Proceeds will be used to advance the company’s AI-native cardiovascular platform and expand partnerships with health plans and cardiology practices nationwide

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., July 21, 2026 — Karoo Health, a cardiovascular technology company building an operating system supporting cardiac care, today announced the closing of a $16.2 million Series A financing round co-led by 7wire Ventures and Allumia Ventures, with participation from First Trust Capital Partners, LLC, SpringRock Ventures, Hyde Park Angels (HPA), and other marquee investors.

As part of the financing, Lee Shapiro, Managing Partner at 7wire Ventures, and Jeff Stolte, Managing Partner at Allumia Ventures, will join Karoo’s Board of Directors.

Karoo is building an operating system for cardiovascular care, a technology platform designed to connect payers, providers, and patients through a unified data and workflow layer that supports earlier risk detection, care coordination, and overall improved cardiovascular disease outcomes.

The company’s mission is to free people from the pain of cardiovascular disease at scale through earlier detection, improved coordination, and data-driven care delivery.

“We’re at a seminal moment in our country’s fight against cardiovascular disease,” said Karoo Health CEO and Cofounder Ian Koons. “We intend to use this capital to take another major step toward becoming the solution that enables every American to access earlier, more coordinated, and more effective cardiovascular care.”

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading driver of healthcare costs in the United States, and care delivery remains fractured across clinical systems, claims data, pharmacy records, and care teams. This fragmentation contributes to delayed intervention, inconsistent chronic disease management, and avoidable hospital utilization, procedures, and testing.

“The challenge in cardiovascular care today isn’t a shortage of innovation but a system too fragmented to deliver it consistently,” said Lee Shapiro, Managing Partner of 7wire Ventures. “That fragmentation is precisely the kind of problem the right technology can solve. Karoo is creating the connective layer that lets care teams act on a complete picture of each patient, and its deployments are already producing meaningful reductions in avoidable utilization and cost. We are proud to co-lead this round.”

Today, Karoo supports a network of more than 600 cardiology providers across 11 states, operates programs with leading national and regional health plans and is launching with others later this year.

In deployed programs, independent analyses reported reductions of more than 40% in emergency department visits and inpatient admissions, and early results show a greater than 10% reduction in total cost of care throughout attributed populations.

“We’ve been waiting for a company with the technology, clinical vision, and leadership team capable of fundamentally changing how cardiac care is delivered. We believe Karoo Health is that company, and we’re proud to support their mission to improve outcomes for patients at scale while helping build a more proactive, connected, and effective model for cardiovascular care,” said Jeff Stolte, Managing Partner at Allumia Ventures.

Karoo will use proceeds from the financing to further develop its AI-native cardiovascular platform, including continued development of predictive models, clinical signal detection capabilities, and care coordination infrastructure. The company also plans to expand its engineering and clinical teams and continue scaling deployments with payer and provider partners.

About Karoo Health

Karoo Health is a cardiovascular technology company building the operating system for cardiovascular care. The company connects clinical, claims, pharmacy, and patient data to enable earlier risk detection, coordinated care, improved outcomes, and lower costs. Connect with the company on LinkedIn.

About 7wire Ventures

7wire Ventures is a venture capital firm investing in early-stage digital health companies that empower consumers to take greater control of their health and well-being. The firm focuses on technologies that advance a more connected, consumer-centric healthcare ecosystem. Founded by experienced operators and investors, 7wire partners closely with entrepreneurs to build category-defining companies, including Livongo, which merged with Teladoc Health in an $18.5 billion transaction. Through its operator-led approach and network of Strategic Limited Partners, including health plans, health systems, life sciences organizations, and self-insured employers, 7wire helps portfolio companies accelerate growth, expand market access, and drive meaningful innovation across healthcare. For more information, visit www.7wireventures.com.

About Allumia Ventures

Allumia Ventures is a leading healthcare venture capital firm focused on identifying and investing in best-in-class commercial-stage healthcare companies transforming healthcare through innovative technologies and care models. More than a source of capital, Allumia partners closely with entrepreneurs to accelerate adoption by leveraging deep relationships across the healthcare ecosystem and an extensive network of health systems and industry leaders. With roots in Providence, one of the nation’s largest integrated delivery networks, Allumia combines strategic expertise with a disciplined investment approach to help build companies that improve healthcare and deliver lasting impact. Connect with Allumia Ventures at www.allumiaventures.com.

SOURCE Karoo Health Inc

MONS, Belgium, July 21, 2026 — I-care Group, a global leader in Predictive Maintenance (PdM) and reliability solutions, today announced it has invested $25 million in its American subsidiary, reinforcing its long-term commitment to the United States and accelerating the expansion of its commercial and operational presence in one of the world’s largest industrial markets.

“With our established industrial customer base and increasing demand for our predictive maintenance and reliability solutions, the United States plays a central role in I-care’s long-term international development strategy and one of the Group’s strongest growth opportunities,” said Fabrice Brion, CEO of I-care Group. “This investment signals a commitment to I-care’s established presence in the United States, reinforcing its ability to serve industrial customers locally and supporting the company’s next phase of growth nationwide.”

The $25 million investment supports the expansion of I-care Reliability Inc.’s engineering, reliability, sales and marketing teams, reinforcing the company’s ability to serve customers through stronger local teams and a closer presence in the field.

“The United States is one of the world’s most dynamic markets for industrial innovation,” said Fabrice Brion, CEO of I-care Group. “More and more organizations are looking beyond individual technologies and want partners that combine advanced solutions with engineering expertise, reliability services, and long-term support. Strengthening I-care Reliability Inc. allows us to be even closer to our customers, helping them improve the reliability, productivity, and sustainability of their operations while accelerating the adoption of predictive maintenance across American industry.”

The investments in I-care Reliability Inc. are the latest milestone in I-care’s long-term growth strategy. Over the past few years, the Group has invested more than $50 million in developing its Wi-care™ technology, the I-see™ analytics platform, and its new IoT manufacturing facility in Belgium. These investments have expanded I-care’s innovation capabilities, strengthened its manufacturing footprint, and supported its continued international growth.

This long-term investment strategy has reinforced I-care’s position as a global leader in predictive maintenance and helped the company achieve unicorn status in 2025, with a valuation exceeding $1 billion.

About I-care

I-care is a global leader in predictive maintenance, helping industries optimize reliability and performance. With advanced technologies, including Wi-care™ vibration sensors and I-see™, an AI-driven platform, I-care monitors hundreds of thousands of machines worldwide and delivers actionable insights to external systems. Founded in 2004 in Belgium, I-care employs over 1,000 professionals across +35 offices in +15 countries, serving clients in more than 55 nations. Recognized for innovation, I-care has earned awards such as ADM’s Supplier Award, the Factory Innovation Award at Hannover Messe, and the Solutions Award at The Reliability Conference.

Learn more at www.icareweb.com.

SOURCE I-care

Led by Silicon Valley veteran Ari Zilka, the company unveils open-source SmartHub and commercial suite that is slashing production costs nearly 90% for a growing roster of Fortune 500 enterprises

SAN FRANCISCO, July 21, 2026 — MyDecisive today announced its emergence from stealth mode alongside a $12 million funding round. Founded in 2023 by Silicon Valley veteran and serial entrepreneur Ari Zilka, MyDecisive is launching a proven open-source foundation, SmartHub, and a suite of commercial products already driving value for some of the world’s largest enterprises.

As organizations move from AI experimentation to full-scale deployment, they face a growing challenge: human and AI developers are changing systems continuously, but most companies lack the visibility and capabilities to govern those changes safely at scale. MyDecisive closes that gap — giving enterprises an AI DevOps solution that keeps pace with every change, and with the resulting performance, security, and cost data production systems emit so enterprises can act instantly even under pressure before change becomes crisis.

“I know the cost of failed incident response from my days leading e-commerce operations, and as an investor, I’ve been looking for a true architectural shift to solve it. MyDecisive is that shift,” said Jason Pressman, MD of Copper Sky Capital. “They deliver exactly what the enterprise needs today: an autonomous system that resolves errors and prevents outages before human intervention is even required. Moving to AI DevOps is how companies will survive the next decade of compute. Ari and the MyDecisive team are executing on a vision that no one else has been able to figure out.”

Open-Source Foundation and Commercial Suite

MyDecisive’s architecture operates precisely where modern enterprises need it most as they adopt AI: at the edge, inside their own cloud and on-premise.

• SmartHub (The Open-Source Foundation): Built as a Kubernetes and OpenTelemetry-native, self-managing cluster, SmartHub gives engineering teams ultimate control over their telemetry data. It bypasses the traditional model of shipping massive, unoptimized data streams to expensive third-party dashboards.
• Octant (The Enterprise Commercial Suite): Building on top of the SmartHub foundation, MyDecisive today announced the general availability of Octant. This suite of enterprise-ready products seamlessly integrates with SmartHub to provide advanced governance, robust security protocols, and out-of-the-box automation.

Octant cuts enterprise time-to-value down to a single day. Capabilities like enhanced error management, self-trained anomaly detection with automated runbook execution, cloud auto-scaling, and security log optimization can be added by any engineer in hours, reducing the total operating cost of production systems by nearly 90%.

“For the past three years, we have been quietly building the infrastructure that enterprises actually need, rather than the hype they’ve been sold,” said Ari Zilka, Founder and CEO of MyDecisive. “By rooting our commercial offerings in the open-source SmartHub platform, we are giving organizations the flexibility of open standards combined with the power and security of enterprise-grade tooling. Our customers aren’t just testing our AI; they are operating it in production at scale, with immediate same-day value.”

Enterprise Market Momentum

MyDecisive exits stealth with significant market traction. The company is already powering production workloads for major enterprise customers and boasts an accelerating pipeline of successful deployments across the financial services, retail, telecommunications, and healthcare sectors.

“When IT leaders are ready to fully optimize their production observability posture, they turn to Intelli Platforms. Powered by MyDecisive, we look beyond basic cost control to holistically optimize production operations,” said Ross Mistretta, Chief Technology & Delivery Officer at Intelli Platforms. “This delivers bulletproof stability and precise control over all production costs, not just the observability tax. We are actively working with a premier roster of enterprise operations teams who have hit a wall with standard dashboards and endless MTTx cycles, and are demanding a smarter, autonomous path forward.”

To learn more about MyDecisive, the SmartHub platform, and its suite of enterprise products, visit mydecisive.ai.

About MyDecisive

MyDecisive is the AI DevOps platform that unifies engineering, operations, and FinOps to secure and scale mission-critical applications. Built on the open-source SmartHub foundation, MyDecisive intercepts telemetry at the edge, enabling enterprises to autonomously resolve incidents, govern AI workloads, and drastically reduce production observability costs. Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Silicon Valley, MyDecisive powers the infrastructure of the world’s most demanding organizations, ensuring legacy and AI systems run flawlessly side by side. For more information, visit www.mydecisive.ai.

SOURCE MyDecisive

Chief Revenue Officer, Vice President of Customer Success, and Senior Vice President of People join Assort Health following its $120 million Series C and accelerating customer demand to scale the most widely-used AI agents platform for the patient journey

SAN FRANCISCO, July 21, 2026 — Assort Health, the most widely-used AI agents platform for the patient journey, today announced three senior executive hires, including Jon Corn as Chief Revenue Officer, Kristina Kemp as Vice President of Customer Success, and Emil Yeargin as Senior Vice President of People.

These appointments come as health systems and provider groups move beyond AI pilots and point solutions toward enterprise-scale platforms that automate patient access across scheduling, intake, referrals, medication refills, lab requests, and payments. As more organizations standardize on a single AI platform, Assort is expanding its commercial, customer, and organizational leadership to meet accelerating demand.

The leadership expansion follows Assort’s $120 million Series C financing, led by Menlo Ventures, bringing total funding to $222 million, and comes just weeks after more than 200 healthcare leaders gathered at the company’s annual Ascend customer summit.

Over the last 15 months, Assort has grown revenue 20x while expanding its platform across the healthcare front office. Today, Assort’s platform is powered by more than 200 million patient interactions, 62,000 care protocols, and 1.6 million decision pathways, creating the largest proprietary specialty dataset in healthcare.

“Building great AI is only part of the challenge,” said Jon Wang, founder and co-CEO of Assort Health. “Turning it into the AI agents platform for the country’s largest provider groups and health systems requires a different kind of company. Jon, Kristina, and Emil have each helped organizations navigate moments like this before. They’ll help us grow without losing the speed, customer focus, and product discipline that got us here.”

Jon Corn joins as Chief Revenue Officer

Jon Corn joins Assort as Chief Revenue Officer following a tenure at Samsara, where he helped build a GTM engine that wins large, complex customers. He grew the company’s enterprise annual recurring revenue by 1,220% and built an organization of more than 100 team members, leading the company’s first Fortune 10 customer relationship. In his new role, he will lead Assort’s go-to-market team with a focus on large-scale health systems and provider groups.

“Healthcare leaders aren’t looking for another AI vendor. They’re looking for a platform they can trust to become part of how they operate,” said Corn. “What convinced me to join Assort wasn’t just the technology. It was the combination of deep healthcare expertise, extraordinary customer trust, and a product that’s already delivering meaningful results at scale. That’s incredibly rare.”

Kristina Kemp joins as Vice President of Customer Success

After advising Assort for the past 15 months, Kristina Kemp joins the company now full-time as Vice President of Customer Success. She previously spent nearly seven years leading customer success at Luma Health, where she helped make expansion revenue the company’s largest driver of growth. At Assort, she will help healthcare organizations maximize the value of the platform while building long-term strategic partnerships.

Emil Yeargin joins as Senior Vice President of People

Emil Yeargin joins Assort as Senior Vice President of People to build the organization required for the company’s next stage of growth. Most recently at Squint, he doubled headcount while building the systems and leadership practices needed to scale rapidly. Earlier leadership roles at Gusto, Lyft, and Okta gave him experience helping high-growth companies navigate periods of rapid expansion. At Assort, he will lead the company’s people strategy, real estate portfolio, organizational development, and talent programs.

“Building an enduring company means raising the bar with every hire,” said Jeffery Liu, Founder and Co-CEO of Assort Health. “Jon, Kristina, and Emil bring experience we’ve never had before, and they’ll make everyone around them better. That’s how great organizations compound: not just through technology, but through the people who build it together.”

Assort plans to continue expanding across engineering, operations, customer success, and go-to-market throughout 2026.

For more information, visit assorthealth.com.

About Assort Health

Assort Health is the most-widely used AI agents platform for the patient journey, from scheduling and intake to referrals, forms, document processing, medication refills, and payments. It is built on 200 million specialty patient interactions and a model that updates in real time to handle the complexity of healthcare that general-purpose AI can’t. That foundation now powers patient access across multi-site practices, multi-specialty groups, and health systems. Customers see a 5% lift in appointment volume, a 115% increase in labor capacity, and a 4.3 out of 5 patient satisfaction score. The platform integrates natively with leading EHR and practice management systems, including Epic and Athena, enabling deployment without disrupting existing clinical workflows. Provider groups and health systems turn to Assort when the complexity outgrows their existing tools. To learn more, visit assorthealth.com.

Media Contact: Kara Spak, 120/80 MKTG, [email protected]

SOURCE Assort Health

Dr. Haumann brings decades of respiratory drug expertise to support next phase of company growth

CEO appointment follows recent clinical and corporate milestones including Phase 2b CARDINAL trial initiation and Series B financing

ATLANTA, July 21, 2026 — Altesa BioSciences, a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company dedicated to improving the lives of people with chronic lung diseases including COPD and asthma, today announced the appointment of Brett Haumann, MBBCh, MBA as Chief Executive Officer.

Dr. Haumann has been serving as a non-executive member of the Altesa Board and joins the executive team at a time of accelerating momentum, following the company’s oversubscribed $75 million Series B round and launch of the Phase 2b CARDINAL study evaluating vapendavir for its potential as a transformational treatment for rhinovirus in patients with COPD — the leading cause of acute exacerbations.

“Dr. Haumann’s deep experience building and leading global respiratory and anti-infective programs makes him the ideal leader for Altesa at this pivotal juncture,” said Moncef Slaoui, Board Chair of Altesa BioSciences, and former Chairman of both Global Research and Development and the Vaccine Division at GSK, and former Chief Scientific Advisor to the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed. “His track record, vision, and operational excellence align perfectly with Altesa’s next phase — advancing our late-stage asset and broadening our impact on chronic lung disease. With Brett at the helm, I am confident we will deliver on the promise of vapendavir for patients and caregivers whose needs have gone unmet for too long.”

A 30-year industry veteran recognized for his leadership in respiratory medicine, Dr. Haumann most recently served as CEO of RIGImmune and previously held Chief Medical Officer roles at Circassia, Theravance Biopharma, and ReViral, spanning both public and private biotechs in the U.S. and U.K. Earlier at GSK — alongside Dr. Katharine Knobil, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Altesa BioSciences, and Dr. Slaoui — Dr. Haumann led programs from early drug discovery through commercialization across anti-infectives, immunology and respiratory portfolios. Dr. Haumann has also served as a non-executive director on a number of private and public biotech boards, and as a venture partner with SV Health Investors.

“Altesa is an incredibly exciting company with a remarkable focus on patients,” said Dr. Haumann. “The innovative new science underpinning vapendavir — and the rapid progress achieved by this extraordinary team this year, including the initiation of the Phase 2b CARDINAL study in COPD — are testimony to the company’s laser focus and firm commitment to advancing vapendavir. I am honored to lead Altesa at this key moment in time and look forward to delivering on the company’s mission to meaningfully improve the lives of patients with chronic respiratory disease.”

About Vapendavir
Vapendavir is an investigational oral medicine in development by Altesa BioSciences. Recently, Altesa announced that vapendavir improved symptoms, reduced duration of illness and viral load, and maintained small airway function in COPD patients experimentally challenged with rhinovirus in a Phase 2a trial. Vapendavir is now in late-stage clinical development and, if approved, has the potential to prevent the most common cause of COPD exacerbations, improve quality of life, and generate significant reductions in healthcare costs.

About the CARDINAL Study
The CARDINAL clinical trial is a Phase 2b multinational, randomized, placebo-controlled study in COPD patients experiencing rhinovirus infections that will enroll 900 people with COPD across the U.S. and U.K. The trial was designed to reflect real-world care models, proactively identifying and supporting those at greatest risk. Participants will be closely monitored over time and, upon confirmed rhinovirus infection, will be randomized to receive one of two doses of vapendavir or placebo. The trial’s primary objective is to assess improvement in respiratory symptoms using established patient-reported outcomes, with additional endpoints evaluating time to symptom resolution, quality of life, healthcare resource utilization, and lung function.

About Altesa BioSciences, Inc.
Altesa BioSciences is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company led by global experts in respiratory medicine and infectious diseases. Altesa is dedicated to improving the lives of people with chronic lung diseases, including COPD and asthma, by treating the principal cause of exacerbations and pathological inflammation — viral respiratory infections. www.altesa.com

Media Contact: Peg Rusconi
Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Altesa Biosciences Inc.

HANGZHOU, China, July 21, 2026 — Tuya Smart (NYSE: TUYA, HKEX: 2391), a leading global AI cloud platform service provider, made a strategic investment in Robopoet’s recently closed RMB 100 million pre-A financing round. The round also drew participation from existing backers Sequoia China and GSR Ventures, along with two other new investors. Tuya’s investment signals its accelerating push to close the commercialization loop for physical AI.

Behind the Investment: From AI Development to Global Expansion

Tuya’s strategic investment comes as Robopoet’s debut product Fuzozo has achieved cumulative domestic sales approaching 300,000 units as of June 2026. The two companies’ partnership dates to 2025, when Tuya began providing the underlying global AI cloud platform that helped transform this compact, plush, eye-blinking AI emotional companion into a market sensation.

“2026 marks the critical window for AI hardware to be commercialized at scale. Market-validated, AI-native hardware is entering a phase of explosive growth,” said Alex Yang, Co-founder, COO and CFO of Tuya Smart.

The strategic rationale goes beyond a bet on a single product category. It reflects a broader vision for AI hardware commercialization. As AI advances from models to real-world applications, AI hardware is emerging as a key bridge connecting the technology with consumers. From AI robots and toys to smart home devices, intelligent products are evolving into proactive AI companions. Through its AI+IoT ecosystem, Tuya will continue to drive the convergence of AI and the physical world.

Strong Market Validation of AI Toy Solutions

During the 618 Shopping Festival, China’s largest mid-year online shopping event, Tuya’s empowerment model proved its effectiveness at scale: Fuzozo sold 40,000 units, ranking first in Tmall’s AI toy category, while other Tuya-empowered AI Toy products collectively demonstrated ecosystem-wide momentum: Walulu sold 8,000 units; AOOMII Smart AI Companion Robot, AI Scruffy Cat and Wozzi each reached approximately 5,000 units in sales; and Famue landed on JD.com’s Smart Robot Gold List.

Despite their diverse forms and purposes, these products share a common foundation: Tuya provided critical support in either product innovation or market expansion. On the R&D side, Tuya AI Development Platform helped products rapidly navigate the journey from concept to mass production. On the market side, Tuya opened its localized operational resources and channel access capabilities, paving the way for brands like Fuzozo to enter the global market.

The breakout of these AI hardware products not only confirms that AI hardware is entering the public’s daily life but also validates the maturity and replicability of the AI hardware empowerment model.

Empowering Physical AI Innovation with Full-Stack AI Capability

Underpinning this push is a comprehensive full-stack AI toolkit designed to lower barriers for hardware developers. Tuya has deployed a suite of proprietary technologies including the Personal Voice Activity Detection (PVAD) model, Physical AI Foundation V2.8, WukongAI 3.0, T-RTC real-time communication network, Physical Action Model, and OmniMem V2.0 long-term memory system.

Looking ahead, Tuya will continue to open its global AI cloud platform capabilities and overseas resources to support AI hardware innovators and the emerging “One Person Company” model. Through strategic investments such as Robopoet, Tuya aims to build a new growth model centered on AI platform empowerment, ecosystem collaboration, and global commercialization of AI hardware innovations.

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/3007018/20260721160654_32_1.jpg

New funding round led by Tiger Global accelerates Augustus’ mission to dollarize the world—giving financial institutions around the world direct, programmable access to dollar accounts and rails through a modern, federally chartered bank

NEW YORK, July 21, 2026 — Augustus, building the Global Dollar Bank, today announced a $180 million Series B at a $1 billion valuation. The round was led by Tiger Global, with participation from Hummingbird, QED, and the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Circle, and Deel.

This new funding accelerates Augustus’ mission to dollarize the world—giving financial institutions around the world direct access to dollar accounts and rails through a modern, federally chartered bank. Augustus will use the capital to continue to serve leading fintechs and banks in Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Augustus’ API-first platform supports operating and FBO accounts with named virtual accounts. Customers can transact with first and third parties via Swift, ACH, SEPA, and stablecoins. Augustus will continue to invest in its proprietary core banking platform Marble, which enables faster settlement times and 24/7/365 availability by deploying AI across the bank’s back office.

The financing follows Augustus’ conditional approval for a U.S. national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in May, making Augustus the eighth bank to receive conditional approval since 2010. The conditional approval established Augustus as one of the few technology companies authorized to build federally regulated banking infrastructure in the U.S. from the ground up, enabling the company to provide customers with direct access to dollars, rather than relying on layers of intermediary banks and fintechs.

“We started Augustus with a simple thesis: the Dollar is the greatest product in the world but its distribution is fundamentally broken,” said Ferdinand Dabitz, CEO and Co-Founder of Augustus. “This financing lets us execute on our mission to provide high-quality dollar access to international fintechs and banks. It’s time to dollarize the world.”

“After three decades in banking, I’ll say it plainly: you don’t get meaningful innovation by patching legacy infrastructure. You build something new from the foundation up,” said Greg Quarles, President of Augustus. “That’s what Augustus is: modern, proprietary technology fused with the full capabilities of a federally chartered bank into a single integrated platform. In my entire career, I have not seen anything like it.”

“Correspondent banking is the last remaining part of the bank stack that hasn’t been challenged yet by fintechs. Global fintechs and banks have been left either with slow, low-tech incumbent correspondent banks, or middleware fintech providers,” said Nigel Morris, Co-Founder of Capital One and Managing Partner at QED Investors. “Augustus solves this by combining cutting-edge technology with a real bank charter, providing international financial institutions with a modern, direct dollar clearing platform.”

Augustus is built at a time when Western currency dominance is being challenged. China has recently launched the Digital Yuan, and Russia is proposing BRICS Pay as an alternative clearing system. By providing a distinctly Western alternative to these ideas, Augustus hopes to help secure and advance Dollar and Euro dominance for the decades to come.

The round also received backing from leading fintech and AI founders, including David Velez (Nubank), Karim Atiyeh (Ramp), Sean Neville (Circle), Alex Bouaziz (Deel), Victor Cardenas (Slash), Alan Chang (CRO Revolut), Balaji Srinivasan (CTO Coinbase), Farooq Malik (Rain), Gavin Uberti (Etched), Victor Riparbelli (Synthesia), Alexander Rinke (Celonis), Jamie Cox (Fluidstack), and Jan Oberhauser (n8n). Additional investors include Soma Capital, Road Capital Management, CMT Digital, Brevan Howard Digital, and Variant.

Augustus is led by a team of banking, payments, and regulatory veterans with decades of experience building, supervising, and operating financial institutions. Its leadership includes Greg Quarles, former bank CEO and senior regulator at the OCC; Benjamin Alexander, former Chief Compliance Officer at Column and executive at JPMorgan and HSBC; and senior leaders whose backgrounds span banking regulation, payments infrastructure, compliance, and global financial services.

About Augustus
Augustus is building the Global Dollar Bank—a modern clearing bank built to provide dollar access to international fintechs and banks. Augustus is already processing billions for market leaders like Kraken today. Augustus was founded in 2022 by Ferdinand Dabitz, Joshua Becker, Simon Wimmer, and Peter Lieck, and has raised $210 million. Augustus is backed by Tiger Global, Hummingbird, QED, and the founders of companies like Ramp, Nubank, Deel, and Circle.

CONTACT: [email protected]

SOURCE Augustus

Investment accelerates the next generation of physical security by combining AI Operators, embedded AI video intelligence and existing security infrastructure into one intelligent operating experience.

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla., July 21, 2026 — Alocity today announced the successful completion of its Series A Round, led by a private investor group alongside its founder Marco Quintero. The investment will accelerate product innovation, expand the company’s engineering, sales and marketing organizations, and scale its growing network of security integration partners.

The capital raise comes at a defining moment for enterprise software. As artificial intelligence becomes part of everyday work, users no longer expect to learn increasingly complex applications—they expect technology to understand them. Alocity believes that the same transformation is now coming to physical security.

At the center of the platform is Aimee, Alocity’s AI Operator for Physical Spaces. Rather than navigating multiple applications, operators simply describe what they want to accomplish. Aimee understands intent, reasons across connected systems, executes authorized actions and maintains a complete audit trail. Access control, AI video intelligence, visitor management, intercom communications and intelligent workflows become one seamless operating experience instead of a collection of disconnected applications.

“The last year marked a fundamental shift,” said Marco Quintero, Founder and CEO of Alocity. “Artificial intelligence has become part of people’s everyday lives, fundamentally changing what users expect from enterprise software. For decades, people had to understand how their software worked. The next generation of software understands how people work. AI isn’t changing what buildings or enterprises do—it’s changing how people interact and operate within them. We believe the future isn’t another dashboard. It’s an intelligent operator that understands intent, reasons across connected systems, and performs work on your behalf. That’s the future we built Aimee to deliver.”

Unlike traditional platforms that require organizations to replace existing infrastructure before they can modernize, Alocity was designed to unlock the value of what customers already own. Deep integration with Mercury Security controllers preserves the industry’s most trusted access control infrastructure, while the NVidia powered AiVR (Alocity’s AI embedded Digital Video Recorder) brings embedded AI intelligence to existing camera systems through secure local network processing. Together, they enable organizations to modernize both access control and video while protecting their existing investment in controllers, cameras and infrastructure.

By extending, not replacing existing security environments, Alocity lowers the cost and complexity of AI adoption while giving customers a practical path to modern physical security.

The Series A investment reflects growing confidence that artificial intelligence will reshape how organizations secure, manage and interact with their buildings. As enterprises move beyond disconnected products toward intelligent operating experiences, Alocity is uniquely positioned to bridge proven security infrastructure with the next generation of AI-powered operations.

“Physical security has spent decades adding products, features and dashboards,” said DJ Atkins, Chief Revenue Officer of Alocity. “The result has been more complexity for both integrators and their customers. We believe the next wave of innovation isn’t another product—it’s a completely different experience. One Platform. Every Space. One Intelligent Experience. That’s the future we’re building alongside our partners.”

The new capital will accelerate development of Alocity’s AI platform, expand enterprise capabilities, deepen strategic technology partnerships, support continued growth across engineering, customer success, sales and marketing.

As artificial intelligence reshapes enterprise software, Alocity is bringing that transformation to the physical world, creating a simpler, more intelligent way for people to secure, manage and interact with every space.

About Alocity
Alocity is the company behind the AI Operating System for Physical Spaces. Our platform unifies your access control, embedded AI video intelligence, visitor management, intercom communications and intelligent workflow automation into a single conversational experience powered by our AI Operator, Aimee. Built around open architecture and deep integration with Mercury/HID Security infrastructure, Alocity enables organizations to modernize physical security environments without replacing the investments they already own.

One Platform. Every Space. One Intelligent Experience.

www.alocity.com

SOURCE Alocity

With 90% Market Engagement and Key Technical Milestones, Sofab Inks Accelerates High-Velocity Manufacturing into New Markets: Automotive, Space, and IoT Markets

LOUISVILLE, Ky., July 21, 2026 — Sofab Inks, the leader in specialty materials for perovskite solar, today announced it has raised $6 million in seed funding. The round was led by strategic investor Cloudberry Ventures.

Solving the 10-Year Reliability Barrier

The funding arrives as Sofab Inks announces a major manufacturing reliability breakthrough, solving the single biggest obstacle standing between Perovskite solar and mass-market adoption: reliability at scale.

“Perovskites are the first materials class that brings tandem solar into range for utility-scale deployment, the segment behind almost all of the roughly 2,800 gigawatts installed worldwide,” said Blake Martin, co-founder and CEO of Sofab Inks. “A perovskite cell is only as good as its weakest layer, and the industry has been stuck with C60, a fullerene. It’s the largest source of voltage loss in the device and the point where fielded modules crack first. That’s the layer we replace. Our metal-oxide nanoparticles bond six to ten times more strongly than C60 and hold up at real sizes, running at 22.3% on 30-centimeter single junction modules. This funding moves us into high-velocity production as we triple our engineering team to manage the 1x to 100x scale-up for 1×2 meter commercial specs.” 

“Sofab Inks is redefining the ROI of climate investment by making solar panels significantly more efficient than anything available today. The demand for high-performance renewables is skyrocketing in the U.S., fueled by the massive energy requirements of new data centers and the AI infrastructure build-out,” said Mahir Sahin, founder and general partner of Cloudberry Ventures. “Our investment reflects our confidence in Sofab’s trajectory as they solve a critical technical bottleneck and scale production to meet the global demand for innovative materials for next-generation solar.”  

Why Perovskite Solar Matters Now

Electrification is the direction the entire energy system is moving: transport, industry, heating, and the data centers behind AI are all shifting onto the grid at once. Solar is already the cheapest source of new power on Earth, which makes it the default answer to most of that demand.

Perovskite makes utility-scale tandems work, but the technology’s reach goes wider, into places silicon isn’t positioned to serve. Perovskite films are roughly 100 times thinner than silicon and can be made at far lower temperatures, so they can be fabricated onto flexible, lightweight, and heat-sensitive surfaces like plastics. That opens solar to curved and weight-limited applications on vehicles, lightweight arrays for satellites and space, and small-format power for the growing universe of connected devices.

Reaching those markets needs cells that last, and that has been perovskite’s hardest problem. It’s the bottleneck Sofab was built to clear: replacing the fragile fullerene layer the industry settled for with nanostructured materials engineered for durability at manufacturable scale.

Market Momentum and Customer Validation

Sofab Inks is already commercially engaged or in late-stage discussions with approximately 90% of the perovskite industry, including major players such as APS, ASU, Energy Materials Corporation (EMC), Halocell and SunXT.  

APS has had the opportunity to work with Sofab for nearly two years. During this period, through use of our slot die coating technology and Perovskite PV development platform, we have witnessed Sofab make substantial progress in transforming its ink into a commercially viable material and achieving record efficiencies.  Sofab TinFab material addresses a critical challenge in perovskite solar cell manufacturing, and we are excited about the potential impact it could have in reducing production costs. APS looks forward to continuing our collaboration with Sofab, with the objective of providing customers with a total solution that integrates Sofab Tinfab materials deposited with APS slot die coating and drying systems. Miguel Friedrich, CEO at Alpha Precision Systems

“Our research group has used Tinfab extensively as a fullerene replacement and a pathway to more mechanically and operationally stable perovskite photovoltaic devices.  We have observed that fullerene-based materials are the mechanical weak link in terms of extremely low fracture energies that trigger delamination and restrict the commercial viability of perovskite-based technology. The use of Tinfab has completely overcome these challenges by providing a more mechanically robust interface (increasing fracture energy by a factor of ~5X) and a corresponding increase in durability. I see Tinfab as a necessary component for the commercialization of perovskite photovoltaics and look forward to continuing to work with Sofab on important questions related to validating long-term stability.” Dr. Nick Rolston, leader of the Renewable Energy Materials and Devices Lab at ASU

“Sofab has been an important nanoparticle ink partner during our development of high-performance Perovskite solar cells using high-speed, roll-to-roll equipment. We look forward to working with Sofab as we move toward commercialization.” Tom Tombs, CTO at Energy Materials Corporation. 

“Choosing the right materials partners is one of the most consequential decisions in next-generation solar development. Sofab Inks stood out for their deep expertise in nanoparticle inks and their commitment to enabling low-cost, scalable perovskite photovoltaics. This funding milestone is well-earned, and we’re proud to be collaborating with them as both companies grow.” Paul Moonie, CEO, Halocell Energy Ltd

“Working alongside Sofab Ink has been an outstanding and effective partnership for SunXT. Their advanced materials were instrumental in achieving remarkable stability in our fullerene-free perovskite modules for 4T tandem applications. As we launch our new R&D pilot line in Rome in 2026, we are eager to scale the use of Sofab-based modules. We believe they will accelerate the timeline for manufacturing cost-effective perovskite modules.” Francesco Di Giacomo, CTO and Co-founder of SunXT 

About Sofab Inks

Sofab Inks is a leader in novel and nanostructured materials for the solar industry. The company was spun out of the University of Louisville, Conn Center for Renewable Energy, with support from the US DoE. By focusing on high-performance electron transport layers and specialized inks, Sofab Inks is enabling the transition to mass-market production of perovskite solar applications across multiple markets and applications. For more information, visit https://www.sofabinks.com/

Nicole Conley, Tanis Communications, [email protected]

SOURCE Sofab Inks