The full-stack growth infrastructure for internet entrepreneurs—FanBasis is now backed by Left Lane Capital and leading internet investors

MIAMI, May 20, 2025 — FanBasis, an end-to-end ecosystem powering digital businesses, today announced a $20 million Series A funding round led by Left Lane Capital, with participation from notable celebrities and internet entrepreneurs Ryan Serhant, The Sidemen (via Upside Ventures), Gerard Piqué, and Connexa Capital.

FanBasis is redefining how creators build, manage, and grow high-margin, expertise-based businesses online. The platform unifies payments, fulfillment, course and community hosting, CRM, customer engagement, and business operations into one seamless tool—replacing the fragmented stack that most internet entrepreneurs rely on today. With FanBasis, creators can monetize and deliver in one place, operating with the sophistication of a full-scale business, not just a content channel.

“Creators and internet entrepreneurs don’t just need software—they need a platform that acts as a growth partner,” said Yash Daftary, Founder and CEO of FanBasis. “Today’s creators are building real businesses, and they need infrastructure that moves as fast as they do. FanBasis gives them that foundation. With this funding, we’re doubling down on our mission to power a new class of internet entrepreneurs—people turning expertise, community, and content into scalable, durable companies.”

From Content to Companies: The New Operators of the Internet Economy

The creators building on FanBasis span far beyond traditional influencers—they’re internet educators, consultants, course creators, and founders monetizing specialized expertise. What unites them is the need for professional-grade infrastructure to support what are now full-scale online businesses. Whether you’re a growth marketer selling paid advertising services, a fitness coach running challenges, or a consultant launching a digital community, FanBasis gives you the tools to build an enduring company.

FanBasis is already trusted by thousands of top digital operators worldwide that generate tens of millions monthly through the platform. With GMV tripling in the last few quarters alone, it has become the platform of choice for creators who prioritize ownership of their audience, brand, and operations.

“The creator economy is no longer about side hustles—it’s about full-scale digital businesses,” said Matt Hobbs, CFO at FanBasis. “FanBasis has shown the industry what a modern creator platform for digital products and services should look like—a solution that gives entrepreneurs real ownership, operational clarity, and the ability to grow and manage everything in one place.”

A Growing Movement of High-Profile Backers

FanBasis’ investor lineup reflects its deep roots in internet culture and its ambition to shape the future of online entrepreneurship. Alongside Left Lane Capital, backers include Ryan Serhant, a top real estate entrepreneur and media personality; KSI, Vikkstar, Zerkaa, Miniminter & The Sidemen via Upside Ventures; and Gerard Piqué, an international footballer turned investor and operator.

“FanBasis has captured a powerful shift within the creator economy—the rise of knowledge-based entrepreneurs,” said Matthew Miller, Partner at Left Lane Capital. “While much of the industry has centered around social influencers, FanBasis is building the foundation for high-value creators who monetize their expertise through coaching, courses, and webinars. By focusing on this more enterprise segment, they are paving the way for a new generation of creators—those building real revenue streams around specialized skills and insights. Many FanBasis creators earn millions of dollars per year.”

Fueling Product Innovation and Global Reach

With this funding, FanBasis will accelerate its product roadmap, expand its team, and grow its international footprint. Key initiatives include:

• Launching revenue tools that transform how entrepreneurs package and sell expertise
• Building analytics that surface which customer touchpoints drive business growth
• Expanding fulfillment features that turn complex delivery into one-click operations
• Scaling global infrastructure to better serve businesses at every stage

“Our goal is to take the complexity out of running a digital business, so creators can stay focused on what they do best,” said Alisha Mody, Chief Product Officer at FanBasis. “This funding gives us the fuel to move faster and double down on what’s working—whether it’s smarter revenue tools, data-driven analytics, or one-click fulfillment systems. We’re building the infrastructure layer behind modern digital businesses, helping creators operate at the level their ambition demands. And we’re just getting started.”

About FanBasis
FanBasis is the all-in-one payment, fulfillment, and business infrastructure for internet entrepreneurs building digital businesses. Built for creators and internet-first businesses, FanBasis combines payments processing, fulfillment, course and community hosting, customer engagement, and business operation tools into one seamless platform. Whether selling digital products, subscriptions, or services, users rely on FanBasis to monetize, deliver, and scale—all in one place.

For more information, visit www.fanbasis.com

About Left Lane Capital
Founded in 2019, Left Lane Capital is a New York and London-based venture capital and growth equity firm investing in high-growth internet and consumer technology businesses globally. Left Lane’s mission is to partner with extraordinary entrepreneurs who create category-defining companies across growth sectors of the economy. Select investments include Bilt Rewards, Olipop, Talkiatry, Wayflyer, M1 Finance, Blank Street, Kings League, and more.

For more information, visit www.leftlane.com

SOURCE FanBasis

NEW HAVEN, Conn., May 20, 2025 —  Adaptation Ventures today announced the official launch of the nation’s first angel group exclusively focused on early-stage disability and accessible technology startups. This pioneering initiative aims to unleash innovation in one of the world’s largest and most overlooked markets, supporting entrepreneurs who are building transformative solutions to prevent disability and for the 1.7 billion people with mobility impairments, 430 million with disabling hearing loss, 285 million with visual impairments, and billions more with neurological and other conditions, so that they can live their best and most independent life.

A Market Ripe for Innovation and Impact

Nearly everyone will benefit from adaptive or assistive technology at some point in their lives. The global market for assistive technology is projected to reach $31.22 billion by 2030, powered by advances in artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, and rising consumer demand for accessible products and services. With over $18 trillion in disposable income just among people designated as having a disability and their families, and a demonstrated 9x return on every dollar spent on assistive tech, the sector represents both a profound impact opportunity and a compelling investment thesis.

Despite the surge in mission-driven capital for women, climate, and underrepresented founders, there has been no dedicated angel group for disability and accessible tech startups –

until now.

A Proven Model, Led by Sector Experts

Adaptation Ventures will offer members 16+ curated investment opportunities each year, with a focus on leading pre-seed rounds and co-leading or participating in seed rounds across a sector-agnostic portfolio. The group’s collaborative model includes quarterly meetings, rigorous diligence, and active member engagement through sourcing, networking, and educational events. Members and portfolio companies will benefit from a vibrant community featuring a speaker series, office hours, and both virtual and in-person gatherings.

Leadership with Lived Experience and Industry Clout

Adaptation Ventures is helmed by Brittany and Rich Palmer. Brittany, a congenital bilateral below-elbow amputee, is an Advisory Board Member at Perkins School for the Blind’s Howe Innovation Center, attorney, and founder of Beeyonder – a virtual tour company that brought true equal access to travel. Rich, a brain aneurysm rupture survivor, was a Board Member of the Angel Capital Association, former Managing Director at Launchpad Venture Group, and co-founder of Gravyty – a leading AI company for social good which successfully exited. Both bring deep sector expertise, global operational insight, and a track record of successful exits and angel investing.

A Call to Action for Investors and Innovators

“Investing in accessible technology that supports people with disabilities, and other conditions which require adaptation, to live their best and most independent life is the next frontier for both impact and returns,” said Brittany Palmer, co-founder of Adaptation Ventures. “We’re building a platform that not only funds innovation, but also fosters a community of leaders, founders, and investors committed to making the world more accessible for all.”

Adaptation Ventures welcomes members, partners, and sponsors who share its vision: achieving market-rate returns while driving meaningful change in the lives of billions.

About Adaptation Ventures

Adaptation Ventures is the first angel group in the U.S. dedicated to funding early-stage disability and accessible technology startups. The Managing Partners have been on all sides of the table with experience as angel investors, exited founders, persons with disabilities, and national angel investing leadership. Adaptation Ventures is committed to advancing innovation and impact in the growing disability and accessible technology sector.

For media inquiries, membership information, and sponsorship or partnership opportunities, please contact:

Adaptation Ventures

203-539-0885

[email protected]

Key Facts:

            •           First U.S. angel group focused on disability and accessible tech

            •           $18+ trillion in global disposable income among people with disabilities

            •           9x ROI per dollar spent on assistive tech

            •           $31.22 billion global assistive tech market by 2030

            •           Led by sector experts with lived experiences and successful exits

Adaptation Ventures is funding a more accessible future, where innovation and impact go hand in hand.

SOURCE Adaptation Ventures

INDIANAPOLIS, May 20, 2025 — Orthodontic Details, the leading orthodontic supply ordering platform, today unveiled Details Dots, a user-friendly inventory management tool that gives practices easy control over supplies. Unlike traditional inventory management solutions, Details Dots requires no additional equipment, and is integrated directly into the Details ordering platform.

“I swore we wouldn’t build an inventory management product,” said Details Co-Founder Nick Wangler. “Not unless we could do it without practices needing expensive scanners, a training manual, and tons of staff time.”

Existing inventory management solutions typically require practices to buy physical scanners, manually add each product, scan individual products in and out, and keep an obsessive process in place – all adding to the workload of busy clinical staff members.

“My staff and I shared with Nick what we wanted in an inventory management system, and two weeks later he flew to our office to get feedback on what their team had created,” shared orthodontist Nicole Scheffler, DDS, MS. “For years, I’ve wished something like Details existed, and so to see it coming together firsthand, and have the opportunity to directly add to its development is awesome.”

Details Dots was created based on interviews with orthodontic practices, as well as the experience of Details’ VP of Practice Success, Carrianne Garrison. “When I was at Smile Doctors, I spent countless hours in the trenches, helping hundreds of offices improve their inventory management process. So, we built the tool I would have killed to have!”

Here’s how it works: Because the Details system already knows what products a practice orders, staff can easily select which products they want to track, and print a “Details Dot” for each of them. Each Dot includes basic information about that product, as well as a custom QR code which can be scanned by any smartphone or iPad.

When products are removed from storage, staff simply scan the Details Dot, which opens that product in Details. Staff can see how many are still “on-hand,” quickly deduct the number they’re taking, and move on with their day. Once a product is removed from back storage, it’s no longer considered on-hand.

If the on-hand number is approaching the “minimum” set by the practice, the interface turns yellow, indicating low stock, and red when they’re out of stock. The staff member can quickly reference their typical order size, and add more of that product to the cart with a tap. Visuals of how this works can be viewed on the company’s website.

“You simply scan, tap, and relax,” shared Details’ Co-founder Jeff Biggs, DDS, MS. “Scan the Dot, tap to indicate how many you’re taking, and then relax knowing the system will alert you when you’re running low.”

“Finding the balance between staying fully stocked without overordering (and overspending) is mission critical in a practice,” orthodontist Alexandra Chamberlain-Umanoff, DDS, MS added. “Being able to track usage and spending data, while also anticipating future growth is tricky – you really need a system like this that’s easy to understand and update for the entire team.”

Practices can also set on-hand minimums, maximums, and current inventory counts using an easy-to-use interface within the Details ordering platform. When new products arrive, staff simply tap on that order in their Delivery Checklist to indicate the order arrived, updating the on-hand inventory automatically.

“What good is an inventory management solution if staff doesn’t use it?” shared orthodontist Andy Sarpotdar, DDS, MS. “Before Details, we’d tried the traditional scanning systems, and old-school processes, but none of it was sustainable. When we joined Details, I shared that inventory management would be a natural next step, and I love what they’ve created – this is what I wanted all along.”

For those practices already using a “tag” system, where a product tag is taken from storage and given to ordering staff when it’s time to reorder, Dots makes the process even easier. No manual tag creation is required, simply use the Dots as your tags, and ordering staff can simply scan the Dot to reorder.

“We’ve not reinvented the wheel,” shared Biggs. “We simply listened to our customers and created a solution that solves the pain they felt in their practice. That’s one of the joys of being a technology company – we can listen for pain, quickly create solutions, and then roll those solutions out to customers rapidly.”

Details Dots and the integrated inventory management system are included in current Details members’ subscription at no additional charge. Details’ members who purchase an annual subscription will also receive a complimentary iPad for managing inventory. Members will also receive complimentary inventory management training for their staff, which can be scheduled in the new “Inventory” tab in their Details account.

New Details members can also receive the inventory system and training at no additional cost for a limited time.

Media Contact:
Nick Wangler
8152524159
[email protected]

SOURCE Orthodontic Details

• Coworker, a “Manus for Companies,” is an autonomous AI agent that gives answers and completes complex work based on a deep understanding of a company’s internal data and knowledge – see it here
• Powered by Organizational Memory (OM1), a proprietary memory architecture that acts like a company’s brain, Coworker retains accurate information across 120+ business parameters, providing the critical context that is missing from other AI tools

SAN FRANCISCO, May 20, 2025 — Coworker.ai has today announced the launch of the world’s first AI agent that can independently research, plan, and execute complex work just like an experienced colleague. The company’s AI agent can answer, create plans, and execute complex, multi-step tasks across 25+ enterprise tools (like Jira, Slack, GitHub, and Salesforce), working as a reliable teammate that stays in sync with your team.

This is possible because Coworker is powered by OM1 – a proprietary memory architecture that tracks 120+ business dimensions like projects, teams, meetings, and documents and how they change, giving it full context of a company’s data, culture, and knowledge.

The launch is backed by a $13M seed round led by Jeff Huber, former SVP of Google Ads, Maps, and Workspace, now at Triatomic Capital. Other investors include Ramtin Naimi (Abstract Ventures), Mallun Yen (Operator Collective), Tim Young (Eniac Ventures), and Clark Golestani, Ken Hausman, and Jack Greenfield (K2 Access Fund). They join pre-seed investors Soma Capital, Focal VC, Mischief, and Karman Ventures, taking the total amount raised to-date to $16.5M.

Current AI tools lack context and understanding of a company’s internal knowledge

Despite the hype, AI tools haven’t lived up to the promise of making teams more productive. General-purpose LLMs are great at producing content based on public, internet-based information, but fail when internal company context is required. Specialized AI agents handle narrow tasks well, but can’t collaborate across teams or cross-department projects, leaving workflows fragmented and incomplete.

The result is that people waste hours re-prompting AI chats, uploading files and additional context, or correcting AI mistakes instead of doing meaningful work. Coworker acts like an AI teammate that deeply understands complex, cross-department work and can collaborate across the organization, turning one person into a team of tens, hundreds, or more.

“While there’s been a lot of progress in foundational model development and growing consumer AI applications, the open secret is that AI hasn’t had any real productivity impact inside companies yet,” said Alex Calder, Coworker.ai’s co-founder and CEO.

“That’s because so far AI has had very limited context on your company and work, which means it’s often unreliable and inaccurate, and ultimately difficult to trust with tasks.”

Coworker empowers teams throughout an organization:

• Sales – analyzes sales calls, creates proposals, drafts follow-up emails, helping close deals more quickly
• Engineering & Product – writes code, creates and reviews pull requests, automates release notes and tech docs, keeping developers focused on shipping new features
• Customer Success – tracks feedback, analyzes health metrics, flags emerging risks, ensuring customers are addressed proactively
• Leadership – generates real-time updates on team priorities, major issues and blockers, and company-wide trends, giving leaders a bird’s-eye view of top priorities

“We were blown away by Coworker’s architecture,” said Jeff Huber, Managing Director at Triatomic Capital. “The deep organizational context means it’s able to go far beyond surface-level answers to make it much more of an active teammate than an assistant. OM1 lays the groundwork for a whole new category of enterprise software.”

“One customer asked Coworker to help bring an engineering sprint back on track,” said Bradford Church, Coworker.ai’s co-founder and Chief Product Officer. “Coworker scanned Jira, Slack, and GitHub, noticed a lagging feature build, created a new ticket, and drafted the code. That’s a huge shift from what AI assistants can do.”

Since Coworker handles sensitive and complex information, it is built from the ground up with security, privacy, source accuracy, and data permissions in mind. This is backed by compliance with leading standards like SOC 2, GDPR, and CASA Tier 2.

“Coworker has helped me tremendously by allowing me to spend less time manually tracking and searching for information that is important to me. I’m constantly surprised by the insights I get from asking it questions. It is an important part of my daily workflow,” said Noah Tutak, CPO at Curri.

About Coworker.ai
Coworker is the world’s first general-purpose AI teammate that can research, plan, and execute complex work like an experienced colleague. Powered by a revolutionary memory architecture (OM1), Coworker helps teams focus on the most impactful and engaging work that really matters by automating the rest. Founded by former Uber executives, Alex Calder and Bradford Church, Coworker.ai is backed by leading Silicon Valley investors. https://coworker.ai/

Media Contact:
Nick Morris
+447775531593
[email protected] 

SOURCE Coworker.ai

• The US demand for produce is approximately US$100bn and the US imports a substantial portion of its supply.
• Blooms uses AI to provide customized trade solutions to LatAm produce exporters that ship to the US and Canada and who offer sustainably grown fruits and vegetables and a path to lower the US´s food prices.

WILMINGTON, Del., May 20, 2025 — Blooms (www.bloomscapital.com), a fintech innovator focused on AI-driven trade finance, payments, and FX solutions for Latin American produce exporters supplying the US and Canadian markets, announced today that it has raised $2.6 million in seed funding. The round was led by SP Ventures, a leading VC specialized in agritech, with participation from Angel Ventures, The Yield Lab Latam, Eqwow Ventures, Glocal Managers, Mercy Corps Ventures, and others.

The funding will accelerate Blooms’ mission to solve liquidity challenges in Latin America’s agricultural sector. By equipping exporters with smarter financial tools, Blooms aims to strengthen the produce supply chain, reduce food waste, and contribute to more stable—and potentially lower—food prices in North America.

“For too long, Latin American exporters have faced funding barriers that limit growth,” said Francisco Mere, a serial tech entrepreneur and founder of Blooms. “This investment validates our vision to provide seamless, intelligent financial solutions that reduce waste, support sustainability, and deliver fresher, more affordable produce to North American consumers.”

Blooms leverages AI to offer fast access to working capital, simplify cross-border transactions, and provide tailored FX solutions. Its platform was built by experts in fintech, agtech, and data science, designed to improve cash flow, reduce inefficiencies, and enable growers to invest in sustainable farming and expansion.

“Blooms is solving a core bottleneck in Latin America’s ag value chain—access to agile, fair financial tools,” said Ariadne Caballero, Partner at SP Ventures. “Their AI-powered approach enhances exporter resilience, improves sustainability, and reduces food waste. This investment fits perfectly with our mission to back ag-tech companies advancing food security and climate-smart agriculture.”

Under the current uncertain and volatile environment, the investor coalition reflects broad support  for Blooms’ potential to drive sustainability, and regional economic growth

About Blooms:
Blooms (www.bloomscapital.com) delivers AI-driven trade finance, FX, and payment solutions for Latin American produce exporters. Its mission is to create a resilient, sustainable supply chain that reduces food waste and improves value for North American consumers.

About SP Ventures:
SP Ventures (www.spventures.com) is a leading Latin American VC firm investing in agri-food tech startups solving key challenges across the agrifood value chain.

Contact:
Anissa Roberts
[email protected]

SOURCE Blooms Trade Inc

SAN FRANCISCO, May 20, 2025 — Rad AI today announced an additional $8 million strategic investment to its latest funding round, led by four of the nation’s most respected health systems — Advocate Health, Memorial Hermann Health System, Corewell Health, and Atlantic Health System. The additional investment brings Rad AI’s total Series C funding to $68 million. These partnerships reflect a shared commitment to transform care delivery for millions of patients nationwide and to scale the use of generative AI across hospitals and clinics.

A Shared Commitment to Innovation and Scale

Advocate Health, Memorial Hermann Health System, Corewell Health, and Atlantic Health System are not just investors — they are partners shaping how generative AI is applied across complex clinical environments. Rad AI’s success has always come from understanding and solving real clinical challenges with measurable impact. As the first generative AI company to achieve widespread adoption in radiology — and trusted by thousands of U.S. radiologists — Rad AI builds practical solutions that improve workflow, care quality, and patient outcomes. This partnership brings critical insight from leading health systems to accelerate the next wave of AI-driven innovation in healthcare.

“The impact of AI in healthcare is no longer theoretical — it’s happening right now at scale,” said Doktor Gurson, co-founder and CEO of Rad AI. “It’s an honor to collaborate with these leading health systems to expand that impact even further, building solutions that improve care for millions of patients.”

“Advocate Health’s investment in AI solutions reflects our dedication to innovation and our belief that responsibly deployed AI tools can improve the lives of both our health care providers and our patients,” said Andy Crowder, Chief Digital and AI Officer at Advocate Health. “By integrating AI solutions directly into our radiologists’ workflows across our enterprise, while maintaining radiologist oversight, we expect to realize improved reporting efficiency, accuracy and quality, all while reducing burnout for our radiologists.”

This announcement extends Rad AI’s $60 million Series C financing round and marks a significant step forward in bringing AI innovation to healthcare providers. Collectively, these organizations operate over 100 hospitals and serve millions of patients across the U.S. Their partnership with Rad AI is already enabling system-wide adoption of advanced radiology and follow-up solutions — accelerating progress in areas where health systems face the greatest clinical and operational pressure.

Rad AI is one of the few AI companies solving end-to-end challenges for health systems—streamlining workflows and ensuring patients receive timely follow-up care. Its solutions support providers responsible for nearly half of all imaging volume in the U.S., helping radiologists work faster, reduce dictation load, and improve care quality.

“Memorial Hermann invests in AI not just to adapt to technology, but to transform patient care and improve workflows,” said Feby Abraham, PhD, executive vice president and chief strategy officer for Memorial Hermann. “We are always seeking partners who can deliver measurable impact on outcomes, efficiency and improving the patient experience and Rad AI checks all those boxes.”

Rather than offering standalone tools, Rad AI delivers an integrated solution to multifaceted clinical challenges:

• Rad AI Impressions — the first generative AI application widely adopted in radiology — automates the impression section of reports, saving radiologists more than an hour per shift on average so they can focus their time where it matters most.
• Rad AI Reporting enhances the full radiology workflow with features like Omni Unchanged, which pulls stable findings from prior reports with one phrase and cuts follow-up dictation time by 50% and spoken words by 90%. Omni Report enables radiologists to dictate naturally and auto-fills structured templates, up to doubling reporting speed and easing cognitive load.
• Rad AI Continuity closes the loop on incidental findings by automatically tracking and coordinating follow-up care. Health systems using Continuity have improved follow-up exam completion rates from approximately 30% to over 75%, helping ensure critical findings don’t fall through the cracks.

Together, these tools enable a seamless path from diagnosis to action—supporting clinicians in delivering timely and coordinated care.

Millions of patients stand to benefit as Rad AI’s platform scales — through faster reporting, coordinated follow-up, and reduced delays in care. These health systems are accelerating that impact by embedding AI into core workflows, not as a future vision but as a present-day priority.

“We are pleased to invest in a company that is at the forefront of developing technology to make the jobs of physicians more convenient and efficient,” said Christian Rische, vice president and managing director, Corewell Health Ventures. “The products of Rad AI will help lead to a reduced workload for providers and, most importantly, potential improvements in patient care.”

Building on Momentum

This investment from some of the most innovative and well-known health systems represents strong alignment with Rad AI’s role as a trusted AI partner. It builds on Rad AI’s momentum as the category-defining leader in generative AI for healthcare — trusted by many of the nation’s largest health systems and recognized by Deloitte, CB Insights, AuntMinnie, and Accenture.

“The Atlantic Venture Studio, part of Atlantic Health System, is committed to investing in and supporting solutions to health care’s biggest challenges,” said Doug Hayes, Executive Director, Atlantic Venture Studio. “Our investment in AI applications like Rad AI are focused on transforming care by reducing the burden on physicians, improving the quality of care and building healthier communities.”

About Rad AI

Rad AI is an industry leader in generative AI solutions for radiology, transforming the way radiologists work and improving patient care. The company’s flagship product, Rad AI Reporting, streamlines radiology reporting with AI-driven technology and empowers radiologists to achieve greater efficiency, accuracy, and satisfaction. Rad AI Impressions, the company’s pioneering product, established Rad AI as an innovator in generative AI for radiology; as the first generative AI application to achieve widespread adoption in radiology, it is now trusted by thousands of US radiologists. Rad AI Continuity, the most comprehensive solution of its kind, uses AI to help ensure patient follow-up for potential new cancers.

The company has been recognized as one of the most promising healthcare AI companies by CB Insights (Digital Health 50, AI 100) and AuntMinnie (Best New Radiology Software 2023, Best New Radiology Vendor 2021). In November of 2024, Rad AI was named the 19th fastest-growing company in North America on the Deloitte Fast 500.

Learn more about Rad AI at www.radai.com or on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/radai/

PR Contact: Wei Ting Hsieh, Rad AI, +1 ‪(302) 387-3622, [email protected]

SOURCE Rad AI

Barndoor provides a single platform to control access, enforce policy, and monitor the activity of AI agents across organizations.

NEW YORK, May 20, 2025 — Today, Barndoor AI launched as the first control plane to allow enterprises to take control of their AI workforce and announced its seed funding of $13.6M, led by Crosslink Capital, with participation by Preface Ventures, Precursor Ventures, Gaingels, Rob Hayes, Natalie Diggins, Scott & Cyan Banister, and more. Barndoor is the first and only centralized platform to govern and manage AI access, policy, and visibility across enterprises — giving IT and security teams the control they need, and business teams the freedom to move fast.

“Across any organization, dozens of autonomous agents are handling sensitive data, making changes, and introducing real risk,” said Oren Michels, founder and CEO of Barndoor AI. “To manage this new AI workforce, IT teams must understand the full context — who’s operating an agent, what their role is, what service they’re accessing, and what action they’re taking. Barndoor sits at that intersection, evaluating every request in context to ensure enterprises stay secure, compliant, and in control.”

With Barndoor AI, enterprises can gain:

• Granular Agent Access Controls: Control what each agent can see and do based on specific context – the user operating it, their role in the organization, the service they are accessing, and the specific action they are attempting to take.
• Visibility: Get complete telemetry, audit trails, and real-time alerts to surface anomalies, monitor risk and prove compliance. Track agent usage, understand where value is created or where agents are being blocked, and adapt policies to safely scale AI across the enterprise.
• Policy Enforcement: Barndoor acts as a policy enforcement layer, inspecting and authorizing every AI agent request before it reaches your systems or alters your data.
• Secure Management for Any AI Agent: Manage every agent in one place — no matter where it runs or how it’s built allowing enterprises to stay flexible as new AI tools and platforms develop.

Recently at the Hill and Valley Forum, Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, addressed the growth of AI within the enterprise landscape, noting “These agentic AIs are essentially robots — your digital workforce. HR will manage the biological workforce, and IT will become HR for agentic AI.” Barndoor is addressing the workforce transformation by empowering enterprises to take control of their agentic workforce.

“There’s no question that AI can unlock massive potential — but enterprises are struggling to stay in control as agents proliferate across teams and tools,” said Eric Chin, Partner at Crosslink Capital. “Barndoor is solving this real and urgent challenge by giving companies the context-aware controls they need to manage AI safely and effectively. Oren and his team pioneered the API management category during the rise of mobile apps — giving enterprises control over how data moved between systems. Barndoor applies that same disciplined approach to AI, and we’re thrilled to support them as they take on one of the most important challenges of the AI era.”

ABOUT BARNDOOR AI
Founded in 2024, Barndoor AI is the first and only Control Plane for the agentic enterprise, giving IT and security the guardrails they need, and business teams the freedom to move fast without the risk. For more information, visit barndoor.ai.

SOURCE Barndoor AI

Sequoia Managing Partner Roelof Botha Joins Blues Board of Directors

BOSTON, May 20, 2025 — Blues, a leader in Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity solutions, today announced the successful closing of its latest $25 million funding round, led by Sequoia Capital, and that Sequoia Managing Partner Roelof Botha has joined its board of directors.

The investment round will support the company’s growth, fuel further product innovation, and enable Blues to deliver on its mission to help the world’s physical product makers transform their offerings into data-driven intelligent services.

Blues solves the biggest challenges associated with IoT connectivity, making it easy to securely cloud-connect any physical product. Companies of all sizes, from established enterprises to emerging startups, are counting on Blues as a key partner in transforming their businesses.

• Refrigeration manufacturers are adding connectivity and intelligence to track temperature compliance, reduce product loss, and deliver a fully managed service. 
• Logistics providers are connecting forklifts, pallets, and products across warehouses to optimize placement, retrieval, and operational safety. 
• Automotive battery vendors are improving battery life and enabling remote monitoring to reduce long-haul truck idle time, lower diesel consumption, and cut emissions. 
• One of the world’s largest suppliers of power grid components is enabling remote control of customer equipment to reduce electric demand during peak energy days and weather events. 

Customers are leveraging Blues’ extensive experience to accelerate the launch of new products and services from idea to impact, with Blues helping them to identify and address the full suite of business challenges involved in transforming their physical products into intelligent services.

With Blues’ integrated hardware, software, and cloud technologies, companies can easily connect and manage their products wirelessly, unlocking real-time data to improve operations. Blues stands alone as the only IoT provider to support all major wireless standards (2G/3G/4G/5G cellular, Wi-Fi, LoRa, and Satellite) in a single, plug-and-play format with one simple Application Programming Interface (API). Whether enabling seamless fallback across networks or future-proofing devices against sunsets, Blues makes secure, reliable connectivity effortless so that businesses can focus on the value of the insights their devices deliver. With Blues,’ companies can easily connect and manage their products wirelessly, and unlock real-time data to improve operations.

“We’re in an age of intelligent machines. The opportunity to reimagine every physical product around the data they produce, and to improve life and the environment, is staggering,” said Ray Ozzie, founder of Blues. “For years we’ve been working with visionary enterprises looking to transform their businesses toward service delivery. This funding will help us to accelerate our growth so we may address the breadth of this opportunity.”

Sequoia Capital, known for backing category-defining companies, is excited to deepen their partnership with Blues, which is known for its industry-leading approach to embedded machine intelligence.

“Blues enables companies to transform physical products into intelligent, cloud-connected systems that drive operational efficiency and unlock new revenue streams,” said Sequoia’s Botha. “The team’s technical prowess and developer focus, along with a fundamentally lower cost solution, positions Blues at the vanguard of the embedded intelligence revolution.”

Blues has previously raised $66 million in funding.

About Roelof Botha
Roelof is Managing Partner and Steward of Sequoia Capital. He has spent over 20 years building companies in Silicon Valley. He began within the walls of nascent PayPal, where he joined in March 2000 while completing his MBA at Stanford. He became CFO in 2001 and led the company through both its IPO in early 2002 and the subsequent acquisition by eBay. Roelof joined Sequoia in 2003 to help founders build enduring businesses. In 2017, he assumed leadership of Sequoia Capital’s US/Europe business and became a Steward of the Sequoia Partnership. Roelof is a Director of Block, Ethos, MongoDB, Natera, Pendulum Therapeutics, and Unity Technologies, among others. Previously, he was a Director of companies that include YouTube, Tumblr, Xoom, Eventbrite, and Evernote. He also led Sequoia’s investment in Instagram.

About Blues  
Blues is a leader in secure wireless connectivity, helping organizations to transform their physical products and businesses to be centered on data and the delivery of data-fueled intelligent services. With customers across transportation, health care, energy, and logistics in North America, Central America and Europe, Blues is on a mission to empower innovation by making cloud-connected machine intelligence possible for organizations of any size.

With Blues, customers can easily and securely provision and communicate with any physical product, anywhere, enabling new sources of revenue and new customer experiences while also reducing costs. Blues solves the biggest challenges associated with wireless connectivity, making it easy to securely cloud-connect any physical product at scale.

Thousands of organizations worldwide, from non-profits to startups to enterprises, connect their devices with Blues integrated hardware, software, and cloud services. For more information about Blues and its wireless connectivity solutions, visit blues.com, and follow Blues on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and X.

SOURCE Blues

• Largest Series A financing round in Asia’s diagnostic technology sector since 2019 underscores strong investor confidence in PHASE Scientific’s breakthrough diagnostic technology and growth vision.
• Investment to accelerate R&D and commercialization of cutting-edge early disease detection technology for multiple cancers, women’s health issues, and infectious diseases.

HONG KONG, May 19, 2025 — PHASE Scientific International Limited (“PHASE Scientific”), a pioneering biotechnology company revolutionizing early disease detection through proprietary urine-based diagnostics, today announced the successful completion of a US$34 million Series A funding round. This represents the largest Series A raise in Asia’s diagnostic technology sector since 2019, reflecting robust investor conviction in PHASE Scientific’s innovative PHASIFY™ technology and ambitious growth strategy. The funding round is led by a private equity fund managed by Value Partners Group (HKEX: 0806), one of Asia’s largest independent asset management firms, with significant backing from new healthcare-focused investors and continued support from existing global backers.

Building on its patented PHASIFY™ urine concentration technology—which captures over ten times more biomarkers than current industry gold standards—PHASE Scientific is the only player advancing a pipeline of urine-based liquid biopsy diagnostics. The company is developing a comprehensive suite of non-invasive tests for early detection of cancers, women’s health conditions, and infectious diseases. Unlike traditional invasive screening methods, PHASIFY™ enables convenient, at-home sample collection, empowering proactive health management and preventive care.

PHASE Scientific has demonstrated strong market traction with the successful launch and commercialization of over 30 innovative diagnostic products across multiple health categories, including respiratory, gastrointestinal, women’s, sexual, pediatric health, and oncology. To date, the company has distributed more than 100 million tests in over 30 countries and conducted over 8 million laboratory tests worldwide. Building on this commercial success, PHASE Scientific has developed the world’s first urine-based HPV test—a major breakthrough that has achieved significant clinical validation and global recognition. In a recent clinical study with Peking University Shenzhen Hospital, the test demonstrated 93.4% sensitivity in detecting CIN2+ lesions—including cervical precancer and cancer—and over 97% concordance with gold-standard physician-collected testing (Roche’s Cobas 4800) for HPV types 16 and 18. The innovation earned the Thomas V. Sedlacek, MD, Prize for Best Clinical Research Abstract at the 2025 American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (ASCCP) Annual Scientific Meeting and was featured at the Chinese Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (CSCCP) Conference, reflecting growing international interest and recognition. These results underscore PHASiFY™’s potential to make cervical cancer screening more accessible, comfortable, and user-friendly.

“The successful close of this landmark Series A financing validates the transformative potential of our technology and the growing global demand for accessible, accurate early disease detection,” said Dr. Ricky Chiu, Founder, Chairman and CEO of PHASE Scientific. “With this capital, we will accelerate R&D and commercialization efforts to bring a comprehensive suite of next-generation urine-based diagnostics to market. Our mission is to empower millions worldwide with non-invasive, user-friendly testing that can save lives through earlier intervention.”

“We are delighted to become a partner of PHASE Scientific as it rapidly grows and addresses critical unmet needs in early disease detection. Its innovative technology represents a paradigm shift, offering an unparalleled combination of clinical precision and patient-centric solutions that accelerates the development of early disease detection. This aligns with our strategy to back category-defining leader with strong management, clear strategic differentiation, and best-in-class healthcare technologies that deliver both societal impact and scalable commercial potential,” said Dr. Chuen Yan Leung, Partner (Healthcare Investments) of Value Partners Group.

Founded in 2015, the company is headquartered in Hong Kong SAR with cross-border setup in Southern California, U.S.A. and China’s Greater Bay Area, which allows it to leverage the strengths of each region for research, development, and commercialization, positioning PHASE Scientific at the nexus for healthcare innovation on a global stage.

Note to Editor: The global liquid biopsy market, fueled by the demand for non-invasive cancer diagnostics, is forecasted to reach around US$22.69 billion by 2034 at a CAGR of 13.91% from US$7.05 billion in 2025, according to Precedence Research.

About PHASE Scientific

PHASE Scientific is a fast-growing biotechnology company with a mission to inspire a new state of health through innovative diagnostics and healthcare solutions. With operations in the U.S., mainland China, and Hong Kong SAR, PHASE delivers novel diagnostic tools and services for cancer and infectious diseases using proprietary technologies, empowering better disease detection, diagnosis, and management.

Since its founding, the company has been supported by Gates Foundation, US governmental agencies National Science Foundation and National Institute of Health, Ministry of Science and Technology of China, Hong Kong Innovation, Technology and Industry Bureau and Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks. For more information, please visit phasescientific.com. 

About PHASIFY™

PHASIFY™ is the world’s first urine concentration technology designed for molecular diagnostics, setting a new industry benchmark by capturing approximately 10 times more target analytes from urine specimens compared to the current gold standard. This advanced mechanism enables the concentration and purification of unlimited volumes of urine, dramatically increasing the sensitivity and accuracy of disease detection.

This proprietary innovation uniquely positions PHASE Scientific as the only player in the urine-based liquid biopsy diagnostics field, with proven clinical performance for multi-cancer detection. With a non-invasive and painless approach, PHASIFY™ empowers convenient sample collection, unlocking new possibilities for early, accessible, and comprehensive disease screening and diagnosis.

About Value Partners Group Limited

Value Partners, one of Asia’s leading independent asset management firms, seeks to offer world-class investment services and products. Since its establishment in 1993, the Company has been a dedicated, specialist value investor in Greater China and Asia. In November 2007, Value Partners Group became the first asset management firm to be listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (Stock code: 806 HK). In addition to its Hong Kong headquarters, the firm operates in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Singapore and London. Value Partners’ investment strategies cover equities, fixed income, multi-asset, alternatives, real estate and quantitative investment solutions, for institutional and individual clients in Asia Pacific, Europe and the United States. For more information, please visit www.valuepartners-group.com.

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