NEW YORK, Jan. 22, 2026 — Waldo, a New York–based investment firm, today announced the close of its $225 million inaugural fund, Waldo I. Waldo locates and invests in proven, early-growth stage software and tech-enabled services companies.

Waldo was built for an expanding set of technology founders: entrepreneurs building enduring companies with both ambition and intention. These businesses are grounded in strong fundamentals and real-world traction, poised to become scaled market leaders, all without relying on capital markets to define their success.

True to its name, Waldo proactively seeks out unique, hard-to-find companies. Waldo combines institutional rigor with a founder-first mindset, building its investment platform with next-generation data and technology in the same way modern founders build their businesses.

Waldo was founded by Managing Partners Jon Rosenbaum and Julie Effron, long-time collaborators since their undergraduate years at the University of Pennsylvania. Both bring more than a decade of investing experience, having built distinguished track records at Insight Partners and Elephant, including over 30 combined board roles. Julie also has firsthand founder experience, having co-founded ALICE, a hotel software company acquired by Expedia. These experiences shape Waldo’s focused approach to partnering with founders.

Waldo I is backed by a high-quality group of institutional investors with deep domain expertise, including foundations, fund of funds and multi-family offices. Many of these institutions, alongside founders and operators investing in the fund, have known the firm’s founders throughout their careers. The fund was raised on an accelerated timeline and was oversubscribed.

With its core team and foundation already in place, Waldo is partnering with exceptional founders globally, wherever they are building. 

About Waldo

Waldo is a New York-based investment firm that locates and invests in proven, early-growth stage software and tech-enabled services companies.

Contact:

[email protected]

SOURCE Waldo

-Mews obtiene una inversión de 300 millones de dólares para consolidar su posición como el sistema operativo hotelero líder en el mundo

• EQT Growth lidera la ronda de financiación Serie D para acelerar el futuro nativo de IA de los hoteles a nivel mundial, con la participación de los nuevos inversores Atomico y HarbourVest
• El valor de la inversión asciende a 2.500 millones de dólares
• El volumen de transacciones de la plataforma de Mews alcanzó los 19.700 millones de dólares en 2025

NUEVA YORK, 22 de enero de 2026 — Mews, el sistema operativo para hostelería, anunció hoy que ha recaudado 300 millones de dólares en una ronda de financiación Serie D liderada por EQT Growth, con los nuevos inversores Atomico y HarbourVest Partners, y la participación de los inversores existentes Kinnevik, Battery Ventures y Tiger Global. Esta inversión marca un momento decisivo para la tecnología hotelera y valora a la empresa en 2.500 millones de dólares. Tras un año de crecimiento sólido y duradero, durante el cual el beneficio bruto de SaaS aumentó un 55 %, esta recaudación de fondos establece a Mews como el proveedor líder de tecnología hotelera para hoteles de todos los tamaños.

En 2025, la compañía consiguió:

• Una base de clientes de 15.000, con más de 132.000 hoteleros activos mensuales en 85 países
• 42,3 millones de reservas registradas, de las cuales 3,2 millones a través de Mews Kiosk¹
• Volúmenes de transacciones de plataforma de 19.700 millones de dólares
• Crecimiento acelerado del beneficio bruto de SaaS del 55%
• Creó más de medio millón (537 millones de dólares) en ingresos adicionales para los hoteleros a través de su función patentada Mews Spaces², impulsada por más de dos millones de reservas no relacionadas con habitaciones.

“Con la incorporación de EQT Growth, además de los nuevos inversores Atomico y HarbourVest, tenemos el respaldo para seguir avanzando más rápido que nadie en la industria”, afirmó Matt Welle, consejero delegado de Mews. “Estamos diseñando un sistema operativo que está cambiando la forma en que los hoteleros interactúan con sus huéspedes. Mews existe para manejar la complejidad operativa para que los hoteleros puedan centrarse en lo que importa: hacer que la hospitalidad sea aún más divertida, rentable y satisfactoria”.

La financiación ampliará las inversiones de Mews en inteligencia artificial, integrando sistemas controlados por agentes en toda la plataforma para automatizar flujos de trabajo complejos, reducir la carga cognitiva del personal, mejorar significativamente la experiencia de los huéspedes y acelerar la forma en que se construyen e implementan los productos, lo que permitirá a las propiedades:

• Orquestar operaciones en tiempo real con automatización inteligente
• Optimizar los ingresos y las ganancias con información avanzada sobre el comportamiento de los huéspedes
• Escalar el negocio sin la deuda de la tecnología heredada
• Simplificar radicalmente los flujos de trabajo para incorporar equipos más rápido

“La hospitalidad es el negocio de las experiencias”, afirmó Richard Valtr, fundador de Mews. “La validación de nuestro producto por parte del mercado es clara, tanto en EE.UU. como en Europa, y es fantástico ver cómo ahora nos estamos adelantando a cualquier otra empresa hotelera en términos de IA y hospitalidad de agentes. Es un momento emocionante para reforzar nuestra visión de hacer de los hoteles Mews los más rentables de la industria”.

Un nuevo estándar para una industria global

“He tenido el placer de conocer al equipo de Mews durante varios años y ser testigo de cómo la empresa pasó de una visión audaz a una organización que ofrece resultados a escala”, afirmó Kirk Lepke, socio de EQT Growth. “La hostelería es una de las industrias más grandes del mundo, pero sus sistemas centrales permanecen décadas atrás. Mews está creando un estándar tecnológico moderno, un sistema operativo hotelero habilitado para IA que ayuda a resolver la fragmentación que vemos en la industria. En EQT Growth estamos increíblemente emocionados de liderar esta ronda y asociarnos con Mews”.

Mews también acelerará la expansión de Mews Payments y su infraestructura fintech más amplia, integrando el comercio en el núcleo de las operaciones hoteleras y posicionando a Mews como el conector entre experiencia e ingresos. Además, la compañía continuará su ambiciosa expansión internacional en sus principales geografías de América del Norte y Europa, además de expandirse a nuevos mercados.

“Matt y Richard han creado una plataforma que define una categoría con la profundidad, el ritmo de innovación y el alcance global que requiere la hostelería moderna”, afirmó Laura Connell, socia de Atomico. “Los constructores más ambiciosos del sector hotelero se centran en ofrecer experiencias cada vez mejores para sus consumidores finales, y necesitan tecnología que pueda seguir el ritmo de las crecientes expectativas en torno a la velocidad, el servicio y la personalización. Mews es el facilitador clave para el futuro de la hostelería, y el equipo está en camino de construir una empresa generacional”.

La inversión se produce poco después de la finalización de la decimocuarta adquisición de Mews, DataChat, la plataforma líder de análisis de IA generativa. En enero de 2026, Mews fue nombrado el sistema de gestión de propiedades número uno por tercer año consecutivo y el sistema de punto de venta de hoteles número uno del mundo por los clientes y revisores de Hotel Tech Report, un reflejo de su capacidad para liderar las capas operativas y comerciales de la hostelería.

La ronda de financiación está sujeta a las condiciones de cierre regulatorias habituales.

¹ La capacidad de gestión de múltiples espacios de Mews que permite a una propiedad gestionar y vender cualquier tipo de espacio (no solo habitaciones) directamente en el sistema de gestión de propiedades (PMS).

₂ Un quiosco de autoservicio de check-in y check-out que permite a los huéspedes gestionar ellos mismos la llegada y la salida.

Acerca de Mews

Mews es el sistema operativo para hostelería, que unifica los flujos de trabajo en ingresos, operaciones y el recorrido del huésped para que los equipos puedan automatizar lo mundano y centrarse en experiencias memorables para los huéspedes. La plataforma Mews abarca PMS, POS, RMS, limpieza y pagos, ayudando a los hoteleros a pasar de la gestión de propiedades a la gestión de beneficios. Con 15.000 clientes en 85 países, la empresa fue nombrada Mejor PMS (2024, 2025, 2026), Mejor POS (2026) y figura entre los Mejores Lugares para Trabajar en Tecnología Hotelera durante seis años consecutivos por Hotel Tech Report.

Contacto para medios: [email protected]

Foto – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2867382/Mews__Richard_Valtr_Founder_and_Matt_Welle_CEO_of_Mews.jpg 
Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2053034/MEWS_logo.jpg

Turning ad creative into a feedback-driven system, starting with interactive ads

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 22, 2026 — San Francisco–based startup GIGR (dba. Playad) today announced it has raised $5.4 million in pre-seed funding to accelerate the development of AI marketing agents that help teams create, test, and improve advertising creative with less manual work and less guesswork. 

The round was led by BRV Capital Management and Mirae Asset Venture Investment, with participation from angel investors including Bora Chung (board member at Krafton and former executive at Bill.com), Jihun Yu (founder of Hyprsense, acquired by Epic Games), and Krew Capital.

From one-off assets to a workflow that learns

Even with modern tooling, producing effective ad creative is still slow, fragmented, and expensive. Teams move from briefs to handoffs to revisions, then stitch together performance insights after the fact – often without a clear path to what to build next. GIGR’s view is that the next leap in marketing won’t come from yet another tool. It will come from an AI-native workflow that turns performance signals into faster iteration – so creatives improve with every cycle.

That is what GIGR is building: a multi-agent marketing workflow designed to support the full creative lifecycle – briefing, production, experimentation, measurement, and iteration – so teams can run more tests and learn faster.

Why Playad starts with interactive ads

GIGR’s product, Playad (launched 3Q 2025) starts where the signal is strongest: interactive ads. Especially in gaming, these formats are widely used because they often drive higher conversion at lower CPI by letting users experience the product. They also capture granular actions – taps, swipes, and choices – making iteration clearer by showing not just whether a creative worked, but how users engaged. Industry analysis shows playable ad performance reached record highs in 2025, reinforcing the growing effectiveness of interactive formats.

Historically, however, interactive ads have been powerful yet impractical – slow to build, prohibitively expensive, and dependent on specialized developers. Playad makes them fast enough to iterate and simple enough for marketers to own, which changes creative from a bottleneck into a repeatable workflow at a fraction of cost. In addition, Playad is designed for rapid experimentation, and teams can A/B test interactive ads by instantly creating a wide range of variations.

While interactive formats are the initial wedge, Playad is built as a broader AI-native creative platform, enabling teams to create and iterate across image, video, and interactive formats within a single system.

“Marketing performance increasingly depends on how quickly teams can learn from creative – and act on it,” said Steve Chung, co-founder of GIGR. “We’re building AI agents that make iteration the default, so teams can quickly apply what’s already working across the market to their next creative without sacrificing quality.”

Customers feel the difference in speed and in confidence

Customers adopt Playad for speed, but what keeps them coming back is the workflow: teams can ship iterations faster, run more experiments, and tighten the loop between creation and performance.

In practice, customers have reported meaningful outcomes, including major reductions in production cost – as much as 90% in some cases – alongside measurable improvements in acquisition efficiency.

“We’re not trying to simply produce ‘more assets,'” said Jay Cho, CEO and co-founder of GIGR. “We’re building a system where every launch creates learning – and that learning directly improves the next creative decision. Creative is the most important lever for improving ROAS in modern marketing, and we are going beyond just efficiency gains to help businesses eliminate uncertainty across their decisions when it comes to digital advertising.

Team

GIGR’s founding team brings experience across high-growth startups and global technology companies, united by a single obsession: removing the bottleneck between creative iteration and ad performance.

What sets the team apart is its seven-founder structure. GIGR was built by long-time collaborators who chose to start together – each owning a distinct problem space, and all committed to rebuilding broken marketing workflows.

• Jay Jaeyeon Cho (Co-founder, CEO) previously headed the AI game studios at Bagelcode, playing a key role in the company’s growth to 50M+ users and approximately $70M in annual revenue. He brings a product-first view of growth at the intersection of games, AI, and performance marketing.
• Steve Nam Hyuk Chung (Co-founder, Business) has over a decade of experience across investment banking, strategy, and business development, including roles at Bank of America, PlayStation, YouTube, and 20th Century Fox. Educated at MIT and Wharton, he focuses on turning creative insight into repeatable business systems.
• Jayden Hyun Jae Park (Co-founder, Engineering) has led engineering teams building production-grade systems, including as a tech lead at Devsisters, with deep experience scaling AI-driven products from early prototypes to real-world usage.
• The remaining founders – Simon, Arthur, Daniel, and Youn – bring deep technical rigor and a competitive builder’s mindset, shaped by top-tier engineering training at Stanford and POSTECH and years of high-intensity problem solving.

About GIGR (Playad.ai)

GIGR is building a multi-agent AI platform for marketing, starting with an AI-native creative workflow that makes interactive ads practical – while enabling iteration across image, video, and interactive formats in one system. Learn more at https://playad.ai.

SOURCE GIGR

RENO, Nev., Jan. 22, 2026 — Klir today announced the closing of a $10 million Series B equity investment alongside a $7.5 million credit facility from Innovation Banking at CIBC, providing long-term balance sheet strength and operational flexibility as the company scales.

This financing reinforces Klir’s long-term commitment to the water industry as a founder and employee-controlled company, continuing to provide the stable, trusted infrastructure that utilities and partners depend on every day across North America and beyond.

The Series B included participation from existing investor Insight Partners, which previously led Klir’s Series A, alongside a growth credit facility from CIBC, reflecting Klir’s scale, maturity and ability to pair institutional equity with flexible, non-dilutive financing.

In an industry where vendor ownership and stability matter more than ever, Klir’s Series B funding reinforces a clear commitment to preserving decision-making authority in the best interests of our customers, while continuing to invest in the operational data infrastructure water utilities rely on every day, with the support and oversight of experienced enterprise software partners.

“This funding allows us to grow without changing who we are,” said David Lynch, Co-Founder and CEO of Klir. “Klir is controlled by its founders and employees and that matters, especially for utilities choosing a system they expect to rely on for decades. Our priorities stay focused on building durable infrastructure, supporting our customers and investing in our product for the long term.”

The investment reflects strong conviction in Klir’s role as foundational infrastructure for water utilities. Across North America, investment in digital water solutions continues to accelerate, driven by aging infrastructure, workforce transitions, and increasing operational complexity. The North American digital water market is projected to grow from $11.5 billion in 2024 to $23.8 billion by 2033, with cumulative investment expected to reach $169.5 billion over the next decade, underscoring the growing demand for connected, enterprise-ready operational systems.

This Series B funding enables Klir to continue building its operational data hub with intention. This includes investing in generative capabilities built for environments where there is no margin for error – prioritizing data security and governance alongside streamlining and accelerating customer onboarding to deliver faster value with long-term stability.

Supporting this continued growth, Klir currently employs approximately 60 people and plans to expand rapidly over the coming year to support growth, new product development, customer onboarding and customer success.

This structure allows Klir to prioritize customer outcomes and operational confidence over short-term scale, while benefiting from experienced partners who support disciplined, long-term growth. Without pressure from a larger corporate parent or private equity ownership, Klir can invest in durable infrastructure, thoughtful product improvements, and customer-driven development, resulting in software utilities can trust to remain consistent, supported, and aligned with their operational needs.

About Klir

Klir is the operational data hub for water utilities, helping teams manage compliance and operations from a single, connected system. Klir centralizes data across programs to provide a clear source of truth that reduces risk and improves continuity. With enterprise-ready infrastructure and intelligent assistance through its generative agent, Boots, Klir helps utilities cut administrative burden and operate with greater confidence.

SOURCE Klir

Published in the Journal of Hand Surgery Global Online, the study demonstrates that ultrasound-guided carpal tunnel release offers distinct advantages over open carpal tunnel release 

EAGAN, Minn., Jan. 22, 2026 — Sonex Health, Inc. (Sonex Health) and The Institute of Advanced Ultrasound Guided Procedures announced today the first of several peer-reviewed papers reporting data from its Post-Market RegIStry of the Patient Experience when uSing UltraGuIdeCTR™ fOr Carpal TuNnel Release (MISSION) study was published in the Journal of Hand Surgery Global Online. In this largest ever multi-center carpal tunnel release (CTR) study in the United States, the authors concluded based on the three-month data that both ultrasound-guided carpal tunnel release (UGCTR) using UltraGuideCTR and open carpal tunnel release (OCTR) are safe and effective treatments for carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). In addition, UGCTR was more commonly performed using only local anesthesia (WALANT) and was associated with smaller incisions, more suture-free closure, less opioid use, faster wound symptom resolution, fewer wound symptoms, and higher wound satisfaction.

With more than 1,400 patients enrolled across three arms, this published data will complement the 16 peer-reviewed UGCTR publications reporting on more than 1,300 patients and 1,700 hands already in the literature. Collectively, these peer-reviewed publications will be used to inform and educate physicians, patients and payors about the benefits of UGCTR using UltraGuideCTR.

“It’s been an honor to serve as principal investigator for MISSION,” said Dr. Victor Marwin, an orthopedic hand surgeon with Bluegrass Orthopaedics in Lexington, Ky. “While this research has been a huge undertaking, I cannot stress enough the importance of collecting real-world comparative data when it comes to being able to make the most informed decisions possible about treatment options for carpal tunnel release.”

Key takeaways from the data and study highlights include:

• 84.8% of UGCTR procedures were performed using only local anesthesia compared to 19.1% for OCTR.
• UGCTR was associated with a shorter incision (5.2 mm) compared to OCTR at 16.5 mm and less frequently required suture closure (14.6% vs. 100%).
• Postprocedural opioid use was lower following UGCTR (10.2% vs. 49.1%; P < .001).
• Improvements in symptom severity and functional status statistically favored UGCTR.
• Wound satisfaction favored UGCTR.
• At three months, wound symptoms were less frequent in the UGCTR group (P < .001), with complete resolution of wound sensitivity and pain reported in 60.7% and 22.8% of patients in the UGCTR and OCTR groups, respectively.

“This strong clinical data is consistent with our prior peer-reviewed, published research and continues to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of UGCTR procedures,” said Sonex Health President and CEO Bob Paulson. “This compelling data also supports our reimbursement strategies to ensure broad patient access to this innovative carpal tunnel release treatment option in all settings of care, including office-based procedures.”

ABOUT SONEX HEALTH AND THE INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED ULTRASOUND GUIDED PROCEDURES

Sonex Health, Inc. is empowering physicians with ultrasound-guided solutions that transform the patient experience. As the leader in ultrasound-guided surgery, Sonex Health is dedicated to pioneering innovative therapies and skill enhancement solutions that improve patient safety, decrease invasiveness, and reduce the cost of care, supported by robust clinical research and world-class professional education and training. The company has 52 issued or pending U.S. and international patents covering its current and future products and procedures.

The Institute of Advanced Ultrasound Guided Procedures was founded in 2018 to support the Sonex Health mission and clinical excellence and is focused on innovation supported by robust clinical research and world-class professional education and training that transforms the treatment experience for patients, providers and payers. The Institute has trained more than 900 physicians over the past four years.

For information about Sonex Health, UltraGuideCTR, and UltraGuideTFR visit www.sonexhealth.com. For more information about the Institute visit http://www.sonexhealth.com/educational-institute.

Contact:
Shelli Lissick
[email protected]
651-276-6922

SOURCE Sonex Health

HOBOKEN, N.J., Jan. 22, 2026 — ZBD, the payments innovator powering real-money transactions for games and apps, today announced it has secured USD $40M in Series C financing commitments from Blockstream Capital Partners (“BCP”), accelerating its growth as the only fully-licensed, vertically-integrated payments provider built for gaming.

ZBD uses the Lightning Network to power real-money embedded payments at scale, creating a frictionless, compliant money movement layer. The company already processes more than 120 million transactions annually and has doubled the number of games integrated with its SDK over the past 12 months, driven by adoption from developers including TapNation, Fumb Games and PlayEmber. These partners use ZBD’s infrastructure at scale to deliver tens of millions in fiat currencies, bitcoin, and gift card rewards to gamers.

In the $189 billion video games industry, where payments innovation is traditionally focused on maximizing revenue from player purchases (pay-ins), ZBD takes a novel approach. The company has also shown that instant real-money earnings (payouts) can be embedded natively into gameplay to boost lifetime value (LTV) and create a long lasting two-way value exchange with gamers. While the games industry already leverages rewarded user acquisition and monetization mechanics, ZBD enables embedded, instant, real-money payments – something other existing technology cannot support.

Ben Cousens, CSO of ZBD, said:
“Our mission is simple: to make money work in games by providing all-in-one payments technology to publishers and developers. The current financial and reward systems in games are slow and unwieldy, but ZBD is bringing the power of the Lightning network to deliver rewards at speed, while giving developers the flexibility to choose how they are presented. We’re happy that BCP see the value in our mission and our tech, and we’re delighted to welcome them on board.”

Nicolas Brand of BCP, said:
“We have been following ZBD for many years and believe it has achieved a rare pairing of native Bitcoin payments technology with an expansive and hard-to-replicate licensing framework across key regulatory regimes. This places ZBD among a very small group of credible Bitcoin payment service providers. We strongly believe in its mission to drive the convergence of payments and the Bitcoin Lightning Network, particularly within digital-first ecosystems such as gaming.”

The future of gaming payments

In 2025, ZBD became one of the first companies to secure both MiCAR and EMI licenses in the Netherlands, enabling regulated fiat and crypto payment services across the European Economic Area. This, in addition to Money Transmitter Licenses in the United States, expands ZBD’s financial capabilities far beyond rewards to card issuance, bank transfers, virtual IBAN creation, and currency exchanges.

During 2026, a complete, compliance-ready payments stack will come to life – giving console, PC, and mobile game publishers full ownership of money movement in their games and turning payments from a cost centre into a strategic capability that delivers deeper experiences for gamers. This enables real-money transactions across the entire creator economy, from games to user-generated content platforms and livestream tipping, unlocking new value and revenue streams and making money movement a native part of play.

Simon Cowell, CEO & Co-Founder of ZBD, said:
“ZBD is the payments infrastructure for the future of video games and virtual worlds, where real money moves natively through content. By giving developers and publishers full control of their payments infrastructure, we’re maximizing their revenue and creating additional value streams with new, real-money experiences that can be deeply embedded into gameplay.”

ZBD’s Series C unlocks significant capability for scale, as the company seeks to capitalize on its current product market fit in mobile payouts while building out more comprehensive, industry-wide solutions for all game publishers. This also includes expanding licensing globally and growing its commercial footprint across North America, Europe, LATAM and APAC to increase developer adoption. New developer tooling, platform enhancements and additional game integrations are scheduled throughout 2026.

For further info & interviews contact:
Raptor PR for ZBD
Enzo Vallente / Joshua Callaghan
+44(0)7399 329 478 / +44(0)7947 990308
[email protected] / [email protected]

About ZBD

ZBD is the all-in-one payment stack for games, pushing the boundaries of how money and games interact. Best known for powering instant real-money rewards that massively boost player engagement, ZBD is the only licensed payment service provider that enables games to fully embed transactions into gameplay – whether it’s paying players or getting paid by them, pay becomes a part of play.

To learn more, visit https://zbdpay.com

About BCP

Blockstream Capital Partners (BCP) is an investment group of Bitcoin pioneers driving the convergence of Bitcoin and institutional finance. Affiliated with Dr. Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, the global leader in Bitcoin and blockchain infrastructure, BCP brings together early Bitcoin investors from before the first halving and veteran institutional finance leaders with decades of experience managing global capital.

BCP invests across asset classes – venture capital, private and public equity, credit, real estate, and insurance – and across the entire stack of Bitcoin finance: from infrastructure (including trading, custody, payments, and settlement) to Bitcoin-based applications and financial instruments. Its approach reflects the same philosophy that defines Blockstream: an uncompromising commitment to building the financial infrastructure of the future and a long-term conviction in Bitcoin.

BCP operates a comprehensive investment platform offering institutional-grade Bitcoin solutions designed to deliver Bitcoin-referenced returns and long-term value for investors. With a global presence in key financial hubs, BCP is positioned to serve leading institutional allocators worldwide. 

SOURCE ZBD

Round led by TQ Ventures with participation from FPV Ventures, Redpoint, and Unusual Ventures; fuels Railway’s vision to eliminate infrastructure friction and help developers ship faster

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 22, 2026 — Today, Railway, a cloud platform that allows developers to ship faster and more efficiently, announced its $100 Million Series B round led by TQ Ventures, with participation from new and existing investors, FPV Ventures, Redpoint, and Unusual Ventures. The funding will fuel Railway’s vision to make infrastructure invisible, so software works with developers, not against them.

“As AI models get better at writing code, more and more people are asking the age-old question; where, and how, do I run my applications?” said Jake Cooper, founder and CEO of Railway. “The last generation of cloud primitives were slow and outdated, and now with AI moving everything faster, teams simply can’t keep up. We built Railway to let developers focus on building and creativity, not configuration. We stripped everything down and rebuilt both the software and hardware to make the experience truly seamless, and the response from developers has exceeded anything I imagined.”

Despite rapid advancements of AI, developers still face a number of bottlenecks. Traditional software development relies on navigating a maze of tools that are deeply complex and massively cumbersome, especially to newer developers. Railway removes this friction and operational complexity by building its networking stack, compute, storage, orchestration software, and hardware from the ground up to deliver a fully hands-off hosting experience, underpinned by reliability and performance. This approach paid off recently when Railway remained online during widespread outages that affected major cloud providers.

Railway customers report a 10x increase in developer velocity and up to 65% cost savings compared to traditional cloud platforms. By operating its own data centers with custom networking and orchestration, Railway charges only for actual usage, avoiding the markups common in legacy cloud infrastructure. With a marketplace of thousands of templates, Railway also allows teams to deploy virtually anything, from simple services to complex AI systems, without operational overhead. Combined with a zero-trust security model and 24/7 support, this focus on speed, simplicity, and efficiency has made Railway one of the fastest-growing cloud platforms, achieving 176x revenue growth and 15% month-over-month expansion.

“At Bilt, we move fast. We need our tech stack to allow for that in a scalable, safe way,” said Kartik Aggarwal, Tech Lead at Bilt. “What takes an hour on Railway could take 10x more on a traditional cloud platform. Railway is the fastest, giving us the most seamless, no config system.”

In addition to Bilt, Railway now serves more than 2 million users and is growing by nearly 200,000 developers per month. The platform is used by 31% of the Fortune 500 and fast-moving companies like Profound and Happy Robot, Intuit’s GoCo, TripAdvisor’s Cruise Critic and MGM Resorts, alongside thousands of startups and AI-native teams. For seasoned DevOps engineers, Railway offers an unparalleled level of control, exposing just the right amount of knobs, bells, and whistles necessary for advanced use cases.

“Railway is building the infrastructure layer that will power the next era of software,” said Schuster Tanger, Co-founding Partner of TQ Ventures. “Jake Cooper is an extraordinary talent under whose leadership Railway’s Zero-Ops architecture has been purpose-built for an AI-native world and is dismantling the legacy systems that have slowed developers down over the past decade.”

With the new funding, Railway plans to make shipping software even faster and simpler by expanding its global data center footprint, growing its team, and building new tools designed for developers and AI systems.

“It’s always been our goal that everything should run on Railway,” furthered Cooper. “We’ve spent the last five years building quietly, with zero marketing, and somehow millions of developers found us. This round lets us finally show the world our vision of how software should really be built, and we’re excited to supercharge all this with TQ’s unmatched enterprise customer introduction prowess.”

For more information about Railway, please visit: www.Railway.com

About Railway
Railway is a cloud platform that empowers developers to ship faster and more efficiently. Founded in 2020, Railway was started with the steadfast belief that for too long, developers have endured the quiet drag of complexity-endless setup, brittle infrastructure, and the painful friction between building something and bringing it to life – and it doesn’t have to be this hard. With an all new vision, Railway set out to build an all new way to simplify developers’ infrastructure stack from servers to observability with a single, scalable, easy-to-use platform. To learn more about Railway, please visit railway.com and find more on Linkedin and X.

Media Contact:
Rachel Rogers
[email protected]
310-770-4917

SOURCE Railway

AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 22, 2026 — Neurophos, a leader in photonic AI chip technology, has raised $110 million in an oversubscribed Series A round, bringing total funding to $118 million. The round was led by Gates Frontier, with participation from M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund), Carbon Direct Capital, Aramco Ventures, Bosch Ventures, Tectonic Ventures, Space Capital, and others.

“Modern AI inference demands monumental amounts of power and compute,” said Dr. Marc Tremblay, Corporate Vice President and Technical Fellow of Core AI Infrastructure at Microsoft. “We need a breakthrough in compute on par with the leaps we’ve seen in AI models themselves, which is what Neurophos’ technology and high-talent density team is developing.”

As AI adoption accelerates, data centers face critical limitations in power and scalability. Traditional silicon-based GPUs cannot meet growing computational demands, resulting in increased costs and energy consumption. Neurophos addresses these challenges with a proprietary optical processing unit (OPU) that integrates over one million micron-scale optical processing elements on a single chip. This innovation delivers up to 100x the performance and energy efficiency of current leading chips, offering a practical, drop-in replacement for GPUs in data centers.

“Moore’s Law is slowing, but AI can’t afford to wait. Our breakthrough in photonics unlocks an entirely new dimension of scaling, by packing massive optical parallelism on a single chip,” says Dr. Patrick Bowen, CEO and Co-Founder of Neurophos. “This physics-level shift means both efficiency and raw speed improve as we scale up, breaking free from the power walls that constrain traditional GPUs.” 

Neurophos’ breakthrough lies in the development of micron-scale metamaterial optical modulators—a 10,000x miniaturization over previous photonic elements—making large-scale, manufacturable photonic computing possible for the first time. The result is a new class of AI accelerator: ultra-fast, energy-efficient, and adaptable to future AI workloads.

“As the AI industry grapples with a surge in demand that tests our ability to satisfy with compute and power, disruptive approaches to compute may open routes to sustained or accelerated systems scaling that will be needed before the end of the decade. With their approach to hyper-efficient optical computation, the Neurophos team have advanced swiftly from a working proof of concept towards a realistic plan to deliver products on a timeline we can underwrite and believe in,” said Michael Stewart, Managing Partner at M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund.

Neurophos’ technology enables significant reductions in power consumption, supporting the next generation of AI infrastructure without the need for exponential increases in energy or physical resources. The company’s advancements promise to make AI more accessible and cost-effective across industries.

The new funding will accelerate delivery of Neurophos’ first integrated photonic compute system, including datacenter-ready OPU modules, a full software stack, and early-access developer hardware. The company is expanding its Austin headquarters and opening a San Francisco engineering site to meet early customer demand.

Additional investors include DNX Ventures, Geometry, Alumni Ventures, MetaVC Partners, Morgan Creek Capital, Silicon Catalyst Ventures, Mana Ventures, Gaingels, and others. Cooley LLP serves as legal counsel.

About Neurophos
Neurophos Inc. is an Austin-based semiconductor company developing high-performance, energy-efficient photonic AI inference chips. Founded by Dr. Patrick Bowen and Dr. Andrew Traverso, the team includes industry veterans from NVIDIA, Apple, Samsung, Intel, AMD, Meta, ARM, Micron, Mellanox, Lightmatter, and more. For details, visit www.neurophos.com.

SOURCE Neurophos

• EQT Growth führt Serie-D-Runde. Ziel ist die Entwicklung von KI-Funktionalitäten für die Hotellerie. Neue Investoren: Atomico und HarbourVest
• Unternehmensbewertung steigt auf 2,5 Milliarden US-Dollar
• Plattform-Transaktionsvolumen erreichte 2025 19,7 Milliarden US-Dollar

NEW YORK, 22. Januar 2026 — Mews, das Betriebssystem für das Gastgewerbe, hat heute den Abschluss einer Serie-D-Finanzierungsrunde in Höhe von 300 Millionen US-Dollar bekannt gegeben.  Die Runde wurde von EQT Growth angeführt, mit Beteiligung der neuen Investoren Atomico und HarbourVest Partners sowie der bestehenden Investoren Kinnevik, Battery Ventures und Tiger Global. Die Investition bewertet Mews mit 2,5 Milliarden US-Dollar und markiert einen Meilenstein für die Technologieentwicklung im Gastgewerbe. Nach einem Jahr mit starkem, nachhaltigem Wachstum – darunter ein Anstieg des Bruttogewinns aus dem SaaS-Geschäft um 55 Prozent – etabliert sich Mews mit dieser Finanzierung als führender Technologieanbieter für Hotels jeder Größe.

Im Jahr 2025 erzielte Mews:

• einen Kundenstamm von 15.000 Hotels mit über 132.000 monatlich aktiven Nutzer/-innen in 85 Ländern
• 42,3 Millionen eingecheckte Reservierungen, davon 3,2 Millionen über Mews Kiosk¹
• ein Transaktionsvolumen von 19,7 Milliarden US-Dollar über die Plattform
• ein Wachstum des Bruttogewinns aus dem SaaS-Geschäft um 55 Prozent
• 537 Millionen US-Dollar zusätzlichen Umsatz für Hotels durch das Feature Mews Spaces² mit über zwei Millionen nicht-zimmerbezogenen Reservierungen

„Mit EQT Growth und den neuen Investoren Atomico und HarbourVest an Bord haben wir die Rückendeckung, um uns schneller weiterzuentwickeln als jedes andere Unternehmen in der Branche”, sagt Matt Welle, CEO von Mews. „Wir entwickeln ein Betriebssystem, das die Art und Weise verändert, wie Hoteliers mit ihren Gästen interagieren. Mews übernimmt die operative Komplexität damit sich Gastgeber:innen auf das konzentrieren können, was wirklich zählt: Gastfreundschaft profitabler, erfüllender und inspirierender zu gestalten.”

Die Finanzierung ermöglicht es Mews, seine Investitionen in künstliche Intelligenz massiv auszuweiten. Agentengestützte Systeme werden tief in die Plattform integriert, um komplexe Abläufe zu automatisieren, die kognitive Belastung für Mitarbeitende zu reduzieren, das Gasterlebnis deutlich zu verbessern und die Entwicklung sowie Einführung neuer Produkte zu beschleunigen. Das soll Gastgeber in die Lage versetzen:

• Betriebsabläufe in Echtzeit intelligent zu steuern
• Umsatz und Profitabilität durch tieferes Gästeverständnis zu optimieren
• Ohne Altlasten veralteter Technologien effizienter zu arbeiten

Arbeitsabläufe so radikal zu vereinfachen, wodurch sich die Einarbeitungszeit für Mitarbeitende deutlich verkürzt

„Gastfreundschaft ist das Geschäft mit Erlebnissen”, sagt Richard Valtr, Gründer von Mews. „Die Resonanz aus dem Markt – sowohl in den USA als auch in Europa – ist eindeutig. Es ist großartig zu sehen, wie wir anderen Unternehmen in der Branche in Bereichen wie KI und agentenbasierter Gastfreundschaft deutlich voraus sind. Jetzt ist der richtige Zeitpunkt, unsere Vision zu bekräftigen: Hotels, die mit Mews arbeiten, sollen die profitabelsten der Branche werden.”

Ein neuer Standard für eine globale Branche

„Ich hatte über mehrere Jahre hinweg das Vergnügen, das Mews-Team kennenzulernen und mitzuerleben, wie sich das Unternehmen von einer mutigen Vision zu einer Organisation mit echter Wachstumsdynamik entwickelt hat”, so Kirk Lepke, Partner bei EQT Growth. „Das Gastgewerbe zählt zu den größten Branchen der Welt, doch seine Kernsysteme sind vielerorts noch immer Jahrzehnte im Rückstand. Mews setzt einen modernen Technologiestandard – ein KI-gestütztes Betriebssystem für Hotels, das die bestehende Fragmentierung der Branche auflöst. Wir bei EQT Growth freuen uns sehr, diese Runde anzuführen und mit Mews gemeinsam die Zukunft der Branche maßgeblich mitzugestalten.”

Mews wird außerdem den Ausbau von Mews Payments und der breiteren Fintech-Infrastruktur vorantreiben. Damit soll der Zahlungsverkehr und kommerzielle Prozesse tief in die Betriebsabläufe integriert und Mews als Bindeglied zwischen Gästeerlebnis und Umsatz positioniert werden. Darüber hinaus setzt das Unternehmen seine ehrgeizige internationale Expansion in den Kernmärkten Nordamerika und Europa fort und erschließt gezielt neue Märkte.

Matt und Richard haben eine wegweisende Plattform aufgebaut – mit der Tiefe, Innovationsgeschwindigkeit und globalen Reichweite, die modernes Gastgewerbe heute verlangt”, so Laura Connell, Partnerin bei Atomico. „Die ambitioniertesten Akteure der Branche wollen ihren Gästen kontinuierlich bessere Erlebnisse bieten – und brauchen dafür Technologie, die mit steigenden Erwartungen an Geschwindigkeit, Service und Personalisierung Schritt halten kann. Mews ist der zentrale Enabler für die Zukunft der Hotellerie – und das Team ist auf dem besten Weg, ein Unternehmen von branchenprägendem Format aufzubauen.

Die Investition folgt kurz nach der vierzehnten Übernahme von Mews: DataChat, der führenden Plattform für generative KI-gestützte Analysen. Im Januar 2026 wurde Mews von Kund:innen und Expert:innen des Hotel Tech Report zum dritten Mal in Folge als weltweit bestes Property Management System sowie als bestes Kassensystem für Hotels ausgezeichnet – ein Beleg für die führende Rolle des Unternehmens in den operativen und kommerziellen Bereichen des Gastgewerbes.

Die Finanzierungsrunde steht unter dem Vorbehalt der üblichen regulatorischen Abschlussbedingungen.

¹ Mews Spaces ermöglicht es Gastgebern, unterschiedlichste Flächen und Räume (nicht nur Zimmer) direkt im Property-Management-System (PMS) zu verwalten und zu verkaufen.

² Mews Kiosk: Ein Self-Service-Modul für Check-in und Check-out, mit dem Gäste An- und Abreise eigenständig abwickeln können.

Über Mews

Mews ist das Betriebssystem für das Gastgewerbe. Es vereint Arbeitsabläufe in den Bereichen Umsatz, Betrieb und Guest Journey, damit Teams Routinetätigkeiten automatisieren und sich auf unvergessliche Gästeerlebnisse konzentrieren können. Die Mews Plattform umfasst PMS, POS, RMS, Housekeeping und Payments und unterstützt Hoteliers dabei, von der reinen Verwaltung zur profitablen Steuerung ihrer Betriebe zu wechseln. Mit 15.000 Kunden in 85 Ländern wurde Mews als Bestes PMS (2024, 2025, 2026), Bestes POS (2026) und sechs Jahre in Folge als einer der besten Arbeitgeber der Hoteltech-Branche von Hotel Tech Report ausgezeichnet.

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