Covilhã-based AI video analytics company to be integrated into Motorola Solutions’ Avigilon platform

MAMARONECK, N.Y., Sept. 29, 2026 — Young America Capital, LLC (“YAC”) today announced that it advised DeepNeuronic, a Portuguese developer of AI video analytics, on its sale to Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: MSI). Motorola Solutions acquired 100% of DeepNeuronic’s share capital, including its Brazilian subsidiary. Terms were not disclosed.

DeepNeuronic was founded in 2021 by Vasco Lopes and Bruno Degardin, who met at Portugal’s University of Beira Interior and earned their PhDs there in artificial intelligence and computer vision. Their software reads live camera feeds and flags incidents as they happen. Highway operators, airports, manufacturers and retailers in Portugal and Brazil already run it on the cameras they have. Motorola Solutions will build the technology into Avigilon, its video security platform, which serves customers in more than 100 countries. DeepNeuronic’s 17-person team is joining Motorola Solutions and will stay in Covilhã.

“This was one of the sharper deals we worked on this year,” said Peter Formanek, Founder and CEO of YAC. “Vasco and Bruno had a product customers were already paying for and a clear view of where video analytics was going. Motorola Solutions saw it too. Our job was to get both sides to a deal that worked, across two continents and a lot of time zones, and Ran did exactly that.”

Ran Zfoni, Vice President and Head of Israel & Europe Tech at YAC, advised DeepNeuronic’s founders through the transaction. Cuatrecasas served as legal counsel to DeepNeuronic, with a team led by partner Vasco Bivar de Azevedo.

“The founders knew what they wanted: a buyer that could scale the technology and would keep the team together in Covilhã,” said Zfoni. “Motorola Solutions was that buyer. Congratulations to Vasco, Bruno and everyone at DeepNeuronic.”

About Young America Capital
Young America Capital, LLC is an investment bank based in Mamaroneck, New York. YAC advises founders and owners of lower-middle-market companies in the U.S. and abroad on M&A, capital raising and strategic transactions. Member FINRA/SIPC. www.yacapital.com

Media Contact
Kelly Pack | Young America Capital, LLC | [914-777-0100] | [[email protected]]

SOURCE Young America Capital

With the Electron E1 now in volume production, the funding will help Efficient bring its breakthrough energy efficiency up the compute stack 

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 29, 2026 — Efficient Computer, the company building the world’s most energy-efficient processors, today announced it entered into agreements for more than $97 million in Series B financing at a $650 million valuation, bringing its total funding raised to $173 million. The new round is led by TQ Ventures, with participation from Eclipse, Union Square Ventures, Giant Ventures, Triatomic Capital, TO Capital, TF Capital, Mana Ventures, Toyota Ventures, Overmatch, and Borderless. Efficient will use the capital to ship the Electron E1 processor in volume to lead customers, and to scale the architecture to datacenter-class performance at more than 10x improvement in energy consumption than systems built today.

Efficient Computer was founded to solve the generational energy problem faced by computing and AI. There is an insatiable demand for computing everywhere from physical AI to the datacenter. Computing costs energy and the demand for new AI-enabled capabilities is outpacing the ability to generate, store, and deliver energy for these capabilities. Without a fundamental change, energy is the main impediment to realizing the full potential of AI. The need for a robot to think, plan, and safely act limits its operational time to minutes, instead of hours. The limitless demand for AI means that each future datacenter needs a dedicated power plan; an infeasible strain on the already overburdened power infrastructure. The promise of AI remains undelivered while energy remains the limitation.

Efficient Computer has created the most energy-efficient general-purpose processor that has ever existed, unleashing the full potential of computing and AI. Efficient’s Fabric architecture is a clean-slate redesign of computing, ushering in a new era of energy efficiency with a 10-100x improvement in energy consumption for general-purpose computation, including AI.

“Every customer we meet has a version of their product they cannot build, because the compute power budget makes the new capabilities they want infeasible,” said Brandon Lucia, CEO and co-founder of Efficient Computer. “Efficient makes it possible. And this round of financing makes it possible for many more new use cases and domains, as we scale the Fabric architecture from the devices shipping today to datacenter scale. We won’t stop until energy is no longer a limitation on the potential of AI and computing.”

Scalable performance and hardware efficiency without sacrificing on software innovation

The Efficient Fabric architecture defines the state of the art in efficiency, and remains fully general-purpose. The software heterogeneity of emerging AI-enabled systems, particularly in physical AI, makes generality not just desirable, but rather a hard requirement. Efficient’s general-purpose approach stands in stark contrast to the limitations of solutions in the market that over-specialize for a single sub-computation of AI. These specialized “AI-only chip” alternatives do not support most software, failing to meet the needs of heterogeneous systems and risking instant obsolescence as AI rapidly evolves. Efficient supports the most popular software frameworks in a single, flexible architecture and with a frontend that supports C, C++, and many other common abstractions. By supporting general-purpose software, Efficient’s architecture is an outstanding target for AI-first development stacks that heavily leverage AI code generation.

Efficient’s architecture is capable of scaling its computing performance from the smallest physical AI systems all the way to the datacenter. The Fabric enables smaller, more power-constrained systems to do more for less, for example, replacing power-hungry embedded GPUs in a robot autonomy stack, and enabling it to operate for 10 times less energy. At the high end of the performance range, the Fabric accelerates varied and irregular datacenter workloads that are a poor fit to AI accelerator chips and GPUs. Efficient is unique in its ability to deliver high efficiency across a wide range of heterogeneous software use cases with the scalable performance that AI systems demand.

Electron E1: A revolution in efficiency shipping now

The Electron E1 brings the Fabric’s energy efficiency to physical AI systems today, unlocking new AI and computing capabilities that are out of reach because of today’s energy constraints. Customers are adopting the Electron E1 for physical AI and  autonomy, critical infrastructure observability, space and defense, and wearable devices. Efficient Computer has scaled production of the Electron E1 to meet overwhelming customer interest, and will continue scaling volume into 2027 to serve its global customer base.

“As AI agents do more work in software and in the physical world, the demand for energy-efficient computing extends far beyond running the models themselves. Efficient has developed a fundamentally different architecture that brings a step function in efficiency to general-purpose computing,” said Andrew Marks, Co-Founding Partner at TQ Ventures. “What convinced us was Brandon, Graham, and Nathan’s ability to build both the hardware and the software—and turn that breakthrough into a business. Not only have they taped out four times, but they’re already shipping chips to customers at volume.”

“The biggest technology shifts happen when companies like Efficient Computer rethink fundamental constraints and transform what’s possible,” said Rebecca Kaden, General Partner at USV. “Efficient’s ability to bring dramatic energy-efficiency gains across the performance spectrum will fundamentally change how computing is built and deployed, from physical AI to the data center.”

“We backed Brandon and the team because they aren’t chasing a trend, they’ve spent years at Carnegie Mellon solving the hard architectural problems that make energy-efficient compute actually work,” said Zenetta Burger, USA Lead Partner, Giant Ventures. “As AI and edge workloads push power demand to a breaking point, that’s exactly the kind of deep, patient engineering the world needs right now.”

“Eclipse backed Efficient from the very beginning because we believed solving AI’s energy problem would require rethinking computing from the ground up,” said Greg Reichow, Partner at Eclipse. “Today, that vision is becoming reality: Electron E1 is shipping, customer demand is accelerating, and the same architecture is scaling from physical AI to the datacenter. We’re proud to have been alongside Brandon and the team from day one and even more excited about what comes next.”

About Efficient Computer

Efficient Computer builds the world’s most energy-efficient general-purpose processor, combining ultra-efficient hardware with intuitive, developer-friendly software. Our technology scales from beyond-the-edge devices to datacenter systems, enabling industries to solve computing’s energy challenge. For more information, visit https://efficient.computer.

SOURCE Efficient Computer

Starrett will help identify, develop, and scale new businesses aimed at addressing persistent challenges across the cancer experience

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 29, 2026 — Thyme Companies, the family of businesses purpose-built to solve problems across the cancer care landscape, today announced that Carolyn Starrett has joined as executive vice president of new ventures, reporting to Executive Chairman Robin Shah. Her more than two decades of experience across oncology, clinical research, biopharma, and real-world data will shape Thyme Companies’ strategy as it expands beyond the existing Thyme Care platform.

“Carolyn has a rare ability to understand where the biggest problems exist across the cancer care journey and then build businesses that can solve them at scale,” said Shah. “This is our second stint working together, and I saw firsthand at Flatiron Health how she could take an idea, build an organization around it, and turn it into something that had real and lasting impact. She combines that strategic perspective with an incredible ability to execute. At Thyme Companies, we have an opportunity to think big about where the cancer care ecosystem needs to go and act quickly to build what’s missing. Carolyn is exactly the kind of leader I want alongside us as we meaningfully change cancer care.”

Before joining Thyme Companies, Starrett spent nearly a decade at Flatiron Health, a cancer data company that partners with hundreds of oncology practices and most of the industry’s leading cancer drug developers, which she joined in 2016 alongside Thyme’s founders. She served as Flatiron’s Chief Executive Officer from 2021 to 2025, during which time she led the expansion of its real-world evidence platform from roughly 400,000 to more than 5.5 million patient records, grew its OncoEMR platform to serve more than 4,500 oncology providers nationwide, and oversaw the company’s expansion into research sites across the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. After stepping back from Flatiron, Starrett founded Starrett Advisory to work with companies at the intersection of healthcare, data and AI, and she currently serves as a board director for NeoGenomics.

“Cancer has always been personal to me. I spent the last decade focused on using data and technology to make cancer care better, but I’ve always wanted to get closer to the patient experience itself – what it takes to navigate our complex system and the ever changing universe of new treatment options,” said Starrett. “Joining Thyme Companies is a chance to build directly against that opportunity, informed by everything Thyme Care has already learned from the people living through it. And I get to do it with people I’ve wanted to work with again for years.”

Starrett’s appointment follows Thyme Companies’ recent launch and its Series E financing. Her arrival accelerates the work already underway as Thyme Companies pushes into new business lines.

About Thyme Companies

Thyme Companies is the parent of the Thyme family of businesses, focused on building companies against the disconnection in how cancer care is delivered, accessed and paid for. Anchored by Thyme Care, the nationally recognized oncology care company, Thyme Companies develops independent businesses connected by one mission: to transform the experience of cancer for the people living through it. To learn more, visit thymecompanies.com.

SOURCE Thyme Care

The investment will accelerate Kahua’s next phase of growth following its achievement of $100 million in annualized revenue

ALPHARETTA, Ga., Sept. 29, 2026 — Kahua®, an AI enterprise construction platform for complex capital programs, today announced a minority growth investment from Bain Capital’s Tech Opportunities (“Bain Capital”) at a valuation above $1 billion. The partnership will support Kahua’s next phase of growth, including continued investment in AI and product innovation as well as go-to-market, customer success, and talent development initiatives.

“We’ve spent years building Kahua into the system organizations rely on to run their most complex programs, and this investment validates that work,” said Scott Unger, CEO and co-founder of Kahua. “Reaching $100 million in annualized revenue is a milestone of which we are incredibly proud. It reflects the trust of our customers and the strength of our team. We’re excited to partner with Bain Capital, which understands what it takes to help innovative software businesses scale. Together, we intend to accelerate our AI capabilities and product innovation, deepen the value we deliver to customers, and invest in the talent needed for Kahua’s continued growth.”

Capital programs in highly regulated and mission-critical environments, including federal government and defense, transportation, healthcare, and education, are becoming larger and more complex. At the same time, investment is accelerating across energy, digital infrastructure, data centers, and other major asset sectors. Yet many organizations still manage these multi-year programs across fragmented systems and disconnected processes. Kahua was built for this complexity, connecting the people, processes and data behind a capital program in one configurable, governed platform.

Kahua today serves more than 2,500 customers across a diverse range of industries, supporting more than $400 billion in capital programs on its platform. As a connected system of record, Kahua provides the governed data and context needed to make AI useful within the workflows where customers plan, manage, and make decisions across the asset lifecycle.

“Kahua has built the technology backbone for owners and delivery teams, connecting critical data across the full asset lifecycle—from funding and planning through construction and long-term operation,” said Philip Meicler, Partner at Bain Capital Tech Opportunities. “Kahua’s differentiated AI platform and leadership in this category positions it as indispensable partner to owners and managers of robust capital programs. We look forward to partnering with Scott and the Kahua team and bringing our experience scaling technology businesses as the company expands across markets.”

About Kahua

Kahua® is an AI enterprise construction platform built to connect the people, processes, and data behind complex capital programs. Globally, Kahua serves as a system of record for owners and delivery teams, bringing stakeholders into a single governed environment for portfolio-level visibility and collaboration across the full asset lifecycle. With intelligent, purpose-built solutions for key industries and a highly configurable platform, Kahua adapts to how teams work today and tomorrow. To learn more, visit www.kahua.com. Follow @Kahua on LinkedIn.

About Bain Capital

Founded in 1984, Bain Capital is one of the world’s leading private investment firms. We are committed to creating lasting impact for our investors, portfolio companies, and the communities in which we live. As a private partnership, we lead with conviction and a culture of collaboration, advantages that enable us to innovate investment approaches, unlock opportunities, and create exceptional outcomes. Our global platform invests across five focus areas: Private Equity, Growth & Venture, Capital Solutions, Credit, and Real Assets. In these focus areas, we bring deep sector expertise and wide-ranging capabilities. We have 24 offices on four continents, more than 2,00 employees, and approximately $225 billion in assets under management. To learn more, visit www.baincapital.com. Follow @BainCapital on LinkedIn and X (Twitter).

Media Contact:
For Kahua

Sonya Lehner
Senior Director, Brand & Communications
[email protected]

For Bain Capital

Eddie de Sciora
Director, Communications
[email protected] 

SOURCE Kahua

85% of social impact professionals use AI; only about 10% of organizations see significant returns. Lantern is built to close that gap, developed through a strategic collaboration with Databricks.

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Sept. 29, 2026 — Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), the world’s leading provider of AI-powered solutions for social impact, today at bbcon 2026 unveiled Lantern™, the first domain-specific language model purpose-built to optimize fundraising intelligence.

The social impact sector is being underserved by large language models. While 85% of social impact professionals say they are using AI in their daily jobs, only about 10% of organizations are realizing significant dividends on their investment. Blackbaud has entered a strategic collaboration with Databricks to ensure the social impact sector gets the best outcomes from AI. Lantern is built on more than four decades of experience in fundraising workflows, decisions, and results, so that it understands giving behavior rather than buying behavior. This gives social impact organizations tailored intelligence to help them raise more so they can continue solving society’s most pressing challenges.

“Every organization has access to powerful AI, but frontier models learn from the internet, while Lantern learns from philanthropy,” said Mike Gianoni, president, CEO and vice chairman of the board of directors, Blackbaud. “With more than $100 billion raised, granted or managed through our platforms every year, Blackbaud has deep expertise on social impact and generosity, including why, when and how people give. Lantern understands fundraising goals, donor dynamics and nonprofit priorities in ways general-purpose AI doesn’t and puts actionable intelligence into the hands of fundraisers so they can make the best-informed decisions.”

Frontier AI meets fundraising expertise  

Working with Databricks, Blackbaud is combining leading open-weight models on the Databricks Data + AI Platform with more than 40 years of social impact intelligence. Lantern is post-trained on synthetic scenarios modeled on Blackbaud’s comprehensive Social Impact Signal Graph™ to reflect real-world fundraising patterns and bring the unique complexity of fundraising to the model. This flexible approach enables Lantern to evolve as technology advances. 

“There is an enormous opportunity for the philanthropy world to benefit from AI, but seeing returns requires the right data, context and governance,” said Andy Kofoid, president, global field operations, Databricks. “Together, Blackbaud and Databricks are giving nonprofits the data foundation they need to scale their fundraising and maximize their real-world impact.”

Lantern is developed under Blackbaud’s Responsible AI principles with privacy, transparency and sector-appropriate governance at its core to serve the unique needs of social impact organizations.

A model that supports social impact

Lantern understands the rhythms of fundraising, including how relationships are built, nurtured and transformed into generosity. It can illuminate opportunities that might otherwise go unseen, helping social impact organizations navigate complexity, uncover new possibilities and focus their energy where they can create the greatest impact. It reflects the importance of things like retention, upgrade paths and lifetime relationships, all of which are central to fundraising but not native to general-purpose AI models.

“The future of AI isn’t about who has the largest model; it’s about who best reflects the world their customers operate in,” said Carrie Cobb, chief data and AI officer, Blackbaud. “Lantern was purpose-built to reflect fundraising, leveraging decades of sector expertise with the intelligence embedded in Blackbaud’s Social Impact Signal Graph. The result is trusted intelligence that is more relevant, more transparent and more actionable because it understands the relationships, behaviors and opportunities that drive impact for our customers. The sector doesn’t need more AI. It needs AI designed to support social impact.”

Lantern is being built with input from Blackbaud customers including Boston University, Hesed House and YMCA of the North to support the outcomes frontline fundraisers want to achieve.

“Every industry has its own language, expertise, decision-making processes, rules and guardrails,” said Tim Cerato, assistant vice president, constituent relationship management, Boston University. “One of the biggest unlocks for AI is its ability to understand those nuances and amplify the effectiveness of the people doing the work. We see tremendous potential in technologies that augment the knowledge and expertise of our teams, expanding what people can accomplish and allowing them to focus their energy on the work that drives the most meaningful outcomes.”

Availability

Lantern will be embedded within Blackbaud’s Platform for Good™, bringing fundraising intelligence directly into the solutions organizations use every day to engage supporters, grow generosity and advance their missions.

Lantern will begin powering select Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT® and Agents for Good™ capabilities in 2027, with broader availability planned across Blackbaud’s Platform for Good.

About Blackbaud

Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB) is the world’s leading provider of AI-powered solutions for social impact. Serving nonprofits, educational institutions, companies committed to corporate social responsibility, and individual change makers, Blackbaud propels impact at scale with the sector’s most intelligent solutions for fundraising and engagement, education solutions, financial management and CSR and grantmaking. With the deepest expertise powered by the world’s largest philanthropic data set, the most connected workflows, and the most powerful impact network, Blackbaud’s solutions are building a future where resources are unleashed at the speed of need. Blackbaud has been recognized by Fast Company, Newsweek, Quartz, Forbes and more for AI innovation, responsible leadership and workplace excellence. Blackbaud has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, India and the United Kingdom, supporting users in 100+ countries. Learn more at www.blackbaud.com or follow us on X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

Media Inquiries

[email protected] 

Forward-looking Statements

Except for historical information, all of the statements, expectations and assumptions contained in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding expected benefits of products and product features. Although Blackbaud attempts to be accurate in making these forward-looking statements, it is possible that future circumstances might differ from the assumptions on which such statements are based. In addition, other important factors that could cause results to differ materially include the following: general economic risks; uncertainty regarding increased business and renewals from existing customers; continued success in sales growth; management of integration of acquired companies and other risks associated with acquisitions; risks associated with successful implementation of multiple integrated software products; the ability to attract and retain key personnel; risks associated with management of growth; lengthy sales and implementation cycles; technological changes that make our products and services less competitive; and the other risk factors set forth from time to time in the SEC filings for Blackbaud, copies of which are available free of charge at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov or upon request from Blackbaud’s investor relations department. All Blackbaud product names appearing herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blackbaud, Inc.

SOURCE Blackbaud

The appointment follows Yardstik’s $30M Series B and deepens the company’s focus on the security risks that surface beyond a candidate’s point of hire

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 29, 2026 — Yardstik, the Human Trust Platform for employers, today announced that Nick Schneider, President and CEO of the cybersecurity and AI company Arctic Wolf, has joined its board of directors. The appointment comes weeks after Yardstik closed $30 million in new funding Series B led by Harbert Growth Partners to build out fraud prevention, continuous monitoring, and credential tracking through the entire worker lifecycle.

Schneider has spent more than 20 years building high-growth technology companies at scale. As President and CEO of Arctic Wolf® since 2021, he has grown Arctic Wolf into one of the largest privately held cybersecurity companies, driven its international expansion, and established the company as an industry leader. Arctic Wolf ranks among Forbes’ top 25 Cloud 100 companies and has been named to the Fortune Cyber 60. Under his leadership, Arctic Wolf launched the Aurora® Agentic SOC, the industry’s leading agentic security operations center, and was named a Leader in the 2026 IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Service for Midmarket, cementing its place among the top cybersecurity companies in the industry. Before Arctic Wolf, he ran North American sales at Code42 and held senior sales roles at Compellent Technologies through its IPO and acquisition by Dell.

Yardstik and Arctic Wolf sit on opposite sides of the same problem: keeping bad actors out of a company’s systems and workforce. In June 2025, the Department of Justice broke up a network of laptop farms that let North Korean operatives pose as remote IT workers using stolen American identities. They’d landed jobs at more than 100 U.S. companies, several of them Fortune 500 firms. A second case unsealed later that year tied a five-person facilitator ring to fraudulent placements at 136 more companies. Some of those workers went on to steal data from the same employers who’d hired them and tried to extort them for it.

Arctic Wolf watches the network for signs something’s gone wrong once someone’s already inside. Yardstik monitors the person behind the login: who was actually hired, whether their credentials are still valid, and whether the person clocking in today was the one who passed the background check six months ago. Ponemon’s 2026 research puts the average cost of insider risk at $19.5 million a year per organization, and Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report ties roughly three in ten breaches to an insider. A background check run once at hire can’t catch any of that. It only proves who someone was on the day they applied.

“Nick has spent his career proving that real security is never a one-time check, it’s a continuous journey.” said Andrew Johnson, CEO of Yardstik. “You don’t scan a network once and call it safe. Every attack surface gets watched continuously except one…the workforce. A candidate clears a background check at the point of hire and nobody bothers to check again. That’s the gap we built Yardstik to close, and Nick understood the importance immediately.”

“Companies have invested heavily in securing their networks, but people accessing those systems are still an underprotected part of the security equation,” said Nick Schneider, President and CEO of Arctic Wolf. “Yardstik is bringing a modern approach to workforce risk by giving businesses greater visibility into who is accessing their organization and how that risk can change over time. I’m excited to help the company establish lifecycle workforce protection as a core part of the enterprise security stack as it enters its next stage of growth.”

Schneider’s appointment expands Yardstik’s board as the company scales past its Series B, adding a director with direct experience turning a security platform into a channel-driven growth engine. A path Yardstik is now pursuing with its own ATS, HR, and marketplace integration partners.

About Yardstik

Yardstik is a Human Trust Platform built to help organizations move beyond one-time background checks toward a continuous and transparent workforce lifecycle. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, Yardstik combines fraud prevention and background verification into a single, cost-efficient platform used by customers including HR Block and Gopuff. Yardstik operates in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), providing full transparency to the individuals it monitors.

About Arctic Wolf

Arctic Wolf is the cybersecurity and AI company that ends cyber risk by transforming it into business resilience. Powered by the Aurora® Superintelligence Platform, Arctic Wolf delivers modern security operations built on proprietary AI and decades of real-world expertise. By combining AI-driven automation with expert-validated precision, Arctic Wolf takes ownership of cyber risk — so organizations can operate with confidence, control, and the freedom to innovate.

To learn more about Arctic Wolf, visit www.arcticwolf.com.

Media Contact
[email protected]

SOURCE Yardstik, Inc.

Non-dilutive federal funding will support preclinical and clinical work validating red blood cell-bound tumor DNA as an early detection biomarker for non-small cell lung cancer.

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 29, 2026 — Senticell, Inc. (“Senticell” or the “Company”), a biotechnology company pioneering a new class of liquid biopsy built on red blood cell (RBC)-bound nucleic acids, today announced it has been awarded a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award will fund the project “RBC-Based Liquid Biopsy for Early Detection of Tumor DNA in Resectable NSCLC,” conducted with the University of Pennsylvania as a sub awardee to the STTR award.

“This STTR award is an important validation of our science from one of the most rigorous review processes in government funding, and it provides grant funding to support research that complements the funding we’ve received from our recent seed financing,” said Neha Shah, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Senticell. “It allows us to move faster on the specific data package that matters most to clinicians and regulators: showing that RBC-bound tumor DNA can meaningfully improve early detection of lung cancer.”

Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and no liquid biopsy test is currently available to adequately guide clinical decisions in early-stage disease. Research shows that red blood cells actively bind and retain tumor-derived DNA, offering a potential biomarker that may be more stable and abundant than the circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) found in plasma-based assays. The STTR award will support two research aims: the first, using murine tumor models, will characterize how RBCs acquire and retain tumor DNA over time relative to plasma ctDNA; the second will extend these findings clinically by evaluating RBC-based mutation detection in 100 patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

“Early in my career, I was told that red blood cells would not be a fruitful area of investigation. But over the past two decades, my research at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania challenged that assumption and revealed that red blood cells interact with and retain nucleic acids in ways we did not previously understand,” said Dr. Nilam Mangalmurti, whose discoveries have given rise to the technology that serves as the foundation of Senticell. “Our preliminary work suggests red blood cells may retain tumor DNA longer and in greater abundance than plasma. This grant lets us rigorously test that biology, first in animal models and then in a cohort of 100 early-stage NSCLC patients, to determine whether it can become a reliable diagnostic tool.”

The findings from this NIH Phase I STTR award are intended to lay the scientific and clinical groundwork for a multi-center clinical validation study and to support a regulatory strategy toward FDA marketing authorization, with the ultimate goal of enabling earlier, more accurate detection of lung cancer to guide treatment decisions.

About Senticell

Senticell is a biotechnology company developing a new class of liquid biopsy diagnostics based on red blood cell (RBC)-bound nucleic acids. Its vision is to build the definitive RBC-based diagnostics platform, one that starts in oncology but ultimately extends across disease areas where earlier, more sensitive detection can change how patients are treated. Founded on research pioneered at Penn Medicine, Senticell’s platform is designed to unlock disease signals that plasma-based liquid biopsy often cannot detect, with initial applications in oncology and infectious diseases. Senticell holds an exclusive, worldwide license to its foundational RBC platform from the University of Pennsylvania and is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For more information, visit www.senticell.bio.

SOURCE Senticell

DALLAS, Sept. 29, 2026 — Canyon Partners, LLC (“Canyon”), a $30 billion global alternative investment manager, today announced that it has served as arranger and anchor lender for a NZ$300 million financing to support Advent International’s (“Advent”) acquisition of NZCR Group (“NZCR”), a leading clinical trials and medical research organization in New Zealand and Australia.

NZCR Group is a leading physician-led clinical research organisation with more than 35 years of research experience and a strong track record in complex early and later-phase studies. Headquartered in Auckland, the company has operations across Australia and New Zealand (ANZ).

The financing enables Advent to support the company’s next stage of growth and work alongside the NZCR management team as they look to further enhance the group’s capabilities across the clinical trial spectrum, with a particular focus on strengthening sponsor and CRO relationships and international reach as part of the Advent portfolio.

“We are excited to support NZCR’s continued development and to work again with Advent, whose deep sector expertise and strong track record of partnering with management teams make them an ideal fit for the business,” said Davide Amico, Partner and Co-Head of Private Credit at Canyon. “It’s our pleasure to leverage our capabilities as a global investment firm to support Advent on deals originated from their new Australian office and be a reliable financing partner in the ANZ market as we long have in the United States, Europe and beyond.”

Canyon’s investment is underpinned by the sustained growth of the ANZ clinical research market and NZCR’s strong positioning within the sector as a reliable and trusted partner to biotech and pharma sponsors globally.

“NZCR has built a strong platform with meaningful growth momentum, and we see significant opportunity as the ANZ market continues to attract an increasing share of global clinical trial activity,” said Maximilian Lichtenheld, Managing Director at Canyon. “We are pleased to support Advent as they bring their expertise to this next stage of growth, working alongside existing management to help the business capitalize on these opportunities.”

“Advent has been following NZCR Group’s success and growth for over 18 months, and we continue to be impressed by the quality of the platform, its clinical leadership, and the trust it has built with biopharma and biotech clients,” remarked Beau Dixon, Managing Director and Head of Australia and New Zealand at Advent. “We look forward to partnering with management and existing shareholders to unlock NZCR Group’s full potential and introduce the business into Advent’s global network. We see exceptional opportunities to build on NZCR Group’s strengths while preserving the clinical focus that underpins its success.”

About Canyon Partners, LLC
Founded in 1990, Canyon employs a deep value, credit intensive approach across public and private corporate credit, asset-backed credit, and real estate. The firm seeks to capture excess returns available to those investors with specialized expertise, rigorous research capabilities, and the ability to underwrite complexity. Canyon invests on behalf of a broad range of institutions globally. For more information visit www.canyonpartners.com.

About Advent 
Advent is a leading global private equity investor committed to working in partnership with management teams, entrepreneurs, and founders to help transform businesses. With 17 offices across five continents, we oversee more than USD $94 billion in assets under management* and have made 451 investments across 45 countries.

Since our founding in 1984, we have developed specialist market expertise across our five core sectors: business & financial services, consumer, healthcare, industrial, and technology. This approach is bolstered by our deep sub-sector knowledge, which informs every aspect of our investment strategy, from sourcing opportunities to working in partnership with management to execute value creation plans. We bring hands-on operational expertise to enhance and accelerate businesses.

As one of the largest privately-owned partnerships, our 675 colleagues leverage the full ecosystem of Advent’s global resources, including our Portfolio Support Group, insights provided by industry expert Operating Partners and Operations Advisors, as well as bespoke tools to support and guide our portfolio companies as they seek to achieve their strategic goals.

To learn more, visit our website or connect with us on LinkedIn.

*Assets under management (AUM) as of March 31, 2026. AUM includes assets attributable to Advent advisory clients as well as employee and third-party co-investment vehicles.

About NZCR Group
NZCR Group, made up of NZCR, CMAX, Optimal, and Fusion, are a combined single clinical trials organisation offering integrated Phase I-IV clinical trial capability across New Zealand and Australia.

With over 30 years’ experience, the clinician led group has vast experience across a significant number of therapeutic areas and strong relationships with loyal sponsor companies in a multitude of international markets.

NZCR has some of the most experienced early and late phase research clinicians globally supported by a high-quality group of employees helping in the delivery of groundbreaking research to advance global health.

Media Contacts

Canyon Partners:
Kris Cole
Prosek Partners
[email protected]
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Advent International:
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Coinciding with portfolio company XTEND’s IPO, the $125 million fund allows Protego to deploy capital into Israel’s most promising early-growth defense companies as global security spending hits record highs

TEL AVIV-YAFO, Israel, Sept. 29, 2026 — Protego Ventures, the first and largest dedicated defense fund in Israel, today announced the final close of its Fund I at $125 million. Protego backs early-growth Israeli defense companies at the stage where capital and strategic access matter most, identifying battlefield-proven Israeli innovations and positioning them for commercial scale globally.

Global defense budgets have grown 50% over the past decade, and with conflicts worldwide driving record demand – defense tech VC dealmaking hit $19.8 billion in Q1 2026 alone – governments are actively seeking battlefield-tested solutions they can deploy immediately. Until Protego, no dedicated venture fund existed connecting Israel’s most promising early-growth defense companies with the global capital and networks required to scale. Protego has closed that gap, combining financial discipline with deep defense-sector expertise and a partner network spanning the US Department of Defense, NATO allies, Elbit, IAI, Lockheed Martin, and Army Futures Command.

“Protego was built on the conviction that many of the best defense companies in the world are being built right now, in Israel, under real operational demands, iterating according to real frontline conditions, for real customers,” said Protego Co-founder Lital Leshem. “That feedback loop produces technologies that are faster, leaner, scalable and more flexible than almost anything developed through traditional procurement channels. The free world is defending itself, and smart capital is following.”

Fund I’s portfolio spans the full spectrum of modern defense technologies, from autonomous systems and agentic AI to critical infrastructure sensing and contested-environment navigation. Every company in the portfolio has moved from development to deployment faster than many in the traditional defense industry thought possible, winning contracts and customers in some of the world’s most challenging operational environments. Protego is accelerating what’s already working, providing the capital, the partner network, and the market access to turn Israeli defense innovation into globally scaled success stories.

Protego’s first portfolio company, XTEND, embodies the very features Protego is designed to accelerate: Israeli-born innovation, battlefield validation, and global scale. Its AI-driven XOS operating system enables intuitive control of tactical drones and robots, with no prior flight experience required, and is fully operational within the IDF, US DOD, SOCOM, and allied forces across Singapore, Germany, Canada, and England. Protego led XTEND’s $70 million Series B round, and the autonomous robotic platforms company has since gone public on the New York Stock Exchange at a $1.5 billion valuation, trading under the ticker XTND.

Other portfolio companies include:

• ASIO: pioneering autonomy, enhanced situational awareness, and resilient navigation for manoeuvring forces in complex, contested environments — solving the coordination and communication challenges of joint multi-force operations through proprietary edge navigation and interoperability technology. One of the company’s most notable customers is U.S. defense technology company Anduril, which is establishing operations in Israel. ASIO executives have met with Anduril founder and CEO Palmer Luckey during his visits to Israel, and are  expected to supply components for Anduril’s unmanned aerial vehicles.
• Prisma Photonics: turning existing fiber-optic cables into large-scale, AI-powered sensors for monitoring critical infrastructure, including power grids, pipelines, and secured perimeters, across thousands of kilometers, without additional hardware – detecting and classifying threats in real time.
• Rilian: building AI that thinks like a practitioner, deploying into mission-controlled environments and turning hard-won operational expertise into a permanent, compounding asset.

“What we kept hearing from founders was that generalist investors didn’t understand their business, and defense-focused investors didn’t understand the Israeli security ecosystem,” said Protego Co-founder Lee Moser. “There was real capital flowing into defense globally, but it wasn’t reaching the companies that deserved it most — the ones that had already proven their technology under the toughest operational conditions, with genuine customers, in some of the most demanding arenas in the world. We built Protego to bridge that gap, and the close of Fund I combined with our portfolio companies tremendous achievements in just a short period of time demonstrates that this combination is exactly what the market needed.”

With Fund I closed, Protego will soon turn its attention to Fund II, which will expand the firm’s investment footprint into the United States,  targeting early-growth American defense companies and deepening Protego’s presence across the US defense ecosystem, where accelerated procurement reform, record R&D budgets, and sustained geopolitical demand are creating exactly the conditions Protego was built for.

To learn more, visit https://www.protego.vc/

About Protego Ventures

Protego Ventures is the first and largest dedicated defense fund in Israel, backing early-growth companies building the next generation of AI, sensors, drones, and autonomous systems. Co-founded by Lital Leshem and Lee Moser — veterans of IDF intelligence and US-Israel defense relations — the fund combines privileged access to Israel’s defense ecosystem with partnerships spanning Elbit, IAI, Lockheed Martin, and US Army Futures Command. Protego is a defense VC redefined, from the country that redefined defense. Learn more at protego.vc.

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SOURCE Protego Ventures