawatts (GW) of roadmap capacity and the ability to power hundreds of thousands of GPUs, 5C Group delivers secure, reliable, and sustainable data center and AI infrastructure solutions at scale for the largest AI users with the most demanding workloads. For more information, visit www.5c.ai.

About Brookfield Asset Management

Brookfield Asset Management is a leading global alternative asset manager, headquartered in New York, with over $1 trillion of assets under management across renewable power and transition, infrastructure, private equity, real estate, and credit. Brookfield Asset Management invests client capital for the long term with a focus on real assets and essential service businesses that form the backbone of the global economy. Brookfield Asset Management offers a range of alternative investment products to investors around the world — including public and private pension plans, endowments and foundations, sovereign wealth funds, financial institutions, insurance companies, and private wealth investors. Brookfield Asset Management draws on Brookfield’s heritage as an owner and operator to invest for value and generate strong returns for its clients, across economic cycles.

About Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank provides retail and private banking, corporate and transaction banking, lending, asset and wealth management products and services as well as focused investment banking to private individuals, small and medium-sized companies, corporations, governments and institutional investors. Deutsche Bank is the leading bank in Germany with strong European roots and a global network.

SOURCE 5C Group

Dash’s Fully Automated Bioanalysis Platform Is Reshaping Drug Development with Speed, Precision, and Scale

NEWTON, Mass., July 23, 2025 — Dash Bio, a preclinical and clinical bioanalysis company reinventing the speed and scalability of drug development, today announced it has raised an additional $11 million in funding, bringing its total raised to $17.5 million. The new financing was led by The Aligned Fund, with participation from Freestyle Capital, Cybernetix Ventures, Swift Ventures, LifeX Ventures, Drive Capital, and others.

Dash Bio’s mission is bold but urgent: to rebuild drug development for a modern biotech era. While drug discovery has seen massive innovation through AI, mRNA, and CRISPR, drug development — the 7–12 year, multi-billion-dollar black hole between discovery and approval — remains stuck in a slow, expensive, and highly manual past. Over 70% of development work is outsourced to CROs whose labor-intensive service models are misaligned with the industry’s need for speed.

Dash Bio is tackling this bottleneck head-on. The company has built the first highly automated, GLP-compliant bioanalysis lab purpose-built to eliminate the friction of traditional CROs. Dash delivers assays like ELISA, LC-MS, and qPCR at speeds up to 10x faster than current providers — helping drug developers move from idea to IND to approval faster than ever before.

“We founded Dash because the broken state of development is one of the biggest threats to progress in biotech,” said Dave Johnson, co-founder and CEO of Dash Bio and former Chief Data & AI Officer at Moderna. “Our platform was designed the right way from day one: real automation, real integration, and real science. This funding is a strong signal that the industry is ready to embrace a new standard — one where bioanalysis is a catalyst, not a constraint.”

The company’s approach is resonating. Since its initial raise, Dash has added top-tier biopharma companies as customers and assembled a powerhouse team including former colleagues from Moderna, Science Exchange, Rootpath, and other trailblazers. With deep expertise in bioanalysis, software engineering, and lab automation, the team is uniquely positioned to bring industrial-grade efficiency to drug development.

“Dash Bio isn’t just faster — it’s foundational,” said Ariel Winton-Jones, Partner at The Aligned Fund. “Their team has built the kind of tech-forward infrastructure that biotech has needed for years. We believe Dash is creating the modern stack for bioanalysis and beyond.”

With this funding, Dash Bio will continue scaling its automated platform, expanding its assay menu, investing in its proprietary sample and assay management software, and onboarding new customers from preclinical through late-stage clinical development.

About Dash Bio
Dash Bio accelerates clinical development by delivering high-quality, technology-driven bioanalysis at unprecedented speed. Its fully automated, GLP-compliant lab platform combines robotics, AI, and integrated software to deliver faster results and better data — helping biopharma teams get therapies to patients faster. Learn more at www.dash.bio.

SOURCE Dash Bio

Funding will deepen market presence, win enterprise clients, and scale AI Agent adoption across India, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa

MUMBAI, India and SAN FRANCISCO, July 23, 2025 — Gupshup, the global Conversational AI leader, today announced it has raised over $60 million in a funding round combining equity and debt financing from Globespan Capital Partners and EvolutionX Debt Capital. The funding will fuel the expansion of its Conversational AI and messaging platform as well as accelerate go-to-market execution across high-growth markets, including India, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa.

This latest investment validates Gupshup’s market leadership in helping businesses engage their customers through conversational AI experiences delivered via text messaging or voice. With 50,000+ customers in 130+ countries, Gupshup has consistently been recognized by industry analysts, including Gartner, IDC, and Juniper, for its outstanding AI capabilities and market leadership in the evolving Conversational AI landscape. Across marketing, sales, and support use cases, Gupshup is delivering measurable business impact such as substantially higher conversions and revenues, lower costs, and increased customer satisfaction.

The funding will be strategically deployed to enhance sales velocity, product innovation, and deepen market presence across key verticals, globally. Gupshup is experiencing unprecedented demand for its platform, driven by the AI transformation across the world.

“Gupshup has turned the vision of Conversational AI into an enterprise-scale reality. We’re proud to support their next phase of growth as they expand across emerging markets. With deep AI expertise, robust infrastructure, and relentless execution, Gupshup is redefining how businesses engage customers”, said Andy Goldfarb, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Globespan Capital Partners. “From India to UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil, Gupshup’s Conversation Cloud and AI Agents are transforming customer and employee interactions. As Meta’s Partner of the Year, they’re building the foundation for AI-powered messaging at scale.”

“Gupshup has been the market leader at every stage of industry evolution from basic messaging to conversational AI across text and voice, which has led to consistent revenue growth and margin expansion,” said Rahul Shah, Partner at EvolutionX Debt Capital. ” Gupshup is well-poised to lead the AI transformation worldwide, and we are excited to work with them and support them in this journey. With this investment, we continue our strategy of investing in category-leading growth stage companies in Asia“.

“We’re at an inflection point where AI Agents are transitioning from experimental technology to business-critical infrastructure, leading to extraordinary global demand for our solutions. Businesses recognize that conversational AI is driving enormous competitive advantages through superior customer experiences. This funding positions us to capture that global opportunity”, said Beerud Sheth, Founder and CEO, Gupshup.

The company’s platform enables businesses to automate complex customer interactions while maintaining personalized, human-like conversations. Through solutions like Conversational AI Agents, Click to Chat Ads, AI Campaign CoPilot, Agent Assist, Personalize, and Campaign Manager, businesses can handle everything from product discovery and purchasing to customer support and retention, representing a significant evolution from traditional chatbots to autonomous agents.

Gupshup’s platform already powers 120 Billion+ messages annually for thousands of enterprises, with advanced AI capabilities that position it as the comprehensive solution for businesses seeking to implement conversational engagement at scale.

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2735989/Gupshup_Technologies.jpg
Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2182479/Gupshup_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Gupshup Technologies

The Banks Leverage the Power of the CRA to Build Clean Communities and the Manufacturing Jobs of the Future

LOS ANGELES, July 22, 2025 — The 22 Fund (“The 22”), a Los Angeles-based impact-focused, early-growth venture capital firm, today announced multi-million-dollar equity investments from BMO Bank N.A. (BMO) and City National Bank. BMO is investing $5 million and City National put $3 million into The 22’s recently closed approximately $42 million fund—capital sourced through each bank’s Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) initiatives.

“Helping to create economic opportunities is one way BMO lives its Purpose, to Boldly Grow the Good in business and life,” said Carl Jenkins, Managing Director and Group Head, Community Capital Solutions at BMO. “Our investment in The 22 Fund aligns with our CRA strategy to close funding gaps, create good jobs, and empower communities to thrive.”

“The 22 Fund’s mission aligns with City National’s CRA commitment of creating long-term economic opportunities,” added Adey Tesfaye, Senior Vice President – Head of CRA at City National Bank. “We are excited to back a venture model focused on export-oriented businesses that delivers measurable community outcome.” The CRA, a landmark piece of legislation enacted to address systemic disinvestment in low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities, has traditionally focused on affordable housing and community lending. However, The 22 Fund is pioneering a new pathway by channeling CRA-driven capital into venture investments that address climate change, create high-quality jobs, foster innovation, and promote inclusive economic development in underserved areas.

“The CRA is one of the most powerful tools we have for creating equitable economic outcomes in this country,” said Tracy D. Gray, Founder and Managing Partner of The 22 Fund. “We’re proud to be among a small but growing number of venture firms using CRA capital to support diverse founders and scale climate technology.”

The 22 invests in innovative, U.S.-based manufacturing companies with strong export potential and scalable business models. The fund intentionally aims to generate both financial returns and tangible socioeconomic impact without compromise. Each of the fund’s five current portfolio companies meets these inclusive criteria.

The 22 also welcomed Annie E. Casey Foundation, Sierra Club Foundation, Include Ventures and Heading for Change who joined as LPs in 2024. Each of these investors are leaders in impact and climate investing and leveraging their capital to build stronger communities.

The 22’s model uniquely qualifies under CRA guidelines by directly supporting the creation of the clean quality jobs of the future and improvement in LMI areas. With its targeted approach to inclusive climate tech manufacturing, The 22 delivers impactful, scalable outcomes that align with the CRA’s original intent.

About The 22 Fund
The 22 Fund is a holistic impact investor that funds tech-based, climate focused U.S. manufacturing companies to increase international sales (exports) and create the clean, quality jobs of the future in underserved and low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities. The 22 intentionally invests in women- and BIPOC-led firms to deliver both high ROI and high social/economic impact without concession or trade-offs. For more information, visit www.the22fund.com.

About BMO Financial Group
BMO Financial Group is the seventh largest bank in North America by assets, with total assets of $1.4 trillion as of April 30, 2025. Serving customers for 200 years and counting, BMO is a diverse team of highly engaged employees providing a broad range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management, global markets and investment banking products and services to 13 million customers across Canada, the United States, and in select markets globally. Driven by a single purpose, to Boldly Grow the Good in business and life, BMO is committed to driving positive change in the world, and making progress for a thriving economy, sustainable future, and inclusive society.

About City National Bank
City National Bank, a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), is the largest bank headquartered in Los Angeles. Founded in 1954, City National is a regional bank specializing in Wealth Management and Private Banking, Entertainment & Sports Banking, Commercial Banking, and Consumer Banking, with branches and locations in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Nashville, Atlanta, Delaware, Las Vegas, Washington D.C. and Miami.* For more information about City National, visit the company’s website at cnb.com.

*City National Bank does business in Miami and the state of Florida as CN Bank.

Contact:

Vanessa Gray

[email protected]

SOURCE The 22 Fund

Led by Decibel with participation from Mayfield, Homebrew, and others, the company is powering the shift from traditional SEO to AI search optimization

SALT LAKE CITY, July 22, 2025 — Scrunch AI, the company helping brands understand and improve how they appear in AI search, today announced a $15 million Series A funding round led by Decibel, with participation from Mayfield, Homebrew, and other strategic investors.

The raise follows a period of rapid growth. Over the past three months alone, Scrunch has grown its paying customer base by more than 50% month-over-month. Today, over 500 brands utilize the platform to monitor and enhance their visibility in AI search results. Nearly all growth to date has come through inbound demand, with customers reporting an average 40% increase in referral traffic and up to 4x improvement in visibility across generative platforms.

In addition to its enterprise-grade solutions, Scrunch has also launched a dedicated offering for agencies, designed to help them guide their clients through the transition to AI search. This program provides tailored access, insights, and tools specifically built for managing multiple brands and implementing at scale.

“Your website doesn’t need to go away, but 90% of its human traffic will,” said Chris Andrew, co-founder and CEO of Scrunch AI. “AI agents are becoming the new front door to your brand, and we’re building the infrastructure that helps you show up, stand out, and stay ahead.

The way people discover brands is changing fast, and marketers are scrambling to catch up. We started Scrunch to provide brands with clarity on how they appear in AI search. That visibility is valuable in its own right, but it also gave us something more profound: a technical blueprint for how modern discovery actually works.”

Since launching, Scrunch has analyzed tens of millions of prompts and citations across leading generative platforms, building a data-rich understanding of how large language models interpret, rank, and surface content. Now, the company is leveraging that insight to enhance its monitoring capabilities and move toward delivery.

The newly raised capital will accelerate the development and deployment of the Scrunch Agent Experience Platform (AXP), a new infrastructure layer that helps brands serve optimized content directly to AI crawlers and agents.

Traditional websites designed for human browsers are often inefficient and ineffective for AI. AXP enables brands to maintain their existing websites for users while delivering compressed, structured, and machine-readable content specifically for AI engines, thereby improving discoverability and placement without requiring a redesign. AXP is currently in pilot with enterprise customers and will be rolled out more broadly in the months ahead.

“Scrunch has the unique advantage of having built the foundation first — collecting data, learning from real-world behavior, and shipping with speed,” said Jon Sakoda, Partner at Decibel. “They’re not just observing the AI shift. They’re helping brands rewrite the web for AI Agents.”

The generative search ecosystem is growing quickly, but most brands remain unprepared. More than 70% of Fortune 1000 websites are difficult or impossible for AI crawlers to interpret, and companies continue to spend billions on traditional search strategies misaligned with how discovery works today.

With a market opportunity estimated at over $100 billion, Scrunch is building for the next era of brand visibility, one optimized for how AI understands the internet.

“We believe the best marketers will be the ones who adapt first,” added Andrew. “Scrunch gives them the platform and technology to do exactly that.”

About Scrunch AI
Scrunch AI is an enterprise-grade platform that empowers businesses to understand and optimize their presence in AI search. The platform provides a comprehensive suite of tools to assess competitive positioning, pinpoint content gaps, and optimize websites for AI search and retrieval, ensuring brands remain relevant in the evolving AI landscape.

Scrunch is led by CEO Chris Andrew, a seasoned product leader with extensive experience in developing SaaS solutions. Since its inception, the company has secured $19 million in funding from Decibel, Mayfield, and Homebrew, as well as notable technologists TJ Parker (PillPack), Bryant Chou (WebFlow), and Clara Shih (Meta AI, previously Salesforce, Hearsay). For more information, visit www.scrunchai.com.

SOURCE Scrunch AI