New capital will accelerate production of the company’s next generation Panther rail vehicle and fuel commercial expansion including international markets

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 7, 2026 — Parallel Systems (Parallel or The Company), the world’s leading battery-electric autonomous freight rail company, has closed its Series C funding round with $100 million in new capital. New investors include AVP which led the round, Hillspire, Agility Global, and Cobalt Capital, as well as participation from existing investors including Anthos Capital, Congruent Ventures, Riot Capital, and Collaborative Fund. Founded in 2020 by Matt Soule, who spent 13 years with SpaceX, the Company has assembled a team of engineers and rail operations professionals who will drive full commercialization, expansion into international markets, and scale manufacturing of Parallel’s third-generation Panther rail vehicle.

Parallel enables railroads to handle shorter, lower-density routes competitively, allowing shippers to use rail for short-haul freight that previously required trucks. The $1 trillion market for surface freight, dominated by trucking, continues to face severe pressure from rising operational costs, tightening capacity, and strict logistics constraints. The United States’ rail network remains significantly underutilized particularly for shorter haul routes less than 500 miles representing 60% of the surface freight market. Parallel’s integrated technology taps into this existing network, providing an on-demand freight movement solution that provides shippers with the flexibility of trucking combined with the cost and environmental efficiencies of rail.

“Closing our Series C round is a major inflection point for Parallel and as well as the short-haul logistics industry, and is the strongest market signal to-date that autonomous freight rail is ready for its moment,” said Matt Soule, Founder and CEO of Parallel Systems. “With the FRA-approved pilot proving our platform in real-world corridors, this capital will directly fund the production scale-up of our Panther vehicles and accelerate our entry into international markets hungry for lower cost, more resilient supply chains,” added Mr. Soule.

Since closing its Series B round in 2025, Parallel has successfully transitioned from initial prototyping to live commercial deployment under regulatory test approval. A number of major railroads are now under contract to deploy Parallel to transport commercial freight using the Company’s fully integrated autonomous delivery system, which seamlessly pairs its advanced hardware and software ecosystem. Parallel’s Georgia pilot is actively advancing in partnership with short-line railroad operator Genesee & Wyoming (G&W), operating under Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) supervision.

“Matt and the entire Parallel team have built a proven, viable and scalable autonomous freight rail platform that has generated significant commercial interest among the major rail companies in the U.S. and globally,” said Arun Gupta, Parallel’s Executive Chairman. “We are now past the question of ‘if’ and fully onto ‘how soon,'” added Mr. Gupta.

About Parallel Systems

Founded in 2020, Parallel Systems is the world’s first autonomous battery-electric rail system. The company is a U.S. based manufacturer and transportation technology innovator whose mission is to deliver a safer, more efficient and sustainable alternative to short-haul trucking. The company provides significant benefits, including: 1) enables railroads to grow by increasing their role in shorter-route transportation; 2) makes America’s busiest roadways safer for motorists by decongesting; 3) reduces the costs of shipping; 4) creates new industry jobs; 5) reduces pollution. To-date the company has raised more than $200 million in funding.

For more information, please visit www.moveparallel.com

Media Contact
Dan Tarman Actum LLC
[email protected]
213-705-8454

SOURCE Parallel Systems

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 7, 2026 — Concierge healthcare service Velocity Health is now listed on Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Wellness.

Cost Plus Wellness and Velocity Health share a common goal of helping consumers experience total transparency in their healthcare. As a service available through Cost Plus Wellness’s repository, Velocity Health is offering its industry-leading concierge executive health program, and has made its full contract and transparent pricing model publicly viewable to any company interested in providing unique benefits to their teams.

Based in Columbus, Ohio and licensed in all 50 states, Velocity Health’s physicians utilize a wide range of advanced diagnostic tests (such as full-body MRIs, heart disease monitoring, hormone evaluations, sleep analyses, genetic testing, advanced cancer screenings, and more) to craft targeted health plans designed to reduce burnout, improve cognitive performance, boost energy levels, and mitigate long-term health risk in top business leaders.

Velocity Health was founded in 2025 by former Mayo Clinic and Harvard physician, Dr. Sandeep Palakodeti. Velocity’s mission is rooted in the understanding that an executive’s mental and physical health is deeply tied to the success of their business. Providing exclusive benefits is key for companies who are looking to hire and retain top executive talent, and Velocity Health is built to help high-performing companies measure, manage, and continuously improve their most important asset: the well-being of their people.

“At Velocity Health, our mission is to give high-performing individuals the clarity and control they’ve been missing from traditional healthcare. Partnering with Cost Plus Wellness extends that mission by removing the guesswork, surprise fees, and hidden terms from the care that keeps executives and elite athletes performing at their best.”
— Dr. Sandeep Palakodeti, Founder and CEO, Velocity Health

Velocity Health’s contract has been available through Cost Plus Wellness since July of 2026.

For more information about Velocity Health’s executive health programs, visit https://velocityhealthclinic.com/executive-health/.

About Velocity Health

Velocity Health is a concierge telehealth clinic providing personalized, data-driven health plans to each of its members. Velocity Health’s physicians and clinical team harness the most up-to-date medical research to create performance optimization strategies, hormone balancing protocols, proactive disease interventions, and more.

About Cost Plus Wellness

Cost Plus Wellness (costpluswellness.com) is a public repository of transparent healthcare contracts, an open source project that helps self-funded employers contract directly and transparently with medical providers. It acts as an fully-transparent open alternative to insurance carrier networks. Every healthcare provider on the Cost Plus Wellness website has made their rates and terms publicly viewable. By publishing contracts openly, Cost Plus Wellness helps self-funded employers build direct relationships with providers, removing intermediaries, lowering costs, and improving the quality of care.

Media Contact: [email protected] 

SOURCE Velocity Health

Global companies including Veolia, Seagate and ServiceTitan are using Trmeric to connect strategy, planning, execution and outcomes across their transformation portfolios

SAN RAMON, Calif., Oct. 7, 2026 — Trmeric, the agentic platform for enterprise transformation, today announced a $6.5 million oversubscribed seed round led by Hitachi Ventures. Additional investors included Schema Ventures, CerraCap Impact Venture Capital, FalconX Ventures, Executive Venture Fund, and angel investors Gokul Rajaram, Yatish Mishra and Shailesh Lakhani. Trmeric already powers $1 billion in enterprise transformation and will use the new capital to accelerate product innovation, expand customer adoption and scale the business. 

For CEOs, CIOs and technology leaders, the challenge is no longer access to AI but rather turning it into measurable business value. Enterprise transformation extends far beyond coding, and organizations must choose the right initiatives, mobilize teams, govern execution and measure results. Most still do that work through spreadsheets, disconnected tools, consultants and tribal knowledge that walks out the door when a project ends. Coding agents and general-purpose LLMs accelerate development, but they do not solve the harder problem of connecting strategy to business outcomes. Trmeric solves this problem by connecting transformation strategy, execution and outcomes in one AI platform.

At the foundation of Trmeric is a living transformation repository containing an enterprise’s strategy, technology landscape, initiatives, resources, decisions and outcomes. Above it sits the agentic layer, led by Tango, which coordinates purpose-built agents that support planning, resource mobilization, execution, governance, reporting and value measurement. With Trmeric, customers have already redirected tens of millions of dollars from low-return projects, reduced planning cycles from months to days and automated key PMO reporting and governance.

“Every enterprise transformation has hundreds of moments of truth that determine its eventual ROI,” said Siddharth Bohra, Founder and CEO of Trmeric. “Without a system to guide those decisions and drive the right actions, it is impossible to get most of them right. Enterprises are investing heavily in individual initiatives without building the foundational capability that every transformation depends on, and Trmeric solves that problem.”

Trmeric founders Siddharth Bohra and Debottam Datta spent decades helping Fortune 500 companies execute technology-led transformations of every size, from acquisition integrations and large ERP programs to cyber, cloud and AI. Together, they worked with more than a dozen CIO design partners to shape Trmeric, mapping decisions, workflows, KPIs, risks and signals between strategy and business results. That work became a proprietary data model, ontology and knowledge graph built specifically for enterprise transformation, supported by Trmeric’s orchestration layer and Tango with its team of agents. Foundation models serve as inputs into the platform, while Trmeric provides the enterprise context and workflows required to manage transformation from strategy through value realization.

“Transformation strategy is easy to write down and hard to prove,” said Balamurali Rengarajan, SVP and CIO, North America Business, at Veolia. “Trmeric gives us the structure and visibility to connect IT initiatives directly to business outcomes. We prioritize investment with clarity, and a live view of progress and impact across a complex portfolio has replaced manually prepared reporting.”

“IT budgets are shifting beyond running the business toward transforming it, with an increasing share directed to AI and digital transformation,” said Gayathri “G” Radhakrishnan, partner at Hitachi Ventures. “Yet enterprises still lack a connected way to see where that capital is going and whether it is delivering the intended ROI. We invested in Trmeric because we see this as a significant and growing gap. Trmeric gives enterprises the system to make better investment decisions and prove the value they create.”

About Trmeric

Trmeric is the agentic platform for enterprise transformation. Its agents work with business and technology teams to choose the right initiatives, execute them effectively and prove the return, turning scattered projects into a connected system that improves with every transformation. Learn more at trmeric.com. 

Media Contact
Colleen Harig
[email protected]

SOURCE Trmeric

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Oct. 7, 2026 — Biohub, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, and new funding partners today announced a major expansion of an international effort to generate and make accessible the data enabling predictive AI models of biology. Together, the organizations are investing $1.8 billion in funding, data, computation, and new measurement technology, the largest coordinated commitment to generating AI-ready biological data to date. The result will be an open resource for the research community that provides the foundation for greater understanding and ultimately treatment of human diseases.

As part of this announcement, Biohub has partnered with the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance the frontier of artificial intelligence in biology. DOE will invest more than $500 million over five years in lab measurement, modeling and computation toward the international effort to build an AI-ready open data resource. NIH will coordinate the contribution of relevant datasets, repositories, and knowledge bases developed through more than $500 million in prior federal investment aligned to this initiative. Biohub will work with NIH to standardize these datasets for AI model training.

In addition, Google DeepMind, Isomorphic Labs, and Meta are collectively investing $300 million in the Virtual Biology Initiative to create the technologies and multi-modal datasets needed to build predictive models of life.

These datasets will enable the global scientific community to collectively build and use AI models that allow researchers to ask, predict, and answer biological questions digitally, accelerating the path to new ways of preventing and treating diseases. This initiative will deliver the foundational measurements to train these models, expanding cell response data to interventions across far more cell types and conditions than have yet been studied, and building and validating technologies for studying cells and cellular interactions at greater scale, speed, and accuracy.

“An accurate predictive model of biology could dramatically accelerate scientific discovery by enabling scientists to perform experiments digitally. The insights that come from this could unlock a far greater understanding of disease and open up completely new paths for cures,” said Biohub Head of Science Alex Rives. “Because of this potential, the creation of a virtual cell is one of the most important challenges for the next era of science. It will require coordinated data generation efforts at a national and international scale, which is why these partners are coming together. We invite the worldwide scientific community to join us in this project.”

The Virtual Biology Initiative, announced in April 2026, will coordinate data generation across institutions and disciplines to build AI-ready open datasets to enable predictive models of life. Biohub’s founding $500 million commitment anchors that work: $400 million supports new technologies that expand what biologists can measure: cryo-electron tomography, which resolves near-atomic detail inside the cell; microscopy that can image millions to billions of cells in living tissue; and engineering tools to build and perturb biology at molecular, cellular, tissue, and whole-organism levels. A further $100 million funds research outside Biohub.

“Generating the data to solve predictive systems biology requires scaling past the limits of what any single organization can produce today,” said Max Jaderberg, President of Isomorphic Labs. “By joining the Virtual Biology Initiative as a founding member, Isomorphic Labs is helping build a massive, multimodal data foundation. This initiative will generate the data needed to push the industry closer to the next significant breakthrough for biology.”

Through the Genesis Mission, a cross-agency initiative led by the Department of Energy, DOE will contribute more than $500 million over five years in fundamental cell research — data collection, AI analytics, measurement and imaging, modeling, and computation — drawing on exascale supercomputing, X-ray and neutron scattering, cryo-electron microscopy and tomography, and autonomous laboratories across the National Laboratory system.

“This partnership represents a critical step forward in leveraging artificial intelligence for public benefit,” said Darío Gil, DOE’s Under Secretary for Science. “By combining DOE’s exascale computing, experimental measurement, and modeling assets, including premier user facilities at the Joint Genome Institute, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, and advanced structural beamlines with the unique AI models, tool development, and biological data capabilities of Biohub, we are setting a new standard for open science that will accelerate discoveries in both medicine and biotechnology.”

Through its Bio Genesis Mission, NIH will bring together existing biomedical datasets, national data infrastructure, and research programs to help build AI-ready resources for the broader scientific community. NIH’s extensive investments in biomedical research provide a foundation for this work; resources include national biomedical repositories catalogued by NIH’s National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the National Center for Biotechnology Information, as well as NIH Common Fund programs that are already developing coordinated biological atlases, shared data standards, and AI-ready biomedical datasets.

“By combining resources and expertise, we can accelerate the development of universal cell models with sufficient biological complexity to predict how any cell responds to an intervention,” said Nicole Kleinstreuer, Ph.D., NIH Deputy Director Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives (DPCPSI). “The return from these models could be broad and profound, resulting in substantially faster timelines for medical breakthroughs as compared with attempting to attain the same results through laboratory experiments alone.”

In addition, leading scientific institutions and consortia with experience in organizing transformative international collaborations, from the Human Genome Project onwards, have come together to help nucleate the scientific community across academia and industry around developing effective scientific strategies to maximize the impact of virtual biology. The groups include the Allen Institute, Broad Institute, Gladstone Institutes, the Human Cell Atlas, the Human Protein Atlas, and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. These groups are committed to working together as part of the Virtual Biology Initiative as well as through independent efforts toward this shared goal. NVIDIA will support the initiative to leverage accelerated computing infrastructure, domain-specific software, and technical expertise. Renaissance Philanthropy is helping to expand funding for data generation.

As the initiative takes shape, Biohub is bringing together partners across disciplines and industries to build the layer that lets their datasets work in a unified fashion — shared standards, common identifiers, and a single point of access. Equally important is building the scientific community around these resources — convening researchers across institutions and disciplines, connecting complementary expertise and capabilities, and creating opportunities to define and pursue ambitious scientific questions together. Over the past decade, Biohub has expanded the reach and impact of measurement technologies and open datasets, leading projects such as Tabula Sapiens, OpenCell, and Zebrahub. It has also built and maintained community data infrastructure, including CELLxGENE and the CryoET Data Portal. The Virtual Biology Initiative builds on these experiences to enable coordinated efforts at a scale that no single institution could achieve alone.

“The quest to build a virtual cell is one of the great collective scientific challenges and key to understanding the mechanisms of life. We will not solve this challenge without open, experimental biological data at an unprecedented scale, showing how living cells behave and respond to changes,” said Pushmeet Kohli, VP, AI for Science at Google DeepMind and Google Cloud’s Chief Scientist. “This investment in biological data generation will help create an open, standardized data commons, which will lay the foundations researchers around the world need to better model biology.”

About Biohub 
Biohub is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research institute combining frontier AI and biology to accelerate science. With its compute capacity, AI research and engineering, and state-of-the-art technology for measuring, imaging, and programming biology, Biohub is enabling scientists worldwide to use AI-powered biology to study how cells operate and organize as systems — with the ultimate mission to cure or prevent all disease. Learn more at biohub.org.

SOURCE Biohub

Sell-side advisory engagement for the ten-location aesthetics business marks Aesthetic Brokers’ fourth platform creation

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 7, 2026 — Aesthetic Brokers, a sell-side M&A advisory firm exclusively representing founders of aesthetic and longevity practices, today announced that it served as exclusive sell-side advisor to SDBotox in a strategic partnership. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 2012 by Dr. Alex Roher, SDBotox grew from a single San Diego office into a ten-location medical aesthetics business operating across Southern California and Texas. The transaction is the fourth platform Aesthetic Brokers has helped create.

Aesthetic Brokers led the full sell-side process, including valuation and positioning, buyer outreach, competitive process management, transaction strategy, and negotiations. The firm evaluated potential partners against the founder’s objectives, considering culture, clinical standards, leadership, growth strategy, and patient experience alongside financial terms.

“A successful transaction is not about finding someone willing to buy the business,” said Bill Walker, Founder and CEO of Aesthetic Brokers. “It’s about creating real choice for the founder, understanding what makes the business truly valuable to the right buyer, and identifying a partner that can protect what was built while creating the strongest path forward.”

“Aesthetic Brokers achieved truly uncommon results in finding our optimal growth partner. The cultural and strategic alignment coupled with the deep financial backing we now possess will fuel our continued expansion and allow us to continue to be at the forefront of optimizing clinical outcomes for our patients and provide cutting edge proven technologies for our staff. I could not be more pleased with their results,” said Dr. Alex Roher, Founder of SDBotox.

Founders considering a sale, or who want a confidential view of what their practice is worth in today’s market, can contact Aesthetic Brokers at aestheticbrokers.com.

About Aesthetic Brokers

Aesthetic Brokers is a sell-side M&A advisory firm working exclusively with founders of aesthetic and longevity practices, including medical spas, plastic surgery, dermatology, and specialty practices. Since 2023, the firm has represented founders across 11 states, including California, Texas, Ohio, and Massachusetts, advising on valuation, positioning, competitive buyer processes, negotiations, and strategic exits. Four of those engagements resulted in platform creations.

The firm runs a selective, founder-first process designed to create real competition among buyers, find the right long-term partner, and protect the value a founder spent years building. 

About SDBotox

SDBotox is a medical aesthetics practice with ten locations across Southern California and Texas. Founded in 2012 by Dr. Alex Roher, the company has grown from a single San Diego office into a multi-state platform offering injectables, skin rejuvenation, laser and energy-based treatments, and other non-surgical aesthetic services. SDBotox is known for its experienced licensed medical providers, personalized treatment approach, and natural-looking results.

Follow Aesthetic Brokers on LinkedIn and Instagram.

SOURCE Aesthetic Brokers

-SPRIM Global Investments-backed company acquires asset from EuMentis Therapeutics-

– Phase 2 study planned for first half of 2027-

SAN DIEGO and SYDNEY, Oct. 7, 2026 — Mentara Therapeutics, a new neuropsychiatry company backed by SPRIM Global Investments, today launched with the acquisition of EM-221, now MTA-304, from EuMentis Therapeutics. MTA-304 is a highly selective, second-generation PDE10A inhibitor, and Mentara will take it into a Phase 2 study in levodopa-induced dyskinesia (LID) starting in the first half of 2027.

Levodopa is still the most effective treatment for Parkinson’s disease. However, 40–50% of patients on long-term therapy develop dyskinesia (involuntary, uncontrolled movements) within four to six years. Treatment options are limited, and amantadine extended release (ER) is currently the only FDA-approved therapy for LID. Amantadine ER’s side effects, such as hallucinations, dizziness and swelling, can limit its use, so patients and doctors are often forced to choose between controlling Parkinson’s symptoms and living with disabling dyskinesia.

MTA-304 has completed three Phase 1 studies in 86 subjects, which showed a favorable safety and tolerability profile. In a non-human primate model of LID, MTA-304 reduced dyskinesia by 40% without reducing levodopa’s benefit. In a rat model, it outperformed amantadine.

“People with Parkinson’s shouldn’t have to trade symptom control for dyskinesia,” said Frank Stonebanks, CEO of Mentara Therapeutics. “MTA-304 has a clean Phase 1 package and strong preclinical data in LID. With a dedicated company and initial investors behind it, we can move quickly to answer the question that matters to patients in Phase 2.”

“We are thrilled to back Mentara Therapeutics,” said Dr. Michael Shleifer, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, SPRIM Global Investments. “They have the right people and the right product at the right time.”

Mr. Stonebanks led EuMentis as CEO for the past 18 months and has more than 25 years of experience in biotech operations and venture capital. He was previously Chairman and CEO of Renibus Therapeutics, where he raised more than $140 million, took the lead program into Phase 3 and acquired Phase 3 ready veverimer. He also founded and was CEO of Triphase, which was acquired by Celgene (BMS).                   

Mr. Stonebanks also held leadership roles at JJDC (J&J’s investing unit, including as a co-founder of J&J Internal Ventures, now J&J Innovation), IBM Ventures, Lumira Ventures and Novaquest Capital Management.

Under the agreement, EuMentis shareholders will become shareholders in Mentara. Financial terms were not disclosed.

About MTA-304
MTA-304 (formerly EM-221) is an investigational, highly selective, second-generation PDE10A inhibitor originally discovered by Mochida Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. PDE10A is an enzyme found almost exclusively in the striatum, the brain region where levodopa-induced dyskinesia originates. By blocking it, MTA-304 is designed to rebalance the striatal signaling pathways that levodopa overstimulates, reducing dyskinesia without weakening levodopa’s benefit.

About Mentara Therapeutics
Headquartered in Sydney, Australia, Mentara Therapeutics is focused on improving the health and well-being of all people affected by neuropsychiatric disorders. www.mentaratherapeutics.com 

About SPRIM Global Investments
Headquartered in Singapore, SPRIM Global Investments is a privately held life sciences venture capital firm founded in 2008 that specializes in clinical-stage therapeutics, digital health and R&D infrastructure. www.sprim.net 

About EuMentis Therapeutics
EuMentis Therapeutics was a San Diego-based clinical-stage biotech company. It licensed EM-221 from Mochida Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. of Japan after three Phase 1 studies had been completed and advanced the program toward Phase 2 development. EuMentis has been wound down now that the transaction has closed.

Media Contact
Media: Amy Conrad
Juniper Point
[email protected] 

Company: Mentara Therapeutics
www.mentaratherapeutics.com
[email protected]

SOURCE Mentara Therapeutics

• Funds will scale Ledgebrook’s tech-led approach to U.S. specialty underwriting, covering custom and complex insurance needs
• Ledgebrook on track to surpass USD 1 billion in cumulative premium written since it started writing business in 2023
• Investment expands Allianz X’s U.S. property and casualty (P&C) platform into mid-sized general liability risks in excess and surplus (E&S) market
• Allianz Re agrees to enter a multi-year reinsurance agreement with Ledgebrook

BOSTON and MUNICH, Oct. 7, 2026 — Ledgebrook, the AI-native specialty insurance platform, today announced it has raised USD 200 million in primary equity financing co-led by Allianz X, the strategic investment arm of the Allianz Group, and Rockefeller Capital Management. Existing and new investors also participated. Ledgebrook will use the funds to scale its technology and extend Blackbird, Ledgebrook’s proprietary AI-native underwriting platform. Separately, Allianz Re has agreed to enter a multi-year reinsurance agreement with Ledgebrook.

Headquartered in Boston, Ledgebrook sits between the brokers who need cover for hard-to-place risks and the capital that backs them, running on technology it built from the ground up. It writes general liability, professional liability, and specialty cover for mid-sized-market businesses in the E&S market, distributed exclusively through wholesale brokers. Ledgebrook’s proprietary AI-based platform, Blackbird, reads submissions, classifies risk, and calculates a technical price, quoting specialty risks, often in hours rather than weeks, with experienced underwriters making the final decision. As such, brokers, and therefore their clients, get fast, reliable answers on placing risks. Ledgebrook’s approach has put it on track to surpass USD 1 billion in cumulative premium written since it started writing business in 2023.

Gage Caligaris, Founder & CEO of Ledgebrook, said: “Our vision is for Ledgebrook to be the company that makes the wheels of insurance spin faster. Businesses with complex risk deserve specialized underwriting, rated with rigor and delivered at speed. Our platform lets our underwriters do that with real discipline. Allianz X backing gives us the capital to keep investing in technology and talent. We’re building this company for the long term.”

Dr. Nazim Cetin, CEO of Allianz X, said: “The industry is applying AI to its simplest risks first, because that is where automation comes easily. We think the larger prize sits at the other end, in complex, hard to place business, where underwriting judgment is scarce and slow decisions cost the most. That’s exactly the gap Blackbird is built to close, and it’s why Ledgebrook fills a meaningful space in our U.S. P&C platform.”

John Mullen, President of E&S at Ledgebrook, added: “E&S is seeing strong multi-year growth. Admitted carriers tightened their appetite and pushed risks that were once routinely placed in the admitted market into this channel, and we’re excited about accelerating the delivery of value to our distribution partners and insured customers in this segment.”

This investment both scales and diversifies Allianz X’s U.S. P&C platform, which is built across various lines of business and segments from micro to mid-sized. Ledgebrook writes general liability in the mid-sized segment of the E&S market, filling a meaningful gap on the platform, deepening Allianz’s presence in that space, and complementing Allianz X’s existing positions.

About Ledgebrook:

Ledgebrook is an AI-native specialty insurance platform. It sits between the brokers who need coverage for hard-to-place risks and the capital that backs them, running on proprietary technology it built from the ground up. Founded in Boston in 2022 by Gage Caligaris, a Harvard mathematician and actuary, Ledgebrook writes general liability, professional liability and specialty coverage through wholesale brokers. In August 2026, AM Best assigned its carrier, Ledgebrook Specialty Insurance Company, a Financial Strength Rating of A- (Excellent) and a Financial Size Category of VIII, completing Ledgebrook’s transition to a full-stack platform. The company employs around 300 people, including some 80 underwriters and 50 engineers.

https://www.ledgebrook.com/

About Allianz X:

Allianz X is the strategic investment arm of the Allianz Group, dedicated to keeping the leading global insurer and asset manager at the forefront of the industry. By making and actively managing high-conviction investments in companies with exceptional growth potential and forging unique partnerships between them and Allianz, Allianz X enables transformative collaborations, builds platforms, and unlocks value for the Group.

Stay connected with Allianz X on Medium, LinkedIn, and X (formerly Twitter).

SOURCE Ledgebrook

ARPA-H’s CIRCLE program, short for Critical Illness Immunological Reprogramming and Control Point Learning Engine, targets the immune dysregulation that drives organ failure in critically ill patients; sepsis accounts for a substantial share of the roughly 4.6 million Americans who face potentially fatal critical illness each year. The program follows a measure-model-modulate framework: compiling real-time datasets on immune and inflammatory trajectories, building patient-specific computational models, and testing interventions that target immune control points before organ failure progresses.

Under the subaward, InflammaSense will deploy its VITAL^x-patch, a non-invasive wearable sensor, to measure autonomic and inflammatory signatures in up to 200 severely critically ill patients across three clinical sites. Data will feed the company’s Autonomic Research Core (ARC) cascade-endotyping classifier, which stratifies patients by immune trajectory and supports the CIRCLE program’s digital-twin modeling of critical illness. The work builds on InflammaSense’s core platform; it was built on UC San Diego-owned intellectual property covering neural signal detection of immune responses through cervical Autonomic Neurography or “ANG” measured with ventral cervical or anterior neck magnetoneurography and electroneurography.

“CIRCLE gives us a path to validate ANG at scale in the population it was designed to serve,” said Imanuel Lerman, MD, MSc, CEO and Founder of InflammaSense. “Sepsis hyperimmune and or immunoparalysis states are difficult to detect in real time with existing tools; this program will systematically determine whether continuous, non-invasive ANG monitoring can reliably flag that window early enough to act on it.”

About InflammaSense, Inc.

InflammaSense is a pre-revenue medtech company based in La Jolla, California, developing autonomic neurography (ANG) technology for real-time immune monitoring. Its lead indication is sepsis immunoparalysis and sepsis hyperimmune states, paired with matched and targeted therapeutics.

Media Contact:
Imanuel Lerman 
InflammaSense, Inc.
[[email protected]] | [619-786-7202]

SOURCE InflammaSense

Funding from European and US investors will accelerate product launch,
partner adoption and international expansion

LONDON, Oct. 7, 2026 — MintNeuro, a semiconductor company building specialised chips for neural devices from implants to wearables, today announces a $5 million investment round to drive its commercial scale-up. MintNeuro’s chips give device developers better performance than generic components, with less risk, lower cost and a faster route to market than custom chip design. The funding will accelerate product launch, expand delivery of pre-release silicon to partners and grow the company’s international presence.

The round was led by Odyssey Ventures, with participation from 33East, JSK Investments and Alumni Ventures, and returning investment from Empirical Ventures, Jumpspace Ventures and early investors. Bringing together deep tech, medtech and early-stage investors across Europe and the US, the round reflects global demand for the hardware needed to scale neurotechnology.

MintNeuro has already delivered working silicon and reached key integration milestones with research and development partners, including Motif Neurotech and Amber Therapeutics. Earlier this year, MintNeuro announced a partnership and multi-year commercial chip supply agreement with Motif, supporting the development of Motif’s minimally invasive neurostimulator initially targeting treatment-resistant depression. A growing number of neural device companies are now evaluating or integrating MintNeuro’s technology, alongside research teams building implantable systems that connect directly to the brain and nervous system.

MintNeuro will use the investment to grow its engineering and commercial teams, bring its products to market, support customers as they adopt its chips and strengthen its presence in the US alongside its UK and European base.

Neural devices are opening new ways to understand and treat conditions across neurology, mental health and beyond, from Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy and depression to hearing loss and inflammatory disease. These technologies include brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), neuromodulation systems, sensory prostheses and bioelectronic medicines. Until now, progress across the industry has been held back by the lack of standard chips designed specifically for the extreme power, size, safety and signal-quality demands of these devices.

MintNeuro is closing that gap with a modular semiconductor platform purpose-built for core functions like neural sensing, signal processing and stimulation: listening to the body’s nerve signals, interpreting them, and delivering precise electrical pulses to treat disease or restore function. Instead of adapting generic components or funding years of custom chip design, developers can build on MintNeuro’s chips to create smaller, lower-power neural devices and move from research to clinical use sooner.

MintNeuro’s modular architecture provides the building blocks to combine sensing, processing and stimulation efficiently at the system level, supporting more integrated closed-loop interfaces with the nervous system.

Commenting on the investment, Dorian Haci, Co-Founder and CEO of MintNeuro, said: “Every neural device depends on the chips inside it. Today, most device and therapy developers still have to choose between generic components that were never designed for the body and years of custom chip development. We are building the chips that end that trade-off. This funding moves us from technology validation to commercial scale-up, with more customer programmes, faster product launches and our chips in the hands of many more developers. Our ambition is clear: to make MintNeuro the semiconductor platform the global neurotechnology industry builds on.”

Michelle Robson, Founding Partner at Odyssey Ventures, said: “Neural devices such as BCIs represent one of the most exciting frontier technology opportunities today, and significant value will accrue to those solving the foundational infrastructure challenges that stand between innovation and widespread adoption. MintNeuro has the technology, market pull and ambition to become a globally important semiconductor company, and we are backing this exceptional team as it scales from the UK into global markets, including Silicon Valley.”

Yiannis Eftychiou, Co-Founder and Partner at 33East, said: “What stood out to us is the sheer breadth of the hardware opportunity. MintNeuro is solving critical needs for neural implants today, with technology that can extend into wearables and beyond.”

Johnathan Matlock, Co-Founder and General Partner at Empirical Ventures, said: “We invested before the chips were in hand, and we are reinvesting now that MintNeuro has working silicon, deep customer traction and a clear path to becoming a category-defining semiconductor business.”

Professor Tim Denison, Chair of MintNeuro, added: “Neurotechnology is entering a phase where specialised hardware will determine how far, and how fast, the field can go. MintNeuro’s semiconductor technology is well-placed to remove the key obstacle to industry scale, which could dramatically accelerate the pace of innovation.”

About MintNeuro (www.mintneuro.com)

Founded as a spinout from Imperial College London, MintNeuro is building the semiconductor foundation for the next generation of neurotechnology. The company develops specialised chips that enable devices to connect with the brain and nervous system, helping innovators create new therapies for neurological and mental health conditions.

As neurotechnology moves from research labs into clinical and commercial deployment, MintNeuro is addressing one of the sector’s most critical challenges: providing a scalable semiconductor platform designed specifically for neural devices. By removing the need for custom chip development or adapted generic components, MintNeuro aims to accelerate innovation, reduce development barriers and help bring transformative neurotechnology products to market faster.

The company works with leading developers, researchers and medical device companies, with a long-term vision to become the industry-standard semiconductor platform powering the future of brain-computer interfaces, bioelectronic medicine and other technologies that connect humans and machines.

MintNeuro’s immediate focus is medical applications, where size, power, reliability and safety are critical. The same core technology has the potential to become the chip layer for any device that connects to the brain and nervous system, providing the interface between human biology and the digital world.

SOURCE MintNeuro