OXFORD, England, July 23, 2026 — Moa Technology (“Moa”), an agricultural biotechnology company focused on discovering novel mode of action herbicides, announces a £22.2 million Series C financing round, co-led by Oxford Science Enterprises (“OSE”) and Supernova Invest (“Supernova”).

Joining Supernova as new investors in Moa are Agri Investment Fund (“AIF”); GrainInnovate, a fund investing on behalf of the Grain Research Development Corporation (“GRDC”) and managed by Artesian; Infinity Investment Partners; and Magdalen College Oxford. The round has also been supported by existing investors OSE, Lansdowne Partners, Parkwalk, and Oxford University Innovation.

This new investment reflects the proven strength of Moa’s IP and the progress it has made to become the innovation partner of choice for the crop protection industry. In the last 24 months, Moa has formed R&D collaborations with four leading companies – Nufarm, Gowan, Certis Belchim and Corteva Agriscience – to develop different novel solutions to help farmers protect their harvests from crop-killing weeds, and expects to continue to sign further commercial research partnerships. 

In a major breakthrough for the industry, Moa’s proprietary technology platforms have already discovered over 80 novel mode of action areas, which work in completely different ways to control weeds and break resistance. After successful validation in the lab and glasshouse, Moa’s most advanced novel mode of action programmes are performing strongly to control some of the world’s toughest weeds in successive seasons of international field trials. In 2025, the company discovered a new category of products – Moa Amplifiers™ – which are not herbicidal on their own but have the potential to reduce the amount or concentration of herbicides required, supporting productivity and environmental stewardship. 

The Series C funding will enable Moa to bring its three most advanced programmes significantly closer to commercialisation, to build its pipeline of early-stage novel mode of action herbicides and to further develop the Moa Amplifiers programme. The new equity investment will be supplemented by upfront and milestone payments from current and future industry partners working with Moa. 

Martin Fiennes of Oxford Science Enterprises, said: “When we helped spin Moa out from the University of Oxford’s Plant Sciences Department in 2017, we saw that its technology platform had a unique and important approach to address the market’s need for herbicides capable of breaking weed resistance. The success of the platform’s discoveries since in the lab and field trials has confirmed Moa is on track to provide the new solutions farmers need to sustain agricultural productivity, and we’re delighted to be supporting the company again in this fundraising round.”

Alexandre Biau of Supernova Invest, said: “Weed resistance continues to spread. It is causing increasing yield losses, further undermining the resilience of farming operations, while climate change is expected to make weed control even more challenging. In response, the Moa team is redefining the innovation playbook for weed control by advancing both novel modes of action and its Moa Amplifiers strategy, expanding the toolbox available to farmers. Building on the company’s strong momentum and proven ability to execute, Supernova Invest is proud to support Moa’s journey to market.” 

Dr Virginia Corless, CEO of Moa Technology said: “This marks a major milestone for Moa Technology – a validation of the outstanding progress we have made not just in the laboratory, but also in striking commercial deals with leading industry partners around the world. We are particularly pleased that, through AIF in Europe and GrainInnovate in Australia, the farming sector itself is closely connected to the next phase of Moa’s development, helping accelerate delivery of our solutions to the fields where they are so urgently needed.” 

About Moa Technology:

Spun out of Oxford University in 2017, Moa Technology aims to help farmers sustainably protect their harvests from crop-killing weeds and ensure food security for all. The company’s proprietary platforms have screened over 900,000 compounds and discovered more than 80 promising novel mode of action areas capable of breaking weed resistance to existing herbicides, with several advanced programmes now in their third year of international field trials. 

For more information, please visit www.moa-technology.com.

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/3007284/Moa_CEO_Dr_Virginia_Corless.jpg

SOURCE Moa Technology

Transaction with Decathlon Capital Partners requires no dilution of current shareholders 

FARMINGTON, Utah, July 22, 2026 — Health Endeavors, LLC, a leading technology partner for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and value-based care, today announced the launch of its AI-powered care management suite alongside a strategic growth-debt investment from Decathlon Capital Partners. Together, these milestones position the company to expand its reach and bring intelligent, scalable care solutions to a growing number of providers nationwide.

At the center of the new suite is Alex, a virtual care manager that engages tens of thousands of patients simultaneously. Alex educates and motivates patients, schedules appointments, collects data, and alerts care teams when human intervention is needed—all without practicing medicine. By keeping clinicians at the center of every decision, Alex closes care gaps and reduces provider burden. Alex is powered by OmniView, Health Endeavors’ platform that builds 360-degree digital patient profiles from claims, medical records, social determinants of health, and consumer data. The suite also includes MedPearl, a clinical decision support library developed at Providence Health, which gives clinicians evidence-based, point-of-care guidance and acts as a clinical guardrail for Alex’s patient interactions.

“Our unified intelligence platform delivers precise, hyper-personalized solutions that maximize efficiency, quality and impact,” said David Derrick, CEO of Health Endeavors. “Our partnership with Decathlon Capital Partners allows us to expand our robust solutions to a growing number of clients.”

The investment reflects Decathlon Capital Partners’ confidence in the future of value-based care. “Accountable Care Organizations and value-based care are focused on successful patient outcomes, and Health Endeavors provides the actionable insights that allow providers to deliver effective care,” said Matt Hoffman, Managing Director of Decathlon Capital Partners. “Decathlon Capital Partners is proud to work with Health Endeavors to advance a proactive, prevention-focused approach to healthcare.”

About Health Endeavors
Headquartered in Farmington, Utah, Health Endeavors, LLC has more than 16 years of experience helping Accountable Care Organizations and value-based arrangements thrive. The company serves over 2 million patients, partnering with clinical equity leaders Novant Health and Providence to deliver AI-driven patient engagement. As an ONC Certified (eCQM) Vendor and Medicare Qualified Registry, Health Endeavors turns data into action, staying true to its mission of returning resources, power, and joy to the point of care. For more information, visit https://healthendeavors.com.

About Decathlon Capital Partners 
Decathlon Capital Partners provides growth capital for companies seeking alternatives to traditional equity investment. Through the use of highly customized growth-debt financing solutions, Decathlon provides long-term growth capital without the dilution, loss of control and operational overhead that often comes with equity-based funding. With offices in Palo Alto and Park City, Decathlon is active across a wide range of sectors. Learn more at www.decathloncapital.com.

SOURCE Health Endeavors

DALLAS, July 22, 2026 — Cosmetic Physician Partners (CPP), the majority practitioner-owned medical aesthetics network spanning 75+ clinics across the United States, today announced it has paid out nearly $35 million directly to its partners, the doctors, nurses and employees who own the business, in the company’s second such payout to date.

The distribution brings the total CPP has returned to its partners to more than $60 million across two rounds, and the company intends to continue returning capital.

CPP is majority-owned by the practitioners and staff who run its clinics, and the company credits its ability to pay out capital to the strength of its people. Industry-leading staff retention, consistently high patient satisfaction, and a culture built to support clinicians have produced the quality of care and operating performance that make recurring payouts possible. CPP is believed to be the first and only aesthetics network to have returned capital directly to its practitioner-shareholders, having now completed two distributions.

“This is what happens when you build a company around your people,” said Dan Schacter, CEO and co-founder of CPP. “Our partners stay because they own the business and they love the work. The quality of care our clinicians deliver, and the trust they build with patients are exactly what allow us to return capital to our people with more to come.”

The result is one of the most stable operating platforms in medical aesthetics: clinicians who stay, patients who return, and a culture that gives practitioners genuine autonomy and ownership.

CPP is also the only national aesthetics network of its scale with NO private equity (PE) investment in the business. The company carries low debt and has no preferred shares, every owner earns the same return, which puts the doctors, nurses and employees who run the clinics on equal economic footing with every other shareholder.

About Cosmetic Physician Partners

Cosmetic Physician Partners (CPP) is a practitioner-owned medical aesthetics network of 75+ clinics across the United States. CPP is majority-owned by the doctors, nurses and employees who operate its clinics and is built on strong staff retention, high-quality patient care, and a culture that supports its people. That foundation has enabled CPP to pay out capital to its partner-owners, a distinction shared by few in the industry.

For information:

Sean Walsh
VP of Partnerships
[email protected]

SOURCE Cosmetic Physician Partners

ATLANTA, July 22, 2026 — Radnor Property Group, in partnership with Madrone Community Development Foundation, has reached financial close on a transformative $147 million student housing development in the West End neighborhood of Atlanta. Financing closed on July 1, 2026, with the completed sale of $146,763,475 in tax-exempt and taxable bonds issued by the Development Authority of Fulton County (DAFC). This milestone advances a major investment in high‑quality, affordable housing that will bring long‑term benefits and provide modern, community-oriented living to hundreds of Atlanta University Center Consortium (AUCC) students.

Located at 850 West End Ave – a key campus corridor on the edge of the campuses for Morehouse and Spelman Colleges – the community will deliver 793 beds across 305 apartment-style units. Amenities include a 24/7 staffed lobby, outdoor recreation space, a fitness room, community lounges, bike storage, dog run, and study rooms. 

The program will be comprised of four-, two-, one-bedroom, and studio units featuring lounges on every floor and a central green space to foster social events and connection. With an emphasis on balancing a variety of student needs and lifestyles, the development will create a modern housing experience that supports wellbeing and strengthens the fabric of the surrounding neighborhood. In a historic first, this community will bring together two of the nation’s premier single-gender institutions into a thoughtfully designed, shared residential environment. By expanding opportunities for high-quality, affordable, and safe student housing in Atlanta, the project achieves key strategic objectives for both Colleges as they manage unprecedented growth in recent years.  

Since 2020, Morehouse and Spelman have experienced significant enrollment growth. Increasing housing capacity is a strategic priority to reach a 75%–85% residency goal for on-campus and affiliated housing. As students increasingly face high-cost, distant off-campus properties that lack the proximity required for a cohesive campus experience, this 793-bed community will offer a convenient and affordable advantage with rents averaging 3% below the off-campus market, facilitating improved student safety, retention, and wellbeing.

“This project is an investment to enhance our students’ residential experience, which directly contributes to their academic success and persistence to graduation,” said Undria Stalling, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of Business & Finance at Morehouse College. “Our steadily growing student enrollment fuels our collective need for affordable, near-campus housing. Radnor and Madrone brought their development expertise, and with Spelman, we partnered to create a solution that will give future generations of students a modern, accessible place to live, learn, and grow into the leaders our institutions are known to produce.”

“We are proud to work alongside Morehouse College and to collaborate with this award-winning student housing team to bring to life a vision of a modernized, future-ready community,” said Dawn Alston, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of Business and Financial Affairs at Spelman College. “This partnership demonstrates our commitment to investing in campus facilities, student support, and residential life to accommodate growing enrollment, and it represents what is possible when mission-driven partners come together with a shared commitment to student success.”

DAFC will loan the proceeds of the bonds to Madrone-MS Student Housing LLC, a subsidiary of Madrone Community Development Foundation. West End Avenue P3, LLC, a joint venture entity between Morehouse and Spelman Colleges, has entered into a 50-year lease agreement with Madrone as part of the transaction. Construction will commence in July 2026 and be ready for occupancy by Fall 2028.

The development team includes Radnor Property Group as lead development partner, Clark Construction and CD Moody Construction in a joint venture as construction manager, Moody Nolan as architect, and Pape-Dawson as civil engineer.

“It is a privilege for Radnor to support Morehouse and Spelman Colleges in this historic, first-of-its-kind joint housing partnership,” said David Yeager, CEO and Managing Partner at Radnor Property Group. “This partnership sets a new benchmark for how premier institutions can combine resources to deliver exceptional, affordable residential environments. Achieving this milestone is a testament to their shared vision, allowing both colleges to advance their unique missions while remaining dynamic and resilient in an ever-changing higher education landscape.”

Nick Waugh, President of Madrone, said, “We’re honored to partner with Morehouse and Spelman on an investment that advances the long-term success of two extraordinary HBCUs. Through this housing partnership, we’re proud to help deliver a community that enables more students to live next to campus, focus on their education, and fully engage in campus life. This is exactly the kind of mission-driven investment that creates lasting value for students and institutions alike.”

Raymond James along with Loop Capital Markets served as underwriter for the bond financing. Brailsford & Dunlavey served as the Colleges’ project advisor, with Kutak Rock as bond counsel and Hilltop Securities as the colleges’ financial advisor.

About Radnor Property Group
Radnor Property Group is a leading national real estate company with a focus in projects structured as public-private partnerships. The company specializes in the development of real estate and infrastructure assets, including student housing, workforce housing, mixed-use commercial, and campus utilities. Since its founding in 1999, Radnor has undertaken development projects cumulatively valued at over $4 billion. Radnor is headquartered in Philadelphia, with regional offices in Charlotte, North Carolina and Portland, Maine. For more information, visit radnorproperty.com.

About Morehouse College
Morehouse College is a private, historically Black liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia, and the nation’s only historically Black college dedicated exclusively to the education of men. Founded in 1867, the College has a long-standing reputation for developing leaders committed to scholarship, service, and social justice. Located within the Atlanta University Center Consortium, Morehouse shares a collaborative academic environment with Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, and the Morehouse School of Medicine. The College’s mission is to develop men with disciplined minds who will lead lives of leadership and service. For more information, visit morehouse.edu.

About Spelman College
Founded in 1881, Spelman College is a leading liberal arts college widely recognized as the global leader in the education of women of African descent. Located in Atlanta, the College’s picturesque campus is home to 2,700 students. Spelman is the country’s leading producer of Black women who complete Ph.D.s in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The College’s status is confirmed by the U.S. News & World Report, which ranked Spelman No. 37 among all liberal arts colleges, No. 33 for undergraduate teaching, No. 2 for social mobility among liberal arts colleges, and No. 1 for the 19th year among historically Black colleges and universities.  Recent initiatives include a designation by the Department of Defense as a Center of Excellence for Minority Women in STEM, a Gender and Sexuality Studies Institute, the first endowed queer studies chair at an HBCU and a program to increase the number of Black women Ph.D.s in economics. New majors and minors have been added, including documentary filmmaking and photography, data science, refugee studies and gaming. Collaborations have been also established with MIT’s Media Lab, the Broad Institute and the Army Research Lab for artificial intelligence and machine learning, among others.

Outstanding alumnae include Children’s Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman, former Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Rosalind Brewer, political leader Stacey Abrams, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa D. Cook, former Acting Surgeon General and Spelman’s first alumna president Audrey Forbes Manley, Harvard University professor and former Dean Evelynn Hammonds, actress and producer Latanya Richardson Jackson, global bioinformatics geneticist Janina Jeff and authors Pearl Cleage and Tayari Jones.

To learn more, please visit spelman.edu and @spelmancollege on social media.

About Madrone Community Development Foundation

Madrone Community Development Foundation supports communities and institutions by providing essential facilities through public-private financing structures. Madrone is a public benefit corporation formed to lessen the burdens of government through providing educational, community, energy, hospitality, infrastructure and housing facilities. Headquartered in California, Madrone delivers facilities to sponsoring institutions across the USA. For more information, visit madronecdf.org.

Media Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Radnor Property Group

Investment in The Luzon and The Van Buren reflects NJCC’s growing platform for flexible, mission-aligned capital in supply-constrained markets

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., July 22, 2026 — New Jersey Community Capital (NJCC), a national community development financial institution (CDFI), announced the closing of a $3.5 million preferred equity investment in The Luzon and The Van Buren, a 118-unit naturally occurring workforce housing portfolio in the Brightwood neighborhood of Northwest Washington, D.C.

Located at 6600 Luzon Avenue NW and 6505 14th Street NW, the portfolio comprises two midrise properties totaling 115,250 square feet of net rentable area. Originally constructed in 1942 and 1955, the buildings offer a mix of studio- through three-bedroom units. The Brightwood/16th Street Heights area sits along the edge of Rock Creek Park’s 1,700 acres, with a housing stock that preserves a rare architectural mix of mid-century and pre-war homes.

The investment, made in partnership with sponsor Capitol Rock Partners, a vertically integrated Washington, D.C., real estate platform, closed alongside senior financing from Hingham Institution for Savings. It keeps the portfolio’s existing units under the District’s rent control protections, preserving rents at levels affordable to the local workforce. With support from Aya Enterprises, the transaction preserves long-term affordability in one of the District’s most supply-constrained submarkets without displacing current residents. NJCC structures preferred equity investments like this one to complement senior debt rather than compete with it, giving sponsors the capital flexibility to acquire and stabilize naturally occurring affordable and workforce housing in markets where new construction cannot keep pace with demand.

“Preserving naturally occurring workforce housing takes capital that understands both the financial structure and the residents who depend on it,” said Bernel Hall, President and CEO of NJCC. “This investment protects 118 units of stable, affordable housing in a part of the District where that stability is getting harder to find every year — rather than waiting to replace it after it’s gone.”

Cameron Webb and Felipe Ernst, Co-Founders of Capitol Rock Partners, added, “Having been raised in Washington, D.C., it is especially meaningful to preserve quality, affordable housing in the city that shaped us. We are excited to partner with NJCC to invest in these properties responsibly and support long-term stability for the residents and communities they serve.”

About New Jersey Community Capital

New Jersey Community Capital is a nonprofit community development financial institution dedicated to advancing opportunity through strategic investments and knowledge-based programs. It finances and supports individuals, businesses, educational organizations, and communities; preserves and develops affordable housing, community facilities, and educational facilities; and creates sustainable economic development generating quality jobs, improving education, and strengthening neighborhoods, ensuring that communities can thrive. Founded in 1987, NJCC is a critical architect of community development initiatives, driving economic stability and wealth generation in overlooked areas.

SOURCE New Jersey Community Capital

Valency joins Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s HERALD project, giving AI agents a first pass through a vast archive of nuclear power research so human experts can focus on the judgment calls that matter.

BERKELEY, Calif., July 22, 2026 — Valency, provider of foundational infrastructure for human-centered, AI-accelerated science, today announced its selection for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission. Valency joins Genesis as a funded partner in HERALD, a collaboration led by senior scientists Daniela Ushizima and Peter Nugent at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to use special-purpose AI agents as a tool to empower human security experts to review the vast archive of nuclear power research. 

“Most document systems were built to store files and help people find them – not for AI agents that need to read, reason across, and act on huge collections of documents alongside human experts,” said Joshua Bloom, CEO of Valency. “That’s the infrastructure we’ve been building, and HERALD is a critical proving ground. We couldn’t have asked for a more meaningful scientific mission and partnership.”

“To advance nuclear power, we must unlock invaluable research trapped behind security reviews. HERALD will build AI to safely vet this trove of legacy data while maintaining the strict, auditable proof required for compliance,” said Dr. Daniela Ushizima, Berkeley Lab Senior Scientist and Principal Investigator of the Genesis Mission’s HERALD project in collaboration with Valency.

“The Valency Hub gives us something no research prototype offers: a production platform where every document, every AI verdict, and every reviewer decision is tracked in an auditable chain of custody. That’s what turns a promising classifier into infrastructure the DOE complex can actually trust and deploy,” said Peter Nugent, Division Deputy for Science for Berkeley Lab’s Applied Math and Computational Research Division and Systems Integration Lead for HERALD.

As part of the award, Valency powers the AI agent infrastructure behind HERALD: a system built to support hundreds of millions of scientific documents, many AI agents working at once, and a large group of human reviewers, all with the data provenance and controls that this work demands. Valency’s infrastructure speaks the Model Context Protocol (MCP) natively, giving HERALD’s agents a direct, structured way to work across the archive. Experts remain in charge of every decision that matters; the difference is they can spend their time on the documents that genuinely need their judgment.

About Valency

Valency is the infrastructure that keeps AI working from the real record, not a plausible-sounding approximation of it. Built to support hundreds of millions of scientific documents and the AI agents that read, reason across, and act on them, Valency provides researchers and their AI systems a grounded, current view of the record they depend on. Learn more at valency.io.

Media Contact

Matthew Work — Head of GTM

[email protected] • 415-412-4286

SOURCE Valency Systems Inc

 PawPay becomes VANE’s newest portfolio company, bringing point-of-care pet insurance payments to veterinary medicine.

LOS ANGELES, July 22, 2026 — The Veterinary Angel Network for Entrepreneurs (VANE) is pleased to announce that PawPay has become VANE’s newest portfolio company following investments by VANE members.

PawPay turns any policy into pet insurance that pays vet directly, allowing insured pet owners to pay only their deductible and coinsurance at the time of their veterinary visit. Instead of paying the entire invoice upfront and waiting days or weeks for reimbursement, PawPay verifies coverage, collects the pet owner’s portion of the bill, pays the veterinary clinic immediately, and manages reimbursement directly with the insurance carrier.

“One of the biggest frustrations for insured pet owners is having to pay the full cost of care upfront despite faithfully paying insurance premiums,” said Peter Glassman, DVM, Co-Founder of VANE. “PawPay has created an elegant solution that benefits everyone involved—pet owners gain immediate access to their insurance benefits, veterinary practices receive prompt payment, and insurers benefit from a more efficient claims process.”

Unlike financing products that place pet owners into debt, PawPay simply unlocks insurance benefits that already exist. The platform also simplifies workflow for veterinary teams by requiring only an invoice and medical record upload or email out of the PIMS, while PawPay manages coverage likelihood, claims submission, payment processing, and insurer reimbursement.  The clinic is paid in full, and PawPay works with the pet owner on any declined coverage. 

“PawPay is about removing financial friction at the moment when pet owners need care most,” said David Franklin, Co-Founder and CEO of PawPay. “We’re honored to have the support of VANE members, whose experience in animal health and veterinary medicine will be invaluable as we continue to expand partnerships with veterinary practices and insurance carriers.”

PawPay is currently onboarding veterinary practices and building deeper integrations with insurance partners for broader commercial expansion. The company has developed a fully functional patent-pending platform and continues to build relationships across the pet ecosystem.

VANE congratulates the PawPay team and looks forward to supporting the company’s continued growth as it modernizes one of the fastest-growing segments of companion animal healthcare.

About VANE:

The Veterinary Angel Network (VANE) is the only angel investment community dedicated exclusively to early-stage innovation in animal health. VANE connects promising startups with a network of experienced veterinarians and industry leaders who invest individually and help guide companies through mentorship, expertise, and industry relationships.

About PawPay:

PawPay is a comprehensive veterinary payment and insurance activation platform that allows clinics to receive direct, instant insurance payments at checkout. By serving as an authorized collection agent, the platform enables pet parents to pay only their direct out-of-pocket share while paying the clinic in full within minutes. Built with clinic profitability and workflow ease in mind, PawPay is entirely free for veterinary practices to join, offers transaction fees lower than traditional credit cards, and features an intuitive digital portal backed by rapid staff training and dedicated customer support. Learn more about their services at www.pawpay.com.

SOURCE PawPay LLC; Veterinary Angel Network for Entrepreneurs (VANE)

New round led by Inovia Capital backs a reasoning-based architecture designed for attacks that bypass traditional email security

SAN FRANCISCO, July 22, 2026 — StrongestLayer, the AI-native email security company, today announced it has raised $4.1 million in new funding, bringing total seed funding to $9.3 million. The round was led by Inovia Capital with participation from existing investor Sorenson Capital, and new investors LaunchPod, Alumni Ventures, and Chris Key, former Chief Product Officer of Mandiant.

The funding follows a year of rapid product and customer growth as enterprises confront a new generation of email threats that increasingly evade traditional detection methods.

Since launching, StrongestLayer has experienced rapid product and customer momentum, with production deployments growing more than eightfold since the company announced its initial funding twelve months ago.

The new funding will support continued investment in GTM and platform expansion as the company prepares for its next phase of growth and a planned Series A.

The Attacks Email Security Was Not Built to Stop

StrongestLayer analyzed thousands of detections across enterprise environments between December 2025 and February 2026 and found that more than one-third of attacks reaching inboxes cannot be reliably detected using the pattern-matching and behavioral techniques that underpin most existing email security platforms.

Many of the attacks causing the most damage today bypass the signals that email security products have historically relied on to make detection decisions. These attacks look legitimate on the surface. Some steal authenticated sessions after users successfully log in. Others are delivered through trusted platforms and services that pass authentication checks. Increasingly, business email compromise, executive impersonation, and vendor fraud schemes contain no malicious links or attachments at all, relying instead on persuasive language and social engineering.

“Every generation of email security was built to recognize attacks it had seen before,” said Alan LeFort, co-founder and CEO of StrongestLayer. “That worked when attackers reused templates and infrastructure. It does not work when every attack is unique. We didn’t build a better filter. We built a system that reasons about whether a message is legitimate and whether it intends harm.”

Moving Beyond Pattern Matching

Instead of relying on signatures, reputation databases, or historical attack patterns, StrongestLayer uses a reasoning-based architecture designed to investigate intent. The platform builds arguments for legitimacy and maliciousness, then weighs the evidence before reaching a verdict. Because the system reasons against the context of the organization it protects, it does not depend on having seen an attack before to identify it.

Within months of its first release, StrongestLayer has won multiple competitive evaluations against both legacy secure email gateways and newer platforms claiming to be “AI-powered” by consistently identifying attacks those systems missed.

“We led this round because StrongestLayer achieved incumbent-displacing capability with a fraction of the capital many companies in this category required simply to get to market,” said Taha Mubashir, Partner at Inovia Capital. “The team is demonstrating what becomes possible when AI is the foundation of the architecture rather than an enhancement layered onto older approaches.”

“We invest in teams that build smarter, and StrongestLayer is a clear example of that philosophy,” said Ken Elefant, Managing Partner at Sorenson Capital. “Alan and his team have woven AI into the fabric of StrongestLayer, from product development to go-to-market, creating a capital-efficient engine purpose-built for today’s threat landscape. Legacy email security tools weren’t built to catch today’s AI-generated attacks, and StrongestLayer identified that gap, delivering a comprehensive solution to customers.”

“Having spent years evaluating whether security controls actually stop real attacks, I believe StrongestLayer is taking the right architectural approach for where email security is headed,” said Chris Key, former Chief Product Officer of Mandiant and an investor in StrongestLayer. “Attackers are moving beyond reusable templates, known infrastructure, and obvious payloads. Defenders need systems that can reason through intent and business context, and that is what makes StrongestLayer so compelling.”

StrongestLayer’s threat research, including its taxonomy of 44 email attack subtypes and the detection framework behind these findings, is available to the security community at tools.strongestlayer.org.

About StrongestLayer

StrongestLayer is the AI-native email security company founded in 2024. Its reasoning-based platform detects and stops advanced phishing, adversary-in-the-middle attacks, and business email compromise by analyzing the intent and business context of a message rather than matching it against known patterns. The company is based in San Francisco. Learn more at strongestlayer.com.

About Inovia Capital

Inovia Capital is Canada’s leading multi-stage software investor, partnering with founders to build impactful and enduring global companies. With three investment strategies—Discovery, Venture, and Growth—the team leverages an operator-led mindset to provide founders with multi-stage support, mentorship, and access to a worldwide network. Inovia manages over USD $2.5B with operations in Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Calgary, Bay Area, London and Abu Dhabi. For more information, visit inovia.vc.

SOURCE StrongestLayer

Landmark exits, including the largest private biotech M&A deal on record, drove returns that CI will reinvest in Connecticut’s innovation economy

NEW HAVEN, Conn., July 22, 2026 — Connecticut Innovations (CI), the state’s strategic venture capital arm, today announced a record-breaking fiscal year, generating $66.5 million in cash proceeds from a series of landmark portfolio exits and a combined $76.1 million from all investment activities. CI invested $59.3 million in 75 early-stage companies and venture funds during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2026, with those deals leveraging an additional $1.2 billion in outside capital.

This fiscal year’s proceeds were driven by several significant portfolio exits, including but not limited to:

• Halda Therapeutics (Acquired by Johnson & Johnson for $3.05 billion)
• Quantum Circuits Inc. (Acquired by D-Wave Quantum for $550 million)
• Veradermics (NYSE IPO; raised $256.3 million)

“This was a landmark year for Connecticut Innovations and for the state’s innovation economy,” said Matt McCooe, CEO of Connecticut Innovations. “The success of Halda Therapeutics and Veradermics—respectively becoming the largest private biotech M&A transaction and the best-performing biotech IPO in the market at the time—demonstrates the trajectory New Haven and Connecticut are on as they continue to emerge as global leaders in life sciences innovation.”

Throughout the fiscal year, CI continued to build on its role as a catalyst for Connecticut’s venture ecosystem through initiatives including the third annual Tour de Connecticut, a statewide bike ride showcasing innovation across the state; the second annual Talent Fair, connecting the next generation of innovators with CI portfolio companies eager to hire; and the launch of its AI/Q Fund, targeting scalable commercial AI and quantum ventures.

“The acquisition of Quantum Circuits Inc. marks an exciting milestone for Connecticut’s quantum ecosystem and reinforces the opportunity we see every day through our AI/Q Fund,” said Gwen Cheni, director of the AI/Q Fund. “We’re already investing in exceptional founders building AI and quantum companies, and we believe this is just the beginning of a new wave of innovation that will create lasting economic impact for the state.”

About Connecticut Innovations
Connecticut Innovations (CI) is Connecticut’s strategic venture capital arm and the leading source of financing and ongoing support for innovative, growing companies. By offering equity and debt investments, strategic guidance and introductions to valuable partners, CI helps promising businesses thrive. For more information, visit http://www.ctinnovations.com.

Media Contact:
Lauren Carmody
Connecticut Innovations
860.258.7829
[email protected]

SOURCE Connecticut Innovations