Seasoned finance and operations executive brings more than two decades of experience building scalable financial infrastructure, guiding growth, and supporting strategic transactions.

CAMPBELL, Calif., Oct. 1, 2026 — Zircon Corporation, a Silicon Valley-based technology innovator and leader in sensor-based electronic hand tools, today announced the appointment of Angela Sweeney as Chief Financial Officer.

In this role, Sweeney will lead Zircon’s finance organization and shape the company’s financial strategy across planning, reporting, treasury, capital strategy, controls, and systems. Her leadership will further strengthen the financial foundation supporting Zircon’s growth, continued investment in innovation, customer focus, and strategic priorities.

Sweeney joins Zircon with more than 20 years of finance and operational leadership experience across high-growth, manufacturing and technology companies. She brings hands-on manufacturing experience from aerospace, robotics, and medical devices, along with work in SaaS, biotechnology, and fintech. She has helped scale 14 startups and guided 16 mergers and acquisitions.

She has held senior finance and operational positions at Poplar Homes, Astra, Engagor, and Venga Global, and advises founders and executive teams on financial strategy, planning, fundraising, M&A, and scalable operations. Across those roles, she has led multimillion-dollar treasury operations, helped raise more than $100 million in debt and equity capital, strengthened forecasting and reporting functions, and built the financial systems and controls needed to support growth, informed decision-making, and long-term value creation.

“Angela brings a rare combination of financial rigor, strategic perspective, and an operator’s mindset,” said John Stauss, Chief Executive Officer of Zircon Corporation. “She connects financial strategy to the broader business and understands how to build the infrastructure that enables a company to move decisively, invest intelligently, and execute against its priorities. Her leadership will be a strategic asset as Zircon builds on its innovation legacy and pursues its next chapter of growth.”

“I am excited to join Zircon at an important point in its evolution,” said Sweeney. “For more than 50 years, Zircon has earned the trust of professionals and homeowners by building tools that are accurate, dependable, and built to last. I believe finance should work the same way: precise, transparent, and designed for the long term. I look forward to partnering with John, the leadership team, and employees across the company to give Zircon the financial clarity and flexibility to keep investing in innovation and in the customers who rely on its products.”

Sweeney’s appointment adds further depth to Zircon’s leadership team as the company advances its product pipeline, strengthens its operating capabilities, and expands the platform needed to serve customers and partners worldwide.

About Zircon Corporation
Zircon Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ZRCN Inc., is a global manufacturer and seller of electronic hand tools, including stud finders, metal detectors, electrical scanners, water detectors, and other innovative electronic tools. Zircon has been a technology leader in its field since its inception, leveraging over 80 global patents and registered designs based on sensor and semiconductor-based technologies. In 2025, the company celebrated its 50th anniversary, marking a legacy of industry innovation and a commitment to quality for customers worldwide. To learn more, visit zircon.com.

Media Contact
Jennifer Lim
Chief Marketing Officer
Zircon Corporation
[email protected]

SOURCE Zircon Corporation

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 1, 2026 — GENISOM AI, a full-stack embodied AI company developing and manufacturing quadruped robots, humanoid robots and physical AI systems, showcased its latest robotics platforms and embodied intelligence technologies at the 2026 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2026) in Pittsburgh, highlighting its evolution from individual robot intelligence toward coordinated robotic systems built for the real world.

At IROS 2026, GENISOM AI presented its quadruped robot and robot dog platforms, the World’s First Industry-Grade Educational Quadruped for Hands-On Assembly and Development, Genisom L1 Maker, robotic joint modules and its open-source MATRiX 2.0 robotics simulation platform. At the accompanying IROS 2026 Legged Robot Challenges, the Nanyang Technological University team took first place in the fully autonomous category with the company’s GENISOM M1 quadruped robot.

From Individual Intelligence to Swarm Intelligence

GENISOM AI’s embodied intelligence framework integrates Locomotion Intelligence, Spatial Intelligence, Interaction Intelligence and Swarm Intelligence, enabling robots to perceive, understand, move and collaborate in the physical world.

A recent milestone is the company’s Multi-Legged Collaborative Transport system, demonstrating multi-robot collaboration and Swarm Intelligence through coordinated movement and task execution. The system represents GENISOM AI’s move from single-robot intelligence toward collective robotic behavior and multi-robot task execution.

This approach connects perception, locomotion and task coordination across multiple embodied agents, extending physical AI from individual robot capabilities toward coordinated robotic systems.

World’s First Industry-Grade Educational Quadruped

At IROS 2026, GENISOM AI made the international debut of Genisom L1 Maker, the World’s First Industry-Grade Educational Quadruped for Hands-On Assembly and Development.

Built on the mass-produced Genisom L1 platform, L1 Maker gives students, educators, researchers and developers hands-on access to the complete robotics development process—from assembly and system integration to production-level calibration, motion control and algorithm development.

Unlike conventional educational robot kits focused primarily on programming, L1 Maker enables users to build, modify, calibrate and develop on a production-grade quadruped platform, bridging robotics education, research and real-world engineering.

The platform features 12 degrees of freedom, an 8 kg maximum payload, up to 40° slope climbing and open interfaces for additional sensors and computing hardware.

Open-World Simulation for Multi-Robot Intelligence

Supporting this development is MATRiX 2.0, GENISOM AI’s open-source robotics simulation platform designed to support open-world simulation and multi-robot training.

MATRiX 2.0 provides researchers and developers with an environment to develop and test robotic perception, navigation, locomotion and multi-robot collaboration before deployment on physical systems, helping accelerate the development cycle from simulation to real-world robotics.

Together with GENISOM AI’s robot platforms and embodied intelligence systems, MATRiX 2.0 forms part of the company’s technology stack for developing robots that can operate and collaborate in complex physical environments. [Opensource: https://github.com/zsibot/matrix]

GENISOM Robots Support Back-to-Back Championship Wins at the IROS Legged Robot Challenges

University robotics teams have continued to put GENISOM AI’s quadruped robot platforms to the test at the IROS Legged Robot Challenge. In 2025, the University of Manchester team won the competition with the mass-produced GENISOM L1 platform.

At the 2026 IROS Legged Robot Challenge, the Nanyang Technological University team from Singapore selected GENISOM M1 as its quadruped robot platform and claimed the championship. The team developed and integrated its own autonomous robotics system on the platform, enabling GENISOM M1 to independently perceive the competition environment, dynamically plan routes, navigate to target locations and operate a robotic arm to complete assigned tasks without manual remote-control intervention.

The back-to-back championship results highlight how university research teams are using production-grade quadruped robots as platforms for developing and testing autonomous navigation, perception, motion control and robotic manipulation in real-world competition environments.

15,000+ Robots in the Real World

GENISOM AI develops technologies across robotic hardware, high-performance joint modules, embodied intelligence and simulation, with products deployed across industrial inspection, power and utilities, petrochemical facilities, emergency response, security, education and other applications.

As of June 2026, the company had produced more than 15,000 robots and worked with more than 500 ecosystem partners worldwide.

Ahead of IROS 2026, GENISOM AI also completed a Series B financing round worth hundreds of millions of RMB, led by Stone Venture, a UAE-based investment firm. The financing will support continued investment in robot platforms, embodied intelligence and real-world applications as the company expands internationally.

From the World’s First Industry-Grade Educational Quadruped to multi-robot collaboration and open-world simulation, GENISOM AI is continuing to develop embodied intelligence and physical AI systems designed for the real world.

About GENISOM AI

GENISOM AI is a Beijing-based full-stack embodied AI company developing and manufacturing quadruped robots, humanoid robots, robotic joint modules and embodied intelligence technologies.

The company integrates robotics hardware, embodied intelligence software, open-source simulation and manufacturing capabilities to develop robots for real-world applications.

As of June 2026, GENISOM AI had produced more than 15,000 robots and worked with more than 500 ecosystem partners worldwide.

For more information, visit:
Website: https://www.genisomai.com/en/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/genisom-ai
X: https://x.com/GenisomAI
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/genisomai/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GenisomAI 

SOURCE GENISOM AI

Investment positions Curi Capital to build on its momentum as a national independent RIA and trusted wealth management partner.

CHICAGO, Oct. 1, 2026 — Curi Capital, a registered investment adviser (“RIA”) with over $14 billion in assets under advisement¹, today confirmed the completion of its previously announced strategic partnership with The Vistria Group, LP (“Vistria”), a middle market private investment firm with deep expertise across essential industries.

The completed investment marks an important milestone in Curi Capital’s continued evolution as a national RIA, providing additional resources to expand its wealth management and financial planning capabilities while enhancing the client experience. Curi Capital will continue to be led by its existing management team and operate under its current name and service model. Currently, the firm serves high-net-worth individuals, families, healthcare professionals, business owners and institutions and operates from 12 offices across eight states and the District of Columbia.

“This partnership represents an important next chapter for Curi Capital,” said Dimitri Eliopoulos, CEO of Curi Capital. “We have built a strong business around a simple idea: put clients first and build a firm where talented people can do their best work. Vistria shares that philosophy and has been a welcome thought partner for our teams as we turn to the specifics of strengthening and growing the business.”

Curi Capital represents Vistria’s latest investment in financial services, a sector where the firm has developed significant expertise through partnerships across wealth management, retirement services, employee benefits and insurance.

“Curi Capital has the ability to pair sophisticated wealth management and financial planning capabilities with a highly personalized client experience. That combination is difficult to build, and we believe it creates a strong foundation for long-term growth,” said Boris Rapoport, Senior Partner and Co-Head of Financial Services at The Vistria Group.

“We have spent years building our financial services strategy and identifying businesses that we believe can lead their markets. Curi Capital stands out for its leadership, culture and commitment to clients. We are proud to partner with Dimitri and his team and look forward to supporting them in this next chapter,” said Mike Castleforte, Senior Partner and Co-Head of Financial Services at The Vistria Group.

The partnership strengthens Curi Capital’s ability to invest in its people, technology and client experience while pursuing opportunities to expand its capabilities and geographic reach. Wealth Partners Capital Group will continue to play a key role in supporting Curi Capital’s strategic growth and M&A initiatives. Curi Capital remains focused on delivering personalized financial planning, wealth advisory and investment management solutions designed around every client’s goals and circumstances.

“This is ultimately about giving our clients and our people an even stronger platform for the future,” said Eliopoulos. “We are grateful for the trust our clients have placed in us and excited to enter this next phase with the same commitment to them that has guided Curi Capital from the beginning.”

Vistria’s investment is being made alongside Curi Capital’s employee owners and existing shareholders, including Curi and Wealth Partners Capital Group. Curi will remain a significant partner and shareholder of Curi Capital.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About Curi Capital

Curi Capital is a national investment advisory firm that puts clients at the center of its mission: helping individuals, families, and institutions reach their long-term financial goals. Curi Capital’s roots date to 2005, when RMB Capital was founded in Chicago. The organization merged with Curi Capital in 2024.

Today, Curi Capital brings in-house, institutional-quality investment expertise together with experienced, holistic planning teams to deliver and implement personalized planning strategies for each client. Headquartered in Chicago, Curi Capital has 12 offices across eight states and the District of Columbia.

About The Vistria Group

The Vistria Group is building a new kind of private investment firm that seeks to deliver both financial returns and societal impact. It invests in essential industries like healthcare, knowledge & learning solutions, financial services and housing that deliver value for investors as well as communities, employees, and consumers.

With over $18 billion in AUM, The Vistria Group looks deeper by working as a true partner, drawing on its deep sector knowledge, operational expertise, unique network, diverse team, and impact orientation to achieve transformational growth.

About Curi

Curi is a national healthcare advisory firm bringing together specialized expertise across medical professional liability insurance, management consulting, and wealth and investment management. As fierce healthcare advocates, business leaders, and thoughtful partners, Curi provides valued advice and support grounded in a specialized understanding of the complex circumstances facing the clients and communities they serve.

About Wealth Partners Capital Group

Wealth Partners Capital Group (“WPCG”) is a financial services holding company, which invests in and partners with select leading wealth management firms. WPCG’s mission is to use its capital, strategic M&A expertise and organic growth capabilities to help its partner firms grow. WPCG identifies, values and negotiates with wealth advisory practices for its partners to acquire and integrate.

¹ Estimated assets under advisement (“AUA”) as of 6/30/2026. Total AUA presented here differs from regulatory assets under management (“RAUM”) reported on Curi Capital’s Form ADV. AUA reflects net assets under management for private funds, retirement plan services, and mutual funds managed by Curi Capital, while RAUM reflects gross assets under management and excludes retirement plan assets.

SOURCE Curi Capital

Ce financement permettra d’augmenter la production des IMU photoniques non soumises à l’ITAR d’OSCP à Montréal, afin de répondre à la demande croissante en matière de systèmes de navigation fonctionnant même en cas de brouillage du GNSS.

MONTRÉAL, 1er octobre 2026 — OSCPS Motion Sensing Inc., opérant sous le nom d’OSCP, a annoncé aujourd’hui avoir conclu une levée de fonds de série A menée par New Science Ventures, avec la participation d’Emerging Ventures et de 2050 Capital. Somu Subramaniam, fondateur et associé gérant de New Science Ventures, a rejoint le conseil d’administration d’OSCP.

Les gyroscopes photoniques et les unités de mesure inertielle (IMU) d’OSCP sont conçus pour les plateformes qui doivent continuer à naviguer lorsque le GNSS est brouillé, falsifié ou indisponible, un problème qui dépasse désormais largement les zones de conflit déclarées.

L’entreprise utilisera ces fonds pour développer sa production à Montréal, renforcer ses équipes d’ingénierie et de vente, et commercialiser sa nouvelle génération de capteurs inertiels photoniques.

« La perte du signal satellite était autrefois un problème sur le champ de bataille. On le voit désormais au-dessus des aéroports et des voies maritimes », a déclaré Kazem Zandi, fondateur et directeur général d’OSCP. « Les clients veulent un système de navigation fiable même en cas de perte de signal GNSS et qu’il soit conforme à l’ITAR. Cette phase nous permet d’en construire davantage ici, et plus rapidement. »

« Nous sommes ravis de rejoindre l’équipe d’OSCP pour développer les meilleures unités de mesure inerte (IMU) au monde en termes de performances de navigation, de taille et de coût. Ces unités de mesure inertielles (IMU) ont le potentiel de bouleverser complètement le paradigme de la navigation autonome dans un large éventail d’applications des secteurs de la défense et des transports », a déclaré Somu Subramaniam, fondateur et associé gérant de New Science Ventures.

Depuis la clôture de la levée de fonds en août, OSCP a lancé NavigationGate, un système de navigation inertielle destiné aux plateformes qui perdent le signal satellite, a ajouté la prise en charge d’ArduPilot ainsi qu’un pilote ROS 2 open source pour sa gamme d’IMU MK2, et a été agréé en tant que fournisseur sur la plateforme « Defence Drone Initiative Marketplace » du gouvernement canadien. Pour plus d’informations, rendez-vous sur oscp.com.

À PROPOS D’OSCP

OSCPS Motion Sensing Inc., opérant sous le nom d’OSCP, conçoit et fabrique des gyroscopes photoniques et des unités de mesure inertielle. Fondée en 2015 et basée à Montréal, au Québec, l’entreprise développe des capteurs inertiels offrant une précision photonique de niveau tactique, tout en conservant les caractéristiques des MEMS en termes de taille, de poids, de consommation d’énergie et de coût, pour la navigation dans les zones où le GNSS est brouillé, perturbé ou indisponible. Ses clients sont actifs dans les secteurs de l’espace, de la défense, de la marine et des activités sous-marines, du ferroviaire, de la robotique et de l’autonomie terrestre. Les produits d’OSCP sont fabriqués au Canada et ne sont pas soumis à la réglementation ITAR.

À PROPOS DE NEW SCIENCE VENTURES

New Science Ventures est une société de capital-risque qui investit dans des entreprises adoptant des approches scientifiques novatrices dans les domaines des technologies de l’information et des sciences de la vie. Fondée en 2004 et disposant de bureaux à Greenwich, dans le Connecticut, et à Londres, la société gère plus d’un milliard de dollars américains d’actifs, sur la base des capitaux initialement engagés. Pour plus d’informations, rendez-vous sur newscienceventures.com.

Relations avec les médias : [email protected]

New photonic architecture will power AI inference for models exceeding 20 trillion parameters at up to 10,000 tokens per second per user

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 1, 2026 — Volantis, a semiconductor company building a new category of AI inference system, today announced an $88 million Series A co-led by Lachy Groom and Abstract Ventures, with participation from John Doerr, VXI Capital, Triatomic and Susa Ventures. The round also includes angel investors Dwarkesh Patel, Naveen Rao and Sholto Douglas.

Volantis is building a new AI inference architecture that eliminates the tradeoff between memory capacity and bandwidth. Its first system, A-1, is being designed to run models exceeding 20 trillion parameters at up to 10,000 tokens per second per user, while reducing inference cost per token.

The company’s founding team includes semiconductor and photonics veterans from NVIDIA, AMD, Broadcom and Ayar Labs. Their previous work includes the first CoWoS product, the first high-volume tunable VCSELs and early silicon photonics co-packaged optics systems.

“As AI agents take on more work, how fast they complete that work will increasingly determine how fast companies can operate,” said Tapa Ghosh, CEO and co-founder of Volantis. “Today’s hardware forces a tradeoff between running the largest, most sophisticated models and running them fast. We started Volantis to eliminate that tradeoff.”

Breaking Through the AI Memory Wall

Running large AI models at high speeds requires enormous memory capacity to hold the model and enormous bandwidth to continuously feed data into the compute engine. Existing architectures force a compromise between the two.

On-chip SRAM provides high bandwidth but limited capacity, constraining model size and context windows while increasing cost and energy consumption. GPUs and other HBM-based systems provide greater capacity, but bandwidth limits how quickly they can serve increasingly large models. Even newer approaches such as 3D DRAM remain on the same tradeoff curve.

Volantis is designing A-1 to increase memory capacity and bandwidth simultaneously by nearly two orders of magnitude, allowing increasingly large models to run at much higher inference speeds.

That performance could significantly accelerate AI agent workflows. A coding agent that completes a task in two minutes instead of 30 gives developers more opportunities to test ideas, ship software and iterate. As agents take on longer and more complex work, inference speed increasingly determines how quickly they can complete it.

A New Approach to Photonic Interconnects

Volantis is building a new category of photonic interconnect designed specifically to connect compute chips to memory.

Its optical fabric connects large numbers of memory chips into a unified pool, aggregating their bandwidth as memory is added. This allows A-1 to increase memory capacity and bandwidth together while using lower-cost off-chip memory.

While photonics is already used to move data inside data centers, existing technologies have largely focused on chip-to-chip connections. Chip-to-memory connections require more than 100 times as much data to travel over much shorter distances, creating different requirements for energy and cost.

Volantis developed a photonic platform specifically for this environment. Its architecture uses custom micro-VCSELs rather than external lasers, drawing on the existing gallium arsenide VCSEL supply chain and avoiding indium phosphide supply constraints. The micro-VCSELs are small, temperature-stable and low power, enabling end-to-end links consuming less than one picojoule per bit. Volantis plans to unveil additional innovations behind the architecture as A-1 moves toward commercialization.

Investment and Commercialization

Volantis plans to deliver its first integrated inference engines to customers in 2027.

The financing will support the development and commercialization of A-1 and its photonic memory architecture, including expanding the company’s engineering team and moving the system toward customer deployments.

About Volantis

Volantis is a semiconductor company building a new architecture for AI inference. The company combines photonics and semiconductor design to increase memory capacity and bandwidth, enabling larger AI models to run at significantly higher speeds.

For more information, visit https://volantissemi.ai/

SOURCE Volantis

NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2026 — Biotia, the clinical metagenomics company whose BIOTIA-ID Urine Test identifies the cause of recurrent and complicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) with 97% sensitivity and 99% specificity, today announced an oversubscribed $9 million financing. The test is available to physicians and patients in all 50 states.

The new financing exceeds Biotia’s previously announced Series A and reflects continued confidence in Biotia’s technology and long-term opportunity. The capital will help scale its New York City laboratory, launch additional diagnostics in women’s health, and expand into orthopedic diagnostics.

“This funding enables us to do what matters most: expand advanced diagnostics available for patients suffering from chronic infections who have been failed by standard laboratory methods,” said Niamh O’Hara, PhD, CEO and cofounder of Biotia. “We are using this capital to expand our test menu, pursue reimbursement, and get these tools into the hands of clinicians — so that more patients get better and faster answers. We are grateful to work every day with strong investors, advisors, and partners transforming how infectious diseases are diagnosed and understood.”

Biotia Expands its Board and Advisors 
Alongside its financing momentum, Biotia has added esteemed healthcare leaders to its board of directors and advisors. These additions bring deep expertise across healthcare delivery, diagnostics, biotechnology, public health and healthcare innovation.

Board Members and Advisors Additions:

• Michele Colucci, Esq., a leading healthcare investor and CEO of DigitalDx Ventures, as board chair
• Tim Barry, a healthcare innovator, cofounder of VillageMD and investor for healthcare startups, as a board member
• Clive Fields, MD, cofounder of VillageMD, veteran primary care practitioner, investor and clinical faculty at University of Texas Health Science Center, as a board observer
• Angelish Kumar, MD, chronic UTI specialist, founder of Women’s Urology New York, as a clinical advisor
• Lesley Northrop, PhD, a pioneer in women’s healthcare diagnostics, clinical diagnostic operations specialist, as an advisory board member
• Catherine Balsam-Schwaber, former CEO of Sōlaria Biō and founder of women’s health company Kindra, as an advisory board member focused on commercialization

“Diagnostics are the foundation of better patient care, since you cannot manage what you cannot accurately measure. Biotia’s approach to precision infectious disease testing, especially their work in women’s health, is exactly the kind of innovation that improves outcomes while reducing unnecessary costs in the system. I’m excited to join the board and help Biotia scale,” said Mr. Barry. 

“The esteemed leaders supporting Biotia at this stage are a testament to the importance of what we are building as we work to make clinical metagenomic solutions rapidly accessible for patients,” said Chris Mason, PhD, global director and cofounder of Biotia. “Their experience and perspective will be invaluable to accelerate our next phase of growth, expand our diagnostic applications to new markets, and help more patients.”

Mr. Barry and Dr. Fields, cofounders of VillageMD, joined other investors in this funding, including Convergent Ventures, DigitalDx Ventures, Cloquet Capital Partners, Continuum Health Ventures,  I-Lab Angels, EGB Capital, Leawood Venture Capital, Red Bear Angels, Red Bear Ventures, and others.

To learn more about Biotia, please visit here. For patients, please visit here.

More about Biotia 
Biotia is advancing infectious disease diagnostics for challenging and chronic infections through pathogen genomics and artificial intelligence. As a spinout company of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech, Biotia is based in New York City, where it operates a high-complexity, CLIA-certified diagnostic laboratory. Biotia’s partners and collaborators include leading institutions such as Mayo Clinic, Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), and NASA. Biotia develops cutting-edge diagnostic and software solutions to help patients, providers, and health systems identify and respond to infectious disease threats. Its flagship diagnostic test for recurrent, complicated UTIs, the BIOTIA-ID Urine Test (sensitivity 97% and specificity 99%), is available across all 50 U.S. states. To learn more about Biotia, visit biotia.io.

Media Contact:
+1 (917) 730-1829
[email protected] 

SOURCE Biotia, Inc.

Fortune 1000 companies turn to OptimizeGEO as a unified platform for brand discovery, media, advertising and commerce in an AI era

NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2026 — OptimizeGEO, the generative engine optimization (GEO) agentic platform that helps multinational brands measure, manage and improve media and commerce across major AI platforms, today announced it counts more than top 100 global brands as clients across 20 countries. As Fortune 1000 companies increasingly prioritize AI-led discovery, Michael Kassan, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures, joins OptimizeGEO as an investor and strategic advisor as the company is accelerating to its next phase of global growth.

Nearly 75% of shoppers use AI for search, discovery, and recommendations. Brands across verticals such as CPG, beauty, financial services, retail, and more, are turning to OptimizeGEO to help them show up where it matters in AI answers. The platform helps enterprise brands and innovative startups optimize their online presence so that AI models and agents understand a brand accurately, cite it credibly and recommend it in the moments that shape consideration and choice.

OptimizeGEO helps global brands capitalize on the new reality of the modern marketing funnel. The platform analyzes visibility, share of voice, sentiment and citations across all major LLMs such as ChatGPT, Claude, Google AI, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot. The platform’s inherently multilingual capabilities are increasingly important since more than half of active ChatGPT users now predominantly use a language other than English. 

Unlike other GEO platforms that stop at measurement, OptimizeGEO identifies exactly where a brand is gaining or losing influence amongst target consumer personas, prioritizes the opportunities with the greatest commercial potential and recommends what to do next across the marketing mix. Most importantly, the end-to-end platform helps implement recommended actions across technical updates, owned content, earned media placements, creator and retailer strategies as well as paid media via autonomous agents. It then connects those improvements to measurable business growth metrics – qualified traffic, conversions, pipeline and revenue.

OptimizeGEO has helped Glance, a pioneer in AI agentic commerce that works with leading retail and fashion brands with millions of users worldwide, increase AI visibility by 2.5X and share of voice in the AI shopping category by 6.6X from April to July 2026.

Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO of Glance, said, “More and more, people discover products through AI assistants, not search bars. OptimizeGEO has been a valuable partner in helping us show up in that new discovery layer and turn it into measurable growth. Their insights and execution agents help us spot new opportunities and act on them quickly as we build Glance into an AI personal shopper for everyone.”

The company was co-founded by Kirthiga Reddy, the first employee and MD of Facebook India and an Adweek AI Power 50 2026 winner, and Saurabh Doshi, former Meta APAC MD. Having built their careers during the shift to mobile and social discovery, Reddy and Doshi founded OptimizeGEO around the premise that AI will similarly reshape consumer behavior.

Michael Kassan, Founder and CEO of 3C Ventures, is joining the company as an investor and strategic advisor. At OptimizeGEO, he will advise the founders on global go-to-market strategy, enterprise relationships, ecosystem partnerships and the continued development of the Generative Engine Optimization category.

Kassan said, “AI is fundamentally changing how consumers discover, evaluate and ultimately choose brands. For marketers, that creates an entirely new growth discipline. OptimizeGEO is looking beyond visibility to the larger business opportunity: turning AI visibility into measurable growth. Kirthiga, Saurabh and the team have built something with enormous potential, and I’m excited to invest in the company and advise them as they scale globally.”

Reddy and Doshi said, “The rapid adoption of OptimizeGEO and vote of confidence from Michael and our other advisors and investors solidifies our projection that GEO is the biggest marketing opportunity of this era. As we continue to listen closely to the market, innovate rapidly and expand our platform from intelligence to implementation and measurable growth, Kassan has an invaluable instinct for category creation.”

Kassan joins OptimizeGEO’s investor base of prominent global thought-leaders at the forefront of consumer and marketing tech shifts such as Carolyn Everson, senior advisor at Permira who is on the board of Under Armour, Walt Disney, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Gulshan Verman, Director of Amazon Ads; Mauria Finley, VP of Google Store and Google Fi Wireless; Stacy Brown-Philpot, Founder and Managing Partner at Cherryrock Capital; Kiran Mani, MD – APAC & Japan, OpenAI; and Shiv Singh, CEO of Savvy Matters, co-Founder of AI Trailblazers, author and former CMO of LendingTree.

The company’s blue-chip institutional investors include f7 Ventures, Micron Ventures, Young Capital, Blockchange, Polygon, Better, Shorooq Partners, VC3, Oceans, Neythri Futures Fund, Perot Jain, Impact Venture Capital and FalconX.

To learn more about OptimizeGEO, please visit: https://www.optimizegeo.ai/ or https://www.linkedin.com/company/optimizegeo/.

About OptimizeGEO

OptimizeGEO is the generative engine optimization (GEO) agentic platform that helps multinational brands measure, manage and improve media and commerce across major AI platforms. The end-to-end platform has autonomous agents to implement approved recommendations for prioritized commercial opportunities through human-in-the-loop workflows for technical updates, owned content, earned media placements, creator and retailer strategies as well as paid media. Built natively for multilingual, multi-market brand discovery, OptimizeGEO works with Fortune 1000 companies and innovative startups to connect AI discovery to qualified traffic, conversions, pipeline and revenue. To learn more, visit optimizegeo.ai or follow the company on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/optimizegeo/).

Media Contacts 
Lacy Talton
Evergreen & Oak on behalf of OptimizeGEO
[email protected]
252.467.5220

SOURCE OptimizeGEO

Built by experts from British Intelligence, cybersecurity and fin-tech, including leaders who have previously scaled multiple unicorn companies, Overmind makes it easier for organizations to build, train and deploy specialized AI models using their own data and code

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 1, 2026 — Overmind, a platform for building, fine-tuning and deploying specialized small language AI models, today announced the open source release of its training and deployment platform, giving developers and companies a new way to build AI systems tailored to their own data, code and business needs.

The company’s origins trace back to founder and CEO Tyler Edwards’ experience in British intelligence, including roles at MI5 and MI6, where he oversaw teams exploring how AI could automate intelligence analysis and other high-stakes processes. Working on these problems, Edwards saw how difficult and expensive it was to build AI models for highly specialized environments, and how many resources those efforts required. He also saw the potential to bring that capability to organizations far beyond intelligence and national security.

“Some of the hardest problems in AI aren’t about building a bigger model, they’re about building the right model for the right job,” said Edwards, co-founder and CEO of Overmind. “I saw that firsthand in intelligence, where generic solutions often aren’t enough. The same is true in business. Companies have unique data, code and expertise, yet most are still relying on general-purpose models built for everyone. We built Overmind to make specialized AI practical, affordable and accessible to organizations across industries.”

Edwards founded Overmind alongside Sam Brunt, a serial startup operator who has helped scale Funding Circle, Pipe and Vertice into high-growth companies. Together, they built Overmind to give teams the power to train and ship their own AI models without having to hire a team of AI specialists. The platform brings together the key stages of specialized model development, from agent observability and data preparation to model training and inference. Those traces can then be evaluated against benchmarks to measure relevance and performance, with the results informing fine-tuning and redeployment. This end-to-end workflow allows companies to turn their proprietary data and software into models built for their own products and workflows. 

“We’re entering a phase where companies are going to look beyond one-size-fits-all frontier models and build AI systems specifically for the problems they need to solve,” said Brunt. “Specialized models can deliver stronger performance on narrowly defined tasks at a fraction of the inference cost, while proprietary data gives companies the opportunity to build models their competitors simply don’t have. The challenge is that building and managing these systems is still a complex and highly specialized process. Overmind abstracts away that complexity, giving organizations a simpler, more accessible way to retrain, modify, roll back, download and deploy their own models wherever they need. Just as importantly, companies should be able to own the models they build, without being locked into a single provider.”

In early deployments, Overmind’s approach is producing significant results. In one fintech deployment, a specialized model trained by Overmind reduced invoice-processing costs by 96%. In a separate legal benchmark, Overmind improved accuracy by 86% compared with out-of-the-box frontier models, while also reducing false positives and operating costs. The company has recorded tens of thousands of SDK downloads and is already working with companies across fintech, legal, healthcare and cybersecurity, adapting specialized AI to a range of industry-specific use cases.

Security is foundational to Overmind, particularly as organizations use the platform with proprietary data and code. The team’s experience in British intelligence and cybersecurity has shaped the platform’s infrastructure and development processes around secure deployment and scaling from the outset. Overmind is SOC 2 and ISO compliant.

The open source release gives developers and organizations greater control over how they build, train and deploy specialized AI, while allowing them to adapt the platform to their own needs. It also advances Overmind’s broader mission to make powerful AI accessible to everyone, regardless of capital or technical expertise. Overmind believes that openness and accessibility should extend beyond the models themselves to the platforms used to build with them. By opening the platform, Overmind is expanding access to the tools and infrastructure needed to experiment, customize, and deploy AI on users’ own terms. The company is continuing to work with early enterprise adopters as it expands into new industries and use cases.

For more information about Overmind, please visit: https://www.overmindlab.ai/

About Overmind

Overmind is building the infrastructure for specialized AI. Founded in 2025, the platform enables organizations to use their own data and code to train, evaluate and deploy small language AI models built specifically for their products and workflows. Overmind combines expertise from intelligence, cybersecurity and fintech with deep experience building and scaling technology companies, making specialized model development faster, more affordable and accessible to organizations across industries.

Media Contact:

Rachel Rogers

3107704917

[email protected] 

SOURCE Overmind

dearCC combines human mentorship, community and peer networks with real-time labor-market intelligence and AI-powered career tools to help young people navigate a rapidly changing world of work

OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 1, 2026 — New Work Foundation, the nonprofit co-founded by former Meta and Salesforce AI executive Clara Shih and technology industry veteran Nick Mehta, today launched dearCC, a free platform designed to inspire confidence and restore personal agency for Gen Z jobseekers in an economy reshaped by artificial intelligence.

Amidst one of the toughest job markets for new grads in recent years, dearCC replaces job-search isolation with a clear roadmap forward. The platform combines human mentorship and peer cohorts with real-time labor-market intelligence and practical AI-skilling tools, giving young workers actionable insight on where opportunity exists, the capabilities to pursue it, and a community to back them.

“The bottom rung of the career ladder is disappearing,” said Clara Shih, co-founder of New Work Foundation. “I spent years building business AI systems and saw firsthand how they automate tasks that used to be entry-level jobs. AI is both driving this dislocation and an important part of the solution, but AI alone won’t solve the challenge of helping young people break through. dearCC gives young professionals the mindset, skillset, and community to succeed in the new work economy.”

The launch is supported by a multi-year grant and anchor partnership with the Schultz Family Foundation, which supports innovative efforts to increase economic mobility for America’s next generation. Through this collaboration, New Work Foundation will integrate labor-market insights from the Schultz Family Foundation and Burning Glass Institute’s Where You Work Matters data into dearCC, equipping young jobseekers with actionable guidance on employer quality and economic mobility.

“Young people are entering one of the most consequential transitions in the labor market in generations. They need more than another job board: They need trusted guidance, better information and tools that help them understand where real opportunity exists,” said Howard Schultz, co-founder of the Schultz Family Foundation. “New Work Foundation shares our belief that AI should expand opportunity rather than make an already difficult transition into the workforce even harder. We are excited to invest in this work and enhance the new platform with the labor-market intelligence and career-navigation work we have developed through Where You Work Matters.”

“In this market, graduates need more than a degree. They need the skills to contribute from day one, including the ability to use AI as a tool to make themselves more capable and more valuable. Our analysis of tens of millions of career histories shows how much those first few years matter. The jobs graduates land, the skills they build, and the companies in which they build them can shape their trajectory for years to come,” said Matt Sigelman, President of the Burning Glass Institute.

dearCC: A Career Platform Built for Gen Z Jobseekers

Designed to replace the isolation and guesswork of the modern job hunt, dearCC equips entry-level jobseekers with the AI-powered tools, peer community, and mentor feedback needed to develop their mindset, skillset, and network for the AI economy:

• dearCC Field Report: An AI-powered jobs explorer that shows which roles are growing, flatlining or changing. Jobseekers can search by their college degree and compare AI exposure, wage trends, high-growth adjacent occupations, and geographic opportunities, helping people make more informed decisions about where to focus their search.
• dearCC Game Plan: A step-by-step assessment of a jobseeker’s LinkedIn profile, resume, and current job-search strategy, paired with hands-on opportunities to build AI capabilities relevant to their target role. Users receive a personalized gap analysis, outreach recommendations, interview preparation and portfolio-project ideas designed to help them stand out.
• dearCC Community : An online community designed to counter the isolation of today’s increasingly automated hiring process with role-specific learning modules, guidance, and peer support. Jobseekers are invited to monthly master classes led by expert mentors across various fields, including Will Sentance (Founder, Codesmith), April Underwood (Former Chief Product Officer, Slack), Katie Stanton (Former Chief Marketing Officer, Color Health), Michael Matlock (Chief Accounting Officer, Benchling), and more. Users can also sign up to get matched to a Crew: six jobseekers who meet weekly with a field mentor to provide support, structure, and accountability. 
• dearCC Weekly Brief: A weekly newsletter personalized to each jobseeker’s role, level, and experience to help them understand how AI is being used in and reshaping the occupations and industries they hope to enter.

“dearCC has given me the community, inspiration, and AI skills to finally get a job after 12 months of searching,” said Jesus Garnica, a first-generation college graduate of San Mateo Community College and San Francisco State.

“When you’re staring down 500 unanswered job applications, you don’t need theoretical advice and platitudes,” said Samantha Wen, UC Berkeley class of 2023 and Gen Z co-founder of New Work Foundation. “You need a plan for a specific job and a group of people who will give you straight talk and empathy.”

Ryon Baldwin-Williams, a 2025 Michigan State graduate and Gen Z advisory board member, added: “dearCC unstuck my search process and has given me a lifelong community.”

All products are free and available beginning today at http://dearcc.org.

Strategic Partnership, Founding Supporters, and Leadership Team

In addition to support from the Schultz Family Foundation, New Work Foundation has secured generous founding support from Morfit Family Foundation, Brian Halligan, Sheryl Sandberg and Tom Bernthal, Chirantan “CJ” Desai and Meera Desai, Joe Lonsdale, Nikki Pechet, April Underwood, and Aaron Levie, as well as financial and technology grants from Salesforce (including Slack), Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and Vercel.

New Work Foundation also welcomes five seasoned industry leaders to its all-volunteer leadership team with experience from companies including AT&T, BEA Systems, Informix, Salesforce, Smartsheet, Vera Therapeutics, and VMware:

• Eric Loeb joins as Chief External Affairs Officer.
• Jody Kohner joins as Chief Learning Officer.
• Pete Godbole joins as Chief Financial Officer.
• Eric Stahl joins as Chief Marketing Officer.
• Julien Capers joins as General Counsel.

About New Work Foundation

New Work Foundation is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to equipping young American workers with the AI tools, labor-market intelligence, and community to thrive in the new work economy. Founded by former Meta and Salesforce AI executive Clara Shih and technology industry veteran Nick Mehta, the foundation operates with an explicit commitment to provide free tools for the broad-based public interest.

Learn more at http://newworkfoundation.com.

Media Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE New Work Foundation