The round marks a significant deepening of FIZE Medical’s strategic relationship with Asahi Kasei Medical, which launched FIZE kUO^® in Japan and serves as FIZE’s exclusive distribution partner in the country. Asahi Kasei Medical will now also distribute FIZE kUO^® in Europe, expanding FIZE Medical’s commercial reach into a major new market while strengthening the companies’ collaboration across critical care.

With this investment, Asahi Kasei Medical is expanding its involvement beyond distribution and into fluid management, signaling a deeper strategic commitment to FIZE Medical’s technology and its vision for the future of critical care. The partnership comes as FIZE Medical advances FIZE Optima, which is designed to harness continuous physiologic data to predict fluid-related risk and guide treatment decisions.

“Asahi Kasei Medical has been an important and trusted partner in bringing FIZE kUO to clinicians in Japan, and this investment represents a meaningful next step in our relationship,” said Dror Zerem, CEO of FIZE Medical. “We are moving beyond monitoring toward a future in which continuous patient data can help clinicians anticipate fluid-related risk and make more informed treatment decisions. Having Asahi Kasei Medical deepen its commitment to FIZE at this stage is a powerful validation of both our technology and vision.”

“As a world leader in development and production of devices and systems for blood treatment and purification, we already know this space well, and fluid management is a natural extension of our presence in critical care,” said Shuichiro Inadome, CEO of Asahi Kasei Medical. “We’re excited to deepen our partnership with FIZE Medical as it advances from precision monitoring toward predictive, AI-powered fluid management. We see significant potential in FIZE’s technology and look forward to expanding access to FIZE kUO in Europe.”

“Asahi Kasei Medical’s investment is a vote of confidence in FIZE Medical’s technology and trajectory,” said Kevin Slawin, M.D., Founder and Managing Partner of Rapha Capital Management. “We began investing in FIZE from its earliest stage because we believed in its potential to fundamentally change medicine through its groundbreaking kUO device. Today, we continue that commitment as FIZE establishes the kUO as the leading device in real-time kidney urine output data collection and takes the next step towards utilizing that data to deliver real-time fluid management solutions to clinicians when it’s needed most.”

Proceeds from the round will be used to accelerate development of the FIZE Optima platform for AI-driven prediction and treatment guidance, and to strengthen commercial activities in FIZE Medical’s leading markets.

About FIZE Medical

FIZE Medical is an innovative MedTech company dedicated to transforming fluid management for critically ill patients. Its proprietary FIZE kUO® system, commercially available in Japan, Europe and the U.S., provides real-time, digital monitoring to support precision fluid management, early intervention, and improved patient outcomes. FIZE Medical is committed to redefining fluid management through continuous innovation, AI-driven data insights, and clinical evidence.
https://fizemedical.com

About Asahi Kasei Medical Co., Ltd.

Asahi Kasei Medical Co., Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, serves the global market with dialysis products and therapeutic apheresis devices, such as membrane type plasma separators, plasma component separators, and immunoadsorption columns. With a strong focus on intensive care, Asahi Kasei Medical is committed to advancing technologies that support healthcare professionals in improving outcomes and saving lives in the most critical clinical settings.

*Effective April 1, 2027, Asahi Kasei Medical Co., Ltd. will operate under the new company name “MILIFE CARE Corporation”.

https://www.asahi-kasei.co.jp/medical/

About Rapha Capital Management

Rapha Capital Management, LLC is an investment advisory firm focused on making strategic investments in early stage, non-public biotechnology companies, through special purpose, joint venture entities (SPVs), which it manages. Rapha Capital was founded by its President, Kevin Slawin, M.D., a successful and experienced urologist, oncologic and robotic surgeon focusing now on disruptive healthcare technologies. Previously, he was the founder of Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the very first CAR-T cell company, which he took public in 2014 with a $55 million crossover Series C and a successful $161 million IPO in December 2014.

After leaving Bellicum, he founded Rapha Capital Management, LLC (https://raphacap.com), which offers alternative asset management services to Rapha’s fifteen SPVs, Rapha Capital Investment I to XV, LLC, as well as to its private equity fund, Rapha Capital PE Life Sciences Fund VI, which is the current vehicle for all investments managed by Rapha Capital Management.

For more information about Rapha Capital Management, email [email protected] or visit https://raphacap.com

Media Contact

Sharon Golubchik
RAYNZ
[email protected]

SOURCE FIZE Medical

The platform reconciles fragmented stock-market records to uncover discrepancies and preserve the evidence needed to investigate.

MONTREAL, Sept. 17, 2026 — BlueLedger AI Inc. (“BlueLedger”) today emerged from stealth at ALL IN 2026. Conflicting records can make it harder to verify ownership, establish payment entitlements or investigate suspected trading irregularities. BlueLedger helps issuers, counsel and market-integrity teams investigate those discrepancies, distinguishing supported findings from unresolved questions. The company is starting with paid issuer pilots, with retail access planned as the platform expands.

BlueLedger brings together public-company leadership, retail-investor research and financial intelligence. Co-Founder and Board Chair George Palikaras encountered the challenge inside a Nasdaq-listed company. CEO and Co-Founder Tiana Stoddart spent roughly three years manually tracing records with fellow investors. Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer Prof. Dhirendra Shukla brings expertise in entrepreneurial finance and financial intelligence, including Gray Wolf Analytics.

“Confidence in public markets depends on the ability to verify the records behind them. When those records conflict, issuers and investors need a reliable basis for investigation,” said Palikaras. “We are building BlueLedger to make reconciliation a core part of market oversight”.

“We compared filings, corporate-action records, identifiers and timelines, often moving between different systems and jurisdictions just to answer basic questions about the same security,” said Stoddart. “The information was there, but the complete story was not.”

“A discrepancy is a starting point for investigation, not a conclusion,” said Shukla. “The challenge is to establish whether records are genuinely comparable, account for differences in timing and context, and make uncertainty explicit.”

MaxWave Capital’s investment reflects its focus on governed intelligence for consequential decisions. Its portfolio also includes ARKEN, a separate company applying governed AI in industrial environments.

Peter J. Balafas, Managing Partner of MaxWave Capital, brings three decades of financial-industry experience to the firm’s investment thesis.

“An AI model alone is not a durable competitive advantage. The moat develops through domain expertise, reliable evidence and integration into the workflows clients depend on,” said Balafas. “With more than 50,000 listed companies worldwide, we see an opportunity to build trusted infrastructure for a global market.”

BlueLedger is headquartered in New Brunswick, where Prof. Shukla has ties to the innovation ecosystem. The company plans to build commercial capacity in the province for global markets and attract top talent in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

“I’m backing BlueLedger with my own capital and moving from Vancouver to New Brunswick to build it. The province’s Small Business Investor Tax Credit supports eligible investment, but the opportunity is bigger: to build a company here that serves global capital markets,” said Stoddart. “I want to help turn that opportunity into local talent development, innovation and lasting economic value.”

ALL IN 2026 takes place September 16–17 at the Palais des congrès de Montréal.

About BlueLedger AI Inc.

BlueLedger is building the evidence layer for trust in public markets. Its platform reconciles fragmented records across a security’s lifecycle to uncover discrepancies and preserve investigative evidence. Designed for issuers, counsel and market-integrity teams, BlueLedger distinguishes established findings from unresolved questions, with retail access planned. Headquartered in New Brunswick, Canada, BlueLedger is backed by MaxWave Capital. Visit blueledger.ai.

About MaxWave Capital Inc.

MaxWave is an operator-led independent sponsor focused on control-oriented private equity investments and special situations across North America and selectively in the UK and broader EMEA. The firm takes substantial ownership positions with negotiated governance rights in businesses facing operational complexity or transition. Drawing on experience in deep technology, capital markets and cross-border transactions, MaxWave works alongside management to set strategy, improve operations and execute growth plans. Learn more at maxwavecapital.com.

Media Contact

George Palikaras | 902 222 4423 | [email protected] |  blueledger.ai

SOURCE BlueLedger AI Inc.

New funding from leading artists and music industry executives—including Zach Bryan, Benny Blanco, Tainy, Ari Emanuel, Julie Greenwald, Sam Hendel, and others—supports the next phase of growth as Notes.fm builds a new financial layer for the music economy

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NEW YORK, Sept. 17, 2026 — Notes.fm, the music royalty collection platform helping musicians and music companies identify and collect 100% of their royalties, announces it has raised $5 million from leading artists, managers, executives and strategic partners across the music industry. Notes is the latest venture from Stem co-founder Tim Luckow, on a mission to support independent artists with the best-in-class technology for distribution and publishing under one roof so they can have full control over their earnings and stop missing out on money that is rightfully theirs.

The round includes participation from a range of influential artists and music industry leaders from Benny Blanco, Zach Bryan and his managers Stefan Max and Danny Kang, Tainy, Blake Slatkin, and Mt. Joy frontman Matt Quinn, WME Group Executive Chairman Ari Emanuel, Chord Music founder Sam Hendel, longtime Atlantic Records chief and 26.2 founder Julie Greenwald, as well as many of the industry’s leading companies including Foundations, Mick Management, Twenty Ten Management, Triple 8, KMGMT, Good Boy, Mexican Summer, and Breakaway. The funding will support continued platform development and scaled marketing efforts as Notes expands its offering to artists globally.

Notes recently debuted a new feature “Releases” and unveiled its new partnership with Stripe, to streamline distribution, publishing admin and money management into one simplified release flow for musicians. This allows artists to use Notes.fm as the home for both distribution and royalty collection, making it easy for artists and their teams to take simultaneous ownership of their creative output and the income it generates. Notes is founded on the principle that every artist should receive all of their royalties. That’s why they take 0% participation in distribution and publishing royalties, charging a flat monthly subscription fee instead. It’s the same ethos behind their catalog royalty review technology, which helps rights owners identify missing royalties across their catalog and fix the issues so they can claim all of the royalties they’ve earned while they can.

This isn’t new for Notes. Since launch, they’ve rolled out capabilities that allow artists and rights holders to more seamlessly manage their earnings, including integrated financial accounts designed to give users more flexibility in how they collect, store, and transfer, and earn on income. These updates are part of a broader effort to build a more complete financial layer for the modern music ecosystem.

Prior to Releases, Notes also announced  Credits.fm, a free and open music credits database indexing more than 150 million song codes and credits to help the music industry organize, verify, and connect the data powering royalties and artist compensation in the age of AI.

“Music is evolving quickly, and the finance systems around it need to evolve at a faster rate,” said Tim Luckow, CEO and co-founder of Notes.fm. “Between all of the actions required to properly release, credit and collect on music, there are a lot of places where money falls through the cracks. We built Notes to bring all of that into one platform — so artists can release music and collect every royalty from day one, and recover what’s historically been missed.”

“Having spent our careers working with artists at every level, we’ve seen firsthand how much value gets lost to fragmented, unnecessarily complex systems,” adds co-founder Derek Davies. “The response to Notes from the music community has been incredibly meaningful, and we’re proud to announce a raise funded almost exclusively by artists, managers and music industry strategics who have a native understanding of these issues firsthand. This raise gives us the resources to keep building the infrastructure and applications that we believe the next generation of artists deserves.”

Notes has created an artist-friendly, automated process to simplify a notoriously complex and outdated system that has historically led to hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties going unclaimed by artists every year. Notes brings clarity to the complexity, requiring only a musician name and list of songs to start reviewing streaming services, collection societies, and registries like the MLC and SoundExchange. The platform not only identifies missing royalties, but it also helps an artist fix issues and directly claim the royalties that result from those corrections while ensuring future income flows correctly.

Following its public launch last year, Notes has already demonstrated strong early traction, identifying more than $10 million in previously unclaimed royalties across a broad range of artists and catalogs including James Blake, Zach Bryan, Mt. Joy, Girl In Red and more. The platform continues to grow across both emerging and established artists, reflecting a shared demand for greater clarity and access in how music earnings are tracked and distributed.

By bringing together royalty discovery, payments infrastructure, and music-centric financial management into a single experience, Notes.fm is helping to create a new system that better supports artists as their careers and audiences grow.

About Notes.fm
Notes.fm is a music royalty collection platform built to help independent musicians, artists and music companies collect all of their royalties in one easy-to-use place. Founded by Stem co-founder Tim Luckow, Notes brings distribution, publishing, and financial tools under one roof, giving musicians and companies the technology to release music, verify song credits, manage their catalogs, and collect every royalty they’re owed. Music Royalties, Simplified.

Learn more at www.notes.fm.

The Untold: Chelsey Northern ([email protected]), Chloé Snyder ([email protected]), Cory Councill ([email protected])

SOURCE Notes.fm

Condor’s announcement comes as looming patent cliffs across the pharmaceutical industry intensify pressure on companies to replenish their pipelines. While AI has accelerated drug discovery and increased the number of viable candidates, the financial infrastructure drug development runs on remains remarkably manual and labor intensive. When a budget, forecast, and actuals diverge, R&D teams can lose hours, if not days, reconciling data across ERPs, CTMS, EDC systems, and spreadsheets to better understand the financial impact behind the “why”. Lagging decisions have real consequences — like continuing to fund an underperforming site, discovering a change-order problem after negotiations are already underway, or waiting weeks to understand the financial implications of an enrollment change.

The clinical finance agent reasons across an organization’s full budget and forecast history in Condor to explain the “why” behind the numbers, identifying in seconds rather than hours what’s driving a variance between actuals and forecast or the cost to complete a given trial. It also runs full what-if scenario planning, modeling changes to site mix, enrollment timing, or financial investment, and then builds the resulting model directly in the platform. Powered by Condor’s proprietary knowledge graph and a deterministic math layer with AI reasoning on top, the agent is tuned to how R&D teams actually ask questions; not generic corporate forecasting logic. Additionally capabilities will be added to the agent soon.

Here’s how the agent works: you ask the questions that used to take your team weeks to prepare, and instantly get answers you can act on. For example, an R&D team’s clinical operations or finance leader can ask:

“Which sites in this trial are falling behind, and what does that mean for my budget, timeline, and enrollment?” Condor identifies the sites creating risk and connects their performance to the downstream impact on enrollment, timing, and cost.

“What will it cost to complete enrollment?” Condor calculates a cost-to-complete forecast based on the current state of the trial, without waiting weeks for a team to manually rebuild the model.

“Why did my change order increase?” Condor traces the increase back to the clinical and operational activity driving it and identifies where there may be an opportunity to reduce the cost.

To see the agent in action, book a demo at https://condorsoftware.com/contact.

The clinical finance agent is one of several agents in Condor AI Workflows — one of Condor’s three product pillars. Condor Connect automatically centralizes clinical, operational, and financial data with an understanding of a biopharma’s processes. Condor AI Workflows then automates various workflows — like budgeting, forecasts, month-end closes, accruals, and change order management. Condor AI Insights then surfaces patterns, flags risks, bridges context across functions, and delivers the “why” behind the numbers.

Supporting Quotes

“Drug development runs on two things: the science and the money that funds it. For decades, science was the bottleneck. AI and the patent cliff are closing that gap, and pipelines are about to fill with more candidates than this industry has ever had to fund. But the bottleneck didn’t disappear. It moved from the lab to the ledger. Every one of those candidates still has to be forecasted, funded, and managed, and the financial infrastructure doing that job still runs on spreadsheets. The pharmaceutical industry doesn’t have a data problem. It has a context problem. Companies have more data than they’ve ever had. But answering a basic question like ‘Why did this trial get more expensive?’ can still require people to hunt across multiple systems and rebuild the answer manually. We started Condor to eliminate that gap, and our new clinical finance agent takes us one huge step closer to realizing our mission of giving biopharma R&D teams the information they need to make clinical and financial decisions quickly and confidently.”

—Condor Founder and CEO Jen Kyle

“Quickly producing the ‘why’ behind the numbers is the biggest pain point that clinical operations and FP&A teams experience. Any system can tell you you’re five million over budget. That’s not useful on its own. You need to know in a clinical context what’s actually driving it, and you need to know fast. Our knowledge graph lets us answer that in a way generic AI can’t, because it intimately understands the context underpinning the clinical trial activities. And it doesn’t stop at the answer; it also builds the model. Our clinical finance agent is one of many Condor AI agents, each purpose-built to remove a specific piece of the manual work that slows R&D teams down.”

— Condor VP of Product Nim Fox

About Condor Software

Condor Software is the AI platform for biopharma R&D teams. It automatically centralizes clinical, operational, and financial data; automates various workflows — like budgeting, forecasts, month-end closes, accruals, and change order management; and then surfaces patterns, flags risks, bridges context across functions, and delivers the “why” behind the numbers. Founded by Jen Kyle, Condor is backed by Insight Partners, Felicis, 645 Ventures, Pamir Ventures, and SNR Ventures, and is trusted by leading biopharma companies worldwide — including Acadia Pharmaceuticals, BridgeBio Pharma, Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, and Stemline Therapeutics. Learn more at condorsoftware.com.

Media Contact:
Joseph Roualdes
[email protected]
415.823.2136

SOURCE Condor Software

New structured capital from Hamilton Lane, executed alongside a parallel upsize of telMAX’s existing credit facility from Power Sustainable, will accelerate telMAX’s mission to bring Canada’s fastest all-fibre internet to more communities across Ontario

TORONTO and MONTREAL, Sept. 17, 2026 — telMAX, Ontario’s leading independent provider of 100% pure fibre internet, TV and home phone, today announced that funds managed by global private markets investment firm Hamilton Lane (Nasdaq: HLNE) have completed a $105 million structured investment in telMAX. In a parallel transaction, Power Sustainable Infrastructure Credit, (“PSIC”), telMAX’s existing financing partner, Palistar Capital, and MidStar Capital are together significantly increasing a credit facility with the company by $110 million.

Combined, the two transactions inject more than $200 million in new growth capital into telMAX, one of the largest growth financings secured by an independent Canadian digital infrastructure firm.

telMAX’s rapid scaling of its world-class, independent fibre network continues to attract institutional capital, including new investment from funds managed by Hamilton Lane, and existing partner Power Sustainable alongside its new financing partners – Palistar Capital and MidStar Capital. Since 2025’s financing round, telMAX has continued to execute at speed, extending its 100% pure fibre optic network to Markham, Barrie and Oakville, while continuing to build and operate its infrastructure footprint across the Greater Toronto Area, (GTA), including Brooklin, Stouffville, Newmarket, Aurora, and Richmond Hill.

With this new capital, telMAX will push further into the western GTA, extending its footprint into Burlington, Brampton, and Mississauga – bringing Canada’s fastest fibre network within reach of hundreds of thousands of additional homes and businesses, and fulfilling growing demand for superior, fibre-based connectivity in these previously underserved markets.

“telMAX was built on a simple belief: communities should not have to settle for outdated legacy internet options. This investment gives us the capital needed to move even faster on the next stage of our growth plan which expands our delivery of the reliable, high-performance fibre service that Canadians increasingly expect and deserve,” said Michael Strople, CEO of telMAX. “We are excited to welcome Hamilton Lane as a new partner in the next chapter of the telMAX story, and we are appreciative of Power Sustainable’s continued support as they double down on our vision.”

The scale of the of two parallel financing transactions are a statement of confidence in telMAX’s growth strategy and overall business. Hamilton Lane is stepping in as a new institutional partner, drawn by telMAX’s track record of disciplined execution and the scale of the opportunity ahead. At the same time, Power Sustainable, which provided telMAX a senior secured credit facility in 2025, is increasing its commitment to fund the company’s next stage of growth in partnership with both Palistar Capital and MidStar Capital. Together, these two investments give telMAX one of the strongest capital positions of any independent, infrastructure-based fibre provider in the country.

Beyond the balance sheet, this is a foundational investment to better serve one of Canada’s fastest-growing regions by bringing genuine choice, speed and reliability to more households and businesses across the GTA through a state-of-the-art, independent network built and staffed in the communities it serves. It’s the kind of infrastructure Ontario needs to support its growth, designed and built from the ground up to meet the demands of the next decade rather than the last one.

“We believe telMAX represents a compelling opportunity to invest in a business with in-place infrastructure, significant growth prospects, an experienced management team and a path to create long-term value by connecting more communities to critical digital infrastructure,” said Taylor McManus, Principal at Hamilton Lane. “This transaction is a great example of Hamilton Lane’s infrastructure capabilities, and our strategy of providing capital solutions to GP partners and their portfolio companies.”

“Reliable digital connectivity is essential infrastructure for growing communities and businesses. telMAX has demonstrated a differentiated approach to building and operating high-quality fibre infrastructure—combining disciplined execution with a clear focus on the communities and customers it serves. The company has built meaningful momentum in markets where demand for reliable, high-performance connectivity is growing. We are pleased to increase our commitment and support telMAX’s next phase of growth,” said Ben Shenwick, Principal, Power Sustainable Infrastructure Credit.

“telMAX has built a distinguished fiber platform with attractive underlying markets and a clear opportunity to continue scaling its network,” said Carras Holmstead, Investment Partner, Palistar Capital. “We are pleased to partner with Power Sustainable to provide additional capital for the company’s next phase of growth. Our commitment reflects our conviction in the long-term value of high-quality digital infrastructure and our focus to supporting agile, high-impact platforms that bridge connectivity gaps.”

“This is about much more than adding new addresses to our network,” said Brad Fisher, Chief Operating Officer, telMAX. “It’s about leveling the playing field and giving Canadians a real choice, enabling not just today’s critical applications, but future-proofing communities for what’s next. Our job now is to put this capital to work accelerating construction, scaling our teams, and proving that an independent Canadian provider can move with the speed and execution the incumbents simply can’t match.”

telMAX was advised by the Bank Street Group investment banking firm throughout this process, and now with the backing of Hamilton Lane, Power Sustainable, Palistar Capital, and MidStar Capital – enters its next phase of growth from a position of strength with the ambition to become Canada’s leading independent fibre internet provider.

About telMAX
telMAX, a locally based company headquartered in the Greater Toronto Area, offering 100% fibre internet, TV, and phone services to residential and business customers. Known for delivering Canada’s fastest internet and industry-leading performance, telMAX designs, builds, and operates its own end-to-end fibre-to-the-home network engineered for speed, low latency, and reliability. With ongoing expansion, telMAX serves communities including Barrie, Brooklin, Stouffville, Newmarket, Aurora, Markham, Oakville, and Richmond Hill, while proudly supporting local employment and community development. telMAX – fibre built for AI. telMAX.com

About Hamilton Lane
Hamilton Lane (Nasdaq: HLNE) is one of the largest private markets investment firms globally, providing innovative solutions to institutional and private wealth investors around the world. Dedicated exclusively to private markets investing for more than 30 years, the firm currently employs approximately 800 professionals operating in offices throughout North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. Hamilton Lane has $1.1 trillion in assets under management and supervision, composed of more than $146 billion in discretionary assets and $914 billion in non-discretionary assets, as of June 30, 2026. Hamilton Lane specializes in building flexible investment programs that provide clients access to the full spectrum of private markets strategies, sectors and geographies. For more information, please visit www.hamiltonlane.com.

About Power Sustainable
Power Sustainable is a multi-platform alternative asset manager investing across the core sectors of the real economy as they undergo structural change. The firm allocates capital across energy, food, mobility, connectivity, and the built environment, investing selectively along the value chains through infrastructure equity, infrastructure credit, and private equity strategies. Power Sustainable focuses on sectors where transition, resilience and resource efficiency are material drivers of opportunity, performance and risk. Power Sustainable is a subsidiary of Power Corporation of Canada (TSX: POW), an international management and holding company that focuses on financial services in North America, Europe and Asia. Learn more at www.powersustainable.com.

About Palistar Capital 
Palistar Capital LP (“Palistar”) is an alternative asset manager led by Managing Partner and Founder, Omar Jaffrey, focused on digital infrastructure investments. Palistar Capital seeks to invest through direct asset ownership as well as by developing innovative financing solutions to complex problems for leading global digital infrastructure related companies. To learn more about Palistar Capital, visit www.palistar.com.

About MidStar Capital Corp.
MidStar Capital provides structured private debt financing solutions targeting borrowers with EBITDA between $5 million and $50 million. MidStar was launched in January of 2017 and is a partnership owned jointly by the MidStar management team and Connor, Clark & Lunn Financial Group Ltd. (CC&L Financial Group).

MidStar Capital is part of CC&L Financial Group, an independent, employee-owned, multi-boutique asset management firm with over 40 years of history. Collectively managing over CAD230 billion in assets, CC&L Financial Group and its affiliate firms offer a diverse range of investment products and solutions to institutional, high-net-worth and retail clients. www.midstarcapital.com 

SOURCE telMAX

Proprietary intelligence platform draws on more than $2 billion funded across over 35,000 businesses to deliver faster, deeper and more accurate underwriting

NEW YORK, Sept. 17, 2026 — Byzfunder today announced the launch of TraceDataIQ, its proprietary AI-native underwriting intelligence platform built specifically for small-business finance.

Traditional systems extract information from bank statements. TraceDataIQ goes substantially further—analyzing the complete financial, operational and public profile of a business and converting fragmented information into real-time, decision-ready underwriting intelligence.

Built on the knowledge and performance history developed through more than $2 billion in financing provided to over 35,000 businesses, TraceDataIQ evaluates how a company actually operates—not merely what appears on its application.

Beyond Bank-Statement Parsing

TraceDataIQ automatically:

• Converts bank statements, financial statements, P&Ls, balance sheets, accounts receivable and accounts payable into structured underwriting intelligence.
• Evaluates cash-flow quality, revenue volatility, existing obligations, payment performance, modifications and signs of financial stress.
• Conducts comprehensive background screening across state and federal court systems, public records, UCC filings and third-party data sources.
• Analyzes a company’s digital footprint, including public-facing websites, business profiles and social media, to validate its identity, operations and credibility.
• Continuously synthesizes financial, behavioral and external data into an explainable risk assessment that informs approval, structure, pricing and collectability.

“If the information is out there, TraceDataIQ will find it.”

By transforming fragmented financial, legal, operational and public data into actionable underwriting intelligence, TraceDataIQ has materially strengthened Byzfunder’s ability to reduce charge-offs while continuing to provide essential capital to underserved American businesses. This combination of deeper risk intelligence and broader access to credit distinguishes Byzfunder within the U.S. small-business financing market.

“TraceDataIQ represents the future of small-business underwriting,” said Ilya Fridman, Founder and CEO of Byzfunder. “Traditional systems read bank statements. TraceDataIQ understands the business behind them. It identifies risks, patterns and opportunities that conventional models miss and turns that intelligence into faster, more consistent and more accurate credit decisions.”

“Our objective was never to build another parser,” Fridman continued. “We built a digital underwriter—one capable of evaluating the complete financial story of a business, finding the information required to make an informed decision and continuously reassessing risk as new information becomes available. This allows us to protect performance while continuing to fund the American small businesses that traditional financial institutions too often overlook.”

Intelligence That Extends Across the Credit Lifecycle

TraceDataIQ serves as the proprietary intelligence layer within ByzOS, Byzfunder’s integrated origination and portfolio-management platform.

The system combines banking activity, financial statements, payment behavior, public records and business-background intelligence into a single underwriting assessment. Its findings support credit approval, exposure sizing, deal structure, pricing, fraud detection and expected-recovery analysis.

TraceDataIQ can also reassess a business when new information becomes available, identifying changes in revenue, financial obligations, lender positions, banking relationships, payment performance and legal exposure.

The launch represents a significant step toward Byzfunder’s vision of a fully connected, AI-native financing platform capable of moving from raw business data to underwriting, pricing, approval and funding with substantially less manual intervention.

About Byzfunder

Founded in 2019, Byzfunder is an AI-driven small-business financing platform providing fast, flexible and frictionless access to working capital for small and medium-sized businesses across the United States.

Byzfunder serves businesses that can be overlooked by traditional financial institutions — companies with real revenue, real operations and real growth needs. Through its proprietary technology, extensive data infrastructure and deep underwriting expertise, Byzfunder combines AI-driven intelligence with practical financing experience to deliver faster, more informed funding decisions.

Business owners can apply online in minutes, with funding available as quickly as the same business day for qualifying applicants. Since inception, Byzfunder has provided more than $2 billion in financing to over 35,000 businesses nationwide.

For more information, visit byzfunder.com.

Media Contact
Xin Hamilton, CMO
[email protected]
byzfunder.com

SOURCE Byzfunder

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 17, 2026 — Viabot™, the autonomous robotics startup tackling trash, debris and soft security at scale, announced today a $24 million Series A raise led by Walden International, with participation from CDIB Capital Group and Stalwart Ventures, alongside existing investors: Baseline Ventures, Era Ventures, Morado Ventures and SOSV. The funding brings Viabot’s total capital raised to $43 million, strengthening its capacity to meet growing enterprise demand for autonomous property-management robotics.

“We founded Viabot on the belief that technology should be extremely helpful, beautifully-designed and built to perform meaningful tasks that give teams their time back,” said CEO and Co-Founder Gregg Ratanaphanyarat. “This investment marks an important new chapter in pursuit of that mission.”

The company’s flagship product The Viabot One services 25 million square feet of commercial property with intelligence trained on more than 5 billion square feet of real world, multi-modal data. Viabot will apply the new capital to growing its sales and engineering teams, accelerating new product development, and continued improvements to its robotics-as-a-service and Viabot One.

“We invest in teams that combine technical depth with the discipline to solve important customer problems. Viabot has demonstrated both by building a compelling platform with a clear focus on real-world customer value,” said Steve Anderson, founder of Baseline Ventures. “The best technology becomes part of everyday life without asking people to think twice. Viabot produces robots that are both highly capable and thoughtfully designed for the communities, campuses and commercial properties they serve.”

THE VIABOT ONE: PRODUCT FEATURES & FUNCTIONALITY
The design-forward Viabot One outdoor property care platform features proprietary technology, including autonomous tool swapping and the ability to hot-swap its own batteries for 12-24 hour runs. Viabot One’s primary function is sweeping and cleaning trash and debris up to 10 inches. It also provides supplementary soft security services, like loitering detection and asset monitoring. The platform is designed to continuously improve its intelligence with remote software updates. 

The Viabot One uses cameras, lidar, depth sensors, DGPS and dynamic path planning to map and navigate its surroundings, perform scheduled routes and adapt to changing conditions. After completing a scheduled run, the robot independently returns to its docking station to recharge and empty collected debris into standard trash bins, requiring only a standard 120V outlet to operate.

GROWING DEMAND FOR AUTONOMOUS PROPERTY CARE
Following the release of its RUNO prototype in 2021, Viabot developed and validated its new mobile intelligence platform, The Viabot One, through real-world deployments that resulted in unit economic profitability, contract renewals and new business. The company also established its production and expanded service nationally to California, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia. Viabot’s customers include: Fortune 500 retailers, higher education institutions, multi-national real estate owners, developers, property management firms across retail, shopping, entertainment, class-A office buildings, healthcare and utility companies, among others.

Fueling interest in Viabot’s platform are customers searching for innovative solutions to environmental debris removal requirements, and autonomous infrastructure that addresses public and organizational concern about litter. Businesses spend an estimated $9.1 billion annually on litter cleanup and 94% of Americans view litter as a major problem according to recent studies (Litter In America, Keep America Beautiful).

“By removing trash and debris at scale and adapting to each client’s needs, Viabot delivers a visible environmental benefit while freeing property teams to focus on higher-value work,” said Anderson. “This combination of value is what makes the company so compelling.”

The landscape of outdoor commercial property care has been reshaped by a convergence of technological breakthroughs, regulatory imperatives and evolving customer expectations, with RaaS demand accelerating 42% in 2024 (International Federation of Robotics), and the global autonomous sweeper market surpassing $1.17 billion in 2025 (Wiseguy Reports).

Under the leadership of Ratanaphanyarat, who conceived the idea for Viabot while attending college – and CTO and Co-Founder Dawei Ding – Viabot emerged as a market leader in 2025 having pioneered outdoor mobile RaaS, cloud and AI technology, tailoring solutions for large-scale sweeping, debris removal, and soft security facing Fortune 500 companies and large-scale outdoor enterprises.

“Viabot One is already operating at a meaningful scale, helping property teams maintain cleaner, safer and more reliable environments across 25 million square feet of commercial property,” said Ratanaphanyarat. “This funding enables us to build on that foundation: expanding our team, advancing the intelligence behind our platform and bringing practical, dependable robotics to more of the places where people live, work and gather.”

For more information, visit www.viabot.com and follow @meetviabot.

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Media Inquiries:
Sonia Hendrix
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About Viabot

Headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., Viabot™ (“Viabot”) is a leading technology company tackling trash, debris, and soft security at scale for big-box retailers, utility companies and academic institutions across the United States. Viabot’s mission is simple: to build extremely helpful, beautiful robots that perform meaningful tasks and give people their time back. The Viabot One embodies that mission, delivering next-generation precision outdoor property care and maintenance that blends seamlessly into everyday life while creating safer, cleaner environments. Its self-charging, self-emptying, three-wheel mobile platform operates on a RaaS model and provides autonomous sweeping with interchangeable tools, 3D modeling, and dynamic path planning. Founded by CEO and Co-Founder Gregg Ratanaphanyarat and CTO and Co-Founder Dawei Ding, Viabot publicly launched in 2021 with $6.1 million in seed funding from Baseline Ventures (Steve Anderson), Morado Ventures (Ash Patel), and SOSV. For more information, visit Viabot.com. 

SOURCE Viabot

The investment will fund AI-powered product development and new talent as Overfuel scales — while doubling down on the customer service it’s known for

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 17, 2026 — Overfuel, the AI-native automotive technology platform, today announced a $6 million growth equity investment from Comedor Capital, an Austin-based growth equity firm backing founder-led software and AI-enabled services companies.

The investment follows a period of rapid expansion for Overfuel, which has grown its dealership website count by more than 225% over the past two years. The investment pairs growth capital with hands-on operating support as Overfuel brings AI deeper into the products its dealerships use every day.

“Dealership technology has spent too long adding complexity and calling it innovation,” said Alex Griffis, CEO of Overfuel. “We built Overfuel to reduce shopper friction, deliver measurable performance, and provide dealers the technology, data, and expertise to compete and grow. We believe the future is AI-first and API-first — more intelligent, more connected, and more open to the broader ecosystem. This investment gives us more capacity to advance the platform with AI, invest in exceptional people, and continue raising the bar for the world-class customer support we’re known for.”

Built for inventory-driven dealerships across Automotive, RV, Powersports, and Commercial Truck, Overfuel brings together performance-first websites, AI-powered shopping assistance, advanced analytics, local visibility and reputation tools, inventory management and syndication, and digital retailing. The platform is certified in multiple OEM programs, and its websites are engineered for speed and performance — Overfuel’s optimization approach has reduced website load times and bandwidth requirements by more than 90%. Industry research shows that every second of faster load time can increase shopper engagement by 11%, with optimized sites seeing 21% higher engagement overall.

“Overfuel is exactly what we look for in a partnership: a founder-led, capital-efficient business using technology to solve a real and costly problem for its customers,” said Bradley McBride, Managing Partner of Comedor Capital. “This is a proven team, with a deep understanding of dealership operations and a disciplined, performance-first approach to product. They are building a simpler, more connected way to operate for an industry that has long been underserved by legacy incumbents. We are excited to back them through their next phase of growth.”

For Overfuel customers, the partnership means more of what they already count on — continued product innovation, dedicated customer service, and a platform that delivers measurable results as it grows.

About Overfuel

Overfuel delivers performance-defining websites and AI-powered digital strategies for inventory-driven dealerships across the Automotive, Powersports, RV, and Commercial Truck industries. Its connected platform brings together performance-first websites, AI-assisted shopper engagement, advanced analytics, local visibility and reputation tools, inventory management and syndication, and digital retailing — helping dealerships reduce shopper friction and create clearer paths from search to action.

Learn more at www.overfuel.com.

About Comedor Capital

Comedor Capital is an Austin-based growth equity firm backing founder-led software and AI-enabled services companies. The firm partners with high-growth, capital-efficient businesses, providing flexible capital and hands-on operating support to accelerate AI adoption, expand revenue, recruit talent, and strengthen the operational foundation to scale — while preserving founder ownership and maximizing long-term outcomes.

Learn more at www.comedorcapital.com.

SOURCE Overfuel

The new funding positions Kastle to help enterprises deploy reliable AI across existing infrastructure, giving banks and lenders a faster, safer path to realizing the full value of AI without replacing critical core systems

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 17, 2026 — Kastle, the AI workforce platform transforming consumer lending, today announced it has raised $24 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Insight Partners, with continued participation from existing investors Y Combinator and Commerce Ventures. Fifth Wall and a group of prominent founders and financial services executives also joined the round as new investors.

Kastle is building the AI workforce for financial services, beginning with consumer lending – an industry where enormous volumes of essential work still move through legacy systems, manual processes, and operational teams. The company is already powering work across some of the largest enterprises and banks in the world. Its AI agents have processed more than $1.8 billion in transactions, establishing Kastle as an emerging category leader in consumer lending and demonstrating that enterprise AI can perform consequential work at scale.

AI has given financial institutions a historic opportunity to transform how that work gets done. But for most large enterprises, the path to adoption is logistically challenging. Replacing legacy infrastructure with an entirely AI-native technology stack could require years of complex, high-risk migration, in a world where technology shifts happen every other quarter, and layering conventional AI assistants onto existing systems captures only a fraction of AI’s potential. The result is a growing adoption gap: institutions recognize what AI can do but remain constrained by the systems and operating models they already have.

Kastle offers another path.

Its platform enables financial institutions to deploy specialized AI agents that work across their existing core systems, execute high-volume workflows, and keep systems of record current. Rather than requiring a full infrastructure overhaul, Kastle turns that infrastructure into an environment where AI agents and people can work together.

This creates a new operating model for financial services: hybrid teams in which AI agents handle high-volume, repeatable work, while people focus on complex cases requiring judgment, expertise, empathy, and relationships. Kastle’s agents complete work inside the institution’s existing processes and controls, giving organizations additional capacity while helping their teams maintain consistency, oversight, and compliance.

“For years, enterprises have effectively been presented with a false choice: accept the limitations of legacy operations or endure a long and risky replacement of the systems at the heart of their business,” said Rishi Choudhary, Co-Founder and CEO of Kastle. “Kastle creates a third path. We give financial institutions an AI workforce that can operate across the systems they already have, so they can capture the benefits of AI now—not five years from now. We believe this will become the safest and fastest way for the world’s largest institutions to become AI-native.”

Kastle’s initial focus is consumer lending, where institutions must coordinate high volumes of time-sensitive work across fragmented technology environments while meeting exacting service, risk, and regulatory requirements. Its AI agents are purpose-built for these workflows, combining financial services context with the ability to take action across the tools institutions use today.

“Financial institutions do not need another layer of software that creates more work for their teams. They need AI that can reliably complete the work while ensuring compliance,” said Rebecca Liu-Doyle, Managing Director at Insight Partners. “Kastle deploys AI agents that can navigate complexity, pass the bar on regulatory rigor, and get high-stakes work done without waiting for a multiyear transformation. We’re thrilled to partner with the Kastle team as they continue to reshape this category.”                     

The funding comes as financial institutions move beyond isolated AI experiments and begin searching for a practical path to enterprise-wide adoption. Kastle will use the capital to expand its engineering, product, and go-to-market teams; deepen the capabilities of its platform; and accelerate deployments with leading banks and other financial institutions across North America.

“Software gave every employee more tools. AI will give every enterprise more capacity,” Choudhary added. “The winning institutions will be built around hybrid teams that combine the scale and consistency of AI agents with the judgment and relationships of exceptional people. Kastle is building the platform that makes that future possible.”

About Kastle

Kastle is building the AI workforce for financial services. Its platform enables financial institutions to deploy specialized AI agents that execute high-volume work across existing systems, allowing enterprises to realize the benefits of AI without replacing their core infrastructure. Beginning with consumer lending, Kastle helps institutions create hybrid teams in which AI agents provide scale and consistency while people focus on work requiring judgment, expertise, and relationships.

Kastle powers work across some of the largest enterprises and banks in the world and has processed more than $2 billion in transactions. The company is backed by Insight Partners, Y Combinator, Commerce Ventures, Fifth Wall, and leading founders and financial services executives.

To learn more, visit www.kastle.ai.

About Insight Partners

Insight Partners is a global software investor partnering with high-growth technology, software, and Internet startup and ScaleUp companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. As of December 31, 2025, the firm has over $90B in regulatory assets under management. Insight Partners has invested in more than 900 companies worldwide and has seen over 55 portfolio companies achieve an IPO. Headquartered in New York City, Insight has a global presence with leadership in London, Tel Aviv, and the Bay Area. Insight’s mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with tailored, hands-on software expertise along their growth journey, from their first investment to IPO. For more information on Insight and all its investments, visit insightpartners.com or follow us on X @insightpartners.

SOURCE Kastle