Latest round to accelerate Nile’s market expansion amid growing customer demand globally

SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 1, 2023 — Nile, the leader in next-generation enterprise networks, today announced a $175 million Series C investment round co-led by March Capital and Sanabil Investments, with strategic participation from solutions by stc, Prosperity7, Liberty Global Ventures, and stc CIF (Corporate Investment Fund), and contribution from 8VC, Geodesic Capital, FirstU Capital, and Valor Equity Partners. Nile’s impressive raise, which brings its total funding to $300 million, reflects the significant progress the company is making to expand its global position and redefine the way enterprises consume IT infrastructures.

After emerging from stealth mode less than a year ago, Nile has built a market-leading network-as-a-service (NaaS) solution designed to deliver a more secure wired and wireless service through the extensive use of monitoring, analytics, and automation. The company has rapidly expanded beyond North America into Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, and has seen increasing demand for its innovative access network service from organizations including Stanford University, Pitney Bowes, and Carta, among others. Collaborations with over 100 channel and service provider partners further underscore Nile’s growing market presence.

“Nile is in a strong position to take advantage of several paradigm shifts occurring across the technology ecosystem,” said Pankaj Patel, CEO and co-founder of Nile. “Cloud-born edge infrastructure solutions are altering the way we engage with each other and interact with physical spaces in offices, schools, and venues. AI is enabling data-driven decision-making to be adopted at a rapid pace. Cloud migration strategies for anywhere access to enterprise apps is top of mind for all IT executives, creating a tremendous opportunity for Nile. These trends present unique challenges in the way enterprise infrastructure is consumed, and Nile is committed to addressing them head-on, making our service as agile and innovative as the technology solutions it enables.”

This round of financing will further Nile’s mission to eliminate the operational complexities plaguing enterprise networks in their ability to support cloud-born enterprise IT solutions, while also delivering the highest levels of integrated defenses to protect both wired and wireless connectivity from cyber attacks. With Nile, innovation is as swift at the enterprise edge as it is in the cloud, the burden of high upfront capital expenditure-based consumption is eliminated, and the automation of all network services is enabled with data-centric, zero-touch orchestration.

“In just four years, Nile has engineered an entirely new connectivity experience through a groundbreaking approach that prioritizes security and empowers IT to transform operations,” said Sumant Mandal, co-founder and managing partner at March Capital. “Led by a team of seasoned industry veterans with extensive C-suite expertise and bolstered by a dedicated group of skilled engineers and architects, Nile is rapidly evolving into a market leader ushering in a new era in networking that promises unparalleled possibilities. We’re thrilled to deepen our support for Pankaj, John Chambers and their impressive bench of talent as they accelerate their momentum and continue to innovate the enterprise network at the forefront of the industry.”

“Since the invention of the LAN [local area network] on our campus, we have taken pride in being at the forefront of new network innovations, and Nile has undoubtedly been a game-changer for us,” said Andrej Krevl, Director of IT at Stanford. “After experiencing challenges with unreliable Wi-Fi, which interrupted classes, Zoom meetings, and everyday work for our computer science department, we turned to Nile to upgrade our network with a simplified and secure solution. As a result, our IT team is once again able to drive department innovations and focus on providing uninterrupted network performance to our students and staff, without being burdened by basic network tasks.”

In the era of rapid transformation, CIOs and CISOs are increasingly concerned about the integrity of their business data and digital assets. Built with a steadfast commitment to security, Nile’s service incorporates Campus Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) principles by design, and automates network access control (NAC) mechanisms that traditionally required significant manual effort to provision and maintain. This unwavering focus on security has enabled Nile to achieve top-tier certifications, including ISO 27001, SOC2 Type II, and CSA Level 1, validating its position as a leader in network service delivery to enterprises.

To learn more about Nile and its industry-first service architecture, visit nilesecure.com/enterprise-network.

About Nile
Nile is the leader in next generation enterprise networks, with a vision to transform the way businesses interact with their IT infrastructure. Nile is dedicated to helping customers redirect a significant portion of the $75B in infrastructure operating expenses that they currently bear to critical IT initiatives. Nile’s network-as-a-service (NaaS) solution is designed to keep pace with the rapid innovation seen across private and public clouds, and its commitment to agile solutions is setting a new standard for enterprise networks. For more information, visit nilesecure.com.

Contact
Meghan Matheny, on behalf of Nile Secure
+1-734-255-5954
[email protected]

SOURCE Nile

With funding from Insight Partners, Hetz Ventures & CrowdStrike Falcon Fund, Silk’s platform holistically bridges the gap between detecting security findings and fixing them

NEW YORK, Aug. 1, 2023 — Silk Security, the first platform for sustainable cyber risk resolution, today announced the company’s public launch and $12.5 million in seed funding. The funding was led by global software investor Insight Partners and Hetz Ventures, with participation of the CrowdStrike Falcon Fund and seasoned cybersecurity angel investors including Shlomo Kramer, Mickey Boodaei and Rakesh Loonkar.

According to Orange CyberDefense’s Security Navigator 2023 research report, organizations already struggle to remediate the vulnerabilities they know about – putting their organizations at risk. Another report based on analysis of customer trends, found that the average time for resolution of critical findings is 184 days. In turn, vulnerability exploits remained a critical tool for adversaries to use against their targets, according to the Mandiant M-Trends 2023, accounting for the largest share of intrusions at 32%.The outcome is that risks go unremediated, and enterprises can’t effectively balance cyber risk resolution and business objectives. Also, current approaches are inefficient, with security teams spending as much as 40% of their time on remediating vulnerabilities.

Silk’s holistic approach enables security and operations stakeholders to collaboratively align finding risk with fixing risk – enhancing enterprise security and compliance posture, and centralizing visibility into risk resolution status. Silk Security was founded by three security professionals with backgrounds in security operations, software engineering and product development that felt first-hand how frustrating the current process of alert remediation is for practitioners, operational teams, and business stakeholders.

“As a former CISO, my teams wasted so much time managing findings out of multiple spreadsheets and then throwing them over the fence to infrastructure and DevOps teams. It was inefficient and impossible to prioritize,” said Steve Ward, managing director at Insight Partners. “Silk gives cybersecurity teams the ability to aggregate and prioritize findings in a way that simplifies an overwhelming space for the teams that are responsible for the fix.”

For many organizations, the complexity and rate of change in their environments have amplified challenges for managing cyber risk and compliance. Security teams wade through a flood of largely duplicative alerts from multiple detection tools, often can’t sustain a strategy to prioritize findings based on risk, business impact and contextualized threat severity – and then cannot consistently determine who should be responsible for the fix, and how to communicate a fix for those findings.

Operations teams, in turn, often lack the context needed to assign and operationalize the fix, and struggle to collaborate with security teams using their existing workflows – especially when requesting exceptions or accepting risk.

Silk’s platform is the first to address these interconnected challenges holistically, weaving together capabilities in a unified platform that address the discrete pain points which each team in the process experiences – enabling stakeholders to create a collaborative plan of attack to tackle their cyber risk issues.

Silk incorporates AI technologies to consolidate and contextualize findings from multiple detection tools, automates prioritization based on severity, asset profiles and environmental factors, and predictively assigns fix ownership. By connecting findings to assets, and understanding the infrastructure used to deploy and provision these assets, Silk is able to pinpoint the root cause for related run-time or production security findings – and advise on which fix will resolve multiple findings. Silk then helps security teams and fix owners to close the loop through actionable remediation advice, and can free up security teams from chasing fixers by automating the follow up process.

Silk automates ticketing and task routing across multiple instances of the same workflow tools, as well as integrations to multiple types of workflow tools within the same enterprise.

“Silk has revolutionized how we identify and prioritize vulnerabilities,” said Michael Calderin, Director, Information Security and Compliance, YAGEO Group. “Regardless of how we discover the issue, we have full visibility across the entire lifecycle all in a single interface. That lets us make smarter, faster decisions and centrally track them through to completion.”

Existing niche tools focus on an aspect of the challenge, such as automated workflows that reduce the manual steps in a vulnerability management program, improving prioritization by tying vulnerabilities to asset information, or helping to reduce the noise from multiple detection tools.

However, without effective communication and collaboration, security findings will not be resolved; leaving organizations open to cyber security threats and compliance penalties – and with no consolidated approach to resolving and auditing cyber risk.

“Coming from a large financial institution, I witnessed first hand that the way security teams approach and collaborate to resolve risk is still stuck in the past,” said Silk CEO and Co-founder Yoav Nathaniel. “Just as the IT environment has become distributed, so too has risk responsibility and ownership become distributed across operations and engineering teams. That is what led us to launch Silk Security. We wanted to find a way to extend and augment existing tools to automate and optimize this tedious risk resolution process so that teams can collaborate on the issues that put their business at risk.”

“With significant fragmentation across the modern security estate and limited resources, security practitioners face overwhelming operational challenges from investigating and triaging an enormous backlog of overlapping alerts,” said Gur Talpaz, vice president corporate development and ventures at CrowdStrike. “Silk Security enables teams to cut through the noise by consolidating alerts into a unified risk framework to streamline remediation and ensure best-in-class security posture.”

“Silk’s approach to breaking down silos in how cybersecurity teams identify and tackle risk in collaboration with other stakeholders stood out to us. Yoav, Bar and Or’s ability to execute on the vision of unifying findings from disparate tools into a single platform to drive clear, actionable tasks solidified our conviction that Silk can have a significant impact on the cyber security industry,” said Pavel Livshiz, General Partner at Hetz Ventures. 

• For more information, visit the Silk Security website
• View Silk’s listing on the CrowdStrike Integrations Store

About Silk Security:

Silk is the first platform that enables enterprises to take a strategic, sustainable approach to resolving code, infrastructure and application risk. Silk’s holistic approach enables operations and security stakeholders to collaboratively align finding risk with fixing risk – enhancing enterprise security posture and centralizing visibility and auditability for resolution status. Silk Security was founded by three entrepreneurs with over 40 years of combined experience in the cyber security space with a proven track record of building successful cyber security products from inception.

SOURCE Silk Security

The strategic capital will further RFG’s commitment to fueling the success of its independent advisor community.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Aug. 1, 2023 — RFG Advisory, an innovative and fast-growing platform for independent advisors, today announced that it has secured a substantial growth investment from Long Ridge Equity Partners, a private equity firm with significant experience in the financial services technology and wealth management sectors. The firm will continue to operate under its existing leadership team: Founder and CEO Bobby White, President Shannon Spotswood, and Chief Investment Officer Rick Wedell.

With over $4 billion in assets under management and more than 100 advisors located across 15 states nationwide, RFG has built its reputation through a relentless focus on mission, culture, and support for the entrepreneurial aspirations of its independent advisors. The firm will use the capital from this transaction to continue investing in critical areas of the business, including investment management, technology, marketing/branding, and business development, with the ultimate goal of supporting independent advisors with a full suite of best-in-class tools and resources.

“Long Ridge has an outstanding record of successfully partnering with wealth management platforms to build on their inherent strengths,” White said. “We’re excited to bring on new partners as we continue to invest in the business, and, most importantly, our advisors. With the rise of large RIA platforms and aggregators, many advisors are feeling captive to their new firms. We are 100% committed to supporting our advisors’ independence and entrepreneurial goals.” 

White founded RFG in 2003, with Spotswood and Wedell joining in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Over the past two decades, the RFG team has proven their commitment to building an RIA of the future, empowering entrepreneurial advisors with the cutting-edge technology, operations, compliance, marketing, back-office support, and coaching required to better serve their clients, grow their businesses, and pursue their own versions of success.

“Our focus has always been equipping independent advisors with the tools and services they need to live their lives with agency and purpose,” Spotswood said. “We believe that the next decade will be transformative for our industry, and we are committed to providing an environment where independent advisors can innovate and thrive.”

“RFG strikes the right balance between offering comprehensive support and maintaining a boutique-firm environment where individual advisors feel valued,” said Long Ridge Managing Partner and Founder Jim Brown. “Through this investment, we are excited to support Bobby, Shannon, Rick and the entire RFG team in scaling the business while staying true to their strong culture and values.”

RFG has been recognized by the industry for their unwavering commitment to independent advisor support. In the past year, the firm was named to USA Today’s list of “Best Financial Advisory Firms 2023,” recognized as a “Best Place to Work for Financial Advisors” and honored by Wealthmanagement.com as the Top Non-Custodial RIA Support Platform in 2022 for its advisor-support initiatives. RFG is also nominated for the Top RIA Support Platform this year. For more information on RFG Advisory’s awards, please visit www.rfgadvisory.com/awards.

Securities offered by Registered Representatives through Private Client Services. Member FINRA / SIPC. Advisory services offered by Investment Advisory Representatives of RFG Advisory, LLC (“RFG Advisory” or “RFG”), a registered investment advisor. Private Client Services and RFG Advisory are unaffiliated entities. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where RFG Advisory and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. No advisory services may be rendered by RFG Advisory unless a client agreement is in place.

About RFG Advisory

RFG Advisory is an innovator in the wealth management industry. Passionately committed to serving independent financial advisors and their clients, RFG Advisory prides itself on being a service company first, a technology company second and a hybrid-RIA third. RFG Advisory delivers a turn-key integrated platform that provides advisors all the tools and resources they need to be the CEO of their practice, not the COO, including turn-key technology, institutional-caliber investment management, marketing, compliance, business consulting and operational support. Focused on amplifying independence, advisors who affiliate with RFG Advisory maintain all the equity in their business and pay a basis point fee for access to RFG’s investment and technology platform. Additionally, through RFG Capital, the firm buys stakes in advisor practices to facilitate succession planning and provides loans to advisors to enable the move to full independence. For more information, visit: rfgadvisory.com.

About Long Ridge Equity Partners

Founded in 2007, Long Ridge Equity Partners is a private investment firm focused on the financial and business technology sectors. Leveraging deep sector knowledge and an extensive network of industry resources, Long Ridge serves as a value-added partner to high-growth businesses. Since its founding, Long Ridge has sponsored some of the most successful growth companies in the financial and business technology sectors, providing leading management teams with partnership, strategic resources, and capital to drive profitable expansion. Long Ridge manages over $1.75 billion of committed capital. For more information on Long Ridge Equity Partners, please visit www.long-ridge.com.

Media Contact
For RFG Advisory
Peter Page
[email protected]com

SOURCE RFG Advisory

Funding will accelerate expansion of platform functionality, expand go-to-market and insurance capacity for modern MGA

NEW YORK, Aug. 1, 2023 — Converge Insurance, pioneers in advanced cyber risk management and underwriting, today announced $15 million in Series A funding from Forgepoint Capital. Forgepoint Managing Directors Don Dixon and Andrew McClure have joined the company’s Board of Directors as part of the financing.

In 2021, 61% of small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) were the target of a cyberattack. Meanwhile, 60% of SMBs go out of business within 6 months after an attack occurs. Unfortunately, the vast majority of SMBs lack cyber insurance and adequate cyber protection due to cost, inaccessibility and limited IT resources. Converge is a modern managing general agent (MGA) that fuses cyber insurance, security, and technology to address this critical need. By deploying a proprietary data ecosystem underpinned by expert underwriting, Converge provides precise cyber risk solutions that deliver improved outcomes for its customers, starting with SMBs. 

Tom Kang has been appointed as CEO of Converge Insurance as part of the financing round, which closed last week. “Our mission is to empower policyholders with radically transparent cyber insurance so they can manage technology risks more intelligently,” said Kang. “We’re thrilled to partner with the team at Forgepoint Capital, who uniquely understand the needs and opportunities of this burgeoning market. This funding will enable us to expand our outreach and grow our bench of in-house experts while accelerating the availability of the Converge platform worldwide.”

Last week, leading global insurer QBE North America announced the launch of a cyber insurance program with Converge acting as program administrator, the first of many partnerships as the company scales.

“Converge is the latest company in our investment strategy to reinvent cyber insurance and risk management,” said Dixon. “We couldn’t be prouder of the seasoned team assembled at Converge and the progress they have achieved in such a short amount of time with their unique cyber underwriting model.” Forgepoint has backed other leading brands in the cyber insurance market, including risk analytics leader CyberCube Analytics, incident response firm Surefire Cyber, and managed security service provider SolCyber. Converge is the third company incubated at Forgepoint to focus on the cyber insurance market.

Kang, a licensed attorney who was elevated to CEO from his prior role as Chief Insurance Officer at Converge, is an expert in the cyber insurance industry. He has held several senior leadership roles specializing in high exposure cyber product strategies and solutions, consulting, business intelligence and data for global organizations. Prior to Converge, Kang was Head of Cyber, Tech and Media at Allianz Global, Global Cyber Product Leader at Willis Towers Watson, Enterprise Lead for Cyber Liability at The Hartford, and Assistant Vice President, Director of Claims and Services at ACE Group.

“Converge combines a proprietary data ecosystem, expert underwriting from a world-class team and a powerful platform with a results-driven approach designed to mitigate risk,” said McClure. “What they have been building is truly world-class and will change the game for an industry in dire need of modernization. I am excited to work with Tom Kang to lead the company forward together with this team and for the platform to make its global debut.”

Joining Kang on the Converge team are several other seasoned leaders who bring extensive experience spanning cyber insurance, underwriting and software development to continue to accelerate the organization’s growth plans. The company has also added multi-time CEO and experienced company builder Tom Kelly to the Board of Directors. Global Holdings CEO Steve Petrevski is also on the company’s Board of Directors. Converge co-founder and former Forgepoint Entrepreneur-In-Residence Anthony Dagostino will remain an advisor to the company during the transition.

About Converge
Converge is a modern managing general agent (MGA) that fuses cyber insurance, security and technology to provide businesses with clear and confident cyber protection. By deploying a proprietary data ecosystem underpinned by expert underwriting, Converge provides risk solutions that deliver high-value strategies with improved outcomes. Converge’s philosophy is that insurance needs the right elements and personalized approach to mitigate risk. By partnering with its policyholders, Converge precisely formulates their business needs so they can confidently become cyber secure. Converge is headquartered in New York and operates across the U.S. Learn more at convergeins.com.

About Forgepoint Capital
Forgepoint Capital is a leading cybersecurity venture capital firm that invests in transformative companies protecting the digital future. Forgepoint is the most active sector-focused firm in cybersecurity and infrastructure software, with $1B+ AUM, the largest dedicated investment team, and portfolio of nearly 40 companies. The firm brings over 100 years of proven company-building experience and its Advisory Council of more than 80 industry leaders to support entrepreneurs advancing innovation globally. Founded in 2015, Forgepoint is proud to partner with category-defining companies such as 1Kosmos, Area 1 Security (Cloudflare), Attivo Networks (SentinelOne), BehavioSec (RELX), Bishop Fox, Converge, CyberCube, Huntress, IDX (ZFOX), Noname Security, NowSecure, ReversingLabs, SPHERE, Uptycs and more as they reach their market potential. Learn more at https://forgepointcap.com.

SOURCE Converge

New round of capital will help scale digital ordering and payment product suite for restaurants, hotels, bars and event venues

ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 1, 2023 — GoTab, a leading hospitality commerce platform, today announced that it has closed on its $18 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Truist Ventures.

The capital infusion will support GoTab’s development and execution of its growing end-to-end product suite for the hospitality sector and stadium and entertainment venues, including further enhancement of its stationary and handheld point-of-sale (POS), kitchen display system (KDS), kiosk, mobile ordering, radio-frequency identification technology (RFID) and payment solutions.

“GoTab is a dynamic platform in the hospitality industry. Its unique and adaptable system draws on the team’s diverse background in operations and logistics to enhance business efficiency and significantly improve guest experiences,” said Tarun Mehta, Head of Corporate Development and Truist Ventures. “Truist works with clients across the payments industry and believes in GoTab’s vision to enhance how guests interact with operators from their initial impression to a seamless payment transaction.”

GoTab’s flexible platform enables operators to run lean, profitable businesses while also providing customized and enhanced guest experiences. Its solutions are driving increased transactions across merchants, with customers seeing average checks increase up to 40% and food halls often seeing an increase of over 100%.

“Our goal from the beginning has been to help businesses run better through our host of solutions that address virtually every commerce, operations, and fulfillment issue operators and their teams encounter,” said Tim McLaughlin, CEO and Cofounder at GoTab. “We have been incredibly intentional with the solutions we develop for our customers, and this latest capital injection will help us further enhance our existing solutions, while also helping us continue to scale the business across sectors and geographies. We are grateful to Truist and our other investors for their confidence in our business model and are eager to continue expanding our market share.”

To learn more about GoTab and request a demo, please visit https://gotab.com/demo-request.

About GoTab, Inc.
GoTab, Inc., a Hospitality Commerce Platform, is helping all sizes of restaurants, breweries, bars, food halls, hotels, resorts, and other venues run lean, profitable operations while making guests even more satisfied. The platform includes a sophisticated point-of-sale (POS) or can optionally integrate with other popular POS and property management (PMS) systems. GoTab allows patrons to order and pay via staff on the POS, on a kiosk, or using their own mobile devices, according to guest preference and venue operating model(s). Tightly integrated kitchen displays (KDS) and bidirectional messaging are then used for highly optimized operations and delivery. Guests never need to download a mobile app or use a password. In addition to typical on- and off-premises sales, GoTab enables eCommerce, memberships, subscriptions, and deeply integrates with event, reservation, and ticketing systems. Founded in 2016, GoTab processes over $500M in gross merchandise value (GMV) annually with operations across 39 U.S. states, Canada and growing and is PCI DSS Level 1. For more information, consult our media kit, request a demo or learn more at https://gotab.com/.

About Truist Ventures
Truist Ventures is the corporate venture capital division of Truist Financial Corporation (NYSE: TFC), a purpose-driven financial services company committed to inspire and build better lives and communities.

Truist Ventures delivers touch and technology to Truist clients through partnerships with, and investments in, innovative companies and exceptional management teams with novel solutions to help Truist shape the future of finance. Truist Ventures’ investment focus includes financial technology, payments and money movement, and regtech, and stretches into other adjacent, disruptive technologies.

Leveraging Truist’s extensive network of executive-level talent and industry experts in technology, investment banking, capital markets and innovation, the Truist Ventures team helps Portfolio companies gain access to Truist executives and industry experts in technology, investment banking, capital markets and innovation to help fulfill their growth opportunities. Learn more at TruistVentures.com.

Contact:
Madison McGillicuddy
[email protected]com
(203) 268-8269

SOURCE GoTab

New data solution uses AI to deliver actionable insights without the need to employ a data team.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 1, 2023 — Stackless Data, an AI-enabled, comprehensive data solution for businesses, has raised a seed round at a pre-money valuation of $14 million.

The round was led by Singularity Capital.

The company intends to use the investment to finance product development and go-to-market activities.

“Businesses are facing a significant challenge to hire experienced and competent data engineers in the market right now,” said Nachi Mehta, CEO of Stackless. “When a company goes Stackless, they no longer have to worry about the overhead of hiring a data team or managing a data infrastructure. With our cutting-edge blend of AI technology, proprietary algorithms, and deep domain experience, we do all that for them at a fraction of the price. Stackless is like a cheat code for all your data management and analysis needs.”

The solution allows companies to focus on their core business while Stackless handles providing timely, trustworthy, and useful data.

Contact Information:
Fritz Rollins
415-846-3773
[email protected]
www.StacklessData.com

SOURCE Stackless Data

• Financing round led by Cleveland Clinic with participating investors JobsOhio Growth Capital Fund and an undisclosed investor
• Proceeds will enable the initiation of the pivotal clinical trial RESTORE

CLEVELAND, Aug. 1, 2023 — Enspire DBS Therapy, Inc., (Enspire) a clinical stage company developing an implantable neuromodulation therapy for post-stroke recovery, announced today that it raised $17.6 million of committed capital in a Series B financing led by existing investor, Cleveland Clinic. Also participating in the round were JobsOhio Growth Capital Fund and an undisclosed investor.

The company plans to use the proceeds to initiate the RESTORE pivotal clinical trial using deep brain stimulation (DBS) and rehab therapy (DBS + Rehab) to treat patients with chronic upper extremity impairment due to stroke.

“The first trial in humans known as EDEN (Electrical Stimulation of the Dentate Nucleus for Upper Extremity Hemiparesis Due to Ischemic Stroke), was a proof-of-concept study combining DBS with Rehab to help stroke patients regain function. The results from EDEN led to this Series B raise,” said Scott Kokones, Chief Executive Officer of Enspire, “With RESTORE, the company aims to generate the data necessary to demonstrate the long-term safety and efficacy of DBS+Rehab in Stroke patients to support marketing approval.”

“Cleveland Clinic Innovations is dedicated to supporting technologies to enhance patient outcomes. Our most recent investment in Enspire DBS aligns with our focus on innovative neuro-stimulation solutions addressing significant clinical challenges,” said JD Friedland, Managing Director of Ventures at Cleveland Clinic Innovations. “Enspire’s emphasis on operationalizing and advancing new technology matches the mission of Cleveland Clinic Innovations.”

About Stroke
Approximately 800,000 people in the United States suffer strokes yearly, which is the leading cause of long-term disabilities. While most patients will survive the acute phase, persistent neurological issues will likely jeopardize the quality of life and productivity, with approximately 50% of survivors still exhibiting disability severities that require assistance with daily activities.

About EDEN
The EDEN trial (Electrical Stimulation of the Dentate Nucleus for Upper Extremity Hemiparesis Due to Ischemic Stroke) conducted at The Cleveland Clinic enrolled 12 individuals with chronic, moderate-to-severe hemiparesis of the upper extremity because of a unilateral middle cerebral artery stroke 1-3 years prior.

Each participant was implanted with a DBS System, which involved the surgical implantation of electrodes into the cerebellum. Following discharge and recovery from the surgery, participants completed several months of physical therapy, first with the DBS device turned off for several weeks and then turned on for four-to-eight months.  

DBS for stroke is investigational use; clinical studies for this indication are conducted under Enspire’s approved IDE from FDA.

About RESTORE
The RESTORE Stroke Pivotal Study will evaluate the safety and effectiveness of DBS + Rehab for treating arm weakness and reduced function after a stroke to support marketing approval of this therapy.

Each participant will be implanted with a commercially available third-party DBS system and receive a five-month outpatient rehabilitation therapy program. After five months of blinded randomized testing, participants assigned to active-control treatment (Ct) (rehab only) will cross over to receive DBS treatment (Tt) and participate in a second five-month therapy program. For more information, see ClinicalTrials.gov ID NCT05701280. The RESTORE trial is actively recruiting. www.restorestrokestudy.com

About Enspire 
Enspire DBS Therapy, Inc., headquartered in Cleveland, OH, is a clinical-stage medical device company focused on providing neuromodulation solutions to patients suffering from disabilities from stroke. Established in 2010, Enspire is a Cleveland Clinic portfolio company with the goal of commercializing novel therapies. For more information, visit www.enspiredbs.com

SOURCE Enspire DBS Therapy, Inc.

$16.3 million in additional grants and government funding awards to date shows strong progress in hydrogen infrastructure plans, creating an open-network of commercial hydrogen refueling stations

PHOENIX, Aug. 1, 2023 — Nikola Corporation (Nasdaq: NKLA), a global leader in zero-emissions transportation and energy supply and infrastructure solutions, via the HYLA brand, today announced an additional $16.3 million has been awarded to Nikola to support seven open-network hydrogen refueling stations.

Nikola has now received $58.2 million in awards granted to support seven hydrogen refueling stations, which includes the recently announced $41.9 million Trade Corridor Enhancement Program (TCEP) grant award, collectively representing six hydrogen refueling stations located along Calif. freight corridors within the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD), San Diego County Air Pollution Control District, and Mojave Desert AQMD.

The recent awards include:

• EnergIIZE West Sacramento California Energy Commission: $3.3 million*
• Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Review Committee: $1.6 million
• SacMetro AQMD: $7 million
• South Coast AQMD: $4.4 million

*Conditionally awarded pending final approval.

The additional awards build on the strategic partnership with Voltera to develop up to 50 HYLA stations throughout North America over the next five years.

“The California grant awards and government funding demonstrate the strong support for the Nikola hydrogen infrastructure brand HYLA’s mission of establishing a comprehensive zero-emission transportation solution to help fleets achieve climate goals and improve air quality in the most impacted communities. We continue to be grateful for the leadership demonstrated by California agencies in supporting the buildout of a zero-emissions ecosystem,” said Carey Mendes, president, Nikola Energy. “Building an integrated, hydrogen ecosystem to support hydrogen fuel cell electric truck deployment and creating a scalable energy business, is a top priority for us.”

These awards and partnerships serve as key enablers for Nikola’s first-mover zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks, and HYLA’s fueling infrastructure, with plans to create an open-network of commercial hydrogen refueling stations initially in California and eventually throughout North America. To support and achieve this growth, HYLA is also developing a fleet of hydrogen mobile fuelers to provide Hydrogen Flex Fueling (H2F2).

ABOUT NIKOLA CORPORATION
Nikola Corporation is globally transforming the transportation industry. As a designer and manufacturer of zero-emission battery-electric and hydrogen-electric vehicles, electric vehicle drivetrains, vehicle components, energy storage systems, and hydrogen station infrastructure, via the HYLA brand, Nikola is driven to revolutionize the economic and environmental impact of commerce as we know it today. For more information, visit www.nikolamotor.com.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws with respect to Nikola Corporation (the “Company”), including statements relating to the Company’s goals and strategy; the Company’s expectations related to the potential benefits from the various funding awards; any benefits potentially derived from the announced or future funding awards; the Company’s expectations regarding the production of hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks; Nikola’s ability to develop a hydrogen fueling infrastructure via its HYLA brand and that infrastructures ability to provide sufficient volumes of hydrogen to support Nikola’s hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle demand; and Nikola’s ability to help fleets achieve climate goals and improve air quality in the most impacted communities. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by words such as “believe,” “project,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “intend,” “strategy,” “future,” “opportunity,” “plan,” “may,” “should,” “will,” “would,” and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections, and other statements about future events based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press release, including but not limited to: design and manufacturing changes and delays, including global shortages in parts and materials; general economic, financial, legal, regulatory, political and business conditions and changes in domestic and foreign markets; demand for and customer acceptance of the Company’s trucks; the execution and terms of definitive agreements; risks associated with development and testing of fuel-cell power modules and hydrogen storage systems; risks related to the rollout of the Company’s business and milestones and the timing of expected business milestones; the availability of and need for capital; and the factors, risks and uncertainties regarding the Company’s business described in the “Risk Factors” section of the Company’s quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2023 filed with the SEC, in addition to the Company’s subsequent filings with the SEC. These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause the Company’s actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and, except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

SOURCE Nikola Corporation

SINGAPORE, July 31, 2023 — 1Bstories, is a pioneering start-up founded by Anuvrat Rao, along with a team of esteemed ex-Google founding members, collectively having 23 years of experience developing and scaling products internationally, proudly announces its emergence from stealth mode. The company has successfully raised $5.5 million in a recent funding round from Northstar Group and 47 other VCs and angel investors to launch its breakthrough product, Vidiofy.

Vidiofy is a cutting-edge generative AI video tool designed specifically for publishers and brands seeking to enhance engagement with their communities, expand their social following, and create new revenue streams. With Vidiofy, businesses can effortlessly create hundreds of high-quality videos every month, eliminating barriers traditionally associated with video production, time and manpower.

“We are thrilled to officially introduce 1Bstories and unveil Vidiofy to the world,” said Anuvrat Rao, CEO and Founder of 1Bstories. “Our mission is to empower publishers and brands to seamlessly create captivating videos at scale, leveraging generative AI technology. Vidiofy is set to disrupt the industry by revolutionizing video creation, allowing businesses to create content like never before.”

Vidiofy offers an intuitive and user-friendly interface that streamlines the entire video production process. Leveraging the power of generative AI, the platform enables publishers and brands to generate an extensive library of video content effortlessly from scratch or from an existing article or web page. From captivating social media clips to personalized marketing messages, Vidiofy equips businesses with the tools to maximize their online presence and achieve unparalleled levels of engagement.

Part of the team is Stacie Chan, ex-Googler, award-winning journalist, and Emmy-nominated actress. She was thrilled to join 1Bstories and bring her love of storytelling and technology into one bold vision. Alongside Stacie is the “godfather of tech” Ravi Hamsa, with an illustrious career of working with top tech companies like Uber, LinkedIn, InMobi, and Yahoo.

1Bstories’ growth has their investors showering them with praise. One high profile investor, Tom Blomfield, founder of Monzo said “1Bstories has an interesting vision for the future of AI video technology, and I’m thrilled to support their journey. With a talented management team at the helm, I’m excited to see what they do to online storytelling.”

Alongside Tom, was another prominent voice in the AI industry, Caesar Sengupta, Co-Founder & CEO of Arta finance who mentioned “Generative AI is going to transform most industries over the next few years. 1Bstories, with their cutting-edge AI video platform and a management team of industry veterans, is set to revolutionize the way we engage with video content. I’m excited to support their mission and witness their groundbreaking impact.”

Another high-profile investor, Ian Doody, co-founder of Powerhouse Capital also mentioned “Powerhouse is thrilled to partner with Anu Rao and the 1B team. We believe AI has the ability to drive personalized content at scale while delivering a better user experience. 1B’s Vidiofy product is a powerful tool that arms creators with additional capabilities to deliver deeper engagement and relevance with their audiences.  We are excited to support this team on the journey.”

“We believe deeply in 1Bstories and their pioneering product, Vidiofy. The revolutionary AI-powered video tool is destined to redefine the digital publishing landscape by enabling companies to churn out compelling, high-quality videos with unprecedented ease and efficiency. We foresee Vidiofy becoming the gold standard in AI video production, effortlessly bridging the gap between ambition and execution while creating new horizons of engagement and monetization.” said Quentin Reyes, Managing Director of Alpha Praetorian Capital, another VC investor in 1Bstories.

Other investors also include Tim Dattels who served as the Managing Partner for TPG Asia and Partner and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs.

1Bstories is already working with a wide variety of customers across verticals, from mainstream US news publishers to niche digital Australian publications to large telecommunication companies in Indonesia, and even real estate developers in Singapore. With the ability to quickly publish and translate content to over 20 languages, Vidiofy also helps their customers grow their brand internationally as well.

The $5.5 million investment will accelerate product development, expand the team, and drive widespread adoption of Vidiofy in the market.

To learn more about 1Bstories and Vidiofy, please visit www.1bstories.com.

About 1Bstories: 1Bstories is a content technology start-up founded by Anuvrat Rao and other ex-Google employees with over 23 collective years of experience. The company aims to tell 1 billion stories globally with the use of its innovative technologies and products built. With Vidiofy, their flagship product, 1Bstories aims to enable businesses to create engaging videos effortlessly and leverage the power of generative AI technology. For more information, visit www.1bstories.com.

SOURCE 1Bstories