Category Archives: Deals

Sapphiros Secures $12.4 Million BARDA Award to Advance Rapid Molecular Diagnostics for Biothreat Detection

Multi-year program supports development of disposable molecular diagnostic platforms for point-of-care, field-use, and emergency response settings

BOSTON, July 14, 2026 — Sapphiros today announced it has been awarded a multi-year project agreement through the Rapid Response Partnership Vehicle (RRPV), to advance rapid, portable, connected, molecular diagnostic platforms for detection of biothreats and emerging infectious diseases.

RRPV is a consortium funded by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The agreement includes a 24-month base period to support the continued development of Sapphiros’ proprietary molecular diagnostics platform, with a focus on enabling rapid  detection of priority biothreat pathogens  in point-of-care and decentralized settings.

The  program is designed to advance disposable molecular testing capabilities for blood-based pathogens that can deliver laboratory-quality results through a simple, automated workflow. To ensure biosafety, the Sapphiros molecular device utilizes a novel, closed blood collection tube that eliminates the risk of blood-borne contamination during sample transfer to the device.

The program leverages Satio’s integrated capillary blood collection system to facilitate phlebotomist-free blood collection at the point of need. Satio, has developed a single use collection device equipped with an integrated safety lancet, designed to minimize user handling and biohazard exposure while ensuring consistent sample volumes for reliable testing in emergency response and field settings.

“Our program reflects the urgent need for diagnostic technologies that can move quickly from outbreak recognition to field deployment,” said Mark Gladwell, CEO of Sapphiros. “By combining  connected, disposable molecular platform and innovative blood collection approach, we aim to deliver rapid, reliable testing solutions that can support clinicians, public health responders and communities during biological threats and emerging health emergencies.”

This funding marks Sapphiros’ second agreement with BARDA, following the previously announced agreement to develop an over-the-counter, single use low-cost digital antigen test capable of detecting and differentiating respiratory viruses.

This project has been funded in whole or in part with federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services; Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR); Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), under Other Transaction Number: 75A50123D00005.

About Sapphiros Sapphiros, backed by KKR and Neoenta, is a privately held consumer diagnostics company shaping the future of consumer and public health diagnostics by developing accessible, affordable and scalable health technologies. The company brings together advanced science, intelligent design and scalable manufacturing to make high-quality diagnostic testing more broadly available. Sapphiros’ portfolio spans sample collection, next-generation diagnostics and extreme-volume manufacturing capabilities designed to deliver fast, accurate results across a wide range of health needs.

For Media Relations email [email protected]

SOURCE Sapphiros

Every launches a new model for health benefits that lowers employer costs without reducing employee experience

SAN FRANCISCO, July 14, 2026 — Every, the all-in-one back office for startups and small businesses, launched Every Benefits, a new model for health benefits that pairs fully insured plans with employer-funded reimbursement arrangements to lower employer costs without reducing employee experience. Administering this kind of arrangement has been operationally out of reach for most startups and small businesses, until now. Every is the first platform built to bring an HRA provider, benefits administration, insurance brokerage, and payroll together as one system.

Every Benefits can reduce startup health insurance costs by up to 12%, based on a typical 25-employee company, while maintaining the same carriers, networks, and overall employee experience. For example, a 25-person company could save approximately $31,000 in a typical year, while a 100-employee company could see savings of approximately $125,000 annually.

The Problem Every Benefits Solves

Health insurance premiums have climbed 24% over the last five years, according to KFF’s Employer Health Benefits Survey. The average 25-person startup on a Platinum PPO is now spending more than $261,000 a year on a benefit most of its employees barely use. Yet founders renew every year, because cutting benefits isn’t a option. Nine out of ten employers say benefits are the single most important lever for attracting and retaining talent after salary.

The math is broken. Insurance carriers charge extremely high costs for premium benefit plans, regardless of whether that level of coverage is actually used by employees. Founders pay the full bill whether anyone visits a doctor or not. The average employee never comes close to hitting their deductible.

How Every Benefits Works

Every Benefits flips the model. Employers choose a lower-premium plan—such as a Gold or Silver option and pair it with an employer-funded reimbursement arrangement designed to cover employees’ out-of-pocket costs, including the deductible. Employees enroll in the plan and are reimbursed for eligible expenses, effectively reducing their upfront costs to $0 in many cases.

As a result, a Silver plan can feel similar to a Gold plan, and a Gold plan can feel similar to a Platinum plan. Employees keep the same carrier and the same in-network experience, while employers avoid paying higher premiums upfront. Because reimbursements are paid only when expenses are incurred, unused amounts are simply never spent.

For a 25-person company with average characteristics, this reduces annual benefits spend from approximately $261,000 to $230,000—about $31,000 in a typical year.

  • 50 employees: approximately $62,000 in typical-year savings
  • 100 employees: approximately $125,000 in typical-year savings
  • Average savings: up to 12% on health benefits spend

Employees keep a $0 effective deductible experience, while employers avoid paying higher premiums to cover out-of-pocket costs upfront.

Savings figures are based on a 25-employee company on a small group, fully insured Platinum PPO. Actual savings depend on plan selection and utilization and may vary. Every Benefits is available in select states; see every.io for current availability.

Why Only Every Can Run This

Administering this kind of arrangement requires insurance, reimbursement, payroll, and banking to operate as a single system. In a typical setup, a company would need to engage a broker, a benefits administration platform, a payroll provider, an HRA provider, and a bank or card issuer separately.

Every is a licensed insurance broker, a benefits administration platform, a payroll provider, and a banking partner—all built on one platform. One vendor relationship, not five. Every Benefits is what gets built when one company owns the whole stack.

The full native benefits suite includes health, dental, vision, FSA, dependent care FSA, and commuter benefits. One platform, not multiple vendors.

Quotes

“Every founder I talk to is frustrated with their benefits renewal,” said Rajeev Behera, co-founder and CEO of Every. “They know they’re paying for more coverage than their team typically uses. They know premiums keep going up, but the product they are buying hasn’t improved. But there is no alternative – cheaper coverage will upset your employees. We built Every Benefits so owners never have to make that trade again. Same carrier. Same network. You just stop paying for coverage your team isn’t using.”

“This is the kind of product you can only build if you’ve already built the rest of the back office,” said Barry Peterson, co-founder and CTO of Every. “Payroll, banking, and benefits running as one system is what makes the model work. It’s also what makes it defensible.”

About Every

Every is the all-in-one back office for startups. Banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, and tax—built to launch, operate, and scale on a single platform. Founders from the best ecosystems trust Every to run the back office so they can focus on building and selling.

Every is a Series A company that has raised $32 million in venture funding from Y Combinator and Redpoint. Read the TechCrunch announcement of Every’s $22.5 million Series A.

Every was founded by Rajeev Behera and Barry Peterson. Rajeev was the co-founder and CEO of Reflektive, an HR SaaS company he scaled to 250 employees and raised $100M from a16z, Lightspeed, and TPG. Barry was Director of Engineering at Reflektive and has decades of experience scaling engineering teams at startups and Fortune 500 tech companies.

Get Started

Visit every.io for a free analysis of your current plan. No commitment. We’ll show you exactly what Every Benefits would save your company.

SOURCE Every, Inc.

eCapital Names Rosario Ingargiola as Chief Digital Assets Officer

The appointment reinforces the company’s long-term investment in technology and innovation

MIAMI, July 14, 2026 — eCapital Corp. (“eCapital”), an AI-powered fintech company building the next generation of specialty finance, today announced the appointment of Rosario Ingargiola as Chief Digital Assets Officer, a newly created executive leadership role designed to advance the company’s technology platform, accelerate innovation and redefine how businesses access and manage working capital.

“Specialty finance is entering a period of profound transformation, and technology will define the companies that lead the next decade,” said Marius Silvasan, CEO of eCapital. “At eCapital, technology isn’t supporting our strategy; it is our strategy. We’re combining deep industry expertise with intelligent platforms to redefine what’s possible for our clients. Rosario’s entrepreneurial mindset, technical depth, and ability to execute at scale make him an exceptional addition to our leadership team.”

As Chief Digital Assets Officer, Ingargiola will report directly to Silvasan and lead eCapital’s efforts to advance the infrastructure that supports the company’s next phase of growth. Working across the business, he will focus on modernizing how eCapital originates, manages and distributes assets, with an emphasis on improving efficiency, transparency, scalability and long-term enterprise value.

A serial technology entrepreneur and fintech founder, Ingargiola has dedicated his career to developing institutional technology platforms across capital markets and digital assets. He has created patented financial market infrastructure and led enterprise transformation across product strategy, engineering, and regulated financial markets. Most recently, he served as Chief Product and Technology Officer at Derisked Digital Group following the acquisition of Bosonic, the institutional digital asset infrastructure company he founded, and Bosonic Securities LLC, its FINRA-registered broker-dealer and SEC-registered Alternative Trading System (ATS). Earlier in his career, he founded an institutional foreign exchange trading platform acquired by a global investment bank and co-founded an AI-powered algorithmic trading platform.

“Having spent much of my career building companies from the ground up, I recognize organizations with the vision and conviction to reshape an industry,” said Ingargiola. “That’s what drew me to eCapital. The company has an exceptional foundation, a world-class leadership team, and a clear strategy for the future. I look forward to helping realize that vision by scaling our technology capabilities and creating long-term value for our clients and partners.”

The appointment reflects eCapital’s disciplined approach to building the leadership, technology, and capabilities required to lead the next era of specialty finance.

About eCapital

eCapital Corp. is an AI-powered fintech company transforming how businesses access and manage working capital. The company serves businesses across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom through a broad range of financing solutions, including asset-based lending, receivables finance, payroll funding, supply chain finance, and other customized financing products.

Through its proprietary platform, eCapital combines data, decisioning, funding, and servicing to deliver faster, more flexible financing solutions across the business lifecycle. Since its inception, eCapital has funded more than 44,000 clients and delivered over $144 billion in capital across 80+ industries. eCapital is building the next generation of specialty finance, one that is more intelligent, connected, and responsive to the needs of modern business. To learn more, visit ecapital.com.

SOURCE eCapital

BRINC Raises $125M to Put a 911 Response Drone on Every Police and Fire Station Roof

Led by Motorola Solutions, with participation from Index Ventures and Dylan Field, this round brings BRINC’s total capital raised to well over a quarter billion dollars.

SEATTLE, July 14, 2026 — BRINC, the leader in public safety drone technology, today announced a $125 million financing round led by Motorola Solutions, with participation from Index Ventures and Dylan Field, Figma’s CEO and founder. The investment brings BRINC’s total capital raised to well over a quarter billion dollars and will fuel the company’s mission to deploy 911 response drones at the 80,000 police and fire stations across the United States.

The capital will be used to expand BRINC’s domestic manufacturing capability, bring new products to market, and scale go-to-market operations. By the end of the year, BRINC will move into a new facility three times the size of its current factory, expanding its production capacity to meet surging demand from public safety agencies.

“Every second matters in an emergency,” says Blake Resnick, Founder & CEO of BRINC. “Our 911 response drones put eyes on scene before first responders arrive, giving everyone the situational awareness they need to act decisively and keep people safe. This investment enables our organization to build more products, expand our manufacturing capacity, and put a drone on the roof of every police and fire station in America.”

The round comes at a moment of significant commercial momentum. BRINC more than tripled revenue in 2025 and quintupled monthly production capacity. This year, the company has signed nearly four times as many 911 response drone contracts as it did over the same period in 2025, with agencies including the Los Angeles Fire Department, St. Louis Police Department, and hundreds of others across the country.

BRINC builds drones for every mission. Lemur 2 is the most capable indoor drone. Responder leads the market in time on scene. Guardian is the 911 response drone built to replace helicopters. And because BRINC has exclusive integrations with Motorola Solutions, and interoperability with other public safety technology providers, every product in the fleet is just a button-press away.

Agencies looking to learn more can reach out to their local BRINC representative or get in touch at brincdrones.com/contact.

About BRINC

BRINC is an American developer of technology in the service of public safety. The company builds a connected ecosystem of tools designed to save lives. BRINC manufactures its products in the US, has co-located R&D and production, and is vertically integrated, controlling the entirety of its supply chain. Over 900 public safety agencies and 20%+ of the SWAT teams in the US use its products to de-escalate dangerous situations and safeguard human life. The company is backed by top investors, including Sam Altman, Index Ventures, Motorola Solutions, Dylan Field, Elad Gil, Patrick Shanahan, Julius Genachowski, Shyam Sankar, Alexandr Wang, Bradley Tusk, and Jeff Weiner. For more information visit brincdrones.com.

SOURCE BRINC

Auxilium Health Closes Oversubscribed $3.4 Million Seed Round to Advance Its Aer™ Biomaterial Platform

CLEVELAND, July 14, 2026 — Auxilium Health today announced the close of an oversubscribed $3.4 million seed round, a year after closing its pre-seed, to advance its Aer™ biomaterial platform toward FDA clearance and first-in-human studies.

Backed by returning and new regional and strategic investors, the round more than doubles the company’s prior raise and reflects growing conviction in both the technology and the progress behind it.

For nearly four decades, biomaterials have tried to win what surgeons and scientists call the “race for the surface,” the contest between a patient’s healing cells and bacteria to colonize a material first, by killing bacteria after they arrive.

Auxilium takes a different approach. Its Aer™ platform is an engineered matrix-like product that mimics the body’s own extracellular matrix, built to win that race structurally by resisting bacterial attachment while welcoming regenerative cells, all without relying on antibiotics.

The new capital will advance the company’s lead product toward FDA clearance and into first-in-human use while deepening the team and the research behind it. Over the last year, Auxilium’s full-time team has doubled, attracting top researchers and scientists to relocate to Cleveland to join the mission.

“Last year, the question was whether the science was real. This year, it’s how fast we can get it to patients,” said Isaiah Kaiser, PhD, Founder and CEO of Auxilium Health. “We’re grateful to our investors and partners who believe in the science and the team behind what we’re building. Their confidence lets us move with the urgency this problem deserves.”

About Auxilium Health
Auxilium Health develops a new class of bioaerogels that reduce the risk of bacterial colonization and guide tissue regeneration. Its Aer™ platform spans wound repair, bone regeneration, and localized delivery, with a lead product advancing toward FDA clearance and clinical studies. Headquartered at the Cleveland Clinic’s Global Innovation Center, the company is supported by the National Science Foundation, the Ohio Department of Development, and the Polymer Industry Cluster.

Regeneration begins at the surface.

Media Contact
Lindsey Dinneen
Director of Marketing & Engagement
Project Medtech
[email protected]

Company Website: https://www.auxiliumhealth.xyz/
Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/auxilium-health-inc

SOURCE Auxilium Health

Hadrius Raises $27 Million to Build Agentic Compliance Infrastructure

Trusted by more than 500 financial institutions, Hadrius raises Series A funding to transform compliance from fragmented, manual workflows into a consolidated, AI-native function.

NEW YORK, July 14, 2026 — Hadrius, the agentic compliance infrastructure for financial services firms, today announced $27 million in seed and Series A funding led by CRV, with participation from Y Combinator, Pathlight Ventures, and the founders of Altruist, Jump AI, and FINNY. The funding will accelerate Hadrius’ vision to consolidate compliance into a single AI-native workflow. More than 500 financial institutions and investment firms already run their compliance programs on Hadrius.

In 2026, artificial intelligence is widening the gap between what compliance teams need to review and what legacy compliance solutions are capable of reviewing. With two-thirds of investment advisers currently using AI, the volume of communications, marketing content, and trades are growing rapidly. At the same time, regulators know that AI has made comprehensive review technologically possible. Firms are now expected to review more, prove more, and respond faster with the same headcount. Agentic compliance is the CCO’s solution.

“If AI is generating the communications, the marketing, and the trades, only AI can review them at the same scale,” said Thomas Stewart, Co-founder and CEO of Hadrius. “Our vision is a world where AI scales compliance team bandwidth by reviewing everything at the speed it was created, applying the right context globally, and maintaining audit-ready documentation.”

By consolidating the compliance lifecycle into one AI-native system of record, Hadrius today reduces false positives by 95%, manual compliance work by 70%, and saves 20+ hours per week. By the end of 2026, Hadrius plans to extend AI capabilities across the full compliance spectrum, deploying agentic oversight to:

  • Marketing: AI-first review & approval of marketing materials.
  • Communications: Multi-channel capture and WORM-compliant archiving, with AI surveillance to flag violations.
  • People: Automated personal trading monitoring, attestations, and conflict-of-interest disclosures.
  • Trades: Monitoring for trading abuse and policy breaches, with support for pre-clearance workflows.
  • Branches: Inspection scheduling, deficiency tracking, and supervisor-rep hierarchy mapping across offices.
  • Firm audit readiness: One system of record for policies, risk assessments, testing calendars, and compliance documentation.

“Compliance is one of the largest and least automated labor markets in financial services. It represents a $9.4 billion technology opportunity sitting next to tens of billions in labor spend,” said Brittany Walker, General Partner at CRV. “Before AI, it was fragmented across manual internal teams, point solutions, and expensive consultancies. Hadrius is consolidating that spend onto a single platform, and firms are building their entire compliance programs around it.”

“For us, Hadrius is a no-brainer,” said Michael Schmidtke, Chief Compliance Officer of Csenge Advisory Group. “They’re building a plug-and-play solution around today’s data feeds and AI that the legacy software isn’t keeping up with. Hadrius lets us spend more on what we want and work smarter, better, and cheaper on compliance.”

Hadrius will use the funding to further build out its product roadmap in order to meet demand for category-defining compliance infrastructure. The team recently recruited the former Head of Product at ACA Group along with senior go-to-market leaders from StarCompliance, Orion, and Smarsh, and plans to bring on several other key hires within the next year.

To request a demo of Hadrius, please visit: https://www.hadrius.com/

About Hadrius
Hadrius is agentic compliance infrastructure for financial services firms. Built by compliance professionals and AI experts, Hadrius consolidates every point of compliance risk into an audit-ready system of record, reducing manual compliance review by 70%. Hadrius has raised $27 million in funding and is trusted by more than 500 financial institutions and investment firms.

Media Contact:
Sophia Tavakol
SMT Communications
[email protected]

SOURCE Hadrius

Stout Launches Drivr to Transform Portfolio Valuation and Monitoring for Asset Managers

Drivr combines AI-powered data extraction, real-time scenario analysis, audit-ready workflows, and integrated independent valuation opinions.

CHICAGO, July 14, 2026Stout announces the launch of Drivr, a purpose-built portfolio valuation and monitoring platform that leverages technology to combine Stout’s independent valuation expertise with the monitoring and risk analytics that asset managers employ to manage hard-to-value investments.

Drivr helps alternative asset managers replace fragmented, manual valuation workflows with one integrated platform covering source documentation, portfolio monitoring, scenario analysis, reporting, audit support, and independent valuation opinions.

Built by Stout’s valuation practitioners with input from CFOs, valuation teams, chief risk officers, and auditors, Drivr combines AI-powered data extraction, real-time analytics, traceable source-document support, and flexible reporting to improve transparency, reduce handoffs, and shorten valuation timelines.

With Drivr, asset managers can:

  • Centralize portfolio valuation and monitoring workflows
  • Extract and organize data from source documents using AI-powered capabilities
  • Run real-time scenario and sensitivity analyses across positions, sectors, funds, and portfolios
  • Monitor custom KPIs at frequencies ranging from daily to annually
  • Provide auditors with transparent, source-linked support
  • Access data through dashboards, APIs, CSV downloads, or Snowflake integration
  • Incorporate independent valuation opinions from Stout directly into the workflow

“Asset managers do not need another single function, disconnected application. They need a better operating model for valuation and portfolio monitoring,” said Chris Franzek, Managing Director and Co-Leader of Stout’s Portfolio Valuation Practice. “Drivr brings the data, analytics, audit trail, and independent valuation support together in one platform so teams can move faster – think hours or days, not weeks – and scale while increasing rigor and transparency.”

Drivr is now available for asset management firms seeking a more efficient, transparent, and audit-ready approach to portfolio valuation and monitoring.

For more information, visit Drivr.

About Stout

Stout is a global advisory firm delivering clarity and confidence in high-stakes financial, operational, and strategic situations.

We combine financial expertise with data-driven insights to produce work that is timely, defensible, and built to withstand scrutiny. Our approach is practical and grounded in real-world experience. We bring expertise without complexity, making us a trusted partner that is both rigorous and easy to work with.

Discover how Relentless Excellence® drives everything we do at stout.com.

SOURCE Stout

Flexential Deploys 400 Gbps Network Infrastructure to Power Next-Generation Connectivity Services

New enhancement delivers native 100 Gbps access for AI, cloud, and high-throughput workloads

DENVER, July 14, 2026Flexential, a leading provider of secure and flexible data center solutions, has upgraded its private network backbone to 400 Gbps across several major U.S. metro markets, enabling customers to obtain 100 Gbps access ports and speeds by expanding the capacity behind its connectivity services.

The new enhancement is part of a phased rollout that spans 15 existing Flexential data centers in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, and Portland – Hillsboro, Oregon. It will further support growing demand as AI training and inference workloads, large-scale data replication, and hybrid multi-cloud architectures generate traffic volumes that strain legacy 10 Gbps environments. Customers can now expand to 100 Gbps on a single port, with burstable options that allow them to increase capacity as requirements change.

“The companies investing most aggressively in AI and cloud infrastructure are hitting capacity limits on networks that were designed for a different era,” said Sam Rudek, COO of Flexential. “Our customers need to move data at scale between facilities, into cloud environments, and across regions without waiting months for provisioning or stitching together third-party connections. A 400 Gbps backbone gives them a foundation that matches the density and throughput their workloads require today and positions them for what’s coming next.”

The new 400 Gbps infrastructure increases the performance ceiling for connectivity services across the FlexAnywhere® Platform, including Interconnection Mesh, Data Center Interconnect, and IP Bandwidth. In these markets, Flexential Fabric customers can provision additional capacity in less than 90 minutes without traditional order tickets or extended deployment cycles.

With native 100 Gbps connectivity into major carrier hotels, customers gain direct access to dense carrier and cloud ecosystems and reduce their dependence on third-party networks. Organizations connecting to AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle can leverage dedicated throughput without traversing congested public peering points.

The upgrade will be delivered through Flexential Fabric, the company’s next-generation networking solution launched in 2024. Designed to support continuous innovation, Flexential Fabric enables ongoing enhancements to virtual networking services and capabilities. As part of this launch, Flexential is introducing new services, streamlined IP migration capabilities from legacy platforms, and additional features that help clients maximize the value of increased network capacity while simplifying connectivity and operational flexibility.

This investment underscores Flexential’s ongoing commitment to expanding its infrastructure footprint and supporting long-term customer growth. The company is developing new data center capacity in Atlanta, recently took ownership of two data center properties in Hillsboro, Oregon, and launched Flexential Marketplace to enable connectivity across its digital ecosystem. Additional Flexential markets will receive the 400 Gbps network upgrade early next year.

To learn more about Flexential’s private network and its connectivity services, visit flexential.com/interconnection.

About Flexential

Flexential empowers the IT journey of the most complex businesses by offering tailored hybrid IT solutions designed for today’s demanding high-density computing requirements. With colocation, cloud, interconnection, data protection, and professional services, the FlexAnywhere® Platform anchors our services in over 40 data centers across 18 highly connected markets on a scalable 100+ Gbps private network backbone. Flexential solutions are strategically engineered to meet the most stringent challenges in security, compliance, and resiliency. Experience the power of IT flexibility and how we enable digital transformation at www.flexential.com.

Media Contact
Jaime Dumas
[email protected]

Christian Rizzo
Gregory for Flexential
[email protected]

SOURCE Flexential

Embedder and Verkor Partner to Take Agentic AI From Chip Design to Working Firmware

An AI agent designed a RISC-V CPU core in about 12 hours. Now an AI agent is writing and testing its firmware on real silicon.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 14, 2026 — Embedder, the AI coding agent for firmware and embedded systems, and Verkor, the company behind the autonomous chip design system Conductor, today announced a partnership linking AI-driven silicon design to AI-driven firmware development. Together, the two companies cover the full stack — from a written spec to verified embedded software.

New silicon has always waited on software. Every chip needs bring-up code, drivers, and reference firmware before anyone can build on it — work that normally leans on vendor ecosystems built up over years. VerCore — the RISC-V core Conductor just designed — has none of that. Embedder builds that context from scratch, grounding it in the reference documentation. Then it drives the test equipment to prove the firmware actually works on real silicon.

“Chip design used to take months. Verkor just cut it down to a day,” said Ethan Gibbs, CEO of Embedder. “That makes firmware the next bottleneck, and firmware is the problem we built Embedder to solve. A brand-new core nobody has ever written code for is normally the hardest week of a firmware engineer’s career. For Embedder it’s a normal Tuesday.”

Verkor’s Conductor produced VerCore, a complete RISC-V CPU core, from a 219-word prompt in roughly 12 hours. In simulation the core runs at 1.48 GHz and posts a CoreMark score of 3,261. An FPGA implementation of Vercore is fully operational.

“A system is only proven when software runs successfully on its hardware. AI-based software and hardware co-development speeds up building and validating a fully working system, taking it from years to days. This partnership gives AI-designed silicon a software story on day one and pushes fully integrated system development and deployment to the next level for the industry,” said Suresh Krishna, CEO of Verkor.

About Embedder. Embedder is the AI coding agent for firmware and embedded systems. It understands the reference documentation and drives test equipment, closing the loop between source and silicon so embedded teams can get to market faster. Engineering teams across automotive, defense, IoT, and consumer electronics are using Embedder to generate verified firmware for complex applications.

About Verkor. Verkor, founded by top AI researchers and semiconductor veterans, builds semiconductors end-to-end — from concept to verified, tape-out-ready layout (GDSII) — through its platform, Conductor. Proven on numerous ASIC and FPGA designs, Conductor compresses time-to-tape-out from years to days. Leading-edge customers are using Conductor to build chips for the data center, networking, automotive, and IoT, among other areas.

Media Contacts
Jonah Perry — [email protected]
David Chin — [email protected]

SOURCE Embedder; Verkor