AI-native learning engine delivers personalized, role-based training to close the enterprise AI skills gap

LAUSANNE, Switzerland and SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 28, 2026 — Scholé AI, an AI-native learning platform built for the modern workforce, today announced it has raised $3 million in funding led by ACE Ventures, with participation from The House Fund and FundF. The funding will be used to expand enterprise deployments, grow the team, and further develop Scholé AI‘s adaptive learning platform.

As enterprises race to deploy AI across their organizations, many are struggling to unlock the promised productivity gains. This gap is attributed to a lack of relevant, timely, and practical training, especially on the newest advances in AI. Scholé AI addresses this challenge with an AI-native, agentic learning engine that delivers personalized, context-aware training that is grounded in each company’s own tools, workflows and materials. 

“While AI adoption is accelerating, learning has remained largely static,” said Vinitra Swamy, CEO and co-founder, Scholé AI. “A few decades ago, the internet democratized access to knowledge, and anyone could find answers with a click of a button. Today we’re on the cusp of a similar moment with AI and learning, where every lifelong learner can have the teacher that’s exactly right for them. No more one-size-fits-all training. That’s the future of learning, and that’s what we’re building at Scholé.” 

Founded by Vinitra Swamy and Paola Mejia, recent PhD graduates of EPFL’s Machine Learning for Education lab with more than a decade of experience in AI-driven education, Scholé AI is a spin-off from research conducted at EPFL and UC Berkeley. The founders translated years of academic research into a commercial platform designed to meet the real-world needs of enterprise teams. 

Unlike traditional, static courses, Scholé AI delivers short, interactive lessons that adapt in real time to a learner’s role, tools, and day-to-day tasks. As learners progress, the platform dynamically adjusts difficulty, formats, and learning preferences, while remaining grounded in a company’s own materials. The first major use case focuses on closing the AI skills gap by teaching employees exactly how AI can be applied in their daily work. 

In partnership with Harvard, Scholé has co-developed a suite of AI-intensive courses where learners from hundreds of global companies, including Bank of America, NASA, Oracle, Microsoft, and Apple are currently learning on their platform. The program was recently recognized by Forbes as the best way to learn AI agents for 2026. Scholé is also piloting its personalized learning solution with leading Swiss enterprises including Swisscom, Decathlon, and Coop. 

“We’re proud to lead Scholé’s round,” said Steve Salom, Partner, ACE Ventures. “The team combines deep ML-for-education expertise with practical product experience. Scholé’s AI-native, role-specific learning is a game changer for closing the frontline adoption gap, delivering context-aware training in the flow of work.”

With this new funding, Scholé aims to help enterprises move beyond AI experimentation and unlock real productivity by ensuring employees are equipped to learn, adapt, and grow alongside rapidly evolving technology. 

About Scholé AI
Scholé is an AI-native learning platform that helps companies upskill their workforce for the AI era through personalized, role-specific training. The company operates across Switzerland and the United States. Learn more at https://www.schole.ai

Contact
[email protected]

SOURCE Schole AI

Dozens of Fortune 500 and Global 2000 enterprises, including Bayer and Ticketmaster, are already eliminating cloud waste using Adaptive6’s AI-powered remediation engine

NEW YORK, Jan. 28, 2026 — Adaptive6, the leader in cloud cost governance, emerged from stealth today with $28 million in Series A funding. The round was led by U.S. Venture Partners (USVP), with participation from New Era Capital Partners, Forgepoint Capital, Pitango VC, and Vertex Ventures, and brings the company’s total funding to $44 million. Adaptive6 is already helping dozens of Fortune 500 and Global 2000 enterprises, including Bayer and Ticketmaster, eliminate waste by embedding AI-powered cost governance directly into engineering workflows.

Over recent years, reports consistently show that roughly 30% of enterprise cloud spend is wasted, totaling upwards of $200B in 2025. Finance teams have platforms that track costs, but the inefficiencies themselves live in infrastructure and code that are created by engineers, who often don’t realize they’re making spending decisions. Existing tools provide oversight on what was spent, but they weren’t built to eliminate the waste itself. “Cloud cost has been treated as a finance problem, but finance doesn’t own the code,” said Aviv Revach, CEO and co-founder of Adaptive6. “The only way to actually fix cloud waste is to shift-left and bring cost governance into the engineering workflow.”

Adaptive6 addresses this with a new paradigm called Cloud Cost Governance and Optimization (CCGO), treating cost inefficiencies the way modern security platforms treat vulnerabilities. The platform continuously scans for hundreds of types of waste across multi-cloud environments, like AWS, GCP, and Azure, SaaS/PaaS platforms like Snowflake and Databricks, and Infrastructure as Code repositories like Terraform. Each issue is traced back to the exact line of code that created it using Adaptive6’s first-of-its-kind Cloud-to-Code technology, then surfaced to the responsible engineer with full technical context and a recommended fix. With one click, the fix is deployed directly to the cloud or as a Pull Request to the Infrastructure as Code repository. Customers typically see 15-35% reductions in total cloud spend: in one case, a single misconfiguration fix saved more than $1M in annual costs.

“Cloud cost is undergoing the same fundamental shift that transformed cybersecurity, moving from a compliance function to an engineering practice, and Adaptive6 is leading that transition,” said Jacques Benkoski, General Partner at USVP. “They’ve brought the cybersecurity playbook to FinOps: detect, trace to code, remediate. Their growing enterprise traction confirms the strength of their vision and execution.”

“Adaptive6 is a game changer in cloud cost governance and optimization,” said Michael Aideloje, Lead Product Manager for Cloud FinOps at Bayer. “As a large enterprise with complex infrastructure, Adaptive6 has helped us regain control of cloud waste and empowered our engineers to eliminate it at scale.”

The platform’s proprietary detection engine identifies both visible waste and “Shadow Waste”: hidden inefficiencies that traditional tools miss. Its AI-powered remediation engine integrates directly with Git and CI/CD pipelines, supporting automated Pull Requests and fully automated remediation workflows. Preventative policy enforcement shifts governance left, catching cost issues in code before deployment. The result is end-to-end coverage, from infrastructure to application layer to codebase.

“We built Adaptive6 to be the first end-to-end platform for cloud cost governance and optimization,” said Revach. “We detect what’s already wasting money, prevent new inefficiencies before they deploy, and remediate at scale, all within the engineering workflow.”

About Adaptive6

Adaptive6 is the pioneer of Cloud Cost Governance and Optimization (CCGO), a new engineering-first approach to optimizing cloud infrastructure. By focusing on Shadow Waste detection, policy-driven governance, and AI-powered remediation, Adaptive6 empowers engineers to streamline waste reduction workflows and drive efficiency at scale. The platform integrates directly with Git and CI/CD pipelines, simplifying remediation and enabling shift-left prevention of cost inefficiencies prior to deployment.

Founded by serial entrepreneurs Aviv Revach (CEO), Omer Müller (CTO), and Eyal Brosh (COO & Chief of Engineering), all alumni of Israel’s elite intelligence Unit 8200, the company brings a cybersecurity mindset to cloud cost management. The team brings deep industry experience across both FinOps and cloud security: Aviv Revach serves as a governing board member of the FinOps Foundation, and Adaptive6’s leadership includes veterans of cloud security companies including Tenable and Ermetic. For more information, visit www.adaptive6.com.

Media Contact
Lazer Cohen
[email protected]
347-753-8256

SOURCE Adaptive6

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 28, 2026 — Oro, a social fintech platform helping employers offer homeownership and housing wellness as employee benefits, announced today it has raised $3 million in funding led by Slauson & Co., with participation from Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures and Bronze Valley. As companies face mounting challenges around employee retention and engagement, and employees struggle with higher interest rates, rents and home prices, housing has emerged as one of the most significant and overlooked drivers of workforce instability. In recent years, companies have expanded benefits around healthcare, fertility, student loans, and mental wellness, but housing has remained largely absent from the benefits stack despite being the single largest expense and driver of financial stress most employees face.

Oro is redefining employee benefits by making homeownership and housing wellness accessible through the workplace, positioning employer-sponsored housing support as the next evolution of benefits and retention strategy. By making it easy to offer housing as a benefit, Oro helps employers reduce employee financial stress, strengthen engagement, and support long-term employee stability.

“Let’s face it, most companies have a gap in their benefits package – and it’s as big as a house,” said George Fatheree, founder of Oro. “Home prices continue to peak and housing is the single largest expense most employees face, yet it remains absent from most benefits strategies. Oro’s leading a movement to change that.”

The funding coincides with the official launch of Oro’s employee housing wellness platform, which enables companies to offer housing support as a benefit to all employees, whether they are renting, looking to buy, or already own. Through Oro’s turnkey system, employees get access to concierge-style personal housing assistance, rent reporting to boost credit scores, homebuyer education classes, down payment assistance programs, advice and referrals around taxes, insurance, and maintenance, and other powerful resources to save money on housing, make more confident housing decisions, and build housing wealth. Oro also helps employers develop tailored financial housing support programs to help employees with down payments, closing costs, buying down interest rates, or covering PMI. Built to integrate seamlessly into existing benefits systems, Oro’s housing solutions require minimal operational lift and deliver measurable ROI and impact on retention, engagement, and employee financial well-being.

Through its pre-launch pilot program, Oro helped eight employees become first-time homeowners, and supports more than 1,200 employees on its housing wellness platform, demonstrating early traction and real impact.

“We believe housing is the next frontier in employee benefits,” said Austin Clement at Slauson & Co. “Oro is leading a new category by bringing housing support into the workplace at a moment when employers need smarter solutions to attract, retain, and stabilize their workforce. George’s passion for driving access to homeownership and his impressive track record delivering real impact in complex financial, business, and legal environments makes him perfectly positioned to lead the ‘Housing as a Benefit’ movement.”

The funding will be used to bring Oro’s homeownership and housing wellness solutions to market, expand employer adoption, and continue advancing the technology to scale housing benefits across diverse workforces.

Oro was founded by George Fatheree, an attorney turned entrepreneur, who led landmark impact cases as a Big Law partner. Oro is a Delaware public benefit corporation focused on increasing employee access to homeownership and housing wealth. By embedding housing support into the corporate benefits ecosystem, Oro provides employers with a practical way to invest in long-term workforce stability while creating a tangible path to wealth-building for employees.

For more information, visit oroimpact.com

About Oro

Oro is the first comprehensive housing benefits company designed to make it easy to offer homeownership and housing wellness as employee benefits. As a public benefit corporation, Oro believes that supporting employee housing wellness is good for employees and good for business. Oro’s solutions support the entire workforce – renters, future buyers, and current homeowners – and help companies boost employee recruitment, engagement, and retention. Through data-driven insights and ROI-focused solutions tailored to a company’s budget, goals, and culture, Oro helps turn employee housing stress into workforce strength. Visit oroimpact.com to learn about how Oro is leading a movement to support the future of work.

SOURCE Oro

Funding follows strong growth as global companies, including unicorns such as Wiz, VAST and Wayve adopt Slice’s AI-native, compliance-first infrastructure to operate equity across jurisdictions from a single system.

NEW YORK and TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan. 28, 2026 — Slice Global Equity, the AI-native global equity compliance and management platform for multinational companies, today announced it has raised $25 million in Series A funding led by global software investor Insight Partners, with participation from Fenwick and Cooley LLP (as investors) and existing investors TLV Partners, R-Squared Ventures and Jibe Ventures. The new capital brings Slice’s total funding to $32 million and will be used to deepen Slice’s AI-native compliance infrastructure, expand product and engineering, and scale go-to-market worldwide.

A new standard for global equity management

Equity has become global by default, but the underlying infrastructure hasn’t. Finance, Legal, and HR teams are still forced to stitch together local tax rules, legal requirements, payroll coordination, and outdated equity tools, leading to significant risk and inefficiencies just to maintain a baseline of compliance.

Slice Global meaningfully reduces this friction by deploying agentic workflows that deeply integrate into existing finance and HR platforms. Unlike legacy tools that act as static records, require manual updating, and leave global compliance to spreadsheets and external counsel, Slice can actively “think” with the company by applying multi-jurisdiction tax and legal rules in the workflow and can support complex organizations as they scale. For CFO and finance teams, this translates into measurable operating impact, including reducing equity ops cycle times by 60%, cutting outside local counsel fees in multiple jurisdictions by 80%.

“We are making the world flat for equity by building the compliance-first AI-native infrastructure layer,” said Maor Levran, Co-founder and CEO of Slice Global Equity. “By unifying equity management with global tax and legal rules, and automating multi-country workflows around withholding and proceeds distribution, CFOs can operate globally with the speed of AI-native software and the confidence of compliance.”

Slice helps teams run the full equity lifecycle from a single system, including:

• Equity operations: cap tables, grants, exercises, and reporting
• Multi-country, compliance: jurisdiction-specific tax treatment, reporting triggers, and withholding requirements
• Workflow execution with controls: approvals, audit trails, and cross-functional coordination across finance, legal, HR, and payroll
• Liquidity readiness: support for secondary transactions and proceeds distribution

“Companies are global from inception, but their equity infrastructure is still stuck in a domestic, pre-AI era,” said Levran. “Slice is rebuilding global equity management to be AI-native and compliance-first so every company—from fast-growing startups to large-scale enterprises—can grant equity anywhere, to anyone, cost-efficiently and in full compliance.”

Investor and customer validation
Insight Partners was familiar with the benefits of Slice before officially meeting the team – several of the firm’s portfolio companies use Slice’s AI-native platform to replace manual legal work and reduce risk.

“Across our portfolio, finance leaders consistently cite global equity compliance as one of the more painful, expensive, and risky parts of building a distributed company,” said Hagi Schwartz, Managing Director at Insight Partners. “We already have portfolio companies using the Slice platform and have seen first-hand how its AI-native, compliance-first approach can drive a fundamental shift away from legacy tools that merely do cap table math. We believe Slice is poised to define the new category of agentic global equity management, and we’re excited to partner with Maor and the team as they scale this new standard.”

One Slice customer from Insight’s portfolio is cybersecurity leader Wiz.

“Managing global equity is a pervasive challenge for countless companies, typically involving disjointed processes and significant risk,” said Fazal Merchant, CFO of Wiz. “The Slice team brings the combination of a practitioner’s expertise and a founder’s tenacity to finally solve this problem. Slice isn’t just another tool; it’s a world-class, customer-centric solution that uses AI to truly automate the complex reality of our global footprint. It’s built to evolve and stay ahead, which is why we trust it as our system of record.”

About Slice Global Equity

Slice is the leading global equity compliance and management platform for multinational companies backed by international tier1 VCs and leading law firms in the US. Slice automates the entire equity lifecycle and safeguards both companies and employees from regulatory risks and costly tax penalties—whether it’s designing compliant plans, issuing grants, tracking employee mobility, or preparing for liquidity events, Slice keeps you protected in every country you operate. The platform is trusted by fast-growing startups, global unicorns, and multinational enterprises, including Wiz, Wayve, Aidoc, Orca, Silverfort, Avid, Augury, VAST Data, Aqua Security, Cyera, Optimove, Guesty, and many more. Enterprise-ready and secure, Slice meets the highest global standards for data privacy and protection, including SOC 2, SOC 1, ISO 27001, GDPR, and CPRA.

About Insight Partners

Insight Partners is a global software investor partnering with high-growth technology, software, and Internet startup and ScaleUp companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. As of June 30, 2025, the firm has over $90B in regulatory assets under management. Insight Partners has invested in more than 875 companies worldwide and has seen over 55 portfolio companies achieve an IPO. Headquartered in New York City, Insight has a global presence with leadership in London, Tel Aviv, and the Bay Area. Insight’s mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with tailored, hands-on software expertise along their growth journey, from their first investment to IPO. For more information on Insight and all its investments, visit insightpartners.com or follow us on X @insightpartners.

SOURCE Slice Global Equity

New funding accelerates nationwide expansion and builds a modern, prevention-first infrastructure for veterinary clinics

NEW YORK, Jan. 28, 2026 — Snout, the pet healthcare financing platform trusted by veterinary teams nationwide, today announced it has secured over $110 million in total capital to expand access to affordable, proactive pet care across the U.S. The funding includes $100 million in financing from Clear Haven Capital Management and a $10 million Series A round led by Footwork, with participation from existing investors Pear, Bread and Butter Ventures, Restive Ventures, veterinary industry experts, and others.

Snout partners directly with veterinary clinics to offer prevention-first wellness plans that help pet parents afford essential care without compromising clinical standards. By eliminating credit checks, age and breed discrimination, and reimbursement delays, Snout ensures more pets receive routine care through easy, interest free monthly payments. .

Snout was founded around a simple belief: no one should have to make a medical decision for their pet based on the cash in their bank account.

“The scariest part of veterinary care shouldn’t be the bill,” said Emily Dong, Founder and CEO of Snout. “This capital allows us to bring preventive care to millions more pets and give veterinary teams the financial infrastructure they need to practice medicine the way it was meant to be practiced.”

Making Preventive Care Possible

Snout works in close partnership with veterinary clinics to offer wellness plans that bundle recommended preventive services designed to keep pets healthy and detect disease early. Plans typically include unlimited exams, vaccinations, bloodwork, flea and tick prevention, and more.

Unlike traditional pet healthcare financing options, Snout removes credit checks and eliminates reimbursement workflows entirely—making it the first financing solution built specifically for preventive veterinary care at scale.

“We’re giving clinics a tool that helps pet owners manage rising costs without adding operational burden to veterinary teams,” said David Nietzke, Chief Operating Officer of Snout. “When cost is no longer the barrier, veterinarians can focus on what matters most: delivering the best possible care.”

What This Funding Fuels

Snout’s new capital will support growth across three key pillars:

• Expanding Snout’s national network of veterinary clinic partners
• Deepening operational support resources for veterinary teams
• Enhancing the pet owner experience and driving long-term cost savings

“We’re pleased to support Snout at a pivotal stage in its growth,” said Brian Smith, Director of Investments at Clear Haven Capital Management. “Together, we’ve built a new financing model that rethinks how healthcare is paid for, and we’re excited to help scale this platform to serve more clinics and more pets nationwide.”

Overmatch Capital advised Snout on the financing transaction.

About Clear Haven Capital Management

Clear Haven Capital Management provides flexible capital solutions to fintech companies from seed through late-stage growth. Its portfolio companies are building the future of financial services across consumer lending, credit cards, invoice factoring, automotive finance, and SME finance. Clear Haven is led by experienced financial services operators and is committed to helping partners scale durable, market-leading platforms.
For more information, visit www.clearhavencm.com.

About Snout

Snout is a modern preventive pet care platform that helps veterinary clinics deliver affordable, proactive care through wellness plans. By removing financial barriers to routine care, Snout empowers veterinary teams to focus on medicine—not payment friction. Already available to millions of pets nationwide, Snout is building the infrastructure that makes preventive care possible for every pet, everywhere.

Pet owners and veterinary clinics interested in Snout can visit www.snout.com to find—or request—a Snout-supported veterinary practice nearby.

Media Contact:
Name: Ellowyn Isaacson
Title: Executive Assistant to Emily Dong
Company: Snout
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (832) 263-3774

SOURCE Snout, Inc

SJF Ventures leads investment in tech-enabled category leader bringing pelvic floor physical therapy into the mainstream along with musculoskeletal care designed for women’s bodies

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 28, 2026 — Origin, the leading national provider of pelvic floor physical therapy and whole-body musculoskeletal (MSK) care for women, announced the company secured Series B funding led by SJF Ventures with participation by Blue Venture Fund and Gratitude Railroad, alongside financing by the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (IBank) and angel investors including Modern Fertility founder Afton Vechery, wellness entrepreneur Hannah Bronfman, and Spring Fertility founder Peter Klatsky. In a nation where 41 million women suffer from pelvic floor-related conditions that range from disruptive to debilitating, and women are 50% more likely than men to experience musculoskeletal health concerns, Origin offers insurance-covered virtual care for patients across the country, as well as in person with 19 physical clinics, for the full spectrum of women’s musculoskeletal health needs.

More than 1 in 3 women experience pelvic floor dysfunction — a figure that rises to over 50% after age 55 — and women report higher rates of musculoskeletal pain overall. Pelvic floor dysfunction, including concerns like bladder and bowel incontinence, painful sex, prolapse, and other conditions, leads to billions of dollars in avoidable annual healthcare spend and serious quality of life concerns. Yet despite its prevalence, this problem isn’t an inevitable part of life.

Origin’s unique model of clinical care includes synchronous, 45-minute one-on-one visits with licensed pelvic floor PTs and PTAs via nationwide virtual care and 19 in-person clinics across seven states, supplemented by a proprietary digital platform featuring custom exercise programs and educational resources to support patients in between scheduled visits. Achieving superior clinical outcomes across a wide range of women’s health musculoskeletal conditions requires options for both in-person and virtual care, tailored to each patient’s physical needs and life circumstances. Nine in 10 Origin patients report improvement in pelvic floor symptoms.

“Pelvic floor physical therapy is the standard of care,” said Carine Carmy, Co-founder and CEO at Origin. “The data is clear: this effective, non-invasive therapy is the first line of treatment for dozens of women’s health issues, from postpartum recovery to incontinence. Origin’s specialized pelvic and musculoskeletal care has helped tens of thousands of patients reclaim their health, their confidence, and their quality of life. We’ve shifted pelvic floor therapy from niche to norm. This new round of funding will enable us to move it from norm to non-negotiable.”

Affordable, Accessible Whole-Body Care at Scale

Generations of Americans were falsely led to believe that uncomfortable or painful pelvic symptoms are normal. According to Ipsos and Origin’s 2024 Pelvic Health Study, 83% of US women ages 18 to 59 report pelvic symptoms, such as bladder leaks or pain with sex, yet only 4% have received a related medical diagnosis. Before Origin, pelvic floor PT was very expensive, out-of-network, and highly fragmented. With Origin, pelvic floor and full-body physical therapy is affordable, in-network, and highly accessible.

Origin combines deep clinical expertise and a scalable care model — with over 50,000 patients treated since the company’s 2020 launch and insurance partnerships covering 50 million lives — to redefine what MSK care can look like for women. In an industry dominated by 80% cash-pay providers, patients often pay hundreds of dollars ($200-300) out-of-pocket per treatment. Origin ensures that patients can use their insurance to access life-changing care; 95% of the care Origin administers is in-network, and most customers pay less than $36 out of pocket per visit. The company’s commitment to democratizing access extends to appointment availability; patients can get appointments within days versus the 3-to-6-months wait at hospitals. This commitment to access has enabled Origin’s Austin and San Francisco clinics to treat nearly 1% of women in each city.

Carmy knows the frustrations of the traditional healthcare model firsthand. In her twenties, she struggled with painful sex for nearly a decade — enduring years of misdiagnoses, ineffective treatment options, and hearing “that’s just the way it is” — before discovering the power of pelvic floor physical therapy on the advice of her Co-Founder, Nona Farahnik Yadegar. The company’s Co-Founders — Carmy, Farahnik Yadegar and David Yadegar — launched Origin during the COVID-19 pandemic in partnership with expert clinical leaders, building out a network of in-person clinics (now the nation’s largest) and creating the first nationwide virtual pelvic floor physical therapy network. Virtual care is the company’s fastest growing category, up 100% year over year.

AI Powering Clinical Excellence
With longitudinal data on 39 million patient interactions over more than 10 years, Origin has built an AI-driven clinical decision product, Athena, that supports the team in driving better patient outcomes and best in-class revenue cycle management. Athena is built to supercharge, rather than replace, clinicians by instantly surfacing information to inform patient-centric care, such as understanding health history, monitoring at-home progress, and staying compliant with regulatory requirements. An OpenAI partner since 2023, Origin is increasing its investments in AI, bolstering its proprietary care delivery technology, and investing deeply in clinical research.

Origin recently launched an app, The Origin Way, that is trusted by patients to stay connected with their clinical care team and continue care at home with an exercise and educational program designed by their clinician. Series B financing will allow the company to accelerate the development of personalized, clinically-proven care journeys, powered by AI tools including Athena and Origin’s patient-facing AI agent, GinaGPT. Unlike many AI tools in women’s health that are based on limited data sets and sparse research, Origin’s suite of AI products is built on Origin’s proprietary data set and clinical expertise, delivering industry-defining outcomes.

Origin will also continue to invest in clinical training, which is critical given the shortage of pelvic floor physical therapists and women’s health musculoskeletal providers across the country. Origin University, the company’s clinical training and mentorship program, trained over 100 PTs and PTAs in 2025, more than double the 2024 figure. The company is deploying AI in training and onboarding tools to accelerate learning at Origin University.

“For too long, pelvic floor conditions were overlooked or ignored,” said Perry Clarkson, Managing Director at SJF Ventures. “Women seeking treatment had few care options, most of whom were not in network, and pelvic floor physical therapy was seen as ‘niche’ and thus underappreciated and underutilized by referring providers. Research and outcomes data demonstrates the efficacy of pelvic floor physical therapy. Origin, via its hybrid in-person and virtual business model, is delivering life-changing care — and seizing a $61 billion market opportunity — by making proven solutions to pelvic floor symptoms accessible to women across all 50 states and all stages of life and medical conditions.”

More than 10,000 doctors across the country trust Origin and refer patients, up from 1,500 in January 2024. Major health systems like UCSF and The Woman’s Hospital of Texas partner with Origin to support patients through pelvic floor dysfunction and navigating critical life stages like pregnancy, postpartum, menopause.

About Origin
Origin is a leading national provider of pelvic floor physical therapy and whole-body MSK care for women, with a specialized focus on incontinence, pregnancy, postpartum, menopause, and sexual health. Trusted by more than 10,000 doctors, Origin offers virtual and in-person PT sessions, supported by proprietary exercise programs, educational content, and community experiences. One of few private pelvic health clinics to take insurance, Origin is now in-network for over 50M people and also accepts Medicare. For more information, please visit www.theoriginway.com or @theoriginway.

About SJF Ventures
Founded in 1999, SJF Ventures is an impact venture capital fund whose mission is to catalyze the development of highly successful businesses that drive lasting, positive changes. Its deep experience in healthcare includes portfolio companies ChartSpan, DUOS, Lōvu Health, and mPulse.

SOURCE Origin Physical Therapy

Curate is building white-labeled no-download Apple App Clips that make restaurant loyalty and ordering as easy as a website – and as sticky as an app.

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 28, 2026 — Curate Technologies, a hospitality platform that powers instant, white-labeled mobile ordering and loyalty experiences, has raised $10 million in a new round of funding led by Kirk Brown, co-founder of ZoomInfo, with institutional support from K5 Global, a venture capital firm co-founded by Michael Kives and Bryan Baum, and participation from individual investors including NFL wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown and Carl Cheng, founder of Pieology.

Curate is built around a fundamental challenge facing restaurants today: operators understand the value of direct, commission-free delivery and loyalty-driven repeat business, yet guest adoption of branded restaurant apps remains low. In Curate’s analysis, less than 5% of all restaurant delivery orders are commission-free, with the remaining orders flowing through third-party marketplaces that can charge up to 30% in commissions and fees. Even when a direct option exists, guests often default to marketplace apps, despite higher costs for restaurants and customers. The result is that restaurants give up margin and lose direct ownership of customer data.

Curate solves this with Apple App Clips, so guests can open a branded ordering and rewards app experience instantly from any link, QR code, or tap – with no download required. Instead of sending guests to the App Store or a generic website, Curate meets them where they are and drops them straight into their app experience – where they can order and enroll in loyalty in seconds. As adoption grows, Curate’s AI uses real purchase behavior to drive retention over time – recommending who to target, what to offer, and when to send it. Within six months of launch, Curate customers have seen commission-free delivery orders increase ~3x on average.

“Restaurants do not have an ordering problem, they have an adoption problem,” said Grant Russell, CEO and Co-Founder of Curate. “App Clips remove the restaurant industry’s biggest point of friction: the ‘app download’. They help restaurants convert significantly more guests into loyalty members. Our AI marketing then works to turn these loyalty members into regulars, driving repeat business. This round of funding will help us scale Curate across more multi-location brands and keep investing in loyalty, commission-free direct ordering, and our AI-powered marketing engine.”

“If Curate’s technology existed when I was at The Cheesecake Factory, it would have fundamentally changed how we engaged guests and operated at scale,” said Howard Gordon, Chief Business Officer of Curate and former Cheesecake Factory executive. “Today’s operators are exhausted by expensive, disconnected tools that don’t deliver results. Curate replaces that complexity with a single, easy-to-use platform that drives engagement, loyalty, and profitability.”

What Curate Delivers

• The benefits of a native app (more return orders, higher conversions, push notifications) with the ease of a website: App Clips for instant access, plus full native iPhone and Android apps for deeper ongoing engagement
• Commission-free direct ordering for delivery on your own channels, helping avoid marketplace delivery commissions that can reach up to ~30% of the order subtotal
• Owned first-party customer data and loyalty programs (points, tiers, targeted offers, and surprise-and-delight promotions)
• An AI-powered marketing engine that uses purchase behavior to automate and optimize campaigns across SMS, email, and push, plus upsell workflows – improving over time based on what converts
• Built for multi-location brands with centralized controls and unified performance analytics

Over the past year, Curate has expanded its footprint significantly, partnering with a growing roster of restaurant brands across fast casual, QSR, and multi-unit concepts. As operators face rising third-party fees, fragmented technology stacks, and increasing pressure to own their customer relationships, Curate has emerged as a trusted solution for brands seeking clarity, control, and consistent results.

“In our first three months with Curate, we hit the #74 most popular app on the App Store (Food & Drink) with just four locations, and it showed up in the numbers. Revenue grew 30% year over year, and our loyalty members now average over 7.4 visits per year,” said Anne Nguyen, Co-founder of Da Vien Coffee.

“Curate’s loyalty was a huge win for us. After switching from Toast Online Ordering to Curate, our direct online sales increased 44.3% across takeout and delivery,” said Jimmy Lee, Co-founder of Mama Hieu’s. “It’s the first time our direct ordering channel has felt like a real habit for customers.”

Leadership
Curate is helmed by a seasoned leadership team that combines deep Silicon Valley AI expertise with hands-on hospitality experience, and success scaling complex, multi-unit restaurant operations:

• Grant Russell, CEO & Co-Founder — Stanford University, Computer Science (AI focus); former engineer at Google X.
• Alex Wang, CTO & Co-Founder — former Meta AI engineer with a background in artificial intelligence research at Stanford University.
• Howard Gordon, Chief Business Officer — former executive at The Cheesecake Factory, where he helped lead the brand’s growth from five locations into a nationally recognized restaurant company with hundreds of locations.

About Curate Technologies
Curate Technologies helps restaurant brands grow direct orders and loyalty with white-labeled mobile experiences powered by Apple App Clips – so guests can open a full app experience for ordering and rewards in seconds from a link, QR code, or tap, with no download required. Curate combines ordering, loyalty, guest analytics, and an AI-powered marketing engine across SMS, email, and push to help restaurants capture more guests into loyalty, drive repeat visits, and own the customer relationship. By shifting demand to first-party channels, Curate helps reduce reliance on third-party marketplaces and the delivery commissions that can reach 20-30%. Curate is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA. Learn more or request a demo at www.getcurate.com.

Media Contact
JS2 PR
Gabriella Conte | [email protected] | 4258708584

SOURCE Curate Technologies

DOVER, Del., Jan. 28, 2026 — Skulpty, a 3D AI company focused on solving topology for next–generation models, today announced it is opening a new investment round to support strategic partnerships and go–to–market expansion as its MVP enters final preparation for launch in Q1. Rather than a traditional capital–raise announcement, the company is emphasizing relationships with partners who can help bring high–quality 3D AI into real–world workflows at scale.

Skulpty’s platform is designed to address one of the most critical bottlenecks in 3D AI: producing clean, production–ready topology that works reliably in modern pipelines. By standardizing good topology for AI–generated assets, Skulpty aims to help studios, enterprises, and toolmakers move from experimental 3D outputs to robust, deployable content.

The company’s MVP is currently being finalized in collaboration with Avahii, an Amazon development partner, with support from Amazon’s in–house machine learning team. This collaboration is helping ensure that the product is engineered for reliability, scalability, and integration into demanding production environments.

Skulpty also benefits from a relationship with Princeton University and the Princeton Keller Center, where its work sits at the intersection of applied machine learning, 3D geometry, and entrepreneurial innovation. These partnerships reflect Skulpty’s focus on combining rigorous technical foundations with practical, market–oriented execution.

“We’re at the stage where the product speaks for itself,” said Christopher Noble, founder and CEO of Skulpty. “Our priority now is partnering with people and organizations who see how critical 3D topology is for the future of AI and want to help bring this capability into their own ecosystems.”

Rather than announcing a fixed target amount or highlighting fundraising as an end in itself, Skulpty is inviting interest from:

• Strategic investors who bring distribution channels, domain expertise, or product integration opportunities in 3D, gaming, VFX, design, or industrial workflows
• Toolmakers and platforms exploring deeper 3D AI capabilities and looking to standardize topology across their pipelines
• Innovation teams at enterprises piloting 3D AI and seeking more reliable, production–grade outputs

With the initial release planned for Q1, Skulpty is inviting early adopters and potential partners to join its waitlist for first access to the platform and early participation in pilots and integrations.

Prospective partners, investors, and early users can learn more and sign up for first access at: https://www.skulpty.com

Media inquiries and strategic partnership discussions:
Melanie Croissant
[email protected]
(302)-770-6207

SOURCE Skulpty

BOSTON, Jan. 28, 2026 — Equality Asset Management (“EAM”), a Boston-based private equity firm focused on investing in transformative growth software and technology companies, today announced the closing of its second fund, EAM Private Equity Partners II, L.P. (“EAM Fund II” or “the Fund”) with $575 million in total capital commitments. The Fund was oversubscribed with demand significantly exceeding its hard cap.

“This is an exciting milestone for our firm and one we approach with both gratitude and a strong sense of responsibility. We are sincerely thankful to our investors for their trust and partnership, and to our team and portfolio companies for the collaboration and hard work that helped make this possible. We are excited about the opportunity ahead and focused on executing thoughtfully, supporting our partners, and creating value,” said Jeff Del Papa, Co-Founder and Managing Partner.

The Fund received strong support from both existing and new institutional investors, which include a diverse and global investor base of prominent institutions comprised of asset managers, insurance companies, family offices, university endowments, consultants, public and private pensions and charitable organizations.

“We founded EAM with a vision to build a high-performing private equity firm focused on founder-led software businesses. We are grateful to our returning and new investors who have chosen to join us on this journey. We will work hard to continue to merit the trust and partnership of our portfolio executives and limited partners,” said Tom Roberts, Co-Founder and Managing Partner.

EAM Fund II will continue the firm’s focus on investing in category-leading enterprise software companies, where EAM’s proven Investor-Operator approach to partnership and value creation has helped portfolio companies accelerate growth, expand capabilities and scale efficiently.

FirstPoint Equity served as placement agent and Ropes & Gray LLP acted as legal counsel.

About EAM

EAM is a growth-focused private equity firm. EAM provides equity capital and strategic and operating support to growth companies in the software and software-enabled services sectors. With decades of investment and operating experience, the firm has earned a reputation for value creation, serving as steadfast partners to founders and CEOs. For more information, please visit www.equalityam.com.

Media Contact
Page Sadlier
Director of Operations, EAM
[email protected]
978-996-6397

SOURCE Equality Asset Management