New funding comes as investments made through the Allocate platform near $500MM 

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 21, 2023 — Allocate, a platform that provides investors with a streamlined way to invest and manage private investments, announced the closing of $10MM in financing, bringing the total capital raised since the company launched in July 2021 to $33.5MM.

The round included Gopher Asset US, an affiliate with Noah Holdings International (NYSE: NOAH), Intera Investments, M13 Ventures, along with several prominent family offices.

“This new capital bolsters our balance sheet to allow us to further accelerate our vision of modernizing investment into venture capital by granting investors a previously unavailable level of curated access and portfolio transparency,” said Samir Kaji, CEO & Co-Founder of Allocate. “With over 600 active RIAs and Family Offices having deployed nearly $500MM through the Allocate platform across 58 manager strategies since our Q4 launch, it is clear that the demand for high quality venture remains strong but the infrastructure to access and manage investments needs to improve significantly for investors of all types.”

In addition to the new funding, Allocate has also added three key hires to the company. Nic Millikan, most recently Deputy Chief Investment Officer at CAZ Investments and previously Head of Investment Strategy at CAIS, will head up Family Office solutions for the company. Peter Epstein, most recently Executive Director and Alternative Investments Specialist at JP Morgan and Gregory Rollins, most recently Senior Vice President at iCapital Network, will also join as part of Allocate’s relationship management team for Private Banks and Wealth Advisory firms.

“The interest in venture capital investing has grown significantly among non-institutional investors, but the tools and services to invest responsibly in the asset class have not historically been available to them,” said Nic Millikan. “What excited me about Allocate is that, in a very short period of time, they have built an incredible community of investors and managers, and the company’s vision in making venture investing more accessible, transparent, and liquid.”

Alternative investments are rapidly becoming a staple in individual client portfolios. With the equity and bond markets in a state of flux, alternatives have shown that they can improve performance while reducing volatility. Within alternative investments, venture capital is a unique and growing segment – especially for non-institutional investors. However, these same investors lack the tooling and education to make effective investment decisions. Allocate has built a platform that makes venture investing more accessible, effective, and transparent.

About Allocate

Founded by Samir Kaji and Hana Yang in 2021, the founding team is uniquely positioned to unlock access to the new era of venture capital investing. The two co-founders have worked closely with over 1,500 venture fund managers in their careers. The Allocate team previously had tenures at SVB Financial Group, SVB Capital, Hamilton Lane, Makena Capital, Commonfund, CAIS, Bowdoin Endowment, iCapital Network, Fidelity, First Republic Bank, Gradifi, and Vistaprint.

SOURCE Allocate

The Company Also Introduces Their Flagship Product, Tomei RWA

NEW YORK, Sept. 20, 2023 — Jiritsu, a pioneer in verifiable computing, is thrilled to announce it has secured $10.2 million in funding, this round has been led by gumi Cryptos Capital, with participation from Susquehanna Private Equity Investments, LLLP, Republic Capital, and other investors.

This significant financial backing will accelerate Jiritsu’s mission of revolutionizing blockchain solutions. The company’s groundbreaking Unlimited Verifiable Compute (UVC) technology offers an easily programmable approach that can be applied virtually to any workflow and generates Proof of Workflow (PoWF), setting a new paradigm in verifiable computing.

“Securing this funding is a significant milestone for Jiritsu,” said Jacob Guedalia, CEO of Jiritsu. “It validates our vision and the groundbreaking work we’ve been doing in the field of verifiable computing. The strong strategic value of our investors, who are leaders in Real-World Assets, further solidifies our position. We’ve delivered over 4 million PoWF and counting, our UVC technology is setting new industry standards.”

Introducing Tomei RWA, Jiritsu’s Flagship Product

Alongside this funding news, Jiritsu is proud to unveil Tomei RWA, a revolutionary asset tokenization platform. Built on Jiritsu’s UVC and ZK-MPC technologies, Tomei offers unparalleled assurance in asset management through its proprietary attestation system. The platform employs Zero-Knowledge (ZK) attestations for secure and compliant asset onboarding, while also providing granular, permissioned access to data. Tomei’s automation further streamlines compliance by minting tokens tied to initial ZK attestations, and its dynamic consensus mechanism ensures accurate, on-chain asset valuations.

“In summary, Tomei is a game-changer in the asset management industry,” added Jacob Guedalia. “We’re excited to leverage the funding to accelerate the development and adoption of both the UVC platform and Tomei RWA.”

The Team Behind Jiritsu

The team is led by Jacob Guedalia, a successful serial entrepreneur with 4 exits and 50+ US Patents. He holds a BA in Physics and Philosophy from YU and a graduate degree in Applied Physics from the Weizmann Institute in Israel. David Guedalia, the Founder & Chief Architect, is a CTO with multiple exits and 50+ US patents. He holds a Ph.D. in Neural Computation at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Asher Gottesman co-Founder, has more than 20 years of experience in private equity. The team also includes Ph.D.s in Computer Science, Cryptography, Mathematics, and Physics.

Quotes from Investors

gumi Cryptos Capital: “Jiritsu has developed a technology platform for compute verification, an increasingly important Internet infrastructure,” said Miko Matsumura, Managing Partner at gumi Cryptos Capital. “With the launch of Tomei, we feel that the team has identified a killer application for this platform.”

Republic Capital: “We are thrilled to invest in this amazing team. We believe Jiritsu will be an important catalyst for the tokenized real-world asset space with its Verifiable Compute technology,” said Brian Johnson, Senior Director at Republic Capital.

“RWAs may become one of the best use cases for blockchain,” said Yida Gao, Shima Capital’s Founder and Managing General Partner. “We are extremely bullish on Jiritsu’s ability to accelerate the path towards mass adoption by scaling the asset tokenization sector with their unlimited verified compute technology powered by MPC.”

Additional Investors

In addition to gumiCC, Susquehanna Private Equity Investments, LLLP and Republic Capital the funding round also includes participation from Comma3, Kestrel, Eterna, Kestrel, Sera Fund, Evernew, Polymorphic, Shima, Tokentus, and other native blockchain funds, further solidifying the strong investor confidence in Jiritsu Network and its innovative solutions.

www.jiritsu.network www.tomei.network

Press Contact
Fiona Dorothea [email protected]

About Jiritsu
Jiritsu is a leading technology company specializing in decentralized and verifiable computing. Founded in 2020, the company has been at the forefront of computational innovation, developing technologies like Unlimited Verifiable Compute (UVC) and decentralized Zero-Knowledge Multi-Party Compute (ZK-MPC).

About gumi Cryptos Capital
gumi Cryptos Capital (gCC) is a boutique early-stage blockchain-focused venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley. We believe the Internet will become the single largest market in human history, and it will be rebuilt on a foundation of new protocols that protect and coordinate the transfer of digital assets, resources, and intellectual property, generate consensus, incentivize network participants, and decentralize ownership. Since 2018, we have been among the earliest supporters of the founders of successful projects like OpenSea, Yield Guild Games, 1inch, Hashflow, Qredo, Agoric, and Lit Protocol. We add value by leveraging our entrepreneurial experience and global networks.

Media Contact:
Jiritsu
[email protected]

Photo(s):
https://www.prlog.org/12984993

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE Jiritsu

The $500 million credit facility is expected to provide financial stability and serve as a strategic platform for future profitable growth

Also, announces new Board of Directors structure

NEW YORK, Sept. 20, 2023 — Wheels Up Experience (NYSE: UP) today announced that it has closed the previously announced investment by Delta Air Lines, Certares Management LLC, Knighthead Capital Management LLC and Cox Enterprises.

The new investment structure combines the experience of Delta, the No. 1 premium airline, with the travel and tourism focus of Certares and turnaround and restructuring experience of Knighthead. It includes an agreement for a $500 million credit facility to Wheels Up, with funds contributed by Delta and CK Wheels LLC, which is co-managed by affiliates of Certares and Knighthead, and Cox. The announcement follows last week’s selection of George Mattson as the company’s new CEO.

“This investment represents both an important source of capital for Wheels Up to support our strategy for financial stability, future profitability and long-term growth on behalf of our members and customers, as well as a vote of confidence in our path forward from a group of investors with deep experience in the premium travel space,” Mattson said. “We look forward to working closely with Delta and our other investors to deliver best-in-class operating performance and an exceptional customer experience which, as we deepen our commercial partnership, will also enable us to provide a one-of-a-kind seamless connection between private and premium commercial travel.”

“Wheels Up is an integral part of Delta’s portfolio of premium partners, and this deep relationship offers a significant opportunity to deliver compelling benefits to our customers that are unique in the travel space,” said Dan Janki, Wheels Up Chairman and Delta’s Chief Financial Officer. “This investment and new leadership puts Wheels Up on a strong path to future success.”

The credit facility is comprised of a $350 million term loan funded at closing from Delta, CK Wheels LLC and Cox and a $100 million revolving credit facility from Delta. The terms of the credit agreement permit a new lender to provide a $50 million term loan after the closing date, as approved by Delta, Certares, Knighthead and Cox, and it is anticipated this additional funding will close in the near term.

In connection with the closing of the credit facility, the lenders will initially receive newly issued Wheels Up common stock representing 80% of the company’s outstanding equity as of the closing of the credit facility, on a fully diluted basis. After approval by Wheels Up’s stockholders of an amendment to its certificate of incorporation, the company will issue to the lenders additional new shares such that the lenders will own 95% of the company’s outstanding equity as of the closing of the credit facility, on a fully diluted basis.

Wheels Up also announced a new structure for its Board of Directors. Under the new structure, Delta Air Lines will appoint four directors, Certares and Knighthead each will appoint two directors, and Cox will appoint one director. In addition, one company executive will join the Board and two independent directors are expected to remain from the previous Board.

The parties were assisted in the transaction by a number of strategic advisors, including: Davis Polk, Jefferies LLC, Kirkland & Ellis and PJT Partners. 

About Wheels Up

Wheels Up is a leading provider of on-demand private aviation in the U.S. and one of the largest private aviation companies in the world. Wheels Up offers a complete global aviation solution with a large, modern, and diverse fleet, backed by an uncompromising commitment to safety and service. Customers can access membership programs, charter, aircraft management services and whole aircraft sales, as well as unique commercial travel benefits through a strategic partnership with Delta Air Lines. Wheels Up also offers freight, safety and security solutions and managed services to individuals, industry, government, and civil organizations.

Wheels Up is guided by the mission to connect private flyers to aircraft, and one another, through an open platform that seamlessly enables life’s most important experiences. Powered by a global private aviation marketplace connecting its base of approximately 12,000 members and customers to a network of approximately 1,500 safety-vetted and verified private aircraft, Wheels Up is widening the aperture of private travel for millions of consumers globally. With the Wheels Up mobile app and website, members and customers have the digital convenience to search, book and fly.

To learn more about Wheels Up, go to Wheelsup.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other important factors, many of which are outside of the control of Wheels Up Experience Inc. (“Wheels Up”). These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding:  (i) the impact of new strategic initiatives on Wheels Up’s business and results of operations, including the expected impacts from director and officer appointments, cost reduction efforts, measures intended to increase Wheels Up’s operational efficiency, and the ability of Wheels Up to execute and realize the anticipated benefits from, and the degree of market acceptance and adoption of, any new services or partnership experiences, including member program changes implemented in June 2023 and any future member program changes; (ii) the competition in, size, demands and growth potential of the markets for Wheels Up’s products and services and Wheels Up’s ability to serve those markets; (iii) any potential adverse impacts on the trading prices and trading market for Wheels Up’s common stock, par value $0.0001 per share, as a result of the closing of the credit facility and dilutive stock issuances described in this press release, including the impact of any contractual requirements or covenants set forth in the definitive documents for such credit facility and stock issuances on the Company’s business, results of operations and liquidity; (iv) the possibility of an additional term loan being funded under the terms of the credit agreement described in this press release; (v) Wheels Up’s liquidity, future cash flows, deferred revenue balances and certain restrictions related to its debt obligations, including Wheels Up’s ability to perform under its contractual obligations to its members and customers; and (vi) general economic and geopolitical conditions, including due to fluctuations in interest rates, inflation, foreign currencies, consumer and business spending decisions, and general levels of economic activity. The words “anticipate,” “believe,” continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “possible,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “strive,” “would” and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that statement is not forward-looking. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements can be found in Wheels Up’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on March 31, 2023, Wheels Up’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended June 30, 2023 filed with the SEC on August 14, 2023, and Wheels Up’s other filings with the SEC from time to time. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. Except as required by law, Wheels Up does not intend to update any of these forward-looking statements after the date of this press release or to conform these statements to actual results or revised expectations.

Securities Disclaimer

The issuance, offer and/or sale of any securities described herein has not been registered under any federal or state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the applicable federal and state laws. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase any securities, and shall not constitute an offer, solicitation or sale in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

SOURCE Wheels Up

Investment will fuel expansion of Ashcroft’s Sun Belt portfolio

NEW YORK, Sept. 20, 2023 — Ashcroft Capital, a fully integrated multifamily investment firm, today announced that it has entered into a strategic venture with Temerity Strategic Partners (TSP) that provides Ashcroft with $50 million of growth capital. The capital is expected to support an estimated $1.5 billion of acquisitions over the next two to three years, as Ashcroft expands its Sun Belt portfolio.

“We are excited to have this capital and backing from Temerity Strategic Partners as we position ourselves to benefit from the dislocation and repricing taking place in the market. We look forward to continuing to build our portfolio and delivering on our promise of improving the quality of life of the residents at each of our communities,” said Frank Roessler, founder and CEO of Ashcroft. “The founders of Temerity Strategic have been instrumental in the growth and success of many of the largest real estate operators in North America and across all asset classes. We expect that with Temerity Strategic as our partner we will continue to scale the Ashcroft platform.”

Ashcroft currently owns and, through its Birchstone Residential affiliate, manages apartment communities throughout Texas, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina. In addition to its existing markets, the company is looking to expand into such other Sun Belt markets as Arizona and Tennessee.

“We continue to cultivate a strong roster of like-minded institutional joint venture partners,” said Scott Lebenhart, chief investment officer at Ashcroft. “Our partnership with Temerity Strategic will further support the expansion of our JV program with existing relationships and select new institutional partners.”

“Temerity Strategic provides growth capital and expertise to established, focused, vertically integrated and best-in-class real estate operators that are uniquely positioned for success, which is exactly why we identified Ashcroft as a candidate for our firm’s sponsorship,” commented Bruce Cohen, co-founder and CEO of TSP. “Ashcroft has emerged as a leader in the multifamily industry, and we are big believers in the Ashcroft team’s vision of building a portfolio throughout high-growth metropolitan areas in the Sun Belt region. We are excited to support Ashcroft’s expansion through a combination of capital, resources and strategic guidance.”

TSP seeks to partner with real estate owners and operators that have scaled businesses, an established competitive advantage, in-depth customer and broker knowledge, strong access to institutional capital and a track record of successful deals.

“Ashcroft exhibits all of the attributes we seek in the platforms with which Temerity Strategic will be partnering,” added Jeffrey B. Citrin, co-founder and executive chairman of TSP. “When you add what Temerity Strategic brings to the table with Ashcroft’s multifamily expertise, exemplary corporate culture and strategic vision, the stage is set for Ashcroft to truly soar.”

About Ashcroft Capital
Founded in 2015, Ashcroft Capital is a vertically integrated multifamily investment firm that currently owns and manages 14,000 units – totaling $2.6 billion in value – throughout several high-growth metros of the Sun Belt. The firm focuses on capital preservation while striving to return strong, risk-adjusted cash-on-cash to investors. Ashcroft is capitalized with high net worth, family office and institutional capital. Ashcroft specializes in value-add multifamily real estate and exhibits an expertise in extracting maximum value from every asset it acquires. Rather than attempting to play cycle timing, the firm strives to acquire excellent apartment communities within well-located submarkets of large and growing U.S. metros. Ashcroft is driven by a focused mission to improve the quality of life of the residents at each community in its portfolio.

About Birchstone Residential
Birchstone Residential is the in-house property management company of Ashcroft Capital. It has a comprehensive property management platform that provides all essential services, including leasing, maintenance and construction management. Birchstone was purpose-built to execute the value-add business plan for each Ashcroft property, optimize financial returns and deliver high resident satisfaction. Committed to a people-centric culture and employee development through job training, job enrichment and accelerated development, Birchstone seeks to provide best-in-class service that attracts new residents and enriches the lifestyles of current residents.

About Temerity Strategic Partners
Temerity Strategic Partners is a Chicago-based private equity firm with a focused strategy of providing growth capital to real estate operating, development, and asset management companies on behalf of its principals and a distinguished group of private and institutional investors. TSP provides growth capital, strategic resources and access to its extensive relationships to support rapidly growing, market-leading real estate owners and operators executing development, value-add and core-plus strategies throughout the United States. Founded by industry veterans Bruce Cohen and Jeff Citrin, TSP leverages its experience in building, capitalizing and investing in preeminent real estate operating platforms to support the pursuit of their long-term objectives.

Media Contact
Stephen Ursery
LinnellTaylor Marketing
[email protected]
303.682.3945

SOURCE Ashcroft Capital

A mission manager turned matchmaker removes traditional messaging from her new app, prompting users to instantly request dates

ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 20, 2023 — Founder of the app Only, and current mission manager at SpaceX, Courtney Cline had heard the same stories of ghosting, lack of initiative, or time wasted on dating apps countless times. Inspired to develop a more pragmatic type of dating and social app, Cline removed traditional direct messaging and integrated a calendar widget that prompts users to instantly request dates upon matching.

“Entering the corporate world post grad, I noticed first hand how difficult it was to make and maintain relationships,” says Courtney Cline. “I saw myself and friends get busier, the idea of making real connections with like-minded people was a multi step process and I just wanted something more efficient.”

Joined by co-founders Kendall Packo and Chris Millsap, the Only team saw an opportunity to move away from speed swiping to something more intentional. Offering options for romance or friendship, Only streamlines how users commit to and plan future dates. Compared to a swipe interface, Only’s algorithm brings deliberate matches to you. Once matched, users can request specific restaurants or events to be booked on their calendar, spending less time in an inbox. Key features of the current Only app include:

• Instant Date Requests: Users can browse profiles and send instant date requests eliminating the need for prolonged messaging.
• Shared Interests: Only’s advanced algorithm matches users based on their shared interests and location, ensuring more meaningful and compatible connections.
• Calendar Integration: Users are able to see each other’s calendar availability, expediting the time it takes to pick a common day and time.
• Friendship or Romance: Only allows users to toggle between ‘Friendship’ and ‘Romance’ options.

Only is in a pre-seed round of funding to get an updated Version 1.0 of the app release by Q4 2024. This funding will most notably get the company revenue positive with a mere 50,000 users based on projections by leveraging restaurant promotions, ticket transactions, and a date marketplace for users and investors. Further funding will support development of Version 2.0 which will expand into a subscription model featuring AI.

The ‘Only’ app is an introductory product of Single Riders Only Inc. It is currently available to download in the United States and Canada through the App Store and Google Play. Created to be the insta-booking app of the dating world, Only utilizes calendar integration for hassle free planning. Be it romantic or platonic, Only strives to create a community of people looking to expand their horizons beyond the screen and get to living their most fulfilling lives, one experience at a time. Download, follow, and learn more:

Download Only: Dating & Friends on the App Store and Google Play, follow us on Instagram @theonlydatingapp and TikTok @theonlyapp, and visit us online at https://singleridersonlyapp.com/

For more information, questions, or other press material, please contact…
Courtney Cline, Founder & CEO
[email protected]
(312)271-0883
Kendall Packo, Co-Founder & CMO
[email protected]
(330)620-3373

SOURCE Only

Authentic’s Turnkey Captive Insurance Platform Allows Any Vertical SaaS, Franchise Group, Associations, and Other Organizations to Launch Captive Insurance Programs

NEW YORK, Sept. 20, 2023 — Authentic, a turnkey insurance platform that allows vertical SaaS companies, franchises, and other groups to reap the benefits of captive insurance, announced the close of a $5.5M Seed round. The round was led by Slow Ventures with participation from Altai Ventures, MGV, Upper90, Clocktower, Commerce Ventures, Mischief Ventures, Core Innovation Capital, and prominent insurance executives.

According to the NAIC, 90% of Fortune 500 Companies utilize captive insurance, which is a form of “self-insurance.” With captive insurance, organizations create their own insurance companies instead of buying insurance from a broker or insurance carrier. 

Captive insurance provides many benefits, including creating an additional revenue stream for parent companies, tailored insurance coverage, lower insurance premiums, and more. For the last 50 years, only large corporations have mainly utilized captive insurance companies due to the cost and complexity of setting one up. 

Authentic’s “Captive in a Box” platform now makes it possible for any Vertical SaaS company, franchise, association, etc., to launch captive insurance programs for their members in a matter of weeks. Authentic’s turnkey platform handles all of the logistics of setting up a captive insurance company, including:

• Legal: Setting up a Domicile, Administration, etc.
• Underwriting: Filing Rates with Regulators, Pricing, Actuarial Analysis, etc.
• Reinsurance & Capital: Reinsuring, Capitalizing Captives, etc.
• Claims Management, Customer Servicing, and more.

“Captive insurance provides many benefits to organizations and their members, but until now, setting one up was a very long and expensive process,” explained Cole Riccardi, CEO & Founder, Authentic. “Through Authentic’s platform, anyone can create their own captive insurance program and realize the benefits within days,” said Riccardi.

Before Authentic, there were two ways Vertical Saas companies, franchises, etc., could monetize insurance. First, they could sell their leads to insurers and receive a one-time lead fee. The second option was to partner with an insurance broker or carrier and get a commission on each policy sold.

Authentic not only allows its partners to get a commission on every policy sold, but they also keep the majority of underwriting profit. Partnering with Authentic requires no engineering or insurance resources. All that is required from Authentic’s partners is to insert a line of code into their platform to start selling insurance. 

“Over the last few years, we’ve seen a lot of software startups becoming FinTech companies by embedding payments and lending products to monetize their customer base,” explained Marc Schroder, founder of MGV. “Insurance is the next embedded product, but what makes Authentic a win-win is that software companies, roll-ups, etc., can create a new revenue stream while its members get hyper-tailored insurance policies at a fair price,” said Schroder.

Authentic, based out of Manhattan, NY, and Dayton, OH, is comprised of professionals from leading technology and insurance companies, including Next Insurance, Amazon, Canary Consulting, and Aquiline Capital Partners. This mix of technical, entrepreneurial, and insurance experience helped Authentic create the first end-to-end platform that allows SMEs to create captive insurance programs and distribute insurance to its members.

“Authentic’s ‘captive in a box’ allows them to sidestep the current distribution problems of adverse risk selection that the insurance industry has struggled to overcome,” explained Sam Lessin, Managing Partner, Slow Ventures. “Authentic’s partners stand to benefit from sharing data to better assess and price risk, as they are the ones that reap the rewards from more successful programs.”

Authentic has launched with initial customers and already has a waitlist of customers launching throughout Q4 2023. Currently, Authentic is offering Business Owner’s Policy (BOP) coverage and is targeting businesses in the food & beverage, salon & spa, retail, fitness, and professional services.

For more information about Authentic, visit: https://www.authenticinsurance.com

or contact Will Mandelbaum, Chief of Staff at: [email protected]

About Authentic

Authentic enables SaaS platforms, associations, and other communities to create their own captive insurance programs. Captives bring financial and coverage benefits that large enterprises have leveraged for the past ~50 years. Authentic’s tech-enabled platform compresses the complexity of captive insurance and delivers benefits to small business groups.

Contacts
Will Mandelbaum, Chief of Staff
[email protected]

Gabby Champion
208-779-0239
[email protected]

SOURCE Authentic

• Funding follows VerImmune’s successful FDA pre-IND meeting as well as completion of a key process development milestone.  
• Participation occurred from existing investors as well as a pharmaceutical partner.
• Proceeds will be used to accelerate GLP/GMP activities towards an IND for VerImmune’s lead product candidate VERI-101

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20, 2023 — VerImmune Inc. (“VerImmune”), an early-stage biotechnology company specializing in the development of innovative products based on a novel Virus-inspired Particle (ViP™) technology platform, announced today the securing of an additional $3.125 million from follow-on Seed financing and a partnership milestone payment.

The follow-on financing was led by previous investor, Proxima VC, a specialist seed-to-growth healthcare venture capital firm with participation from other previous investors such as Gaingels, Mana Ventures and others. In addition to this financing, a milestone payment from Fosun Pharma USA was triggered by  the successful completion of a process development milestone.

“Receiving this additional $3.125M  financing and milestone payment resulting from our successful FDA pre-IND meeting and significant progress on CMC activities is an important step for VerImmune that further strengthens our financial position.” said Joshua Wang, Founder and CEO. “We continue to be grateful to our internal team, network of advisors, existing investors, and pharmaceutical partners such as Fosun Pharma USA who believe in our technology platform and therapeutic potential of VERI-101. We intend to capitalize on this momentum and efficiently execute the next stages to enable the filing of an IND for VERI-101.”

VerImmune’s primary focus lies in the field of Oncology, wherein the ViP technology enables a pioneering first-in-class cancer immunotherapy approach known as Anti-tumor Immune Redirection (AIR). This innovative method harnesses the body’s pre-existing immune memory from past infections or childhood vaccination to combat cancer. By taking a highly orthogonal approach, VerImmune’s technology holds immense potential to revolutionize the Immuno-Oncology market, offering new treatment possibilities for patients facing limited options or resistance to current cancer therapies.

About VerImmune

VerImmune is at the forefront of innovation, dedicated to the development of a groundbreaking first-in-class cancer immunotherapy called Anti-tumor Immune Redirection (AIR). This unique strategy leverages a proprietary virus-inspired particle (ViP) technology platform to redirect pre-existing pathogenic or childhood vaccine immune memory toward tumors. VerImmune’s lead immuno-oncology product candidate, VERI-101, utilizes the ViP platform to harnesses the cellular immune memory responses from prior cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection to fight cancer. Such a mechanism of action not only differentiates VerImmune within the competitive Immuno-Oncology market but also has the potential to redefine the treatment paradigm, as a stand-alone product or in combination with other immunotherapies, for patients with untreatable cancers or resistance to existing therapies. For more information, please visit http://www.verimmune.com.

SOURCE Verimmune Inc

New financing underscores high demand for a modern checkout solution for pharmacies and patients

NEW YORK , Sept. 20, 2023 — HealNow today announced a $5.5 million Seed round led by Bonfire Ventures. Additional investors participating in the round include Walkabout Ventures, Remarkable Ventures, Alabama Futures Fund, Impulsum Ventures and a number of prominent fintech and healthcare investors.

HealNow enables pharmacies to provide a modern, seamless online checkout experience for patients. Leveraging state-of-the-art payments technology, patients can now effortlessly schedule delivery or curbside pickup, purchase over-the-counter (OTC) items, and pay for their prescriptions online. Hundreds of pharmacies across the country rely on HealNow to accelerate payments workflow and improve the patient experience.

“Pharmacies are vital to the healthcare system in this country, yet they face a massive technological disparity,” said Halston Prox, CEO, HealNow. “Today, only the largest pharmacy chains have established an online presence, while the majority of the industry remains predominantly offline. This gap has placed pharmacies at a substantial competitive disadvantage, as they lack the resources and economies of scale enjoyed by larger players such as CVS. Our mission at HealNow is to level the playing field, enabling any pharmacy to provide a seamless online checkout experience for their customers.”

Today, HealNow is also announcing a number of partnerships with several healthcare organizations, including Omnicell, NCPA and APC. The platform also built integrations with pharmacy management systems, including PioneerRx, Liberty, Keycentrix and others.

Features and benefits of HealNow include:

• Streamlined Communication: HealNow streamlines the way pharmacies handle phone calls and eliminates the frustration of phone tag. By simplifying payment collection and patient information gathering, the platform drastically reduces the time spent on administrative tasks. Not only does this increase efficiency, but it also enhances overall patient satisfaction.
• Seamless Integration: HealNow easily integrates with existing pharmacy management systems and blends into your workflow. Our platform ensures smooth operations, optimizing pharmacy processes and enabling a hassle-free digital transformation.
• Advanced Payment Solutions: HealNow accelerates payments for medications. The platform enables pharmacies to receive payments upfront, reducing waste, cutting expenses, and saving valuable time.
• Enhanced Patient Experience: With HealNow, patients can conveniently add over-the-counter (OTC) items, supplements, and additional services during the checkout process. This user-friendly feature not only improves adherence to treatment plans but also expands the basket value for pharmacies. By providing a seamless experience, we empower patients to take control of their healthcare journey.

HealNow will use the new financing to accelerate product development and expand partnerships with other pharmacy service providers to build on the platform ecosystem. The company also plans to expand its national reach to serve pharmacies of all sizes across all verticals, including retail, hospitals, universities, veterinarians and more.

“HealNow is leading the charge on democratizing pharmacy technology—it’s that simple,” said Mark Mullen, Bonfire Ventures. “Not only do they offer a differentiated product, its leadership has the industry experience to serve the unique needs of pharmacies. In the next few years, we see HealNow becoming the de facto checkout solution for the pharmacy industry. We are excited to play a role in their continued growth and innovation.”

About HealNow
HealNow is a healthcare technology company devoted to bringing modern solutions to pharmacies and their patients. The company is committed to improving the healthcare industry by providing advanced tools at affordable prices, enabling pharmacies of all sizes to offer a higher standard of service and convenience to their patients. Our goal is to make healthcare more accessible and patient-friendly, one pharmacy at a time. For more information, visit https://www.healnow.co/

About Bonfire Ventures
Bonfire Ventures is a leading, early-stage venture capital firm that invests exclusively in B2B software companies at the seed stage. With over $800M under management, Bonfire backs extraordinary founders and aspires to serve as their most trusted advisors. Known for their hands-on approach, Bonfire was named one of the best seed stage VC firms by founders in 2022. Notable investments include TaxJar (acquired by Stripe), The Trade Desk (IPO), ChowNow, Boulevard, Figment, Invoca, Cube, and OpenPath (acquired by Motorola). For more information on Bonfire Ventures visit https://www.bonfirevc.com/.

SOURCE HealNow

Valued at $400M, MotherDuck removes the waitlist from its platform, announces new product features, and adds 11 more partners to its growing ecosystem

SEATTLE, Sept. 20, 2023 — MotherDuck, builder of a serverless, easy to use data analytics platform based on open source database DuckDB, today announced a $52.5 million round of funding. Led by Felicis, the round puts MotherDuck at a $400M post-money valuation and brings their total funding to date to $100M. New and existing investors like a16z, Madrona, Amplify Partners, Altimeter, Redpoint, Zero Prime, and more participated in the round as well. Felicis General Partner Viviana Faga will join MotherDuck’s Board of Directors.

As part of today’s announcement, MotherDuck will no longer have a waitlist for those interested in trying the platform. Anyone who wants to start leveraging the power of DuckDB at scale immediately can sign up at motherduck.com. The company also announced feedback-driven improvements to the analyst experience including faster data import, a better notebook interface with SQL auto-complete, optimized hybrid query planning, and improved database sharing.

“We’re proud of what we’ve been able to achieve over the last year alongside the DuckDB community and the DuckDB Labs team,” said Jordan Tigani, CEO and Co-Founder of MotherDuck. “Our initial funding allowed us to grow our engineering team to get our platform launched and in use by almost 2,000 analysts. With this funding and the momentum surrounding our platform and DuckDB’s adoption, the sky’s the limit. The key is a simplified scale-up approach to SQL analytics; for the 95% of us who do not have petabyte-scale data, a scale-up approach to analytics based on an engine like DuckDB can be faster, cheaper and more user-friendly than distributed architectures. Spending the last week in Amsterdam with the DuckDB team has solidified that DuckDB is the future. We’re excited about bringing the power of its simplicity to organizations at scale and improving the analyst experience across the board.”

As the popularity of DuckDB skyrockets across the data community – thanks to its ability to run everywhere (including in the browser), query data from anywhere without preloading it, and its super-fast execution of analytical queries – early adoption of MotherDuck has validated the belief that data technology needs to focus on analyst experience. As the DuckDB team continues to rapidly evolve the open source database engine and its close ties to cutting-edge academic research, MotherDuck has been able to add collaboration and scalability of the cloud for organizations who want to use DuckDB at a larger scale.

The partnership between the two teams has led to more than 2,000 users already finding success with MotherDuck across a multitude of use cases to include: 

• A cloud data warehouse for the rest of us: MotherDuck provides a simplified, performant and efficient data warehouse based on the lightweight DuckDB engine for the majority of data warehouses that don’t need petabyte scale. 
• A data lake query engine: MotherDuck uses DuckDB to query your data where it sits as parquet, iceberg, or CSV files.
• A serverless backend for data apps: Customers of SaaS applications like SaaSWorks and Dexibit need fast and fresh analytics on their data to make better decisions. Developers often tackle this with analytics queries running on the transactional database, which are not designed for the task. MotherDuck uses DuckDB to provide a better solution.

“We looked at various OLAP platforms that could serve our broad and demanding data platform that serves the modern CFO as we were hitting scale limits (price and performance) with Postgres on RDS. MotherDuck with DuckDB was by far the fastest – both in the cloud and run on our developer’s machines – bridging price and performance and greatly increasing productivity. We feel we have partnered with the future of Cloud and desktop-based OLAP providers with MotherDuck.” – Jim O’Neill, CTO & Co-Founder, SaaSWorks.

MotherDuck’s ecosystem also continues to grow. Following their initial product launch in June, the company announced 16 integrations with the platform. Today, MotherDuck is announcing 11 more: Cube, dltHub, Evidence, GoodData, Kestra, Metabase, InfinyOn, LlamaIndex, Sling, Streamlit, and Voltron Data. Airbyte will be available to users today, while integrations with Fivetran and Tableau are both underway.

“We are excited to partner with Jordan and the MotherDuck team as they build a platform designed to seamlessly blend speed and user-friendliness, thereby simplifying and making analytics widely accessible. Analysts clearly need the speed of working with data at the edge, as well as the flexibility to query cloud-based data. The era of serverless data analytics is here.” – Viviana Faga, General Partner, Felicis. 

MotherDuck’s funding announcement and product updates come as DuckDB prepares for its latest release, 0.9.0, which will also be available to MotherDuck users. Learn more, at https://duckdb.org/.

About MotherDuck
MotherDuck makes analytics fun, frictionless, and ducking awesome. In partnership with the team building open source database DuckDB, MotherDuck was founded by former leaders at some of the most innovative companies in data. It is on a mission to combine the elegance and speed of DuckDB with the collaboration and scalability of the cloud to provide a serverless, easy to use analytics platform for data small and large.

SOURCE MotherDuck