Die Finanzierungsrunde wurde von Pender Ventures angeführt, beteiligt waren außerdem Climate Investment, Evok Innovations und Occidental. Das neue Kapital wird die Einführung der Plattform zur KI-Aktivierung beschleunigen, die bereits bei fünf OGCI-Mitgliedsunternehmen und regionalen Betreibern im Einsatz ist. Eine Ausweitung auf die angrenzenden Industriezweige ist bereits im Gange.

CALGARY, Alberta, 4. Juni 2026 — SensorUp Inc., die Operational-Intelligence-Plattform, die integrierte Betriebsabläufe in anlagenintensiven Branchen unterstützt, gab heute den Abschluss einer Wachstumsfinanzierungsrunde unter der Leitung von Pender Ventures bekannt. An der Finanzierungsrunde beteiligen sich Climate Investment, Evok Innovations, und Occidental, ein strategischer Investor und Kunde.

SensorUp ist die operative Intelligenzschicht für anlagenintensive Branchen: Umwandlung fragmentierter Felddaten, technischer Aufzeichnungen und Sensorströme in überprüfbare, für Mitarbeiter nutzbare Arbeitsabläufe. Betreiber nutzen die Plattform heute, um leistungsschwache Bohrlöcher zu identifizieren, bevor es zu Produktionsausfällen kommt, um Abfackelungs- und Entlüftungsereignisse anhand behördlicher Grenzwerte zu bewerten, die Bereitschaft für Wartungsarbeiten bei Tausenden von Komponenten zu koordinieren, Methanlecks zu erkennen und zu beheben sowie Emissionsinventare zu erstellen, die der Prüfung durch Aufsichtsbehörden und Kapitalmärkte standhalten – und das alles auf der Grundlage eines einzigen Anlagenmodells statt mit fünf voneinander getrennten Tools.

Die bewährten Komponenten der Plattform: Asset-Hierarchie, Berechnungen, Überprüfung und Genehmigung, Berichterstellung sowie Workflow-Koordination bieten Kunden, Beratern und KI-Agenten eine gemeinsame Grundlage, auf der sie aufbauen können – und das mit der Nachvollziehbarkeit, Sicherheit und Skalierbarkeit, die die Schwerindustrie erfordert. Das Hinzufügen eines neuen Anwendungsfalls ist eine Konfiguration, keine neue Produktentwicklung. Genau diese Architektur macht die Plattform über den Öl- und Gassektor hinaus erweiterbar auf die Bereiche Stromerzeugung, Versorgungsunternehmen, Bergbau und Chemie – überall dort, wo dezentrale Anlagen, multimodale Daten und regulierte Betriebsabläufe aufeinandertreffen.

Die Finanzierungsrunde wurde von Pender Ventures angeführt, einer Risikokapitalgesellschaft, die sich auf Unternehmen konzentriert, die die Innovationswirtschaft vorantreiben, indem sie Altsysteme durch moderne Tools ersetzen. Als Investoren konzentrieren sie sich darauf, Unternehmen zu finden, deren Lösungen nachweislich in der Lage sind, den Umsatz zu steigern, Kosten zu senken und Ergebnisse zu verbessern.

„Die industrielle Softwarebranche hat auf eine Plattform gewartet, die sich sowohl durch eine echte architektonische Differenzierung auszeichnet als auch über die nötige Glaubwürdigkeit in der Praxis verfügt, um sie in großem Maßstab einzusetzen. SensorUp bietet beides”, sagte Cheri Corbett, Partnerin bei Pender Ventures. „Ihre ontologiebasierte Data Fabric, ihre Position bei den anspruchsvollsten Industrieunternehmen weltweit und die Art und Weise, wie Kunden sie in agentische Workloads einbinden, machen das Unternehmen genau zu der Art von Wegbereiter, für deren Förderung unser Fonds gegründet wurde. Letztendlich unterstützen wir Teams, und dieses hat ein Maß an Vertrauen bei den Betreibern erworben, dessen Aufbau Jahre gedauert hat und dessen Nachahmung bei Wettbewerbern Jahre in Anspruch nehmen würde.”

Das Kapital wird in drei Schwerpunktbereiche investiert, die auf die nächste Wachstumsphase von SensorUp abgestimmt sind:

Beschleunigung der Kundenimplementierung: Ausbau des API-Frameworks von SensorUp, Weiterentwicklung der Zero-Touch-Implementierung und Skalierung der Expansion durch strukturierte Prototyping-Workshops, die die Zeit bis zur Wertschöpfung von Quartalen auf Wochen verkürzen.

Ausbau der agentenbasierten Plattform: Investitionen in fortschrittliche KI, Modellierung und branchenspezifische Funktionen, darunter die Operations AI Agents von SensorUp – die produktionsreifen Agenten, die Kunden auf der Plattform einsetzen.

Förderung der branchenübergreifenden Expansion: Aufbau der Dateninfrastruktur, der Markteinführungsstrategien und der Kapazitäten für den Kundenerfolg, um einen wachsenden Kundenstamm sowie den sich erweiternden Umfang der auf SensorUp ausgeführten Workflows zu unterstützen.

„Unsere Kunden sind sehr daran interessiert, KI-Strategien umzusetzen, sie brauchen aber eine vertrauenswürdige Plattform und einen Partner, der gemeinsam mit ihnen Lösungen entwirft und entwickelt”, sagte Julia Hole, Finanzvorstand von SensorUp. „SensorUp ist aus dem hochkomplexen Umfeld der Methanerkennung, -lokalisierung und -messung auf globaler Ebene hervorgegangen. Diese Grundlage versetzt uns ganz natürlich in die Lage, die nächste dringlichste Datenherausforderung unserer Kunden anzugehen: die Operationalisierung von KI für einen greifbaren ROI. Diese Finanzierung ermöglicht es uns, eine Roadmap schneller umzusetzen, die unsere Kunden aktiv vorantreiben.”

Informationen zu SensorUp

SensorUp ist das agentenbasierte Handlungssystem für die Schwerindustrie – die KI-Plattform, die betriebliches Chaos in eine koordinierte Abwicklung über verteilte Anlagen, multimodale Daten und komplexe Arbeitsabläufe hinweg verwandelt. SensorUp entstand in partnerschaftlicher Zusammenarbeit mit den weltweit größten Öl- und Gasunternehmen und hat sich in Tausenden von dezentralen Anlagen bewährt. Das System ist derzeit bei fünf OGCI-Mitgliedsunternehmen sowie einer wachsenden Zahl regionaler Betreiber im Einsatz, eine Expansion in angrenzende Industriezweige ist bereits im Gange. Der Hauptsitz des Unternehmens befindet sich in Calgary, Alberta. Weitere Informationen finden Sie unter sensorup.com.

Informationen zu Pender Ventures

Pender Ventures ist ein Risikokapitalinvestor, der sich auf Health-Tech- und B2B-Technologieunternehmen an der Schwelle zwischen Kommerzialisierung und Skalierung konzentriert. Als praxisorientierter Investor mit starker Überzeugung arbeitet Pender Ventures eng mit Gründern zusammen, um das Wachstum zu beschleunigen und branchenführende Unternehmen aufzubauen.

Das Team ist fest im kanadischen Innovationsökosystem verankert und verfügt über die Flexibilität, in ganz Nordamerika zu investieren. Es ist von seinen Niederlassungen in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal und Calgary aus tätig. Weitere Informationen finden Sie unter penderventures.com.

Informationen zu Climate Investment

Climate Investment (CI) ist ein unabhängig geführter Spezialinvestor, dessen Schwerpunkt auf der Förderung der Dekarbonisierung der Industrie liegt.Das Unternehmen investiert in Firmen , die darauf abzielen , in energieintensiven Sektoren einen hohen  Beitrag zur Reduzierung von Treibhausgasemissionen zu leisten, und konzentriert sich dabei auf Chancen, die eine skalierbare, quantifizierbare Kohlenstoffreduzierung bei gleichzeitig attraktiven  risikobereinigten Renditen versprechen. Das Unternehmen ist bestrebt, durch breit angelegte Investitionen und Kooperationen die Wirkung seiner Aktivitäten zu beschleunigen. Es stellt Risikokapital bis  Wachstumskapital für Unternehmen zur Verfügung  und unterstützt sie über ihren Geschäftslebenszyklus hinweg,  mit dem Ziel, sowohl messbare Auswirkungen auf den Treibhauseffekt als auch finanziellen Erfolg zu erzielen.

Das Unternehmen hat über 40 Investitionen in den Bereichen Energie, Industrie, Gebäude, und Verkehr getätigt. Die Portfoliounternehmen von CI bieten Lösungen an, mit denen Methan- oder Kohlendioxidemissionen vermieden, reduziert, recycelt oder gespeichert werden können. Das Unternehmen berichtet jährlich über die quantifizierten Treibhausgasemissionen seines Portfolios auf der Grundlage einer Methodik, die es gemeinsam mit anderen Investoren entwickelt hat, um die Einführung einheitlicher Messgrößen zu fördern. Im Zeitraum 2019–2024 erzielten die Unternehmen seines Portfolios insgesamt eine Reduzierung der Treibhausgasemissionen um 133 Millionen Tonnen CO2e1.

Climate Investment wurde von Mitgliedern der Oil & Gas Climate Initiative gegründet. Sie haben in Fonds von Climate Investment investiert und viele der darin enthaltenen Innovationen umgesetzt, um deren frühe kommerzielle Entwicklung zu unterstützen.Besuchen Sie www.climateinvestment.com.

Informationen zu Evok Innovations

Evok Innovations ist eine führende, auf den Klimaschutz spezialisierte Risikokapitalgesellschaft, die in Hard-Tech-Lösungen für die Schwerindustrie investiert. Wir arbeiten mit herausragenden Unternehmern zusammen, um bahnbrechende Technologien in unseren Schwerpunktbereichen Energie, Bergbau und Mineralien, industrielle Optimierung sowie Anpassung und Resilienz zu skalieren. 

Über das Kapital hinaus bietet Evok fundiertes technisches Fachwissen, praktische Betriebserfahrung und einen unvergleichlichen Zugang zur Branche durch unser Netzwerk globaler strategischer Partner. Wir arbeiten eng mit unseren Portfoliounternehmen zusammen, um Innovationen in die Markteinführung zu überführen, die Kommerzialisierung zu beschleunigen und klare Wege für Skalierung und Exit zu schaffen.

Weitere Informationen finden Sie unter: evokinnovations.com.

Informationen zu Occidental

Occidental ist ein internationales Energieunternehmen, das Erdöl und Erdgas fördert, vermarktet und transportiert, um den Wert zu maximieren und lebenswichtige Ressourcen bereitzustellen. Das Unternehmen nutzt seine weltweite Führungsposition im Bereich des Kohlenstoffmanagements, um Technologien und Produkte mit geringerem Kohlenstoffausstoß voranzutreiben. Occidental hat seinen Hauptsitz in Houston und ist vor allem in den Vereinigten Staaten, im Nahen Osten und in Nordafrika tätig. Weitere Informationen finden Sie unter oxy.com.

Medienkontakt: Trevor Cross, Senior-Produktmarketingmanager, SensorUp Inc. [email protected]

Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2993585/SensorUp_Inc_SensorUp_Closes_Growth_Financing_to_Scale_its_Agent.jpg

Proprietary AI-powered market intelligence and specialized advisory services mark a structural shift in how laundromat operators and institutional investors find and launch new laundromats.

NEW YORK, June 4, 2026 — LRE Advisors is the first laundromat advisory and intelligence firm. The company is bringing proprietary AI-powered market intelligence, geospatial analytics and integrated store launch services to a $7 billion U.S. sector.

While many adjacent sectors have professionalized and consolidated, the 90-year-old laundromat industry remains largely fragmented and has, until now, lacked the meaningful tools and analytics that mature investment markets take for granted. Most operators still source locations through an equipment distributor or real estate broker, relying on intuition and dated demographic data, with no single party accountable for the full process.

“Investors in this space are committing significant capital, but their approach to vetting the business or location hasn’t improved much in decades,” said Cody Milch, head of strategic development at LRE Advisors. “We built LRE to give laundromat investors the analytical depth and end-to-end support they need to confidently underwrite a site, structure a deal and bring a store to stabilization at an attractive return.”

The platform’s analytical engine draws on a national dataset of more than 30,000 U.S. laundromat locations to benchmark prospective sites across dozens of variables — among them trade-area economics, competitive analysis, foot traffic and mobility patterns, and co-tenancy dynamics.

LRE integrates all major components of laundromat investment through a single advisory relationship, the first for the industry. The company supports clients through site identification, market intelligence, financial modeling, equipment planning and procurement, financing, buildout support, marketing and post-launch operational guidance. Its model addresses a long-standing pain point for laundromat investors: how to effectively navigate a highly fragmented industry full of process and vendor gaps.

“It’s not uncommon for our clients to move from site search to a newly built, cash-flowing store in roughly eight months. That kind of speed is tough to achieve on your own, or even with a broker,” said Inessa Ramos, investor relations manager at LRE.

LRE’s integrated service model compresses the timeline from site search to grand opening to roughly six to nine months, about half the typical pace. For multi-store operators planning expansion or new market entry, LRE provides granular location-level analysis and powerful competitive intelligence that would be impractical to build in-house. For institutional investors, family offices and private equity firms now entering the sector, the firm provides concierge-level guidance, structured due diligence, underwriting support and portfolio strategy to deploy capital systematically across markets.

Laundromats serve more than 40 million American households. Their relatively stable, recession-resistant cash flow has long attracted investors, and the asset class is now drawing growing institutional interest.

The launch comes amid a marked increase in sophisticated capital entering the sector. LRE has tracked a fivefold increase in institutional inquiries from Q2 2024 through Q4 2025, including family offices and private equity firms managing portfolios of service-based businesses. “To us, that’s a meaningful signal that the professionalization of laundromat investment is underway, and LRE is leading this transformation,” said Milch.

About LRE Advisors 

LRE Advisors is the first and only laundromat-focused advisory and intelligence firm in the United States. LRE combines proprietary AI-powered analytics with integrated advisory services spanning site selection, market intelligence, financial modeling, equipment, financing and buildout support. The firm serves new investors, multi-store operators and institutional capital deploying into the laundromat sector. LRE is backed by 70 years of laundromat industry experience through its parent company, LaundryLux, a third-generation, family-owned national commercial laundry equipment manufacturer and distributor. For more information, visit LRE Advisors.

Media Contact: 

Inessa Ramos, LRE Advisors | +1 (516) 371-4400 | [email protected] 

SOURCE LRE Advisors

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., June 4, 2026 — ARTAN Bio, a longevity biotechnology company based in St. Petersburg, Florida, today announced the completion of a $200,000 seed raise. The raise will fund preclinical advancement of ARTAN Bio’s proprietary engineered suppressor platform, which targets nonsense mutations — a class of genetic errors responsible for premature protein translation stops that underlie a wide range of aging-related and genetic diseases.

About the Technology

ARTAN Bio has developed a novel engineered suppressor tRNA system (ARTAN-102) designed to selectively recognize disease-causing nonsense codons and restore normal protein translation. Unlike broad-spectrum approaches, ARTAN Bio’s mutation-specific platform offers a targeted strategy with potential application across multiple aging-associated conditions. The company has successfully completed initial in-cell validation of ARTAN-102 via an earlier seed raise with VitaDAO.

Proceeds from the raise will fund the next stage of development, including validation of the suppressor system in animal models, advancement toward a preclinical development candidate, and intellectual property filings to protect the platform’s innovations.

Leadership Comments

“This raise marks an important inflection point for ARTAN Bio,” said Anthony Schwartz, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of ARTAN Bio. “We are building a platform with real potential to address the genetic underpinnings of aging, and we’re doing it through an open, community-driven model that hasn’t been possible before. I look forward to sharing our progress with the global longevity and DeSci community at the NFC Summit (Non-Fungible Conference) in Lisbon on June 4th.”

“Nonsense mutations represent a largely untapped vulnerability in aging and age-related disease,” said Michael Torres, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of ARTAN Bio. “Having validated our engineered suppressor system in cell models, we are now positioned to demonstrate its efficacy in vivo. This raise through VitaDAO’s decentralized science model gives us the capital and the community to take that next step.”

Anthony Schwartz, Ph.D. will present ARTAN Bio at the NFC Summit in Lisbon, Portugal on June 4th, 2026, where he will discuss the company’s platform, its VitaDAO partnership, and the decentralized science model driving its development.

About the VITARNA Token

$VITARNA tokens represent fractions of governance rights over the Mutation-Specific Codon Suppression for Aging and Longevity IP-NFT. The primary issuance is offered via the Molecule AG platform. Token holders participate in governance decisions including research prioritization, IP licensing strategy, and allocation of research funds — a model that democratizes early-stage biotech funding and aligns scientific progress with community stakeholders.

About ARTAN Bio

ARTAN Bio is a longevity biotechnology company headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida at spARK Labs by ARK Invest. The company is developing mutation-specific codon suppression technologies to address genetic diseases and aging-related conditions caused by nonsense mutations. ARTAN Bio’s platform delivers engineered suppressor systems through clinically validated modalities to restore protein function in affected cells.

About VitaDAO

VitaDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization dedicated to funding and advancing longevity science research. VitaDAO supports early-stage research projects through its IP-NFT model, enabling broad community participation in the governance of longevity IP. More information is available at vitadao.com.

This press release is for informational purposes only. VITARNA tokens are not securities and this release does not constitute an offer or solicitation to purchase financial instruments.

SOURCE ARTAN BIO

Gunderson Dettmer, Goodwin Procter and Google Cloud collaborate to accelerate frontier tech commercialization

NEW YORK and BERKELEY, Calif., June 4, 2026 — Hivemind Capital, a leading investment firm specializing in deep technology, today announced the launch of darkmatter lab, a first-of-its-kind program and cornerstone initiative of the firm’s upcoming venture fund, designed to accelerate the commercialization of frontier technologies by supporting researchers at the earliest stages of development – before company formation. Launched in partnership with University of California, Berkeley, and with Gunderson Dettmer, Goodwin Procter and Google Cloud, darkmatter lab introduces a new model for bringing advanced research out of academic labs and into real-world applications.

The partnership was created to address the structural gaps in frontier tech funding, including declining federal research support, corporate funding that typically requires IP concessions and traditional venture capital’s inability to engage until research has already exited the university system.

“Too many of the most important breakthroughs never make it out of the lab, or take years to do so,” said Emmanuel Vallod, Head of Venture and Research at Hivemind Capital. “The most consequential work happens before a company exists, but that’s also when resources are most limited. darkmatter lab is built to support researchers at that moment, with the capital, compute and expertise needed to move from idea to deployment.”

Each selected project will receive at least $1 million in resources, including research funding from Hivemind Capital, $350,000 in compute credits from Google Cloud through its Google for Startups Cloud Program, immigration, IP and incorporation legal support from Gunderson Dettmer and Goodwin Procter, and comprehensive operating services through Berkeley SkyDeck, UC Berkeley’s platform for innovation and entrepreneurship resources.

darkmatter lab will initially support projects across high-impact areas of AI and blockchain, including AI infrastructure, agentic systems, cybersecurity, compute optimization, cryptography and decentralized systems.

“UC Berkeley has always been where foundational research becomes transformative technology,” said Rich Lyons, Chancellor of UC Berkeley. “Our researchers are working on some of the most important problems in AI and blockchain, and they deserve resources that match the ambition of their work. Hivemind understands the role research plays in driving innovation forward, and darkmatter lab is exactly the kind of partnership universities need right now: patient, research-first capital that keeps our researchers in control of their work.”

About Hivemind Capital
Hivemind Capital is a global investment group operating at the intersection of traditional finance and the onchain economy. Founded in 2021, Hivemind allocates institutional capital across a diverse set of investment strategies, and implements technology infrastructure to help assets and institutions transition onto blockchain rails with discipline, durability, and scale. Learn more at hivemind.capital.

About UC Berkeley
Founded in 1868, UC Berkeley is the world’s No. 1 public university, with 63 Nobel laureates and 50 graduate programs ranked in the nation’s top 10. Berkeley researchers advance fundamental science while addressing society’s greatest challenges — from artificial intelligence to climate change to human health. The university enrolls nearly 46,000 students, with 28% of undergraduates receiving federal Pell Grants, reflecting its commitment to access. Learn more at berkeley.edu.

SOURCE Hivemind

Already used by thousands of employees at website building platform Wix, Willow equips enterprises with 360-degree visibility of an AI agent’s activity, while securely controlling how agents access internal systems, data, and enterprise tools

HERZLIYA, Israel, June 4, 2026 — Willow, a pioneering agentic access platform has emerged from stealth with $7 million in seed funding to enable enterprises to safely adopt AI agents across the workplace without impeding innovation. The round was led by Hetz Ventures, following early angel investment from Wix Co-Founder and CEO Avishai Abrahami and President Nir Zohar, who backed Willow at its earliest stage. The funding will be used to enhance the next phase of Willow’s go-to-market while accelerating product development.

With 79% of companies introducing AI agents inside their organizations, and 73% running multi-agent systems, these digital employees are fast becoming a backbone of the modern business. However, speed of agentic adoption has not been matched by proportionate safeguards or governance; leading to misuse, mistakes and unpredictable or damaging outcomes. In one survey from this year, 65% of companies have reported agent-related incidents in the last 12 months. As AI agents become more prominent across enterprises, operating continuously in the background, and gaining access to internal tools, the need for proper oversight and control is paramount.

Willow is tackling this problem head-on; securing enterprises against the fastest-growing and least governed attack vector in the enterprise. Its governance and access layer grants organizations full visibility and control over how AI agents connect to internal systems and what actions they are allowed to perform, overseeing which AI agents employees are already using, monitoring risky or unauthorized integrations, and applying granular controls around how agents interact with enterprise systems and data.

“Currently businesses find themselves in an impossible trade-off: either lock AI down because it can’t be trusted or allow AI agents to operate with unrestrained access to systems and data and hope nothing goes wrong. Willow offers another option,” said Eyal Ben Ezra, CEO and Co-Founder of Willow. “Willow gives enterprises the control needed to adopt AI earnestly without letting it run unchecked. With complete oversight into how any AI agent is deployed, we ensure enterprises control every move an agent makes, narrowing the attack surface exponentially and providing companies with the assurance they need to roll out their AI agents.”

Avishai Abrahami, Co-Founder and CEO of Wix: “Thousands of Wix employees are using AI agents every day, and at our scale, visibility and control over those agents are absolutely critical. To accelerate AI adoption safely, we need guidelines, governance, and full visibility across the company. Willow provides exactly that.”

“The gateway between AI agents and an enterprise’s internal systems is rapidly becoming one of the most overlooked blind spots in enterprise security,” said Guy Fighel, Partner at Hetz Ventures. “What convinced us to lead this round was watching Willow solve the problem inside Wix first, at the scale of thousands of employees, before bringing it to market. Eyal, Shalev, and Idan have built something rare: a governance layer that enterprises actually deploy, rather than another framework that sits on a shelf. They’re the right team to define this category.”

Willow’s platform connects any AI agent (Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, Codex, Gemini, n8n, custom and more), to any internal system, and includes a marketplace with over 1000 ready to use connectors, over 100 skills and over 100 plugins, all with the authorizations, access controls, audit trails, and governance enterprises require. Willow generates tools at runtime, scoped to the task, detects and governs shadow AI across the organization and runs as SaaS, dedicated cloud, or self-hosted including air-gapped.

Willow brings together former Wix employees across its leadership team, including co-founders Eyal Ben Ezra (CEO), Shalev Shalit (CTO), and Idan Chetrit (VP Platform). Over the past year, the company has worked closely with enterprise design partners including Wix, where the platform has been deployed internally across more than 5000 employees, and is already expanding deployments with multiple enterprise customers in industries like cyber security, real estate, fintech and more.

About Willow (f.k.a Webrix)

Founded by former Wix engineers, Eyal Ben Ezra (CEO), Shalev Shalit (CTO), and Idan Chetrit (VP Platform), Willow is an identity and access platform for enterprise AI agents. The company enables organizations to securely connect AI agents to internal systems with runtime permissions, centralized controls, auditability, and full attribution of agent activity. Willow is headquartered in Herzliya, Israel.

Media contact:
Gavin Horwich
[email protected] 

SOURCE Willow

DENVER, Colo., June 4, 2026 — Scotch, the platform transforming liquor retail point-of-sale (POS) operations, today announced it has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by VMG Partners with participation from First Round Capital, Lerer Hippeau and Toba Capital. The company, which has surpassed a $1 billion annual run rate in gross payment volume, will use the new capital to accelerate product development, expand its engineering and go-to-market teams and continue scaling its AI-enabled operating system nationwide.

Liquor retail, part of the $250 billion beverage-alcohol industry spanning retailers, distributors and suppliers, is one of the last major specialty retail categories yet to modernize its core systems. Many dominant POS and inventory platforms were built 30 to 40 years ago, remain largely on-premise and require extensive manual work to execute mission critical processes. Scotch is the first solution that rebuilds these workflows from the ground up with a cloud-native, AI-first architecture, uniquely built for the complexity of liquor retail. 

The company is led by Jake Bolling (CEO) and Kevin Hodges (CRO), who previously built Skupos, a startup serving convenience stores, another large retail category long constrained by antiquated technology, and Dan Chen (CTO), who spent more than a decade in the liquor industry, including as CTO of Drizly, which was acquired by Uber for more than $1 billion.

“Enterprise retailers face massive operational complexity, with many carrying anywhere from 10,000 to 25,000 SKUs sourced from more than 30 distributors,” said Jake Bolling, co-founder of Scotch. “COVID-era demand exposed the limits of manual, legacy systems, and as growth normalized, retailers were left with tighter margins, macro-driven pricing volatility and flat category growth. Retailers can no longer afford manual ordering, mispriced SKUs or hidden inventory; they need intelligent automation that streamlines workflows and allows them to focus on customer service, not IT.”

Designed specifically for liquor retail, Scotch’s all-in-one operating system automates complex workflows such as invoice reconciliation, cost change detection, SKU standardization, deal sheet matching and in-workflow analytics. By eliminating manual processes that once consumed entire weeks, Scotch drives measurable improvements in margin, capital efficiency, pricing accuracy and operational speed – giving retailers time back to focus on delivering the best customer experience.

Joey McDonald, General Manager of Sinkers Beverages, one of the largest stores in Tennessee by revenue, and a staple of East Nashville, said, “Scotch has allowed us to unify all of our revenue streams in one place. It’s boosted our productivity and, importantly, taken away the day-to-day headaches around managing our business.”

“Liquor retailers have been left out of the technology revolution for far too long, stifled by the complexity of scaling an efficient operation in the three-tier system,” said Carle Stenmark, General Partner at VMG Partners. “Scotch has already built a deeply resonant product that customers love, and VMG’s deep relationships across consumer brands, operators and technology leaders position us to accelerate their growth as they bring an AI-enabled modern operating system to tens of thousands of retailers.”

Scotch has since signed and onboarded some of the largest independent liquor retailers in the country, including The Liquor Store of Jackson Hole, Big Bear Wine & Liquor, Corkdorks and Everest Spirits Superstore. Built to handle the most operationally complex businesses in the category, Scotch is driving one of the first meaningful waves of modernization in an industry that has remained largely untouched by innovation.

About Scotch

Scotch is the all-in-one operating platform built exclusively for liquor retailers. Combining point-of-sale, automated inventory management, invoice reconciliation, and pricing intelligence in a single system, Scotch replaces the patchwork of legacy tools that retailers have relied on for decades. Founded by the team behind Skupos and Drizly, Scotch is backed by VMG Partners, First Round Capital and other leading technology investors. Scotch serves independent and large-format liquor retailers across the United States. For more information, visit scotchpos.com.

Media Relations:
[email protected]

About VMG Partners

VMG Partners was founded in 2005 to identify and support the growth of innovative companies into iconic brands that span generations. Headquartered in San Francisco, the firm invests through its two core funds, Consumer and Technology, and is guided by the thesis that progress and innovation will prevail over the status quo. VMG specializes in enterprise and founder partnerships that drive successful investments, mergers and acquisitions across beauty and personal care, food and beverage, health and wellness, pet, and technology that powers operational excellence for consumer brands. For more information on VMG Partners, please visit www.vmgpartners.com.

Media Relations:
Prosek Partners
[email protected]

SOURCE Scotch

Raises $750 Million to invest further in AI advancements for customers

NEW YORK, June 4, 2026 — Today, Ramp announced a $750 million primary financing round led by ICONIQ, GIC, and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, valuing the company at $44 billion. New investors include Goldman Sachs Alternatives, D.E. Shaw & Co., Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Generation Investment Management, Insight Partners, and BroadLight Capital. Previous investors who participated are Founders Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners, D1 Capital Partners, T. Rowe Price, General Catalyst, Alpha Wave Global, 137 Ventures, Thrive Capital, Coatue, Sands Capital, Khosla Ventures, 1789 Capital, Avenir Growth, BoxGroup, 8VC, Pinegrove Venture Partners, Definition Capital, and Stripes.

Ramp grew TPV ~170% year-over-year in March 2026, the company’s highest growth rate in three years, despite the business being roughly 20x the size. The growth spans new AI categories like token spend management and, through Stack, accounting firms – a market Ramp is entering for the first time. The round comes as Ramp extends its capabilities into managing the fastest-growing cost in business: tokens.

“For 500 years, business ran on two pillars of spend: people and vendors. In the last 24 months, a third arrived – intelligence, paid by the token and invisible to every system we’ve built to manage cost. Ramp is the infrastructure for the third pillar,” said Eric Glyman, co-founder and CEO of Ramp.

Ramp’s mission is to save companies time and money. And in the last year customers have seen more savings than ever before. In May 2026, the median Ramp customer saved 50% more dollars and 32% more hours per year than a year earlier. For customers using the full Ramp suite, those numbers more than double.

These savings are due to the company’s focus on shipping products quickly. In the past few months, Ramp released 70+ products and major features, closed two acquisitions — Billhop (UK/EU payments) and Juno (guest travel) — and announced it would start serving companies headquartered in the UK and Europe this summer. Ramp also deepened its multi-year partnership with Visa to enable AI agents to execute autonomous corporate payments with real-time controls.

Recent launches include:

Ramp has invested equally in building internal AI tooling for how it operates. Inspect is an internal software factory that writes more than two-thirds of Ramp’s code. Glass gives every employee, from engineering to legal, a fully configured AI workspace, helping the company reach 99.5% AI adoption.

“We’re growing as fast as we were three years ago, at roughly twenty times the size,” said Glyman. “And that’s because finance is going through the biggest structural change since the spreadsheet. Every company needs infrastructure to navigate an AI economy, from a CFO in London to an accounting firm in Wichita. While we’re growing fast, we still only serve a fraction of the market. There’s a lot more work to do.”

Key Company Stats as of June 1, 2026

• Over $1 billion in annualized revenue, with positive free cash flow.
• 70,000+ customers, including Visa, Uber, Shopify, Anduril, Figma, Notion, Cursor, Stanford Athletics, and The Boys and Girls Club.
• $200 billion in annualized purchase volume.*
• Median customer: 5% savings and 16% revenue growth in their first year.
• 100%+ year-over-year enterprise growth, with 3,200+ customers at $100,000 or more in annualized revenue.
• Majority of customers use two or more products across the platform.

With this round, Ramp has raised over $3 billion in total equity financing.

Eric Glyman shared a letter with Ramp customers about this announcement here. 

About Ramp
Ramp is how companies save time and money on every dollar they spend. It’s the smart financial infrastructure behind every card swipe, invoice, and reimbursement – streamlining approvals, processing payments, and closing the books automatically. More than 70,000 organizations, from family farms and space startups to the Fortune 100, have saved over $12 billion and 27 million hours with Ramp. For the median customer, that translates to 5% savings on expenses and 16% revenue growth in their first year. Founded in 2019, Ramp powers over $200 billion in purchases annually. Learn more at www.ramp.com.

* Ramp does not include bank transfers or non-monetized payments when calculating Total Purchase Volume.

Contact
[email protected]

SOURCE Ramp

• Financing led by Piper Sandler Merchant Banking, with participation from new investors Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., Johnson & Johnson’s corporate venture capital arm, and Medtronic
• Participation by existing investors, including Bain Capital Life Sciences and Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Funds
• Proceeds will support the conclusion of the STRIDE pivotal trial, continued operational scale-up, advancement of regulatory work toward a future Premarket Approval (PMA) submission to the FDA, and preparations for US commercialization
• Board strengthened with addition of Kevin Conroy as Lead Independent Director, Christopher Geyen as Chair of the Audit Committee, and Tom Schnettler representing Series C investors

BOSTON, June 4, 2026 — CereVasc, Inc., a clinical-stage medical device company developing novel, minimally invasive treatments for neurological diseases, today announced it has successfully completed the initial closing of an $85 million Series C financing. Piper Sandler Merchant Banking led the financing with participation from Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., Johnson & Johnson’s corporate venture capital arm, and Medtronic, along with existing investors Bain Capital Life Sciences and Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Funds.

Proceeds from the financing will fund continued clinical and regulatory development of CereVasc’s eShunt System, including the ongoing STRIDE pivotal trial in patients with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH). STRIDE is a prospective, multi-center, randomized, controlled trial designed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the eShunt System compared to the current standard of care, the ventriculo-peritoneal (VP) shunt, and is intended to support a future Premarket Approval (PMA) submission to the FDA. The company will also advance organizational growth and operational scale-up as it moves toward commercialization.

In conjunction with the closing, the company strengthened the Board of Directors with the addition of Kevin Conroy as Lead Independent Director, Christopher Geyen as an independent director and Chair of the Audit Committee, and Tom Schnettler of Piper Sandler Merchant Banking representing the new Series C investors.

“This Series C financing is a meaningful milestone for CereVasc, and more importantly, for the patients who are living with conditions for which current treatment options remain inadequate,” said Dan Levangie, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CereVasc. “This funding supports the next critical phase for the eShunt System, including PMA submission and preparation for commercial launch — accelerating our path toward a minimally invasive surgery that we believe has the potential to meaningfully improve patient outcomes and quality of life. We are delighted to welcome a slate of new investors and directors whose experience and conviction will help guide CereVasc through this next phase of growth, and we remain deeply grateful for the continued support of our existing partners.”

About CereVasc, Inc.
Located in Massachusetts’ healthcare hub, CereVasc, Inc. is a clinical-stage medical device company focused on developing novel, minimally invasive treatments for patients with neurological diseases. Its initial product, the eShunt System, employs an innovative percutaneous transvenous-transdural approach to the central nervous system and is intended to enable the first minimally invasive treatment for communicating hydrocephalus (CH). The patented eShunt System includes an endovascularly implantable cerebrospinal fluid shunt and delivery components designed to treat CH without invasive surgery. For additional information, please visit our website at www.cerevasc.com.

About Piper Sandler Merchant Banking
Piper Sandler Merchant Banking (PSMB) is the growth equity investment arm of Piper Sandler Companies (NYSE: PIPR). The PSMB team strives to partner with founders and management teams of high potential businesses that can benefit by leveraging Piper Sandler’s knowledge, experience, capital and relationships to build market leading enterprises. PSMB provides investment advisory services through the affiliated registered investment adviser, PSC Capital Partners LLC. Learn more about Piper Sandler Merchant Banking.

The eShunt System is an investigational device and has not been approved by FDA or any other regulatory agency for commercial sale. Its safety and effectiveness have not yet been fully established.

Contacts

Media Contact:
Tiffany Weil
CereVasc, Inc.
[email protected]

SOURCE CereVasc, Inc.

Already used by 100+ labs, the Kitchener-Waterloo company helps life sciences teams automate digital lab work, manage millions of samples, and keep lab operations traceable.

KITCHENER-WATERLOO, ON, June 4, 2026 – Scispot, the Canadian company behind the AI-native operating layer for modern labs, today announced an $8 million USD Series A led by Avenue Growth Partners, a Washington, DC-based investment firm.

Scispot is already used by 100+ labs across biotech, pharma, diagnostics, genomics, CRO/CDMO, bioproduction, biobanking, and testing workflows. The company supports 250+ instrument types, 1000+ experiments per month, and millions of samples across high-throughput labs.

Modern labs are under pressure to move faster, but much of their work is still split across disconnected instruments, spreadsheets, electronic lab notebooks, lab information management systems, scientific data systems, reports, dashboards, and manual handoffs. That creates a coordination gap. Teams spend time moving data, checking context, reconciling results, building reports, and making sure work can be traced. This slows experiments, decisions, and the path from lab work to real-world use.

Scispot gives labs one operating layer for that work. Permissions, audit trails, sample lineage, approvals, and human review are built in. The platform captures context as work happens, traces each step, automates routine digital work, and turns lab activity into structured, traceable data that teams and AI agents can use.

The same operating layer also matters as AI moves deeper into life sciences. For model builders, hyperscalers, and AI infrastructure providers, the hard problem in life sciences is not only compute or model access. It is access to a real-world lab context with built-in controls: sample lineage, instrument runs, protocol state, approvals, data provenance, exceptions, and human review. Scispot provides a model-agnostic context layer for labs, without forcing teams to lose control of their data or workflows.

“Future labs will not run on people stitching together instruments, spreadsheets, reports, and approval steps,” said Guru Singh, founder and CEO of Scispot.  “They will run on an operating layer that connects every sample, instrument run, workflow, result, approval, and decision as the work happens. Scispot has built that layer, so scientists stay in control while routine digital work runs in the background.”

For regulated and sample-heavy labs, speed cannot come at the expense of traceability or control. Teams need permissions, audit trails, sample lineage, instrument context, and human review built into the workflow. Scispot helps those pieces work together, so labs can automate more digital work while keeping scientists and lab operators in control.

“The life sciences AI stack needs more than compute and models,” said Brian Goldsmith, Founding Partner at Avenue Growth Partners. “It needs an execution layer that turns physical lab work into structured, traceable context. Scispot gives labs that layer, so AI agents can support real lab work with traceability and control.”

Scispot’s long-term vision is the self-driving lab: a lab where routine coordination, data capture, analysis, and reporting run automatically on an operating layer built for traceability, human review, and control. Scientists and lab operators retain control over judgment, review, validation, and sign-off.

Scispot is headquartered in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, and is building global life sciences infrastructure from Canada. The company will use the round to grow its product, engineering, AI, implementation, and customer success teams, with a focus on adding high-skill roles in Canada while supporting life sciences customers across North America and globally.

“We are proud to build Scispot in Canada, with our roots in Kitchener-Waterloo,” Singh added. “This is Canadian-developed life sciences software for labs around the world. This round helps us add high-skill jobs across Canada while supporting teams working on medicines, diagnostics, genomics, biomanufacturing, and scientific testing.”

Scispot’s media kit, including the announcement video, logo, and founder photos, is available here.

About Scispot

Scispot is the AI-native operating layer for self-driving labs. The Canadian-headquartered company helps biotech, diagnostics, pharma, CRO/CDMO, bioproduction, biobanking, and testing teams coordinate lab execution as work happens across instruments, samples, workflows, approvals, data, and AI agents. Life sciences teams use Scispot to replace manual handoffs with connected, traceable operations, so they can run experiments, manage samples, review results, and generate reports with less manual coordination. For more information, visit www.scispot.com.

About Avenue Growth Partners

Avenue Growth Partners is an early growth equity firm backing exceptional founders building category-defining vertical technology companies. The firm partners closely with management teams to help scale durable, category-winning businesses.
Learn more at www.avenuegp.com.

SOURCE Scispot