Founded by the research team behind one of the most established AI agent labs in the country, NeoCognition aims to build agents that learn on the job to become specialized experts.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 21, 2026 — NeoCognition, a research lab developing self-learning AI agents, today announced its emergence from stealth with a $40 million seed funding round.

The oversubscribed round was co-led by Cambium Capital and Walden Catalyst Ventures, with participation from Vista Equity Partners and others. Angel investors and founding advisors include Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel, Ion Stoica, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Databricks, A&E Investments, Salience Capital Partners, Nepenthe Capital, Frontiers Capital, and leading AI researchers like Dawn Song, Ruslan Salakhutdinov, and Luke Zettlemoyer, among others.

Yu Su, CEO and Co-Founder at NeoCognition and Sloan Research Fellow, leads one of the most established AI agent labs in the country at the Ohio State University. Su’s team began developing large language model-based agents well before the ChatGPT moment. Over the years, they contributed a series of seminal and award-winning work, such as Mind2Web, MMMU, and SeeAct, that helped lay the foundation of the modern AI agent field. Research from their team is widely used in every frontier large language model from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.

“Dr. Su and his team have already developed research that spans every piece of the agent puzzle, ranging from perception to memory, planning, evaluation, and safety,” said Lip-Bu Tan, Founding Managing Partner of Walden Catalyst Ventures. “We are confident NeoCognition is uniquely positioned to tackle the hardest challenges in agentic AI.”

Coming out of stealth, NeoCognition’s research will create a new class of AI agents that continuously learn the structure, workflows, and constraints of the environments they operate in, and specialize into domain experts by learning a world model of work. In doing so, the expert agents become faster, more cost-effective, and more reliable. Deeper understanding of their environments also enables NeoCognition’s agents to be more responsible and safer actors in high-stake settings.

“AI today is fundamentally unreliable when it comes to executing real work that requires deep expertise,” said Yu Su. “The true power of human intelligence is the ability to continuously learn and specialize. Our approach mirrors how humans gain expertise on the job through building a structured model of their micro-world, and would eliminate the extensive manual customization required by current models.”

“As general-purpose agents become table stakes, the key challenge in AI is achieving expert-level intelligence,” said Ion Stoica, UC Berkeley Professor and Databricks Co-Founder. “NeoCognition’s new approach to building agents that learn to become experts has the potential to reach the level of reliability, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness required for high-stakes applications.”

“At the core of NeoCognition is a novel learning mechanism that will allow agents to specialize very quickly,” said Landon Downs, Managing Partner at Cambium Capital. “We have strong conviction in the team’s expertise and believe their research is charting a new path toward specialized intelligence that will democratize access to frontier agent capabilities.”

About NeoCognition
NeoCognition is the AI agent lab for specialized intelligence. Founded by leading AI researchers Yu Su, Xiang Deng, and Yu Gu, the company’s mission is to expand access to expertise by developing AI agents that continuously learn to reach expert-level intelligence. The company has $40M in committed seed capital, is backed by world-class researchers, and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

SOURCE NeoCognition.io

COSTA MESA, Calif., April 21, 2026 — CerraCap Ventures investment in Nephronomics reflects strategic conviction of backing platforms that transform fragmented healthcare systems into predictive, precision-driven ecosystems.

Nephronomics is a next-generation AI-bio precision medicine company. The company is building one of the world’s most comprehensive clinical and genomic data sets focused on cardio-kidney-metabolic (CKM) disease—a rapidly emerging framework that links cardiovascular, kidney, and metabolic disorders into a unified disease model.

Nephronomics’ moat is built on data— in this AI era, data matters more than models. It has exclusive access to the largest renal dataset globally, spanning 42,000+ patients across a significant portion of U.S. dialysis clinics. This scale is difficult to replicate, positioning the company as a leader in data-driven kidney disease innovation.

Nephronomics is translating this proprietary dataset into actionable biological insight using advanced machine learning. Its platform leverages state-of-the-art capabilities—including protein modeling, variant-effect prediction, and generative design—to identify new disease subtypes, uncover causal mechanisms, and develop novel therapeutic targets.

This approach enables a shift from correlation to causation in drug discovery—accelerating the development of precision therapies that directly address disease-driving molecular pathways.

The opportunity is significant, with chronic kidney disease affecting 14% of the U.S. population and 850 million people globally. Despite over $141 billion in annual U.S. spending, kidney disease remains under-researched, creating a clear gap for precision medicine approaches. The company intends to develop a pipeline of internal therapeutic programs while also partnering with pharmaceutical companies to accelerate drug development.”

For CerraCap, the investment aligns with its focus on backing AI-native infrastructure that enables systemic transformation across industries.

“This is not simply about applying AI to existing workflows,” Vikas Datt – CerraCap leadership noted. “It’s about enabling an entirely new intelligence layer for healthcare and life sciences. Nephronomics, will not only accelerate innovation in kidney disease but also demonstrate how the future of medicine will be built: on intelligent systems powered by data, driven by insight, and scaled through strategic ecosystems.”

For Nephronomics, the partnership brings more than capital—it adds strategic leverage.

“CerraCap shares our conviction that the ESKD population represents one of the most genetically informative cohorts in CKM disease — enriched signals of both protective and harmful variants that are uniquely powerful for therapeutic target discovery,” said Deniz Kural, Chief Science Officer and Founder of Nephronomics. “Their experience backing applied AI companies and their investment here supports our work translating those signals into precision therapies across the cardio-kidney-metabolic spectrum.”

CerraCap Ventures, a Southern California based early-stage venture capital firm, is dedicated to B2B enterprise-grade technology investments focused on the new fundamentals of digital innovation that are aligned to its core thesis of Healthier, Secure Planet. CerraCap Ventures enables rapid growth of startups by leveraging its distinctive Sales & Scale™ Business Model and driving revenue from large enterprises into its portfolio companies. www.Cerracap.com

Nephronomics, a joint venture between Mechanica Partners and Fresenius Medical Care, is assembling the world’s largest vertically integrated cardio-kidney-metabolic (CKM) disease database and deep learning model with >42,000 patients consented. The Nephronomics Atlas contains matching whole genome and longitudinal clinical data of patients with advanced CKD and ESKD including comprehensive laboratory data, diagnosis histories, treatments, and raw radiology images. For more information, please visit www.nephronomics.com.

Contact: Nikki Arora, [email protected]

SOURCE CerraCap Ventures

Transaction refinances existing debt, lowering cost of capital and facilitates growth

LOS ANGELES, April 21, 2026 — Salem Partners is pleased to announce that ValpakClipp (the “Company”), a leading provider of marketing and advertising solutions across direct mail, digital, and data-driven platforms, has successfully refinanced its debt facilities through a $140 million senior term loan and revolving credit facility (the “Facility”). Wells Fargo served as the agent bank for a group of lenders to the Company, and Salem Partners advised the Company and structured the transaction.

The transaction was led by Wells Fargo as Administrative Agent and Lead Arranger, with First Horizon Bank and UMB Bank participating in the syndicate. Salem Partners was engaged by the Company on an exclusive basis to structure, source, and execute the Facility, which refinanced the Company’s existing senior loan facility, as well as loans from Trive Capital and Eldridge Industries.

Salem Partners has a history of successful transactions with the Company. In 2023, Salem Partners advised the Company in the acquisition of Valpak, with financing led by Trive Capital and Blue Torch Capital. In 2024, Salem Partners advised the Company on the refinancing of its loan with Blue Torch, further optimizing its capital structure and enhancing financial flexibility.

Brad Wiginton, Partner at Trive Capital comments, “We appreciate the support from Wells Fargo and the rest of the bank group, who collectively recognized the Company’s strong market position, the resiliency and efficacy of direct mail, and the talented team leading the business. ValpakClipp is in a unique position to continue to grow and deliver a wide range of advertising solutions to both small business owners and national advertisers; we are excited about what lies ahead for the business.”

John Amato, CEO of ValpakClipp comments, “This transaction is a defining moment for our company. It streamlines our capital structure, provides significant capacity for future growth, and establishes a banking group that is fully aligned with our long-term ambitions. Just as importantly, it marks the successful culmination of our strategy to build the market-leading platform in cooperative direct marketing. With this financing in place, we are exceptionally well positioned to invest in growth, serve our customers at an even higher level, and create long-term value for our employees and shareholders.”

Stephen Prough, Managing Director of Salem Partners, commented, “We are pleased to have advised ValpakClipp on this successful refinancing. The strong support from a high-quality bank syndicate underscores the Company’s market leadership, resilient business model, and continued momentum across its core offerings. This transaction positions the Company well for its next phase of growth.”

About Salem Partners

Salem Partners is a boutique financial services company that offers high-touch wealth management, investment banking and merchant banking services. Founded in 1997, Salem Partners has built its business with a focus on delivering unparalleled service through experience, collaboration, and dedication to client success. Salem Partners is headquartered in Los Angeles and has offices in Dallas and San Francisco. For more information, please visit www.salempartners.com.

About Trive Capital

Trive Capital (“Trive”) is a Dallas, Texas based private equity firm with more than $8 billion of regulatory assets under management. Trive focuses on investing equity and debt in what it sees as strategically viable middle-market companies with the potential for transformational upside through operational improvement. We seek to maximize returns through a hands-on partnership that calls for identifying and implementing value creation ideas. The Trive team is comprised of seasoned investment professionals who have been involved in over 250 middle-market transactions representing in excess of $10 billion in revenue across Trive’s targeted industry sectors and situations.

Media Queries
[email protected]

SOURCE Salem Partners

NEW YORK, April 21, 2026 — Monk, the AI-native accounts receivable platform, today announced a $25 million Series A co-led by Footwork and Acrew Capital, with continued participation from BTV. The round brings total funding to $29 million, following a $4 million seed led by BTV in spring of 2025.

Trillions of dollars are trapped in accounts receivable every year — most of it via email, managed by teams manually chasing payments, answering questions, and matching deposits to invoices. Monk deploys AI to automate the full contract-to-cash lifecycle, delivering on average a 40% reduction in days sales outstanding, 25+ hours per month saved for AR teams, and a 24% higher collections response rate.

“AR touches your customers and your revenue — there’s no room for error,” said George Kurdin, Co-Founder and CEO of Monk. “We obsess over making AI accurate enough to handle real money. Every model call is wrapped in deterministic code and tested against thousands of edge cases. That’s what lets a small team manage over a billion in receivables for our customers.”

Monk will use the new capital to invest in research & development and continue to build category-defining products in the accounts receivable space.

“The challenging part of building in AI is diffusing the technology into the workflows that run the economy. We backed Monk because they’re one of the few application-layer teams willing to do the hard work,” said Nikhil Basu Trivedi, Co-Founder and General Partner at Footwork. “Monk’s wedge, an AI-native accounts receivable platform, is rapidly gaining adoption amongst AI-native companies like ElevenLabs and Profound, and is the beginning of a much broader vision to be the B2B revenue platform for the AI era. We at Footwork could not be more excited to partner with George, Joe, and the team to realize this.”

Monk was co-founded by George Kurdin and Joe Zhou. Previously, Kurdin worked at D.E. Shaw, Minecraft, and Streamlabs. Zhou is an engineer who held roles at Google and Snap. The company is headquartered in New York.

About Monk

Monk is an AI-native accounts receivable platform that automates the full contract-to-cash lifecycle for B2B companies — from invoicing and collections to cash application and dispute resolution. For more information, visit monk.com.

Media Contact:
Nurah Kutty
[email protected]

SOURCE Monk

Coming on the heels of national and international partnerships and licensing deals, funds will be used to grow the team, launch new designs, and continue collaboration with universities, athletes, government institutions, and global organizations

WARREN, N.J., April 21, 2026 — AXIA Time, creator of heirloom-quality, Swiss Made timepieces that honor life’s defining achievements, announced today that the company has raised a seed round led by Culper Capital Partners and Amity Supply. The investment will be used to continue to fuel AXIA’s recent growth, which includes its role as the Official Timepiece of the College Football Playoff, its partnership with the Heisman Trophy, including the launch of special edition timepieces in collaboration with last year’s winner Fernando Mendoza, new university licenses, and custom projects with agencies such as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the United States Secret Service.

The funds will also be used to expand AXIA’s team, support new product launches, scale strategic partnerships, and provide additional working capital to meet increasing demand across institutional and global collaborations.

“AXIA was built on a simple belief: the moments that define us deserve to be remembered in a way that lasts,” said John Kanaras, founder of AXIA Time. “To see that vision resonate with partners and investors who understand the meaning behind what we are building is incredibly meaningful. This investment allows us to continue honoring those moments at a larger scale, while staying true to the craftsmanship, intention, and care that define every piece we create.”

Culper Capital Partners, led by Managing Partner Adam S. Cook, brings an operator-driven investment approach rooted in long-term value creation and close partnership with management teams. Cook will also join AXIA’s Board of Directors.

Amity Supply also participated. Fund co-founder Matt Higgins is one of the preeminent venture investors in next-generation technology companies and beloved consumer brands. His expansive multi-billion-dollar investment portfolio spans over 100 leading brands and unicorns across sports and entertainment, media and marketing, consumer, and technology industries, including several of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies.

Together, the firms provide AXIA with both operational expertise and strategic insight as the company continues to expand its presence across high-profile partnerships and global markets.

“AXIA represents a rare combination of product quality, niche market positioning, and brand authenticity,” said Cook. “John and his team have built a business with strong fundamentals and a clear vision, and we are excited to partner with them as they scale and continue to execute that vision.”

“AXIA has created something that goes beyond traditional luxury by tapping into emotion, identity, and the moments that matter most,” said Higgins. “We see significant opportunity to grow the brand through meaningful partnerships and global storytelling, and we are proud to support the team in this next phase of growth.”

For more information, visit axiatime.com.

About AXIA Time
AXIA Time creates heirloom-quality, custom timepieces that honor life’s defining achievements. Guided by axia (value), philotimo (integrity and doing right by others), and the spirit of Ithaka (finding meaning in the journey), AXIA designs watches meant to be worn, cherished, and passed down. Every piece is crafted with Swiss Made movements, premium materials, and meticulous attention to detail, reflecting a commitment to quality, care, and personal service. From universities and championship teams to individuals marking once-in-a-lifetime moments, AXIA Time builds watches that capture a story and keep it close.

AXIA Time. Made for the moment. Built for forever.

SOURCE AXIA Time

BOSTON, April 21, 2026 — SpartanX, the AI-native offensive security company behind the industry’s first fully autonomous full-stack red teaming platform, today announced the close of its seed round led by Venture Guides, with participation from additional angel and corporate investors. Alongside the funding, the company has established its new Global Headquarters in Boston and appointed a new President and Chief Operating Officer to lead the scaling of its sales, marketing, and customer success teams.

A Partnership Built to Lead

The round was led by Venture Guides, a Boston-based venture capital firm focused exclusively on early-stage security, AI, cloud infrastructure, and data companies. Venture Guides has guided portfolio companies to more than 80% positive outcomes, with over 40% achieving multi-billion-dollar valuations, including Dynatrace, SolarWinds, LinkedIn and DocuSign.

Venture Guides operates on a fundamentally different model from traditional venture capital. The firm maintains a concentrated portfolio of 15 investments and commits 10% or more of personal capital to its funds. Every partner is actively involved in guiding portfolio companies across business strategy, finance, go-to-market execution, and product positioning on a weekly basis.

“SpartanX has built something truly unique in offensive security. A fully autonomous platform where 500+ AI agents coordinate across every attack surface, validate findings with real exploits, and deliver remediation in one continuous workflow,” said Anton Simunovic, Partner at Venture Guides. “The founding team’s deep domain experience, from building and exiting past security companies to securing platforms at the scale of Uber, provides that rare combination of both understanding and solving the customers’ pain through product vision. We are proud to partner with them.”

Scaling for Growth: New HQ and Executive Leadership

SpartanX has established its new Global Headquarters in Boston, positioning the company at the center of one of the world’s leading cybersecurity and enterprise technology ecosystems. The company is actively hiring and excited to bring new jobs to the Boston area, tapping into the region’s deep talent pool to accelerate its mission to make autonomous full-stack red teaming accessible to organizations of all sizes.

As part of this expansion, SpartanX has appointed Erik Hardy as President and Chief Operating Officer. Hardy brings over 25 years of progressive experience leading enterprise software and SaaS companies, with deep expertise in scaling go-to-market teams across global, strategic, and mid-market segments. In his new role, Hardy will lead SpartanX’s field operations, encompassing sales, marketing, customer success, and support, as the company moves from early access into broader market availability.

The Platform

SpartanX deploys more than 500 AI-powered offensive agents that operate simultaneously across six critical attack surfaces: web applications, APIs and source code, networks, cloud infrastructure, IAM and identity, and AI systems, agents and LLMs. Every finding is exploit-validated with proof, and every attack chain is mapped end-to-end, without human intervention. Beyond discovery, 100+ specialized agents handle triage, automated code-level fix generation, and compliance mapping to SOC2, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and more.

“After years of leading red team engagements and penetration tests firsthand, building and exiting cybersecurity companies, I knew the industry needed something fundamentally different. Having Venture Guides as a true partner, has helped catalyze decades of our team’s offensive security experience into the cutting-edge technology we launched today,” said Diego Spahn, Co-Founder and CEO of SpartanX. “Together, we are in the strongest possible position to lead the market and define a new category in AI-powered autonomous red teaming.”

SpartanX is currently accepting early access requests at www.spartanx.ai.

About SpartanX

SpartanX is an AI-native offensive security company building the next generation of autonomous full-stack red teaming. The platform combines 500+ AI agents with coverage across six attack surfaces, exploit validation, and automated remediation to deliver continuous security testing without human bottlenecks. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

For more information, visit www.spartanx.ai.

About Venture Guides

Venture Guides is a Boston-based venture capital firm providing active guidance for early-stage security, AI, cloud infrastructure, and data companies. With decades of experience building successful enterprise software companies, Venture Guides accelerates its portfolio with proven, team-based expertise and deep domain knowledge.

For more information, visit www.ventureguides.com.

Media Contact: SpartanX Communications [email protected]

SOURCE SpartanX Technologies, Inc.

Round co-led by Just Climate — the climate-led investment strategy of Generation Investment Management — and High Sage Ventures, as Afresh’s AI platform scales to 12,500+ departments with 70% year-over-year revenue growth in 2025

SAN FRANCISCO, April 21, 2026 — Afresh, the AI platform for grocery, today announced $34 million in new funding to accelerate its expansion. The round was co-led by Just Climate, the specialist climate-led investment business set up by Generation Investment Management, and High Sage Ventures, with participation from all major investors.

Every day, billions of decisions determine how food moves through the grocery supply chain: what to order, how much to stock, and what to produce. In a $10 trillion global industry built on perishable inventory and razor-thin margins, those decisions are made under constant pressure, often across fragmented systems.

Technology helped with shelf-stable goods. It couldn’t help with broccoli or salmon fillets.

Fresh food operates differently. Shelf life is measured in days. Demand shifts with weather and seasons. Inventory data is incomplete and constantly changing. Traditional retail systems were not built for this. This creates an industry-wide challenge to balance availability and waste.

Afresh’s AI platform brings real-time intelligence to these decisions, from store-level ordering to distribution center buying. Built first for fresh, Afresh developed AI designed for short shelf life, unpredictable demand, and imperfect data. That foundation now extends across the full grocery enterprise, including center store, frozen, and general merchandise.

“We’ve spent nearly a decade building AI to solve the complexity of grocery, and we’re now seeing that approach scale across the industry,” said Matt Schwartz, CEO and Co-Founder, Afresh. “The decisions AI makes in grocery aren’t about optimizing pixels on a screen — they’re about physical products with shelf lives measured in days, moving through a supply chain that feeds billions of people. Our platform orchestrates those decisions at scale, so buyers, store teams, and merchandisers can spend less time on routine execution and more time on the strategy and judgment that drive outcomes.”

Afresh is live in more than 12,500 departments across 40 states, partnering with leading grocery retailers including Albertsons Companies, Meijer, and Wakefern. Its platform supports merchandising, store operations, and supply chain teams in improving in-stock rates, reducing waste, and strengthening margins, enabling retailers to achieve measurable results, including up to a 25% reduction in shrink, a 3% sales lift, and a 7% improvement in inventory turns.

This new capital will accelerate that expansion, supporting broader deployment across retail partners and continued investment in next-generation AI.

An Industry at Inflection

The funding comes at a moment of accelerating adoption, as grocery retailers move from isolated pilots to scaled AI deployment across stores, categories, and supply chains. Afresh is leading that shift.

More than 60% of the company’s entire lifetime order volume has occurred in the last 12 months, as retailers expand adoption across stores, categories, and workflows. Over the same period, Afresh has sustained 70% year-over-year revenue growth while expanding from fresh replenishment into a platform spanning six enterprise-grade solutions — covering full-store ordering, production planning, DC buying, and supply chain optimization.

“HighSage has been invested in Afresh for many years, and our conviction has only grown,” said Owen Wurzbacher, Chief Investment Officer at High Sage Ventures. “Afresh has an exceptional team, a happy and rapidly growing list of customers, and a differentiated platform. Their best days lie ahead. This was an easy moment to grow our investment.”

Better Decisions, Less Waste, Lower Emissions

In grocery, food waste is a business problem before anything else. An estimated 30–40% of food is wasted across the broader food system, driving lost sales, margin erosion, and excess inventory. The decisions retailers make about what to order and stock ripple upstream — determining what gets grown, processed, and transported across the entire food system. Getting those decisions right is one of the highest-leverage interventions available to reduce waste and emissions at scale.

“Food waste is one of the most critical and overlooked drivers of emissions in the food system,” said Libby Spalding, Director at Generation Investment Management. “Afresh’s AI platform strengthens the demand signal at the retail and distribution center levels, which have outsized upstream consequences. The results mean stronger margins for retailers and lower emissions for the system.”

To date, Afresh has helped prevent more than 200 million pounds of food waste. Afresh continues to advance a clear premise: better decisions drive better outcomes — for retailers, for consumers, and for the global food system.

About Afresh

Afresh is the AI platform for Grocery — built for how grocery actually operates, from the fresh perimeter to center store and retail to distribution centers. The Afresh platform helps grocers make smarter decisions about what to buy, order, produce, and sell across the entire operation, delivering higher profits, less waste, and fresher food on the shelf. Founded in 2017 with the mission to eliminate food waste and make fresh food accessible to all, Afresh today supports more than 12,500 departments across 40 states, partnering with Albertsons Companies, Stater Bros., Meijer, Wakefern, and more. Learn more at www.afresh.com.

About Just Climate

Established by Generation Investment Management, Just Climate is a specialist investment business focused on scaling solutions for the highest-emitting, most off-track sectors of the economy. Just Climate’s mission is to establish climate-led investing as a capital allocation imperative for institutional investors globally. For more information, visit justclimate.com.

High Sage

HighSage Ventures is a Boston-based investment firm backed by permanent capital. The firm partners with world-class operators building competitively advantaged businesses, both private and public, with the goal of compounding per-share value over the long term. See more at highsage.com.

SOURCE Afresh Technologies

The Minnesota-based startup, now serving more than 200,000 users across North America, rolls out a sweeping update designed to modernize how private land gets discovered, leased, and managed.

BRAINERD, Minn., April 21, 2026 — HLRBO (Hunting Land Rentals By Owner), the nation’s premier online marketplace for hunting leases, today announced its most significant product update since the company’s founding in 2015. The release spans more than a dozen major features and represents a leap forward in how the platform connects private landowners with vetted hunters across the U.S. and Canada.

The update comes at a pivotal moment for the recreational land leasing industry. As public lands grow increasingly crowded and America’s approximately 800 million acres of private land remain largely untapped, a growing number of landowners and hunters are turning to digital platforms to bridge the gap. HLRBO has emerged as the market leader in that space, listing properties across all 50 states.

“We’re building something that didn’t exist before,” said Heath Schubert, CEO and Co-Founder of HLRBO. “Millions of acres of private land sit idle every hunting season.

This update is about removing barriers between those two groups.”

A Market at a Crossroads

The timing of the release reflects broader shifts in American hunting culture and rural land economics. Agricultural margins have tightened in recent years, and many landowners — farmers, timber companies, and heirs to generational property — are looking for ways to make money when their land is idle. At the same time, hunters who don’t have family connections to private property are increasingly priced out of guided hunts and crowded off public land.

HLRBO has spent a decade building the infrastructure to solve that problem: legally sound lease agreements, secure payment processing, background-checked hunters, and options for insurance. The new release doubles down on that foundation by adding consumer-grade experiences that make leasing land feel as simple as booking a hotel room, while preserving the aspects of trust and relationship that define the hunting community.

What’s New

The overhaul spans the entire platform, touching every major user workflow for hunters, landowners, and the field representatives who serve them.

For Hunters, the platform debuts a completely redesigned dashboard and navigation experience, including a new Lease Finder tool that makes discovering available properties faster and more intuitive. Short-term bookings (daily, weekly, seasonal) now move through a streamlined request model that gives landowners full control over who accesses their property.

For Landowners, the update introduces a dedicated calendar for managing short-term bookings and annual leases; automated lease renewals to eliminate the administrative burden of year-over-year renegotiation; and lease deposit functionality to protect property owners before a season begins. Landowners can now respond to hunter inquiries from a phone, tablet, or desktop.

For Field Representatives, HLRBO has launched a dedicated landing page and dashboard — the first purpose-built tools for the team members in the field who help landowners list and manage their properties.

Redesigned landing pages for both hunters and landowners round out the updates, giving new users a clearer, faster path to understanding how the HLRBO platform works and what it offers.

A Decade of Groundwork

Founded in Brainerd, Minnesota by Heath Schubert and brother Greg — a duck hunter who lost access to private land and couldn’t find a better way to find more — HLRBO has grown from a side project into the country’s most-used hunting lease marketplace. The platform now counts more than 200,000 registered users, with access to more than 1.5 million acres of land.

The company has operated with a deliberate focus on trust: every lease transacted through HLRBO includes a legally reviewed agreement, integrated insurance, and secure payment processing through its proprietary LandKey™ system. That infrastructure, Schubert says, is what makes the new consumer-facing features possible.

“None of this works without the foundation,” Schubert said. “We’ve spent years making sure that when a hunter shakes a landowner’s hand on our platform, it actually means something. Now we’re making it a lot easier to get to that handshake.”

Looking Ahead

HLRBO says this release is the beginning of a broader 2026 product push. The company has signaled additional feature announcements in the weeks ahead, with deeper dives into each new capability rolling out across its channels. The platform is available at hlrbo.com and in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

About HLRBO

HLRBO (Hunting Land Rentals By Owner) is the premier online marketplace for hunting leases, connecting private landowners with vetted hunters across the U.S. and Canada. Founded in 2015, HLRBO serves a community of more than 200,000 users with tools for listing, discovery, secure payments, legal agreements, and integrated insurance — making it easier than ever to find the right land, or the right hunter, for any season. More at HLRBO’s blog: https://www.hlrbo.com/news.

Media Contact:
Erin Mathe
952-261-8148
[email protected]

SOURCE HLRBO

HOUSTON, April 21, 2026 — Hilltop Residential (“Hilltop” or the “Firm”), a vertically integrated multifamily investment manager, today announced the final close of Hilltop Growth Fund VI (“Fund VI”), with $288 million in total commitments, marking the largest fundraise in the Firm’s history.

“Our strategy remains consistent: Acquire high-quality assets in growth markets where we can create value through operational improvements, capital enhancements, and disciplined asset management,” said Greg Finch, Managing Partner of Hilltop Residential. “Today’s capital markets dislocation is creating an attractive entry point for well-capitalized operators, enabling us to acquire high-quality communities at compelling bases.” By targeting markets characterized by robust population growth, diversifying employment bases, and favorable business climates, Hilltop aims to capitalize on the structural tailwinds driving multifamily demand across the region. Hilltop expects Fund VI to acquire approximately $1.5-$2.0 billion in gross asset value (GAV).

“We are incredibly proud to announce the final close of Fund VI. Closing our largest fund to date in one of the most challenging capital formation environments we’ve seen reflects the trust our partners have in our platform and our ability to capitalize on today’s multifamily opportunity set,” added David Wylie, Managing Partner of Hilltop Residential.

Fund VI received strong support from a diverse group of institutional and private capital partners. The investor base includes endowments and foundations, financial institutions, insurance companies, national RIA platforms, and family offices, reflecting continued confidence in Hilltop’s investment philosophy and operating platform.

With capital commitments fully secured, Hilltop will continue to build out Fund VI’s portfolio with nine assets acquired to date and additional pipeline opportunities already identified. Hilltop expects to reach full deployment within the next two years.

About Hilltop Residential
Hilltop Residential is an owner of multifamily real estate, operating across 15 markets in the southeastern United States. Through a vertically integrated platform, the Firm combines relationship-driven deal sourcing with hands-on operating expertise to drive superior risk-adjusted returns for its investors. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Hilltop Residential currently manages a $3 billion portfolio (13,000 units).

SOURCE Hilltop Residential