End-to-end automated ad platform starts with creator-led sponsored content ad reads on YouTube, attracting leading advertisers and top creators

NEW YORK, Nov. 1, 2023 — Agentio, the first-of-its-kind AI-powered ad platform for sponsored creator content, launched today with $4.25M in seed investment funding. The round was co-led by Craft Ventures & AlleyCorp, with participation from additional institutional investors including Antler, Protagonist, and Permanent Capital.

Other strategic investors include Neal Arthur (Global CEO of Wieden+Kennedy); Cody Ko (Mega-creator); Rory Paterson (Global Vice President of Media, Expedia Group); Jeff Ragovin (Co-Founder Buddy Media /Salesforce); Michael Sugar (Academy Award-winning producer); Steven Galanis (Co-Founder of Cameo); and Elizabeth Cutler (Co-Founder, SoulCycle and Peoplehood) in addition to other leading creators and marketing leaders.

Agentio was co-founded by Arthur Leopold, former President and first employee at Cameo, who led all go-to-market functions and scaled the celebrity talent marketplace that drove $500M in sales, and Jonathan Meyers, a former engineer and manager at Spotify who led the Automated Content Marketing team that drove multi-million monthly active user outcomes using AI/ML. The duo has now launched the first automated ad platform for creator content, starting with YouTube creator-led sponsored content ad reads, leveraging the team’s firsthand experience with the pain points that both creators and marketers face.

Until today, the process of connecting creators to marketers has been manual and labor intensive, and has largely been conducted offline at great expense to both sides. Agentio’s platform now makes it as easy to buy sponsored content as buying Facebook and Google ads. By automating a previously unscalable process, Agentio aims to shift a meaningful percentage of the $300B digital ad spend market to highly-performant, creator-led ad reads. Agentio is launching with 30+ second creator-led ad reads on YouTube, capitalizing on an underpriced and under-monetized ad unit with abundant inventory from top creators. The team will then rapidly expand to other ad channels.

“Marketers need a performant and scalable ad channel more than ever, and we’re unlocking humanized and authentic content, in a programmatic way through our first-of-its-kind technology,” says Arthur Leopold, Co-Founder & CEO at Agentio. “We’re thrilled to partner with leading VCs, marketers, and creators to finally scale this ad unit and drive real, measurable business outcomes through underserved and undervalued attention on YouTube.”

The Agentio ad platform offers marketers direct access to a premium network of creators with bespoke and highly engaged audiences. Its patent-pending AI technology automates creator and brand matches relevant to a brand’s audience by giving marketers a superhuman understanding of a creator. Agentio also offers more liquidity and revenue to creators, enabling them to list their inventory in real-time, so that brands can auto-bid on available ad inventory, in seconds. Agentio’s first-of-its-kind technology enables brands to significantly scale their creator campaigns, without additional bandwidth constraints.

“Agentio’s platform is an industry-first, utilizing predictive models to match creators and brands seamlessly,” says Jonathan Meyers, Co-Founder & CTO of Agentio. “With access to first-party ad performance data and a machine level understanding of creator content, our product’s ability to deliver authentic and performant ad reads through end-to-end automation, is highly-contrarian and will completely transform the way sponsored ad content occurs across various social channels.”

“Creator-led marketing is one of the most effective ways to advertise, but the challenge is scaling these programs across platforms,” said Bryan Rosenblatt, partner at Craft Ventures. “Agentio is building a standardized, scalable platform that combines the easy, modern ad buying experience marketers have come to expect with the magic of pairing the right creator with the right advertiser. This is something that many of our portfolio companies have been asking for, and that the broader advertising industry needs.”

Agentio has already launched a beta-version of the platform with leading spenders of YouTube sponsored content and top creators. The funding will be used to accelerate Agentio’s product development and go-to-market strategy with creators and brands.

“We are thrilled to back Agentio and firmly believe that the Agentio team is poised to reinvent how sponsored content is built, bought, and sold,” says Susannah Shipton, Partner at AlleyCorp. “In the same way that DoubleClick revolutionized display advertising (and ultimately built the infrastructure for ad content on the internet), we expect that Agentio will build the new infrastructural engine for sponsored content – a far bigger market opportunity. Just as importantly, we believe that using Agentio will be a massive unlock for creators and marketers in terms of time and expense, meaning they can spend more time doing what they do best: creating enduring content that engages audiences around the world.”

About Agentio:
Agentio is the first-of-its-kind ad platform for sponsored creator content – making the purchase of creator content as easy for brands as buying Facebook and Google ads. Agentio is enabling a new level of scale, measurement, and efficiency through its ad platform while giving brands the ability to share their message through the most authentic and trusted voices. For more information, visit https://www.agentio.com/.

SOURCE Agentio

BOSTON, Nov. 1, 2023 — Toposware, a pioneer in zero-knowledge technology, is proud to announce the successful completion of its $5 million strategic seed extension round.

The round was led by Evolution Equity Partners and featured participation from prominent investors such as Triatomic Capital, K2 Access Fund, Polygon’s Founder and Chairman Sandeep Nailwal, as well as key leaders across global insurance, finance, manufacturing, healthcare, consulting and tech. The key highlights of this raise include the following:

Strategic Partners: This latest funding round was purposefully constructed to bring key VCs and industry leaders on board with direct experience in building global standards, scaling ubiquitous products to massive market share, and aligning access and utility within target market sectors.

Enterprise Scalability: With a focus on addressing challenges related to interoperability, privacy, and scalability, Toposware is poised to bring zero-knowledge to the enterprise ecosystem. This investment will further enable the company to engage leading enterprise clients with the launch of its Enterprise Early Access Program.

Topos Builders Program: Toposware’s recently launched Testnet and the Topos Builders Program which are driving increased adoption and developing the next generation of zero-knowledge infrastructure. The first Topos Builders Program cohort is currently oversubscribed by 500% and is on track to attract projects and talent into the ecosystem from day one.

Core Infrastructure: The Toposware team’s growth plans continue with the recruitment of world-class talent to fulfill its goals of building disruptive technology for a trustless connected future. With a current emphasis in the Americas and Europe, Toposware is focused on further building out its engineering team to deliver core zero-knowledge infrastructure and community roles for ecosystem adoption.

Taher Elgamal, Evolution Equity Partner and “Father of SSL”, commented on the significance of Toposware’s technology, “creating infrastructure that fundamentally changes the way parties digitally interact is a daunting undertaking, however, the opportunities are massive. Evolution Equity Partners is excited to support Toposware as they lead from the front – propelling zero-knowledge innovation to mainstream utility. We believe the team has the passion and expertise to set zero-knowledge proofs as a core component of the next generation of global technology infrastructure.”

Toposware’s CEO, Theo Gauthier, expressed his enthusiasm for the company’s future, stating, “Toposware is entering a new phase of growth and development where we are laser-focused on applying the differentiated utility of zero-knowledge to real-world use cases. We couldn’t be more excited to be supported by this world-class investor group and look forward to leveraging their collective experience to accelerate the execution of our goals – bringing developers, product teams, organizations, and users together to create novel value.”

About Toposware 
Toposware is a research and engineering company building disruptive technology for a trustless, connected future. Our team takes a collaborative, academic approach to innovating and engineering infrastructure, protocol standards, and products to enable inclusive value creation within a decentralized future. We are committed to solving the hardest problems in cryptography and distributed systems to advance novel open internet standards.

SOURCE Toposware

$8.0 BILLION KPS SPECIAL SITUATIONS FUND VI AND
$1.7 BILLION KPS SPECIAL SITUATIONS MID-CAP FUND II

NEW YORK, Nov. 1, 2023 — KPS Capital Partners, LP (“KPS”) announced today final closings of KPS Special Situations Fund VI (“Fund VI”) and KPS Special Situations Mid-Cap Fund II (“Mid-Cap Fund II”) were simultaneously held on October 25, 2023. Fund VI and Mid-Cap Fund II, with $9.7 billion in aggregate capital commitments, will continue KPS’ over 25-year focus on making control investments in highly complex corporate carve-outs, turnarounds, restructurings and other special situations.

Fund VI and Mid-Cap Fund II were oversubscribed with aggregate capital commitments over 36% greater than their predecessor funds with $7.1 billion in aggregate capital commitments.

Michael Psaros and David Shapiro, Co-Founders and Managing Partners of KPS, said, “We are humbled by the demand from the global investment community for Fund VI and Mid-Cap Fund II. We thank so many of the world’s leading institutional investors for their trust and support of our firm.

The success of this fundraise demonstrates the long-term partnership we established with our investors over decades. We are pleased to have the continued support of our returning limited partners and to welcome many new limited partners. With investors from 30 countries, our investor base reflects the global nature of our firm and its portfolio companies.

We are proud of our ability to create real value by seeing value where other investors do not, buying right and making businesses better – across decades, industries, and financial, business and economic cycles. We believe our success and strong investment returns over 25 years are attributable to the tenure and continuity of our partnership, the strength of our core investment team and our operations-focused investment strategy.”

Raquel Palmer, Co-Managing Partner and Chair of KPS’ Investment Committee, added, “We have $13.6 billion of equity capital to invest across our KPS platform today. We raised Fund VI and Mid-Cap Fund II at precisely the right time, in precisely the right market and look forward to aggressively capitalizing on the immense investment opportunity to come.”  

The Fund VI investment team will be managed by Co-Managing Partners Michael Psaros, David Shapiro and Raquel Palmer, and Partners Jay Bernstein, Ryan Baker, Kyle Mumford and Rahul Sevani, who together lead a team of experienced and talented professionals.

Mid-Cap Fund II will focus on investments in the lower end of the middle market that generally require less than approximately $200 million of initial equity capital. KPS Mid-Cap targets the same type of investment opportunities and utilizes the same investment strategy that KPS’ flagship funds have for over 25 years. KPS Mid-Cap leverages KPS’ global platform, reputation, track record, infrastructure, best practices, knowledge and experience. The Mid-Cap Fund II investment team will be managed by Partners Pierre de Villeméjane and Ryan Harrison, who lead a team of experienced and talented professionals.

Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal counsel to Fund VI and Mid-Cap Fund II.

About KPS Capital Partners, LP

KPS, through its affiliated management entities, is the manager of the KPS Special Situations Funds, a family of investment funds with approximately $21.6 billion of assets under management (as of June 30, 2023, pro forma for the final close of Fund VI and Mid-Cap Fund II).¹ For over three decades, the Partners of KPS have worked exclusively to realize significant capital appreciation by making controlling equity investments in manufacturing and industrial companies across a diverse array of industries, including basic materials, branded consumer, healthcare and luxury products, automotive parts, capital equipment and general manufacturing. KPS creates value for its investors by working constructively with talented management teams to make businesses better, and generates investment returns by structurally improving the strategic position, competitiveness and profitability of its portfolio companies, rather than primarily relying on financial leverage. The KPS Funds’ portfolio companies currently generate aggregate annual revenues of approximately $20.4 billion, operate 223 manufacturing facilities in 26 countries, and have approximately 48,000 employees, directly and through joint ventures worldwide (as of September 30, 2023). The KPS investment strategy and portfolio companies are described in detail at www.kpsfund.com.

SOURCE KPS Capital Partners, LP

Company Backed by $60M Series A Financing from Versant Ventures, a16z Bio + Health, ARCH Venture Partners, and GV

BRISBANE, Calif., Nov. 1, 2023 — Gate Bioscience, a biotechnology company creating a new class of medicines called Molecular Gates, today unveiled the company and its scientific platform. Founded in 2021, Gate is emerging from stealth with a novel scientific platform; a world-class management and advisory team with a significant track record of success; and $60M in Series A funding led by Versant Ventures and a16z Bio + Health, with participation from ARCH Venture Partners and GV.

Molecular Gates are small molecules that eliminate disease-causing extracellular proteins. Extracellular proteins are drivers of many human diseases, ranging from inflammatory conditions to neurodegenerative disease to several cancers. Gate’s novel approach targets a ubiquitous mechanism in human biology: the way in which these proteins are secreted and emerge from cells.

Human cells make over 4,000 different extracellular proteins, including secreted and membrane proteins, which, as they are produced, must cross a membrane to move from inside a cell to the outside. The vast majority of these proteins make that journey through a single channel in the endoplasmic reticulum called the secretory translocon. This channel is the only gateway for both beneficial and disease-causing proteins to exit the cell and act in the body. Molecular Gates drug this channel to stop disease-causing proteins at their source: inside the cell. 

“More than 1,000 extracellular proteins are implicated in a wide range of diseases, yet all of these conditions have one mechanism in common: the secretion of a disease-causing protein through the secretory translocon,” said Jordi Mata-Fink, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO of Gate. “Gate’s chemistry, platform, and expertise are laser-focused on this molecular process. For diseases caused by extracellular proteins, our aim is to restore the harmful proteins to normal levels or even, in the case of some conditions, to eliminate the disease-causing proteins entirely. We are inventing a new class of medicines that can bring hope to patients with devastating diseases that are not treatable, or not well treated, today.”

Inventing a New Class of Medicines

Gate has the capability to selectively block specific proteins from passing through the secretory translocon. Molecular Gate medicines bind to the secretory translocon and set up a “gate” that recognizes and stops a specific, disease-causing protein from exiting. Other, non-targeted proteins are able to move through the secretory translocon normally. With nowhere to go, the blocked protein is redirected to be degraded instead of secreted.

“Molecular Gates are unique since they harness the power of small molecules, enabling them to be taken orally and to access the whole body, including the brain,” said Clare Ozawa, Ph.D., Managing Director at Versant Ventures and a Gate board member. “By blocking disease-causing proteins at their source rather than tackling them in a complex extracellular environment, Gate’s approach is both straightforward and powerful.”

Gate’s novel approach is fueled by the company’s proprietary Molecular Gate Discovery Platform^™, which combines a privileged library of Molecular Gates; a suite of bespoke, secretion-focused assays and technologies; and deep insights into the biology and structural biology of the secretory pathway. This platform enables high-throughput screening of small molecule libraries alongside comprehensive, quantitative profiling of the entire secreted protein universe in order to develop selective therapies.

“The next generation of small molecule therapeutics is expanding into new and diverse biochemical functions. Molecular Gate medicines have the potential to change how we treat important diseases by adding an entirely new mechanism of action to our arsenal,” said Vineeta Agarwala, M.D., Ph.D., General Partner at a16z Bio + Health and a Gate board member. “With its powerful discovery engine, cutting-edge technologies, and leading team, Gate is poised to realize the potential of this new modality.”

A World-Class Team of Company Builders and Drug Developers

Gate is led and supported by an experienced team of company builders and drug developers with an extensive track record of creating innovative new medicines in pharma and biotech. Collectively, Gate’s leadership team has been at the vanguard of drug development in multiple important modalities, including molecular glues, PROTACs, splice modulators, and covalent inhibitors.

Gate is led by:

• Jordi Mata-Fink, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
• Pat Sharp, Ph.D., Scientific Co-Founder and Vice President of Discovery Science
• Raman Talwar, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer
• Brian Cathers, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer

Gate’s Board of Directors includes:

• Tom Daniel, M.D., Chairman of the Board for Gate and former President of Global Research and Early Development at Celgene
• Clare Ozawa, Ph.D., Managing Director at Versant Ventures
• Vineeta Agarwala, M.D., Ph.D., General Partner at a16z Bio + Health

Gate’s management team is complemented by highly accomplished advisors in the fields of drug development, new chemical modalities, and protein secretion. Key advisors include Scott Biller, Ph.D., Executive Venture Partner at GV (Gate board observer); Jay Parrish, Ph.D., Venture Partner at ARCH Venture Partners (Gate board observer); and James Winkler, Ph.D. (Chief Scientific Advisor), among others. Please visit Gate’s website for additional information on the company’s scientific advisors.

“I’ve been involved with the advancement of many modalities throughout my career, and I am truly impressed with the broad potential offered by Gate’s approach,” said Dr. Daniel. “Molecular Gates remind me of the early days of molecular glues, where we combined new chemistry, the right technology, and deep mechanistic focus to create a whole new type of medicine. This team and platform are uniquely enabled to unlock this novel therapeutic class.”

To learn more about the secretory translocon, Molecular Gates, and the company, please visit Gate at www.gatebio.com or follow us on LinkedIn. 

About Gate Bioscience
Gate Bioscience is a venture-backed, preclinical biotech company creating a new class of medicines called Molecular Gates. Our therapeutics are small molecules that aim to cure diseases by selectively eliminating harmful extracellular proteins at their origin: inside the cell. Every extracellular protein—of which there are more than 4,000—must pass through a single channel in the cell before it can be secreted into the body. Molecular Gates bind to this channel, setting up a “gate” that recognizes and blocks a specific, disease-causing protein from exiting. With nowhere to go, the protein is redirected to be degraded by the cell’s natural cleanup mechanism instead of being secreted. By eliminating the harmful protein at the source, Gate aims to eliminate the disease for patients. Founded in 2021, Gate’s mission to create this new class of medicines is backed by Versant Ventures, a16z Bio + Health, ARCH Venture Partners, and GV. Learn more at www.gatebio.com.

About Versant Ventures

Versant Ventures is a leading healthcare venture capital firm committed to helping exceptional entrepreneurs build the next generation of great companies. The firm’s emphasis is on biotechnology companies that are discovering and developing novel therapeutics. With $5.4 billion under management and offices in the U.S., Canada and Europe, Versant has built a team with deep investment, operating and R&D expertise that enables a hands-on approach to company building. Since the firm’s founding in 1999, more than 95 Versant companies have achieved successful acquisitions or IPOs. For more information, please visit www.versantventures.com.

About Andreessen Horowitz 
Founded in Silicon Valley in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz (known as “a16z”) is a venture capital firm that backs bold entrepreneurs building the future through technology. We are stage agnostic: We invest in seed to venture to late-stage technology companies, across bio + healthcare, consumer, crypto, enterprise, fintech, games, and companies building toward American dynamism.

SOURCE Gate Bioscience

Chainguard–the leader in software supply chain security–announced it has completed a $61 million Series B round of funding led by Spark Capital, bringing the company’s total fundraising to $116 Million alongside accelerated growth for its Chainguard Images solution

KIRKLAND, Wash., Nov. 1, 2023 — Chainguard, the leader in software supply chain security, today announced it has completed a $61 million Series B round of funding led by Spark Capital and existing investors Sequoia Capital, Amplify Partners, The Chainsmoker’s Mantis VC, and Banana Capital.

Over the past six months alone, the company’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) has tripled and its hardened, secure container image solution is now used by Fortune 500 companies and technology providers, including GitGuardian, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Sourcegraph, Snowflake and Replicated. 

“The future is clear – if you adopt open source software you are responsible for securing it. Chainguard is on a mission to be the safe source for open source that every organization building software today can rely on to build right, build safe and build fast,” said Dan Lorenc, CEO and Co-founder of Chainguard. “Open source adoption across the industry has grown dramatically over the last several years, but the gap in doing so securely is widening. Enterprises and governments are struggling to remain compliant and secure while the pace of software development is increasing.”

Chainguard has expanded its Images solution to include a growing inventory of secure container images with over a million image builds, giving developers the freedom to build safe software with the tools and applications they know and love. The solution also includes a comprehensive API for customers to understand changes in vulnerability status from Image version to version and critical software supply chain security requirements like Software Bill of Materials (SBOMs) and software signatures.

“Enterprises do not want another software security tool, they want secure software,” said Clay Fisher, General Partner at Spark Capital. “Chainguard has fundamentally re-imagined open source security by not just alerting customers of possible vulnerabilities, but also proactively fixing them, giving developer and security teams peace of mind and time back to do what they do best – build. There is nothing like Chainguard in the market today and we could not be more excited to support them on their important mission to be the safe source for open source software.”

“Snowflake is on a mission to help organizations scale their cloud businesses securely,” said Brandon Sterne, Senior Manager, Product Security at Snowflake. “Adoption of Chainguard Images has transformed the way our team builds securely with open source software across the organization and has helped to streamline and strengthen our FedRAMP certifications by providing fast open source vulnerability remediation.”

Recently, Chainguard hired its first President Ryan Carlson, former Chief Marketing Officer at Okta and Wiz. Dustin Kirkland also joined as the company’s first Vice President of Engineering following product and engineering leadership roles at Goldman Sachs, Google and Canonical.

The company, founded two years ago in October 2021, plans to use the new funding to support growth by expanding the global go-to-market team, investing in product research and innovation and expanding customer support services.

About Chainguard

Chainguard was founded by the industry’s leading experts on open source software, supply chain security and cloud native development and is backed by Sequoia, Spark Capital, Amplify Partners, the Chainsmokers and more. The team has worked together to build and deliver large-scale software products and enterprise services in high-growth environments like Google, Microsoft and VMWare. Core to the Chainguard offering is Chainguard Images, a comprehensive collection of minimal container images which have 97.6% fewer vulnerabilities than industry alternatives. Chainguard is trusted by Fortune 500 companies in the financial services and technology sectors to cutting-edge startups and SBMs. Its customers include the Department of Homeland Security, GitGuardian, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Snowflake, Sourcegraph, Replicated and more. For more information, please visit: https://www.chainguard.dev/.

Media Contact
Sarah O’Rourke
[email protected]
773-870-0329

SOURCE Chainguard

FARMINGTON, Conn., Oct. 31, 2023 — Horizon Technology Finance Corporation (NASDAQ: HRZN) (“Horizon”) (the “Company”), an affiliate of Monroe Capital, and a leading specialty finance company that provides capital in the form of secured loans to venture capital backed companies in the technology, life science, healthcare information and services, and sustainability industries, announced today that its board of directors has declared monthly cash distributions of $0.11 per share, payable in each of January, February and March 2024, and a special distribution of $0.05 per share, payable in December 2023.  The following table shows these distributions, payable as set forth in the table below, total $0.38 per share. Since its 2010 initial public offering, Horizon has paid a total of $237 million in distributions to its shareholders.

Monthly Distributions Declared in Fourth Quarter 2023

Special Distribution

When declaring distributions, the Horizon board of directors reviews estimates of taxable income available for distribution, which may differ from consolidated net income under generally accepted accounting principles due to (i) changes in unrealized appreciation and depreciation, (ii) temporary and permanent differences in income and expense recognition, and (iii) the amount of spillover income carried over from a given year for distribution in the following year. The final determination of taxable income for each tax year, as well as the tax attributes for distributions in such tax year, will be made after the close of the tax year.

Horizon maintains a “Dividend Reinvestment Plan” (“DRIP”) that provides for the reinvestment of distributions on behalf of its stockholders, unless a stockholder has elected to receive distributions in cash. As a result, if Horizon declares a distribution, its stockholders who have not “opted out” of the DRIP by the distribution record date will have their distribution automatically reinvested into additional shares of Horizon’s common stock. Horizon has the option to satisfy the share requirements of the DRIP through the issuance of new shares of common stock or through open market purchases of common stock by the DRIP plan administrator. Newly-issued shares will be valued based upon the final closing price of Horizon’s common stock on a specified valuation date for each distribution as determined by Horizon’s board of directors. Shares purchased in the open market to satisfy the DRIP requirements will be valued based upon the average price of the applicable shares purchased by the DRIP plan administrator, before any associated brokerage or other costs, which are borne by Horizon.

About Horizon Technology Finance

Horizon Technology Finance Corporation (NASDAQ: HRZN), externally managed by Horizon Technology Finance Management LLC, an affiliate of Monroe Capital, is a leading specialty finance company that provides capital in the form of secured loans to venture capital backed companies in the technology, life science, healthcare information and services, and sustainability industries. The investment objective of Horizon is to maximize its investment portfolio’s return by generating current income from the debt investments it makes and capital appreciation from the warrants it receives when making such debt investments. Horizon is headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut, with a regional office in Pleasanton, California, and investment professionals located throughout the U.S. Monroe Capital is a $17 billion asset management firm specializing in private credit markets across various strategies, including direct lending, technology finance, venture debt, opportunistic, structured credit, real estate and equity. To learn more, please visit horizontechfinance.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

 Statements included herein may constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements other than statements of historical facts included in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements and are not guarantees of future performance, condition or results and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including those described from time to time in Horizon’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Horizon undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statement made herein. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release.

Contacts:

Investor Relations:
ICR
Garrett Edson
[email protected]
(860) 284-6450

Media Relations:
ICR
Chris Gillick
[email protected] 
(646) 677-1819

SOURCE Horizon Technology Finance Corporation

NORWALK, Connecticut, 31 octobre 2023 — LifeSpan Vision Ventures, une société d’investissement dédiée à la biotechnologie dans le secteur de la longévité, a annoncé aujourd’hui un investissement dans NaNotics LLC. Cette société biopharmaceutique de stade préclinique met au point des NaNots™, de nouvelles nanoparticules soustractives qui traitent les maladies en capturant et en éliminant les molécules pathogènes du sang. Les NaNots™ se distinguent des pharmacothérapies traditionnelles par leur capacité de réduire les cibles solubles sans interagir avec les formes de membrane d’une même cible, un exploit qui est généralement hors de portée des médicaments conventionnels.

L’entreprise fait progresser un pipeline de NaNots ciblant les marqueurs oncologiques et inflammatoires associés à de multiples maladies qui présentent des besoins médicaux non satisfaits importants. En outre, elle a annoncé des collaborations de recherche avec la Mass General Cancer Clinic, située au sein du Mass General Hospital, et la Mayo Clinic afin d’améliorer davantage leurs thérapies pour des cibles oncologiques spécifiques.

Harry Robb, analyste chez LifeSpan Vision Ventures, a déclaré : « Avec notre premier investissement dans le domaine de la nanomédecine, nous nous associons à NaNotics, une entreprise biopharmaceutique basée en Californie qui a pour objectif de réduire les cibles solubles du sang pour traiter une série de maladies – et potentiellement le vieillissement également. L’entreprise est soutenue par une équipe dévouée et très expérimentée qui s’engage à diriger un virage dans la médecine qui passe d’une approche basée sur les cellules à une approche basée sur les signaux. Il s’agit d’une excellente occasion d’élargir les options de traitement et nous voyons un grand potentiel dans leurs thérapies transformatrices qui aura un effet significatif sur les résultats pour les patients. »

Lou Hawthorne, PDG de NaNotics et inventeur de NaNots, a déclaré : « Lifespan Vision Ventures est un investisseur idéal pour nous, pour des raisons qui vont au-delà du capital. Lifespan Vision Ventures comprend que le vieillissement est potentiellement motivé par des facteurs solubles qui entraînent ou engendrent également des maladies reconnues par la FDA, et que les NaNots peuvent donc s’attaquer aux deux conditions. Cela fournit une voie d’approbation viable de la FDA pour une plateforme thérapeutique pour traiter le vieillissement – ce que la FDA ne reconnaît pas comme une maladie. Nous nous réjouissons à l’idée de collaborer avec Lifespan Vision Ventures pour mettre au point et commercialiser des produits thérapeutiques destinés à traiter les maladies et à étendre la portée de la santé à toute la population. »

À propos de NaNotics LLC

NaNotics LLC est une entreprise de stade préclinique établie à Mill Valley, en Californie. L’entreprise développe un pipeline de NaNots™ contre une gamme de cibles oncologiques et inflammatoires entraînant de multiples maladies représentant un besoin médical important non satisfait.

Pour en savoir plus, consultez https://www.nanotics.com/

Personne-ressource : Song Schreiber, directeur financier : [email protected]

À propos de LifeSpan Vision Ventures

LifeSpan Vision Ventures est une société de capital-risque tournée vers l’avenir, spécialisée dans les investissements dans le domaine du vieillissement et de la longévité. Notre mission est de soutenir et d’accélérer le développement de thérapies innovantes qui prolongent l’espérance de vie en bonne santé, améliorent la qualité de vie des personnes qui vieillissent et relèvent les défis liés à l’âge. Par le biais de partenariats et d’investissements stratégiques, nous visons à façonner un avenir où le vieillissement sera synonyme de vitalité, de résilience et de possibilités infinies.

Pour plus d’informations sur LifeSpan Vision Ventures, veuillez consulter le site https://www.lifespanvisionventures.com/.

Contact : Harry Robb
Mobile : +44 7795042764
[email protected]

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2259807/LifeSpan_Vision_Ventures_Invests_in_NaNotics.jpg

SOURCE LifeSpan Vision Ventures

RADNOR, Pa., Oct. 31, 2023 — Saothair Capital Partners, LLC (“Saothair”) today announced the final closing of its inaugural fund, Saothair Fund I, L.P., with $125 million in investor capital commitments. The closing comes less than five months after launching the fundraising process and was well in excess of its initial target.

Saothair is a private equity investment firm focused exclusively on making control investments in manufacturing companies through complex corporate carve-outs, bankruptcies, out-of-court restructurings, turnarounds, and other special situations. The Saothair team leverages their decades of operational experience in manufacturing to assist their portfolio companies in driving continuous improvement in all aspects of their business.

Saothair received capital commitments from a group of highly-respected institutional limited partners that includes prestigious college and university endowments, single- and multi-family offices and outsourced CIOs. Pacenote Capital LLC served as exclusive placement agent for Saothair in connection with the fundraising.

Kevin Madden and Richard Lozyniak, Co-Founders of Saothair, commented: “We are humbled to have received such strong interest in our inaugural committed-capital fund. It was important to us as we embarked on this process to partner with the right group of investors, who understood and shared our enthusiasm for the unique nature of our investment strategy and who were looking for a long-term partnership with our firm. We are eternally grateful to Pacenote for their belief in us and our team, and for partnering with us to bring together this outstanding group of institutional investors.”

McGuireWoods LLP provided legal counsel in connection with the fundraising, and IQ-EQ served as fund administrator.

About Saothair Capital Partners

Saothair Capital Partners is a private investment firm focused exclusively on investing in lower-middle market manufacturing and industrial businesses facing unique financial or operational challenges. Saothair makes controlling equity investments in companies across a wide range of industries, including paper & packaging, plastics, metals processing, automotive or heavy truck, building products, healthcare-related products, food & beverage and other niche manufacturing. Saothair works in partnership with each of the key stakeholders invested in the long-term success of the business. For more information please see www.saothair.com.

SOURCE Saothair Capital Partners, LLC

Empowers Businesses to Integrate ESG Data Into Reporting & Decision Making, Funding Co-Led by Rho Ignition and Tola Capital

NEW YORK, Oct. 31, 2023 — ESG Flo, an AI-powered data infrastructure platform, announced today that it has secured $5.25 million in seed capital. The funding round was co-led by Rho Ignition and Tola Capital with participation from Bain & Company and Contour Venture Partners.

Sustainability teams currently spend most of their time manually collecting data and are buried by ineffective processes, often leading to errors and a waste of time and effort. ESG Flo launched earlier this year from Bain & Company’s Founder’s Studio to help businesses create a robust, auditable ESG (environmental, social, and governance) data infrastructure. The technology leverages AI automation and deep learning to gather data spread across the organization to create reporting that complies with the EU CSRD and US SEC non-financial disclosure requirements. 

“We envision a business world where ESG conversations are as important as financial ones. We’re on a mission to equip businesses with precise ESG data for integrated reporting and responsible decision making. Our new investors bring deep expertise in AI which will allow us to scale and support more businesses to take real steps in their sustainability journey,” said Patrick Obeid, founder and CEO of ESG Flo.

“Many solutions focus on the frontend presentation of ESG data, but what companies are struggling with most is ‘step zero’ of the process, which involves mapping, collecting and transforming data. This is exactly what ESG Flo accomplishes with a scalable product that uses backend technology, such as machine learning, to transform raw data into high-accuracy metrics ready for third-party verification in a matter of seconds, saving time for your sustainability team,” said Habib Kairouz, Managing Partner at Rho Ignition. 

ESG Flo targets customers in the industrial, manufacturing and infrastructure sectors that need a centralized way to manage their sustainability data given stakeholder pressure and level of ESG impact.

“Amidst the evolving landscape of ESG regulations, including the forthcoming EU CSRD reporting and non-financial disclosure requirements in the US, there is an urgent demand for a robust data infrastructure that aligns with ESG regulatory mandates. Companies with strong ESG strategies gain a competitive advantage, and ESG Flo facilitates seamless integration of environmental, social, and governance factors into decision-making. This promotes sustainable and responsible practices that benefit stakeholders, the planet and future generations,” said Karolin Beck, Venture Partner at Tola Capital.

With the new capital, ESG Flo will expand its solution to offer a CSRD and SEC readiness solution, hire best in class engineers for product development to advance its AI engine, and scale its growth and marketing team to support more customers. As part of this round, Karolin, Habib and Patrick Quinlan, a proven entrepreneur with an expertise in ethics and compliance, join the company’s board alongside Ron Kermisch of Bain & Company.

To learn more about ESG Flo, visit esgflo.com

About ESG Flo
Based in New York, ESG Flo is an AI-powered data infrastructure platform that provides customers in the industrial, manufacturing and infrastructure sectors with a solid ESG data infrastructure to manage their reporting and decision making needs. The company was founded in 2022 by Patrick Obeid, within Bain & Company’ Founder’s Studio, and has raised $5.25 million in seed funding from Rho Ignition, Tola Capital,  Bain & Company and Contour Venture Partners. For more information, visit esgflo.com.

About Rho Ignition
Rho Ignition, a division of Rho Capital Partners (“Rho”), focuses on early stage investments in disruptive and innovative technology markets, with a current focus on SaaS, AI, Healthtech, FinTech and Robotics.  Rho, founded in 1981, has invested over $2 billion in more than 300 companies across multiple waves of technology innovation. Visit www.rho.com for more information.

About Tola Capital
Tola Capital is a venture capital firm that believes in the power of software, data, and AI to transform the way the world works. Founded in 2010 by experienced software operators at the forefront of cloud computing’s rise, the firm backs entrepreneurs who have enterprise technology experience and are building disruptive, industry transforming solutions with diverse teams. Tola Capital has successfully exited numerous startups, and continues to evolve as it supports founders into the era of AI. Visit www.tolacapital.com for more information.

Media Contact: 
media@esgflo.com

SOURCE ESG Flo