NEW YORK, June 25, 2024 — Adonis, a leading healthcare financial technology platform based in New York City, today announced that it has raised $31 million in Series B financing led by Point72 Private Investments. Point72 Private Investments was joined by new investor Kin Ventures, along with existing investors General Catalyst, Bling Capital, and Max Ventures.

The current round comes on the heels of a $17.3 million Series A round, led by General Catalyst only 12 months ago, bringing the total amount raised to $54 million since the company’s founding in 2022. This fundraise solidifies Adonis’ position as one of the fastest growing revenue intelligence and automation companies in the United States.

As of this fundraise, Adonis works with over 10,000 providers and has processed tens of millions of claims, totaling over $13.3 billion in charges. Adonis works with over 3,000 different payers, equating to nearly all of the payers in the United States, and integrates with over 35 different EHRs and Clearinghouses. Adonis works with health systems, single-specialty physician groups, and rapidly growing digital health companies across anesthesia, dermatology, orthopedics, dental, emergency medicine, gastroenterology, OB/GYN, behavioral health, and more.

For healthcare organizations, the process of collecting revenue from insurance companies represents nearly 1 out of every 7 dollars spent — a testament to the highly manual and ever-changing nature of submitting insurance claims. Adonis was built as a response to the shortcomings of legacy revenue cycle technology that lacked the ability to deploy the pattern recognition and anomaly detection required to streamline and automate otherwise manual workflows, a status quo that represents a $150 billion challenge.

Adonis is a revenue intelligence and automation platform, designed for healthcare, that gives healthcare providers the ability to collect the revenue that they deserve. Since its inception, Adonis has focused on building a proprietary model that applies ML and AI methods to pinpoint the constantly changing root-cause issues that customers face. Adonis Intelligence, Adonis’ flagship product, serves as the engine that powers dramatic reductions in staffing needs and improved collections outcomes. Real-time dashboards and alerts, as well as AI-driven recommendations, claims status tracking, smart worklists, and underpayments detection, increase RCM team efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness.

“The Adonis team has a deep understanding of the complex challenges prevalent in healthcare today,” said Sri Chandrasekar, Managing Partner at Point72 Private Investments. “By helping practices recover more revenue, they are in turn giving providers the ability to focus on improving patient experiences and health outcomes overall. We believe their approach has the potential to create a lasting impact on practices, providers, and patients and are excited to be a partner along the way.”

“The opportunity to expand our investment with Adonis is exciting,” said Holly Maloney, Managing Director at General Catalyst. “We believe their progress is a true testament to the sophistication of their technology, coupled with their relentless pursuit of innovation in the healthcare revenue cycle space. Since investing in their Series A, we’ve watched the Adonis team continuously demonstrate the effectiveness of their technology, helping healthcare teams recover more revenue so that they can focus on clinical outcomes. Their advancements have reinforced our confidence in their technology, team, and strategic vision, and we look forward to continuing to support their journey.”

“Revenue cycle and managing claims continues to be an underlying challenge for many of our nation’s providers and practices, often leading to financial stress and operational inefficiencies. Through cutting-edge technology and a customer-centric approach, we are committed to empowering teams to recover the revenue they deserve and create an improved patient experience. We strive to improve the financial health of healthcare providers, ensuring they can focus on delivering exceptional patient care. Last year, we had the honor of being named a Most Promising Startup of 2023 by Business Insider. In an era of software companies defined by hard-to-reach projections, I am humbled and grateful for our team and early customers for their commitment in helping us drive towards our mission,” said Akash Magoon, Co-Founder and CEO, Adonis.

“Adonis is committed to providing our nation’s healthcare executives with cutting-edge data surveillance and observability tools that enable broad automation capabilities across their ever-growing teams. In the ongoing game of cat-and-mouse between insurance companies and healthcare providers, static rule-based approaches to revenue cycle technology simply does not cut it. Our vision, from the inception of Adonis, was to give healthcare organizations the ability to leverage large language models across the millions of records of data they generate on a daily basis to better inform and mitigate issues, and to recover revenue faster and more efficiently,” said Aman Magoon, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, Adonis.

With this new funding round, Adonis is focused on accelerating product innovation, continuing to expand into the health system space, and growing their New York City-based team.

About Adonis
Adonis is a Revenue Intelligence and Automation Platform, built for Healthcare, solving for operational challenges that impact the integrity of revenue cycle management. On average, Healthcare providers are unable to collect 15% or more of the revenue it’s owed. This is a result of compounding fractures in traditional RCM; a series of people, processes, systems, and tools are collectively responsible for this dilemma. Powered by data science and automation, Adonis provides solutions to address the common issues and areas of susceptibility within RCM to create better, more reliable revenue outcomes. No matter where you are in your revenue cycle journey, we can help you take a step in the right direction to achieve your revenue potential. Learn more at adonis.io.

Contact:
Dan Murdoch
[email protected] 

SOURCE Adonis

One of the Year’s Most Successful Open Source Launches Receives Strong Vote of Confidence from the Developer Community

NEW YORK, June 25, 2024 — Daytona, an open source development environment manager, announces today that it has secured $5 million in seed funding to fuel its mission of democratizing development for developers globally. Led by Upfront Ventures with participation from existing investor 500 EE, this new infusion of capital will enable Daytona to accelerate the expansion of streamlined development environments to developers worldwide. The company will use the funds for product development and hiring for new marketing, sales and engineering roles.

Since introducing its enterprise developer solution in late 2023, Daytona has nearly doubled its ARR. The company also created an open source version geared toward individual developers that has garnered immense interest, amassing over 5,000 GitHub stars since its inception two months ago and consistently featuring on the most-starred repository list, demonstrating strong demand.

Daytona initially emerged as a solution tailored for large enterprises, enabling their developers to automate tasks, collaborate effortlessly, and enhance productivity albeit while adherent to enterprise security needs. Recognizing the importance of extending these benefits beyond large organizations, it has open sourced key components of its enterprise platform to empower the individual developers with the same streamlined development experience. One persistent challenge in the developer community is the “works on my machine problem,” where inconsistent development environments lead to significant productivity losses. According to IEEE Journal, developers lose 56% of their productive time due to inefficient environments. Daytona addresses this issue head-on by allowing any developer to create a fully working environment with a single command, “daytona create.”

“Our goal is to make every developer more productive, while lowering the barrier to entry for newcomers by removing unnecessary complexities. Today, setting up a dev environment can feel like starting a car in the 1900s with many steps and points of failure,” said Ivan Burazin, co-founder and CEO of Daytona. “Daytona makes it as simple as starting a modern car today where you can just push a button and go. We help developers focus on what really matters to them, which is writing code and building innovative solutions.”

“We’re thrilled to support the Daytona team on their mission to simplify development environments,” said Kevin Zhang, Partner at Upfront Ventures and new board member at Daytona. “The most forward thinking companies in the world have landed on cloud developer environments as a way of achieving a uniform developer environment for their teams. The Daytona founders have been working towards this since they created one of the first cloud IDEs over a decade ago. Their subject matter expertise and passion uniquely positions them to build a beloved developer experience that also satisfies even the strongest security requirements.”

For more information about Daytona or to try it today, visit https://www.daytona.io.

About Daytona
Based in NY but fully distributed globally, Daytona is an open source development environment manager. Daytona simplifies the process of creating standard and secure environments, automates environment setups on branches, and shares environments seamlessly. It also integrates with your IDE or Git provider, adhering to standards such as Development Container, Devfile, Nix and others. The company has raised a total of $7M million from Upfront Ventures, 500 Global, and also founders of Postman, Netlify, Supabase among others.

SOURCE Daytona Platforms, Inc

Secures Growth Financing From Elsewhere Partners to Accelerate Market Expansion, Appoints New CEO and Moves Global Headquarters to Texas

LONDON and AUSTIN, Texas, June 25, 2024 — Deskpro today announced the close of a $25 million Series A funding round led by Elsewhere Partners to meet intensifying demand for its comprehensive suite of proven help desk solutions. Deskpro will use the growth financing to strengthen its customer experience team, expand its AI-powered help desk solutions and further penetrate key markets, with a focus on expansion in the United States. Deskpro also announced the appointment of software industry leader Brad Murdoch as CEO and established a new global headquarters in Austin, Texas.

“Industry-leading customer support experience is a critical business priority for us, which led us to Deskpro’s flexible and modern help desk solution,” said Marion Abramo, Support Manager, Aquatic Informatics. “Deskpro allows us to seamlessly manage support needs across multiple software platforms for our global customer base. Automating our ticketing processes, response workflows and communications has made process optimization possible, while also improving our response times and the quality of our support interactions. Deskpro also offers the ‘Service Level Agreement’ tracking, customer satisfaction feedback and reporting we need to understand the performance of our business.”

The company helps hundreds of global leaders like Aon, Bitdefender, Brown University, HMRC, Keyence, and the NHS provide exceptional customer service and support in 20+ languages across more than 60 countries. Deskpro offers a single, secure, customizable solution for customer service management (CSM), IT service management (ITSM) and enterprise service management (ESM) with flexible deployment options in Deskpro’s cloud, a customer’s private cloud or on-premise in a customer’s data center.

An Elsewhere Partners Operating Advisor and seasoned software industry executive, Murdoch brings two decades of experience partnering with technical founders to build strong go-to-market strategies and accelerate revenue growth to his new role as CEO of Deskpro. He will lean on his experience successfully scaling software companies and leading global sales, marketing and business development teams to maximize Deskpro’s market reach in the growing help desk automation sector. Most recently serving as executive vice president at Lightbend, Murdoch has also held various senior executive roles at Prevoty (acquired by Imperva), Framehawk (acquired by Citrix), Nukona (acquired by Symantec), OpenSpan (acquired by Pegasystems), and JBoss (acquired by Red Hat). Murdoch also serves on the Board of Directors of Permission.io.

“Working with Elsewhere Partners and the Deskpro team over the last few months, I’ve been continually impressed by the company’s dedication to the ongoing success of its customers, the breadth of its platform and the market traction it has been able to drive organically,” said Deskpro CEO Brad Murdoch. “I am looking forward to working with the leadership team to take Deskpro to the next phase of its growth and fully tap its global market potential as the need for flexible, secure, AI-driven service management solutions continues to grow dramatically.”

Based in Austin, Texas, Murdoch plans to rapidly grow Deskpro’s U.S.-based sales and marketing team, while keeping its existing product development and engineering teams in the London office. Founder Chris Padfield will remain on the Board of the company and lead product strategy as Chief Product Officer.

“When it became clear that we needed to scale faster to meet the needs of our customers, we conducted an extensive evaluation of potential investors. Our shared vision with Elsewhere Partners became apparent early on, and we are excited that this funding round enables us to make important investments in our product and people to further fuel our growth,” noted Padfield.

As part of the financing, established software industry leaders Rod Favaron and Rita Selvaggi, both Operating Partners at Elsewhere Partners, have joined the Board of Directors, along with Principal Nick Stoffregen. They will serve as functional advisors to provide guidance and support for Deskpro during this high-growth phase.

“In our effort to find and invest in leading IT automation solutions, Deskpro stood out in a sea of help desk solution providers because of its powerful, highly configurable and feature-rich platform,” said Favaron. “Deskpro meets the needs of support teams serving both internal and external audiences with an advanced solution that can be deployed in any environment. The demand for secure, scalable help desk automation continues to grow, and Deskpro is positioned to lead the industry into a new era of AI-powered, enterprise-grade solutions that can meet an organization’s needs at any point in their IT evolution.”

About Deskpro
Deskpro develops flexible help desk software that enables organizations around the globe to provide better customer-facing and internal support experiences through a centralized and user-friendly interface for managing support interactions across multiple channels such as email, live chat, phone, and social media. Deskpro automates repetitive, complex, and time-intensive processes, resulting in a more engaged and productive staff, leading to better customer experiences. Deskpro is extremely customizable and can be securely deployed in Deskpro’s cloud, a customer’s private cloud or on-premise in a customer’s data center. For more information, visit www.deskpro.com.

About Elsewhere Partners
Elsewhere Partners is a growth-stage investment firm that has invested in Elsewhere Outliers – business software companies located outside of traditional venture capital hubs that have achieved substantial customer traction and revenue growth without significant outside funding – since 2017. Elsewhere Partners combines transitional capital with transformational expertise to help companies achieve exit readiness on their own terms. Collectively, Elsewhere’s investors, Operating Partners and Operating Advisors represent experience across 150+ organizations, 100+ acquisitions, 150+ rounds of financing and $1+ billion in total investment. To learn more, visit https://elsewhere.partners.  

Media Contact:
Erica Camilo
Connexa Communications
C: 610.639.5644
[email protected]

SOURCE Deskpro

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 25, 2024 — opus1.io, an end-to-end practice management platform for lesson & class-based performing arts businesses, today announced a strategic investment from Five Elms Capital, a leading software investment firm. The funding will support further investment in opus1.io’s platform, which helps performing arts professionals operate and grow their businesses more efficiently.

opus1’s performing arts platform is built with a single mission in mind: to provide performing arts schools with the tools they need to spend less time in their business and more time on their business. The platform helps customers seamlessly solve complex issues related to scheduling, booking, staffing, marketing, invoicing, and payments – all in one easy-to-use, modern platform. Since 2019, Founder and CEO Sam Lellouche has been committed to building a best-in-class technology that solves all of the daily operational shortcomings he has experienced in his own music school.

“We’ve exponentially grown in the last 18 months. Our customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and we are honored to have had such a significant impact on an industry we care deeply about. With the help of Five Elms, we will continue to invest in our product while accelerating our growth into new markets,” said Lellouche.

With over 175,000 monthly users worldwide, opus1.io has a loyal and fast-growing customer base that serves performing arts schools of all sizes. With the help of Five Elms Capital, the expansion of opus1.io’s customer service and product development teams has become an immediate reality.

“Performing arts schools face increasing complexity as they scale from one instructor to many. opus1.io allows them to do less administration and more of what they love – inspiring students. The company has proven itself as a premier end-to-end solution for the performing arts schools industry,” said Austin Gideon, Principal at Five Elms Capital. “We’re thrilled to support the team’s mission and vision, provide better service to the current customer base, and expand their reach to new verticals. We look forward to seeing the positive impact the partnership will have on the company and the broader performing arts community.”

opus1.io has recently launched opus1.io plus, a cutting-edge growth solution for studios that are primed for accelerated expansion. Rory Cain, Head of Sales for opus1.io, commented on the newly launched product, “opus1.io has been a champion of performing arts education businesses from day one. Our partnership with Five Elms Capital enables us to double down on those efforts and further empower business owners to spread arts in their community with our flagship platform as well as continued advancements to our growth module, opus1.io plus.”

With features such as advanced reputation management and sales pipeline, business owners can track, predict, and prepare for virtually anything – including students at risk of cancellation long before it happens. Additionally, opus1.io plus has elaborate marketing capabilities that put the knowledge and experience of a Chief Marketing Officer in the hands of every studio owner.

About opus1.io
opus1.io started as a disrupter in the music school software space, growing to be the leading provider of end-to-end technology solutions for performing arts academies worldwide today. Founded by performing arts studio owners, opus1.io is designed to be the all-in-one solution to manage all your customers, staff, services, schedules, invoices, and payments. Our advanced technology is ideal for both individual and class-based learning. For more information about opus1.io and opus1.io plus, visit opus1.io.

About Five Elms
Five Elms Capital is a global growth equity firm that invests in fast-growing B2B software businesses that users love. Five Elms provides capital and resources to help companies accelerate growth and further cement their role as industry leaders. Since firm inception in 2007, Five Elms has focused exclusively on software investing, building an unmatched network and deep domain expertise. Today, with over $2.4 billion in assets under management and a global team of over 70 investment professionals, Five Elms has invested in more than 65 software platforms globally. For more information, visit fiveelms.com.

SOURCE Five Elms Capital

Rocketlane champions professional services teams, the OGs of after sales experts, with an all-in-one AI powered platform to deliver the promise of sales and removes siloed project management and inefficiencies.

SAN MATEO, Calif., June 25, 2024 — Professional services teams in companies are like the A-Team, a group of individuals who help clients extract the real value of a product or service they have purchased. They deliver on the mission of the company and the promise of the sales teams. However, today, their work is stifled by a mix-and-match of tools and legacy systems. Enabling them to succeed and thrive in their work, workflow automation platform Rocketlane is today announcing a $24 million Series B funding round as it expands the opportunity for professional services teams with AI capabilities.

The funding round was co-led by 8VC, Matrix Partners India, and Nexus Venture Partners. With this, it brings the total funds raised to $45m.

Rocketlane has broadened its proposition from supporting customer onboarding to doubling down on professional services teams with their needs. Most teams manage their processes using a manual patchwork of siloed PSA tools or spreadsheets. The result is project delays and a hit to profitability. In contrast, Rocketlane gives professional services teams visibility into every aspect of a project — progress made, stakeholders involved, pending/completed tasks, and delayed items, helping teams prioritize tasks that need their attention while creating an avenue for smooth communication with clients.

Over the last year, Rocketlane has tripled its revenue and reached over 500 customers, including enterprise companies that have switched to Rocketlane from legacy Professional Services Automation (PSA) tools. Recent customer wins include industry-leading names like OpenGov, LivePerson, Fivetran, Personio, and Zenoti among others.

Srikrishnan Ganesan, CEO & Co-founder, Rocketlane commented: “Our unique combination of high-velocity innovation and robust capabilities sets us apart, and has helped us consistently win large, forward-thinking customers, including public companies. With this new investment, we are committed to accelerating our AI roadmap and redefining the client portal experience,” adding, “We have equipped ourselves to handle the challenges of rapid growth, and continue delivering exceptional value to our clients.”

Nav Kalra, VP of Professional Services at OpenGov, a Rocketlane customer said, “In a sea of legacy tools, Rocketlane stands out as a modern, disruptive force in the PSA software landscape with its all-in-one platform. The intuitive interface and unparalleled client-facing experience make managing client projects a breeze. We’re thrilled to partner with Rocketlane as we continue to revolutionize the way we work.”

A growing segment of the company’s customers are in the AI SaaS category. Although onboarding is challenging for any SaaS business, those in AI tend to have more complex deployments, and as a result more complex needs. Rocketlane helps SaaS providers provide an accelerated onboarding journey that holds customers accountable, shortens time-to-value, and helps begin expansion conversations earlier (which increases Net Revenue Retention), right from the first touchpoint.

In parallel, Rocketlane has launched its own AI functionality with more capabilities in the coming months. The new funding will significantly accelerate Rocketlane’s AI roadmap, enabling the development of advanced features and capabilities that enhance client project delivery. As enterprises focus more on leveraging AI, Rocketlane’s AI-driven capabilities for resource management, efficiency, and productivity are expected to provide a competitive edge.

This growth follows another significant milestone for the company. Rocketlane was crowned the G2 Momentum Leader in the PSA category for three consecutive quarters, in addition to securing 199 other G2 badges in the Spring 2024 report. Today, Rocketlane is the go-to choice for services firms that want to elevate their project delivery experience and optimize their utilization margins.

The company was founded in April 2020 by second-time entrepreneur trio — Srikrishnan Ganesan, Vignesh Girishankar, and Deepak Bala. Previously, the trio built a successful in-app messaging (FreshChat) startup that was acquired by Freshworks (NASDAQ: FRSH) in 2015 and started Rocketlane in response to problems they faced onboarding their own customers to FreshChat.

“Rocketlane has reshaped enterprise client project delivery, replacing tired, legacy PSA approaches with elegant software and deployment,” said Bhaskar Ghosh, Partner at 8VC. “Speed and agility matter when you become the leader in a category like customer onboarding. Rocketlane has achieved precisely that since their Series A, showing themselves to be both visionaries and incredibly hard-nosed executors. We are thrilled to continue supporting Rocketlane and Sri, Deepak, and Vignesh, founders who lead with a rare blend of thought, culture, and action.”

Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Nexus Ventures Partners, added: “We are thrilled to double down on backing Sri and the team at Rocketlane as they transform the PSA and customer onboarding categories with their industry-leading, AI-powered product and fast-growing list of marquee customers.”

Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director, Matrix India, added: “The Rocketlane team has a great opportunity to replace legacy PSA software with their AI roadmap and great user experience. The company has executed this vision with rapid adoption and has solidified its industry-leading position. We are excited to reinforce our commitment to them.”

To date, the company has seen remarkable success with key customers such as Icertis, Drift, Moveworks, and Clari.

Rocketlane customer Siva Rajamani, CEO, Everstage commented: “We have accelerated customer wins by 35%, and helped our post-sales teams build stronger partnerships with customers from the start of their journey. Rocketlane elevates our customer experience in delivery with strong automation and consistency into our execution with customers”.

As part of its growth strategy, Rocketlane is excited to announce the appointment of Rao Adavikolanu as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Rao’s expertise will be instrumental in driving Rocketlane’s market presence and strategic initiatives.

Looking ahead, Rocketlane is committed to attracting more top-tier talent and executing its AI-first roadmap to make onboarding and project deliveries chaos-free. Srikrishnan Ganesan added: “The team is excited about our upcoming innovations–especially the unique AI capabilities and the first-of-its-kind dynamic client portal in this space–that will expand the gap between Rocketlane and the competition”.

About Rocketlane
Rocketlane is a purpose-built PSA and client onboarding platform that helps businesses deliver predictable outcomes, accelerate time-to-value, and improve team utilization and project profitability. The platform reimagines service delivery for teams by replacing legacy PSA and generic project tools with an all-in-one and modern client-centric platform. Rocketlane offers a unique, unified workspace that improves communication, collaboration, and project visibility for businesses and their clients. It equips teams with trends and benchmarks across projects, which in turn helps them develop and optimize playbooks and processes. To learn more about Rocketlane, visit www.rocketlane.com.

Contact
Varun Singh
[email protected]
+91-8369283466

SOURCE Rocketlane

The injection of funds will enable the Bangladeshi startup to empower more drivers through an expanded network of battery swapping stations.

DHAKA, Bangladesh, June 25, 2024 — In the bustling streets of Bangladesh, where millions rely on three-wheelers daily, Tiger New Energy (“Tiger”), a Bangladeshi clean energy startup, is setting a new standard in urban mobility with its innovative battery swapping technology. ADB Ventures has provided the company with an additional US$1 million in funding, augmenting the US$2.5 million seed round led by Wavemaker Partners last year. The investment accelerates the deployment of Tiger’s battery swapping network across Bangladesh, advancing its mission to promote eco-friendly mobility and deliver substantial socio-economic benefits.

Driving Change for Green Mobility and Empowering Local Communities

Harvard Business School alumni Nicole Mao and Yiwei Zhu founded Tiger New Energy to address the pressing issues of carbon emissions and energy inefficiency that plague Bangladesh’s urban transportation sector. Approximately 4 million electric three-wheelers and vehicles transport over 112 million people daily across the country. However, the use of low-quality lead-acid batteries, which only last 6 to 8 months, hinders these vital modes of transportation from being as efficient as necessary. The absence of adequate charging infrastructure compounds the problem, posing imminent safety threats, including the risk of fire accidents.

In a transformative move, Tiger has introduced a network of stations where rickshaw drivers can swap their depleted batteries for fully charged ones in less than one minute compared to four hours previously. This dramatically reduces downtime and has been shown to amplify the earnings of rickshaw drivers by an impressive 60%, reinforcing the backbone of urban transport in Bangladesh.

Innovative Technology Drives Economic Growth

Tiger’s proprietary Offline Swapping and Reverse Charging features ensure service continuity during power outages, while its infrastructure doubles as Decentralised Energy Storage Systems (DESS), contributing to grid stability. Advanced thermal management and data-driven optimisation algorithms further elevate the performance and lifespan of Tiger’s lithium-ion batteries over traditional alternatives.

“Our mission is clear: to make clean mobility accessible to all in emerging markets,” said Nicole Mao, co-founder and CEO of Tiger New Energy. “This funding validates our technology and business model and strengthens our commitment to reducing carbon footprints, fostering sustainable development, and enhancing the livelihoods of local communities.”

Investment and Growth

Wavemaker Partners, Southeast Asia’s leading VC firm investing in early-stage enterprise, deep tech, and sustainability startups, led the funding round with notable participation from ADB Ventures. The round’s other investors include 500 TukTuks, Orvel Ventures, Humble, Penataran Management, Brett Barna, the founder of the Barna Family Office, an undisclosed Singaporean Family Office, and an undisclosed angel investor.

Investors recognise the potential of Tiger’s solution, particularly female entrepreneurs like Nicole Mao and Yiwei Zhu, who are making a significant impact. “We invested in Tiger New Energy because Nicole and Yiwei are incredible founders, and Bangladesh is an underserved, fast-growing market,” said Doug Parker of Wavemaker Partners. “The investment from ADB Ventures is a sign of the quality of the team and the impact of their work on hard-working citizens.”

ADB Ventures, with a strategic focus on sustainable and inclusive growth, supported Tiger’s mission. “Tiger New Energy’s swift battery swapping solutions alleviate range anxiety for electric vehicle drivers in Bangladesh and pave the way for cleaner energy access and economic empowerment. Their inclusive business approach, dedicated women empowerment initiatives, and commitment to climate impact closely align with our core mission of catalysing climate action and advancing gender equality through transformative solutions in emerging Asia,” said Yichu Zhang of ADB Ventures.

Expanding Networks and Empowering Women

With this investment, Tiger plans to expand its network beyond 100 battery swapping stations to empower over 10,000 rickshaw drivers. The funds will also enhance talent acquisition, spur research and development, and facilitate the exploration of new regional markets. Tiger is actively forming strategic partnerships with leading EV manufacturers and energy providers to further its mission.

Social Impact Through the HerDrive Initiative 

Tiger’s commitment to societal impact is demonstrated through the HerDrive initiative, which aims to boost the number of female rickshaw drivers, currently under 1% of the workforce. The initiative provides training, mentorship, and financial assistance for female drivers in EV ownership, opening a new and stable income source and enhancing the safety and comfort of female passengers. The HerDrive initiative aims to empower 1,000 women by 2025.

Moving Forward: Sustainable Transportation Solutions

As Tiger New Energy forges ahead, it remains dedicated to creating continuous social impact through transformative initiatives. Backed by a robust foundation and the unwavering support of its investors and community, Tiger is poised for rapid growth and is actively preparing for its Series A funding round at the end of 2024.

To learn more about Tiger New Energy and the HerDrive initiative, please visit https://tigernewenergy.com/. 

About Tiger New Energy

Based in Dhaka, Tiger New Energy, founded by two Harvard MBA alumni, is transforming clean mobility in South Asia with its ‘Battery as a Service’ model. The company is setting up a battery swapping station network that utilises lithium batteries to offer sustainable transportation solutions. By introducing a daily subscription model and collaborating with local government and communities, Tiger New Energy aims to make electric vehicles more affordable and accessible, significantly reducing carbon emissions and enhancing environmental sustainability. The service allows users to embrace green mobility without the high upfront cost, promoting the spread of eco-friendly transportation solutions across various regions.

SOURCE Tiger New Energy

CHICAGO and LOS ANGELES, June 25, 2024 — Create Music Group, a rapidly growing music and entertainment company, announced today a $165 million investment led by private equity investment firm Flexpoint Ford.  Flexpoint seeks to partner with companies that provide differentiated financial solutions and services to growing industries and has significant experience in the music space.  The firm’s investment is expected to support Create’s continued momentum and its efforts to further improve and augment the services it offers to its global client-base.

Founded in 2015 by Chief Executive Officer, Jonathan Strauss, Chief Operating Officer, Alexandre Williams and Chief Business Development Officer, Wayne Hampton, Create Music Group is a dynamic, data-driven music company that leverages technology, an owned audience of more than 400 million fans, and a valuable catalog of IP,  providing a full range of services to independent artists and labels, including music distribution, music publishing, owned marketing channels, content creation support, advertising and branding, and tailored financial solutions. Create’s proprietary software platform and full suite of professional services gives a rapidly expanding number of independent artists and labels access to major-label services at every stage of their growth. Create’s rapid growth has largely been self-funded until now and this is the first major investment the company has taken on.

“Our partnership with Flexpoint marks a significant milestone for our company and their expertise will be instrumental as we continue to scale our operations and find new ways to serve our client’s evolving needs,” commented Jonathan Strauss, CEO of Create Music Group. “Flexpoint’s investment will also support our ambitious acquisition strategy which will allow us to expand our market presence and create the scale to continue to provide unparalleled services to our clients and partners.”

“We believe Jonathan and his team have set a new standard for the industry, challenging traditional music companies to rethink their strategies,” said Mike Morris, Managing Director at Flexpoint Ford. “By acting as a media company that offers comprehensive support to artists, including distribution, marketing, financial solutions and audience engagement, Create Music Group has created a blueprint for the future of music.”  Stephane Essama, Principal at Flexpoint Ford added, “We are pleased to have the opportunity to partner with the founders of Create and provide them with the capital that is needed to meet the enormous demand from their clients as the company continues to build a truly differentiated offering for artists and labels in the rapidly evolving music industry.”

Music industry veteran Charles Goldstuck also joined the funding round. The Raine Group acted as financial advisors to Create and Willkie Farr & Gallagher acted as legal counsel in connection with the transaction. Reed Smith acted as legal counsel to Flexpoint in connection with the transaction.

About Create Music Group
Established in 2015, Create Music Group is a rapidly growing music and entertainment company. The company operates as a record label, distribution company, and entertainment network which generates over 25 billion music streams each month on DSP’s. Named #2 on the Inc 5000 Fastest Growth Companies in America in 2020, the company has grown exponentially by leveraging its owned IP with its media and technology platform. The company works with superstar artists, major and independent record labels, and global media brands. It operates a number of companies including Label Engine, one of the largest independent music distribution platforms in the world, with over 75,000 artists and 5,000 label clients; and Flighthouse, a digital entertainment brand focused on Gen Z,  which has more than 300 million followers across social media. Create Music Group is based in Hollywood, CA and has more than 400 employees worldwide.

For more information, visit: https://createmusicgroup.com/

About Flexpoint Ford
Flexpoint Ford is a private equity investment firm that has approximately $8.2 billion of regulatory assets under management and specializes in privately negotiated investments in the financial services and healthcare industries. Since the firm’s formation in 2005, Flexpoint Ford has completed investments across a broad range of investment sizes, structures, and asset classes. Flexpoint Ford has offices in Chicago, Illinois, and New York, New York.

For more information, visit: www.flexpointford.com

SOURCE Create Music Group

Known for its package tracking and protection solutions, Route surpassed $100 million in revenue in 2023 and $15 billion in protected merchandise, solidifying its position as a foundational part of the ecommerce tech stack

LEHI, Utah, June 25, 2024 — Route, the leading post-purchase package tracking and protection solution, today announced a $40 million Series C funding round at a $1.4 billion valuation, cementing its position as a foundational part of the tech stack for global ecommerce brands. The round was led by Hanaco VC with participation from JAWS Ventures, Madrona Ventures, and Granger.

Route empowers more than 13,000 brands, including Alice + Olivia, BlendJet, Cult Gaia, Tom Ford, Daily Drills, LoveShackFancy, Solo Stove, and Wellbel, to offer powerful experiences like shipment tracking, package protection and carbon offsetting that engage and delight customers long after an online purchase is made. Overall, this strengthens a brand’s relationship with its audience, leading to increased loyalty, improved retention and new revenue streams, while reducing costs from common retail issues like shipping losses.

With demand for post-purchase solutions surging, Route achieved an impressive $100 million in revenue in 2023, and is on a clear path to profitability. Additionally, in June 2024, Route surpassed $15 billion in protected merchandise, underscoring the ecommerce unicorn’s market position and traction with retailers and their customers.

“Today’s consumers demand 24/7 visibility into everything they buy, putting retailers under pressure to meet their expectations. That’s why post-purchase experiences have become central to brands’ identities, because shoppers view them as table stakes,” said Michael Yamartino, CEO of Route. “Thousands of brands have turned to Route to deliver the same quality service that billion-dollar retailers provide. With our new funding, we’ll continue to expand our solutions that help brands boost customer lifetime value and satisfaction, while carving our own path to profitability.”

“This funding round represents a pivotal moment for Route as we continue to innovate and provide unparalleled solutions that reshape the ecommerce landscape,” Route’s co-founders Evan Walker and Mike Moreno said in a joint statement. “Our journey from a bold idea to a billion-dollar entity reflects our commitment to excellence and the trust placed in Route by both consumers and brands worldwide.”

For ecommerce customers, Route has become a ubiquitous part of the shopping experience: Across more than three million active users, Route shoppers are using the platform to track their shipments more than 10 times per month on average. Additionally, Route’s customer satisfaction score of 97% is best in class compared to the ecommerce industry benchmark of 80%. 

“Route is a unique combination of a strong, mature management team, rapid growth with a clear path to profitability, and unique market positioning,” said Lior Prosor, partner and co-founder of Hanaco VC. “We believe post-purchase is the ‘final frontier’ in the ecommerce stack that still has a lot of room for disruption as well as consolidation. The experience can be dramatically improved for both the merchant and, more importantly, the end consumer. Route is the market leader in this category.”

Route’s package protection is unique in that it is licensed, compliant and backed by a legitimate insurance policy, safeguarding merchants and their customers from risk. Fully compliant package protection ensures merchants don’t have to worry about the regulatory or financial risk of using an unlicensed provider or DIY software.

“Wellbel prioritizes sustainable growth and values trustworthy partnerships. With Route as our partner, we are confident that our business and community are consistently protected,” said Hattie Gilpin, Wellbel’s Director of Operations.

Financial Technology Partners (FT Partners) served as exclusive advisor on this transaction, helping Route to navigate a unique fundraising environment on the back of its impressive growth trajectory and runway.

About Route
Route is the leader in the post-purchase experience. From delivery to re-discovery, Route protects brands and their customers with licensed shipping insurance, fast issue resolution, package tracking, carbon neutral shipping, and remarketing. This helps brands increase revenue, reduce costs, and improve the customer experience—and gives customers the power and convenience of tracking everything they order in one place, with the confidence it will arrive safely. Route transforms negative experiences into positives, and positive experiences into repeat customers. Since launching in 2019, Route has built an ecommerce network of 13,000 brands and tracked more than $15 billion in protected merchandise. To learn more about Route’s post-purchase experience solutions, or to download the app, visit route.com. 

SOURCE Route

Sandy Schwartz to retire after nearly 40 years with the company 

ATLANTA, June 25, 2024 — Cox Enterprises has appointed Cody Partin to serve as the president of the Cox Family Office. Partin most recently served as SVP of Enterprise Security and Corporate Services for Cox Enterprises.  

Partin succeeds Sandy Schwartz, who has spent nearly 40 years with the company, serving in leadership roles across various Cox divisions and geographies. Schwartz will retire from Cox at the end of the year. 

“There’s no one more qualified than Cody to be the next leader of the Cox Family Office,” said Alex Taylor, chairman and CEO of Cox Enterprises. “Throughout his career, he has always been eager to accept new challenges, and he has earned the trust of senior leaders and Cox family members every step of the way. Cody has what it takes to ensure the needs of the Cox family are fully supported.”   

Partin joined Cox in 2009 and has been a major contributor to the company’s ongoing growth and development. Throughout his career he has continued to advance into roles of increasing responsibility. Before heading up enterprise security and corporate services, Partin oversaw the company’s employee benefits, executive compensation, talent management, inclusion and diversity, and human resources technology services. Under his purview, Cox implemented new programs and benefits that contributed to the company being consistently recognized as an employer of choice.  

Schwartz joined Cox in 1985. A journalist by trade, he began his career at a Cox-owned newspaper in Phoenix and over the years has held a series of roles that have helped grow and define Cox as a company. Before leading the Cox Family Office, he was president and CEO of Cox Automotive, where he led the expansion of its product and services portfolio, united its auto brands under one umbrella, and led the $4 billion acquisition of Dealertrack and Dealer.com, the largest third-party transaction in Cox’s history. He previously served as president of Cox Media Group where he spearheaded the digitization of Cox newspapers. 

“Sandy has helped lead our company through some of our biggest moments,” said Taylor. “During his nearly 40 years at Cox, he modernized and grew our businesses, negotiated some of our most notable deals, and was the driving force behind many achievements. He’s been a mentor to so many people and represents the very best of our people-first culture. He will be greatly missed as head of the family office, but he will continue collaborating with me on certain strategic projects in the future.”  

About Cox Enterprises    
Cox Enterprises is dedicated to empowering people to build a better future for the next generation. Cox is a leader in the broadband, automotive and media industries, as well as a leading investment platform with strategic positions in emerging technologies driving the future of sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, healthtech, and public sector software. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Cox is a global company with $23 billion in annual revenues and a proud 126-year history. To learn more about Cox and its commitment to its people, planet and communities, visit coxenterprises.com.  

SOURCE Cox Enterprises