UPPSALA, Sweden, Feb. 17, 2026 — Beactica Therapeutics AB, a Swedish precision medicine company, today announced that it, together with leading glioblastoma researchers at KU Leuven, has been awarded a EUR 2.5 million grant by the European Innovation Council (EIC) to advance a precision immune therapy for glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive brain tumour which currently lacks effective treatment.

In the project GLIOBREAK, Beactica and KU Leuven are joining forces to advance BEA-17, Beactica’s wholly owned, first-in-class degrader of the epigenetic protein complex LSD1–CoREST, together with a biomarker-driven companion diagnostic developed based on research carried out by Professor Frederik De Smet and colleagues at KU Leuven. GLIOBREAK aims to progress this integrated therapeutic-diagnostic approach from a validated laboratory stage to early clinical readiness, positioning the programme at the forefront of immuno-epigenetic therapies for glioblastoma. The 30-month GLIOBREAK project builds on results from the ongoing EU-financed project GLIOMATCH and will be led and coordinated by Beactica. The project is targeting the completion of IND-enabling studies and submission of a regulatory application to either the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or European Medicines Agency (EMA), positioning BEA-17 for first-in-human clinical trials.

EIC Transition is a Horizon Europe grant scheme that funds activities to mature and validate technology while in parallel developing business and market readiness. Grants of up to EUR 2.5 million are available, covering 100% of the project costs. The funding is non-dilutive to the company’s shareholders. Beactica and KU Leuven’s proposal was one of only 40 selected for financing out of a total of 611 proposals submitted in the most competitive EIC Transition calls ever.

“We are delighted to receive this prestigious EIC Transition award together with our eminent collaborators at KU Leuven. It is a significant validation of our immuno-epigenetic approach to glioblastoma, a disease with devastating outcomes where patients urgently need new therapeutic options. The partnership with KU Leuven and the recognition from the European Innovation Council position BEA-17 at the forefront of precision medicine,” said Beactica’s CEO, Dr. Per Källblad. “This funding enables us to complete our IND-enabling studies and move toward first-in-human trials, bringing this first-in-class LSD1-CoREST degrader closer to patients.”

About glioblastoma (GBM)

GBM is the most common and most aggressive brain tumour. Approximately 35,000 people in the U.S. and Europe are diagnosed with GBM each year. The median overall survival is 15 months, and the five-year overall survival is only 5%.

About BEA-17

BEA-17 is a first-in-class small-molecule targeted degrader of lysine demethylase 1 (LSD1) and its co-factor CoREST. By enhancing antigen presentation, inducing viral mimicry, and reprogramming macrophages toward a pro-inflammatory state, BEA-17 restores immune activity within the tumour microenvironment. In syngeneic animal models of cancer, the candidate drug has shown promising potentiation of immune-modulating treatments across several cancer types, including anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors in colon cancer and standard of care treatment (temozolomide and radiation) in glioblastoma. Pharmacokinetic studies of BEA-17 show good blood-brain-barrier penetration and oral availability. BEA-17 has been granted Orphan Drug Designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of glioblastoma (GBM). BEA-17 is wholly owned by Beactica Therapeutics.

About Beactica Therapeutics

Beactica Therapeutics AB is a privately held precision medicine company with a pipeline of novel small molecule therapeutics aimed at treating diseases with significant unmet medical need. Beactica’s approach is centered around the Eclipsor™ platform that enables the efficient development of allosteric modulators and targeted protein degraders. Beactica deliver value to patients and shareholders by advancing its programmes to clinical proof of concept. For more information, please visit www.beactica.com.

About KU Leuven

Three KU Leuven research teams, led by Prof. Frederik De Smet, Prof. An Coosemans and Prof. Thierry Voet, are collaborating to lay the groundwork for future clinical testing of BEA-17. Prof. De Smet’s team focuses on brain tumor biology and (spatial) single-cell profiling of GBM patient samples and coordinates the GLIOMATCH project, translating patient-derived insights into clinically relevant hypotheses. All single-cell and spatial profiling is embedded within the KU Leuven Institute for Single-cell Omics (LISCO), where Prof. Voet contributes leading expertise in advanced (spatial) single-cell technologies. As part of the KU Leuven Cancer Institute, these molecular insights are functionally tested by Prof. Coosemans’ team using state-of-the-art GBM mouse models and drug profiling platforms, providing a critical translational step toward the clinic. By integrating patient data, single-cell technologies and preclinical validation, this collaboration establishes a focused pipeline aimed at enabling the next generation of clinical testing for GBM at KU Leuven.

Beactica Therapeutics contact
Per Källblad M.Sc. Ph.D.
CEO
[email protected] 
Tel: +46 18 56 08 80

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TULSA, Okla., Feb. 12, 2026 — The University of Tulsa and Hurricane Ventures have announced an investment in BioReact, an artificial intelligence and analytics platform powering modern bioprocess development and optimization. The funding will be used to accelerate go-to-market efforts and expand BioReact’s product capabilities.

Launched in April 2023, Hurricane Ventures invests in early-stage companies with strategic connections to the university. The fund leverages the university’s knowledge network and resources; advances UTulsa’s innovation ecosystem; and drives success across its portfolio as well as economic growth across the region.

BioReact provides a unified system where teams can bring together data from multiple sources into a structured foundation. Scientists working with bioreactors – specialized containers where cells are grown to develop medicines and vaccines – typically spend four to five hours manually organizing data from devices, spreadsheets and lab notebooks before they can analyze results.

BioReact lets scientists upload data from disparate sources and automatically align datasets, visualizing results in seconds. The platform’s AI analyzes parameters like temperature, pH and nutrient concentrations to identify optimal growth conditions that improve yields, reduce costs and shorten development cycles. The platform requires no coding expertise and has applications across industries like biopharma, industrial biotech and synthetic biology.

“The support from The University of Tulsa and Hurricane Ventures allows us to accelerate development of software that genuinely serves scientists. Beyond the capital, access to UTulsa’s exceptional biotech talent gives us a unique advantage in refining the product alongside real scientific expertise, ensuring BioReact continues to deliver meaningful, practical improvements for teams running complex bioprocesses,” said Mitchell Castetter, CEO and co-founder.

Castetter has spent more than a decade in biotech sales at Beckman Coulter and Cytena. His co-founder Joanna Lipinski, Ph.D., brings over 20 years of experience spanning high-tech and biotech, with a career focused on building advanced software and data platforms that power modern scientific research.

“We are excited to support founders Mitchell and Joanna as they modernize bioprocess development and help scientists work more efficiently,” said Chris Wright, assistant vice president and leader of UTulsa’s Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

BioReact is the 12th company to receive support from Hurricane Ventures.

“We’re thrilled to back this team as they modernize the bioprocess workflow and ultimately help accelerate the development of pharmaceuticals and other critical products,” said Connor Sitton, director of Hurricane Ventures.

SOURCE The University of Tulsa

“Procurement teams are being asked to manage increasingly complex supply chains with tools that were never designed for the pace or scale of today’s trade,” said Tim Spencer, Co-founder and CEO of Didero. “Didero’s AI agents handle the day-to-day operational work of procurement, allowing teams to spend less time chasing emails and exceptions and more time focusing on strategic decisions.”

Procurement teams at manufacturers and distributors manage thousands of supplier interactions across email, ERP systems, and spreadsheets, much of it still handled manually. Didero deploys AI agents that operate inside those existing systems and communications, building contextual understanding of products, pricing, policies, and historical order data. Within weeks of integration, these agents take on core procurement workflows like supplier communication, order tracking, and exception handling, improving order visibility and cycle times while reducing operational overhead.

“Procurement has long been weighed down by repetitive, high-friction work that has proven difficult to automate at scale,” said Kristina Shen, Managing Partner at Chemistry. “Didero applies AI agents directly to that operational layer in a way that materially changes how supply chain teams work and what they can achieve. We believe this will become core infrastructure for companies that need to move faster, operate with more visibility, and adapt to increasingly complex global trade.”

As Didero scales across manufacturers and distributors, its ability to deliver operational impact quickly has resonated with investors focused on execution and customer adoption.

“Didero is delivering efficiency gains and cost reductions for manufacturers and distributors, all with minimal implementation overhead. That value proposition is really changing how operators in more industrial industries see AI helping their businesses,” said Taylor Brandt, Partner at Headline. “We haven’t seen many AI-native supply chain players with as many deployments or such exceptional customer feedback, which made this feel like a turning point for a once in a multi decade transformation.”

Didero’s integration-first approach has also made the company a natural fit within the Microsoft ecosystem, where many enterprises already run core supply chain and finance operations.

“Agentic AI unlocks a new level of automation and efficiency in procurement that simply wasn’t possible with older technologies, and Didero is uniquely positioned to deliver that impact at scale,” said Cheryl Cheng, Managing Partner at M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund. “With Microsoft’s large footprint of manufacturing customers, we see our relationship with Didero as a way to streamline procurement workflows that offer high strategic value.”

Didero is expanding its product development, engineering, go-to-market, and customer enablement teams to support growing customer demand. The company is hiring across enterprise sales, customer success, and technical roles as it scales deployments with manufacturers and distributors. Didero also plans to build on its core procurement offering over time, extending its platform to support adjacent workflows such as sourcing and payments.

Founded in December 2023, Didero is embedded with more than 30 customers to date, working with manufacturers and distributors to modernize procurement operations across complex supply chains.

“Didero’s AI agents were autonomously executing mission-critical procurement tasks for us within weeks,” said Stephen Sharr, VP of Procurement, Logistics and Contract Manufacturing at Footprint. “I’ve deployed a lot of software over my career, and I’ve never seen anything like the speed or impact of this.”

About Didero
Didero uses AI agents to automate enterprise procurement for manufacturers and distributors. The company’s platform operates inside existing systems and communications to handle core procurement workflows, helping customers improve visibility, shorten order cycles, and reduce operational overhead across complex supply chains. To learn more about Didero or explore career opportunities, visit www.didero.ai. 

SOURCE Didero

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 12, 2026 — As global investment markets adjust to higher interest rates and more disciplined capital allocation, serial entrepreneur and investor Jess Mah, also known as Jessica Mah, says today’s challenging environment is producing stronger, more resilient founders.

Mah, founder and CEO of venture firm Mahway, is based in San Francisco and works closely with startups across artificial intelligence, fintech, biotech, and legal technology. With more than a decade of experience building and backing companies, she believes the current funding slowdown represents a healthy correction for the startup ecosystem.

“Capital isn’t disappearing. It’s getting smarter,” said Mah. “Investors are becoming more thoughtful about where they put their money and which founders they support.”

After years of record venture fundraising and inflated valuations, private investors and institutional funds are slowing their pace and prioritizing companies with demonstrated revenue, customer traction, and sustainable business models. According to Mah, this shift is reshaping how founders approach growth and execution.

“The money is still there,” said Jessica Mah. “It’s just not moving the same way it used to.”

Mah began her entrepreneurial journey in middle school, launching a six-figure business before graduating high school. She later became the youngest woman accepted into Y Combinator and went on to build multiple venture-backed companies. Through Mahway, she now invests in what she calls “high-conviction founders” who combine industry expertise with disciplined execution.

She attributes today’s tighter market conditions in part to rising interest rates and the availability of safer investment alternatives, which have reduced speculative startup funding. As a result, founders are being challenged to prove real value earlier in their company’s lifecycle.

“Some founders had never experienced a normal market before,” Mah said. “Now they’re learning what it means to build when capital actually costs something.”

At the same time, Mah notes that artificial intelligence has created both opportunity and complexity. While AI is accelerating product development and operational efficiency, it has also led to market saturation in certain segments, making differentiation more difficult.

“Every week, something new is coming out with AI,” said Jess Mah. “The best opportunities are still ahead of us.”

Despite tighter funding conditions, Mah sees continued momentum for startups using AI to solve measurable, high-impact problems for enterprise and institutional customers. She points to women’s health, regulatory compliance, financial services, insurtech, and workforce technology as major growth areas.

“Investors want to see founders solving real problems for customers who will pay,” Mah said. “Not theoretical problems for hypothetical markets.“

Through Mahway, Mah supports companies that leverage lean teams, automation, and data intelligence to compete more effectively against larger incumbents. She believes this efficiency-driven model is becoming the new standard for scalable startups.

“Today, small teams with the right AI tools can accomplish in months what used to take years,” said Jessica Mah.

Beyond financial performance, Mah emphasizes long-term sustainability, founder well-being, and inclusive leadership. She is a vocal advocate for mental health awareness in entrepreneurship and increased funding access for women-led companies.

“I want to show that you can build great companies and still have a healthy personal life,” Mah said. “Longevity matters more than hype.”

Looking ahead, Mah believes the current market cycle will ultimately strengthen the startup ecosystem by rewarding disciplined leadership and long-term thinking.

“The founders who survive this period will build companies that last,” said Jess Mah. “That’s what playing the long game really means.”

About Mahway

Mahway is a San Francisco–based venture and investment firm founded by Jess Mah (Jessica Mah). The firm partners with high-conviction founders across artificial intelligence, fintech, biotech, legal technology, and emerging industries. Mahway focuses on building durable, AI-enabled companies designed for long-term growth and impact.

For media inquiries, interviews, or partnership opportunities:

Email: [email protected] 
Website: www.mahway.com 

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2877467/Mahway.jpg

SOURCE Mahway

Funding accelerates growth for AI-driven network delivering trusted, seamless bill-only transactions for health systems and suppliers

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Feb. 12, 2026 — In Revenue Capital, the first operator-immersive venture capital firm, today announces its participation in a $3 million funding round for Helia Care, alongside Habanero Ventures. The round caps off a record growth year for Helia’s revolutionary network for bill-only medical device procurement within health systems, suppliers, and distributors. With this investment, Helia plans to continue expanding adoption across health systems and suppliers as healthcare organizations face increasing pressure to control costs while maintaining clinical efficiency.

Helia is an AI-enabled procurement platform initially deployed for bill-only transactions, which occur when hospitals must order critical, high-cost medical devices and supplies at the time of surgery or treatment rather than rely on existing inventory. Industry reporting shows that 50% of hospital supply chain spending occurs via bill-only transactions, which accounts for 60% of net patient revenues, further underscoring the criticality of this traditionally manual and error-prone process.

“For us, this investment was driven by more than growth; it was driven by results,” said Justin Gray, co-founder and managing partner of In Revenue Capital. “Helia saves hospitals an average of $1.85 million per location, turning its strategic vision into clear, measurable savings. The company has spent years building a true two-sided network that includes the world’s leading medical device suppliers. With the supplier ecosystem now in place, health systems and suppliers are seeing immediate value and expanding adoption across their organizations. The business fundamentals are very strong.”

Helia’s platform aligns clinical ordering with existing supplier contracts, reducing errors, off-contract purchasing, and pricing discrepancies that contribute to fraud, waste, and abuse. Because the software is embedded directly into hospital workflows, the financial impact is immediate and ongoing, making the solution incredibly scalable once deployed.

“The hardest part of building a true healthcare network is earning trust on both sides,” said Grant Siders, founder and chief executive officer of Helia Care. “By aligning clinical workflows with contracted supplier economics, we’ve created a platform where hospitals, suppliers, and distributors all win, and where expansion becomes a natural byproduct of delivered value.”

In Revenue Capital’s decision to participate in the round reflects its broader investment approach of backing companies that prove disciplined execution along with efficient operations, making them truly unique in an era where AI value is often fuzzy at best. After building strong fundamental technology, validating hospital workflows and needs, and converting early deployments into systemwide adoption, Helia represents the type of proven-value profile the firm looks for when pairing capital with the inherent power of embedded go-to-market support.

“What stood out to us is that Helia is not just solving a technical problem; it is solving an execution problem that hospitals and suppliers deal with every day,” said Craig Coppola, founder and manager, Habanero Ventures. “The team has built the supplier relationships, proven adoption across real health systems, and demonstrated measurable savings, which is exactly what you want to see before scaling go-to-market in a category this complex.”

Unlike traditional bill-only management approaches that rely on services offerings or business process outsourcing, Helia delivers this capability through software and a true two-sided network. This allows hospitals and major suppliers to operate on a shared platform built specifically for high-cost, time-sensitive medical device procurement, introducing a new model for managing one of the most complex segments of healthcare purchasing.

To learn more, please visit https://heliacare.com.

About In Revenue Capital
In Revenue Capital was founded on the fundamental maxim that Go-to-Market excellence forms the last true moat in startups. We partner with top-tier Venture Capital firms to identify the best early-stage B2B Vertical SaaS startups for co-investment. Beyond capital, we provide embedded go-to-market expertise in a true value-add model we call ‘Operator Immersive.’ This sleeves-up, hands-on approach enables our portfolio companies to outpace their peers and win markets, while our partner VCs and Limited Partners de-risk their investments.

About Habanero Ventures
Founded in 1998 by R. Craig Coppola, Habanero Ventures invests in people and companies as an angel investor. Habanero Ventures is dedicated to helping startups and entrepreneurs create world-class companies. Habanero Ventures provides equity, guidance, wisdom, and resources, creating a unique path for growth and ultimately success. For more information, reach out to Craig Coppola directly https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigcoppola/  

SOURCE In Revenue Capital

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 12, 2026 — Yosemite, a venture capital firm dedicated to making cancer non-lethal through a combination of academic philanthropy and for-profit investing, has deployed more than $18 million in grants through a donor-advised charitable vehicle since the firm’s launch in 2023.

This philanthropic support operates alongside Yosemite’s venture investing and is directed toward early-stage research that precedes traditional investment, helping advance new scientific ideas and approaches to cancer care at a time when academic researchers face an increasingly competitive funding landscape.

“Academic seed funding is essential to the evolution of cancer care,” said Reed Jobs, Founder and Managing Partner of Yosemite. “Our donor-advised fund strategy enables us and our community to support ambitious, foundational work at its earliest stages and help move promising science toward translation.”

One example included preclinical research led by Craig Crews at Yale, which contributed to foundational insights behind the formation of Quarry Thera, a biotechnology company developing small molecule drugs that modulate protein interactions in completely novel ways to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases.

Collaboration with the American Cancer Society

A cornerstone of Yosemite’s grantmaking activity is its ongoing partnership with the American Cancer Society, one of the largest and most established cancer research funders in the United States. Through this collaboration, the organizations annually identify emerging and high-impact research areas based on mutual scientific interest.

“We are excited to partner with Yosemite for the second year, expanding our ability to fund innovative projects that can have real and practical implications for cancer patients,” said Bill Dahut, M.D., Chief Scientific Officer at the American Cancer Society.

Past focus areas have included artificial intelligence in cancer research, the tumor microenvironment, cancer vaccines, and cancer-targeted toxin delivery. Awardees in the 2025 American Cancer Society-Yosemite grant cycle include a mix of emerging investigators and established luminaries, including Carolyn Bertozzi, Jennifer Doudna, William Kaelin, Kai Wucherpfennig, and Stephen Elledge.

The partnership has already demonstrated early scientific impact. One supported project led by Jeremiah Johnson’s group at MIT, recently published in Nature Biotechnology, developed a next-generation antibody-based drug delivery approach that allows each antibody to carry more drug molecules than conventional antibody-drug conjugates, demonstrating stronger anti-tumor activity in preclinical models of breast and ovarian cancer.

“This support allowed us to pursue a high-risk, high-reward direction that would have been difficult to fund otherwise,” Johnson said. “The ACS-Yosemite partnership created the flexibility and momentum needed to move the work quickly from concept to publication.”

Directed Healthcare Grants

In addition to supporting foundational scientific discovery through its collaboration with the American Cancer Society, Yosemite, through a donor-advised fund platform, also supports healthcare initiatives focused on improving cancer-care delivery at leading institutions, including Mayo Clinic and City of Hope. 

These initiatives address practical challenges in oncology care and span innovation across the cancer care continuum. Areas of focus include:

• Improving diagnostic accuracy and efficiency through AI-enabled tools
• Using new digital and physiological signals to monitor patient health and predict disease risk
• Informing care and treatment decisions through integrated data and clinical intelligence

At Mayo Clinic, the funding is being applied across clinical programs and research settings.

“This philanthropic investment will advance Mayo Clinic’s work to transform cancer research and care, from early detection through survivorship,” said Cheryl Willman, M.D., Stephen and Barbara Slaggie Executive Director of Mayo Clinic Cancer Programs and Director of the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center. “We appreciate the support that makes this important work possible.”

At City of Hope, the support is helping accelerate the translation of research into routine clinical practice.

“A partnership–driven approach aligns with City of Hope’s mission to translate discovery into impact at a national scale. By supporting ambitious and innovative teams in AI, diagnostics, and care delivery, we can accelerate the integration of breakthrough research into everyday clinical practice to the benefit of patients who need lifesaving care today,” said John Carpten, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at City of Hope, and Director of the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Looking Ahead

Through its hybrid grant-making and investment strategy, Yosemite will remain an active vehicle for supporting early-stage cancer research and healthcare initiatives. As academic funding becomes increasingly competitive, philanthropic support is expected to remain an important source of funding for foundational research that informs future translational and clinical efforts. To learn more, contact [email protected].

About Yosemite
Yosemite partners with leading researchers and visionary entrepreneurs working to make cancer non-lethal within our lifetime. Through a donor-advised fund and investment platform, Yosemite supports innovation across the oncology ecosystem — from early academic research to later-stage companies — advancing new therapies and technologies that improve patient outcomes. Leveraging its deep scientific network, Yosemite builds and finances companies translating breakthrough discoveries into better therapies and patient experiences to improve the health and lives of cancer patients. For more information, please visit: yosemite.co

Media Contact
Theo Gardner-Puschak – [email protected]
Carlos Peraza – [email protected]

SOURCE Yosemite

NEW YORK, Feb. 12, 2026 — Cambridge Wilkinson (“CW”) is pleased to announce the successful close of a syndicated SPV investment into a Series B funding round for a high-growth AI hardware and technology company.

The transaction represents a significant milestone in the firm’s strategic expansion into technology capital raising. Over the past year, CW has deliberately built its technology practice, bringing proven relationship-driven approaches and structured capital expertise to growth-stage technology companies. The tech team brings decades of experience as both operators and investors in the technology sector.

The technology practice serves companies at different stages with varying capital needs. Cambridge Wilkinson works with select companies led by exceptional founders raising first institutional-grade rounds, established businesses with strong growth trajectories scaling operations, and more mature venture companies seeking non-dilutive capital. The firm facilitates both single-investor transactions and syndicated raises, leveraging relationships across venture capital firms, growth equity investors, alternative capital sources, and specialized venture debt lenders.

“This expansion into technology is a natural evolution of our platform,” said Rob Bolandian, Co-Founder and Global Head of Investment Banking at Cambridge Wilkinson. “We’ve always focused on sectors where deep relationships and creative structuring create real value for clients. We’re particularly focused on deep tech and resiliency sectors where relationship-driven capital raising creates meaningful value. Technology companies operate in a faster-moving universe, and they need sophisticated capital partners who not only understand their challenges but can move with the speed their markets demand—whether that’s equity capital to scale, venture debt to extend runway, or creative structured solutions.”

Cambridge Wilkinson is currently working on several additional technology transactions and actively building its pipeline in the sector.

www.cambridgewilkinson.com

About Us:

Cambridge Wilkinson is a leading global investment bank with the speed, connections, and the confidence to get transactions done. With a focus on middle-market companies, we arrange debt and equity capital raises from $25 million to $5 billion and advise on mergers and acquisitions. In addition, we also provide flexible and scalable leverage facilities and credit facilities for private equity funds and alternative credit funds which range from $25 million to $2 billion. We bring deep experience working with specialty finance institutions, real estate entities, funds as well as businesses spanning a variety of other industries. We offer unique access to a broad network of capital sources including large family offices, credit funds, banks, non-bank credit groups, insurance companies, private equity, sovereigns, and endowments.

Securities offered through Finalis Securities LLC Member FINRA / SIPC. Cambridge Wilkinson LLC and Finalis Securities LLC are separate, unaffiliated entities.

Rob Bolandian, Co-Founder & Global Head of Investment Banking
[email protected]

Howard Chernin, Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer
[email protected]

SOURCE Cambridge Wilkinson

NEW YORK, Feb. 12, 2026 — Anterior, the clinician-led artificial intelligence platform for health plans, announced a $40 million funding round, bringing total capital raised to $64 million. The oversubscribed round included continued participation from NEA and Sequoia Capital, alongside new investors FPV and Kinnevik.

Anterior helps health insurers deploy AI safely and effectively inside real clinical and operational workflows. Unlike AI point solutions that stall at the pilot stage, Anterior is deployed directly into each organization’s clinical workflows, pairing advanced technology with embedded clinicians who work alongside health plan staff to optimize AI accuracy, drive adoption, and ensure measurable impact.

Since its $20 million Series A in June 2024, Anterior has expanded production deployments across major U.S. health plans including Geisinger Health Plan, built strategic integrations with enterprise healthcare technology leaders such as HealthEdge and its GuidingCare platform, actively supporting organizations covering 50M lives, and pioneered its Forward Deployed Clinician model — a hands-on approach designed to reduce deployment risk and accelerate time-to-value dramatically.

“AI in health plans is not struggling because of a technology gap, but because implementation is treated as an afterthought,” said Dr. Abdel Mahmoud, MD, Physician and former Google Product Leader and CEO at Anterior.  “We built Anterior around a different premise: AI only works in healthcare when it’s deployed by clinicians, alongside clinicians. We’ve invested as much in implementation as we have in technology, and the market response has validated that approach.”

As a result, Anterior has achieved industry-leading performance metrics in live production environments, including 99.24% clinical accuracy, independently validated by KLAS Research. One enterprise customer reported significant operational gains following deployment across hundreds of nurses, reducing clinical review cycles by roughly 75% and driving staff satisfaction above 90%. These outcomes are enabled by Anterior’s implementation-led approach, which helps health plans operationalize AI quickly and effectively.

“When we first engaged Anterior, I was skeptical that AI could work at scale in our clinical workflows. We’ve now scaled Anterior across hundreds of nurses, increased productivity significantly, and the nurses love using it,” said Valerie Limpus, Chief Operations and Technology Officer at MedWatch, a national clinical services and utilization management organization.

“What sets Anterior apart is how collaborative they are. I’ve worked with a lot of health tech vendors, but Anterior is different. They actually pick up the phone and solve problems with you,” said George Gjermano, Chief Strategy and Product Officer at WNS-HealthHelp, an Anterior partner and delegated utilization management entity.

To further strengthen enterprise governance and deepen health plan expertise, Anterior also announced the addition of several senior healthcare leaders as advisors, including Secretary David Shulkin, M.D., former Ninth Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Peter Long, former Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Blue Shield of California and current board member at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts; and William Golden, former CEO of Employer and Individual at UnitedHealthcare.

“In a landscape filled with AI investments that fail to drive returns, Anterior stands out with real RO’AI (return on AI),” said Pegah Ebrahimi, Managing Partner at FPV Ventures. “We’re excited to be part of their journey and to help them bring much-needed efficiency and value into the healthcare ecosystem.”

The new capital will support continued expansion of Anterior’s production deployments, new clinical and operational use cases, ecosystem integrations, and further acceleration of the company’s rapid five-day average deployment model.

About Anterior
Anterior is the clinician-led company using responsible AI to automate and accelerate payer workflows. Its platform transforms common payer workflows, generating medical and operational savings for health plans (e.g., prior authorization, payment integrity, risk adjustment). Anterior’s platform is trusted by clinicians and loved by technology teams supporting organizations covering 50M lives. For more information, visit www.anterior.com and follow the company on LinkedInand X.

Press contact
Kathy Osborne
[email protected]

SOURCE Anterior

Company raises $4M seed round to build AI infrastructure for the global hourly workforce

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 12, 2026 — Ando, the company building the world’s first AI infrastructure for the global hourly workforce, today announced it has raised $4M in seed financing. The round was led by Slow Ventures, with participation from Blitzscaling Ventures, Zero Capital, Monochrome, Gaingels, Mana Ventures, Fireroad, and additional investors. The new capital will be used to expand Ando’s AI forecasting and scheduling platform and scale deployments with enterprise customers.

Hourly work powers a huge part of the economy, but the systems behind staffing and scheduling are still unreliable. In the United States alone, there are about 80 million hourly workers logging about 146 billion hours of work each year. Too often, staffing does not match real demand, schedules change at the last minute, and workers end up juggling impossible tradeoffs between shifts, childcare, school pickup, commutes, and second jobs. This breakdown is expensive and exhausting for everyone involved. Turnover in hourly roles regularly is around 150%, and every time an employee leaves, businesses can lose more than $5,800 in replacement and training costs. Stores can lose $5,000 or more per week simply because they do not have the staff they need when customers walk in. In urgent hiring situations in restaurants, there is about a 40% chance a worker does not make it past 72 hours.

Ando exists to fix this system that is failing both sides. Ando corrects the daily mismatch between people, schedules, and demand by using AI to forecast demand for each location, then helps teams build schedules that fit real people. That means taking into account not just basic availability, but the preferences and constraints that decide whether someone can stay in the job, like how many hours they need, school schedules, or another job.

Ando has been serving enterprise customers for over a year and has demonstrated early traction. The platform has delivered more than 90% demand accuracy on a daily basis. The company’s roadmap includes forecasting and scheduling at 15-minute increments. To date, Ando has seen 100% conversion from customer presentation to pilot to paid platform, with 100% retention. In some locations, customers have experienced $60,000 to $80,000 in incremental revenue, though results vary by operator and are not solely attributable to Ando.

“Most people assume workers hold one steady job, but that is not reality for a large share of hourly restaurant workers. When accounting for all types of earning, seasonal stacking, and income volatility over time, the share relying on multiple income streams is likely closer to 25–40%, especially in dense urban markets. When your life depends on stitching together two or three schedules, a last-minute change is not a nuisance – it can disrupt childcare, transportation, and shifts you are already committed to. Yet most scheduling tools still ignore that reality. At Ando, we are building work schedules people can actually plan around, with fewer surprises for workers, fewer staffing scrambles for managers, and a more stable day-to-day that treats workers’ time with the same seriousness as costs and operations,” said Paul Wellons, Founder and CEO of Ando.

“Labor is one of the largest and least modernized systems in the economy,” added Sam Lessin, General Partner at lead investor Slow Ventures. “The combination of an increasingly flexible labor force and AI that continues to improve have created a compelling opportunity to modernize these systems. We think Ando is building the foundational infrastructure for how hourly work will operate in the future through their first-principles, AI-native approach to predictive demand and labor allocation.”

As part of its ongoing efforts to modernize hourly work, Ando continues to be supported by its advisory group of leaders across hospitality, technology, and labor policy. Advisors include Niren Chaudhary, former Chairman and CEO of Panera Brands and former COO and President of Krispy Kreme, Jim Messina, CEO of The Messina Group and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Loni Mahanta, Chief Legal and Corporate Affairs Officer at HopSkipDrive and former Vice President of Future of Work at Lyft, Andy Mutz, Global CTO of Customer Experience at Microsoft and former technology executive at SAP and Salesforce, and Adam Sah, an early Google engineering leader, multiple patent inventor, and investor with experience across three IPOs.

About Ando
Ando is building the world’s first AI infrastructure for the global hourly workforce, addressing one of the largest challenges in the hourly economy: matching the right people to the right shifts at the right time. By providing highly accurate demand forecasting and intelligent staffing tools, Ando helps businesses reduce turnover, eliminate labor waste, and give workers schedules they can depend on. Ando is purpose-built for the hourly W2 workforce, supporting employees and the managers who schedule them.

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SOURCE Ando