Funding accelerates R&D and retail expansion as Bird&Be fills gaps in fertility care.

TORONTO, Sept. 22, 2026 — Bird&Be, the fertility and wellness brand making supplements and at-home tests for women and men at every stage of the fertility journey, today announced $13M in funding to fuel product development, retail expansion, and access to trusted, evidence-based reproductive health support – whether someone is trying to conceive, managing a condition like PMOS, supporting a pregnancy, or simply taking a proactive first step in understanding their fertility. The round is led by BDC Thrive, BFG Partners, and supported by BAM Ventures, Founder Collective, Rejuvenation Ventures, and HSR Ventures.

Why the fertility category needs a trusted intervention:

• 1 in 6 people experience infertility, and up to 50% of cases involve male factors; yet fewer than 1,400 fertility specialists (REIs) practice nationwide, and nearly half of U.S. counties lack an OB-GYN.
• PMOS affects 1 in 10 women but can take many years to diagnose, leaving an estimated 70% of women undiagnosed and unsupported in managing their cycles and fertility.
• Prenatal vitamins need a higher standard too: a recent Consumer Reports investigation found nearly all (15 of 17) prenatal vitamins tested contained more or less of key nutrients than their labels claimed, including folic acid, which is essential for neural tube development. Bird&Be’s Prenatal met all of its label claims in Consumer Reports’ evaluation. Note: Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services.

With third-party-tested supplements formulated and backed by OB-GYNS, REIs, and naturopathic fertility specialists, Bird&Be steps in to give women and men the nutritional support they need for healthy conception, pregnancies, and postpartum recovery. They are also the only brand to offer at-home diagnostic tests alongside supplements –  Sperm Test Kits and Ovarian Reserve Screening Tests for under $100 – giving couples the tools to take proactive care of their reproductive health to improve outcomes.

In its first three years, Bird&Be grew to an eight-figure brand with nearly 100% year-over-year growth and 75% of revenue coming from subscriptions. The brand has grown its clinician-referral channel 200% year-over-year — with more than 10% of customers now coming through a healthcare provider recommendation. Bird&Be launched in 300 Ulta Beauty stores in September 2025 and expanded to nearly 1,000 stores by spring 2026, becoming the first fertility brand to place male and female products side by side in a national beauty retailer. Bird&Be recently partnered with Mandell’s Clinical Pharmacy to extend its reach directly to patients navigating fertility treatment in all 50 states.

The new funding will fuel research and clinical studies, product development, continued retail expansion, and the growth of Bird&Be’s clinical distribution channel.

“We started Bird&Be because my Co-Founder Breanna Hughes and I didn’t have the support we needed navigating PMOS and pregnancy loss ourselves,” said Samantha Diamond, Bird&Be Co-Founder and CEO. “We get it because we lived it. Every product we make helps our customers and community feel educated and in control. We intentionally created a brand that would bring men into the fertility narrative as well, giving them the supplements and tools to care for their own reproductive health and grow their families. We’ve been able to support hundreds of thousands of people in their fertility journeys over the past few years and the new funding helps us make trusted products even more accessible when and where people need care most.”

“Bird&Be is building a category-defining company at the intersection of women’s health, consumer health, and preventative care,” said Mona Minhas, Managing Partner, BDC Thrive Venture Fund. “By combining science-backed products with accessible education, Bird&Be is addressing a significant unmet need in a large and underserved market. We’re excited to lead this investment and partner with the team as they scale their impact. Supporting exceptional women-led companies like Bird&Be is central to Thrive’s mandate and to BDC’s commitment to fueling innovation and economic growth in Canada.”

“Bird&Be pairs a deep body of fertility science with a product experience people actually stick with. That combination is rare,” said Elizabeth Earle, Vice President at BFG. “BFG strongly believes that brands built on real transparency, like Bird&Be, should be within reach of more people and we’re eager to support Samantha and Breanna’s mission in bringing them to women and men hoping to build their families.”

About Bird&Be

Bird&Be is a fertility and wellness brand providing supplements and at-home tests for both partners at every stage of the fertility journey. Formulated by fertility doctors, OB-GYNs, and naturopathic specialists, Bird&Be offers prenatal, pregnancy, postpartum, and hormone-supporting supplements with therapeutic, bioavailable, third-party-tested ingredients. Bird&Be products are available on birdandbe.com, in Ulta stores and online, and through clinical partnerships like Mandell’s Clinical Pharmacy. Learn more at birdandbe.com 

SOURCE Bird&Be

Powered by agentic AI, Chamelio’s platform is primed to replace outdated legacy contract lifecycle management systems and empower legal teams to embrace AI-powered operations. Since its seed round five months ago, Chamelio’s ARR has grown 4x

NEW YORK, Sept. 22, 2026 — Chamelio, the AI-native platform for in-house legal teams, today announced a $26 million Series A round led by Entrée Capital, with participation from existing investors Work-Bench and Emerge Ventures. Bright Pixel Capital also participated. Chamelio boasts hundreds of customers, including Wiz, monday.com, Socure, AppsFlyer, and Wonderful.ai. The company will use the new funding to further develop its proprietary legal action model, grow its legal engineering and product teams and invest further in onboarding technology.

In-house legal departments are overworked and understaffed, with workload demands surging, while budgets and headcount are not keeping pace. An Association of Corporate Counsel survey from this year found that budget and resource constraints were a key barrier to success. Meanwhile, only 32% of legal departments expect to add attorney headcount this year, according to CLOC’s 2026 State of the Industry Report. Most in-house legal teams are still relying on legacy Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) software built to store contracts, not analyze or act on them, with the painstaking additional work falling on the same number of overburdened teams.

The legal sector has adopted AI faster than almost any other profession. Deloitte predicts in three years, 30% of a legal team will be AI agents, and one in five will be hybrid lawyer-engineers. This role bridges the gap between technology and legal expertise. Chamelio enables the legal teams of today to delegate the tedious manual labor of contract review to autonomous agents, laying the groundwork for a completely different in-house composition of the future, consisting of both lawyers and AI agents.

Chamelio is an AI-native legal platform for in-house teams that manages and executes the full contract lifecycle, from drafting and negotiation to approvals, obligations, and ongoing legal workflows. Unlike traditional contract management systems built primarily to store documents and manage processes, Chamelio is trained on legal actions and can perform the work itself. It drafts from a company’s own contracts, reviews and negotiates terms, routes requests, manages obligations, and executes multistep legal workflows. Customers can deploy it autonomously for routine, low-risk work or keep a lawyer in the loop where oversight is needed. By handling routine tasks and decisions independently and escalating only the edge cases that require human judgment, Chamelio shifts the in-house lawyer’s role from labor-intensive execution to strategic oversight and judgment.

Chamelio also allows legal teams to easily build their own agents which support and interact with multiple functions across the organization, from procurement to finance, product to people, compliance to sales, helping scale and amplify legal capabilities for enterprise in the AI era.

“The mistake in legal AI has been assuming the future simply looks like today’s lawyer with faster contractual fact-checking,” said Alex Zilberman, CEO and co-founder of Chamelio. “AI in a legal setting shows dividends when it can make decisions intuitively, built on the corporate intelligence of each individual business. This is what Chamelio does. We ensure in-house legal departments deliver watertight contracts and outputs at AI speed, validated by the rigor of lawyers.”

“Chamelio is building the AI-native operating system for in-house legal teams – becoming the system of record, system of action, and system of intelligence for the modern legal function,” said Eran Bielski, General Partner at Entrée Capital. “What stood out to us was not only the strength of the product, but how quickly Chamelio’s founders execute, learn from customer feedback, and turn that feedback into a product with category-defining potential.”

Chamelio’s platform integrates with CRMs like Salesforce, as well as other tools such as Slack, NetSuite and procurement systems. Every deployment from Chamelio’s platform contains access to dedicated legal engineering expertise that helps customers migrate from legacy systems, structure their repositories, translate existing processes into workflows and get AI into production quickly.

Zilberman added: “Chamelio is empowering the next era of legal operations, one which includes vital human legal judgment, backed by legal engineers who turn that knowledge into systems and AI agents. With our platform underpinning every facet of in-house contract execution, we are redefining how in-house legal activities are carried out.”

About Chamelio

Founded in 2024 by serial entrepreneurs and two-time founders, Alex Zilberman and Gal Lellouche, alongside former general counsel, Gil Banyas, Chamelio is the AI system of action for in-house legal teams. Its platform combines contract negotiation, legal intake, workflows, contract intelligence and knowledge in one platform. Its software, AI-powered migration technology and legal engineering model helps corporate legal departments move from legacy systems to AI that does the work.

Media Contact

Headline Media
Jack Mendel – [email protected]

SOURCE Chamelio

Former financial leader at Radius Global Infrastructure and Crown Castle will steer finance strategy to meet next stage of enterprise, cloud and AI infrastructure demand

DALLAS, Sept. 22, 2026 — DataBank, a leading provider of enterprise-class colocation, interconnection, and managed services, announced today that Ben Lowe has been appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Lowe will lead all of DataBank’s finance, accounting, treasury, and capital markets functions and will report to DataBank’s President and current CFO, Kevin Ooley, who will be transitioning to CEO on January 1, 2027. DataBank’s current CEO, Raul Martynek, will become Executive Chairman of the Board on January 1, 2027.

Lowe joins DataBank as the company embarks on its next phase of evolution, continuing to provide highly compliant, mission-critical, colocation services to 2,500+ enterprise customers while capitalizing on the rapid growth in digital infrastructure driven by AI and hyperscale cloud demand.  He brings to DataBank a deep reservoir of experience scaling financial operations and capital structures in both public and private equity-backed organizations as well as insight and perspective across the digital infrastructure ecosystem from data centers to wireless networks.  

“Ben possesses a mix of industry knowledge, financial acumen, and capital markets experience that will be incredibly valuable for DataBank as we enter this next chapter,” said Kevin Ooley, DataBank’s President and acting CFO. “His proven ability to access both public and private markets and his track-record of synthesizing capital with strategy will be critical as we navigate this next phase of evolution.”

Most recently, Lowe served as Chief Financial Officer at Radius Global Infrastructure, a portfolio company of EQT Active Core Infrastructure and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board that specializes in the strategic acquisition and management of critical telecommunication infrastructure including cell site leases, network switches/exchanges, fiber aggregation points, Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS), data centers, and towers.  Prior to that, Lowe served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance and Treasurer at Crown Castle, an owner and operator of approximately 40,000 wireless towers across the U.S.

“DataBank’s U.S. data center infrastructure footprint is unparalleled, and the company has a rich history of building long-term relationships with customers and capital markets alike,” said Lowe. “This is an incredible platform and track-record upon which to chart the next era of growth and I’m incredibly excited to be joining at such a monumental time.“

“I’m delighted to have Ben joining our leadership team,” added Raul Martynek, DataBank’s CEO. “He and Kevin are the right leaders to champion DataBank’s next phase of growth and continue our heritage of financial strength and performance. I look forward to supporting them in 2027 in my new role as Executive Chairman of the board.”

About DataBank

DataBank helps the world’s largest enterprises, technology, and content providers ensure their data and applications are always on, always secure, always compliant, and ready to scale to meet the needs of the artificial intelligence era.

Recognized by Deloitte in 2023 and 2024, and Inc. 5000 in 2024 as one of the fastest-growing private US companies, DataBank’s edge colocation and infrastructure footprint consists of 70+ “HPC-ready” data centers in 25+ markets, 20 interconnection hubs, and on-ramps to an ecosystem of cloud providers with virtually unlimited reach.

We combine these platforms with contract portability, managed security, compliance enablement, hands-on support, and a guarantee of 100% uptime availability, to give our customers absolute confidence in their IT infrastructure and the power to create a boundless digital future for their business.

To learn more, follow us on LinkedIn or subscribe to our YouTube channel. To tour a facility, visit DataBank or call 1(800) 840-7533.

SOURCE DataBank

Atum raises $13.5m to build the world’s first open payments network.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 22, 2026 — Atum today emerged from stealth having built the open payments network, a first of its kind, for global money movement. Atum connects payment companies, developers, and enterprises through a single coordination layer, without issuing a currency, operating a blockchain, favoring a rail, or taking custody of customer funds. The company is launching with $13.5 million of funding from Variant, PayPal Ventures, Abstract Ventures, Road Capital, Mirana Ventures, First Commit, Credibly Neutral, and strategic advisor Charlie Songhurst.

Payments are fragmented across currencies, chains, apps, and local rails that do not interoperate, and every handoff adds cost, delay, and complexity. Stablecoins offer fast, low-cost global rails, but are spread across many blockchains, which pushes that complexity onto users. Atum is the coordination layer between them. Any integrator, developer, or application can submit a payment request, while settlement providers compete to fulfill the payments across any supported chain and stablecoin, with native authorization, reversible payments, and identity. Senders specify what they will send; receivers get what they asked to receive.

Atum is incentivized only by volume, and connects participants through a marketplace where settlement providers compete to fulfill each payment. That structure is what makes the network credibly neutral: its interests are aligned with everyone building on it. It is an open-loop payments and commerce platform.

The network serves businesses moving money: card issuers and acquirers, payment service providers, card networks, stablecoin orchestrators, wallets, fintechs, and enterprises—plus developers building on top. Atum supports financial institutions and stablecoin card issuers, for both non-agentic stablecoin payments and agentic payments through agentic protocols including x402 and MPP. Both humans and agents are completing payments on Atum today.

“This is my life’s work,” said Pete Cooling, founder and CEO of Atum. “In 2014 I saw that blockchains were payments networks, and everything since has pointed to the same conclusion. Onchain accounts are the future bank accounts, and new infrastructure is needed to make money move more seamlessly than it does today. Atum is that infrastructure.”

Cooling formerly led the crypto product team at Visa and has been researching and building blockchain-based payments systems over the past decade. He served as Visa’s representative on Linux’s OpenWallet Foundation, helping guide standards for digital wallets across identity, financial accounts, payment cards, and stablecoins.

Atum is open to builders today in at atum.xyz

About Atum

Atum is the open payments network for global money movement. Atum connects payment companies, developers, and enterprises through a unified coordination layer that handles authorization, routing, and confirmation without being a counterparty and without taking custody. Atum issues no currency, runs no blockchain, favors no rail, and doesn’t compete with any participant on its network. Learn more at atum.xyz.

Media Contact: Amy Van Aarle, 1-617-935-5837, [email protected] 

SOURCE Atum

Strong participation from existing shareholders and strategic investors drives raise beyond the $10 million target

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Sept. 22, 2026 — Monetary Metals®, the global Gold Yield Marketplace^® platform, raised $10.5 million through its latest equity financing, surpassing the initial $10 million target.

The new capital will support the continued development of the Monetary Metals Gold Yield Marketplace®. The company is on an exponential growth trajectory, having more than doubled the amount of gold deployed year over year, and was recently named to the top 8% of the prestigious 2026 Inc. 5000 list.

Founded in 2012 by economist and entrepreneur Keith Weiner, Monetary Metals enables gold owners to earn a yield on their gold, challenging the traditional view that gold is an unproductive asset. The yield is achieved by leasing gold to precious metals businesses such as jewelers and refiners, to finance their gold inventory.

This equity raise includes investment from both existing and new shareholders. The latest financing brings the total amount raised by Monetary Metals to nearly $25 million.

Keith Weiner, founder and CEO of Monetary Metals said: 

“The continued support we receive from investors reflects growing recognition that we have not only created a new category of gold ownership—gold fixed income—but that we are the leader in that category. Because of Monetary Metals, gold is a productive, income-generating asset for clients across the globe. We are seeing strong growth across both sides of our marketplace, from gold owners seeking gold-denominated yield to precious metals businesses accessing more efficient financing solutions than those offered by traditional banks. We are grateful to our investors for supporting our vision of unlocking the productivity of gold and for their continued confidence in our mission as we scale the platform and expand its reach.”

Media Contacts:

About Monetary Metals:

Monetary Metals® is Unlocking the Productivity of Gold™ by offering a Yield on Gold, Paid in Gold® to investors, and Gold Financing, Simplified™ to gold-using businesses (mints, miners, refiners, jewelers, etc.).

Since 2016, individuals and institutions around the world have been earning a yield in gold and silver every month through our Gold Yield Marketplace®.

SOURCE Monetary Metals & Co.

BOSTON, Sept. 22, 2026 — Creatio, an AI CRM and workflow platform where people and AI agents work together, today announced a $300 million investment from 2026 through 2028 in Creatio Bank.AI, its market-leading offering for banks and financial institutions.

The investment comes as financial institutions rapidly accelerate their adoption of AI, and demand for Creatio’s platform continues to grow — Creatio’s financial services vertical grew 48% YoY. The $300 million commitment will build on this momentum, accelerating product AI innovation while expanding the enablement and deployment capabilities, and partner ecosystem needed to drive AI adoption at scale across financial institutions.

With deep experience in financial services, Creatio has built long-standing relationships with leading organizations including Nasdaq, First National Bank of Pennsylvania, Metro Bank, MetLife, CEC Bank, OTP Bank, National Bank of Panama, ESL Credit Union, and many others.

“The next generation of banking will be built around people and AI agents working together across customer and operational workflows,” said Katherine Kostereva, CEO of Creatio. “Our $300 million investment in Creatio Bank.AI will accelerate this transition, giving financial institutions the technology, industry expertise, and partner ecosystem to adopt AI faster and at enterprise scale.”

$300 Million Investment to Accelerate Innovation and Adoption
Between now and 2028, Creatio will significantly increase investment across the following strategic areas:

1. Product and AI innovation
Creatio will further accelerate the development of its Creatio Bank.AI platform, combining the market-leading AI platform, best-in-class AI CRM, and pre-built banking agents.

The platform powers three core banking domains: Growth, Service, and Operations. Growth agents accelerate customer acquisition, onboarding, and share-of-wallet expansion. Service agents elevate customer experience with faster, more personalized resolution. Operations agents streamline compliance, regulatory reporting, and mid- and back-office work.

Creatio will continue to advance its already superior AI Studio, enhancing no-code designers for both personal and enterprise AI agents, centralized AI governance, integrations, AI modality management, security, and enterprise-grade observability.

2. AI adoption and enablement
Creatio is reinforcing its investment in AI adoption and enablement for customers and partners. The focus is on equipping the banking community with the knowledge, frameworks, and hands-on guidance to adopt AI at scale.

The investment expands AI activation programs for customers and partners: dedicated training programs, AI accelerator workshops, and industry-specific guidance. Creatio is also strengthening its global channel delivery capabilities, arming implementation partners with the expertise to help financial institutions deploy high-value AI use cases.

Removing the Limits to AI Adoption in Banking
The investment builds on Creatio’s Unlimited Enterprise vision, enabling people and AI agents to work together on a single platform without traditional constraints around users, agents, workflows, applications, or scale.

As part of this broader commitment to the banking community, Creatio recently launched the Bank.AI hub, a dedicated destination for financial services executives to navigate the AI era. On September 24, Creatio will also host “Bank.AI: Practical AI Use Cases for Banking” digital event, and on October 27, the Bank.AI Summit in Chicago, bringing together industry leaders to share best practices for AI adoption and transformation.

About Creatio

Creatio is an AI CRM and workflow platform where people and AI agents work together — with no limits on users, agents, or scale. We help midsize and large organizations run customer workflows in the AI era. Headquartered in Boston, MA, with a global team and a large ecosystem of partners, Creatio serves thousands of customers in over 100 countries and automates tens of millions of workflows daily. Genuine care for our clients and partners is at the heart of our DNA.

Media Contact
Judyta Krylova
+1 617 765 7997
[email protected]

SOURCE Creatio

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 22, 2026 — Superpower today announced a new partnership with Sequoia to bring a more proactive model of preventive health to employers and their teams. The partnership will begin with Sequoia’s own 800+ employee workforce, giving Sequoia firsthand experience with Superpower while simultaneously making the solution available to eligible client organizations across its employer ecosystem.

Employer healthcare often starts after something has already gone wrong. Symptoms appear. A diagnosis is made. Risk shows up as a claim. Superpower is working to shift that experience earlier, helping people better understand their health before issues become more serious and helping employers support preventive care in a more meaningful way.

The partnership with Sequoia is designed to make that model easier for employers to evaluate and adopt. Sequoia works with more than 2,500 companies and reaches more than 600,000 people, giving it a broad view into the challenges employers face as they manage rising healthcare costs, fragmented benefits, and growing demand for more personalized employee support.

Many people want to be more proactive about their health, but the current system can make that difficult. Annual visits often rely on limited testing and provide only a snapshot in time. Health records may be spread across providers, apps, and systems. New technology can make guidance more personalized, but it works best when connected to comprehensive data and clinical support.

Superpower turns a simple blood draw into an ongoing preventive health experience. Members receive 150+ biomarker testing at home, at thousands of lab locations, or onsite. They also receive a longitudinal health profile that can combine labs, health records, and wearable data, along with a personalized action plan, 24/7 Health AI, licensed clinical support, proactive outreach, and retesting to track progress over time. When the data points to care or a benefit an employer already offers, Superpower helps the member understand where to go next.

By partnering with Sequoia, Superpower can bring this experience to an employer audience that is actively looking for more proactive, integrated ways to support workforce health. Sequoia will begin by offering Superpower to its own employees, then use that experience to advise eligible clients that are evaluating comprehensive preventive health as part of their broader benefits strategy.

“Most people are trying to make health decisions with limited information and a fragmented view of their health. Superpower brings together comprehensive testing, technology, and clinical support so people can better understand what is happening in their bodies and take action earlier. Partnering with Sequoia helps us bring that model to employers in a thoughtful, credible way, starting with Sequoia’s own team,” said Max Marchione, Chief Executive Officer at Superpower.

Sequoia’s decision to begin with its own workforce reflects the way many employers are approaching new health solutions: they want to understand the employee experience, the operational requirements, and the potential value before recommending or scaling them more broadly.

“Employers have made significant investments in healthcare, but much of that support begins after a condition is already known. We see an opportunity to help people engage earlier, with better information and clearer next steps. By offering this to our own team, we can learn firsthand what this experience delivers and help clients evaluate whether it fits into their broader preventive health strategy,” said Christina Sullivan, Chief Client Officer at Sequoia.

Health costs continue to rise, and employers often have limited visibility into health risks before they become more serious and more expensive. Through this partnership, Superpower and Sequoia aim to help employers move upstream, supporting people earlier, connecting them with appropriate care, and making better use of the benefits already available to them.

Eligible Sequoia client organizations should reach out to their Sequoia representative for more information.

About Superpower

Superpower has quickly become one of the most trusted names in preventive healthcare. The company has raised more than $40 million in funding, with its Series A led by Forerunner Ventures. Its membership combines comprehensive lab testing across 150+ biomarkers, AI-powered insights, personalized protocols, and 24/7 access to a clinical care team. The platform brings together each member’s test results with their broader health context – including previous labs, real-time wearable data, family history, and conversations with Superpower AI – to uncover trends, surface potential risks, and deliver ongoing guidance that evolves alongside them. For further information, visit www.superpower.com.

About Sequoia

Sequoia is the strategic partner helping investor-backed companies of all sizes achieve their business goals through smarter people spend. For over 25 years, we’ve guided the most innovative employers to navigate growth and get the most out of their global people investment. With our expert advisory team and integrated platform, we help clients drive business impact through their total comp and benefits, improving executive decision making, controlling costs, protecting the business, and elevating the employee experience. Visit Sequoia.com or follow us on LinkedIn to learn more.

SOURCE Superpower

Appointment strengthens Grafine’s leadership team and supports the firm’s continued growth and commitment to investors

NEW YORK, Sept. 22, 2026 — Grafine Partners, a principal investment firm focused on generating alpha in the lower middle and middle market, today announced that Suzanne Flannery has joined the firm as Managing Director, Head of Strategic Initiatives. In this newly created role, Ms. Flannery will work across the investment, capital formation and operations teams to further institutionalize Grafine as it continues to attract capital from sophisticated global investors and increase its direct investment activity.

Since founding Grafine in 2019, Founder and Managing Partner Elizabeth Weymouth has built a distinctive investment firm around seeking to identify exceptional sector-specialist private equity investors launching new firms and investing alongside them in high-alpha opportunities.

“We are delighted to welcome Suzanne to Grafine,” said Ms. Weymouth. “She brings a unique and valuable combination of investment experience, strategic perspective, and operating discipline to our growing platform. Her experience will strengthen our ability to serve our investors as we grow, helping us scale thoughtfully while continuing to provide the performance and high level of engagement that are central to Grafine.”

Ms. Flannery brings more than two decades of experience spanning alternative investments, business strategy and institutional asset management. Most recently, she served as Managing Director and Head of Product Marketing Platform at Neuberger Berman, where she led a global team supporting the firm’s investment offerings. Previously, she spent nine years at Goldman Sachs in senior roles across portfolio management, client solutions and hedge fund investing. Earlier in her career, she worked at J.P. Morgan and Monitor Group.

Ms. Flannery holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an Honors Business Administration degree from Ivey Business School at Western University.

About Grafine Partners

Grafine Partners is a principal investment firm focused on generating alpha in the lower middle and middle market – segments offering some of private equity’s most compelling risk-adjusted return opportunities. The firm pursues this opportunity by partnering with sector-specialist investors launching new firms whose proprietary deal flow, deep domain expertise, and demonstrated track records of outperformance create what Grafine believes is a differentiated and repeatable sourcing advantage.  

Zach Kouwe
Dukas Linden Public Relations
[email protected] 

SOURCE Grafine Partners

The combined investment will support WIOCC Group’s long-term growth strategy, including the expansion of its terrestrial and subsea networks, data centre capacity and broader digital infrastructure platform

NEW YORK, Sept. 22, 2026 — WIOCC Group, Africa’s leading carrier-neutral digital infrastructure platform, today announced that the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) intends to join Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) (www.AfricaFC.org) and Vision International Investment Company (Vision Invest) as an investor in the company. The announcement was made following a roundtable hosted by AFC on the sidelines of Unstoppable Africa’s Global Africa Business Initiative, held alongside the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. The combined investment will support WIOCC Group’s long-term growth strategy, including the expansion of its terrestrial and subsea networks, data centre capacity and broader digital infrastructure platform, helping strengthen connectivity, digital access and local hosting capacity across the continent.

The investment comes at a pivotal moment for Africa’s digital development as demand for data, cloud services and artificial intelligence continues to grow. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), only 35.7% of Africa’s population was using the internet in 2025, compared with a global average of 73.6%, highlighting the scale of the continent’s digital infrastructure needs and growth potential. Meanwhile, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) projects the global AI market will reach US$4.8 trillion by 2033, while warning that access to AI capabilities and digital infrastructure remains concentrated in a limited number of countries and companies. These trends underscore the importance of investing in resilient, high-capacity infrastructure that can expand digital access, support cross-border data flows and help narrow the digital divide.

Operating in more than 30 African countries, WIOCC Group is a key enabler for further expansion, having established one of the continent’s most extensive, open-access digital infrastructure platforms that supports its clients in accessing new markets and delivering reliable digital services at scale.

With DFC, WIOCC Group brings together an expanded group of investors combining African, Saudi Arabian and U.S. development finance perspectives, reflecting the growing international consensus around the strategic importance of open-access digital infrastructure to Africa’s economic transformation. DFC’s investment is subject to further steps before commitment and closing, including congressional notification.

Conor Coleman, DFC’s Chief of Staff and Head of Investments, commented, “DFC’s investment in WIOCC Group will help build the next generation of trusted, resilient digital infrastructure needed to power Africa’s economic growth. This platform will not only provide the connectivity that businesses and communities need to participate in the digital economy, but it will also support American and allied partner companies seeking to grow in one of the world’s most dynamic markets, including U.S. hyperscalers and the broader American technology ecosystem.”

Commenting on this investment, Samaila Zubairu, President & Chief Executive Officer of AFC, said, ‘The Africa we build must be connected, competitive and equipped to create value from the digital economy, not only consume it. Just as transport corridors enable trade and energy networks power industry, fibre, data centres and subsea cables are now essential infrastructure for growth, innovation and AI. Our investment in WIOCC will expand the open-access digital backbone African businesses and communities need to integrate, innovate and compete globally.’

President & Chief Executive Officer of Vision Invest, Omar N. Al-Midani, added, ‘WIOCC Group has built one of Africa’s leading digital infrastructure platforms, and we are proud to partner together with DFC, AFC and WIOCC’s existing shareholders as the company enters its next phase of growth. Home to the world’s youngest population and expected to account for more than one-quarter of the global population by 2050, demand for digital services in Africa will continue to rise, necessitating impactful investments in connectivity and digital ecosystems to unlock new opportunities for innovation, economic diversification and sustainable growth as well as opportunities for businesses, innovators and communities across Africa.’

Chris Wood, Group Chief Executive Officer of WIOCC Group, further explained, ‘Africa is uniquely positioned to capitalise on the next phase of global digital growth. As demand for cloud, AI and digital services accelerates, robust and scalable infrastructure will be essential to unlocking the continent’s potential. This additional investment increases WIOCC Group’s ability to execute its long-term growth strategy by accelerating data centre deployment and consolidation, expanding the continent’s open-access terrestrial fibre footprint and investing strategically in new subsea assets, strengthening Africa’s digital infrastructure platform and enhancing connectivity between the continent and key international markets.’

Joshua Smythwood, Group Chief Strategy and M&A Officer of WIOCC Group, concluded, ‘The successful completion of this additional investment marks another important step in WIOCC Group’s evolution, further enhancing the Group’s financial strength and enabling the management team to strengthen our market position, accelerate growth, enhance our ability to meet the evolving needs of customers across Africa, and generate long-term value for investors and stakeholders.’

The combined investment brings together AFC’s long-standing commitment to advancing Africa’s economic development, Vision Invest’s experience in developing strategic and impactful infrastructure investments, and DFC’s mandate to mobilise private capital to address development challenges. Together with WIOCC Group’s established digital footprint and extensive market relationships, the partnership will support the continued expansion of Africa’s digital ecosystem and the continent’s growing participation in the global digital economy.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Africa Finance Corporation (AFC).

Download Image (1): https://apo-opa.co/4hg1Hrb (Representatives of WIOCC Group, AFC, Vision Invest and the U.S. DFC at the AFC-hosted roundtable in New York, where DFC announced its intention to join as an investor in WIOCC Group (1))

Download Image (2): https://apo-opa.co/4rq9Yfu (Representatives of WIOCC Group, AFC, Vision Invest and the U.S. DFC at the AFC-hosted roundtable in New York, where DFC announced its intention to join as an investor in WIOCC Group (2))

Download Image (3): https://apo-opa.co/4iCU8fb (Representatives of WIOCC Group, AFC, Vision Invest and the U.S. DFC at the AFC-hosted roundtable in New York, where DFC announced its intention to join as an investor in WIOCC Group (3))

Download Image (4): https://apo-opa.co/4Aqp5td (Representatives of WIOCC Group, AFC, Vision Invest and the U.S. DFC at the AFC-hosted roundtable in New York, where DFC announced its intention to join as an investor in WIOCC Group (4))

Media Contacts:
Greg Sellars
Director Global Brand & Communications
WIOCC
Email: [email protected]

Yewande Thorpe
Communications
Africa Finance Corporation
Mobile: +234 1 279 9654
Email: [email protected]

Suha Matar
VP Corporate Communications
Vision Invest
Email: [email protected]

DFC Press
Email: [email protected]

About DFC:
The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is the international investment arm of the United States Government and central to U.S. economic statecraft. DFC mobilizes private capital to advance U.S. foreign policy and economic development. Our investments deliver strong returns for American taxpayers, drive meaningful economic development for our allies and partners, and secure supply chains to counter and outcompete our adversaries.   

About Africa Finance Corporation (AFC):
AFC was established in 2007 to be the catalyst for pragmatic infrastructure and industrial investments across Africa. AFC’s approach combines specialist industry expertise with a focus on financial and technical advisory, project structuring, project development, and risk capital to address Africa’s infrastructure development needs and drive sustainable economic growth.

Nineteen years on, AFC has developed a track record as the partner of choice in Africa for investing and delivering on instrumental, high-quality infrastructure assets that provide essential services in the core infrastructure sectors of energy, natural resources, heavy industry, transport, and telecommunications. AFC has 48 member countries and has invested over US$19 billion in 36 African countries since its inception.

About Vision Invest:
Vision Invest is a leading Saudi Arabian infrastructure investment and development company at the forefront of public and private sector partnerships in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and beyond. Contributing to sustainable economic development and growth, the company operates across a wide range of vital sectors, including energy transition, advanced digital infrastructure, resource recovery and preservation, transport and logistics, and social and economic infrastructure. Its portfolio footprint spans five continents, including Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America.

About WIOCC:

Africa’s Digital Infrastructure Leader

WIOCC Group is Africa’s leading digital infrastructure platform, building and operating the critical infrastructure that enables intra-African and international connectivity.

Through strategic investments in subsea assets, terrestrial networks, metro infrastructure, hyperscale data centres and digital platforms, WIOCC Group underpins the expansion and scalability of digital services across the continent.

Its carrier-neutral, open-access approach connects businesses, communities and digital ecosystems, supporting connectivity, cloud, AI, content delivery and the continued growth of Africa’s digital economy.

End-to-End Enabler of Africa’s Interconnected Digital Ecosystem

Trusted in Africa since 2008, WIOCC Group delivers reliable, scalable and future-ready digital infrastructure that strengthens connectivity, expands access and creates the foundations for sustainable digital and economic growth across the continent.

SOURCE Africa Finance Corporation (AFC)