MINNETONKA, Minn., March 12, 2026 — Monteris Medical, a private company leading the field in minimally invasive neurosurgery with its NeuroBlate® System for magnetic resonance-guided laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT), announced today that it has closed $28 million in Series E equity financing. The equity capital will support the company’s technology innovation program and other growth initiatives. Monteris also announced that it has refinanced its current debt and established a new $35 million credit facility with Trinity Capital.

Proceeds from the equity financing will be used to expand the company’s U.S. commercial footprint and accelerate Monteris’ other growth initiatives in technology development, clinical research and geographic expansion.

The equity round included Monteris’ current lead investors, InnovaHealth Partners and Birchview Capital, LP, along with participation from several new investors including OSF Ventures, the investment arm of Peoria, Ill.-based OSF HealthCare, and the Colorado University Healthcare Innovation Fund. Both are healthcare system venture funds affiliated with institutions that offer the Monteris NeuroBlate technology to their patients. The company’s previous credit facility partner, Madryn Asset Management, LP, is also a major participant in the equity round.

“OSF Ventures looks to invest in organizations that bring meaningful innovation to the clinicians and patients we serve,” said Mayank Taneja, vice president, Venture Investments of OSF Ventures. “Our clinicians have firsthand experience using Monteris’ technology in practice, and we’re excited to support a company whose evidence-based solutions make a significant impact in the field of minimally invasive neurosurgery. Moreover, our vision of improving the lives of those we serve aligns with Monteris’ mission to deliver hope and healing to the patients, families and care teams who rely on innovations like this.”

Monteris’ strong operational results, combined with its near-term pathway to profitability and positive cash flow, allowed the company to retire its prior credit facility with Madryn Asset Management and secure a $35 million credit facility with Trinity Capital, resulting in longer-term financial flexibility and an improved cost of debt.

“Monteris Medical has established itself as a category leader in minimally invasive neurosurgery, with a technology platform that is supported by clinical evidence and plays an important role in advancing neurosurgical care,” said Rob Lake, senior managing director of Life Sciences at Trinity Capital. “We look forward to being a long-term financial partner as Monteris enters its next stage of growth.”

Mayank Taneja and Alex Marcantonio, managing director of Madryn Asset Management, have been added to Monteris’ board of directors.

“Monteris continues to build momentum as the preferred partner for neurosurgeons seeking minimally invasive options for patients with brain tumors and drug-resistant epilepsy,” said Richard Emmitt, Monteris’ board chair. “The support from both new and existing investors reflects strong confidence in NeuroBlate technology, Monteris’ strategy and the growing clinical demand for the NeuroBlate solution.”

About Monteris and the NeuroBlate^® System 

Monteris Medical develops and markets innovative MR‑guided laser ablation systems that enable minimally invasive, robotically controlled brain surgery – often referred to as laser ablation, LITT (laser interstitial thermal therapy) or SLA (stereotactic laser ablation). The company’s NeuroBlate System, used in nearly 130 health systems across North America, is designed for adults and children aged two and older and uses laser technology to precisely destroy abnormal brain tissue, including certain brain tumors and specific areas of the brain that cause seizures due to epilepsy. NeuroBlate is the only LITT platform with a robotic interface that supports the targeted, safe delivery of laser energy and is supported by published prospective clinical data. Multicenter studies on NeuroBlate show that patients typically experience short hospital stays, low rates of complications, improved quality of life and outcomes comparable to open surgical resection. For more information, visit monteris.com.  

Investor Contact:
Monteris Medical
Doug Pahr – Chief Financial Officer
763-253-4710

Media Contact:
Shelli Lissick
651-276-6922
[email protected]

SOURCE Monteris Medical

The early-stage venture capital firm surpassed expectations for its Fund II

DUBAI, UAE, March 12, 2026 — Audeo Ventures, a top-performing venture capital firm specializing in early-stage investments, today announced that it exceeded its $50 million Fund II target and has achieved $65 million, on track to close at the end of this month. The close follows a $17.5 million raise for Fund I.

Co-founders and Managing Partners Pavel Tinkov and Greg Laurent Josi began investing in private companies in 2020 after getting their start in public markets and hedge funds. Founded in 2021, Audeo Ventures focuses on underrepresented markets in the U.S. and LATAM. Tinkov and Josi began Fund I by writing $500,000 to $1 million checks and prioritizing companies with strong fundamentals rather than chasing trend-driven sectors. The firm has already completed two notable exits: X1, acquired by Robinhood, and Caramel, acquired by eBay.

“When Pavel and I started Audeo, we had a different approach to early-stage investing – our goal was to invest in foundational industries and improve them with modern technology. With two successful exits thus far, we are eternally grateful for the trust our limited partners continue to place in us,” said Josi. “Our Fund II close is not only a testament to our investment strategy, but also a reflection of the talented founders and teams we’ve been able to support. We are committed to identifying opportunities in overlooked markets and helping these companies scale successfully.”

Audeo’s diverse, global LP base spans single and multi-family offices and sovereign entities. For Fund II, Tinkov and Josi are shifting focus to more concentrated investments with second fund checks between $2 million and $5 million.

“Surpassing our initial $50 million target for Fund II while more than tripling the size of our first fund reflects strong support from our LPs and conviction in our strategy,” said Tinkov. “We believe the next wave of growth will come from reinvigorating foundational industries with modern technology, and we’ll continue to take concentrated positions in companies that are building real solutions in these sectors.”

Audeo’s portfolio includes fintech and consumer finance companies such as Plata, Rosaly, and Jackpot.com. The firm expects to deploy over 70 percent of Fund II in the U.S., with Latin America being its secondary focus. For more information, please visit https://www.audeo.ventures/.

SOURCE Audeo Ventures

Today’s high-performing businesses require agility, speed and scale in core operations, but current processes and procurement tools are falling short. Rigid, disconnected and hard to use, these systems frustrate employees and fail to address the realities of today’s supply chains. The ORO platform orchestrates the end-to-end experience across people, processes, systems and intelligent agents to automate workflows, speed compliance and provide a much-needed velocity and value advantage.

“Demand for orchestration has skyrocketed because procurement teams are under tremendous pressure to move faster, to save more, and to make employee and supplier experiences easier,” said Sudhir Bhojwani, Co-Founder and CEO of ORO Labs. “Procurement is shifting to a new AI-driven operating model. ORO is powering this change — helping our customers reimagine how procurement delivers impact for the business.”

Many of the top enterprises in the world — including The Coca-Cola Company, Siemens Energy and Novartis — rely on ORO to orchestrate procurement workflows across intake, approvals, sourcing, supplier management, risk and compliance. The ORO platform is deployed across 100+ countries, serving Fortune 500 organizations in life sciences, financial services, consumer products, manufacturing, energy and telecommunications.

The capital investment will be used to accelerate ORO’s expansion, further its product leadership, and scale customer success and deployment worldwide.

“ORO is pioneering the modernization of procurement, leveraging next-gen AI to deliver intelligent automation and tangible ROI while preserving the context, controls, and standards that large global enterprises depend on,” said Clare Greenan, Vice President with Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives. “We believe ORO’s co-founders, Sudhir, Lalitha, and Yuan, as well as the rest of the ORO team, are uniquely positioned to lead this shift, bringing unmatched domain expertise and strategic innovation to legacy operations.”

Mike Gregoire, Partner at Brighton Park Capital, and Rik Patel, Principal at Brighton Park Capital, commented: “We are thrilled to partner with ORO Labs as they pioneer the future of procurement. ORO is moving the world’s largest enterprises beyond legacy systems, orchestrating intelligent automation and seamless workflows to operations that desperately need them. ORO’s team exemplifies the kind of visionary innovation we back at Brighton Park Capital — leveraging next-generation AI to solve massive, longstanding business challenges. We look forward to supporting their continued hyper-growth.”

To support this next chapter, Mike Gregoire of Brighton Park Capital and Clare Greenan of Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives will join ORO’s Board of Directors.

For more information, visit orolabs.ai.

About ORO Labs

ORO Labs is a procurement orchestration company on a mission to humanize the procurement experience by coordinating teams, systems, and processes so employees get what they need without frustration. ORO’s AI-powered no-code platform is purpose-built to deliver effortless user experiences that enable businesses to reduce cycle times, decrease risk through end-to-end process visibility, and increase agility in response to change. ORO is trusted by Fortune 500 companies and fast-growing global organizations to automate processes, improve cross-team collaboration, and scale procurement operations. To learn more, visit orolabs.ai.

About Brighton Park Capital

Brighton Park Capital is a New York-based investment firm focused on entrepreneur-led, growth-stage software, healthcare and tech-enabled services companies. The firm invests in companies that provide highly innovative solutions in partnership with great management teams. Brighton Park brings purpose-built, value-add capabilities that match the unique requirements of each of its companies. For more information about Brighton Park Capital, please visit www.bpc.com.

About Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives

Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) is one of the leading investors in alternatives globally, with over $625 billion in assets and more than 30 years of experience. The business invests in the full spectrum of alternatives including private equity, growth equity, venture capital, private credit, real estate, infrastructure, sustainability, and hedge funds. Clients access these solutions through direct strategies, customized partnerships, and open-architecture programs.

The alternative investments platform is part of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which delivers investment and advisory services across public and private markets for the world’s leading institutions, financial advisors and individuals. Goldman Sachs has approximately $3.6 trillion in assets under supervision globally as of December 31, 2025.

Since 2003, Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives has invested over $13 billion in companies led by visionary founders and CEOs. The team focuses on investments in growth stage and technology-driven companies spanning multiple industries, including enterprise technology, financial technology, consumer and healthcare. Follow us on LinkedIn.

SOURCE ORO Labs Inc.

PEAK6, the Austin-based fintech operating company, announces the launch of PEAK6 Trials, a one-year founder residency program based at PEAK6’s headquarters inclusive of a $100,000 salary, with direct access to PEAK6 internal resources and network of potential customers.

AUSTIN, Texas, March 12, 2026 — PEAK6, the Austin-based fintech operating company behind multiple billion-dollar businesses, is opening up their sandbox to the next generation of entrepreneurs. PEAK6 Trials is the latest concept from co-founders Jenny Just and Matt Hulsizer and a first-of-its-kind founder residency at the PEAK6 Austin, TX headquarters for the future leaders of fintech to create new businesses.

After growing and scaling more than 15 companies, including multiple billion-dollar companies, Apex Fintech Solutions and PEAK6 Capital Management, and eight other businesses, including FOCUS, WeInsure, and Zogo, the PEAK6 team has created an ecosystem that successfully challenges the one-size-fits-all approach of traditional capital investment. Each PEAK6 Trials Resident will have access to the full breadth of PEAK6 resources including the best devs, lawyers, and compliance experts in the business. PEAK6 Trials is the pathway for founders to validate their ideas and develop their concepts into reality.

“Unlike an incubator, we’re focused on creating real functioning companies. Ideas are great, but to become a fully functioning concept they require real-world trial, advising, and more. This residency provides the tools for this process. We’re removing the pain points, offering a $100,000 salary, and creating direct lines of communication and access to our teams for these founders to put their ideas into motion. We also are opening this program up to anyone, regardless of fintech experience, because of the expertise we have internally,” says Jenny Just, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of PEAK6. 

As top AI investors, PEAK6 knows the only moats left are capital, distribution and velocity. PEAK6 Trials exists to give founders direct access to build within those moats. Committed to the idea of founders owning more than their investors do, PEAK6 Trials provides favorable equity terms and a salary while the Residents iterate until the concept proves successful. There will not be cohorts, demo days or conferences; this is a 12-month commitment to building real businesses with real revenue and real customers. It will look different for every founder. There is no need to be technical; PEAK6 Trials has AI engineers in house who will help build out initial prototypes with the option to spin out with them as your CTOs.

“AI has made it easier than ever to build. We are seeing what used to take years and a full engineering organization be prototyped in weeks. The harder part is knowing what to build and having the distribution to execute faster than your competition. More people are becoming founders than ever, so the same customers are getting inundated by ‘insert new AI startup’ as a result. Within the Trials program, entrepreneurs will get built-in design partners and early customers to test, validate and scale their ideas,” notes Riyanka Ganguly, PEAK6 Head of AI Strategies.

Applications are reviewed by the team at PEAK6 with an anticipated acceptance rate of about 1%. A maximum of 12 participants will be accepted into the residency. Founders are invited to apply starting today via PEAK6Trials.com.

About PEAK6
PEAK6 was started in 1997 by Jenny Just and Matt Hulsizer as an options trading firm. They’ve since taken gains to start, invest in, and turn around more than 15 businesses. Today, the PEAK6 portfolio of founded companies includes multiple multi-billion dollar companies. PEAK6’s core brands include PEAK6 Capital Management, PEAK6 Strategic Capital, Apex Fintech Solutions, We Insure, FOCUS, Zogo, Evil Geniuses, Bruce Markets, and Poker Power.

We’re founder-led and operated to this day. So we know all too well the grit and resilience it takes to win, and that access to the right networks and distribution can better your odds. PEAK6 Trials filters for that grit and resilience, and provides founders with direct access to that network and distribution.

About Jenny Just & Matt Hulsizer
Jenny Just and Matt Hulsizer are the Co-founders and Managing Partners of PEAK6, a financial services company proudly based in Austin, Texas. They co-founded PEAK6 in 1997 with $1.5M in seed capital as a proprietary options trading firm. Since then, they have grown it into a multibillion-dollar fintech empire.

Jenny’s passion specifically lies in helping women take big swings. She currently serves as a Champion for JOURNEY to Lead and on the Women and Public Policy Board at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her success has earned her a number of accolades; most recently, she was selected as a 2025 CNBC Changemaker. Matt’s passion lies in discovering underfunded opportunities and coaching up-and-coming talent. Over the past two decades, Matt and Jenny have created, turned around, or invested in more than 200 companies.

About Riyanka Ganguly
Riyanka Ganguly is the Head of AI Strategies at PEAK6, a financial services company proudly based in Austin, Texas. Riyanka began her career in Beijing at ByteDance (parent company of TikTok) in M&A while earning a Masters in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University through the Schwarzman Scholars program. She then went on to invest in private equity and alternative assets at Blackstone Tactical Opportunities before joining the founding team of Kim Kardashian’s SKKY Partners. Riyanka is a graduate of Harvard Business School and founded a company building AI solutions for FP&A teams before joining PEAK6 in 2025.

SOURCE PEAK6

Funding coincides with the launch of stablecoin and digital asset support on Arkade, the company’s flagship infrastructure.

LUGANO, Switzerland, March 12, 2026 — Ark Labs, the leader in open, programmable finance, announced today that it raised $5.2M in a seed round to unlock Bitcoin capital using its flagship technology, Arkade. The round includes Tether, Ego Death Capital, Epoch VC, Lion26, Sats Ventures, and Contribution Capital, with participation from Anchorage Digital, Ralph Ho (former VP of Finance at PayPal), and other digital asset and fintech leaders. 

The raise brings Ark Labs’ total institutional backing to over $7.7M, following a pre-seed round backed by Draper Associates, Fulgur Ventures, and Axiom Capital.

Ark Labs is creating the foundation of open financial infrastructure on Bitcoin, enabling instant, programmable transactions for wallets, fintechs, and financial institutions. Arkade delivers an open, neutral, and scalable execution layer designed to power the next generation of commerce, retail payments, and financial applications. The platform has been live since October 2025, with partners already building across payments, lending, and cross-network settlement.

“Bitcoin is the most liquid digital asset in the world, but it has lacked the programmable infrastructure that financial applications require.” said Marco Argentieri, CEO of Ark Labs. “Arkade changes that. Our partners are building payments, lending, and digital assets solutions on Bitcoin, and Tether‘s involvement will be key to accelerate these efforts.”

Embedded Finance on Bitcoin

Commerce and retail payments demand more than simple value transfer. Authorization, holds, conditional terms, escrow: these programmable operations are table stakes for any serious payment network. The same primitives power emerging use cases in autonomous commerce, where AI agents need enforceable spending constraints and conditional execution to transact safely on behalf of users. Arkade brings those programmable tools to wallets, fintechs, and asset issuers with instant execution and Bitcoin settlement guarantees.

“Stablecoins were born on Bitcoin, and expanding access on the Bitcoin network remains a priority for us,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether. “Ark Labs is building infrastructure that makes it easier to issue, move, and settle stablecoins directly on Bitcoin. Improving access to USD₮ on the most secure and widely recognized blockchain supports greater financial inclusion, more efficient cross-border payments, and stronger global liquidity.”

What’s Next

The capital will accelerate team expansion across developer relations and product, partner onboarding, and the developer tooling needed to bring stablecoin and Bitcoin liquidity together at production scale.

“Every fintech building digital products faces the same question: whose infrastructure do you depend on?” said Alex Bergeron, Head of Ecosystem at Ark Labs. “On other networks, that infrastructure is increasingly permissioned, driven by a single company’s interests. Arkade is the open, neutral alternative.”

As digital finance moves from niche to mainstream infrastructure, Ark Labs is building the programmable settlement layer it’s meant to run on.

About Ark Labs

Ark Labs is building open infrastructure for programmable finance. As finance moves onchain, Ark Labs provides the technology powering that transformation for fintechs, brokerages, asset managers, and payment companies. Ark Labs is backed by Tether, Ego Death Capital, Epoch VC, Draper Associates, Fulgur Ventures, and other leading digital asset investors.

More information is available at arklabs.xyz.

About Arkade

Arkade extends Bitcoin into a platform for programmable money. Real-time execution, native asset issuance, and embedded finance in one protocol, built to power the next generation of wallets, fintechs, and financial applications.

More information is available at arkadeos.com.

Contact
Founder
Phil
21M Communications
[email protected] 

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2932390/Ark_Labs_Tether.jpg
Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2932391/Ark_Labs_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Ark Labs

SAN FRANCISCO, March 12, 2026 —  Qurrent, the pioneer of autonomous digital workforces, today announced the close of a $15 million Series A funding round led by Cervin Ventures with participation by Streamlined Ventures. The round comes on the heels of explosive customer momentum: the company has executed over 6 million operational tasks in production – a number that has nearly tripled since November 2025 – driven by rapid expansion among existing customers and new enterprise adoption across finance, supply chain, legal, and property management.

While the prevailing AI narrative focuses on copilots and assistants that wait for human instruction, Qurrent is building something categorically different: autonomous digital workers that own complex back-office functions end to end. If a business has a documented standard operating procedure for invoice collection, supply chain reconciliation, vendor payments, or any other operational function, for instance, Qurrent can onboard a digital workforce to own it, fully managed, with performance guarantees written directly into the contract.

The results in production are striking. A major ad tech platform processes over $100 million in monthly partner payments in under 30 minutes, down from 25 days. A leading law firm has eliminated manual invoice collection entirely. A property investment firm saved over 18,000 hours of reconciliation work and reduced operational costs by more than $800,000 in a single year using Qurrent’s digital workers handling lease renewals, move-out requests, and property management at scale.

“We were very deliberate in choosing the right investor to help us scale. We chose Cervin Ventures because they share our vision for how AI will evolve the nature of work — not with narrow point solutions, but with digital workers custom-built to tackle complex operations.”
— Colin Wiel, Co-founder and CEO, Qurrent

“Qurrent is harnessing the power of AI models and delivering measurable margin improvement to enterprises. With every model improvement, their service becomes better, faster, and cheaper, enabling their customers to outpace their competition.”
— Neeraj Gupta, Co-founder and General Partner, Cervin Ventures

“We’ve evolved our operating model and driven greater operational efficiency by embedding AI and automation across Yahoo. Qurrent has helped us deploy a trusted digital workforce that scales with our business, empowering our teams to focus on the work that drives the greatest impact.”
—  Matt Sanchez,Chief Operating Officer, Yahoo

The funding will be used to accelerate enterprise expansion and deepen Qurrent’s platform capabilities. For more information, visit qurrent.com and follow us on LinkedIn.

ABOUT QURRENT

Qurrent provides fully managed, autonomous digital workforces that execute complex back-office operations across finance, supply chain, procurement, and more. Unlike AI tools that require customers to build and maintain their own automations, Qurrent owns the deployment, management, and ongoing performance of the digital workers — and contractually guarantees outcomes via SLAs. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and poised for growth. Learn more at qurrent.com.

SOURCE Qurrent

SAN FRANCISCO, March 12, 2026 — Taya today announced it has raised a $5 million seed round led by MaC Venture Capital and Female Founders Fund, with participation from a16z speedrun. Founded by Stanford-trained product designer and mechanical engineer Elena Wagenmans, previously at Apple, Taya is an AI necklace built to honor the social contract: intentional, single-player voice capture, not ambient recording of the room. 

While many recent AI hardware products have leaned toward always-on environmental awareness, Taya is taking a different approach. Instead of continuous environmental recording, the device focuses on short, intentional captures, helping people preserve fleeting thoughts without turning everyday life into a stream of surveillance.

Taya’s system is designed around directional microphones and voice-prioritization signal processing to focus on the wearer rather than the surrounding environment.

“People want intelligence, but they don’t want to wear something that makes everyone around them uncomfortable,” said Elena Wagenmans, Founder & CEO of Taya. “We’re building jewelry-first AI for private reflection – something you choose to wear, and choose when to activate.”

Following 3 million organic views across platforms and a sold-out initial pre-order batch, Taya has spent the past several months in direct conversation with early customers to refine both hardware and software around daily usability, privacy, and long-term retention.

Rather than positioning itself as a meeting notetaker or always-on recorder, Taya is focused on brief, frequent voice captures throughout the day: moments of insight, reminders, and creative thoughts that would otherwise disappear.

“Privacy isn’t a feature, it’s an architectural decision,” Wagenmans added. “If this becomes part of your daily life, it has to align with how people actually want to live.”

Taya is currently in active development and expects to begin fulfilling its initial pre-order batch later this year, with broader availability to follow.

To join the waitlist, visit tayanecklace.com.

Press Kit

To contact Taya Necklace, please email at [email protected]

About Taya

Most wearable tech ends up in a drawer. Taya is changing that by designing AI-powered jewelry that people want to put on every day. Founded in San Francisco by Elena Wagenmans, a Stanford-trained engineer and former Apple hardware designer, Taya combines private, on-demand voice intelligence with jewelry-grade craft. Learn more at tayanecklace.com.

Media Contact:
Jim Redner for Taya 
323.217.4314
[email protected]

SOURCE Taya

Winget named to Inc.’s 2026 Female Founders 500 and recognized as a 2026 Woman to KNOW in Texas

DALLAS, March 12, 2026 — Alternative Wealth Partners (AWP), a Dallas-based private equity firm founded by capital strategist and fund manager Kelly Ann Winget, today announced the next phase of the firm’s growth marked by a strategic evolution of its platform and a comprehensive visual rebrand.

Originally launched in 2020 as a private equity firm focused on expanding access to alternative investments, Alternative Wealth Partners is evolving into a more integrated platform designed to support founders, family offices, and next-generation investors navigating complex financial decisions, while seeking more bespoke, investor-aligned solutions.

The evolution reflects a broader shift within private markets toward coordinated strategies that integrate investment opportunities, tax considerations, estate planning, and long-term capital stewardship. “Private wealth has historically been built behind closed doors and managed through siloed advisory relationships,” said Winget. “Our goal is to create a more integrated framework that helps investors think more holistically about how their capital is structured, deployed, and preserved over time.”

The firm’s strategic evolution comes alongside a comprehensive visual rebrand, including the launch of a new logo, redesigned website, and refreshed brand identity, reflecting AWP’s expanding role within the private wealth ecosystem.

Winget founded Alternative Wealth Partners after more than a decade raising capital across alternative assets. Over the course of her career, she has helped raise nearly $1 billion in private capital across sectors including energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, and emerging industries.

AWP focuses on building diversified portfolios of non-correlated assets across sectors such as energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, and supply chain businesses – areas that traditional funds often overlook but that offer strong long-term growth potential.

The firm’s diversified private equity funds are designed to provide individual investors with access to opportunities historically reserved for institutional investors while leveraging creative deal structuring and tax-efficient strategies to enhance long-term outcomes.

As Alternative Wealth Partners enters this next phase, Winget’s leadership has also received national and regional recognition.

She was named to Inc.’s 2026 Female Founders 500, an annual list recognizing the most innovative and impactful women entrepreneurs in the United States. According to Inc., companies represented on the 2026 list collectively generated approximately $12.3 billion in revenue in 2025.

Winget was also honored as a 2026 Woman to KNOW in Texas, part of the KNOW Women global community that celebrates accomplished female leaders driving impact across business, leadership, and community engagement.

A nationally recognized speaker and author of Pitch the Bitch: Grab Your Financial Future by the Bags, Winget is a frequent voice in discussions around private markets, financial education, and access to investment opportunities. She currently serves as an Advisor to the Executive Boards of 360 Venture Collective, Stella Foundation and Fierce Foundry, and has been featured in major media outlets including Worth, Forbes, Kiplinger, Crain Currency, Novogradac, and Business Insider, among others. Her work and leadership have earned her recognition as one of the 100 Women to KNOW in America (2025), a two-time D CEO 500 honoree (2024 and 2025), and a recipient of the Dallas Business Journal Leadership in Diversity Award (2024).

“As investors accumulate wealth earlier in their careers, particularly founders and entrepreneurs, the questions they face become more complex than simply where to invest,” Winget added. “It becomes about how to structure capital in a way that supports long-term goals, generational wealth, and meaningful legacy.”

About Alternative Wealth Partners

Alternative Wealth Partners (AWP) is a Dallas-based private equity firm focused on building diversified portfolios of alternative assets for investors seeking opportunities beyond traditional public markets. Founded in 2020 by capital strategist Kelly Ann Winget, the firm provides access to institutional-grade private investments across sectors including energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, and emerging industries. AWP works with investors, advisors, and family offices to structure long-term strategies through actively managed funds designed to generate durable returns while expanding access to private markets.

Media Contact:
Laura Henson
917-539-7812
[email protected]

SOURCE Alternative Wealth Partners

The firm chose the name to reflect its long-term mission of building enduring partnerships and contributing to the development of the region’s real economy, with a particular focus on supporting local founders, families and institutions

DUBAI, UAE, March 12, 2026 — Nahda Capital Partners, a newly established private equity platform headquartered in ADGM, has filed for the registration of its inaugural private equity fund this week as it prepares to launch investment activities across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

“Nahda” in Arabic refers to a renaissance a renewal and resurgence. The firm chose the name to reflect its long-term mission of building enduring partnerships and contributing to the development of the region’s real economy, with a particular focus on supporting local founders, families and institutions.

Nahda Capital Partners is led by Iñigo de Luna, Founder and Managing Partner, and is building a control-oriented mid-market private equity strategy focused primarily on the UAE, Saudi Arabia and wider GCC. The firm will target resilient founder-led and family-owned businesses benefiting from structural regional growth and increasing institutionalisation, particularly companies undergoing generational transition or seeking institutional capital and operational support to accelerate their next phase of expansion across the GCC.

The founding partners bring significant international experience across private equity and investment banking, with a historical track record generating approximately 36% gross IRR across multiple economic cycles.

Key highlights of the strategy include a majority-investment approach in partnership with founders and family shareholders, and an operational value-creation model focused on professionalisation, operational improvement, governance strengthening, and selective buy-and-build expansion.

Nahda expects to focus on sectors including food production and distribution, healthcare, education, and industrial technology. The firm’s investment approach is guided by principles aligned with Sharia-compliant investing, including a focus on real-economy assets, prudent use of leverage, and disciplined governance.

“Nahda Capital Partners was established to partner with high-quality mid-market businesses across the GCC that can benefit from long-term capital and hands-on operational support,” said Iñigo de Luna. “These are difficult days and the priority is safety and de-escalation. At the same time, we view this as a severe but temporary shock rather than a change in the long-term trajectory of the UAE and the region. Our conviction has not changed: the GCC is structurally strengthening as a place to build businesses and allocate long-term capital.”

Subject to regulatory approval, the firm expects to commence fundraising in the coming weeks, targeting approximately $300 million for its inaugural fund to be managed from ADGM.

About Nahda Capital Partners:
Nahda Capital Partners is an Abu Dhabi-based private equity platform headquartered in ADGM, focused on control investments in mid-market businesses across the GCC. The firm partners with founders and family shareholders to support generational transition, professionalisation and regional expansion through hands-on operational value creation. Nahda targets resilient, real-economy sectors including food production and distribution, healthcare, education and industrial technology. The firm’s approach emphasises disciplined governance and investment principles aligned with Sharia-compliant investing. Subject to regulatory approval, Nahda is preparing to launch its inaugural fund from ADGM.

SOURCE Nahda Capital Partners