86 exits. 13 in 2025. The exit doesn’t end the relationship — it puts someone in your corner who already paid for your exact mistake.

DALLAS, June 15, 2026 — When a Champion Leadership Group founder exits, they don’t graduate. They stay — and they’re expected to.

That’s not a feel-good policy. It’s the structural engine behind the Founder Flywheel™, revealed today by Champion Leadership Group — a model built on the idea that the most valuable person in a founder’s corner is someone who already survived their exact situation, with their own money at stake.

The exit is complicated. What looks like a finish line from the outside can feel like a void from the inside. The deal that represents the biggest financial event of a founder’s life can simultaneously erase the professional identity that took years to build — the calendar, the relationships, the sense of purpose, all of it. A wire transfer doesn’t fix that. A room full of people who get it does.

Exited founders also carry something that can’t be replicated — the wrong VP of Sales hired at the wrong stage, the enterprise deal that consumed six months and never closed, the acquirer who repriced at LOI over a customer concentration problem that should have been addressed two years earlier. That operational scar tissue is perishable. The Flywheel captures it before it walks out the door. Think of it as experienced physicians working alongside residents — except these doctors remember exactly what it felt like to not know what they know now.

Over 60% of Champion Leadership’s exited founders start their next company — most of them inside the same community. The culture is collaborative, not competitive. Two current portfolio founders met inside the community years ago, each built and exited independently, and are now building their next company together. That outcome isn’t the exception. It’s what the model is designed to produce.

“This isn’t a mentorship program,” said Jeff Mains, CEO of Champion Leadership Group. “It’s what happens when the people who already paid for your exact mistake are strategically in the room before you make it. The exit doesn’t end the relationship — it makes them our most valuable asset.”

The Flywheel runs on three layers: a Fractional C-Suite of exited founders and domain experts accessible to member companies; the SaaS Fuel Operating System™ and Futureproof Value Index™, built on 81,000+ closed transactions; and a community of 260 active founders, exited operators, and investors — 86 exits and funding events since 2014, including 13 in 2025 alone.

About Champion Leadership Group
Champion Leadership Group™ helps B2B SaaS, AI, and Tech founders escape the chaos of “messy growth” and scale profitably — without burning out or losing control. Built on the Founder Flywheel™, exited founders stay in the community to mentor, invest, and build again alongside the next generation. 260 active founders. 86 exits and funding events since 2014. Founder Jeff Mains: five companies, four exits, 10,000 mistakes. ChampionLeadership.com

Media Contact:
Alex Carter
[email protected] | 469-640-8545

SOURCE Champion Leadership Group

Leading instant payments platform adds real-time¹ debit card funding, delivering a single API designed to support a broad range of deposits and withdrawal use cases that modern financial businesses demand.

NEW YORK, June 15, 2026 — Interchecks, a leading instant payments platform serving sportsbooks, fintechs, and financial institutions, today announced a $50 million Series C led by Bettor Capital, Commerce Ventures, Decades Holdings, and Thayer Street Partners. Alongside the raise, the company announced the general availability of Account Funding Transactions (“AFT”) that enables businesses to fund eligible accounts using debit credentials, with transaction processing designed to support fast, secure funding experiences. This expands Interchecks’ platform to cover the full lifecycle of money movement for its clients.

“Since we founded Interchecks a decade ago, our goal has been simple: make money move faster, more safely, and with more control than anyone thought possible,” said Dylan Massey, Co-Founder and CEO of Interchecks. “This raise lets us go deeper on the technology and the team, and AFT is a direct expression of what we’ve been building toward.”

“Interchecks’ differentiated platform, outstanding team, and strong commercial momentum all align perfectly with Bettor Capital’s thesis of backing premier software and technology suppliers within our vertical, and we are thrilled to continue supporting the Company via its Series C fundraise.” – Jake Kleiner, Partner, Bettor Capital

The AFT product addresses one of the most common friction points in digital finance: accepting deposits quickly and safely while helping businesses manage risk through built-in controls. With AFT, Interchecks clients can fund accounts in real time using debit card rails, with layered fraud protections built directly into the transaction flow. The product is purpose-built for use cases including account-to-account transfers, neobank, neobrokerage, and crypto wallet funding. It joins Interchecks’ existing Pay-by-Bank funding solution on a single RESTful API, meaning clients can offer a broad spectrum of deposit methods without managing multiple integrations.

Risk controls embedded in AFT include account verification, real-time duplicate card detection, customizable velocity limits benchmarked to industry standards, and proactive monitoring of suspicious activity — all designed to reduce chargeback exposure before funds move.

“Interchecks continues to advance the payments ecosystem by delivering solutions that help businesses move money more quickly and securely. We’re pleased to collaborate in bringing capabilities to market that support real-time funding experiences and greater flexibility for a wide range of use cases.” — Justin Zhao, VP, Head of Visa Direct, North America.

Interchecks has processed more than $50 billion in transactions over its 10-year history, achieved triple-digit net revenue growth year-over-year for the past seven years, and operated profitably since 2023. The company is a certified PCI Level 1 Service Provider and SOC 2 Type 2 certified, and works with major global networks including Visa and Mastercard.

Learn more at www.interchecks.com.

About Bettor Capital

Bettor Capital is a growth equity and venture investment firm focused on the real-money online gaming market. We are primarily focused on opportunities within the software supply chain powering the continued digitalization of the online gaming industry. Learn more at www.bettorcapital.com.

About Commerce Ventures

Commerce Ventures is a pioneering, sector-focused venture firm that thematically invests in founders reshaping commerce and financial services. Since 2013, the firm has invested in 150 companies including category leaders like BILL, Canary, Cardless, Crossmint, Forter, Kin, Marqeta, Mudflap, MX, Paystand, Socure, and Vestwell. Learn more at www.commerce.vc.

About Decades Holdings

Decades Holdings is an investment firm that backs category defining technology companies. Learn more at www.decadesholdings.com.

About Thayer Street Partners

Thayer Street Partners is a boutique private investment firm based in New York City focused on opportunistic investments in recurring revenue businesses operating in the financial services, business services, and real estate services sectors. Learn more at www.thayerstreet.com.

¹ “Real-time” means that funds are generally available for withdrawal from the recipient’s account within 30 minutes after the transaction is initiated.

SOURCE Interchecks Technologies, Inc.

STOCKHOLM, June 15, 2026 — Vaja AB, an emerging leader in next-generation solar tracking technologies, has raised €3.1 million in seed funding, bringing total capital to date from equity investment and grants to €6 million. The new round was led by The Footprint Firm, with participation from node.vc.

The funding will be used to accelerate Vaja’s market entry and product validation. Specifically, Vaja will use the funds to deliver the company’s solar tracking technology across numerous customer installations, advance Vaja’s core solar tracking innovations, and carefully scale the team.

Horizontal solar tracking went from niche to global standard within a decade, transforming the economics of solar at lower latitudes. Vaja is building the equivalent for the other half of the planet. VajaTrack™, the world’s first cost-efficient vertical single-axis tracking system, delivers 25-50% higher revenue versus fixed-mount installations across Europe, most of North America, and large parts of Asia by capturing both higher energy output and more valuable morning and evening electricity prices.

“Vaja is a pioneer for vertical solar tracking technology, a much-needed innovation that harnesses significantly more solar energy across more of the day and year for a significant part of the world,” said Henrik Eskilsson, Vaja’s CEO. “Over the next decade, we believe that vertical solar tracking can emerge as the dominant form of solar installation beyond 30° latitude, just as horizontal solar tracking has become the standard near the equator.”

At a time when European energy security and independence have become strategic imperatives, VajaTrack’s ability to increase solar yields substantially across northern latitudes has the potential to make domestic renewable generation more economically competitive, accelerating the transition away from imported energy and toward energy self-sufficiency.

“Solar is fundamental to a credible energy transition, and the companies that will define the next decade are the ones solving the parts that are still genuinely hard. Vaja is one of those companies. VajaTrack solar tracking technology unlocks substantially higher energy where conventional solutions have historically underperformed,” said Jakob Wichmann, Co-founder and Partner of The Footprint Firm. “With a founding team that combines deep structural engineering expertise with the commercial track record needed to bring a fundamentally new technology to market, this is exactly the kind of venture we want in our portfolio. We are proud to back Henrik, Anders, and the entire Vaja team as they scale the company and its technology.”

Due to strong demand, Vaja is opening additional installation slots for 2026 and is accepting reservations for agricultural installations and for pilot installations with professional developers of solar farms. Learn more here: VajaTrack – Vaja.  

About Vaja AB

Founded by serial entrepreneurs Henrik Eskilsson (previous CEO and co-founder of Tobii/Dynavox) and Anders Olsson (founder of Soldags), Vaja develops and supplies a novel solar tracking system that significantly increases both energy production and revenue. Vaja is backed by investments from The Footprint Firm, node.vc, and grants from the Swedish Energy Agency.

SOURCE Vaja AB

• Financing Led by Christian Angermayer’s Family Office Apeiron Investment Group with Participation from Co-Founder and CEO Maximilian Martin and Leading Global Institutional Investors
• Management Expects Current Capital Position to Fund Operations Through Operational Profitability Targeted for 2027
• Strategic Financing Follows Successful Inaugural Enhanced Games, Which Engaged More Than 1 Billion Global Viewers

NEW YORK, June 15, 2026 — Enhanced Group Inc. (“Enhanced” or the “Company”) (NYSE: ENHA) today announced that it has entered into an agreement for a $50 million strategic equity financing via a private investment in public equity (“PIPE”) financing transaction led by Apeiron Investment Group, the family office of Enhanced Co-Founder and Chairman Christian Angermayer, with participation from Co-Founder and CEO Maximilian Martin and leading global institutional investors.

Pursuant to such agreement, the Company is selling an aggregate of (i) 12,853,468 shares of its Class A common stock (the “Common Stock”) at a purchase price per share equal to $3.89 per share, the closing price of the Common Stock on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, June 12, 2026 and (ii) 12,853,468 warrants to purchase Common Stock with an exercise price of $3.89 per share (subject to adjustment). The initial tranche of the PIPE is expected to close on or about June 17, 2026 with the remaining two tranches in aggregate expected to close within forty-five days of the initial closing, in each case subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

Enhanced intends to use the net proceeds from the PIPE financing for working capital and general corporate purposes, including to accelerate the growth of its rapidly expanding telehealth and consumer health platform. Management believes the financing represents a significant strategic milestone for the Company and expects Enhanced to be fully funded through the achievement of operational profitability, which is currently anticipated in 2027.

The financing follows the successful launch of the inaugural Enhanced Games, which engaged more than one billion people globally and saw one world record and 21 personal bests broken, across 42 athletes. Management believes that, already in 2027, the Enhanced Games could be profitable on a standalone basis. This year alone, the event secured $32 million in sponsorship contract value, and sponsors have expressed strong interest in continuing their partnerships for the 2027 Enhanced Games with considerable inbound interest from potential new sponsors for upcoming events. Along with the annual Games, the company intends to start hosting more sporting events throughout the year, with more information to be released soon.

In addition to bringing in substantial revenue, the sports business constantly increases awareness of the positive effects of performance enhancing substances and, thereby, creates a powerful funnel for the Live Enhanced consumer platform, which helps everyday people improve and optimize their health and live an enhanced life.

Enhanced’s strategy is to convert the growing global interest in performance enhancement, health optimization, peptide usage, longevity, and preventative healthcare generated by its flagship sporting events into recurring consumer demand through its integrated telehealth, supplements, and therapeutics platform. With this strategy, management believes it will be able to reduce customer acquisition costs – usually the largest expense for similar consumer businesses significantly compared to peers.

Maximilian Martin, Chief Executive Officer of Enhanced, commented:

“The inaugural Enhanced Games exceeded our expectations, engaging more than one billion viewers globally. We believe this unprecedented awareness creates a powerful customer acquisition engine for our Live Enhanced consumer platform. With this financing, we are positioned to accelerate growth, scale our platform aggressively, and execute on our path to profitability.”

Christian Angermayer, Co-Founder and Chairman of Enhanced and lead investor in the financing, commented:

“The success of the Enhanced Games and the traction we are already seeing in our consumer business have, in my view, significantly de-risked the investment case. The question is no longer whether demand exists, but how quickly we can execute and how much of this massive global market we can capture. I am more confident than ever in the company’s future trajectory and delighted to double down on my investment.”

The offer and sale of securities in the PIPE have not been registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), or applicable state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from such registration requirements. The Company has agreed to file a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) registering the resale of the shares of common stock issued in the private placement.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

About Enhanced Group, Inc.

Enhanced (NYSE: ENHA) is an elite sports competition and performance products company committed to giving athletes and people alike access to products that optimize their health, performance and recovery. The Live Enhanced platform provides consumers access to products, and protocols that optimize health, longevity and vitality. As a premium brand, Enhanced aims to revolutionize and lead the Performance Medicine category. For more information about the mission of Enhanced please visit www.enhanced.com

Transaction Advisors

Cantor is serving as exclusive placement agent. DLA Piper LLP (US) is serving as legal advisor to Cantor. Cooley is serving as legal advisor to Enhanced.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, about Enhanced and Enhanced’s industry that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release are forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements regarding: Enhanced’s expected cash runway and future profitability; the total gross proceeds that Enhanced expects to receive in the PIPE; Enhanced’s intended use of proceeds from the PIPE; future prospects of the Enhanced Games, including future partnerships and sponsorships and the occurrence of additional sporting events; the closing of the PIPE; the impact of the sports business on the Live Enhanced consumer platform and the benefits and impact of such platform; and management’s belief that it will be able to reduce customer acquisition costs; the ability of the proceeds to the Company from the PIPE being able to accelerate Enhanced’s growth, scale its platform aggressively, and execute on its path to profitability; and the de-risked investment case in Enhanced as a result of the Enhanced Games. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “con template,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “going to,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “target,” “will,” or “would” or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions. Enhanced cautions you that the foregoing may not include all of the forward-looking statements made in this press release.

You should not rely on forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Enhanced has based the forward-looking statements contained in this press release primarily on its current expectations and projections about future events and trends that it believes may affect Enhanced’s business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties related to: Enhanced’s financial performance; the ability to attract and retain athletes, sponsors and partners; managing Enhanced’s growth and future expenses; competition and new market entrants; compliance with new laws and regulations; the ability to attract and retain qualified team members and key personnel; the ability to access additional financing; completed and future acquisitions, divestitures or investments; the potential adverse impact of natural disasters, health epidemics, macroeconomic conditions, and war or other armed conflict, as well as risks, uncertainties, and other factors described in the section titled “Risk Factors” in Enhanced’s filings with the SEC, as well as in other filings Enhanced may make with the SEC in the future. In addition, any forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on assumptions that Enhanced believes to be reasonable as of this date. Enhanced undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release or to reflect new information or the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law.

Media Contact — Chris Jones, [email protected]

SOURCE Enhanced

NEW YORK and ATHENS, Greece, June 13, 2026 — Kos Biotechnology Partners (“Kos”), a global life sciences investment firm bridging the US biopharma ecosystem with Europe, today announced the third closing of its inaugural global life sciences fund, bringing total capital commitments to $123M (€106M). Following its initial launch in December 2025, the fund has secured backing from a syndicate of prominent institutional investors—including lead investor Hellenic Development Bank of Investments (HDBI)—and global family offices.

Kos Biotechnology Partners is the first life sciences-dedicated investment fund in Greece. Notably, it represents the largest launch of a venture capital fund in Greece’s history and stands as one of the largest first-time life sciences VC launches in Europe.

The firm deploys strategic capital flexibly across all stages of development, from company formation through Series C. Kos targets high-impact investments in three core life sciences subsectors: biotech/novel therapeutics, pharma services, and tech-enabled technologies.

A Convergence of Biology, Data Science, and Investor Pedigree

“The convergence of novel biology with data science and advanced computing is creating unprecedented opportunities to cure complex diseases,” said Dr. Simos Simeonidis, Co-Founder and Managing Partner. “Our mission is to back exceptional entrepreneurs redefining the standard of care by leveraging our proprietary international network to connect US drug development know-how with specialized scientific talent.”

Kos was founded by Dr. Simos Simeonidis and Alex Tzoukas, combining elite Wall Street institutional investing expertise with deep scientific domain knowledge, with the vision to build the life sciences ecosystem in Greece.

• Dr. Simos Simeonidis brings biomedical training from Columbia and Harvard Medical Schools, alongside over a decade of Wall Street experience analyzing biotechnology companies at Morgan Stanley, Cowen & Co, and RBC, and a strong private/public investment track record at Sarissa Capital and Ally Bridge Group.
• Alex Tzoukas brings more than a decade of investment banking and private equity experience in the healthcare sector, drawing from his tenure at Deutsche Bank, MTS Health Partners, and Gurnet Point Capital.
• Nikos Kostaras joins as the third partner, adding deep operational and strategic expertise, most recently serving as Greece’s country head at IQVIA.

“Securing our third closing at $123 million in just a few months validates our cross-border thesis and underscores the immense potential of bridging US scientific innovation and drug development expertise with Europe’s advancing life sciences ecosystem,” added Alex Tzoukas, Co-Founder and Managing Partner. “Our ability to invest flexibly across all growth stages ensures Kos can function as a committed, long-term operational partner to innovators transforming human health.”

Investment Strategy & Operational Momentum

• Biotech/Novel Therapeutics: Backing first-in-class or best-in-class modalities addressing critical unmet medical needs.
• Pharma Services: Supporting next-generation contract research, development, and manufacturing platforms to accelerate drug discovery.
• Tech-Enabled Technologies: Capitalizing on computational tools, data infrastructure, and machine learning models that de-risk clinical development.

Helping to implement and accelerate its global strategy, the fund leverages the expertise of its advisors, comprising a group of prominent industry leaders drawn from the Greek diaspora in the United States. This elite advisory network brings together world-class scientific minds, clinical experts, and corporate biopharma executives who bridge international networks to help portfolio companies scale globally.

Demonstrating strong operational momentum, Kos has already completed its first two investments. This includes leading the recent financing round for tech-enabled pharma services provider Epikast, alongside a strategic investment in a San Francisco-based biotechnology company to be announced soon. Multiple additional investments are slated for completion later this year.

About Kos Biotechnology Partners

Kos Biotechnology Partners is a global life sciences investment firm based in New York and Athens, Greece. Founded by Dr. Simos Simeonidis and Alex Tzoukas, Kos manages $123 million in assets and invests across all stages of development in therapeutic breakthroughs, innovative pharma services, and tech-driven platforms that advance human health.

SOURCE Kos Biotechnology Partners

The funding will be used to expand engineering and accelerate enterprise deployments

SAN FRANCISCO, June 12, 2026 — ChatSee.ai, which provides the failure intelligence layer for autonomous AI systems, today announced a $6.5 million funding round led by True Ventures, with participation from First Rays Venture Partners, Seven Hills Ventures, and industry veterans.

Autonomous AI agents are rapidly moving from experiments to production in enterprises. Custom agents built on top of models from OpenAI, Gemini, and Anthropic—along with embedded agents in platforms such as Microsoft 365 Copilot, Salesforce Agentforce, Snowflake and Databricks Agent platforms—are increasingly powering customer interactions, operational workflows, analytics, and enterprise decisioning systems. At the same time, developers are building increasingly complex, autonomous multi-agent systems using frameworks such as LangChain, Microsoft AutoGen, and emerging open projects like OpenClaw.

But as these systems move into production, a new confidence gap is emerging: agents that appear capable during testing often exhibit recurring behavioral failures once deployed into real-world environments. Unlike traditional software failures, many AI failures depend on context, intent, policy interpretation, and business outcomes, making them difficult to detect through static rules or conventional monitoring alone.

Observability tools help humans investigate individual agent interactions, but they do not preserve the failure intelligence needed for systems to learn from recurring mistakes.

Enterprises need a way to capture the context surrounding behavioral failures, understand how they were remediated, and determine whether similar issues continue to recur. Without this organizational memory, agents cannot effectively learn from prior failures, causing the same mistakes to recur across interactions, workflows, and business processes—from missed escalation triggers and unintended disclosures to incorrect policy decisions, tool misuse, workflow drift, and breakdowns across long-running operational processes.

“Many of the most significant AI risks emerge at runtime as agents operate autonomously,” said Dr. Eduard Amoroso, CEO of TAG-infosphere (and former CISO of AT&T). “Because these systems are probabilistic and adaptive, static testing alone is insufficient. This is driving the need for continuous runtime assurance across enterprise workflows, with platforms like ChatSee helping organizations observe and improve AI behavior over time.”

Industry analysts at Gartner^® have identified the need for a new control plane, called Guardian Agents, focused on observing and protecting these systems. ChatSee was recently included in the Gartner Market Guide for Guardian Agents in the business alignment and outcome optimization category, which we believe highlighted the growing need for technologies that monitor and align the behavior of production AI agents with business outcomes.

ChatSee is co-founded by serial entrepreneur Sekhar Sarukkai, who co-founded Skyhigh Networks (acquired by McAfee), Securent (acquired by Cisco), and Confluent Software (acquired by Oracle). He is joined by co-founder Sanjay Agrawal, PhD (Stanford), whose research and engineering work has focused on large-scale distributed systems and enterprise AI infrastructure.

“When we started analyzing agent failures, we realized the problems seem chaotic but actually fall into repeatable patterns,” said Sarukkai. “That’s where observability falls short—it shows what happened, but not whether the behavior was actually correct. We’re discovering that these failures fall into repeatable patterns that can be classified, remediated, and continuously fed back into both human and AI workflows so systems learn and improve over time. This shifts AI operations from humans merely supervising agents to humans and agents collaboratively improving outcomes, turning reactive oversight into continuous, governed AI operations at scale.”

Taking a first-principles approach, ChatSee introduces a failure intelligence layer for enterprise AI systems. While observability platforms help teams monitor what agents do, ChatSee focuses on understanding behavioral failures, preserving the context surrounding them, capturing remediation knowledge, and tracking recurrence over time.

The result is a shared failure memory—a continuously growing organizational record of what failed, why it failed, how it was fixed, and whether it happened again. This allows enterprises to move beyond investigating failures one interaction at a time and continuously improve how AI systems behave in production.

“AI agents are quickly becoming operational infrastructure inside enterprises,” said Puneet Agarwal, Partner at True Ventures. “But companies still lack tools to understand when those agents behave incorrectly in production and how to correct these failures at scale. ChatSee is addressing this critical gap in the emerging AI stack.”

Gartner, Market Guide for Guardian Agents. 25 February 2026

Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

GARTNER is a trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates.

About ChatSee.ai

ChatSee provides a failure intelligence platform for autonomous AI systems. By transforming behavioral failures into organizational memory, ChatSee enables enterprises to continuously improve the reliability, governance, and operational trust of AI systems running in production.

Learn more at chatsee.ai

SOURCE Chatsee AI Inc

With this year’s record-setting achievement, Leveraged Finance Fights Melanoma has raised nearly $40 million since its founding in 2011 by Jeff Rowbottom of General Atlantic and Brendan Dillon of Veritas Capital. What began as a grassroots effort among industry colleagues has grown into one of the most impactful philanthropic initiatives in cancer research, demonstrating the extraordinary power of the financial community to accelerate scientific discovery and improve patient outcomes. Today, that vision continues to fuel research that is transforming outcomes for melanoma patients and creating ripple effects across cancer research.

“Fifteen years ago, we set out to build something that would make a meaningful difference in the fight against melanoma. We could not have imagined the scale of what this community would accomplish together,” said Jeff Rowbottom, LFFM Co-Founder. “Almost $40 million later, the impact extends far beyond dollars raised. It can be seen in the scientists pursuing bold ideas, the treatments reaching patients, and the lives being extended because research was given a chance. What makes LFFM so special is that this industry has embraced the belief that investing in medical research is one of the most meaningful investments we can make.”

Funds raised through LFFM support MRA’s global research portfolio, including next-generation immunotherapies, cell therapies, AI-powered diagnostics and early detection tools, and research focused on rare and underfunded melanoma subtypes—including acral, mucosal, uveal, and pediatric melanoma—as well as brain metastases, a leading cause of death among patients with advanced melanoma.

“The leaders who support LFFM understand the power of investing in innovation,” said Stephanie Kauffman, incoming Chief Executive Officer of the Melanoma Research Alliance. “For more than a decade, they have applied that same mindset to philanthropy—backing bold scientific ideas, exceptional researchers, and promising new approaches to cancer treatment. Their support has helped transform melanoma from one of the deadliest cancers into one of the greatest success stories in oncology. The impact of this community extends far beyond the dollars raised; it is measured in discoveries accelerated, treatments advanced, and lives changed.”

Since its founding in 2007, MRA has invested more than $200 million in research at 165 institutions around the world, supporting more than 565 research projects. MRA-funded investigators have helped drive every major advance in melanoma treatment over the last two decades, contributing to the development of 19 FDA-approved therapeutic approaches and dramatically improving survival for patients with advanced melanoma.

The event was co-chaired by Clare Bailhe (MidCap Financial), Brendan Dillon (Veritas Capital), Kerry Dolan (Brinley Partners), Lee Grinberg (Elliott Management), Jason Kanner (Kirkland & Ellis), Eliza McDougall (White & Case), Erwin Mock (Thoma Bravo), George Mueller (KKR), Geoff Oltmans (Silver Lake), Kevin Pluff (Apollo), Jeff Rowbottom (General Atlantic), Mark Rubenstein (HPS), Ian Schuman (Latham & Watkins), Brian Steinhardt (Simpson Thacher), Cade Thompson (KKR), Jason Van Dussen (Golub Capital), Trevor Watt (Hellman & Friedman), Eric Wedel (Paul, Weiss). 

The evening was sponsored by industry leading giants with Global Presenting Sponsors including HPS, Veritas Capital, Apollo|MidCap, General Atlantic, Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Paul, Weiss, Simpson Thacher, White & Case  with Fitch Ratings and Golub Capital as Global Sponsors. 

A full list of LFFM 2026 sponsors may be found at CureMelanoma.org/LFFM. 

BY THE NUMBERS AND WHY IT MATTERS

• More than 112,000 Americans are expected to be diagnosed with invasive melanoma in 2026.
• Nearly 8,500 Americans are projected to die from melanoma this year—approximately one person every hour.
• Melanoma is one of the most common cancers among young adults.
• Veterans, active-duty military personnel, pilots, and outdoor workers face elevated risk due to increased ultraviolet exposure.
• Melanoma can spread rapidly to vital organs, including the brain, lungs, and liver, making early detection and effective treatments critical.
• MRA-funded research has helped drive 19 FDA-approved therapeutic approaches and transformed advanced melanoma from one of the deadliest cancers into one where long-term survival is increasingly possible.

About the Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA): 

The Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA) is the largest private, non-profit funder of melanoma research worldwide. Founded in 2007 by Debra and Leon Black, MRA’s mission is to end suffering and death due to melanoma by advancing the most promising science and research. MRA-funded investigators have been at the forefront of every major melanoma breakthrough, helping to drive the approval of more than 19 new therapeutic approaches. Through strategic investments across prevention, diagnosis, treatment, metastasis, and survivorship, MRA is transforming outcomes for patients worldwide. Thanks to the generosity of MRA’s founders, 100% of all public donations support innovative melanoma research — without any overhead or administrative costs. MRA is recognized as one of the most fiscally efficient nonprofits in the country. Learn more at www.CureMelanoma.org. 

LinkedIn: melanoma-research-alliance 
X: @MelanomaReAlli 
Instagram: @melanoma 
Facebook: MelanomaResearchAlliance 

MEDIA CONTACTS: 
MRA: Dana Deighton, Director of Communications and Engagement 
[email protected] 
[email protected] 

SOURCE Melanoma Research Alliance

CityRock leads with participation from Tribute Technology as well as strategic partnerships with iHeartMedia, Sinclair and Hearst as broadcasters back a new model for delivering real-world, time-sensitive community stories to local audiences

NEW YORK, June 11, 2026 — Chptr, the company building the new distribution layer for community stories, today announced it has raised $5.5 million in Series A funding led by CityRock, with participation from Tribute Technology as well as strategic partnerships with iHeartMedia, Sinclair and Hearst. By bringing together the largest operators across television, radio, and local media at a moment when the industry is actively searching for new models to deliver relevant, community-based information at scale. In a time where algorithm-based news delivery is the default, Chptr aims to restore the reach of people’s most important announcements to America’s most trusted local media platforms, starting with end-of-life memorial content.

Chptr’s proprietary technology enables local, time-sensitive stories to move from origin to distribution in less than 24 hours, reaching audiences across broadcast, digital, and now radio through direct integrations with major media networks. With its Series A funding, Chptr is introducing a subscription-based model that enables SMBs to effectively engage their local communities across local TV, radio and digital channels. Chptr is now live in 132 U.S. television markets, covering the majority of American households, and has already delivered thousands of localized broadcasts across all major metropolitan areas. With iHeartMedia’s partnership, that distribution now extends into radio, creating a multi-platform system that reaches audiences throughout the day, not just during scheduled news cycles.

At the core of Chptr’s platform is a rethinking of how local content is created and distributed. Historically, many forms of community-based information – from memorials to local events to service announcements – have been fragmented, delayed, or inaccessible due to production constraints and limited distribution channels. Chptr transforms those inputs into ready-to-air segments that can be deployed across television, radio, and digital platforms almost immediately, unlocking a category of content that has been largely absent from modern media. Chptr’s approach to AI is intentionally constrained and human-centered: the platform does not generate source content or scrape data, and leverages AI for formatting, production, and distribution, with all content reviewed by humans prior to broadcast.

“Chtpr is solving not just one, but many very important challenges, and our team is honored to invest in this vision,” said Oliver B. Libby, Managing Partner and co-founder of H/L Ventures and CityRock Venture Partners. “Anyone who has lost a loved one knows how frustrating, expensive, distracting, and analogue the process of memorializing our departed family in obituaries, death notices, and digital formats—at a very vulnerable and tragic time for a family. At the same time, the local news—broadcast and print—are all looking for revenue streams and for ways to connect authentically with viewers and readers. Chptr bridges these gaps, updating the memorialization process, and doing so with business sense and with heart.”

The company’s traction to date has come from rebuilding memorial announcements as a content category, working directly with funeral homes as a trusted source of structured, time-sensitive information. That use case has proven both the demand and the scalability of Chptr’s model, serving as a foundation for broader expansion into other forms of local content. As the end-of-life industry’s trusted leader in tech-enabled memorial announcements, Chptr provides an invaluable service to the families and communities of loved ones, while also directly empowering local funeral businesses who offer clients access to Chptr’s technology.

As algorithmic feeds prioritize engagement over relevance, local audiences are increasingly disconnected from the timely, real-world information that directly affects their daily lives – from community events and services to critical life announcements. Generative AI has introduced new risks in sensitive life events, including fabricated obituary details, data scraping, and automated content lacking oversight. Chptr addresses both challenges by rebuilding memorial announcements as a broadcast content category while deploying ethical, human-reviewed AI tools designed specifically for funeral service to create professional-grade memorial videos from family-provided photos and stories. Family data is never sold or repurposed, and local funeral homes remain the authoritative source of service information.

“Memorials are the starting point, not the end state,” said Rehan Choudhry, founder and CEO of Chptr. “What we’ve built is a system for distributing real, human stories that matter in a specific place, at a specific moment in time. Media companies are investing because they see this as the future of local – timely, trusted, and deeply connected to the communities they serve.”

The company’s integration with Tribute Technology, which serves more than 9,000 funeral homes across North America, demonstrates how Chptr can plug into existing local workflows and turn them into immediate distribution pipelines without adding operational burden. The Series A will fund expansion into remaining U.S. markets, deeper integrations across broadcast and audio networks, and the development of additional content categories beyond memorials, including other forms of time-sensitive local information that have historically lacked scalable distribution.

“Radio connects people during defining moments,” said David Ellis, Executive Vice President, Corporate Development, Venture Capital, and Emerging Initiatives of iHeart Media. “By supporting Chptr, we’re ensuring remembrance and celebration reaches communities where they already listen.”

About Chptr
Founded in 2020 and headquartered in New York, Chptr is the community storytelling company that helps funeral homes bring modern memorialization to the families they serve. Through its Broadcast, Social, and Video offerings, Chptr transforms photos and memories into video tributes that reach thousands, helping communities gather, show support, and honor every life properly. Chptr partners with funeral homes and media companies across the United States, coordinating directly with families to keep workflows simple for funeral directors. Learn more at www.chptr.com.

Media Contact:
Jenny Knizner
434-260-1162
[email protected] 

SOURCE Chptr

Operator-led ecosystem fund is anchored by leading healthcare organizations at the intersection of Medtech and AI

NEW YORK, June 11, 2026 — Star51 Capital, a venture capital investment platform designed to bridge the gap between innovation and acquisition, today announced the first close of its inaugural fund. The fund’s first closing was led by Abbott and Mayo Clinic, with strong participation from senior Medtech executives, physicians, and life science professionals alongside significant commitment from the fund’s general and operating partners.

Star51 invests in early and growth-stage companies spanning interventional therapies, diagnostics, monitoring, and the digitalization of healthcare. Star51 Capital sources opportunities from the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.

Star51 Capital is led by Founding Managing Partners Adam Rosenwach and Tal Wenderow. Rosenwach held senior operating and finance roles across Medtech incubators and high-growth startups, including Coridea and Deerfield Catalyst. Wenderow founded Corindus Vascular Robotics, steered its $1.1 billion acquisition by Siemens Healthineers, and subsequently served as a Venture Partner for a global Medtech strategic.

The fund’s leadership team also includes Operating Partners Raymond W. Cohen, who engineered over $5 billion in exit value as CEO and Chairman of multiple Medtech companies; Scott Pantel, Founder and CEO of LSI; and Joe Mullings, Chairman and CEO of The Mullings Group Companies. Together, the team brings decades of experience founding, operating, and exiting Medtech companies, providing hands-on guidance to portfolio companies at every stage of growth. Scott Pantel provides unparalleled access to the global Medtech ecosystem, including deal flow, strategic acquirer relationships, and proprietary market intelligence built through decades of convening industry leaders and investors worldwide. Joe Mullings and The Mullings Group contribute the industry’s leading executive search capabilities alongside Dragonfly, a Medtech marketing platform that helps portfolio companies build brand visibility and commercial momentum. Collectively, these resources give Star51 a differentiated ability to identify high-potential opportunities and support portfolio companies in reaching key inflection milestones.

“Medtech is at an inflection point. Technology advancements and AI are reshaping how devices are designed, delivered, and personalized. That transformation is happening now,” said Tal Wenderow, Founding Managing Partner of Star51 Capital. “The companies that will help define the next era of Medtech are being built today. We believe that the time to support them with capital and the right operational expertise is now.”

Star51 is structured as an ‘ecosystem fund,’ combining strategic capital with deep operator networks to accelerate portfolio companies through critical inflection milestones, from clinical validation to regulatory clearance, and supporting their progression toward scale and broader clinical adoption. To achieve this, the fund has assembled a strong group of domain experts, venture partners, and medtech executives who have invested their own capital as limited partners, aligning their financial interests directly with portfolio outcomes. Spanning clinical, commercial, regulatory, and intellectual property disciplines, these experienced operators bring hands-on guidance to portfolio companies, helping bring products to market that enhance patient care and deliver value across the healthcare system.

Adam Rosenwach, Founding Managing Partner of Star51 Capital, said, “Star51 is not a traditional venture fund. It’s an ecosystem built by operators, for operators. What sets Star51 apart is the caliber of our ecosystem: leading strategic investors, operating partners who have built and scaled category-defining companies, and a network that gives founders the clinical insight, commercial access, and strategic relationships they need to grow and scale.”

About Star51 Capital
Star51 Capital is a venture investment platform bridging the gap between innovation and acquisition. The fund invests at the convergence of Medtech and AI and leverages its proprietary internal AI platform, StarVision™, alongside its network of domain experts and venture partners across clinical, commercial, regulatory, and intellectual property disciplines. Founded by operators and managed by a team that has built, scaled, and exited medtech companies, Star51 is designed to support portfolio companies in reaching key milestones that enable growth, scale, and generate competitive returns with meaningful clinical impact.

For more information, visit star51capital.com
Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Star51 Capital