The fund invests in category-defining private technology companies through scalable and customized
secondary solutions

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 22, 2026 — Pinegrove Opportunity Partners (“POP”), a dedicated venture and growth secondaries investor, today announced the close of its inaugural fund, Pinegrove Opportunity Partners I (“POP I”), with $2.2 billion of capital commitments. POP I was oversubscribed relative to its original $2 billion target and is the largest first-time venture secondaries fund.

POP I invests in mid-to-late-stage private technology companies by delivering flexible liquidity and financing solutions to founders, management teams, venture firms, and their investors. The company is led by Brian Laibow, Prateek Bhide, Gaurav Mathur, and an experienced team with extensive primary underwriting and structuring expertise, as well as deep relationships across the venture industry.

Founded in 2023 with significant strategic and financial backing from Sequoia Heritage and Brookfield, POP was established as a partner to the venture and growth ecosystem to address growing liquidity challenges. POP helps meet this need by offering tailored capital solutions at scale, including direct investments such as company tenders, GP continuation vehicles, LP fund interests, and NAV loans. POP operates as a dedicated strategy within the Pinegrove platform, which also includes leading venture fund primaries, co-investments, and credit strategies (formerly known as SVB Capital).

“Over the past decade, the landscape for venture capital and growth investing has undergone a structural shift. Companies are staying private longer, which creates significant capital needs as stakeholders seek liquidity options to de-risk and diversify their portfolios,” said Brian Laibow, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Pinegrove Opportunity Partners. “POP was launched to address this persistent gap in the venture market and serve as a non-competitive, value-add partner. We are grateful for the strong support from our global and diversified limited partners. We look forward to leveraging our expertise and network to identify differentiated investments for our investors and support category-defining technology companies.”

To date, POP I has invested approximately $1 billion and has a robust, selectively curated, and highly proprietary pipeline of future investment opportunities.

About Pinegrove Opportunity Partners

Pinegrove Opportunity Partners (POP) is an independent investment manager founded in 2023 to provide investors with access to leading mid-to-late-stage private technology companies. Backed by Sequoia Heritage and Brookfield and managing more than $2 billion in assets, POP delivers scalable secondary and bespoke financing solutions to the venture and growth ecosystem.

POP leverages proprietary sourcing channels, differentiated underwriting, structuring expertise, and deep relationships within the venture ecosystem to deliver long-term value for its investors. To learn more, please visit POP.Pinegrove.vc.

SOURCE Pinegrove Opportunity Partners

The new round brings total capital raised to $29 million and accelerates product innovation, team growth, and continued expansion for the AI-native communications platform built specifically for automotive dealerships.

AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 22, 2026 — Mia Labs, Inc., the company behind Mia, the AI-powered conversational platform for automotive dealerships, today announced it has raised a $20 million Series A, bringing its total capital raised to $29 million. The round was led by Permanent Capital Ventures, with participation from Norwest alongside earlier investors Eniac Ventures, Vine Ventures, Analog Ventures (formerly J Ventures), and Logos Fund, as well as strategic automotive investors and industry leaders, including Yossi Levi of Car Dealership Guy.

This funding caps off a breakout year for Mia Labs. In 2025, the company expanded its footprint to over 350 franchise dealerships nationwide, enabling more than $45 million in dealership revenue while saving over 1.5 million human hours through AI-powered customer conversations.

This capital also positions Mia as one of the most well-funded AI-native communications platforms built specifically for car dealerships, reflecting both the scale of the opportunity and the company’s growing momentum.

To date, Mia has:

• Powered over 1 million customer conversations
• Booked more than 130,000 sales and service appointments
• Saved dealerships over 1.5 million human hours
• Enabled over $45 million of revenue from AI booked appointments
• Scaled to over 50 employees

Mia’s conversational AI platform supports multiple departments and communication channels, enabling dealerships to replace fragmented, manual workflows with a single intelligent system that drives revenue, improves the customer experience, and scales efficiently. Unlike legacy call centers, IVRs, and standalone chatbots, Mia replaces fragmented dealership communication tools with a single AI-native system operating across departments and channels.

A key differentiator behind Mia’s momentum is the team building the platform. Across engineering, sales, customer success, and leadership, Mia Labs brings together more than 100 years of combined automotive experience, spanning dealership operations, OEMs, automotive software, and frontline retail roles. This deep, firsthand understanding of how dealerships work informs every product decision, ensuring Mia is built for real-world dealer environments, not theoretical use cases. As a result, some of the largest dealership groups in the country trust Mia with their stores’ customer communications.

“This Series A funding is a major vote of confidence in Mia’s vision and the real results we’re delivering for automotive dealerships,” said Brian Hoang, CEO and co-founder of Mia Labs. “In today’s competitive landscape, dealerships can’t afford outdated tools and broken data that slow them down. We’re directly addressing this by building the most sophisticated AI super employee in the automotive space; one that’s deeply familiar with dealership operations, elevates the customer experience, and continually improves to help dealers drive more revenue.”

“Mia Labs is addressing one of the most mission-critical challenges in automotive retail: customer communication at scale,” said Mike Gamson, Managing Partner at Permanent Capital Ventures. “The team combines deep automotive expertise with world-class AI execution, and their momentum in just this last year alone speaks for itself. We’re excited to support Mia as they define the future of dealership operations.”

“Mia stands out because it was built by people who deeply understand dealership workflows and the realities operators face every day,” said Yossi Levi, Founder of Car Dealership Guy. “Their approach to AI is practical, results-driven, and purpose-built for automotive. I believe Mia is becoming a foundational platform for modern dealerships.”

On the tail of this announcement, Mia is set to ignite the future of automotive retail at NADA 2026 in Las Vegas, where they will reveal more game-changing product innovations. Mia will be at booth #6568N, where the company plans to show dealers, partners, and industry leaders exactly how Mia’s cutting-edge communications are transforming dealership operations and customer experiences.

About Mia Labs, Inc.

Mia Labs, Inc. is modernizing automotive retail with AI technology built for dealership operations. Founded in 2023, Mia combines decades of automotive retail experience with advanced artificial intelligence to create an AI super employee that answers calls, engages customers, and converts conversations into revenue opportunities 24/7/365.

Mia integrates directly with dealership systems, streamlines dealer technology stacks, and is customizable across sales, service, and reception. Designed for natural, human-like conversations, Mia supports multiple languages and delivers industry-leading performance to help dealerships operate more efficiently and serve customers better.

For more information about Mia Labs or to schedule a demo, visit www.mia.inc.

SOURCE Mia Labs, Inc.

NEW YORK, Jan. 22, 2026 — Waldo, a New York–based investment firm, today announced the close of its $225 million inaugural fund, Waldo I. Waldo locates and invests in proven, early-growth stage software and tech-enabled services companies.

Waldo was built for an expanding set of technology founders: entrepreneurs building enduring companies with both ambition and intention. These businesses are grounded in strong fundamentals and real-world traction, poised to become scaled market leaders, all without relying on capital markets to define their success.

True to its name, Waldo proactively seeks out unique, hard-to-find companies. Waldo combines institutional rigor with a founder-first mindset, building its investment platform with next-generation data and technology in the same way modern founders build their businesses.

Waldo was founded by Managing Partners Jon Rosenbaum and Julie Effron, long-time collaborators since their undergraduate years at the University of Pennsylvania. Both bring more than a decade of investing experience, having built distinguished track records at Insight Partners and Elephant, including over 30 combined board roles. Julie also has firsthand founder experience, having co-founded ALICE, a hotel software company acquired by Expedia. These experiences shape Waldo’s focused approach to partnering with founders.

Waldo I is backed by a high-quality group of institutional investors with deep domain expertise, including foundations, fund of funds and multi-family offices. Many of these institutions, alongside founders and operators investing in the fund, have known the firm’s founders throughout their careers. The fund was raised on an accelerated timeline and was oversubscribed.

With its core team and foundation already in place, Waldo is partnering with exceptional founders globally, wherever they are building. 

About Waldo

Waldo is a New York-based investment firm that locates and invests in proven, early-growth stage software and tech-enabled services companies.

Contact:

[email protected]

SOURCE Waldo

-Mews obtiene una inversión de 300 millones de dólares para consolidar su posición como el sistema operativo hotelero líder en el mundo

• EQT Growth lidera la ronda de financiación Serie D para acelerar el futuro nativo de IA de los hoteles a nivel mundial, con la participación de los nuevos inversores Atomico y HarbourVest
• El valor de la inversión asciende a 2.500 millones de dólares
• El volumen de transacciones de la plataforma de Mews alcanzó los 19.700 millones de dólares en 2025

NUEVA YORK, 22 de enero de 2026 — Mews, el sistema operativo para hostelería, anunció hoy que ha recaudado 300 millones de dólares en una ronda de financiación Serie D liderada por EQT Growth, con los nuevos inversores Atomico y HarbourVest Partners, y la participación de los inversores existentes Kinnevik, Battery Ventures y Tiger Global. Esta inversión marca un momento decisivo para la tecnología hotelera y valora a la empresa en 2.500 millones de dólares. Tras un año de crecimiento sólido y duradero, durante el cual el beneficio bruto de SaaS aumentó un 55 %, esta recaudación de fondos establece a Mews como el proveedor líder de tecnología hotelera para hoteles de todos los tamaños.

En 2025, la compañía consiguió:

• Una base de clientes de 15.000, con más de 132.000 hoteleros activos mensuales en 85 países
• 42,3 millones de reservas registradas, de las cuales 3,2 millones a través de Mews Kiosk¹
• Volúmenes de transacciones de plataforma de 19.700 millones de dólares
• Crecimiento acelerado del beneficio bruto de SaaS del 55%
• Creó más de medio millón (537 millones de dólares) en ingresos adicionales para los hoteleros a través de su función patentada Mews Spaces², impulsada por más de dos millones de reservas no relacionadas con habitaciones.

“Con la incorporación de EQT Growth, además de los nuevos inversores Atomico y HarbourVest, tenemos el respaldo para seguir avanzando más rápido que nadie en la industria”, afirmó Matt Welle, consejero delegado de Mews. “Estamos diseñando un sistema operativo que está cambiando la forma en que los hoteleros interactúan con sus huéspedes. Mews existe para manejar la complejidad operativa para que los hoteleros puedan centrarse en lo que importa: hacer que la hospitalidad sea aún más divertida, rentable y satisfactoria”.

La financiación ampliará las inversiones de Mews en inteligencia artificial, integrando sistemas controlados por agentes en toda la plataforma para automatizar flujos de trabajo complejos, reducir la carga cognitiva del personal, mejorar significativamente la experiencia de los huéspedes y acelerar la forma en que se construyen e implementan los productos, lo que permitirá a las propiedades:

• Orquestar operaciones en tiempo real con automatización inteligente
• Optimizar los ingresos y las ganancias con información avanzada sobre el comportamiento de los huéspedes
• Escalar el negocio sin la deuda de la tecnología heredada
• Simplificar radicalmente los flujos de trabajo para incorporar equipos más rápido

“La hospitalidad es el negocio de las experiencias”, afirmó Richard Valtr, fundador de Mews. “La validación de nuestro producto por parte del mercado es clara, tanto en EE.UU. como en Europa, y es fantástico ver cómo ahora nos estamos adelantando a cualquier otra empresa hotelera en términos de IA y hospitalidad de agentes. Es un momento emocionante para reforzar nuestra visión de hacer de los hoteles Mews los más rentables de la industria”.

Un nuevo estándar para una industria global

“He tenido el placer de conocer al equipo de Mews durante varios años y ser testigo de cómo la empresa pasó de una visión audaz a una organización que ofrece resultados a escala”, afirmó Kirk Lepke, socio de EQT Growth. “La hostelería es una de las industrias más grandes del mundo, pero sus sistemas centrales permanecen décadas atrás. Mews está creando un estándar tecnológico moderno, un sistema operativo hotelero habilitado para IA que ayuda a resolver la fragmentación que vemos en la industria. En EQT Growth estamos increíblemente emocionados de liderar esta ronda y asociarnos con Mews”.

Mews también acelerará la expansión de Mews Payments y su infraestructura fintech más amplia, integrando el comercio en el núcleo de las operaciones hoteleras y posicionando a Mews como el conector entre experiencia e ingresos. Además, la compañía continuará su ambiciosa expansión internacional en sus principales geografías de América del Norte y Europa, además de expandirse a nuevos mercados.

“Matt y Richard han creado una plataforma que define una categoría con la profundidad, el ritmo de innovación y el alcance global que requiere la hostelería moderna”, afirmó Laura Connell, socia de Atomico. “Los constructores más ambiciosos del sector hotelero se centran en ofrecer experiencias cada vez mejores para sus consumidores finales, y necesitan tecnología que pueda seguir el ritmo de las crecientes expectativas en torno a la velocidad, el servicio y la personalización. Mews es el facilitador clave para el futuro de la hostelería, y el equipo está en camino de construir una empresa generacional”.

La inversión se produce poco después de la finalización de la decimocuarta adquisición de Mews, DataChat, la plataforma líder de análisis de IA generativa. En enero de 2026, Mews fue nombrado el sistema de gestión de propiedades número uno por tercer año consecutivo y el sistema de punto de venta de hoteles número uno del mundo por los clientes y revisores de Hotel Tech Report, un reflejo de su capacidad para liderar las capas operativas y comerciales de la hostelería.

La ronda de financiación está sujeta a las condiciones de cierre regulatorias habituales.

¹ La capacidad de gestión de múltiples espacios de Mews que permite a una propiedad gestionar y vender cualquier tipo de espacio (no solo habitaciones) directamente en el sistema de gestión de propiedades (PMS).

₂ Un quiosco de autoservicio de check-in y check-out que permite a los huéspedes gestionar ellos mismos la llegada y la salida.

Acerca de Mews

Mews es el sistema operativo para hostelería, que unifica los flujos de trabajo en ingresos, operaciones y el recorrido del huésped para que los equipos puedan automatizar lo mundano y centrarse en experiencias memorables para los huéspedes. La plataforma Mews abarca PMS, POS, RMS, limpieza y pagos, ayudando a los hoteleros a pasar de la gestión de propiedades a la gestión de beneficios. Con 15.000 clientes en 85 países, la empresa fue nombrada Mejor PMS (2024, 2025, 2026), Mejor POS (2026) y figura entre los Mejores Lugares para Trabajar en Tecnología Hotelera durante seis años consecutivos por Hotel Tech Report.

Contacto para medios: [email protected]

Foto – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2867382/Mews__Richard_Valtr_Founder_and_Matt_Welle_CEO_of_Mews.jpg 
Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2053034/MEWS_logo.jpg

Turning ad creative into a feedback-driven system, starting with interactive ads

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 22, 2026 — San Francisco–based startup GIGR (dba. Playad) today announced it has raised $5.4 million in pre-seed funding to accelerate the development of AI marketing agents that help teams create, test, and improve advertising creative with less manual work and less guesswork. 

The round was led by BRV Capital Management and Mirae Asset Venture Investment, with participation from angel investors including Bora Chung (board member at Krafton and former executive at Bill.com), Jihun Yu (founder of Hyprsense, acquired by Epic Games), and Krew Capital.

From one-off assets to a workflow that learns

Even with modern tooling, producing effective ad creative is still slow, fragmented, and expensive. Teams move from briefs to handoffs to revisions, then stitch together performance insights after the fact – often without a clear path to what to build next. GIGR’s view is that the next leap in marketing won’t come from yet another tool. It will come from an AI-native workflow that turns performance signals into faster iteration – so creatives improve with every cycle.

That is what GIGR is building: a multi-agent marketing workflow designed to support the full creative lifecycle – briefing, production, experimentation, measurement, and iteration – so teams can run more tests and learn faster.

Why Playad starts with interactive ads

GIGR’s product, Playad (launched 3Q 2025) starts where the signal is strongest: interactive ads. Especially in gaming, these formats are widely used because they often drive higher conversion at lower CPI by letting users experience the product. They also capture granular actions – taps, swipes, and choices – making iteration clearer by showing not just whether a creative worked, but how users engaged. Industry analysis shows playable ad performance reached record highs in 2025, reinforcing the growing effectiveness of interactive formats.

Historically, however, interactive ads have been powerful yet impractical – slow to build, prohibitively expensive, and dependent on specialized developers. Playad makes them fast enough to iterate and simple enough for marketers to own, which changes creative from a bottleneck into a repeatable workflow at a fraction of cost. In addition, Playad is designed for rapid experimentation, and teams can A/B test interactive ads by instantly creating a wide range of variations.

While interactive formats are the initial wedge, Playad is built as a broader AI-native creative platform, enabling teams to create and iterate across image, video, and interactive formats within a single system.

“Marketing performance increasingly depends on how quickly teams can learn from creative – and act on it,” said Steve Chung, co-founder of GIGR. “We’re building AI agents that make iteration the default, so teams can quickly apply what’s already working across the market to their next creative without sacrificing quality.”

Customers feel the difference in speed and in confidence

Customers adopt Playad for speed, but what keeps them coming back is the workflow: teams can ship iterations faster, run more experiments, and tighten the loop between creation and performance.

In practice, customers have reported meaningful outcomes, including major reductions in production cost – as much as 90% in some cases – alongside measurable improvements in acquisition efficiency.

“We’re not trying to simply produce ‘more assets,'” said Jay Cho, CEO and co-founder of GIGR. “We’re building a system where every launch creates learning – and that learning directly improves the next creative decision. Creative is the most important lever for improving ROAS in modern marketing, and we are going beyond just efficiency gains to help businesses eliminate uncertainty across their decisions when it comes to digital advertising.

Team

GIGR’s founding team brings experience across high-growth startups and global technology companies, united by a single obsession: removing the bottleneck between creative iteration and ad performance.

What sets the team apart is its seven-founder structure. GIGR was built by long-time collaborators who chose to start together – each owning a distinct problem space, and all committed to rebuilding broken marketing workflows.

• Jay Jaeyeon Cho (Co-founder, CEO) previously headed the AI game studios at Bagelcode, playing a key role in the company’s growth to 50M+ users and approximately $70M in annual revenue. He brings a product-first view of growth at the intersection of games, AI, and performance marketing.
• Steve Nam Hyuk Chung (Co-founder, Business) has over a decade of experience across investment banking, strategy, and business development, including roles at Bank of America, PlayStation, YouTube, and 20th Century Fox. Educated at MIT and Wharton, he focuses on turning creative insight into repeatable business systems.
• Jayden Hyun Jae Park (Co-founder, Engineering) has led engineering teams building production-grade systems, including as a tech lead at Devsisters, with deep experience scaling AI-driven products from early prototypes to real-world usage.
• The remaining founders – Simon, Arthur, Daniel, and Youn – bring deep technical rigor and a competitive builder’s mindset, shaped by top-tier engineering training at Stanford and POSTECH and years of high-intensity problem solving.

About GIGR (Playad.ai)

GIGR is building a multi-agent AI platform for marketing, starting with an AI-native creative workflow that makes interactive ads practical – while enabling iteration across image, video, and interactive formats in one system. Learn more at https://playad.ai.

SOURCE GIGR

Published in the Journal of Hand Surgery Global Online, the study demonstrates that ultrasound-guided carpal tunnel release offers distinct advantages over open carpal tunnel release 

EAGAN, Minn., Jan. 22, 2026 — Sonex Health, Inc. (Sonex Health) and The Institute of Advanced Ultrasound Guided Procedures announced today the first of several peer-reviewed papers reporting data from its Post-Market RegIStry of the Patient Experience when uSing UltraGuIdeCTR™ fOr Carpal TuNnel Release (MISSION) study was published in the Journal of Hand Surgery Global Online. In this largest ever multi-center carpal tunnel release (CTR) study in the United States, the authors concluded based on the three-month data that both ultrasound-guided carpal tunnel release (UGCTR) using UltraGuideCTR and open carpal tunnel release (OCTR) are safe and effective treatments for carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). In addition, UGCTR was more commonly performed using only local anesthesia (WALANT) and was associated with smaller incisions, more suture-free closure, less opioid use, faster wound symptom resolution, fewer wound symptoms, and higher wound satisfaction.

With more than 1,400 patients enrolled across three arms, this published data will complement the 16 peer-reviewed UGCTR publications reporting on more than 1,300 patients and 1,700 hands already in the literature. Collectively, these peer-reviewed publications will be used to inform and educate physicians, patients and payors about the benefits of UGCTR using UltraGuideCTR.

“It’s been an honor to serve as principal investigator for MISSION,” said Dr. Victor Marwin, an orthopedic hand surgeon with Bluegrass Orthopaedics in Lexington, Ky. “While this research has been a huge undertaking, I cannot stress enough the importance of collecting real-world comparative data when it comes to being able to make the most informed decisions possible about treatment options for carpal tunnel release.”

Key takeaways from the data and study highlights include:

• 84.8% of UGCTR procedures were performed using only local anesthesia compared to 19.1% for OCTR.
• UGCTR was associated with a shorter incision (5.2 mm) compared to OCTR at 16.5 mm and less frequently required suture closure (14.6% vs. 100%).
• Postprocedural opioid use was lower following UGCTR (10.2% vs. 49.1%; P < .001).
• Improvements in symptom severity and functional status statistically favored UGCTR.
• Wound satisfaction favored UGCTR.
• At three months, wound symptoms were less frequent in the UGCTR group (P < .001), with complete resolution of wound sensitivity and pain reported in 60.7% and 22.8% of patients in the UGCTR and OCTR groups, respectively.

“This strong clinical data is consistent with our prior peer-reviewed, published research and continues to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of UGCTR procedures,” said Sonex Health President and CEO Bob Paulson. “This compelling data also supports our reimbursement strategies to ensure broad patient access to this innovative carpal tunnel release treatment option in all settings of care, including office-based procedures.”

ABOUT SONEX HEALTH AND THE INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED ULTRASOUND GUIDED PROCEDURES

Sonex Health, Inc. is empowering physicians with ultrasound-guided solutions that transform the patient experience. As the leader in ultrasound-guided surgery, Sonex Health is dedicated to pioneering innovative therapies and skill enhancement solutions that improve patient safety, decrease invasiveness, and reduce the cost of care, supported by robust clinical research and world-class professional education and training. The company has 52 issued or pending U.S. and international patents covering its current and future products and procedures.

The Institute of Advanced Ultrasound Guided Procedures was founded in 2018 to support the Sonex Health mission and clinical excellence and is focused on innovation supported by robust clinical research and world-class professional education and training that transforms the treatment experience for patients, providers and payers. The Institute has trained more than 900 physicians over the past four years.

For information about Sonex Health, UltraGuideCTR, and UltraGuideTFR visit www.sonexhealth.com. For more information about the Institute visit http://www.sonexhealth.com/educational-institute.

Contact:
Shelli Lissick
[email protected]
651-276-6922

SOURCE Sonex Health

RENO, Nev., Jan. 22, 2026 — Klir today announced the closing of a $10 million Series B equity investment alongside a $7.5 million credit facility from Innovation Banking at CIBC, providing long-term balance sheet strength and operational flexibility as the company scales.

This financing reinforces Klir’s long-term commitment to the water industry as a founder and employee-controlled company, continuing to provide the stable, trusted infrastructure that utilities and partners depend on every day across North America and beyond.

The Series B included participation from existing investor Insight Partners, which previously led Klir’s Series A, alongside a growth credit facility from CIBC, reflecting Klir’s scale, maturity and ability to pair institutional equity with flexible, non-dilutive financing.

In an industry where vendor ownership and stability matter more than ever, Klir’s Series B funding reinforces a clear commitment to preserving decision-making authority in the best interests of our customers, while continuing to invest in the operational data infrastructure water utilities rely on every day, with the support and oversight of experienced enterprise software partners.

“This funding allows us to grow without changing who we are,” said David Lynch, Co-Founder and CEO of Klir. “Klir is controlled by its founders and employees and that matters, especially for utilities choosing a system they expect to rely on for decades. Our priorities stay focused on building durable infrastructure, supporting our customers and investing in our product for the long term.”

The investment reflects strong conviction in Klir’s role as foundational infrastructure for water utilities. Across North America, investment in digital water solutions continues to accelerate, driven by aging infrastructure, workforce transitions, and increasing operational complexity. The North American digital water market is projected to grow from $11.5 billion in 2024 to $23.8 billion by 2033, with cumulative investment expected to reach $169.5 billion over the next decade, underscoring the growing demand for connected, enterprise-ready operational systems.

This Series B funding enables Klir to continue building its operational data hub with intention. This includes investing in generative capabilities built for environments where there is no margin for error – prioritizing data security and governance alongside streamlining and accelerating customer onboarding to deliver faster value with long-term stability.

Supporting this continued growth, Klir currently employs approximately 60 people and plans to expand rapidly over the coming year to support growth, new product development, customer onboarding and customer success.

This structure allows Klir to prioritize customer outcomes and operational confidence over short-term scale, while benefiting from experienced partners who support disciplined, long-term growth. Without pressure from a larger corporate parent or private equity ownership, Klir can invest in durable infrastructure, thoughtful product improvements, and customer-driven development, resulting in software utilities can trust to remain consistent, supported, and aligned with their operational needs.

About Klir

Klir is the operational data hub for water utilities, helping teams manage compliance and operations from a single, connected system. Klir centralizes data across programs to provide a clear source of truth that reduces risk and improves continuity. With enterprise-ready infrastructure and intelligent assistance through its generative agent, Boots, Klir helps utilities cut administrative burden and operate with greater confidence.

SOURCE Klir

HOBOKEN, N.J., Jan. 22, 2026 — ZBD, the payments innovator powering real-money transactions for games and apps, today announced it has secured USD $40M in Series C financing commitments from Blockstream Capital Partners (“BCP”), accelerating its growth as the only fully-licensed, vertically-integrated payments provider built for gaming.

ZBD uses the Lightning Network to power real-money embedded payments at scale, creating a frictionless, compliant money movement layer. The company already processes more than 120 million transactions annually and has doubled the number of games integrated with its SDK over the past 12 months, driven by adoption from developers including TapNation, Fumb Games and PlayEmber. These partners use ZBD’s infrastructure at scale to deliver tens of millions in fiat currencies, bitcoin, and gift card rewards to gamers.

In the $189 billion video games industry, where payments innovation is traditionally focused on maximizing revenue from player purchases (pay-ins), ZBD takes a novel approach. The company has also shown that instant real-money earnings (payouts) can be embedded natively into gameplay to boost lifetime value (LTV) and create a long lasting two-way value exchange with gamers. While the games industry already leverages rewarded user acquisition and monetization mechanics, ZBD enables embedded, instant, real-money payments – something other existing technology cannot support.

Ben Cousens, CSO of ZBD, said:
“Our mission is simple: to make money work in games by providing all-in-one payments technology to publishers and developers. The current financial and reward systems in games are slow and unwieldy, but ZBD is bringing the power of the Lightning network to deliver rewards at speed, while giving developers the flexibility to choose how they are presented. We’re happy that BCP see the value in our mission and our tech, and we’re delighted to welcome them on board.”

Nicolas Brand of BCP, said:
“We have been following ZBD for many years and believe it has achieved a rare pairing of native Bitcoin payments technology with an expansive and hard-to-replicate licensing framework across key regulatory regimes. This places ZBD among a very small group of credible Bitcoin payment service providers. We strongly believe in its mission to drive the convergence of payments and the Bitcoin Lightning Network, particularly within digital-first ecosystems such as gaming.”

The future of gaming payments

In 2025, ZBD became one of the first companies to secure both MiCAR and EMI licenses in the Netherlands, enabling regulated fiat and crypto payment services across the European Economic Area. This, in addition to Money Transmitter Licenses in the United States, expands ZBD’s financial capabilities far beyond rewards to card issuance, bank transfers, virtual IBAN creation, and currency exchanges.

During 2026, a complete, compliance-ready payments stack will come to life – giving console, PC, and mobile game publishers full ownership of money movement in their games and turning payments from a cost centre into a strategic capability that delivers deeper experiences for gamers. This enables real-money transactions across the entire creator economy, from games to user-generated content platforms and livestream tipping, unlocking new value and revenue streams and making money movement a native part of play.

Simon Cowell, CEO & Co-Founder of ZBD, said:
“ZBD is the payments infrastructure for the future of video games and virtual worlds, where real money moves natively through content. By giving developers and publishers full control of their payments infrastructure, we’re maximizing their revenue and creating additional value streams with new, real-money experiences that can be deeply embedded into gameplay.”

ZBD’s Series C unlocks significant capability for scale, as the company seeks to capitalize on its current product market fit in mobile payouts while building out more comprehensive, industry-wide solutions for all game publishers. This also includes expanding licensing globally and growing its commercial footprint across North America, Europe, LATAM and APAC to increase developer adoption. New developer tooling, platform enhancements and additional game integrations are scheduled throughout 2026.

For further info & interviews contact:
Raptor PR for ZBD
Enzo Vallente / Joshua Callaghan
+44(0)7399 329 478 / +44(0)7947 990308
[email protected] / [email protected]

About ZBD

ZBD is the all-in-one payment stack for games, pushing the boundaries of how money and games interact. Best known for powering instant real-money rewards that massively boost player engagement, ZBD is the only licensed payment service provider that enables games to fully embed transactions into gameplay – whether it’s paying players or getting paid by them, pay becomes a part of play.

To learn more, visit https://zbdpay.com

About BCP

Blockstream Capital Partners (BCP) is an investment group of Bitcoin pioneers driving the convergence of Bitcoin and institutional finance. Affiliated with Dr. Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, the global leader in Bitcoin and blockchain infrastructure, BCP brings together early Bitcoin investors from before the first halving and veteran institutional finance leaders with decades of experience managing global capital.

BCP invests across asset classes – venture capital, private and public equity, credit, real estate, and insurance – and across the entire stack of Bitcoin finance: from infrastructure (including trading, custody, payments, and settlement) to Bitcoin-based applications and financial instruments. Its approach reflects the same philosophy that defines Blockstream: an uncompromising commitment to building the financial infrastructure of the future and a long-term conviction in Bitcoin.

BCP operates a comprehensive investment platform offering institutional-grade Bitcoin solutions designed to deliver Bitcoin-referenced returns and long-term value for investors. With a global presence in key financial hubs, BCP is positioned to serve leading institutional allocators worldwide. 

SOURCE ZBD

AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 22, 2026 — Neurophos, a leader in photonic AI chip technology, has raised $110 million in an oversubscribed Series A round, bringing total funding to $118 million. The round was led by Gates Frontier, with participation from M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund), Carbon Direct Capital, Aramco Ventures, Bosch Ventures, Tectonic Ventures, Space Capital, and others.

“Modern AI inference demands monumental amounts of power and compute,” said Dr. Marc Tremblay, Corporate Vice President and Technical Fellow of Core AI Infrastructure at Microsoft. “We need a breakthrough in compute on par with the leaps we’ve seen in AI models themselves, which is what Neurophos’ technology and high-talent density team is developing.”

As AI adoption accelerates, data centers face critical limitations in power and scalability. Traditional silicon-based GPUs cannot meet growing computational demands, resulting in increased costs and energy consumption. Neurophos addresses these challenges with a proprietary optical processing unit (OPU) that integrates over one million micron-scale optical processing elements on a single chip. This innovation delivers up to 100x the performance and energy efficiency of current leading chips, offering a practical, drop-in replacement for GPUs in data centers.

“Moore’s Law is slowing, but AI can’t afford to wait. Our breakthrough in photonics unlocks an entirely new dimension of scaling, by packing massive optical parallelism on a single chip,” says Dr. Patrick Bowen, CEO and Co-Founder of Neurophos. “This physics-level shift means both efficiency and raw speed improve as we scale up, breaking free from the power walls that constrain traditional GPUs.” 

Neurophos’ breakthrough lies in the development of micron-scale metamaterial optical modulators—a 10,000x miniaturization over previous photonic elements—making large-scale, manufacturable photonic computing possible for the first time. The result is a new class of AI accelerator: ultra-fast, energy-efficient, and adaptable to future AI workloads.

“As the AI industry grapples with a surge in demand that tests our ability to satisfy with compute and power, disruptive approaches to compute may open routes to sustained or accelerated systems scaling that will be needed before the end of the decade. With their approach to hyper-efficient optical computation, the Neurophos team have advanced swiftly from a working proof of concept towards a realistic plan to deliver products on a timeline we can underwrite and believe in,” said Michael Stewart, Managing Partner at M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund.

Neurophos’ technology enables significant reductions in power consumption, supporting the next generation of AI infrastructure without the need for exponential increases in energy or physical resources. The company’s advancements promise to make AI more accessible and cost-effective across industries.

The new funding will accelerate delivery of Neurophos’ first integrated photonic compute system, including datacenter-ready OPU modules, a full software stack, and early-access developer hardware. The company is expanding its Austin headquarters and opening a San Francisco engineering site to meet early customer demand.

Additional investors include DNX Ventures, Geometry, Alumni Ventures, MetaVC Partners, Morgan Creek Capital, Silicon Catalyst Ventures, Mana Ventures, Gaingels, and others. Cooley LLP serves as legal counsel.

About Neurophos
Neurophos Inc. is an Austin-based semiconductor company developing high-performance, energy-efficient photonic AI inference chips. Founded by Dr. Patrick Bowen and Dr. Andrew Traverso, the team includes industry veterans from NVIDIA, Apple, Samsung, Intel, AMD, Meta, ARM, Micron, Mellanox, Lightmatter, and more. For details, visit www.neurophos.com.

SOURCE Neurophos