The Fund Now Offers Out-of-Home Platform Access to its Portfolio

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Feb. 25, 2025 — Atmosphere TV, a video entertainment platform, has committed media inventory to Mercurius Media Capital (MMC), a ~$90Mn U.S.-based media-for-equity fund. This partnership allows MMC’s portfolio companies to utilize Atmosphere’s media inventory across 30+ TV channels to boost brand awareness.

Atmosphere’s premium entertainment platform is tailored for high-traffic environments such as restaurants, bars, gyms, airports, medical centers, and auto shops. With programming designed to reimagine TV viewership outside of the living room, Atmosphere reaches more than 160 million monthly viewers.

“Atmosphere is redefining how advertisers convert television viewership outside of the living room into meaningful brand engagement,” said Piyush Puri, Founding Partner of MMC. “This strategic partnership provides access to a substantial and engaged audience, comparable in size to the viewership of established streaming services like Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu, complementing existing media strategies and driving brand awareness.”

Through media partnerships with entertainment platforms like Atmosphere, MMC provides a powerful platform for its portfolio companies to expand their reach and drive growth. Atmosphere is viewed in 60,000 venues globally, attracting 10 million viewers daily. Industries such as travel, household goods, retail, insurance, and consumer-packaged goods have seen significant increases in brand awareness, website traffic, sales, and in-store visits.

“Atmosphere is excited to partner with MMC and open our premium inventory and viewership to their suite of offerings for investment. MMC has institutionalized a novel investment approach within media, and we are thrilled to partner with the team to invest in amazing companies and activate our network to drive value for the MMC portfolio,” said Blake Sabatinelli, CEO of Atmosphere.

The media capital model has fueled over 1,000 startups, including Uber, Coursera, and Airbnb.

About Mercurius Media Capital

Mercurius Media Capital (MMC), launched in December 2023, is the first U.S.-based media-for-equity venture fund with ~$90 million in committed capital. Co-founded by Satyan Gajwani and Piyush Puri, MMC builds on over 15 years of experience driving media capital transactions at The Times of India Group, facilitating over $3 billion in media-based investments. MMC has partnered with leading media platforms, including Sinclair Broadcast Group, Televisa Univision, Atmosphere TV, and others to offer high-growth startups and enterprises access to distinct, large-scale advertising inventory in exchange for equity. This fund has backed several companies, including Deskera, RVnGo, Captain Experiences, Airtasker and Edly. For more information, www.mmc.us.

About Atmosphere

Atmosphere is a premium CTV FAST platform that made it entertaining to watch TV everywhere. Atmosphere is tailored exclusively to businesses, offering more than 30 original and partner TV channels focused on sports, news, and entertainment. Atmosphere has been named to Deloitte’s 2023 Technology Fast 500, Fast Company’s 2022 Most Innovative Companies, and Forbes’ Next Billion Dollar Startups lists The platform is designed to engage viewers in non-residential spaces, providing marketers with unique audience reach and moments of attention. For more information, www.atmosphere.tv.

Media Contact
Interdependence PR
Angelic Venegas, Account Director
[email protected]
(847) 997-5601

SOURCE Mercurius Media Capital

Perfect leverages advanced AI to manage the laborious manual work involved with sourcing, interviewing and placing candidates, reducing time-to-hire by 75% and improving relevant candidate-to-company matches by 90%, empowering recruiters to focus on what matters most

TEL AVIV, Israel, Feb. 25, 2025 — Perfect, the leading agentic AI platform for recruitment, today announced it has raised $23M in total Seed funding, with the latest round led by Hanaco Ventures, with participation from Joule Ventures, and Samsung Electronics’ former President, Young Sohn. This investment will underpin Perfect’s AI development and fuel the journey to enhance the industry’s leading Agentic AI recruiter.

Recruitment is a multi-billion dollar challenge, plagued by inefficiencies, skill shortages, and outdated manual processes. With 88% of HR leaders struggling to find the candidates they need and 77% of HR professionals citing skill shortages as a major issue, sourcing the right people at the right time can make or break a business. Perfect’s AI-powered solution is the antidote to the challenges of modern recruitment. By automating the entire recruitment process, from candidate sourcing to interview scheduling, connecting the most well-suited candidates to the optimal role in seconds, Perfect saves recruiters up to 25 hours per week, allowing time to concentrate on other key parts of the job like relationship management, drastically improving candidate placement success rates.

“Our goal is not to replace humans but to make them superhuman,” said Eylon Etshtein, CEO & Co-Founder of Perfect. “With unfilled roles costing businesses an average of $500 per day per vacancy, adopting faster and more accurate recruitment solutions is essential. Perfect is setting this standard. Recruiters can now offload tedious, repetitive tasks, freeing up their time to engage meaningfully with candidates and make smarter hiring decisions. This funding round enables Perfect to reinforce its commitment to a future workforce built on insightful recruitment, underpinned by state-of-the-art AI.”

“In an industry desperate for true innovation, with both agencies and candidates victims of outdated, manual workflows or half-baked AI solutions, Perfect is utilizing proprietary data sets and integrating into industry-specific workflows to completely transform how recruitment operates, automating a vast majority of their customers’ day-to-day tasks,” said Lior Prosor, Partner at Hanaco Ventures. “Perfect’s ability to deploy across every recruiter or business leader in the organization is extremely novel when compared to the traditional “seat-based” model we currently see. We are very encouraged by Perfect’s initial success and look forward to the next phase in its continued growth.”

Itai Goldich, Director Talent Acquisition at Optimove – a customer of Perfect, commented: “Perfect’s AI has transformed our recruitment process. We’ve slashed manual tasks, reached the right candidates faster, and significantly enhanced pipeline quality. Perfect allows us to focus on valuable conversations and high-quality candidate matches, not tedious administrative work.”

Perfect’s non-human recruiter epitomizes the shift toward agentic AI. Rather than simply offering suggestions to recruiters, the platform autonomously handles the repetitive and time-consuming tasks that bog down recruitment teams. Perfect’s AI is an active participant in the recruitment process, driving results with minimal human intervention.

Perfect simplifies the hiring process by combining advanced AI, automation, and strategic insights. Through its end-to-end automation, Perfect’s solution analyzes job descriptions, matches candidates, conducts personalized outreach and performs interview scheduling. Its AI platform interrogates millions of candidate profiles to build career paths, giving recruiters precise insights into fit and potential trajectory. This is all done in a matter of seconds. Perfect also automates the outreach stage, which includes bespoke messages to candidates and the collection of pre-screening data based on role-specific questions. The platform automatically shortlists candidates and then provides an easy scheduling interface for interviews, reducing the manual back-and-forth. By evaluating candidates objectively based solely on skills and experience, Perfect promotes fairness, diversity, and inclusion in hiring.

Perfect is currently available in North America and select European markets, with plans to expand further into APAC by next year. The company is also planning the launch of an ‘AI worker for recruitment teams,’ a groundbreaking, non-human recruiter.

About Perfect

Perfect is the leading AI-powered platform for recruitment, automating end-to-end processes to deliver faster, smarter, and fairer hiring. Trusted by leading recruitment agencies, hiring managers, and businesses worldwide, Perfect empowers recruiters to focus on human connection while the AI handles the rest.

Learn more at www.goperfect.com

Media Contact
Gavin Horwich
[email protected] 

SOURCE Perfect

Investment Led by M12 Accelerates Development of Industry-First Workload Isolation Technology, Empowering Developers to Build with Speed While Eliminating Security Trade-offs and Reducing Cloud Costs

SEATTLE, Feb. 25, 2025 — Today’s cloud infrastructure forces organizations to choose between security and efficiency. Containerized workloads share resources and kernels, creating inherent security vulnerabilities that attackers exploit through privilege escalation and lateral movement. Traditional solutions either compromise performance or require complex configuration changes, leaving platform teams frustrated and security teams alarmed. This problem is especially prevalent in AI workloads, where shared GPU resources amplify security risks. Edera solves these challenges by making workload isolation a reality for the first time.

Edera, the pioneer of strong workload isolation technology, announced $15 million in Series A funding led by M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund, with participation from Mantis VC and In-Q-Tel (IQT). Existing investors Eniac Ventures, 645 Ventures, FPV Ventures, Precursor Ventures, and Rosecliff Ventures also participated in the round.

This investment, arriving just three months after Edera’s $5 million seed round, brings total funding to $20 million, validating the company’s breakthrough solution, Edera Protect, which delivers cloud-native isolation making containers secure by default across all workloads. This round will fund product expansion to include support for AI infrastructure. By embedding security at the architectural level, Edera enables developers to maintain their existing workflows while automatically ensuring workload isolation and protection from the start.

“This funding accelerates our mission to empower engineers to develop with speed and confidence,” said Emily Long, CEO and Co-Founder of Edera. “We’re eliminating the traditional tension between development velocity and security by making isolation intrinsic to the infrastructure. Platform teams can focus on creating value while knowing their workloads are secure from the start – no workflow changes required, no security burden post-deployment, just native security that scales with their applications.”

“Workload security requires being closer to the hardware than the attacker,” said Tyler Shields, Principal Analyst, Risk & Vulnerability Management at Enterprise Strategy Group. “Edera’s isolation capabilities provide protection at a technical layer low enough to stop lateral movement, protecting the container and workload sanctity. Workload security increases in importance as GPU and AI become more prevalent. Edera is well positioned to secure these modern systems.”

Introducing Edera Protect AI: Securing the Foundation of AI Infrastructure

Alongside the funding, Edera launched Edera Protect AI, the industry’s first secure-by-design solution that automates GPU configuration while securing AI infrastructure. Recent vulnerabilities discovered in NVIDIA’s container toolkit highlight the critical need for secure GPU isolation in AI environments. Edera AI automatically configures and isolates GPUs, eliminating costly manual configuration while protecting AI models from compromises that could pose significant risks to both enterprise security and society at large.

“AI is transforming industries at an unprecedented pace, but without secure, sovereign and sustainable infrastructure, its full potential can’t be realised,” said Nick Jones, Head of Engineering at Nscale. “As AI adoption accelerates, protecting sensitive workloads from emerging threats is no longer optional – it’s imperative. Edera’s advanced isolation technology provides a crucial layer of protection, preventing lateral movement and ensuring data integrity. In a world where GPU-powered AI is becoming the backbone of innovation, robust security is the foundation of a resilient and trustworthy AI ecosystem.”

Edera significantly reduces cloud computing costs by enabling enterprises to consolidate workloads that traditionally require separate clusters or specialized hardware – including GPU workloads – onto standard cloud instances while maintaining strict isolation. The multi-cloud compatibility further reduces costs by enabling workload portability and eliminating vendor lock-in, while its proven performance benchmarks show it can be more efficient than standard Docker deployments for specific workloads.

“Edera’s technology delivers true workload isolation while maintaining native container-like performance in today’s multi-tenant cloud environments,” said Alex Zenla, CTO and Co-Founder of Edera. “We provide platform teams with robust isolation boundaries that enhance security without requiring changes to existing infrastructure or sacrificing the speed and agility that businesses depend on. This breakthrough allows organizations to finally achieve both maximum security and peak performance in their cloud operations.”

“Secure, isolated workloads are a bigger priority than ever for the industry. We are encouraged to see innovative approaches like Edera and look forward to collaborating on how to bring this critical technology to the ecosystem,” said Mandy Andress, CISO at Elastic.

The team is expanding its leadership bench and brought on industry veteran Kaylin Trychon as Chief Marketing Officer, formerly of Google and Chainguard. As the first marketing hire at Chainguard, Trychon was responsible for building the brand and marketing team that led the company to a $1.1 billion valuation after just three years.

Edera is growing! Join the mission to make secure computing simple. Check out the job openings at Edera today or meet with the team in person at one of their upcoming events.

About Edera
Edera is transforming cloud security by making true workload isolation a reality for the first time. Edera Protect builds security into the foundation of the infrastructure, allowing developers to maintain their preferred tools and processes while automatically preventing attacks from spreading between workloads. Organizations can now achieve secure multi-tenancy for Kubernetes and AI workloads without sacrificing development speed or increasing cloud costs. Female-founded and headquartered in Seattle, Edera is built on the principle that diverse perspectives and balanced teams create better technology. For more information, visit https://edera.dev

Media Contact
Jennifer Cloer
For Edera
[email protected]
503-867-2304

SOURCE Edera

NEW YORK, Feb. 25, 2025 — Camber Partners is pleased to announce the successful closing of Fund II with total capital commitments of $210 million, surpassing the fund’s original target of $150 million and the hard cap of $200 million. The oversubscription reflects the strong demand from investors and highlights confidence in Camber’s approach and ability to drive exceptional outcomes. The Fund received support from a diverse base of both existing and new investors, including pension funds, foundations, health systems, insurance companies, fund of funds, and family offices.

Camber’s mission is to partner with growth-stage software companies and inflect their trajectory by providing more than just capital. The firm delivers a combination of operational expertise and data-driven strategies to drive sustainable growth. Camber takes a hands-on, collaborative approach: an internal Growth Team works closely with each portfolio company on marketing, sales, and customer success initiatives. Meanwhile, a dedicated Data Science Team and a proprietary data platform empower founders to uncover actionable insights from product and customer data. This differentiated engagement model is available to all Camber portfolio companies, enabling software entrepreneurs to leverage the high-caliber go-to-market and data resources typically found in much larger organizations. 

“We are extremely grateful for the support and confidence our investors have shown in us,” said Scott Irwin, Founder and Partner at Camber Partners. “The strong support for Fund II validates our differentiated strategy, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to supporting software founders and entrepreneurs as they scale their businesses to new heights.”

Goodwin Proctor served as legal counsel. Metric Point Capital served as advisor.

About Camber Partners

With $350M under management, Camber Partners provides flexible capital, hands-on operational expertise, and a proprietary data platform to accelerate the long-term, capital-efficient growth of B2B software businesses. For more information, please visit https://www.camber.io/.

Contacts
Camber Partners
[email protected]

SOURCE Camber Partners

MONZA, Italy, Feb. 25, 2025 — Truesense, a European leader in Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology, AI-driven platforms, and smart nodes, is proud to announce the successful closure of its first seed investment round with Magic Spectrum and The Hashgraph Group (THG). This strategic investment will reinforce Truesense’s growth plans in software, AI, blockchain, and platform solutions, enabling cutting-edge UWB applications across multiple industries leveraging Hedera’s distributed ledger technology (DLT).

Pioneering AI-Enabled UWB Solutions
Truesense develops advanced smart UWB nodes for ranging, radar, and a variety of applications, including secure access control, real-time location services, health monitoring, and smart tracking. By integrating AI-driven software with robust hardware solutions, Truesense enhances these capabilities, delivering precise, efficient, and intelligent UWB communications across industries such as mobility, logistics, security, healthcare, and smart environments.

Converging Blockchain and UWB Technology
The integration and convergence of blockchain with UWB technology represents a revolutionary step towards providing secure and traceable node-to-node communications. The Hashgraph Group, with its Hedera-powered DLT platform and Hedera-certified engineering team, provide the ideal distributed framework and Web3 expertise to enhance the UWB capabilities of Truesense and enable multiple industry use cases, as an example:

• Secure transactions for physical access control (e.g., offices, venues, transport hubs)
• Local mobility solutions, such as automated ticketing and car-sharing authentication
• Seamless interaction for pay-content services, including digital entertainment and media
• Real-time and immutable asset tracking solutions and smart contract-based automation

Speaking on the investment partnership Armando Caltabiano, CEO of Truesense, said, “This new investment further strengthens our market position and underscores the trust in our solutions for secure, real-time wireless interactions. Partnering with The Hashgraph Group and leveraging their advanced Hedera technology will enable us to push the boundaries of UWB applications, delivering scalable, high-performance solutions that redefine the way devices communicate, transact, and interact in an increasingly connected world while ensuring compliance, security, and legal traceability of digital transactions.”

The Hashgraph Group and Truesense are already collaborating and developing a new generation of UWB-powered TV and Mobile device interactivity that, in combination with Hedera’s distributed ledger technology, will unleash new Web3-enabled consumer loyalty and engagement solutions that directly interact with digital media content. Through an initiative (Symera), the integration and convergence of UWB technology and DLT to create a suite of gamification and loyalty programs, will improve consumer engagement mechanisms and supercharge value creation for many direct to consumer (D2C) enterprises, while leveraging artificial intelligence and behavioural science.

Stefan Deiss, CEO of The Hashgraph Group, said “The increasing global adoption of Hedera’s distributed ledger technology and convergence of ultra-wideband technology is enabling an ever-growing number of enterprises in the Media, Sports, and Telco sectors to generate new revenue streams through Web3-centric loyalty programs, peer-to-peer consumer interaction, gamification, and micro-transactions. This strategic investment in Truesense marks a pivotal step in fostering innovation in UWB tech with a company that shares our vision of empowering users with tokenized digital content, gamification models, and monetisation opportunities that foster brand loyalty.”

About Truesense:
Based in Milan, Italy, Truesense specializes in AI-driven UWB solutions, providing ranging, radar, and smart node applications for industries such as IoT, security, automotive, healthcare, and industrial automation. Truesense combines cutting-edge software, AI algorithms, and platform solutions to deliver real-time, intelligent wireless communication systems.

For more information, visit: https://www.truesense.it

About The Hashgraph Group
The Hashgraph Group is a Swiss-based international business, venture capital, and technology company that operates exclusively within the Hedera ecosystem, and is focused on empowering entrepreneurs, enterprises, and governments to adapt and compete in the Web3 economy through strategic investments, technology convergence, and venture-building programs globally.

For more information about The Hashgraph Group, visit www.hashgraph-group.com.

SOURCE The Hashgraph Group

BROOKLYN, N.Y., Feb. 24, 2025 — Floodbase, the parametric platform for insuring uncovered flood risk, today announced a $5 million investment led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund (EIF) with participation from Pulse Fund. The investment will allow Floodbase to accelerate development of flood insurance programs, cementing its position as the industry standard for a new category of flood insurance.

Flooding is the most common and pervasive natural disaster, yet 83% of global economic flood loss over the past decade was uninsured. Hurricane Helene was the single most devastating natural catastrophe event in 2024, estimated to have caused $75 billion in economic loss, mainly due to flooding. Season after season, businesses and local governments are left to navigate financial uncertainty and millions of dollars in damages, lost revenue, and recovery expenses. The expected increase in flood intensity and frequency only amplifies the need to address uninsured risks and secure rapid funds as floods happen.

“Flood insurance has typically been limited to direct property damage, which only represents a fraction of the overall economic loss” said Bessie Schwarz, Co-founder and CEO of Floodbase. “We’re enabling a financial safety net that can cover any economic loss associated with a flood event. Not only does this remove uncertainties around what’s covered, the fast and flexible liquidity is a game changer for those managing the aftermath”.

Since its series A in 2023, Floodbase has operated across 40+ countries and enabled more than 9,000 flood insurance policies, becoming a preferred partner for leading re/insurers including Swiss Re Corporate Solutions, Liberty Mutual Re, and AXA Climate. Floodbase’s platform, built on a decade of groundbreaking peer-reviewed science, continuously monitors flooding globally, allowing the company to power flood insurance programs across industries and geographies.

Schwarz added, “With the growing demand for new flood insurance programs, we are thrilled to partner with EIF to accelerate our growth. We’ve known EIF for a long time and are excited to formalize our partnership. With their support, we’ll continue to lead and empower the market to close the global flood protection gap.”

“New solutions are urgently needed to adapt to an increasingly volatile climate. The frequency and severity of floods is growing, adding to the already tremendous global flood protection gap. Floodbase can power a new category of flood insurance products and has become the preferred platform for its insurance partners. We are thrilled to be partnering with the company to help accelerate the growth of their critical resiliency offering,” said Sasha Brown, Partner at Ecosystem Integrity Fund.

“By funding adaptation projects and cutting edge climate tech companies like Floodbase, Pulse Fund aims to bolster resilience and enhance the economic security of communities. Floodbase’s platform enables a much needed, new category of flood insurance products at a time when historic flood events, and the financial devastation they cause, are becoming the norm,” said Pulse Fund Founder and Managing Partner, Tenzin Seldon.

This investment highlights Floodbase’s success amid the persistent underfunding of women-led startups. In 2023, only 2% of venture capital went to companies founded by women, with that figure dropping to 1.9% in early 2024, according to PitchBook. Co-founded by Bessie Schwarz and Dr. Beth Tellman, Floodbase has now raised $17 million in venture capital, including Collaborative Fund, Floating Point, Lower Carbon Capital, and Vidavo Ventures, defying this trend and setting an example for diversity in tech innovation.

About Floodbase
Floodbase is a parametric platform for insuring uncovered flood risk. Built on more than a decade of groundbreaking science, we continuously monitor flooding worldwide. Leading re/insurers rely on Floodbase to cover large corporate and public sector clients against previously uninsurable economic loss from flooding. Floodbase also supports FEMA, the UN, The New York Times, and others to identify and respond to major events. Follow Floodbase on LinkedIn for more news and insights.

About Ecosystem Integrity Fund
Ecosystem Integrity Fund (EIF) invests in early growth-stage companies contributing to environmental sustainability across multiple sectors including renewable energy, transportation, agriculture and food, climate resilience, green chemistry, waste reduction, and efficiency. EIF takes a systems-based approach to sustainability investment, studying both the drivers for change as well as the constraints to innovation in market niches that are ripe for development. EIF invests in companies solving real problems, resulting in better investment opportunities and greater impact. The firm has over $600 million in assets under management.

About Pulse Fund
Pulse Fund is a venture capital fund investing in high-growth climate companies. Pulse invests horizontally across 4 key verticals: food and agriculture, infrastructure, energy, and mobility. The fund is focused on scalable, vertically-integrated companies that offer superior margins, outsized financial wins, and supply chain risk mitigation. The team brings together a unique blend of investment and climate science expertise to identify long-term opportunities that drive capital, innovation and tangible climate progress.

SOURCE Floodbase

• Deerfield Management to collaborate with QIA as part of Fund of Funds venture capital program
• Regional office set to open in Doha in mid-2025
• Activities to include upskilling local entrepreneurs and fostering the Qatari innovation ecosystem via a healthcare startup accelerator

DOHA, Qatar and NEW YORK, Feb. 23, 2025 — Deerfield Management today announced a collaboration with Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) as part of QIA’s Fund of Funds program.

The partnership unites Deerfield’s mission of advancing healthcare with QIA’s commitment to sustaining a vibrant startup ecosystem in Qatar and the wider MENA region.

QIA’s inaugural Fund of Funds venture capital program was launched in 2024 with a primary focus on technology and healthcare amongst other fast-growing sectors. The initiative is intended to boost economic diversification, support local development, and bring global best practices and capabilities to Qatar.

In support of this program, Deerfield is set to open a regional office in Doha by mid-2025. The office will seek to support the upskilling of local startups and entrepreneurs, coordinate educational programs, and serve as a resource hub for healthcare-focused ventures in the region. The partnership will foster international collaboration and champion technological creativity.

Deerfield, through the Cure, will additionally direct a healthcare startup accelerator program in which a cohort of global and local entrepreneurs will work to sharpen their understanding of business and financial modeling; learn to conduct and analyze market research; advance the development and design of healthcare products; practice delivering effective investor presentations; and more. The accelerator program will take place both virtually and on the ground in Doha and will culminate in a pitch competition wherein entrepreneurs have the opportunity to showcase their ideas to interested stakeholders.

“Qatar’s rich cultural and economic environment makes the State a fertile environment for businesses to grow,” said James Flynn, Managing Partner at Deerfield. “In partnering with QIA, we hope to support local entrepreneurs and help a sustainable healthcare and life science ecosystem thrive.”

News of the partnership was announced at the 2025 Web Summit Qatar, an international gathering connecting thousands of entrepreneurs in the Middle East and beyond to investors, journalists, and technology professionals around the world.

About Deerfield Management

Deerfield is an investment management firm committed to advancing healthcare through investment, information, and philanthropy. The Firm works across the healthcare ecosystem to connect people, capital, ideas, and technology in bold, collaborative, and inclusive ways. For more information, please visit www.deerfield.com.

About QIA

QIA is the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar. QIA was founded in 2005 to invest and manage the state reserve funds. QIA is among the largest and most active sovereign wealth funds globally. QIA invests across a wide range of asset classes and regions as well as in partnership with leading institutions around the world to build a global and diversified investment portfolio with a long-term perspective that can deliver sustainable returns and contribute to the prosperity of the State of Qatar.

About QIA’s Fund of Funds Program  

The Fund of Funds program aims to develop a strong startup and venture capital ecosystem in Qatar, attract venture capital firms and entrepreneurs to the region, and help close the current funding gap for local and regional entrepreneurs. The program, first announced in February 2024, will place a priority focus on the tech and healthcare sectors. The Fund of Funds program has a mandate that includes delivering a positive development impact on the Qatari venture capital ecosystem. 

Media Contact

Deerfield Management: Jessica Sagers, PhD, Head of Communications, [email protected]

Qatar Investment Authority: [email protected]

SOURCE Deerfield Management Company, L.P.

Former Echodyne and Astranis Engineers Raise $5 Million to Field Advanced Spaceborne Radar Systems for National Defense and Commercial Use Cases

SEATTLE, Feb. 21, 2025 — Kapta Space, a Seattle-based space tech startup, today came out of stealth mode and announced that it has raised a $5 million seed round to support the development of its advanced spaceborne electronically-steered, radar-based imaging technology.  The round was led by MetaVC Partners, in participation with Entrada Ventures and Blue Collective.  The company will use the funds to accelerate on-orbit demonstrations.

Founded by Milton Perque (formerly of Echodyne) and Adam Bily (formerly of Apple and Astranis) in 2023, Kapta Space offers a solution that centers around a sophisticated, electronically-steered antenna radar array through the use of metasurface technology. Kapta’s novel approach to electronic beam steering will provide a more capable, scalable, and cost-effective solution compared to today’s state of the art technology, such as Active Electronically Steered Arrays (AESAs).

Kapta initially will enable two important capabilities from satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO): persistent geospatial imagery for Earth Observation (EO) and ground target tracking modalities for defense missions.

By employing a technique called Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), Kapta can create high-resolution “around-the-clock” imagery and analytics from space to provide commercial industries persistent, actionable information that is largely lacking today.

Kapta believes there are blind spots in the EO industry (namely commercial SAR imagery, data, and analytics) that cannot be addressed with today’s technologies. While others are delivering high-resolution satellite imagery products to satisfy DoD/Intel demand, Kapta has a different thesis. “SAR isn’t just about capturing satellite images. Our system allows us to deliver a more diverse set of data products to serve the broader commercial market. Although our system can provide small, high-resolution images, we can also deliver many other imaging products and modalities that today’s technologies simply are not capable of,” says Kapta Space CTO and co-founder Adam Bily.

For example, Kapta’s system enables an imaging technique called InSAR (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar). InSAR mainly is used for earth displacement monitoring (a key need of large-scale mining operations, for instance) and produces a 3D deformation map of the earth that can cover very large areas with centimeter-scale sensitivity from space. Satellites using Kapta’s technology are being designed to provide the highest quality InSAR data on the market. “With a modest constellation of around 10 satellites, we could provide rapid-revisit, practical 3D infrastructure monitoring of key locations all around the world,” says Bily.

Kapta Space CEO and co-founder Milton Perque suggested that their technology transcends just persistent EO imagery and analytics. “Our tech has much broader implications than just SAR,” says Perque. “What we see is more of an advanced, multi-mission Spaceborne radar sensor that would enable many of the critical defense missions that don’t exist at scale, like GMTI (or Ground Moving Target Indication; missions of tracking slow moving ground targets from space). That’s not possible with a low-cost, mechanically pointed system. To enable these critical missions, radar sensors are required to be sophisticated, yet cost-efficient. This is incredibly challenging, and it has never existed in space at scale.”

As far back as 25 years ago, the Department of Defense (DoD) began to explore moving airborne missions (like those performed by AWACs, Wedgetail and JSTARS) into space. Space-based operations guarantee global, persistent access to areas in conflict, like the current war in Ukraine. Conducting these advanced missions out of harm’s way is among the US military’s most challenging efforts.

The advancements Kapta brings to the defense domain are evident in its breakthrough performance and low cost.  For example, in Q2 of 2023, Kapta was awarded a $1.8M Direct to Phase II SBIR to build a version of its electronically steered antennas for spaceborne radar and granted security clearances needed to execute on classified defense contracts.  The company plans to continue to submit proposals to other non-dilutive funding vehicles throughout the year.

“AESAs are plagued with several problems that generally make them impractical for spaceborne applications at scale,” said Chris Alliegro, managing partner, MetaVC Partners, a metamaterials-focused VC firm. “That’s where metamaterials come in. The Kapta team has designed a metamaterials-based radar imaging device that offers improved electronic scanning at lesser cost, complexity, and power consumption than spaceborne AESA’s. And we are incredibly lucky to have Milton and Adam at the wheel, two early pioneers in the development of metamaterials-based systems.”

About Kapta Space

Seattle-based Kapta Space is a developer and operator of spaceborne radar technology that provides low-cost, advanced, electronically steered array sensors.  By employing a technique called Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), Kapta creates high-resolution imagery and analytics from space in near real-time, addressing the limitations of high costs and small area coverage, and providing critical data for a variety of applications. This innovative technology has the potential to revolutionize industries such as defense, intelligence, and commercial earth observation. For more information on Kapta Space, go to our website at www.kaptaspace.com.

Media Contact:
Tim Turpin
CodePR
[email protected]

SOURCE Kapta Space

Through diverse programming including a CEO Series and a Digital Accelerator program, the funds will accelerate small businesses and close the digital divide resulting in a stronger, more vibrant community

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 21, 2025 — Vermont Slauson Economic Development Corporation (VSEDC) received a $100,000 grant from PNC Bank to support VSEDC’s comprehensive programming for small businesses and entrepreneurs in South LA. Designed to inspire economic growth, the funds will support VSEDC’s signature programs including a Digital Accelerator program with Youth and the organization’s signature CEO Series to serve entrepreneurs who are ready to launch and scale their business.

“VSEDC is honored to partner with PNC Bank to enhance opportunities for small businesses on their journey to success,” said Quentin Strode, President & CEO of VSEDC. “South Los Angeles is home to brilliant minds and motivated entrepreneurs who simply need resources and a chance. We are thrilled that PNC shares our vision for uplifting communities that have historically lacked the resources all communities deserve.”

Recognizing that small businesses often lack the necessary tools for elevation, VSEDC designed a CEO Series—a seven course cohort that guides entrepreneurs through the process of launching and scaling their ventures. Led by a team of experts from across a wide spectrum of experience, course topics include business models, determining market needs, finding ideal customers, operating skills, marketing and social media strategies, and more. To serve current entrepreneurs and simultaneously prepare the next generation of leaders, VSEDC’s Digital Accelerator program with Youth that bridges the digital divide by providing small business entrepreneurs, with an emphasis on minority-and women-owned businesses, with digital marketing and website development training. This unique venture trains South LA youth (ages 18-24) in parallel to excel in digital marketing, and place them in internships with the participating businesses.

“PNC takes great pride in empowering small businesses to thrive in an ever-evolving economy,” said Todd Wilson, regional president of Greater Los Angeles for PNC Bank. “We’re honored to support VSEDC’s mission through a meaningful investment that fosters local entrepreneurial growth and drives lasting impact.”

By equipping entrepreneurs with essential skills, The CEO Series helps businesses expand leading to a stronger local economy. As businesses grow, they create jobs, reduce unemployment, and strengthen the overall health of households in underserved communities. According to recent statistics, more than 100,000 LA County residents live without internet access. The Digital Accelerator program is an immediate solution that connects youth to practical training in digital marketing, website development, and online branding—equipping them with real-world skills that are essential in today’s economy. Unlike many unpaid programs, this initiative pays youth for their work, allowing them to earn income while gaining valuable job experience as a major step toward financial independence.

“With a history that spans nearly 50 years, we are relentless in our quest to end the cycle of poverty that threatens South Los Angeles,” said Strode. “Thanks to the dynamic support from partners like PNC Bank, we take one step closer to creating a more equitable city where every person has the chance to thrive.”

About VSEDC
For more than four decades, VSEDC has facilitated community development of the South Los Angeles area by providing programs that revitalize the physical, economic, and social life of the community. A newly-designated Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), VSEDC has developed and implemented a comprehensive approach to community economic development that includes business development, access to capital, technical assistance and training, commercial, and industrial development. Founded by the late Marva Smith Battle-Bey in 1981, VSEDC works to create a South Los Angeles with strong neighborhoods and thriving communities. To learn more, please visit www.vsedc.org.

About PNC Bank

PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. is one of the largest diversified financial services institutions in the United States, with an extensive coast-to-coast branch network, a presence in all 30 of the country’s largest markets, and a history dating back to 1865, providing retail banking, including residential mortgage, corporate and institutional banking, and asset management to individuals, institutions, and businesses of all sizes.

To learn more, visit www.pnc.com.

SOURCE Vermont Slauson Economic Development Corporation