SEATTLE, May 1, 2024 — StepSecurity, a leader in protecting CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure, announced today the closing of its $3 million seed funding round led by Runtime Ventures, with participation from Inner Loop Capital, SaaS Ventures, DeVC, and several notable industry leaders as angel investors.

Founded two years ago by cybersecurity leaders Varun Sharma and Ashish Kurmi, StepSecurity has rapidly gained traction within both the open-source community and enterprise sectors.

Over 3,000 open-source projects, including those from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Google, Microsoft, Datadog, Kubernetes, Node, and Ruby, use StepSecurity to harden their CI/CD pipelines. StepSecurity also recently detected a CI/CD supply chain attack in a Google open-source project.

StepSecurity’s enterprise tier continues to gain traction, serving customers in high-tech, crypto, and healthcare industries. “Enterprises typically have robust application and cloud security solutions. However, CI/CD, the crucial link between these two environments, remains unprotected,” said Varun Sharma, CEO of StepSecurity. “We analyzed past CI/CD security breaches and built our platform using a first-principles approach.”

Michael Sutton, General Partner & Co-Founder at Runtime Ventures, commented, “Attackers have learned not only that the CI/CD pipeline represents the weak link in application security, but also that a successful supply chain attack can deliver an exponential impact. Supply chain attacks such as SolarWinds and Codecov impacted thousands of entities given the broad usage of the vulnerable applications. Security leaders have learned the hard way that CI/CD security can no longer be ignored, and StepSecurity is at the forefront of this paradigm shift.”

The urgency of securing CI/CD environments has never been clearer due to recent high-profile security breaches. Several incidents, such as XZ Utils and SolarWinds, originated in CI/CD. As a result, the Center for Internet Security (CIS), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have released guidance and benchmarks urging enterprises to harden their CI/CD environments.

StepSecurity plans to use these funds to invest in its open-source community and expand its enterprise offerings. StepSecurity already supports GitHub Actions and plans to expand its product to cover other CI/CD environments, such as GitLab CI, Harness, and Azure DevOps. The company is also actively hiring across engineering, sales, and marketing to support its growth.

For more information or to get started with StepSecurity, please visit https://stepsecurity.io

CONTACT: Jaya Ramsinghani
Email: [email protected]

SOURCE StepSecurity

ROSELAND, N.J., May 1, 2024 — CoreWeave, the leading specialized cloud provider for AI, today announced it has secured $1.1 billion in new funding, led by Coatue, with participation from Magnetar who led the last primary round, as well as Altimeter Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, and Lykos Global Management. New funding will be used to support the rapid growth across all areas of the business, and CoreWeave’s expansion into new geographic regions to meet the explosive demand for GPU accelerated cloud infrastructure worldwide.

“CoreWeave continues to push forward as a provider of critical infrastructure in the development of AI, and the high caliber of investors who continue putting their trust in us validates the enormous opportunity we have to define the next generation of cloud computing,” said Mike Intrator, co-founder and CEO of CoreWeave. “CoreWeave is designed specifically to tackle the most complex and pressing challenges in high performance compute. With this new round, we will continue investing in and working with the largest AI enterprises in the world.”

Companies increasingly recognize the potential for AI to enhance efficiencies, productivity, expand revenue and reduce costs, as well as strategic benefits like growth and innovation. Organizations of every size and industry are racing to deploy larger-scale AI solutions and capabilities – driving explosive demand for powerful and scalable infrastructure. However, generalized infrastructure from legacy cloud providers is not designed to handle the massive parallel processing power and memory that AI workloads require.

CoreWeave designed its cloud infrastructure with engineers and innovators in mind. Trusted by leading AI labs and enterprises, CoreWeave Cloud manages complexity through automation to deliver the most performant and efficient cloud infrastructure for AI workloads.

“We believe CoreWeave has emerged as a key leader in building the mission-critical infrastructure foundation required to satisfy society’s current and future demand for high performance compute at scale to power the generative AI revolution,” said Philippe Laffont, Founder & Portfolio Manager of Coatue. “Since partnering in 2023, we have been impressed by the team’s commitment to operational and technical excellence, and we look forward to continuing our partnership as they drive the next phase of growth for the company and industry.”

In December, the company announced it closed a secondary investment of $642 million, following a $420 million primary led by Magnetar in April 2023. In August, CoreWeave secured a $2.3 billion debt financing facility led by Magnetar and Blackstone. Also in the last year, CoreWeave increased its data center presence from three to 14, and quadrupled its employee headcount.

About CoreWeave
CoreWeave is a specialized GPU cloud provider, designed to power the most complex workloads with customized solutions at scale. The company’s portfolio of cutting-edge technology delivers a broad range of capabilities for machine learning and AI, graphics and rendering, life sciences, real-time streaming, and more. Its world-class teams, talent, and engineering prowess bring unmatched speed-to-market for advanced compute. CoreWeave operates a growing footprint of data centers covering every region of the US. It was founded in 2017 and is based in New Jersey. Learn more at www.coreweave.com.

CONTACT: 
Brittany Stone 
[email protected]  
917-935-1456

SOURCE CoreWeave

• Undisclosed Investment From Binance Labs Follows Movement’s $38M Series A Funding Round

SAN FRANCISCO, May 1, 2024 — Movement Labs, a San Francisco-based blockchain development team, today announced an investment from Binance Labs. These investments closely follow Movement Labs’ successful $38m Series A funding round as the company continues to gain momentum in its mission to bring ‘Move Everywhere.’

Founded in 2022, Movement is building an ecosystem of Modular Move-based blockchains, starting with M2, the first Move Virtual Machine L2 for Ethereum. Movement will use the funds to expand its suite of open-source tooling, frameworks, and protocols to facilitate the adoption of the Move programming language across broader blockchain ecosystems. With Movement, developers can launch secure, performant, and high-throughput Move VM rollups as easily as they do smart contracts.

As part of its global expansion strategy, Movement Labs is placing a strong emphasis on the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, recognizing the immense potential and talent within the Move development community. The company is committed to championing and supporting Asian Move developers, providing them with the resources, education, and opportunities needed to showcase their exceptional work and contribute to the growth of the Move ecosystem.

“We are thrilled to welcome Binance Labs as an investor,” said Rushi Manche, Co-Founder of Movement Labs. “Their support and expertise will be invaluable as we continue to execute our ‘Move Everywhere’ strategy, starting with a focus on the vibrant and innovative APAC market. By empowering and collaborating with the talented Move developers in the region, we aim to accelerate the adoption of Move and unlock new possibilities for the entire ecosystem.”

For more information about Movement Labs and a guide to participate in its devnet, please visit: movementlabs.xyz and follow on X @movementlabsxyz and on Discord. Connect with us at movementlabs.xyz  to discuss global business opportunities.

About Movement Labs:
Co-founders, Rushi Manche and Cooper Scanlon, early builders in the Move ecosystem, founded Movement Labs in 2022 as the first integrated blockchain network, powering the fastest and most secure Layer 2 on Ethereum. Designed to pair smart contract security and parallelization with EVM liquidity and user bases, Movement is bringing the MoveVM to Ethereum through its flagship L2 and connected rollups with the Move Stack.

About Binance Labs
As the venture capital arm and accelerator of Binance, Binance Labs has now grown to be worth over $10 billion. Its portfolio covers 250 projects from over 25 countries across six continents and has a return on investment rate of over 14X. Fifty of Binance Labs’ portfolio companies are projects that have gone through our incubation programs. For more information, follow Binance Labs on X.

SOURCE Movement Labs

AUSTIN, Texas, May 1, 2024 — Scout Ventures, a leading venture capital firm focused on frontier and dual-use technologies built by hard-to-access founders, announced the successful closing of Fund IV at $94 million.

“We are humbled by the overwhelming support we’ve received for Fund IV,” said Brad Harrison, Managing Partner at Scout Ventures. “The continued trust from our existing investors, like the New Mexico State Investment Council, is invaluable. We’re also excited to welcome a distinguished group of new partners to the Scout family, including J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Vanderbilt University Endowment, USAA, and many others.”

This strong closing signifies the growing confidence in Scout Ventures’ unique investment approach. The firm focuses on identifying and backing innovative companies developing frontier and dual-use critical technologies – technologies with both commercial and national security applications.

“Scout Ventures’ commitment to entrepreneurs, often veterans, building early-stage, high-impact companies aligns with our investment strategy,” said Jamie Kramer, Chair of Spark Investment Committee at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. “We are confident that Fund IV will continue to meet our objectives and foster groundbreaking advancements in frontier technologies while supporting the veteran community.”

Fund IV has already demonstrated strong momentum, with nine portfolio investments with early positive performance and valuation markups. Additionally, Scout recently sold Fund III portfolio company Tomahawk Robotics to AeroVironment, resulting in a cash distribution to our Fund III Limited Partners.

“Scout Ventures’ investment in our company has been instrumental in accelerating our development of our high-altitude solar powered aircraft ,” said James Thomas, Founder/CEO of Radical Aero. “Their deep understanding of dual-use, frontier technology and their commitment to building long-standing partnerships with their portfolio companies make them a truly valuable capital partner.”

“We are excited to leverage this new capital to continue fueling the growth of exceptional entrepreneurs who are tackling the world’s most pressing challenges,” concluded Harrison.

About Scout Ventures

Scout’s team consists of venture professionals with deep domain expertise in a variety of sectors. Scout consistently assists entrepreneurs with business development, hiring, sales strategies, and more. Scout focuses on the sectors where the team’s experience helps companies grow: Frontier Technologies (AI & Data Science, Robotics, Drones, Autonomous Mobility, AR/VR, Advanced Materials, Physical and Cybersecurity, Quantum Computing, Space) and Enterprise SaaS.

Contact:

Cody Huggins
Head of Capital Formation

[email protected]

SOURCE Scout Ventures

Darrow Taps Former Dealpath CRO To Lead Next Phase Of Revenue Growth

TEL AVIV, Israel and NEW YORK, May 1, 2024 — Darrow, the leading AI-powered justice intelligence platform, today announced the appointment of Mathew Keshav Lewis as its first Chief Revenue Officer and US General Manager. Lewis brings over 20 years of experience driving revenue and growth for high-profile legal and technology companies – including SaaS platform Dealpath, alternative investment platform Yieldstreet, and legal services pioneer Axiom Law – and will be responsible for helping Darrow scale as it continues an accelerated growth trajectory.

“Mathew’s arrival at Darrow opens enterprise-level deals to all plaintiff law firms, previously accessible only to a select few,” said Evyatar Ben Artzi, CEO and Co-Founder of Darrow. “His expertise from YieldStreet and Axiom empowers our partners to leverage AI, driving unprecedented growth and innovation.”

Lewis, who will be based in Darrow’s New York headquarters, joins Darrow after serving as the first Chief Revenue Officer of Dealpath, a real estate deal management platform. He also previously held the role of Chief Revenue Officer and GM, Investments at Yieldstreet, where he drove record revenue and growth for the investment platform.

“I’m delighted to join a team of tremendously talented individuals at Darrow, who have already disrupted the legal technology space and forged the path ahead,” said Mathew Keshav Lewis, Chief Revenue Officer & US General Manager of Darrow. “I am inspired by Darrow’s progress to date, and I look forward to working alongside Darrow’s growing team to expand the company’s footprint.”

This announcement comes at a period of rapid growth for the company, which completed its $35 million Series B funding round last year. Darrow currently works on active litigation valued over $10 billion across legal domains such as privacy, consumer protection, and antitrust.

About Darrow: Founded in 2020, Darrow is a LegalTech company on a mission to fuel law firm growth and deliver justice for victims of class and mass action lawsuits. Darrow’s AI-powered justice intelligence platform leverages generative AI and world-class legal experts and technologists to uncover egregious violations across legal domains spanning privacy and data breach, consumer protection, securities and financial fraud, environment, and employment. Darrow is based out of New York City and Tel Aviv. For more information, visit: darrow.ai. 

SOURCE Darrow

With this investment, the startup will accelerate the development and implementation of artificial intelligence on the ‘plant floor’ and supply chains.

SÃO PAULO, April 30, 2024 — Cogtive, a startup that enhances the productivity of Manufacturing industries through IoT technologies, digital twins, and artificial intelligence, receives a R$ 10 million investment from Indicator Capital, the largest early-stage venture capital firm in Latin America specializing in the Internet of Things (IoT). This investment aims to help the company address a significant challenge in the industrial sector: ensuring that factories operate at their maximum capacity by mapping inefficiencies in the production process and delivering tools for optimization.

Most of the seed investment, a modality applied to early-stage expanding startups, will be directed toward product development and commercial expansion. “We want to expand our presence by positioning ourselves as the number 1 solution for productivity gains in Manufacturing, especially for industrial segments such as pharmaceuticals, animal health, cosmetics, food and beverages, paints, and chemicals in Latin America,” says Cogtive CEO, Reginaldo Ribeiro.

Cogtive’s technology maximizes the management capacity of production teams and operational excellence in manufacturing industries of various sizes and levels of maturity. From beginners in the digital journey who do not yet collect data to those with more advanced tools. The solution provided a comprehensive view of the plant floor through data integration, analyzing machine efficiency individually, and ensuring an understanding of all areas of the production flow.

Leadership in Artificial Intelligence

The ability to integrate all stages quickly and ‘plug and play’ is enhanced with the robustness of a generative and discriminative artificial intelligence, named TÆLOR. “With it,” explains Ribeiro, “a production manager will be able to know, in natural language, if they will be able to meet the monthly plan and what actions they need to take for that to happen.” “It’s a milestone in manufacturing history,” he reinforces.

Indicator Capital co-founder Thomas Bittar emphasizes: “Cogtive, through sensors connected to machines, fits perfectly into our Internet of Things 4.0 industry thesis. Embedded in an industrial environment representing almost a quarter of the country’s GDP, the company has enormous potential to be explored in the national market.”

Investment focused on growth and expansion

The startup’s rapid growth – doubling the number of clients in the last 12 months – and the results achieved were determining factors in the investment decision. Indicator Capital will support Cogtive’s team in various business areas through its Building Value Together® methodology.

The connection between Cogtive and Indicator Capital was facilitated by Cubo Itaú. CEO Paulo Costa explains: “Reginaldo already knew about Indicator’s work, had participated in some events, and knew about the potential and synergy. So, during an event our hub promoted, there was a conversation, and everything progressed.”

SOURCE Cogtive

Project Will Use Realistic Market Simulation Model To Efficiently Integrate New Technologies

VALLEY FORGE, Pa., April 30, 2024 — A collaborative project among PJM Interconnection, Penn State and ISO New England has won funding from a U.S. Department of Energy program designed to develop and improve wholesale electricity markets.

Following its first round of funding, the Wholesale Market Studies and Engagements Program (WMSE) has announced six recipients that will share more than $10 million.

Penn State was awarded up to $815,959 in a three-year grant to identify market design changes to efficiently integrate batteries and other nontraditional resources that operate with changing real-time constraints on a grid that is experiencing more uncertainty in electricity demand, or load. The project will use a realistic market simulation model with PJM and ISO-NE to achieve the best performance across the objectives of reliability, efficiency and investment incentives.

“We look forward to collaborating with Penn State and ISO New England on this important program,” said Stu Bresler, PJM Executive Vice President – Market Services and Strategy. “This is the exact work needed to enhance the reliability of the grid amid an evolving resource mix.”

The changing resource mix is increasing the variability of load and generation, leading to both larger and more frequent changes in electricity demand and to increased forecast error. At the same time, the growing contributions from battery energy storage units must be managed in real time to efficiently use their limited energy and meet their charging schedule.

“The current operational structure, which is designed to respond instantly in five-minute increments, now must also think 12 hours ahead,” said Mort Webster, Professor of Energy Engineering at Penn State and principal investigator, who will be working with the grid operators. “This is high-priority concern among regional transmission organizations like PJM and ISO-NE.”

“Innovative ideas and collaboration are vital to a successful clean energy transition,” said Matthew White, Vice President, Market Development and Settlements, and Chief Economist at ISO New England. “ISO New England is proud to partner with Penn State and our colleagues at PJM on this exciting project.”

In the past, the mostly thermal generation-dominated grid functioned well under market designs that dispatched each interval without regard to subsequent periods and managed uncertainty with simple reserve product designs.

Creating more flexible and efficient markets will not only ensure a reliable supply of electricity, but also help keep costs competitive for consumers.

PJM’s project addresses two related questions:

• What is an optimal portfolio design of multiple reserve products on different timescales that can manage the increasing variability and uncertainty throughout the operating day from load and renewable generation?
• How should day-ahead and real-time markets be structured to efficiently utilize batteries and other resources with binding constraints under net load uncertainty that changes throughout the day?

The other five projects cover Southwest Power Pool, California Independent System Operator and New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) markets as well as non-market areas, such as the Western Interconnection.

PJM Interconnection, founded in 1927, ensures the reliability of the high-voltage electric power system serving 65 million people in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. PJM coordinates and directs the operation of the region’s transmission grid, which includes 88,115 miles of transmission lines; administers a competitive wholesale electricity market; and plans regional transmission expansion improvements to maintain grid reliability and relieve congestion. PJM’s regional grid and market operations produce annual savings of $3.2 billion to $4 billion. For the latest news about PJM, visit PJM Inside Lines at insidelines.pjm.com.

SOURCE PJM Interconnection

CHICAGO, April 30, 2024 — Aequum Capital recently completed a two-stage senior Term Loan facility to refinance venture debt of $6MM including exit fees plus additional debt capital for acquisitions of up to $2.5MM for BrightWorks IT, a portfolio company of Cloud Equity Group.

BrightWorks IT is a leading provider of managed IT services, offering businesses a comprehensive suite of solutions to optimize their technology infrastructure. The Company offers state-of-the-art managed services, as well as cloud, hosting, security, and business continuity IT solutions for small to medium-sized companies.

BrightWorks IT has acquired seven smaller MSP’s nationally, as it continues to support and expand its Sponsor-backed platform. The Delayed Draw Term Loan (DDTL) allows the Company to be nimble and competitive through the LOI stage increasing speed and certainty of closing. 

Gary Li, CFO, stated, “We were immediately impressed as the team was familiar with our industry and the intricacies of providing IT services to small and mid-size businesses. They very quickly and aggressively put together a financing solution to support our needs today, as well as future growth. Aequum Capital provides us the flexibility and capability to move quickly when we identify a potential company to purchase. The partnership with Aequum will be a key component to us reaching our long-term growth goals.”

Aequum Capital Financial is a specialty finance lender providing fast and innovative senior asset-backed and cash flow debt facilities of up to $25 million to small and medium-sized businesses throughout the U.S. 

For more information, please go to https://aequumcapital.com or contact Rick Kaufmann at [email protected]. 

SOURCE Aequum Capital Financial LLC

WESTBOROUGH, Mass., April 30, 2024 — EG America raised $657,000 for the American Red Cross during its nationwide in-store fundraiser in March, in recognition of Red Cross Month.

Throughout the month, guests at EG America’s Certified Oil, Cumberland Farms, Fastrac, Kwik Shop, Loaf ‘N Jug, Minit Mart, Quik Stop, Sprint Food Stores, Tom Thumb, and Turkey Hill stores were able to donate $1, $5 or an amount of their choosing to the American Red Cross. EG America then matched the amounts raised by the top store in each banner to increase the donation total.

“We are proud to champion the American Red Cross’ mission of helping those in need,” said John Carey, President and CEO of EG America. “We are equally moved by the overwhelming generosity of our guests who contributed to this worthy cause.”

The American Red Cross assists individuals and communities in crisis. Donations enable the organization to respond immediately and deliver lifesaving support to those in need.

“The American Red Cross is grateful to be among the causes that EG America and its customers support,” said Bill Andrews, Division Fundraising Vice President. “The funds raised will be used by our volunteers to power our mission and life-saving work.”

About EG America

With more than 1,600 retail locations and 18,000+ team members across the U.S., EG America is one of the fastest-growing convenience store retailers in the country. As the operator of Certified Oil, Cumberland Farms, Fastrac, Kwik Shop, Loaf N’ Jug, Minit Mart, Quik Stop, Sprint Food Stores, Tom Thumb, and Turkey Hill stores, we are committed to becoming America’s preferred ‘one-stop’ destination by focusing on superior guest experience, high-quality grocery and fuel products, and supporting the communities in which we live and work. EG America is owned by EG Group, a UK-based fuel station and convenience store retailer with more than 50,000 team members across the UK & Ireland, Europe, Australia, and the US. For more information about EG America, visit us at eg-america.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

Contact: Julia Demopoulos, [email protected], 978-319-5856

SOURCE EG Group