IPID lève 16 millions de dollars alors que les paiements instantanés mettent en évidence un angle mort de plus en plus important à l’échelle mondiale

Foundation Capital mène ce tour de table de série A, auquel participent Citi et HSBC

NEW YORK et SINGAPOUR, 24 septembre 2026 — IPID, société spécialisée dans l’intelligence des paiements qui aide les institutions à identifier les bénéficiaires de leurs paiements, a annoncé une levée de fonds de série A de 16 millions de dollars menée par Foundation Capital, avec la participation des investisseurs stratégiques Citi et HSBC. Cette levée de fonds compte également parmi ses participants les investisseurs existants QED Investors, Monk’s Hill Ventures et Quona Capital.

Les paiements numériques sont désormais plus rapides et plus fluides, mais les informations nécessaires à leur évaluation n’ont pas toujours suivi le rythme. Les établissements ne savent pas toujours à qui est destiné un paiement ni ne disposent pas toujours d’informations suffisantes pour évaluer le risque avant de l’effectuer. C’est souvent à l’expéditeur qu’il incombe de vérifier l’identité du destinataire, même lorsque cet expéditeur est lui-même la cible d’une arnaque. Selon LSEG, la fraude liée aux paiements par virement autorisés devrait, à elle seule, entraîner 331 milliards de dollars de pertes à l’échelle mondiale d’ici 2027.

IPID est l’un des principaux prestataires mondiaux de services de vérification de comptes bancaires, au service de grandes institutions financières dans plus de 50 pays. Elle va bientôt étendre sa plateforme en mettant à profit son expertise des marchés fragmentés des paiements pour s’attaquer aux paiements et aux actifs numériques aux États-Unis, offrant ainsi aux institutions les informations nécessaires pour prendre la bonne décision avant le transfert des fonds.

« Chaque paiement commence par une décision, mais les établissements prennent souvent cette décision sur la base d’informations incomplètes », a déclaré Damien Dugauquier, cofondateur et PDG d’IPID. « Nous avons commencé par mettre en place un système de vérification des comptes bancaires à l’échelle mondiale. Nous développons actuellement les outils d’intelligence décisionnelle plus complets dont les institutions ont besoin avant tout transfert de fonds, quel que soit le pays, le canal de paiement ou la forme de valeur concerné. L’avenir des paiements ne se résumera pas à une simple accélération des transferts d’argent. Cela se traduira par la prise de meilleures décisions avant le transfert de l’argent. »

« IPID s’est rapidement imposée comme la référence mondiale en matière de vérification et d’analyse des comptes bancaires. C’est un véritable exploit qu’un projet de ce type puisse voir le jour en dehors d’un consortium bancaire, ce qui confère à IPID une position unique pour aider les institutions financières et les payeurs du monde entier à lutter contre la fraude et à rationaliser leurs opérations de paiement », a déclaré Zach Noorani, associé chez Foundation Capital.

Les paiements gagnent en rapidité et en automatisation à mesure que les paiements en temps réel se généralisent, que de nouvelles infrastructures voient le jour et que des agents basés sur l’IA commencent à initier des transactions. Mais les informations dont les établissements ont besoin avant d’effectuer un paiement restent dispersées entre les différents marchés, prestataires et canaux de paiement. IPID tente de remédier à cette lacune en aidant les établissements à identifier le titulaire du compte bénéficiaire avant que le paiement ne soit définitif.

« Dans un environnement financier de plus en plus numérique et interconnecté, il est essentiel de disposer d’un système de validation des paiements instantané et hautement sécurisé. Notre alliance stratégique avec IPID s’est encore renforcée grâce à notre participation à leur levée de fonds de série A. Nous sommes ravis qu’IPID soit en mesure d’offrir une expérience homogène à l’échelle mondiale et hautement performante, qui aide nos clients à continuer d’optimiser leurs opérations internationales en toute confiance », a déclaré Bis Chatterjee, responsable mondial des partenariats et de l’innovation pour la division Services de Citi.

Tom Simpson, responsable mondial de la compensation des opérations de change et responsable régional pour l’Amérique du Nord des paiements transfrontaliers au sein de la division Global Payment Solutions de HSBC, a déclaré : « L’accord conclu entre HSBC et IPID nous permet d’étendre la validation des bénéficiaires au-delà des exigences des systèmes locaux et de fournir davantage d’informations à nos clients lors de l’exécution de leurs paiements. Cela peut contribuer à améliorer l’efficacité et la fiabilité dans un écosystème de paiement de plus en plus dynamique. »

IPID utilisera ces fonds pour renforcer son réseau mondial d’informations sur les paiements, accélérer sa croissance aux États-Unis et en Europe, et développer de nouvelles fonctionnalités permettant aux institutions de prendre des décisions plus éclairées et de rationaliser leurs opérations de paiement avant que les fonds ne transitent par les réseaux de paiement américains, les stablecoins et les actifs numériques.

À propos d’IPID

IPID fournit des informations décisionnelles aux banques, aux prestataires de services de paiement (PSP), aux plateformes et aux entreprises qui effectuent des transferts d’argent. Tout au long du cycle de vie des paiements, IPID les aide à vérifier l’identité des bénéficiaires et à évaluer les risques de fraude, à respecter leurs obligations réglementaires, à évaluer les risques, à monétiser les paiements et à enrichir les données relatives aux paiements. Cela leur apporte sécurité, maîtrise et tranquillité d’esprit, tout en réduisant la fraude et les coûts opérationnels, ce qui se traduit par une meilleure expérience client.  www.ipid.tech  

Dinari Expands Business Development Team to Scale Institutional Adoption of Tokenized Equities

Senior appointments bring experience across institutional finance, asset management, investment products, and decentralized markets.

SAN MATEO, Calif., Sept. 24, 2026 — Dinari, a financial infrastructure company enabling the issuance, distribution and trading of tokenized equities, today announced the appointment of Umair Dandia, Vera Wang, and Isha Varshney to its business development team. The appointments strengthen Dinari’s team across the institutions and markets driving adoption of tokenized equities, from broker-dealers and asset managers to digital asset platforms and protocols.

The appointments expand Dinari’s business development organization across three areas central to the company’s institutional strategy: integrating tokenized equities into existing financial institutions, enabling new investment products built with tokenized securities, and extending their utility across decentralized markets. Each appointment brings experience directly aligned with these areas of growth:

Umair Dandia, VP of Institutional Solutions, brings more than two decades of experience across investment products and asset management, including a combined 18 years with Goldman Sachs and State Street. At Goldman, he launched active fixed income and equity ETFs representing more than $13 billion in assets under management; at State Street, he managed strategic sub-advisory and index relationships. He joins Dinari to work with asset managers and financial institutions developing and distributing investment products using tokenized securities infrastructure.

Vera Wang, VP of Institutional Business, will lead the expansion of Dinari’s relationships with broker-dealers, financial institutions and other institutional market participants. Wang previously advised global financial institutions on digital asset strategy and product implementation at McKinsey. Prior, she worked at JPMorgan, supporting Asian family offices investing in U.S. markets, and led US digital assets initiatives in-house at a large Hong Kong-based family office.

Isha Varshney, VP of Partnerships, will lead Dinari’s partnerships across decentralized financial markets and international fintechs, expanding the integration and utility of dShares™ across new markets, platforms and trading venues. Varshney most recently served as Head of Revenue Operations at Artemis and previously led ecosystem strategy and partnerships at the Celo Foundation, focused on expanding the network’s institutional and developer ecosystem. Earlier in her career, she co-founded Wealth Boost Investments, where she served as COO, and held roles in banking at M Holdings and private equity at Westmont.

The appointments come as financial institutions increasingly evaluate tokenization across brokerage, asset management and digital asset markets. With the market for tokenized real-world assets projected to reach $14 trillion by 2030, institutions are building the products and distribution channels to participate in this growing market.

Following its U.S. launch in August, Dinari now provides more than 700 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs, including the entire S&P 500, to eligible investors in the United States and more than 85 jurisdictions globally. Its infrastructure enables broker-dealers, fintechs, wallets, exchanges and other financial institutions to integrate tokenized equities directly into their products and platforms.

Dinari has built its tokenization infrastructure to carry the rights and economic characteristics of traditional securities, including dividends, voting and corporate actions, into new models for distribution, trading and investment products. The expanded business development team will focus on bringing that infrastructure to a broader range of broker-dealers, asset managers and financial platforms.

About Dinari
Dinari is a financial infrastructure company enabling the issuance, distribution and trading of tokenized equities. Through dShares™, Dinari provides investors and financial institutions access to more than 700 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs through a custodial model designed to preserve the rights and protections of traditional securities. dShares™ are available to eligible investors in the United States and 85+ international jurisdictions. Dinari is an SEC-registered transfer agent, and Dinari Securities LLC is a FINRA member broker-dealer.

Media Contact
Kayla Gill | VP of Marketing and Communications
[email protected] 

SOURCE Dinari

Aithon Launches AWS Co-Sell to Automate Funding Benefits for AWS Partners Selling into Financial Services

AWS Marketplace engagement and propensity signals so sellers close faster with AWS behind the deal and alliance leaders capture funding before it expires.

NEW YORK, Sept. 24, 2026 — Aithon, the only AI-native Go-to-Market (GTM) platform purpose-built for regulated Financial Services, today announced Aithon Co-Sell. Aithon connects to AWS Partner Central to bring the Amazon Web Services (AWS) co-sell motion into the seller’s workflow: AWS propensity signals and funding eligibility on every opportunity.

“Our customers’ best deals are the ones AWS is leaning into — buyers with committed cloud spend to burn down, accounts AWS has flagged as in-market,” said Nitin Gupta, CEO of Aithon. “Aithon Co-Sell puts those AWS signals next to every seller’s account and funding eligibility next to every deal, and files both into AWS Partner Central. Sellers work the right accounts with AWS behind them; alliance leaders stop leaving funding on the table.”

Today, co-sell runs outside the seller’s day. Which accounts AWS considers in-market, which buyers show a strong propensity in AWS Marketplace, and which programs a deal qualifies for all live in AWS Partner Central. As a result, sales pipeline is built without AWS behind it and funding goes unclaimed. Aithon enriches every account with AWS propensity signals, with more than 4,000 leads across roughly 900 accounts already enriched since launch. Every opportunity shows AWS’s own eligibility verdict across more than 25 funding programs, what is needed to unlock each, and submission into AWS Partner Central.

“Putting more AWS investment behind the right deals accelerates outcomes for our customers and deepens our relationship with AWS,” said Michelle Eatherton, Chief Business Officer at Liminal.ai.

“Our sellers see which accounts AWS views as in-market and how much AWS budget a deal can draw, in the screen they work every day. Deals move faster,” said Steve Herlocher, SVP Sales and Marketing at USAN.

“Co-sell has always been one of our strongest channels, and Aithon lets us scale it without adding headcount,” said Praveen Jayakumar, Co-Founder at Aivar. “Aithon surfaces the programs our deals qualify for, so our sellers can actually use the funding available to them and close faster.”

Aithon Co-Sell is available now for ACE-eligible AWS Partners selling into regulated industries. It is accessible inside the Aithon platform, in Slack and Microsoft Teams, and through MCP in Claude and ChatGPT; and is transactable in AWS Marketplace.

About Aithon

Aithon is a revenue generation platform for AWS partners. Aithon brings a full stack of GTM agents indicating propensity to buy, stakeholder insights, cloud commit, and workflows to help you generate and close new business. Learn more at aithon.ai.

SOURCE Aithon Tech Inc

NEKO HEALTH OPENS ITS DOORS IN NEW YORK, BRINGING THE MOST VALUABLE HOUR IN HEALTHCARE TO AMERICA

Booking begins today at Neko’s first U.S. clinic in SoHo, where breakthrough technology and prevention-focused clinicians give members the bigger picture of their health in a single hour 

NEW YORK, Sept. 24, 2026 — Today marks the opening day for Neko Health in the United States, after more than 25,000 New Yorkers joined the waitlist ahead of launch. Their clinic at 300 Lafayette Street in SoHo – the first of many planned across NYC and across the country – brings Neko’s Scandinavian high-tech and high-touch experience to life. 

Across Sweden and the UK, more than 100,000 members have already experienced the Neko Health Scan. At the end of their first appointment, 75% of members book and prepay for their next scan, and after their second appointment, 80% of members book their third scan. 

The Neko Health Scan is the most valuable hour you can spend on your health. Hjalmar Nilsonne and Daniel Ek (Spotify) founded Neko Health to deliver preventive healthcare at scale, shifting the focus from treating disease after it develops to helping people understand and act on their health earlier. 

Neko engineered its technology and clinical experience entirely from the ground up. In one hour, you’ll have a connected view of your skin, heart, blood, and metabolic health, all explained by a clinician before you leave. All of this for $499. 

The stakes are real: six in ten American adults live with a chronic disease, and four in ten live with two or more,1 and roughly 90% of national health spending goes toward people managing chronic and mental health conditions.1 And yet, up to 80% of premature heart disease and stroke is preventable.2 

“Hjalmar and I have talked about bringing Neko to America since the earliest days of the company because if you want to change healthcare at scale, the U.S. has to be part of that ambition,” said Daniel Ek, Co-Founder of Neko Health. “New York is the starting point. New Yorkers place an incredible value on their time and have exceptionally high expectations for how they spend it. This city doesn’t settle for good enough, and neither do we.” 

The 60-minute, radiation-free visit combines the best of human, hardware, and health intelligence: a 360-degree skin exam with 6,000 images captured via a combination of cameras in the visual spectrum as well as thermal cameras, a cardiovascular assessment, detailed body composition analysis, on-site blood testing focused on 50+ essential biomarkers, and unrushed time with a clinician to walk through results and build a plan of action. The Neko Health Scan takes roughly 30 minutes, followed by a further 30 minutes with a clinician. Together, this creates a detailed baseline that can be tracked over time and helps surface early signals before symptoms appear, often while there’s still time to act. After the appointment, members can access their results anytime through the Neko Health app on iOS and Android, which stores scan history, tracks changes over time, and syncs daily data from wearables like Oura or Whoop via Apple Health. 

The company designed and developed its own medical devices, hardware, software and systems to capture, analyze and present health data within a single experience. This allows Neko to ensure high quality, all while rapidly improving the technology, experience, and outcomes for members. 

“There’s no better time than now to bring Neko Health to America,” said Hjalmar Nilsonne, CEO and Co-Founder of Neko Health. “We’ve scanned more than 100,000 people across Sweden and the UK, and what we’ve seen is unmistakable: when people can see their health clearly and know what to do about it, they get healthier.”

In New York, Neko refers members who need additional care to vetted physicians and healthcare systems, including General Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), Schweiger Dermatology, and Mount Sinai Health System. This allows members to be connected quickly with high-quality, trusted clinicians when follow-up is needed, so they can move forward with confidence in the continuity of their care. Members can also be referred to their own clinicians, if they prefer.

Neko also accepts HSA and FSA payment, making the experience more accessible to New Yorkers already setting aside pre-tax dollars for their health. 

The New York opening follows Neko Health’s $700 million Series C, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and co-led by O.G. Venture Partners, with participation from Maria Sharapova, Zoe Saldaña, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, Danny Meyer, Claudia Schiffer and Sir Matthew Vaughn, Thierry Henry, Tim Ferriss and will.i.am. New York marks the first step in Neko Health’s U.S. expansion. Additional New York locations and a Miami clinic are expected to follow, with Washington, D.C. and San Francisco also planned. 

Press kit link for imagery. 

To learn more or book an appointment, visit NekoHealth.com and follow Neko Health on social @neko. 

About Neko Health
Neko Health is a health technology company that opened its first clinic in Stockholm in 2023, founded by Daniel Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne. Neko designs and engineers its own hardware, software, and clinical protocols in-house, powering a next-generation health scan delivered across clinics in Sweden, the UK, and now the United States. 

SOURCE Neko Health

Luxor Technology Launches Full-Stack AI Infrastructure Business

Luxor extends the energy, hardware, software, compute trading, and data stack it built for Bitcoin mining into the AI infrastructure market, and opens an office in San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 24, 2026 — Luxor Technology, the company behind the leading Bitcoin mining software and services platform, today announced Luxor AI, a new business segment serving the AI and high-performance computing market.

Luxor AI spans the full lifecycle of an AI data center: supplying the energy to power the data center, sourcing GPUs and AI hardware, monetizing spot compute, trading compute offtake contracts, agentic cloud through Tenki Cloud, and a data and research division.

Luxor AI Full-Stack Platform:

  1. Agentic Cloud. Tenki Cloud was purpose-built for the agentic era. Its usage has reached 1.8M workloads year to date. Tenki Cloud is three developer products, built inside Luxor on bare metal Luxor owns: drop-in GitHub Actions runners, an AI code reviewer that comments on every pull request, and sandbox sessions for agentic software development.
  2. AI Hardware. Luxor’s hardware brokerage desk has traded $1bn of ASIC hardware for Bitcoin mining, and now sources GPUs and AI servers through a tiered network of partners. Luxor is a Value-Added Reseller (VAR) to the major OEMs. Luxor is also a licensed freight forwarder and Non-Vessel Operating Common Carrier, helping clients move hardware domestically and globally.
  3. AI Energy. Luxor Energy, through its Retail Electric Provider (REP) license, supplies power to data centers. Through the Qualified Scheduling Entity (QSE), Luxor sends signals to data centers to respond to grid programs and participate in demand response and ancillary services programs. Luxor Energy operates in ERCOT and SPP.
  4. AI Compute. Luxor AI orchestrates physical compute contracts between operators with installed GPU capacity and enterprise buyers. Luxor also operates its own internal compute trading fund.
  5. AI Derivatives. Luxor offers an over-the-counter (OTC) platform to trade cash-settled instruments that settle on various compute-rental indexes, including options, forwards, and backstops.
  6. AI Data & Research. A suite of AI data sets, including hardware and compute price tracking, and a dedicated AI research division.

“We have been at the forefront of innovation in the compute commodities space for almost a decade. Creating novel financial instruments, helping data centers respond to energy signals, operating in application-specific and general-purpose hardware markets, and more. We are bringing our expertise and systems to the next form of compute: AI,” says Nick Hansen, CEO of Luxor.

Energy is one of the most important inputs for AI factories. The US and global market is seeing an unprecedented amount of electricity demand. To service the next wave of 100 GW+ of data center demand, operators and grids must be creative in structuring contracts. Luxor has successfully proven AI workload flexibility through ERCOT’s 4CP and soon ERS programs. Luxor Energy currently services over 75 MW of load. Luxor also helps its partners source unique power opportunities globally.

Global supply chains for GPUs and chips are becoming increasingly hard to navigate. Luxor has expertise in helping its clients locate the best supply for their needs. Having access to abandoned orders with OEMs, special allocation, and used markets, Luxor provides a unique angle to sourcing hardware. Luxor’s team of solutions architects has dozens of years of combined experience with leading OEMs, and helps clients through scoping their AI factory deployments.

Compute markets are developing at a rapid rate. Luxor facilitates the trade of bare-metal compute offtake contracts, and also operates its own internal compute fund, to trade both short and long-term physical compute contracts. In addition, Luxor offers over-the-counter (OTC) cash-settled compute derivative contracts, including both options and forwards.

Tenki Cloud takes Luxor AI’s abilities and puts them to work as digital infrastructure for software engineering and DevOps teams. From runners and sandboxes to an AI code review tool, Tenki Cloud products are built so teams can take advantage of AI agents quickly and safely.

“We built the go-to platform for Bitcoin data centers and understand that operators value using a full-stack solution to service all of their infrastructure needs. By offering a unified platform, we can execute for our clients at a much higher level. Our Luxor AI stack is following this same principle,” says Ethan Vera, COO of Luxor.

About Luxor Technology Corporation

From Bitcoin mining to AI, Luxor delivers the hardware, software, finance and energy tools that power the world’s compute. Its Bitcoin product suite spans Mining Pool, ASIC Firmware, Hardware Trading, Hashrate Derivatives, Energy Services, and Miner Management Software. Its AI product suite spans Hardware, Compute, Energy, Derivatives and Tenki Cloud: digital infrastructure for code and agents. Across both, Hashrate Index is Luxor’s data and research platform.

Media contact

Luxor Technology — [email protected] — www.luxor.tech 

SOURCE Luxor Technology

Axya Secures $17 Million CAD in Funding to Help Manufacturers Modernize Procurement with AI

New funding will accelerate development of Axya’s AI-powered procurement platform, expand its geographic reach, and scale its engineering and go-to-market teams

MONTREAL, Sept. 24, 2026 — Axya, the AI-powered procurement platform that automates sourcing and purchasing for manufacturers, announced a $17 million CAD Series A funding round to enhance its platform and AI capabilities as it expands into new markets and scales its team to meet increasing demand. The financing was led by McRock Capital, with participation from Yamaha Motor Ventures. The round was supported by existing shareholders, including the Business Development Bank of Canada’s (BDC) Industrial Innovation Venture Fund, and Real Ventures, reaffirming their confidence in Axya’s growth trajectory. The company also established a new banking relationship with CIBC, which provides financing to support its next phase of expansion.

Axya helps complex manufacturers make their supply chains more predictable, cost-effective, and resilient by combining deep ERP integrations with AI-powered workflows that complement existing procurement teams. The company specializes in three customer sectors: aerospace and defense, custom machinery and vehicles, and natural resources and processing. It helps leading manufacturers such as MDA Space and GE Aerospace modernize their procurement operations across mid-market to enterprise segments.

Axya combines deep expertise in engineering-to-order and procurement operations with robust ERP integrations, working with Infor, Epicor, Oracle, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, and Sage to connect supplier networks and ERP data. Its platform takes a human-in-the-loop approach that keeps procurement teams in control while AI automates the most time-consuming work, including normalizing data, flagging risks early, and identifying savings opportunities, so teams can focus on the most strategic decisions and actions. Axya connects manufacturers with all of their suppliers and integrates deeply with leading ERP systems, enabling buyers and suppliers to collaborate using multiple file formats and channels.

Founder and CEO Félix Bélisle-Dockrill, with a background in mechanical engineering, worked in supplier quality for two of the largest manufacturers in the aerospace industry earlier in his career, where he experienced firsthand the challenges of evaluating and managing suppliers. That experience inspired him to find a better way to share knowledge and information across the supply chain and led him to found Axya. 

“Despite major investments in digital transformation, procurement remains one of the most fragmented functions within manufacturing organizations,” said Bélisle-Dockrill. “Axya’s platform connects the data, suppliers, and workflows that drive purchasing decisions, enabling manufacturers to reduce manual effort, improve supplier responsiveness, and build more resilient supply chains.”

With the new funding, Axya will invest in deepening its AI capabilities for risk detection, optimization, and automated workflows, as well as growing its sales, customer success, and engineering teams to drive faster deployments and better outcomes. In addition, the funding will help the company strengthen its North American presence and expand internationally, while broadening its ERP partnerships and partner programs to accelerate enterprise adoption.

“We see an enormous market opportunity for industrial AI in the everyday work that keeps factories running. Manufacturing procurement is a prime example, where critical decisions still depend on scattered information,” said Udit Bhatnagar, Partner at McRock Capital. “Axya brings AI directly into that workflow, helping manufacturers make better decisions and keep production moving. We led Axya’s Series A because the team understands both the technology and the industrial problem it needs to solve.”

About Axya

Axya is an AI-powered procurement platform that helps manufacturers modernize procurement operations by eliminating manual workflows, reducing late orders, and cutting inventory costs, expedited fees, and late penalties. Unlike procurement tools that require suppliers to adopt a new portal or workflow, Axya integrates with manufacturers’ existing ERP environments and allows suppliers to participate through their current formats and channels. By combining engineering-to-order expertise with AI-powered analysis and streamlined workflows, Axya delivers a 100% supplier adoption rate and gives manufacturers real-time visibility and control over their procurement operations. To learn more, visit www.axya.co.

SOURCE Axya

Aqua Medical Secures Series B Funding to Advance U.S. Pivotal Trial for Novel Through-the-Scope Type 2 Diabetes Procedure

Led by Relevance Ventures, the funding will support the completion of Aqua Medical’s ongoing U.S. RESTORE-1 pilot study evaluating its investigational PIMA procedure for Type 2 diabetes while funding operational preparations to initiate a planned U.S. pivotal trial.

PLEASANTON, Calif., Sept. 24, 2026 — Aqua Medical, Inc., a clinical-stage medical technology company advancing Endoscopic Metabolic Restoration for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes, today announced the closing of a Series B financing led by Nashville, TN-based Relevance Ventures. Capital from the financing will support the completion of Aqua Medical’s ongoing U.S. RESTORE-1 pilot study and fund operational preparations to initiate a planned U.S. pivotal trial evaluating its investigational Proximal Intestinal Mucosal Ablation (PIMA) procedure for Type 2 diabetes, subject to regulatory authorization.

For decades, Type 2 diabetes care has centered almost exclusively on daily pharmaceutical management and invasive surgery. However, with diabetes affecting 589 million people globally and driving over $1 trillion in annual healthcare expenditures, including $327 billion in the United States alone, the mounting clinical and financial burden is driving demand for new therapeutic approaches. Endoscopic Metabolic Restoration has emerged to fill this critical gap, offering a minimally invasive, through-the-working-channel-of-the-endoscope alternative designed to target metabolic pathways directly.

The Aqua Medical Radiofrequency Vapor Ablation System is FDA-cleared for ablation in the gastrointestinal tract, including Barrett’s esophagus. The PIMA procedure for type 2 diabetes is investigational and is currently being evaluated under an FDA-approved IDE clinical study. PIMA is delivered seamlessly through the working channel of a standard endoscope to treat targeted mucosa in the proximal small intestine. Aqua Medical is now actively working to advance this technology to benefit patients with Type 2 diabetes. Outside the U.S., Aqua Medical has already treated 66 patients, with prior studies showing that patients may become insulin-free following PIMA treatment. Building on this international success, four patients have already undergone the procedure under an active FDA Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) in the U.S., and this Series B funding will support operationalization and patient recruitment for the company’s larger U.S. RESTORE-1 clinical trial.

“We are pleased to welcome Relevance Ventures as the lead investor in this financing and Dean Newton to our Board of Directors,” said Bob Haggerty, President and CEO of Aqua Medical. “This support will help advance our U.S. clinical program and build the evidence needed for the next stage of Endoscopic Metabolic Restoration for Type 2 Diabetes.”

“Type 2 diabetes remains a massive global health challenge,” said Dean Newton, Chairman, General Partner, and General Counsel of Relevance Ventures. “We are pleased to support Aqua Medical as it evaluates an investigational endoscopic approach that has the potential to transform how this disease is treated.”

With enrollment actively advancing across all trial sites, Aqua Medical remains focused on generating robust clinical data to support its next regulatory milestones. By advancing PIMA through rigorous U.S. trials, the company aims to validate its platform and establish Endoscopic Metabolic Restoration as a practical, scalable option within interdisciplinary diabetes care.

About Aqua Medical

Aqua Medical is a clinical-stage medical technology company advancing a minimally invasive, through-the-working-channel-of-the-scope technology to address Type 2 diabetes. Using its proprietary radiofrequency vapor ablation (RFVA) system for the Proximal Intestinal Mucosal Ablation (PIMA) procedure, the company aims to deliver a scalable, device-based approach intended to address mechanisms associated with Type 2 diabetes and potentially improve metabolic outcomes.

The RFVA system is FDA-cleared for marketing for its indicated use in the gastrointestinal tract. Use of the RFVA system for the PIMA procedure is investigational. The safety and effectiveness of the RFVA system for the PIMA procedure have not yet been established.

Patients interested in learning more about Aqua Medical’s technology and ongoing clinical efforts are encouraged to reach out to the company or consult with their physicians.

About Relevance Ventures

Relevance Ventures is the nation’s first independently owned Native American venture capital firm, based in Nashville, TN. Operating with a prevention-first investment strategy, the firm targets early-growth stage companies across digital health, personal health, community health, and financial health, as well as scalable technologies that address systemic challenges. For more information, visit www.relevanceventures.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding Aqua Medical’s investigational technology, clinical development activities, and future expectations. Actual results may differ materially.

Media Contact: 

Dr. Aradhana Mariam Philips
[email protected]

SOURCE Aqua Medical Inc.

Everest Biolabs Awarded $2.1 Million NIH SBIR Grant to Advance Extracellular Vesicle Biomarker Discovery at Scale with High-Purity, High-Throughput Isolation

Direct-to-Phase II award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences will fund development of automated, plate-based, next-generation EV isolation technology for clinical-scale plasma biomarker studies

WALTHAM, Mass., Sept. 24, 2026 — Everest Biolabs, a pioneering life sciences company dedicated to elevating extracellular vesicle (EV) research, today announced that it has been awarded a $2.1 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Direct-to-Phase II award, an NIH mechanism for small businesses that have already demonstrated the feasibility of their technology, will support the development of next-generation, automated, plate-based EV isolation technology, aimed at a central problem in clinical proteomics: the proteins that carry the most diagnostic information in blood are buried beneath those that carry the least.

Protein concentrations in blood span more than 12 orders of magnitude, and a few dozen proteins account for most of the protein mass. Mass spectrometers therefore spend most of their measurement capacity on proteins that say little about disease, while the tissue-derived proteins that would signal what is happening in the brain, the heart, or a tumor sit at or below the limit of detection. EVs, nano-sized vesicles released by all cells, offer a way past this. They carry membrane and cytosolic proteins from the tissue that produced them, and because they are particles rather than free protein, they can be physically separated from the abundant plasma proteins that mask those signals. The barrier to EV-based biomarker discovery is the ability to isolate EVs cleanly and identically across the hundreds or thousands of samples that discovery and validation studies require.

The NIGMS-funded project will address this barrier on two fronts. Everest Biolabs will advance its automated, plate-based platform so that laboratories can process large sample cohorts in parallel with minimal hands-on time and the reproducibility required for clinical translation. At the same time, the company will develop next-generation Apex columns engineered to deliver higher-purity EVs from complex biofluids such as plasma, specifically addressing challenges in plasma-based deep proteomic and transcriptomic studies.

“The proteins that tell us the most about disease are the hardest to see in blood, and EVs are how we get to them,” said Tal Gilboa, co-founder and Head of Research at Everest Biolabs and Principal Investigator on the award. “This award lets us take the plate-based approach our team first developed at the Wyss Institute and turn it into a platform any laboratory can run: high-purity EVs from hundreds of plasma samples a day, isolated the same way every time.”

“Being selected for a Direct-to-Phase II award is a strong validation of our technology and the team we have built,” said George Daaboul, CEO and co-founder of Everest Biolabs. “Scalable, standardized EV isolation is the foundation for everything downstream, from biomarker discovery to diagnostics and therapeutics. This funding accelerates our mission to remove the bottlenecks that stand between EV research and the clinic.”

Since coming out of stealth in November 2024, Everest Biolabs has launched the Ascent and Summit instruments for automated EV isolation, the Apex family of SEC columns, and the Atlas ELISA kits for EV quantification and purity assessment. The company continues to equip researchers with precise, scalable, and reliable tools at every step, from foundational isolation to advanced analytics.

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R44GM165165. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

About Everest Biolabs

Everest Biolabs, founded on technology from David Walt’s laboratory at the Wyss Institute, is dedicated to excellence in EV research through a relentless focus on high-quality, easy-to-use tools for EV isolation and analytics. Our solutions enhance workflows, from foundational EV isolation to advanced analytics, enabling groundbreaking discoveries. With a vision to unlock the potential of EVs in clinical applications, we keep “science first” while fostering innovation and integrity in everything we do. Based near Boston, MA, we’re here to elevate exosome research at every step.

Media Contact

David Freedman
[email protected]
everestbiolabs.com

SOURCE Everest Biolabs, Inc.

ARK Invest Tokenizes ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX) with Securitize

ARK’s Venture Strategy Goes Onchain, Bringing Investors Exposure to Leading Private and Public Tech Companies and Advancing ARK Invest’s Partnership with Securitize

MIAMI, Sept. 24, 2026 — “ARK Invest, the disruptive innovation-focused investment manager founded by Cathie Wood, and Securitize Corp. (NYSE: SECZ), the world’s leader in tokenized assets, announce the tokenization of the ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX) through Securitize.”

This launch brings one of ARK’s flagship investment strategies onchain and marks the next phase of a relationship built around a shared conviction that tokenization can modernize how investment products are accessed, owned, and managed.

The ARK Venture Fund is an actively managed closed-end interval fund that seeks long-term growth of capital by investing across private and public companies aligned with disruptive innovation. Its portfolio includes investments in leading technology and innovation companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, and Databricks, among others. Through the tokenization of ARKVX, eligible investors accessing the Fund through Securitize can gain exposure to this actively managed portfolio through blockchain-based infrastructure. Fund holdings are subject to change.

“Tokenizing the ARK Venture Fund puts our conviction in the evolution, if not revolution, of capital markets into practice,” said Cathie Wood, Founder, CEO and CIO of ARK Invest. “Based on our research, tokenization has the potential to reshape fundamentally the way that investors access and participate in both private and public financial markets. Making the ARK Venture Fund available onchain is a natural extension of our mission to democratize access to technologically enabled disruptive innovation. Because it has built the regulated infrastructure to help make that vision a reality, we are excited to partner with Securitize in taking this important step forward.”

Upon release, tokenized ARKVX will be available on Ethereum, with Securitize providing the infrastructure supporting its onchain issuance and investor experience.

“ARK has built its business around identifying transformative technologies early and then acting with conviction,” said Carlos Domingo, Co-Founder and CEO of Securitize. “ARK’s strategic investment in Securitize reflected a shared belief in the potential for tokenization to transform capital markets, and today we are putting that conviction into practice. Bringing ARKVX onchain demonstrates how leading asset managers can use tokenization to move established investment products onto modern capital markets infrastructure.”

ARK Invest’s strategic investment in Securitize, announced in October 2025, laid the groundwork for this expanded collaboration. Through that investment, they committed to advancing institutional adoption of tokenized securities, broadening access to regulated investment products, and strengthening capital markets infrastructure.

Eligible investors can learn more about ARKVX and its availability through Securitize by visiting securitize.io/arkvx.

About ARK Invest
ARK Investment Management LLC is a federally registered investment adviser and privately held firm headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida. Founded by Cathie Wood in 2014, ARK focuses solely on disruptive innovation, aiming to identify large-scale investment opportunities across artificial intelligence, robotics, energy storage, multiomic sequencing, blockchain technology, and beyond. 

For more information regarding ARK’s research and advisor services, please visit ark-invest.com. For more information about the ARK Venture Fund, visit ark-funds.com/funds/arkvx. 

About Securitiz
Securitize (NYSE: SECZ), the leading platform for tokenized assets with approximately $5B in AUM (as of August 2026), is bringing the world onchain through tokenized funds in partnership with top-tier asset managers such as Apollo, BlackRock, BNY, Hamilton Lane, KKR, VanEck and others. It is the only company operating regulated digital-securities infrastructure in both the U.S. and EU, and has been named to the Forbes 2026 Fintech 50 and CNBC World’s Top Fintech Companies 2026 lists.

For more information, please visit:

Website | X/Twitter | LinkedIn

Contacts

Tom Murphy
[email protected]

Sam Ross
[email protected]

Disclosures:
The ARK Venture Fund is a non-diversified closed-end interval fund. An investment in the Fund involves risk, including possible loss of principal. The Fund’s shares are not listed on a securities exchange, no secondary market is expected to develop, and shareholders may not be able to sell shares when desired. Liquidity is limited to periodic repurchase offers, which may be oversubscribed. Investors should carefully consider the Fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses before investing. This and other information is contained in the Fund’s prospectus, available at assets.ark-funds.com which should be read carefully before investing. Eligibility and other restrictions apply.

SOURCE Securitize