Strategic investment set to scale the largest network for accessing digital assets and stablecoins, connecting over 150 fiat currencies with crypto

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 14, 2026 — Meld, the largest network for accessing digital assets and stablecoins, today announced the close of a $7 million strategic funding round led by Lightspeed Faction, with participation from F-Prime, Yolo Investments, and Scytale Digital. This financing advances Meld’s mission to enable stablecoin driven use cases and will accelerate the company’s go-to-market efforts, expansion of the Meld Network, and continued development of customer success and operational support capabilities.

“Stablecoins are becoming the rails for global commerce, but accessing them remains unnecessarily complex for developers and end users alike,” said Pankaj Bengani, Founder & CEO of Meld. “This strategic funding allows us to expand the Meld Network and make digital assets as accessible as traditional payment methods, while enabling product managers and developers to build the next generation of financial applications.”

Meld offers seamless access and conversion between over 150 fiat currencies and any stablecoin or token through an app integration on the Meld Network. By enabling stablecoin-driven use cases like global payouts, remittances, and cross-border trade settlement, Meld provides powerful tools for product managers and developers to deliver pay-out and pay-in use cases in over 180 countries, and across local payment methods, as well as virtual account enabled bank rails.

Additionally, Meld supports onboarding onto native blockchains such as Ethereum and Solana to power trading and investment for crypto-native users. Meld partners with industry innovators, including Uniswap, Phantom and Metamask, to deliver instant, cross-border access that is secure and compliant.

“Meld is solving the fundamental challenge of moving seamlessly between fiat and crypto, which is increasingly essential as stablecoins become a preferred rail in global payments,” said Will Leas, Deal Partner at Lightspeed Faction. “We believe Meld has the ability to scale to meet demand from developers and merchants who need simple, compliant access to digital currencies across every major market.”

This strategic investment will enable Meld to grow its sales department, expand the network globally, and further develop its customer success infrastructure to support a growing base of clients. With over 50 partners across the world and $15 million raised to date, Meld is positioned to become an essential infrastructure layer connecting traditional finance with the digital asset ecosystem.

For more information, please visit meld.io.

About Meld
Meld is the largest network to access digital assets and stablecoins. Through the Meld Network, fintechs, developers, and merchants can convert over 150 fiat currencies and any stablecoin or token within their app. Meld powers global payouts, remittances, cross-border trade settlement, and native blockchain onboarding for trading and investment activity. Product managers and developers trust Meld to drive pay-out and pay-in use cases in over 180 countries and across card, local, and virtual account enabled local bank rails.

Media Contact
[email protected]

SOURCE Meld

Partnership Accelerates Innovation and Market Introduction of High-Performance, Plant-Based Materials Platform

PEORIA, Ill., Jan. 14, 2026 — Natural Fiber Welding Inc. (“NFW”), a pioneer in high-performance, plant-based materials, today announced a strategic investment from Provest Equity Partners, made jointly with CTW Venture Partners (“CTW”). The investment supports NFW’s next phase as the company accelerates commercialization and global scale of its breakthrough climate-tech, low-carbon materials platform.

The partnership comes at a transformative moment for NFW as it expands production of its flagship innovations, enabled by proprietary green chemistry and materials science. These innovations include PLIANT™, the world’s first naturally cured performance rubber outsoles and MIRUM^®, the world’s first all-natural, plastic-free leather alternative.

Together, PLIANT™ and MIRUM® represent a scalable, regenerative circular materials platform capable of replacing entire categories of plastics and petrochemical-based materials—without compromising performance, durability, or aesthetic quality. The newly improved PLIANT™ is currently available to place orders, with broader market expansion underway.

“This partnership marks an important inflection point for NFW, enabling us to continue our mission of bringing sustainable, performance materials to market,” said Steve Zika, Chief Executive Officer of NFW. “We are excited to partner with Provest, whose operator-driven approach and focus on disciplined scale align directly with what NFW needs as demand from global brand partners continues to accelerate. Together with CTW, we are strengthening the foundation required to scale responsibly while advancing the next generation of high-performance, sustainable materials.”

NFW’s platform has attracted backing from leading global brand partners and strategic investors, including BMW iVentures, Ralph Lauren Corporation, Allbirds, and Asahi Kasei —each recognizing the company’s potential to redefine the performance-materials landscape.

The investment from Provest and CTW builds on this foundation with a sharpened focus on operational execution, product innovation, manufacturing scale, and long-term value creation.

“NFW exemplifies the type of platform we seek to support—breakthrough science paired with real industrial relevance,” said Suhas Uppalapati, Chairman of NFW and Managing Partner of Provest Equity Partners. “Our role is to translate innovation into scalable, profitable growth, and we are excited to partner with NFW and CTW as the company enters its next phase.”

Provest brings a hands-on operator-investor model with deep experience in advanced manufacturing, operational systems, and industrial scale-up, while CTW Venture Partners contributes strong expertise in scaling climate-tech and materials-science platforms. Together, the firms will support NFW by strengthening unit economics and sustainable supply-chain execution, enhancing governance, systems, and capital structure, accelerating commercialization with global brand partners, and advancing next-generation materials science initiatives.

Following the investment, NFW will continue to deepen relationships across footwear, fashion, automotive, and industrial markets while advancing its mission to replace petroleum-based materials with high-performance, regenerative, and climate-aligned natural alternatives.

About Natural Fiber Welding
Natural Fiber Welding, headquartered in Peoria, Illinois, is a materials science company pioneering high-performance, plastic-free materials made entirely from renewable plant inputs. Its flagship products, PLIANT™ and MIRUM®, and deliver the performance of synthetic materials without fossil fuels or toxic chemicals, offering scalable solutions for global brands seeking sustainable alternatives. For more information, visit www.nfw.earth.

About Provest Equity Partners
Provest Equity Partners is an Atlanta-based growth equity firm dedicated to building exceptional industrial, technology-enabled manufacturing, and sustainability-driven platform companies. Provest’s hands-on operator-investor model combines capital, operational leadership, and strategic execution to help founder-led businesses scale into market leaders. For more information, visit www.provestequity.com.

About CTW Venture Partners
CTW Venture Partners is a venture capital firm specializing in transformative technologies in sustainability, advanced materials, and industrial innovation. CTW partners closely with founders and management teams to scale high-impact platforms with global commercial potential. For more information, visit www.ctwvp.com.

SOURCE Provest Equity Partners

Tripling product revenues, comprehensive developer tools, and scalable inference IP for vision and LLM workloads, position Quadric as the platform for on-device AI.

BURLINGAME, Calif., Jan. 14, 2026 — Quadric^®, the inference engine that powers on-device AI chips, today announced an oversubscribed $30 million Series C funding round, bringing total capital raised to $72 million.

ACCELERATE Fund, managed by BEENEXT Capital Management, led the round. Uncork Capital returned with one of the largest insider commitments through its opportunity fund, joined by insider Pear VC. New investors include Volta, Gentree, Wanxiang America, Pivotal, and Silicon Catalyst Ventures.

The funding comes as Quadric hits a revenue inflection: product revenues more than tripled in 2025 vs. 2024. Quadric is entering 2026 with accelerating design-win momentum, driven by growing adoption of the General Purpose NPU (GPNPU) processor IP across edge LLM, automotive, and enterprise vision applications.

“We’ve been deeply impressed by Quadric’s innovative architecture, its disruptive approach to AI inference at the edge, and their strong market traction particularly in Asian markets,” said Hero Choudhary, Managing Partner at BEENEXT. “Those attributes indicate a very clear path for further growth with a strong potential to be a generational business. We believe Quadric is poised to revolutionize the edge AI hardware sector, and we look forward to supporting their journey as they continue to push the boundaries of what is possible.”

Quadric’s Platform for On-Device AI

Making a good AI inference chip is hard. Making one that stays good is harder.

Most edge AI chips today are legacy architectures with NPU accelerators bolted on as an afterthought. The supporting software toolchains are often a hack-job stitched together to validate a handful of models and considered “done.” These stacks work fine for the models they were built for, but when a developer tries to inference a new model and obtain good performance, they break down.

Meanwhile, building an AI inference chip costs hundreds of millions of dollars. Customers can’t afford to bet on an architecture that becomes obsolete when models shift—and in AI, models always shift.

Quadric Chimera^™ processor IP is designed for this reality. Unlike fixed-function NPUs locked to today’s model architectures, Chimera is fully programmable: it runs any AI model—current or future—on a single unified architecture. This future-proofs the silicon investment against model-driven obsolescence.

Combined with a toolchain built from the ground up—not bolted on—Chimera enables chip designers to deploy computer vision and on-device LLM applications, including models up to 30 billion parameters, with industry-leading inference performance per watt. Customers can go from engagement to production-ready LLM-capable silicon in under six months.

Chimera GPNPU cores scale from 1 tera operations per second (TOPS) to 864 TOPS and are available in both commercial-grade and automotive safety-enhanced (ASIL-ready) configurations.

Proven Traction, Platform Potential

“Quadric is the only AI processor IP company we’ve seen reach this level of product revenue, and that traction is a direct result of real customer adoption—not hype,” said Jeff Clavier, Founding Partner at Uncork Capital, a seed investor that has participated in every round. “What makes this especially compelling is the entrenched on-device AI software ecosystem forming around Chimera; that ecosystem has the makings of a generational platform.”

Quadric licensees now span automotive, edge LLM, office automation, and autonomous driving use cases. Coincident with this funding, Quadric announced two new license wins: an edge-server LLM silicon provider in Asia (name withheld pending product announcement), and Tier IV of Japan, a pioneer in self-driving software.

Growth Capital for Customer Success

“I want our customers to have the best AI inference chips in the market. Chips with world-class software, leading performance per watt, and immunity to the model obsolescence plaguing AI accelerators,” said Veerbhan Kheterpal, CEO and co-founder of Quadric. “This is growth capital, and we’re putting it behind the teams and technology that make our customers successful.”

About Quadric

Quadric is the inference engine inside on-device AI chips. Trusted by leading chip designers, Quadric’s General Purpose NPU (GPNPU) processor IP and end-to-end toolchain enable customers to go from engagement to production-ready AI silicon in under six months. Chimera scales to 864 TOPS, with automotive-grade options. Headquartered in Burlingame, California, with teams across North America, Asia, and Europe. Learn more at https://quadric.ai

SOURCE Quadric, Inc.

Castle Island Ventures leads the Series A with participation from Coinbase Ventures ahead of an early 2026 product launch.

NEW YORK, Jan. 14, 2026 — Project Eleven, the leader in post-quantum security and migration for digital assets, today announced a $20 million Series A funding round led by Castle Island Ventures with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Fin Capital, Variant, Quantonation, Nebular, Formation, Lattice Fund, Satstreet Ventures, Nascent Ventures, and Balaji Srinivasan.

The round comes as post-quantum cryptography becomes a planning priority for government and industry. Advances in quantum computing could eventually weaken elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), the public-key standard used by networks such as Bitcoin, prompting a staged transition across an ecosystem that secures more than $4 trillion in digital assets.

Project Eleven is building the tools to make complex, multi-year migrations practical for networks and institutions, including readiness assessments, migration test environments, and deployment sequencing.

“As quantum capabilities advance, the stakes couldn’t be higher. We can’t afford to ignore this existential risk posed to the digital asset ecosystem,” said Alex Pruden, CEO and Co-Founder of Project Eleven. “Trillions in value depend on these cryptographic assumptions. Networks like Bitcoin take years to upgrade because they’re governed cautiously by design. We’re focused on making the transition practical now, so the industry can migrate deliberately instead of improvising under pressure.”

“Useful quantum computing is the biggest and most complex threat public blockchains have ever faced,” said Nic Carter, General Partner at Castle Island Ventures. “Project Eleven is building the practical bridge from research to real-world deployment.”

Project Eleven is collaborating with the Solana Foundation and other leading protocols and Layer 1 ecosystems on post-quantum readiness planning and technical work.

The company raised a $6 million seed round in June 2025 led by Variant and Quantonation, with participation from Castle Island Ventures, Nebular, and Formation. Project Eleven plans to unveil its next major product release in early 2026, adding capabilities for institutions, protocols, and end users looking to future-proof long-lived cryptographic systems.

Alex Pruden and Nic Carter are available for interview.

About Project Eleven
Project Eleven builds resilient infrastructure and tooling for the post-quantum era. The company develops scalable solutions that strengthen security across a rapidly evolving quantum threat landscape. With deep expertise in cryptography, blockchain, and financial systems, Project Eleven bridges advanced post-quantum research with real-world implementations that prepare the digital asset ecosystem for the future. For more information, visit www.projecteleven.com.

Media Contacts
Aubrey Strobel / Elena Nisonoff, Halcyon Communications
[email protected]

SOURCE Project Eleven

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 14, 2026 — Listen Labs, the AI-first customer research platform, has raised a $69 million Series B led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Evantic and existing investors Sequoia Capital, Conviction, and Pear VC.

Since launching nine months ago, Listen has grown its annualized revenue by 15x, reaching a 8-figure revenue, interviewed over one million people, and now serves hundreds of enterprises including Microsoft, Sweetgreen, Perplexity, and Robinhood.

How it works

Listen is an AI-first customer research platform. Its AI interviewer talks to people the way a great interviewer would. With access to 30 million pre-qualified participants across demographics and geographies, teams can quickly learn what people think about anything, from ads and messaging to new product concepts and usability tests.

Listen turns these conversations into actionable outputs, including reports, themes, highlight reels, and presentation-ready decks. Over time, this creates a searchable repository of customer interviews that teams can query like a knowledge base.

Turning conversations into answers

Teams use Listen to answer hard questions that drive business impact, such as:

• How do I keep more of my customers? A leading AI lab uses Listen to interview users who stopped using its products and has been able to meaningfully reduce churn.
   
• Why does usage look so different across markets? A global tech company ran interviews in 10 countries and languages, then used the findings to adjust its marketing and drive higher usage in underperforming regions.
   
• How do I make my product better? A major retailer interviewed hundreds of kids and uncovered issues with its existing shorts. The team redesigned the product and launched a new line that quickly became a top seller.
• Which marketing message will perform best? The world’s largest consumer packaged goods brands use Listen to test creative assets and understand which messages will deliver the best return and why.
• How can I make my product easier to use? Product and growth teams use Listen’s screen recording to understand how users navigate Figma prototypes and live products, then ship changes based on what they observe.
   
• Should I invest in this company? Growth investors use Listen to run customer diligence and make high-conviction investment decisions.

• How is my brand perceived across audiences? Teams use Listen to track how customers view their brand, how they stack up in their category, and how perceptions change over time.

What customers say about Listen:

“Surveys often miss the outliers, and at Sweetgreen, understanding outliers helps unlock some of our best ideas. Listen has transformed how we approach customer research, revealing core insights such as our guests’ struggle to get enough protein in their daily meals. That insight has inspired us to create more protein-forward menu options, like the Protein Bowl, and continues to guide how we test future offerings.” – Jonathan Neman, CEO, Sweetgreen

“Listen has transformed how I do customer discovery. It gives us real time access to customer voice at a scale and depth traditional research can’t touch. What once took six to eight weeks now happens in days, and the insights come directly in customers’ own words: richer, more diverse, and far more actionable. It’s become a true force multiplier for product and growth teams.” – Romani Patel, Director, Data Science, Microsoft

“With Listen, we went from talking to a few dozen local customers to hundreds of people across the country – in under three hours. That speed and reach means every launch, every price point, every message is better informed and performs better.” – Chris Hoyle, CMO, Simple Modern

Key metrics

• In nine months, Listen has grown its annualized revenue by 15x
• The platform has interviewed over one million people
• Listen serves hundreds of enterprises worldwide, from Fortune 100s to startups
• Behind it all is a 30 million person panel that can reach almost any audience, from public company executives to oncologists

Building a world that listens

To date, Listen has raised $100 million in total equity financing.

“When you obsess over customers, everything else follows,” said Alfred Wahlforss, co-founder and CEO of Listen Labs. “Teams that use Listen bring the customer into every decision, from marketing to product, and when the customer is delighted, everyone is.”

SOURCE Listen Labs

Hospitals including Cedars-Sinai and Intermountain Health join Khosla Ventures and others to expand AI-driven scanning across anatomies

PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 14, 2026 — Vista AI, Inc., the leader in automated MRI scanning software for hospitals and imaging centers, today announced the closing of $29.5 million in Series B financing. New investors include Cedars-Sinai Health System, Intermountain Health, University of Utah Hospital System, Temple University/Fox Chase Cancer Center, and Tampa General Hospital, along with participation from Khosla Ventures, Bold Brain Capital, and other existing investors.

“Radiology is facing a critical bottleneck: demand for MRI far outstrips the supply of skilled technologists, overburdening staff and forcing delays for patients,” said Daniel Hawkins, CEO of Vista AI. “Vista AI is breaking through that barrier by automating the scanning process, enabling technologists to consistently and efficiently deliver high-quality imaging, regardless of location.”

The new financing will accelerate Vista AI’s growth. The company will build on its FDA-cleared and commercially available cardiac MRI platform by expanding into additional anatomies, including brain, prostate and spine, once cleared by the FDA. With this broader portfolio, Vista AI will create the first comprehensive platform for automated MRI scanning—reducing scan variability and complexity while expanding access to advanced imaging. Vista AI is also extending its solution to include remote scanning services, enabling sites without prior cardiac MRI expertise or staffing to offer high-quality exams to their patients. Together, these capabilities are reshaping how and where advanced imaging can be delivered.

Vista AI has delivered measurable results at leading healthcare organizations. At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Vista AI enabled 50% more cardiac MRI scan slots, eliminating a 28-day backlog and supporting next-day patient access without adding staff, scanners, or operating hours. At Radiology Regional, a Southwest Florida imaging chain, the automated platform reduced scan times by more than 50% and enabled technologists without prior cardiac MRI experience to reliably deliver exams with confidence.

Over the past year, Vista AI has expanded its client base, strengthened its leadership team, and deepened platform adoption across the healthcare sector.

Health system leaders underscored the importance of automation:

“Consistency in imaging quality translates directly into better patient care, and we are now able to provide that consistent standard of excellence across our system,” said Maureen Burgess, Partner at Cedars Sinai Health Ventures.

“With demand rising and technologists in short supply, automation is the only way forward. Vista AI can extend advanced imaging beyond our main centers and make MRI accessible to more patients across our network,” said Dr. Blake Gardner, Senior Medical Director, Cardiovascular Clinical Program at Intermountain Health.

Investors emphasized the broader impact.

“MRI is the backbone of modern diagnosis, yet access is constrained by workforce shortages and complexity. Vista AI is the only company directly addressing this issue with automation. That’s why leading health systems are investing—because Vista AI is on the path to becoming essential infrastructure in radiology,” said Bruce Armstrong, Partner at Khosla Ventures.

“With this financing, we are not just scaling a company, we are scaling access to gold-standard diagnostic capability,” added Hawkins. “By combining our automated MRI scanning software with remote scanning services, we can help healthcare organizations reduce backlogs, ease staff burden, and deliver consistently high-quality imaging to more patients than ever before.”

Discover how Vista AI can elevate your practice. Visit vista.ai/demo to learn more and book a demo today.

About Vista AI
Vista AI is a pioneer in AI-powered MRI automation, dedicated to making advanced imaging universally accessible. Its FDA-cleared cardiac MRI platform automates scanning, enabling every technologist to deliver high-quality imaging consistently and efficiently. With expansion underway across more anatomies and remote scanning services, Vista AI is building a comprehensive platform for automated MRI scanning to help healthcare organizations scale care, reduce reliance on scarce expertise, and expand access to patients everywhere. The company is backed by leading investors, including Khosla Ventures, Bold Brain Ventures, and leading U.S. health systems. Learn more at vista.ai.

Media Contact
Nicole Winokur
Vice President, Marketing
[email protected]

SOURCE Vista AI, Inc.

HOUSTON, Jan. 14, 2026 — Amperon, a leading provider of AI-powered energy forecasting and analytics solutions, today announced an investment from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation (“Samsung Ventures”), the corporate venture arm of Samsung Group. This new backing reflects continued investor confidence in Amperon’s technology and vision and will support the company’s global growth and next-generation product development across key energy markets.

Amperon’s AI-powered forecasting solutions now serve customers across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Europe, and the Middle East, reflecting rapid international growth since its 2024 expansion into Europe, with active forecasts in 27 countries globally. Through ongoing advancements in machine learning, physics-based modeling, and ensemble weather analytics, Amperon continues to elevate forecasting accuracy and reliability for energy market participants worldwide. Most recently, it launched the first weather-informed grid-demand mid-term forecast, enabling stakeholders to anticipate electricity demand up to seven months in advance and redefining seasonal planning with unprecedented visibility into future grid conditions.

“Samsung Ventures’ investment is a strong validation of our mission to transform the way energy is forecasted and traded,” said Sean Kelly, CEO and Co-Founder of Amperon. “Samsung’s global footprint and leadership in semiconductors, data infrastructure, and AI acceleration make them a natural fit as we expand Amperon’s reach into energy-intensive sectors like data centers. Their track record of scaling next-generation technologies aligns perfectly with our vision to build a more intelligent, resilient, and data-driven energy system.”

Samsung Ventures plays a key role in investing in companies developing technologies across AI, advanced devices, and energy-related sectors, with a focus on long-term value creation. Through a diversified global portfolio, the firm supports emerging businesses addressing opportunities in areas such as digital transformation and sustainability.

“Amperon has demonstrated strong technical capabilities and global traction in a rapidly evolving energy landscape,” said a spokesperson for Samsung Ventures. “Their ability to forecast and model real-time energy data at global scale positions them as a key enabler of smarter energy systems and climate resilience. We are pleased to invest in a company developing technologies that support a more sustainable and digitized world.”

Amperon’s AI models—which combine real-time weather, consumption, and market data—have consistently outperformed traditional forecast providers, and the company has established itself as a trusted partner for energy retailers, utilities, and independent power producers. This investment from Samsung Ventures follows two investments in 2025 from National Grid Partners and from Acario (the corporate venture arm of Tokyo Gas), underscoring Amperon’s momentum and growing global backing. By providing precise insights, Amperon helps its customers manage resources more effectively and stay ahead in a rapidly evolving energy landscape.

About Amperon
Amperon is the leading energy forecasting company, positioned at the intersection of energy data and AI. Founded in 2018, Amperon has become a trusted partner to power and utility companies, delivering demand, renewable generation, and price forecasts. With cutting-edge predictive analytics, seamless data integrations, and premium customer support, Amperon enables customers to enhance grid reliability and optimize asset performance. Committed to grid modernization, Amperon is the forecasting company of the energy transition.

For more information about Amperon, visit www.amperon.co.

About Samsung Venture Investment Corporation
Samsung Ventures is a corporate venture capital firm committed to driving growth and creating new value through technological innovation. Since its founding in 1999, the firm has leveraged its experience and expertise to actively invest in companies developing breakthrough technologies with the potential to transform industries. Through its global networks and industry insights, Samsung Ventures partners with portfolio companies to drive sustainable growth together.

For more information about Samsung Ventures, visit https://www.samsungventure.co.kr/.

SOURCE Amperon

Code-first platform pairs flexible deployments and comprehensive tooling with forward-deployed engineers

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 14, 2026 — VoiceRun, a full-stack enterprise platform for Voice AI, today announced a $5.5 million seed round led by Flybridge Capital Partners, with participation from RRE Ventures and Link Ventures. The funding will be used to expand the company’s Voice AI solutions and go-to-market efforts as enterprises move beyond demos and pilots to deploy voice agents that meet reliability, security, and governance expectations at scale.

With 85% of enterprises expected to use AI agents by the end of 2025, control of in-house development and infrastructure matters more than ever. VoiceRun meets this need with a code-first approach and a forward-deployed engineering model, enabling technical teams to ship quickly without surrendering control. Customers own their application-layer code, and VoiceRun provides the orchestration layer for speech-to-text, large language models (LLMs), and text-to-speech (TTS), turn-taking, telephony, and latency management, along with the tooling to continuously measure, iterate, and improve systems in real time.

“Voice AI is having a moment, yet many enterprise projects stall between an impressive demo and a dependable production rollout,” said Nick Leonard, co-founder and CEO of VoiceRun. “This seed round accelerates our work on the infrastructure that makes enterprise voice systems scalable and durable. We give teams code ownership, deployment flexibility, and deep observability so they can move fast, clear security reviews, and deliver production-ready solutions at scale.”

The seed funding comes as VoiceRun graduates from Link Studio, a division of Link Ventures, and begins scaling its product. Known initially as Prim AI, the new name and identity signal the company’s next phase of growth and better align with its enterprise-grade approach.

“Voice is the best interface for many AI applications, but bringing these applications into production presents a paralyzing build vs. buy decision,” said Chip Hazard, General Partner and Co-Founder at Flybridge Capital Partners. “VoiceRun offers the missing piece which empowers enterprises to build, govern, and scale world-class voice deployments.”

Across sectors such as restaurant technology, insurance, banking, and telecommunications, VoiceRun helps teams move from weeks or months of custom infrastructure development to days. The platform includes three core layers:

• Infrastructure and orchestration. Pluggable STT, LLM, and TTS pipelines, interruptable prompts and turn-taking, and one-click telephony. Deployment options include public cloud, a customer’s virtual private cloud (VPC), or on-premises to meet data and compliance requirements.
• Developer control. Standard Git and command line workflows with full code ownership. Teams can integrate internal APIs, transform data, and model complex logic without waiting on vendor roadmaps.
• Enterprise tooling. End-to-end telemetry, LLM-as-a-judge evaluations, and synthetic data generation for regression tests and targeted improvements that lift containment and accuracy over time.

“VoiceRun took us from zero to production deployment in weeks,” said Chad Jaquays, COO and Co-Founder at Tivly. “Then their tooling and AI evaluations show us exactly what to improve each week, so accuracy and customer satisfaction keep climbing. They accelerated our AI transformation, and gave us the comfort of security, compliance, and code ownership.”

Early customer rollouts span phone ordering and reservations, contact center triage, and lead qualification. These are use cases where milliseconds matter and organizational controls often slow adoption. VoiceRun’s deployment flexibility, including VPC options and approved model lists, allows enterprises to work within existing security and compliance requirements while still shipping new voice experiences.

To learn more about VoiceRun or request a demo, visit voicerun.com.

About VoiceRun
Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., and backed by Flybridge Capital Partners, RRE Ventures, and Link Ventures, VoiceRun is a developer-first platform for enterprise voice agents. Teams retain full code ownership while VoiceRun provides real-time orchestration across STT, LLM, and TTS, along with telephony, observability, and low-latency performance. Customers can deploy in the cloud, a customer VPC, or on premises to meet security and compliance needs.

SOURCE VoiceRun

VERONA, Wis., Jan. 14, 2026 — Coating Place, a leading U.S.-based contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), has secured a strategic, growth investment from 1315 Capital, a Philadelphia-based healthcare-focused private equity firm.

Coating Place delivers premier microencapsulation solutions and is distinguished by proprietary equipment and processes, unmatched scalability, and the ability to support customers from product formulation through commercial manufacturing. The investment will enable Coating Place to scale operations to meet growing demand for its services across pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, animal health, and industrial markets.

“This investment marks an exciting milestone for Coating Place as we celebrate our 50^th anniversary and prepare for the next chapter of growth,” said Tim Breunig, Chief Executive Officer of Coating Place. “We are excited to partner with 1315 Capital. Combined with their industry expertise and strategic growth mindset, we will accelerate growth across the many industries we serve.”

“Coating Place has a compelling opportunity to scale its best-in-class platform, offering highly specialized services and deep technical expertise for customers developing complex modified-release products,” said Matthew Reber, Partner at 1315 Capital. “We’re proud to partner with Tim and his team as the company expands its commercial reach in order to serve the large and growing need for its services.”

About Coating Place

Coating Place is an established contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) specializing in Wurster fluid bed microencapsulation technology across multiple industry segments. Coating Place’s capabilities include formulation and analytical development, technology transfer, process scale-up, and commercial manufacturing.  The company operates >350,000 ft² over two sites with comprehensive GMP quality standards, FDA / Health Canada registration, and DEA licensing.  For more information, please visit www.coatingplace.com.

About 1315 Capital

1315 Capital is a private investment firm with over $1 billion of assets under management that provides growth capital to commercial-stage healthcare services, pharmaceutical & medtech outsourced services, pharmaceutical & medtech products, and health & wellness companies. 1315 Capital targets both minority and majority investments in companies where high-quality management teams can rapidly scale platform companies into large and important businesses that positively impact patients, physicians, and the broader healthcare system. For more information, please visit www.1315capital.com.

Contact
For Media Inquiries, please contact:
Coating Place
[email protected] 

SOURCE 1315 Capital