Published in the Journal of Hand Surgery Global Online, the study demonstrates that ultrasound-guided carpal tunnel release offers distinct advantages over open carpal tunnel release 

EAGAN, Minn., Jan. 22, 2026 — Sonex Health, Inc. (Sonex Health) and The Institute of Advanced Ultrasound Guided Procedures announced today the first of several peer-reviewed papers reporting data from its Post-Market RegIStry of the Patient Experience when uSing UltraGuIdeCTR™ fOr Carpal TuNnel Release (MISSION) study was published in the Journal of Hand Surgery Global Online. In this largest ever multi-center carpal tunnel release (CTR) study in the United States, the authors concluded based on the three-month data that both ultrasound-guided carpal tunnel release (UGCTR) using UltraGuideCTR and open carpal tunnel release (OCTR) are safe and effective treatments for carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). In addition, UGCTR was more commonly performed using only local anesthesia (WALANT) and was associated with smaller incisions, more suture-free closure, less opioid use, faster wound symptom resolution, fewer wound symptoms, and higher wound satisfaction.

With more than 1,400 patients enrolled across three arms, this published data will complement the 16 peer-reviewed UGCTR publications reporting on more than 1,300 patients and 1,700 hands already in the literature. Collectively, these peer-reviewed publications will be used to inform and educate physicians, patients and payors about the benefits of UGCTR using UltraGuideCTR.

“It’s been an honor to serve as principal investigator for MISSION,” said Dr. Victor Marwin, an orthopedic hand surgeon with Bluegrass Orthopaedics in Lexington, Ky. “While this research has been a huge undertaking, I cannot stress enough the importance of collecting real-world comparative data when it comes to being able to make the most informed decisions possible about treatment options for carpal tunnel release.”

Key takeaways from the data and study highlights include:

• 84.8% of UGCTR procedures were performed using only local anesthesia compared to 19.1% for OCTR.
• UGCTR was associated with a shorter incision (5.2 mm) compared to OCTR at 16.5 mm and less frequently required suture closure (14.6% vs. 100%).
• Postprocedural opioid use was lower following UGCTR (10.2% vs. 49.1%; P < .001).
• Improvements in symptom severity and functional status statistically favored UGCTR.
• Wound satisfaction favored UGCTR.
• At three months, wound symptoms were less frequent in the UGCTR group (P < .001), with complete resolution of wound sensitivity and pain reported in 60.7% and 22.8% of patients in the UGCTR and OCTR groups, respectively.

“This strong clinical data is consistent with our prior peer-reviewed, published research and continues to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of UGCTR procedures,” said Sonex Health President and CEO Bob Paulson. “This compelling data also supports our reimbursement strategies to ensure broad patient access to this innovative carpal tunnel release treatment option in all settings of care, including office-based procedures.”

ABOUT SONEX HEALTH AND THE INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED ULTRASOUND GUIDED PROCEDURES

Sonex Health, Inc. is empowering physicians with ultrasound-guided solutions that transform the patient experience. As the leader in ultrasound-guided surgery, Sonex Health is dedicated to pioneering innovative therapies and skill enhancement solutions that improve patient safety, decrease invasiveness, and reduce the cost of care, supported by robust clinical research and world-class professional education and training. The company has 52 issued or pending U.S. and international patents covering its current and future products and procedures.

The Institute of Advanced Ultrasound Guided Procedures was founded in 2018 to support the Sonex Health mission and clinical excellence and is focused on innovation supported by robust clinical research and world-class professional education and training that transforms the treatment experience for patients, providers and payers. The Institute has trained more than 900 physicians over the past four years.

For information about Sonex Health, UltraGuideCTR, and UltraGuideTFR visit www.sonexhealth.com. For more information about the Institute visit http://www.sonexhealth.com/educational-institute.

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

SOURCE Sonex Health

HOBOKEN, N.J., Jan. 22, 2026 — ZBD, the payments innovator powering real-money transactions for games and apps, today announced it has secured USD $40M in Series C financing commitments from Blockstream Capital Partners (“BCP”), accelerating its growth as the only fully-licensed, vertically-integrated payments provider built for gaming.

ZBD uses the Lightning Network to power real-money embedded payments at scale, creating a frictionless, compliant money movement layer. The company already processes more than 120 million transactions annually and has doubled the number of games integrated with its SDK over the past 12 months, driven by adoption from developers including TapNation, Fumb Games and PlayEmber. These partners use ZBD’s infrastructure at scale to deliver tens of millions in fiat currencies, bitcoin, and gift card rewards to gamers.

In the $189 billion video games industry, where payments innovation is traditionally focused on maximizing revenue from player purchases (pay-ins), ZBD takes a novel approach. The company has also shown that instant real-money earnings (payouts) can be embedded natively into gameplay to boost lifetime value (LTV) and create a long lasting two-way value exchange with gamers. While the games industry already leverages rewarded user acquisition and monetization mechanics, ZBD enables embedded, instant, real-money payments – something other existing technology cannot support.

Ben Cousens, CSO of ZBD, said:
“Our mission is simple: to make money work in games by providing all-in-one payments technology to publishers and developers. The current financial and reward systems in games are slow and unwieldy, but ZBD is bringing the power of the Lightning network to deliver rewards at speed, while giving developers the flexibility to choose how they are presented. We’re happy that BCP see the value in our mission and our tech, and we’re delighted to welcome them on board.”

Nicolas Brand of BCP, said:
“We have been following ZBD for many years and believe it has achieved a rare pairing of native Bitcoin payments technology with an expansive and hard-to-replicate licensing framework across key regulatory regimes. This places ZBD among a very small group of credible Bitcoin payment service providers. We strongly believe in its mission to drive the convergence of payments and the Bitcoin Lightning Network, particularly within digital-first ecosystems such as gaming.”

The future of gaming payments

In 2025, ZBD became one of the first companies to secure both MiCAR and EMI licenses in the Netherlands, enabling regulated fiat and crypto payment services across the European Economic Area. This, in addition to Money Transmitter Licenses in the United States, expands ZBD’s financial capabilities far beyond rewards to card issuance, bank transfers, virtual IBAN creation, and currency exchanges.

During 2026, a complete, compliance-ready payments stack will come to life – giving console, PC, and mobile game publishers full ownership of money movement in their games and turning payments from a cost centre into a strategic capability that delivers deeper experiences for gamers. This enables real-money transactions across the entire creator economy, from games to user-generated content platforms and livestream tipping, unlocking new value and revenue streams and making money movement a native part of play.

Simon Cowell, CEO & Co-Founder of ZBD, said:
“ZBD is the payments infrastructure for the future of video games and virtual worlds, where real money moves natively through content. By giving developers and publishers full control of their payments infrastructure, we’re maximizing their revenue and creating additional value streams with new, real-money experiences that can be deeply embedded into gameplay.”

ZBD’s Series C unlocks significant capability for scale, as the company seeks to capitalize on its current product market fit in mobile payouts while building out more comprehensive, industry-wide solutions for all game publishers. This also includes expanding licensing globally and growing its commercial footprint across North America, Europe, LATAM and APAC to increase developer adoption. New developer tooling, platform enhancements and additional game integrations are scheduled throughout 2026.

For further info & interviews contact:
Raptor PR for ZBD
Enzo Vallente / Joshua Callaghan
+44(0)7399 329 478 / +44(0)7947 990308
[email protected] / [email protected]

About ZBD

ZBD is the all-in-one payment stack for games, pushing the boundaries of how money and games interact. Best known for powering instant real-money rewards that massively boost player engagement, ZBD is the only licensed payment service provider that enables games to fully embed transactions into gameplay – whether it’s paying players or getting paid by them, pay becomes a part of play.

To learn more, visit https://zbdpay.com

About BCP

Blockstream Capital Partners (BCP) is an investment group of Bitcoin pioneers driving the convergence of Bitcoin and institutional finance. Affiliated with Dr. Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, the global leader in Bitcoin and blockchain infrastructure, BCP brings together early Bitcoin investors from before the first halving and veteran institutional finance leaders with decades of experience managing global capital.

BCP invests across asset classes – venture capital, private and public equity, credit, real estate, and insurance – and across the entire stack of Bitcoin finance: from infrastructure (including trading, custody, payments, and settlement) to Bitcoin-based applications and financial instruments. Its approach reflects the same philosophy that defines Blockstream: an uncompromising commitment to building the financial infrastructure of the future and a long-term conviction in Bitcoin.

BCP operates a comprehensive investment platform offering institutional-grade Bitcoin solutions designed to deliver Bitcoin-referenced returns and long-term value for investors. With a global presence in key financial hubs, BCP is positioned to serve leading institutional allocators worldwide. 

SOURCE ZBD

Round led by TQ Ventures with participation from FPV Ventures, Redpoint, and Unusual Ventures; fuels Railway’s vision to eliminate infrastructure friction and help developers ship faster

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 22, 2026 — Today, Railway, a cloud platform that allows developers to ship faster and more efficiently, announced its $100 Million Series B round led by TQ Ventures, with participation from new and existing investors, FPV Ventures, Redpoint, and Unusual Ventures. The funding will fuel Railway’s vision to make infrastructure invisible, so software works with developers, not against them.

“As AI models get better at writing code, more and more people are asking the age-old question; where, and how, do I run my applications?” said Jake Cooper, founder and CEO of Railway. “The last generation of cloud primitives were slow and outdated, and now with AI moving everything faster, teams simply can’t keep up. We built Railway to let developers focus on building and creativity, not configuration. We stripped everything down and rebuilt both the software and hardware to make the experience truly seamless, and the response from developers has exceeded anything I imagined.”

Despite rapid advancements of AI, developers still face a number of bottlenecks. Traditional software development relies on navigating a maze of tools that are deeply complex and massively cumbersome, especially to newer developers. Railway removes this friction and operational complexity by building its networking stack, compute, storage, orchestration software, and hardware from the ground up to deliver a fully hands-off hosting experience, underpinned by reliability and performance. This approach paid off recently when Railway remained online during widespread outages that affected major cloud providers.

Railway customers report a 10x increase in developer velocity and up to 65% cost savings compared to traditional cloud platforms. By operating its own data centers with custom networking and orchestration, Railway charges only for actual usage, avoiding the markups common in legacy cloud infrastructure. With a marketplace of thousands of templates, Railway also allows teams to deploy virtually anything, from simple services to complex AI systems, without operational overhead. Combined with a zero-trust security model and 24/7 support, this focus on speed, simplicity, and efficiency has made Railway one of the fastest-growing cloud platforms, achieving 176x revenue growth and 15% month-over-month expansion.

“At Bilt, we move fast. We need our tech stack to allow for that in a scalable, safe way,” said Kartik Aggarwal, Tech Lead at Bilt. “What takes an hour on Railway could take 10x more on a traditional cloud platform. Railway is the fastest, giving us the most seamless, no config system.”

In addition to Bilt, Railway now serves more than 2 million users and is growing by nearly 200,000 developers per month. The platform is used by 31% of the Fortune 500 and fast-moving companies like Profound and Happy Robot, Intuit’s GoCo, TripAdvisor’s Cruise Critic and MGM Resorts, alongside thousands of startups and AI-native teams. For seasoned DevOps engineers, Railway offers an unparalleled level of control, exposing just the right amount of knobs, bells, and whistles necessary for advanced use cases.

“Railway is building the infrastructure layer that will power the next era of software,” said Schuster Tanger, Co-founding Partner of TQ Ventures. “Jake Cooper is an extraordinary talent under whose leadership Railway’s Zero-Ops architecture has been purpose-built for an AI-native world and is dismantling the legacy systems that have slowed developers down over the past decade.”

With the new funding, Railway plans to make shipping software even faster and simpler by expanding its global data center footprint, growing its team, and building new tools designed for developers and AI systems.

“It’s always been our goal that everything should run on Railway,” furthered Cooper. “We’ve spent the last five years building quietly, with zero marketing, and somehow millions of developers found us. This round lets us finally show the world our vision of how software should really be built, and we’re excited to supercharge all this with TQ’s unmatched enterprise customer introduction prowess.”

For more information about Railway, please visit: www.Railway.com

About Railway
Railway is a cloud platform that empowers developers to ship faster and more efficiently. Founded in 2020, Railway was started with the steadfast belief that for too long, developers have endured the quiet drag of complexity-endless setup, brittle infrastructure, and the painful friction between building something and bringing it to life – and it doesn’t have to be this hard. With an all new vision, Railway set out to build an all new way to simplify developers’ infrastructure stack from servers to observability with a single, scalable, easy-to-use platform. To learn more about Railway, please visit railway.com and find more on Linkedin and X.

Media Contact:
Rachel Rogers
[email protected]
310-770-4917

SOURCE Railway

AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 22, 2026 — Neurophos, a leader in photonic AI chip technology, has raised $110 million in an oversubscribed Series A round, bringing total funding to $118 million. The round was led by Gates Frontier, with participation from M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund), Carbon Direct Capital, Aramco Ventures, Bosch Ventures, Tectonic Ventures, Space Capital, and others.

“Modern AI inference demands monumental amounts of power and compute,” said Dr. Marc Tremblay, Corporate Vice President and Technical Fellow of Core AI Infrastructure at Microsoft. “We need a breakthrough in compute on par with the leaps we’ve seen in AI models themselves, which is what Neurophos’ technology and high-talent density team is developing.”

As AI adoption accelerates, data centers face critical limitations in power and scalability. Traditional silicon-based GPUs cannot meet growing computational demands, resulting in increased costs and energy consumption. Neurophos addresses these challenges with a proprietary optical processing unit (OPU) that integrates over one million micron-scale optical processing elements on a single chip. This innovation delivers up to 100x the performance and energy efficiency of current leading chips, offering a practical, drop-in replacement for GPUs in data centers.

“Moore’s Law is slowing, but AI can’t afford to wait. Our breakthrough in photonics unlocks an entirely new dimension of scaling, by packing massive optical parallelism on a single chip,” says Dr. Patrick Bowen, CEO and Co-Founder of Neurophos. “This physics-level shift means both efficiency and raw speed improve as we scale up, breaking free from the power walls that constrain traditional GPUs.” 

Neurophos’ breakthrough lies in the development of micron-scale metamaterial optical modulators—a 10,000x miniaturization over previous photonic elements—making large-scale, manufacturable photonic computing possible for the first time. The result is a new class of AI accelerator: ultra-fast, energy-efficient, and adaptable to future AI workloads.

“As the AI industry grapples with a surge in demand that tests our ability to satisfy with compute and power, disruptive approaches to compute may open routes to sustained or accelerated systems scaling that will be needed before the end of the decade. With their approach to hyper-efficient optical computation, the Neurophos team have advanced swiftly from a working proof of concept towards a realistic plan to deliver products on a timeline we can underwrite and believe in,” said Michael Stewart, Managing Partner at M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund.

Neurophos’ technology enables significant reductions in power consumption, supporting the next generation of AI infrastructure without the need for exponential increases in energy or physical resources. The company’s advancements promise to make AI more accessible and cost-effective across industries.

The new funding will accelerate delivery of Neurophos’ first integrated photonic compute system, including datacenter-ready OPU modules, a full software stack, and early-access developer hardware. The company is expanding its Austin headquarters and opening a San Francisco engineering site to meet early customer demand.

Additional investors include DNX Ventures, Geometry, Alumni Ventures, MetaVC Partners, Morgan Creek Capital, Silicon Catalyst Ventures, Mana Ventures, Gaingels, and others. Cooley LLP serves as legal counsel.

About Neurophos
Neurophos Inc. is an Austin-based semiconductor company developing high-performance, energy-efficient photonic AI inference chips. Founded by Dr. Patrick Bowen and Dr. Andrew Traverso, the team includes industry veterans from NVIDIA, Apple, Samsung, Intel, AMD, Meta, ARM, Micron, Mellanox, Lightmatter, and more. For details, visit www.neurophos.com.

SOURCE Neurophos

• EQT Growth führt Serie-D-Runde. Ziel ist die Entwicklung von KI-Funktionalitäten für die Hotellerie. Neue Investoren: Atomico und HarbourVest
• Unternehmensbewertung steigt auf 2,5 Milliarden US-Dollar
• Plattform-Transaktionsvolumen erreichte 2025 19,7 Milliarden US-Dollar

NEW YORK, 22. Januar 2026 — Mews, das Betriebssystem für das Gastgewerbe, hat heute den Abschluss einer Serie-D-Finanzierungsrunde in Höhe von 300 Millionen US-Dollar bekannt gegeben.  Die Runde wurde von EQT Growth angeführt, mit Beteiligung der neuen Investoren Atomico und HarbourVest Partners sowie der bestehenden Investoren Kinnevik, Battery Ventures und Tiger Global. Die Investition bewertet Mews mit 2,5 Milliarden US-Dollar und markiert einen Meilenstein für die Technologieentwicklung im Gastgewerbe. Nach einem Jahr mit starkem, nachhaltigem Wachstum – darunter ein Anstieg des Bruttogewinns aus dem SaaS-Geschäft um 55 Prozent – etabliert sich Mews mit dieser Finanzierung als führender Technologieanbieter für Hotels jeder Größe.

Im Jahr 2025 erzielte Mews:

• einen Kundenstamm von 15.000 Hotels mit über 132.000 monatlich aktiven Nutzer/-innen in 85 Ländern
• 42,3 Millionen eingecheckte Reservierungen, davon 3,2 Millionen über Mews Kiosk¹
• ein Transaktionsvolumen von 19,7 Milliarden US-Dollar über die Plattform
• ein Wachstum des Bruttogewinns aus dem SaaS-Geschäft um 55 Prozent
• 537 Millionen US-Dollar zusätzlichen Umsatz für Hotels durch das Feature Mews Spaces² mit über zwei Millionen nicht-zimmerbezogenen Reservierungen

„Mit EQT Growth und den neuen Investoren Atomico und HarbourVest an Bord haben wir die Rückendeckung, um uns schneller weiterzuentwickeln als jedes andere Unternehmen in der Branche”, sagt Matt Welle, CEO von Mews. „Wir entwickeln ein Betriebssystem, das die Art und Weise verändert, wie Hoteliers mit ihren Gästen interagieren. Mews übernimmt die operative Komplexität damit sich Gastgeber:innen auf das konzentrieren können, was wirklich zählt: Gastfreundschaft profitabler, erfüllender und inspirierender zu gestalten.”

Die Finanzierung ermöglicht es Mews, seine Investitionen in künstliche Intelligenz massiv auszuweiten. Agentengestützte Systeme werden tief in die Plattform integriert, um komplexe Abläufe zu automatisieren, die kognitive Belastung für Mitarbeitende zu reduzieren, das Gasterlebnis deutlich zu verbessern und die Entwicklung sowie Einführung neuer Produkte zu beschleunigen. Das soll Gastgeber in die Lage versetzen:

• Betriebsabläufe in Echtzeit intelligent zu steuern
• Umsatz und Profitabilität durch tieferes Gästeverständnis zu optimieren
• Ohne Altlasten veralteter Technologien effizienter zu arbeiten

Arbeitsabläufe so radikal zu vereinfachen, wodurch sich die Einarbeitungszeit für Mitarbeitende deutlich verkürzt

„Gastfreundschaft ist das Geschäft mit Erlebnissen”, sagt Richard Valtr, Gründer von Mews. „Die Resonanz aus dem Markt – sowohl in den USA als auch in Europa – ist eindeutig. Es ist großartig zu sehen, wie wir anderen Unternehmen in der Branche in Bereichen wie KI und agentenbasierter Gastfreundschaft deutlich voraus sind. Jetzt ist der richtige Zeitpunkt, unsere Vision zu bekräftigen: Hotels, die mit Mews arbeiten, sollen die profitabelsten der Branche werden.”

Ein neuer Standard für eine globale Branche

„Ich hatte über mehrere Jahre hinweg das Vergnügen, das Mews-Team kennenzulernen und mitzuerleben, wie sich das Unternehmen von einer mutigen Vision zu einer Organisation mit echter Wachstumsdynamik entwickelt hat”, so Kirk Lepke, Partner bei EQT Growth. „Das Gastgewerbe zählt zu den größten Branchen der Welt, doch seine Kernsysteme sind vielerorts noch immer Jahrzehnte im Rückstand. Mews setzt einen modernen Technologiestandard – ein KI-gestütztes Betriebssystem für Hotels, das die bestehende Fragmentierung der Branche auflöst. Wir bei EQT Growth freuen uns sehr, diese Runde anzuführen und mit Mews gemeinsam die Zukunft der Branche maßgeblich mitzugestalten.”

Mews wird außerdem den Ausbau von Mews Payments und der breiteren Fintech-Infrastruktur vorantreiben. Damit soll der Zahlungsverkehr und kommerzielle Prozesse tief in die Betriebsabläufe integriert und Mews als Bindeglied zwischen Gästeerlebnis und Umsatz positioniert werden. Darüber hinaus setzt das Unternehmen seine ehrgeizige internationale Expansion in den Kernmärkten Nordamerika und Europa fort und erschließt gezielt neue Märkte.

Matt und Richard haben eine wegweisende Plattform aufgebaut – mit der Tiefe, Innovationsgeschwindigkeit und globalen Reichweite, die modernes Gastgewerbe heute verlangt”, so Laura Connell, Partnerin bei Atomico. „Die ambitioniertesten Akteure der Branche wollen ihren Gästen kontinuierlich bessere Erlebnisse bieten – und brauchen dafür Technologie, die mit steigenden Erwartungen an Geschwindigkeit, Service und Personalisierung Schritt halten kann. Mews ist der zentrale Enabler für die Zukunft der Hotellerie – und das Team ist auf dem besten Weg, ein Unternehmen von branchenprägendem Format aufzubauen.

Die Investition folgt kurz nach der vierzehnten Übernahme von Mews: DataChat, der führenden Plattform für generative KI-gestützte Analysen. Im Januar 2026 wurde Mews von Kund:innen und Expert:innen des Hotel Tech Report zum dritten Mal in Folge als weltweit bestes Property Management System sowie als bestes Kassensystem für Hotels ausgezeichnet – ein Beleg für die führende Rolle des Unternehmens in den operativen und kommerziellen Bereichen des Gastgewerbes.

Die Finanzierungsrunde steht unter dem Vorbehalt der üblichen regulatorischen Abschlussbedingungen.

¹ Mews Spaces ermöglicht es Gastgebern, unterschiedlichste Flächen und Räume (nicht nur Zimmer) direkt im Property-Management-System (PMS) zu verwalten und zu verkaufen.

² Mews Kiosk: Ein Self-Service-Modul für Check-in und Check-out, mit dem Gäste An- und Abreise eigenständig abwickeln können.

Über Mews

Mews ist das Betriebssystem für das Gastgewerbe. Es vereint Arbeitsabläufe in den Bereichen Umsatz, Betrieb und Guest Journey, damit Teams Routinetätigkeiten automatisieren und sich auf unvergessliche Gästeerlebnisse konzentrieren können. Die Mews Plattform umfasst PMS, POS, RMS, Housekeeping und Payments und unterstützt Hoteliers dabei, von der reinen Verwaltung zur profitablen Steuerung ihrer Betriebe zu wechseln. Mit 15.000 Kunden in 85 Ländern wurde Mews als Bestes PMS (2024, 2025, 2026), Bestes POS (2026) und sechs Jahre in Folge als einer der besten Arbeitgeber der Hoteltech-Branche von Hotel Tech Report ausgezeichnet.

Medienkontakt: [email protected]

Foto – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2867382/Mews__Richard_Valtr_Founder_and_Matt_Welle_CEO_of_Mews.jpg
Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2053034/MEWS_logo.jpg 

• EQT Growth mène une levée de fonds de série D pour accélérer l’intégration de l’IA au fonctionnement des hôtels du monde entier, avec la participation de nouveaux investisseurs tels que Atomico et HarbourVest.
• Cet investissement valorise Mews à 2,5 milliards de dollars.
• Le volume de transactions effectuées sur la plateforme Mews a atteint 19,7 milliards de dollars en 2025.

PARIS, 22 janvier 2026 — Mews, le système de gestion de l’hôtellerie nouvelle génération, annonce aujourd’hui avoir levé 300 millions de dollars lors d’un financement de série D mené par EQT Growth, réunissant de nouveaux investisseurs tels que Atomico et HarbourVest Partners et des investisseurs historiques comme Kinnevik, Battery Ventures et Tiger Global. Cet investissement est un tournant pour la technologie hôtelière et valorise l’entreprise à 2,5 milliards de dollars. À l’issue d’une année marquée par une croissance forte et durable, pendant laquelle la marge brute du SaaS a bondi de 55 %, cette levée de fonds positionne Mews comme le fournisseur leader de technologies hôtelières pour les établissements de toute taille.

En effet, en 2025, la société a atteint les résultats suivants :

• Un portefeuille de 15 000 clients, et plus de 132 000 hôteliers actifs chaque mois dans 85 pays.
• 42,3 millions de réservations enregistrées, dont 3,2 millions via Mews Kiosk¹.
• Un volume de transactions d’une valeur de 19,7 milliards de dollars.
• Une accélération de 55 % de la croissance de sa marge brute.
• Plus d’un demi-milliard (537 millions de dollars) de revenus supplémentaires pour les hôteliers par le biais de sa fonctionnalité propriétaire Mews Spaces² , alimentée par plus de deux millions de réservations d’espaces qui ne sont pas des chambres.

« Avec la participation de EQT Growth et de nouveaux investisseurs comme Atomico et HarbourVest, nous disposons du soutien nécessaire pour continuer à nous développer plus vite que quiconque dans le secteur », déclare Matt Welle, PDG de Mews. « Nous concevons un système de gestion qui modifie la façon dont les hôteliers interagissent avec leurs clients. Mews sert à gérer la complexité des opérations pour que les hôteliers puissent se concentrer sur l’essentiel, à savoir rendre l’hôtellerie encore plus amusante, rentable et épanouissante. »

Grâce à ce financement, Mews va accroître ses investissements dans l’intelligence artificielle en intégrant des systèmes pilotés par des agents à sa plateforme pour automatiser les processus complexes, réduire la charge mentale du personnel, améliorer considérablement l’expérience client et accélérer la conception et le déploiement des produits. Ainsi, les établissements pourront :

• Orchestrer leurs opérations en temps réel avec l’automatisation intelligente.
• Optimiser leurs revenus et leurs bénéfices grâce à des informations sur le comportement des clients.
• Se développer sans le fardeau de la dette des technologies héritées.
• Simplifier radicalement leurs processus dans le but d’intégrer plus rapidement de nouvelles équipes.

« L’hôtellerie, c’est l’art de créer des expériences », explique Richard Valtr, fondateur de Mews. « Le marché valide clairement notre produit, que ce soit aux États-Unis ou en Europe. C’est formidable de voir l’avance que nous avons pris sur n’importe quelle autre société du secteur en matière d’IA et d’hôtellerie agentique. La période est passionnante pour renforcer notre vision, qui consiste à faire des hôtels Mews les établissements les plus rentables du secteur. »

Une nouvelle norme pour un secteur mondial

« J’ai le plaisir de connaître l’équipe Mews depuis plusieurs années et d’observer la société évoluer d’une vision audacieuse à une organisation capable de délivrer des résultats à grande échelle », confie Kirk Lepke, Partner chez EQT Growth. « L’hôtellerie est l’un des secteurs les plus vastes au monde, et pourtant, ses principaux systèmes ont des décennies de retard. Mews conçoit une norme technologique moderne, un système de gestion hôtelière basé sur l’IA qui contribue à atténuer ce cloisonnement observé dans le secteur. Toute l’équipe EQT Growth est absolument enthousiaste à l’idée de ce financement et de ce partenariat avec Mews. »

Mews va également accélérer le développement de Mews Payments, et de son infrastructure Fintech plus largement, en intégrant les commerces au sein des opérations des hôtels afin de positionner Mews en tant que lien entre l’expérience et les revenus. De plus, la société va poursuivre son ambitieuse expansion à l’international dans ses principales zones géographiques, à savoir l’Amérique du Nord et l’Europe. Elle compte également pénétrer de nouveaux marchés.

« Matt et Richard ont conçu une plateforme phare qui définit une norme, avec la profondeur, le rythme d’innovation et la portée mondiale nécessaires à l’hôtellerie moderne », déclare Laura Connell, Partner chez Atomico. « Les concepteurs les plus ambitieux de l’hôtellerie mettent tout en œuvre pour constamment améliorer les expériences qu’ils offrent à leurs clients finaux. Pour y parvenir, ils ont besoin d’une technologie capable de répondre aux attentes toujours plus élevées en matière de rapidité, de service et de personnalisation. Mews est l’acteur clé de l’avenir de l’hôtellerie, si bien que l’équipe est en bonne voie de développer une société symbole de toute une génération. »

Cet investissement survient peu de temps après la quatorzième acquisition de Mews, DataChat, plateforme leader en analyse par IA générative. En janvier 2026, Mews a été nommé Meilleur système de gestion hôtelière pour la troisième année consécutive et Meilleur système de point de vente (POS) au monde par les clients et partenaires de Hotel Tech  Report. Ces prix sont le reflet de sa capacité à innover à la fois sur les aspects opérationnels et commerciaux de l’hôtellerie.

La levée de fonds est soumise à des conditions réglementaires de clôture classiques.

¹ Fonctionnalité Mews de gestion des espaces qui permet à un établissement de gérer et de vendre tout type d’espace (et pas seulement des chambres) directement dans le système de gestion hôtelière (PMS).

² Borne de check–in et check–out en libre-service qui permet aux clients de gérer eux-mêmes leurs arrivée et départ.

À propos de Mews

Mews est le système de gestion hôtelière qui unifie les processus liés aux revenus, aux opérations et au parcours client afin d’automatiser les tâches à faible valeur ajoutée et d’aider le personnel à créer des expériences remarquables pour les clients. La plateforme Mews rassemble le PMS, le POS, le RMS, le service d’étage et les paiements, pour ainsi aider les hôteliers à passer d’une gestion d’établissement à la gestion de profits. Utilisé par 15 000 clients dans 85 pays, Mews a été couronné Meilleur PMS (2024, 2025, 2026), Meilleur POS (2026) par Hotel Tech Report et figure depuis six années consécutives parmi les Meilleurs lieux de travail de l’Hotel Tech.

Contact presse : [email protected] 

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Silicon Valley AI Venture Studio establishes “Dual-Pillar” governance structure to accelerate its mission of integrating global elite talent with the U.S. innovation economy.

PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 22, 2026 — US CAN STARTUP INC., a premier AI Venture Studio and Technology Accelerator, today announced two significant appointments to its Board of Directors: Mr. Mike Perry as Independent Director (Technology & Security) and Mr. Douglas (Dongxiang) Qi as Independent Director (Legal & Governance).

These appointments mark a strategic milestone in the company’s evolution, instituting an institutional-grade governance framework designed to support its rapid expansion in the North American technology ecosystem.

A Fortress of Compliance and Innovation

As US CAN STARTUP INC. scales its “Y-Combinator style” model to identify and transplant top-tier global engineering talent, the Board is prioritized to ensure strict adherence to regulatory standards and operational integrity.

• Mike Perry joins the Board bringing decades of enterprise leadership. Formerly the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Security & Compliance Officer at First American Financial Corp, Perry will chair the company’s Technology and Compensation Committee, overseeing technical feasibility and operational security.
• Douglas Qi, a veteran attorney admitted to the California Bar since 2000, joins as Chair of the Governance Committee. A Yale Law School (J.D.) graduate with deep roots in Silicon Valley, Qi brings over 25 years of experience in corporate law, cross-border transactions, and intellectual property protection.

Leadership Commentary

“Our mission is to seamlessly integrate global innovation with the vitality of the U.S. economy,” said Shun Ma, Founder and CEO of US CAN STARTUP INC. “To achieve this, we must operate with unimpeachable integrity. The addition of Mike Perry and Douglas Qi creates a ‘Governance Iron Triangle.’ Mike’s expertise in enterprise security combined with Douglas’s profound command of legal compliance ensures that our platform empowers premier talent to build world-class companies within the U.S. ecosystem, strictly adhering to regulatory standards.”

About the New Directors

Mike Perry is a seasoned technology executive known for managing complex IT infrastructures for Fortune 500 companies. His expertise ensures that US CAN STARTUP’s portfolio companies are built on secure, scalable foundations.

Douglas Qi began his legal career in Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom and has since served as a strategic advisor to multinational corporations. A serial entrepreneur himself, Qi combines a business-owner mindset with the legal rigor of a Yale-educated attorney to navigate complex regulatory landscapes.

About US CAN STARTUP INC.

Headquartered in Palo Alto, US CAN STARTUP INC. is an AI Venture Studio that incubates early-stage technology companies. We serve as a strategic bridge, empowering global talent to access the U.S. market and fostering innovation, job creation, and economic growth within the American private sector.

Media Contact:
Isadora Euzebio
[email protected]
+1 443-448-2135
www.uscanstartup.com 

SOURCE US CAN STARTUP INC.

• EQT Growth leads Series D funding round to accelerate the AI-native future of hotels globally, with participation from new investors Atomico and HarbourVest
• Investment values Mews at $2.5 billion
• Mews’ Platform Transaction Volume reached $19.7 billion in 2025

NEW YORK, Jan. 22, 2026 — Mews, the operating system for hospitality, today announced it has raised $300 million in a Series D funding round led by EQT Growth, with new investors Atomico and HarbourVest Partners, and participation from existing investors Kinnevik, Battery Ventures and Tiger Global. This investment marks a defining moment for hospitality technology and values the company at $2.5 billion. Following a year of strong and durable growth, during which SaaS gross profit increased by 55%, this fundraise establishes Mews as the leading hospitality tech provider for hotels of all sizes.

In 2025, the company achieved:

• A customer base of 15,000, with 132,000+ monthly active hoteliers in 85 countries
• 42.3 million checked-in reservations, of which 3.2 million via Mews Kiosk¹
• Platform Transaction Volumes of $19.7 billion
• Accelerated SaaS gross profit growth of 55%
•  Created more than half a billion ($537 million) in additional revenue for hoteliers through its proprietary Mews Spaces² feature, powered by over two million non-room reservations

“With EQT Growth joining in addition to new investors Atomico and HarbourVest, we have the backing to continue moving faster than anyone else in the industry,” said Matt Welle, CEO of Mews. “We are engineering an operating system that is changing how hoteliers interact with their guests. Mews exists to handle the operational complexity so hoteliers can focus on what matters: making hospitality even more fun, profitable, and fulfilling.”

The funding will expand Mews’ investments in artificial intelligence, embedding agent-driven systems across the platform to automate complex workflows, reduce cognitive load for staff, significantly improve the guest experience and accelerate how products are built and deployed – enabling properties to:

• Orchestrate operations in real time with intelligent automation
• Optimize revenue and profit with advanced insights into guest behavior
• Scale business without the debt of legacy tech
• Radically simplify workflows to onboard teams faster

“Hospitality is the business of experiences,” said Richard Valtr, Founder of Mews. “The validation for our product from the market is clear, in both the US and Europe, and it is great to see how we are now powering ahead of any other hospitality company in terms of AI and agentic hospitality. It’s an exciting time to reinforce our vision of making Mews hotels the most profitable in the industry.”

A new standard for a global industry

“I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know the Mews team for several years and witness the company go from a bold vision to an organization delivering at scale,” said Kirk Lepke, Partner at EQT Growth. “Hospitality is one of the world’s largest industries, yet its core systems remain decades behind. Mews is creating a modern technology standard, an AI-enabled hospitality operating system that helps solve the fragmentation we see in the industry. We at EQT Growth are incredibly excited to lead this round and partner with Mews.”

Mews will also accelerate the expansion of Mews Payments and its broader fintech infrastructure, embedding commerce into the core of hotel operations and positioning Mews as the connector between experience and revenue. In addition, the company will continue its ambitious international expansion across its primary geographies of North America and Europe, as well as expanding into new markets.

“Matt and Richard have built a category-defining platform with the depth, pace of innovation and global reach required by modern hospitality,” said Laura Connell, Partner at Atomico. “The most ambitious builders in hospitality are focused on delivering ever-improving experiences for their end consumers, and they need technology that can keep pace with rising expectations around speed, service and personalization. Mews is the key enabler for the future of hospitality, and the team is well on their way to building a generational company.”

The investment comes shortly after the completion of Mews’ fourteenth acquisition, DataChat, the leading generative AI analytics platform. In January 2026, Mews was named the #1 Property Management System for the third year in a row and #1 Hotel Point of Sale System in the world by customers and reviewers of Hotel Tech Report, a reflection of its ability to lead both the operational and commercial layers of hospitality.

The funding round is subject to customary regulatory closing conditions.

¹ Mews’ multi‑space management capability that lets a property manage and sell any kind of space (not just rooms) directly in the property management system (PMS).

² A self‑service check‑in and check‑out kiosk that allows guests to handle arrival and departure themselves.

About Mews

Mews is the operating system for hospitality, unifying workflows across revenue, operations and the guest journey so teams can automate the mundane and focus on memorable guest experiences. The Mews platform spans PMS, POS, RMS, Housekeeping and Payments, helping hoteliers move from property management to profit management. Powering 15,000 customers across 85 countries, the company was named Best PMS (2024, 2025, 2026), Best POS (2026) and listed among the Best Places to Work in Hotel Tech for six years running by Hotel Tech Report.

Media contact: [email protected]

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NEW YORK, Jan. 22, 2026 — Yuki, a data cost optimization startup, has emerged from stealth with a $6 million seed round led by Hyperwise Ventures, with participation from VelocitX, Tal Ventures, Fresh.fund, and Yakir Daniel, founder of Spot.io (Flexera).

Today, most organizations respond to growing data and AI workloads by spending more on the same rigid infrastructure. This one-size-fits-all model forces teams with different SLAs, budgets, and performance needs onto identical compute resources, creating massive inefficiencies that compound as data volumes grow.

“After building Spot, it was easy for me to recognize the pain point Yuki is solving. They’re building the control layer for data cost optimization just as AI is turning data spend into a board-level issue,” said Yakir Daniel, co-founder of Spot.io (acquired by NetApp and now part of Flexera), who joined Yuki’s seed round and gave his vote of confidence to the team.

At the core of the product is Yuki Fabric, an optimization AI model that acts as a unified control and automation layer across an organization’s data infrastructure, including Snowflake, Google’s BigQuery, and native support for Iceberg-based data lakes, positioning Yuki as a control layer for next-generation data architectures.

The model continuously learns workload behavior, SLAs, and cost-performance tradeoffs, and optimizes execution decisions in real time. Yuki’s control layer sits above the vendors, preventing infrastructure and process duplication, reducing compute and operational costs, and enabling SLA enforcement across teams, products, and workloads.

As enterprises increasingly adopt Iceberg to decouple storage and compute, Yuki provides the missing intelligence layer that governs how workloads consume those resources.

“Data is the only resource in an organization that no one truly manages. We know how to store it, but not how to govern it. There are budgets, cloud infrastructure, and teams, but the data itself has no control system,” says Ido Arieli Noga, CEO of Yuki. “For years, the default response to growth was to burn more money on the same one-size-fits-all infrastructure. That model is fundamentally broken, and it doesn’t scale in an AI-driven world. Yuki was built to become the control layer that makes data infrastructure workload-aware and governed in real time. In the age of AI, this becomes even more critical. Teams are constantly running experiments, models, and new workloads, and many organizations are discovering they’re paying enormous sums for data and compute resources that no one is using anymore, simply because no one took the time to manage and clean them up.”

According to Noga, once data infrastructure becomes workload-aware and governed by an intelligent control layer, cost reduction becomes a natural outcome rather than a manual effort. As of 2025, customers using Yuki’s platform have saved an average of about 42.6% on their data costs – savings that in large enterprises can reach millions of dollars.

Yuki is implemented through a simple and fast deployment process, with no need for changes to code or queries. Yuki’s AI platform manages workloads and priorities in real time, clearly distinguishing between business-critical tasks and lower-priority internal processes. Based on the system’s current state, Yuki routes each query to the most efficient compute resource available at that moment, reducing data costs in environments where data volumes and compute consumption continue to grow, largely driven by increased AI adoption.

Yuki’s business model is based on customer success: the company charges a fee as a percentage of the actual savings generated. If no savings are created, the customer does not pay.

The cloud management tools market is estimated at approximately $9.8 billion and includes more than 200 vendors. It is expected to continue growing as data volumes surge and organizations shift toward unified data platforms. Companies must cope with fluctuating workloads, high query volumes, and dynamic compute costs, increasing the need for intelligent automation and real-time optimization.

Among Yuki’s customers are cybersecurity companies such as Tenable, as well as data-heavy media companies such as Angel Studios. The platform is chosen by organizations with large-scale data and AI operations that want to reduce costs, streamline operations, and maintain tighter control over their data infrastructure.

Yuki was founded in 2025 by Ido Arieli Noga (CEO) and Amir Peres (CTO). The two have known each other since childhood and previously worked together on joint ventures, laying the foundation for their partnership. After a decade on separate professional paths, a chance meeting revealed that both were working in the data space. They decided to join forces and soon encountered a challenge common to many organizations: the inability to use data resources efficiently amid fluctuating workloads and a constant flood of queries. Their research showed that no true control plane existed for managing data itself, which led them to build Yuki.

Yuki employs 15 people, most of whom are based in Israel, with additional team members in the US and the UK. The funding will be used to expand the Israeli R&D center, deepen product capabilities, support additional data platforms, and accelerate growth in the US by expanding the sales organization.

About Yuki

Yuki is a real-time optimization platform for Snowflake, BigQuery, and Iceberg-based data lakes, automatically improving cost and performance by optimizing execution based on system behavior. Yuki is metadata-only by design and built for enterprise-grade governance, security, and predictable cost control. 

https://yukidata.com/

About Hyperwise Ventures

Hyperwise Ventures is a venture capital firm, leading seed investments in the cybersecurity and enterprise software domains. It invests in brilliant entrepreneurs with ground-breaking technologies, and materially assists in accelerating the business execution of its portfolio companies. Existing investors in Hyperwise Ventures include financial institutions from the U.S., E.U., and Israel, together with an impressive list of global leaders in the cybersecurity and high-tech sectors.

https://hyperwise.vc/

Contact
Orian Tal
The Pitch
[email protected] 

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SOURCE Yuki