Funds will support multi-product roadmap to capitalize on growing demand for modern CMMS

LEHI, Utah, June 22, 2023 — Limble, the leading provider of modern computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), announced today a $58M Series B funding round led by the Growth Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management (Goldman Sachs), bringing the company’s valuation to $450M. The funding will be used to expand Limble’s product portfolio, further develop its powerful and intuitive user interface for asset monitoring and maintenance and accelerate its go-to-market strategy.

The investment from Goldman Sachs comes from its recently launched $5.2B growth equity fund, dedicated to investing in high-growth businesses with strong market positioning and durable business models.

The company also announced John Connolly, senior advisor to the Growth Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management and a five-time CEO, will join Limble’s Board of Directors to advise on the company’s next stage of growth. He will join Lars Letonoff, former CRO of KnowBe4, the world’s largest security awareness training and simulated phishing platform; and Jeremiah Daly, founder and general partner of Elephant. Brendon Hardin from Goldman Sachs’ Growth Equity business will also be joining the board in conjunction with this investment.

“The success of Limble can truly be credited to a deep understanding of the specific challenges that face maintenance and facility managers, and the design of a powerful yet streamlined system to solve those problems,” said Bryan Christiansen, CEO and founder, Limble. “We set out to empower the maintenance professionals – the unsung heroes – who keep the world turning and have delivered on that promise with cost savings in the hundreds of millions from reduced reactive maintenance, increased productivity, reduced downtime, and reduced part spend. With this injection of growth capital from Goldman Sachs, we are poised to add new capabilities and extend the reach of our game-changing CMMS solution to companies worldwide.”

Over the past 12 months, Limble has achieved 130% growth and has increased its headcount by 240%. With its modern, innovative approach to CMMS, its customers have achieved significant cost savings. In 2022 alone, Limble customers saved a total of $134M in downtime costs, $68M in parts spend and $442M in reduced labor costs.

“CMMS is essential to managing maintenance operations, but the market has historically been filled with overly complicated, cumbersome tools,” said Brendon Hardin. “Limble has disrupted this market with an intuitive, user-friendly, and modern CMMS that streamlines even the largest operations, and fast implementation means customers see ROI within weeks. The product has proven its value with thousands of customers worldwide, and we are confident Limble’s market penetration has the potential to grow exponentially in the coming months and years.”

Resources:

• CMMS: To learn more about CMMS and its benefits, read The Essential Guide to CMMS. 
• Why Limble: For more information about Limble’s unique and innovative approach, visit Limble CMMS. 
• Employment Opportunities: To learn more about employment opportunities at Limble, please visit the company’s careers page. 

About Limble:
Limble delivers software designed by maintenance professionals, for maintenance professionals. Founded in 2015, the company created a modern CMMS that empowers maintenance professionals to implement preventive maintenance, easily manage assets, gain control of inventory, streamline workflows, report KPIs, organize work orders and realize millions of dollars in cost savings from reduced downtime, parts spend, labor and improved productivity. Thousands of customers worldwide trust Limble including McDonald’s, Nike, Pepsi, DHL Global Forwarding and more.

About Goldman Sachs Asset Management
Bringing together traditional and alternative investments, Goldman Sachs Asset Management provides clients around the world with a dedicated partnership and focus on long-term performance. As the primary investing area within Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), we deliver investment and advisory services for the world’s leading institutions, financial advisors and individuals, drawing from our deeply connected global network and tailored expert insights, across every region and market—overseeing more than $2.6 trillion in assets under supervision worldwide as of March 31, 2023. Driven by a passion for our clients’ performance, we seek to build long-term relationships based on conviction, sustainable outcomes, and shared success over time. Follow us on LinkedIn. 

Media Contact:
Emily Ashley
Lumina Communications
[email protected]  

SOURCE Limble

CAMBRIDGE, England, June 22, 2023 — Cambridge-based leading cyber security education firm, CW Labs (CyberWarfare Labs) has secured a significant seed funding deal with a UK-based angel investor and appointed Mr. Sumit Siddharth (Sid), a serial cyber entrepreneur, as a new Director to the company.

CW Labs is a specialist in technically advanced cyber security courses, focused specifically on cloud security (AWS, Azure, Google and hybrid cloud environments). The courses cater to offensive (red teaming), defensive (blue teaming) and hybrid (purple teaming) techniques used within the cloud infrastructure’s security.

Initiated as a Cyber War Research and Development Project by Manish Gupta and Yash Bharadwaj, in June 2020, amidst the COVID-19 lockdown, CW Labs has since secured four cyber research grants and garnered numerous accolades from esteemed National and International Cyber Competitions. It has so far supported over 4,500 candidates from at least 80 countries, including professionals from Fortune 500 companies.

With this new investment, CW Labs is now in a solid position to explore new opportunities and invest in cutting-edge security R&D, propelling itself towards accelerated growth. This will mean CW Lab’s vision of providing an advanced platform for Cyber Offensive and Defensive Research along with a comprehensive learning environment to enhance competencies will be enabled further.

As well as new funding, CW Labs will gain the support of Sumit Siddharth (Sid) who is joining as a Director. As the CEO of a leading cyber consultancy and education firm, The SecOps Group, and co-founder/investor in other cyber security companies such as PureID (a passwordless authentication solution) and RedHunt Labs (an Attack Surface Management solution), his unparalleled expertise in the field of IT security will be invaluable to CW Labs and its founders.

Commenting on the appointment, Sid said, “I am delighted to join the CW Labs family as its Director at this opportune time when the demand for cybersecurity knowledge is increasing day by day. This investment will help us take our mission of providing world class cyber security education to more people than ever before.”

Manish Gupta and Yash Bharadwaj, co-founders of CW Labs said, “We are excited about this opportunity to scale our operations across multiple geographies while continuing to offer quality education services. The investment will help us take our vision forward by leaps and bounds, better equipping us to provide our students with the most relevant knowledge about the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats.”

For more information about CyberWarfare Labs, visit https://cyberwarfare.live.

About CyberWarfare Labs:

CW Labs is a renowned global Ed-tech company specialising in cybersecurity, offering on-demand educational services. We acknowledge that cybersecurity is a continuous endeavour that requires constant adaptation to evolving threats and the specific requirements of our clients. Our primary focus is divided into two key divisions:

Cyber Range Labs:
We are committed to addressing cybersecurity challenges by providing practical, real-time solutions tailored for all. Our platform offers a virtual space where users can actively engage in hands-on training, honing their skills through our plug-and-play practical labs.

Up-Skilling Platform:
We offer a comprehensive range of On-demand courses designed for all level candidates. Whether you prefer offline or online training, our services cater to educational institutes, government agencies, and corporate entities.

SOURCE CyberWarfare Labs

R&D breakthrough for microbiome-associated therapies: Technology brings breakthrough resolution and context to host-microbiome interactions

PRINCETON, N.J., June 22, 2023 — Kanvas Biosciences, the leader in microbiome mapping technology, announced today a $12M Pre-Series A funding round. The investment will be used to further advance the company’s proprietary platform technology, which promises to revolutionize drug development for microbiome-associated diseases. The round was led by DCVC with participation from Lions Capital LLC, Cooke LLC, Uncommon Denominator, and Triple Impact Capital. As part of the investment round, Jason Pontin, partner at DCVC, will join the company’s board of directors.

The interactions between the microbiome and its host are critical to human health. The current gold standard for analyzing these interactions is to extract a sample, blend it, and sequence the genetic material in the sample. This strategy enables broad inferences about the composition of the sample, but little more, as information regarding biospatial localization and cellular function is lost in the process.To overcome this challenge, Kanvas has developed a revolutionary technology platform that enables highly multiplexed spatial profiling of microbial species. The platform not only determines the identity and function of these microbes, but also maps the host’s corresponding local response – all executed within a single, comprehensive assay.

With Kanvas’ proprietary technology, based on research first published in Nature by the company’s founders, researchers can profile both the microbiome and the host cells with sub-cellular resolution to provide critical context and unparalleled insight into complex host-microbe interactions. This platform can be applied to the discovery and development of novel, live biotherapeutic products, the identification of disease-associated microbes for diagnostics, and leveraging the microbiome to improve therapeutic responses.

“Our technology takes the gastrointestinal tract and the microbiome from black box to transparent and measurable terrain,” says Kanvas Biosciences co-founder and CEO Matthew Cheng, MD. “We are thrilled to drive forward the development of life-saving treatments for some of the world’s most common conditions.” While the microbiome has long been associated with inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer, emerging data indicate its intimate connection to a range of conditions beyond the gastrointestinal tract, including cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, and response to cancer immunotherapy treatments.

The raised capital will be used towards expanding Kanvas’ proprietary single-cell spatial transcriptomics platform and launching biological and R&D discovery platforms. To this end, Kanvas has already established partnerships with leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

“This breakthrough technology empowers researchers to explore microbial communities in unprecedented ways, with profound implications for the health and biomedical industries. It fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human microbiome, allowing us to consider it as a distinct and druggable organ, opening uncharted territories in medicine,” said Jason Pontin of DCVC.

About Kanvas Biosciences
Kanvas Biosciences is building the world’s first microbiome drug screening and drug discovery platform to accelerate live biotherapeutic product (LBP) development. Leveraging its unparalleled ability to spatially map the microbiome and profile host-gene expression at single-cell resolution, the company is constructing the most comprehensive and robust microbiome data resource for future drug development. Kanvas Biosciences’ technology was initially developed at Cornell University and exclusively licensed. The company’s notable investors include DCVC, Lions Capital LLC, Cooke LLC, Uncommon Denominator, and Triple Impact Capital. The company is headquartered in Monmouth Junction, NJ.

SOURCE Kanvas Biosciences

Investment Will Accelerate the Platform’s Reach, Fueling Company Growth 

EL PASO, Texas, June 22, 2023 — FundMiner, the AI-powered platform that helps fundraising organizations measure and maximize impact, today announced that it has raised $1.725 million in funding. Arizona-based Sonoran Founders Fund led the round, followed by Techstars, Cascade Seed Fund and more. The money will be used to accelerate the company’s growth and expand its reach in the advancement technology space. FundMiner serves an array of businesses and nonprofits, from higher education & K-12 schools, to nonprofits & community foundations, academic medical centers, arts & cultural organizations, religious organizations and beyond.

“Our organization relies on philanthropic support from our donors,” said Jake Logan, vice president for Institutional Advancement at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). “Our ability to spend and manage our donors’ generous gifts is absolutely critical in inspiring their trust in our institution.” Logan shared that the system UTEP used previously made things difficult. “Before FundMiner, we did what most fundraising-driven entities do: relied on disparate systems and combined the data from those systems manually in Excel spreadsheets to handle gift administration. Needless to say, this approach was ineffective and time-consuming. FundMiner’s streamlined solution is a breakthrough in our industry. It gives us access to the critical data, analytics and reports that will help us run a truly successful fundraising operation. FundMiner has had a profound impact on how we deliver for our donors. We’re already seeing it pay off in the form of increased giving from current donors.”

When fundraising organizations aren’t effective with gift administration processes, they experience unhappy donors, a loss of future funding, and underutilization of resources. FundMiner is transforming an outdated industry, in which deans, department chairs, other members of the leadership and those in the advancement office captured information manually, churned out ad hoc reports and dealt with unreliable, inefficient results. Now, this can all change. The AI-powered platform:

• Makes fund data accessible
• Reduces siloed systems
• Tracks fund usage & compliance
• Increases automation and efficiency
• Offers a portal to provide easy impact reporting
• Uses intelligent analytics to help leaders make informed decisions
• Reduces risks related to negative publicity and legal exposure
• Is complementary to products that many users already have in place, like Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge, Oracle’s Peoplesoft and Salesforce

Customers and prospects are enthused by the platform’s features to measure and maximize impact, and reduce traditionally siloed activity in their organizations. To learn more, please visit https://fundminer.com/.

About FundMiner
Founded in 2022 by Chelsea Lamego and Alejandro Stevenson-Duran, FundMiner’s software helps large fundraising organizations, like universities and community foundations, automate and simplify management of their philanthropic funding. By bringing together data from previously siloed systems and applying intelligent analytics, FundMiner enables customers to experience more effective capital utilization, increased fundraising revenue and improved donor satisfaction. To learn more, please visit https://fundminer.com/.

SOURCE FundMiner

Lake Nona Sports & Health Tech Fund and Refinery Ventures Co-Led the Round for the FoodHealth Industry Innovator.

Other powerhouse investors include Mudita Venture Partners, Harvest Ridge Capital, BDMI (part of Bertelsmann’s corporate venture arm, Bertelsmann Investments), and Alex Morgan & Servando Carrasco’s Trybe Ventures

DENVER, June 22, 2023 — bitewell, the first ever corporate food health benefits provider, announced the oversubscribed close of their $4M seed round spearheaded by Lake Nona Sports & Health Tech Fund and Refinery Ventures. Participants in the round include Alex Morgan’s Trybe Ventures, Mudita Venture Partners, Harvest Ridge Capital and Bertlesmann’s BDMI, among others. 

“bitewell fits perfectly within our thesis of investing in companies bettering human experiences, and we see their contribution through the lens of nutrition and food accessibility,” said Justin Driscoll, Associate at Lake Nona Sports & Health Tech Fund. “By pushing employers to offer food benefits that provide employees with healthier eating options and give them greater control, transparency, and the capacity to monitor their own health, the company is well-positioned to redefine how the world thinks about health benefits. Sam and Chris possess all the characteristics we look for in founders — operational grit, domain expertise, consumer-obsessed mentality, and are vision-driven. We are excited to see bitewell challenge the status quo in a market ripe for disruption.”

Co-founded by Samantha Citro Alexander and Chris Fanucchi, bitewell plans to dedicate the funds to their creation of  the groundbreaking ‘Food as Health Benefits’ category. More specifically, bitewell will invest the funds to strengthen its leadership team with best-in-class executive hires, nationally scale their sales division, fund research efforts with leading academic institutions, and build out more advanced technology and data infrastructure for the brand.

“This is the start of an accelerated growth path to spread foodhealth benefits across the country. We took our time carefully choosing partners who believe wholeheartedly that the future of health is food, just like we do,” said Samantha Citro Alexander, co-founder and CEO of bitewell. “Looking forward now is both encouraging and empowering, knowing that we have partners who believe in the bitewell mission and will not compromise on our drive to achieve it.”

bitewell’s revolutionary FoodHealth Score, which ranges from 0-10 and uses a simple grey/red/yellow/green color system, is incorporated into its massive food marketplace. This Score helps users navigate food shopping with customized health goals in mind. Similar to a credit score for food, every food purchase is scored, and the aggregate Score of all food purchases helps users understand if their diet is net-accretive or net-dilutive to their health.

“Now is the perfect time for a service like bitewell. Employer-sponsored benefit plans persist because employers know the importance of having healthy employees,” said Tim Schigel, Managing Partner of Refinery Ventures. “Healthy nutrition is the next step for companies looking to improve the lives of their staff.”

For the first time ever, bitewell’s individualized FoodHealth Score enables subscribed employers – and their employees –  to buy food based on healthfulness. bitewell’s marketplace allows users to shop for groceries, restaurant meals, meal kits, and more, applying this health-first lens to more than 85% of the US food supply.

For more information on the platform and product offerings, please visit bitewell.com.

About bitewell

Founded in 2020, bitewell believes in the power of improving health through food. Purpose-built by food lovers, nutrition experts, and technologists to be the smartest place to shop for food, bitewell is a healthy food marketplace that works directly with employers to provide food health benefits, reducing insurance premiums and improving health for users. The platform utilizes food experts to make healthy eating simpler and smarter by applying a customized FoodHealth Score – think credit score, but for food – to the foods users are eating. Recognized by the Denver Business Journal as one of the top start-ups to watch in 2023, the Denver-based company developed a simpler way to personalize food delivery options by implementing a customized nutritional guide, creating an intentional food shopping experience without sacrificing or limiting options.

To find out more about bitewell, please visit www.bitewell.com. Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Facebook to stay in the loop on the latest news and updates.

About Lake Nona Sports & Health Tech Fund 
The Lake Nona Sports & Health Tech Fund invests in seed-stage companies that are bettering human experiences through sports and health technology. Launched as a partnership between leAD Sports & Health Tech Partners and Tavistock Group, the $30m fund supports its portfolio with access to a broad platform of resources, services, an international network of strategic domain and industry experts, world-class infrastructure, and smart capital. For more information, please visit: www.lakenonafund.com

About Refinery Ventures
Established in 2017 by Tim Schigel, Refinery Ventures is an investment firm focused on disruptive, Early Scale companies. Drawing from his extensive experience in founding and serving as CEO of ShareThis, the most recognizable icon on the Internet, to creating the Cintrifuse Syndicate Fund, raising over $120 million, Schigel build Refinery Ventures to bridge the gap between the Seed and Series A. Refinery Ventures is located in Cincinnati, Ohio. Learn more at www.refinery.com.

SOURCE bitewell

BOSTON, June 22, 2023 — Sverica Capital Management LP (“Sverica”), a private equity investment firm, announced today that it has made a strategic growth investment in First Stop Health (“FSH” or the “Company”).

Headquartered in Chicago, IL, FSH is an innovative, high-growth virtual care solution provider that works with mid-size and enterprise employers to help reduce healthcare costs and provide convenient care options for their employees. FSH delivers virtual access to urgent care, primary care, and mental health providers for a per employee per month (“PEPM”) fee with no cost to patients. The Company drives market leading employee engagement and satisfaction because of its intuitive user interface, and robust provider network. Founded by Patrick Spain and Dr. Mark Friedman, FSH works with more than 700 unique employers which they sell to via a nationwide network of employee benefit brokers and consultants. 

“Our search for a capital partner focused on firms that embraced our commitment to the patient experience. We are thrilled to partner with Sverica, who understands how to leverage our strengths to accelerate our growth,” said Teira Gunlock, CEO of FSH. Gunlock will continue to lead the Company, while Gregg Osenkowski, Partner at Sverica, and Doug Patrican, Vice President at Sverica, will join the First Stop Health Board of Directors.

“We are excited to partner with the First Stop Health team and to advance their mission to provide employers and employees with the highest quality virtual health services.  First Stop Health’s market leading user engagement delivers on the promise of virtual care as the digital front door to the healthcare system, resulting in tangible ROI to employers,” said Gregg Osenkowski, Partner at Sverica.

Doug Patrican, Vice President at Sverica, added “First Stop Health’s focus on delivering exceptional patient care permeates the entire organization and we look forward to supporting the FSH team as they continue to execute on their vision and growth plans.”

About First Stop Health

First Stop Health (FSH) provides care that people love with various digital healthcare services. Patients can access virtual care 24/7 via app, website, or phone. FSH helps patients save time and money with safe, convenient, high-quality virtual care solutions – Primary Care, Urgent Care & Mental Health. FSH was named one of Inc. Magazine’s Best Workplaces of 2022 and 2023 and ranked one of the fastest-growing private companies for the past 5 years by Inc. 5000. For more information, please visit www.fshealth.com.

About Sverica Capital Management

Sverica Capital Management is a leading growth oriented private equity firm that has committed capital of $2.0 billion across six funds. The firm acquires, invests in, and actively builds companies that are, or could become, leaders in their industries. Since inception, Sverica has followed a “business builder” approach to investing and takes an active supporting role in its portfolio companies. Sverica devotes significant internal time and resources to help its management teams develop and execute growth strategies and proactively looks for levers to pull to accelerate growth by reinvesting back into those companies. Sverica firmly believes in building businesses collaboratively that can endure for the long term by starting with a strong foundation and bringing the right people and playbook to drive reinvestment and ultimately strong returns for our investors. For more information, please visit https://sverica.com.

Media Inquiries:
Nathalie Allen
Sverica Capital Management
(415) 249-4906
[email protected]

SOURCE Sverica Capital Management

• Supercritical, today responsible for 35% of corporate carbon removal purchases and counts two of the world’s top 20 CDR buyers among its customers
• Carbon removal market today at 0.01% of capacity IPCC says will be needed by 2050; Supercritical is supporting urgent accelerated scaling of CDR technologies
• The funding, the second Supercritical raise to feature a gender-balanced cap table, will be used to fuel new chapter of growth

LONDON, June 22, 2023 — Supercritical, the vetted carbon removal marketplace helping businesses reach net zero, today announces it has raised $13m in Series A funding, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The round includes funding from RTP Global, Greencode Ventures, MMC Ventures and others. Supercritical aims to accelerate the urgent scaling of carbon removal technologies by aggregating business demand and innovating with new purchase models. It will use the funding to grow its team, expand its product offering, and acquire additional customers.

Corporates want to reduce their carbon emissions, but most businesses will never be able to achieve full net zero purely through decarbonisation efforts and require carbon removal to do so. Unlike traditional emissions avoidance offsets that, until today, were the focus of sustainability programs, Supercritical’s marketplace allows corporations to purchase fully qualified carbon removal credits, as set out in the industry standard Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), that allow them to reach net zero.

However, CDR capacity is nowhere near the level it needs to be. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that to keep global average temperature rises below 1.5C, CDR at scale will be essential. Across the whole of 2022, around 600,000 tonnes of CDR were purchased – less than 0.01% of the 10 gigatonnes the IPCC says will need to be available annually by 2050.

The CDR market is rapidly evolving: at the beginning of 2020, just 237 tonnes of CDR offsets had been sold in total, while earlier this year individual companies made million tonne CDR purchases for the first time. However, growth needs to accelerate even more rapidly in the years ahead to avoid climate calamity.

Supercritical is at the vanguard of efforts to urgently scale the CDR market. It is the only marketplace focusing on high-quality, vetted, durable CDR projects. These include engineered solutions such as biochar, direct air capture (DAC) and enhanced weathering in addition to nature-based solutions such as afforestation. All CDR projects on the marketplace must pass through Supercritical’s vetting process, with only 6% making the cut.

By aggregating demand from corporate buyers, Supercritical is acting as a market maker, helping CDR projects scale. It is also spearheading innovative new purchase agreements to jump-start accelerated CDR capacity growth. In May, Supercritical brokered a long-term offtake agreement for biochar provider Carbo Culture, enabling the pre-purchase of thousands of tonnes of biochar and allowing Carbo Culture to develop C1, a new facility that converts carbon-containing biomass into biochar at a commercial scale for the first time. 

For businesses, Supercritical measures, reduces and, using these CDR methods, removes carbon emissions, helping businesses to reach net zero. Supercritical is already one of the world’s largest carbon removal marketplaces, with 35% of corporate purchases taking place through the platform and two of the world’s top 20 CDR buyers buying through the platform. Supercritical works with some of the most ambitious businesses when it comes to carbon commitments, including leading business banking platform Tide, who working with Supercritical, this year became the first fintech to remove 100% of their emissions; and leading algorithmic trading firm XTX Markets who, in partnership with Supercritical, have become one of the top 10 purchasers of CDR globally. Other notable customers include Veriff, Multiverse and IMC.

Looking forward, Supercritical plans to accelerate hiring, evolve its product offering to continue supporting the CDR market’s scaling, and acquire additional customers. The round will be the second raise conducted by Supercritical with a gender-balanced cap table.

Commenting, Co-founder and CEO Michelle You, said:

“Carbon removal – in parallel with aggressive decarbonization – is required to stay below 1.5C of warming and avoid the worst effects of climate change. We’re proud to work with businesses that are taking a leading role in building sustainability programs that center around both reducing emissions and removing with durable carbon removal, the only type of offset that counts towards net zero. As the only marketplace exclusively focusing on high quality carbon removal, it’s our mission to act as a trusted partner to businesses serious about net zero.

Since our launch two years ago, we’ve been astonished by the rapid growth in demand for our portfolio of durable carbon removal offsets. With this funding, we are excited to enter a new chapter and play a meaningful role as a market maker for promising carbon removal projects, aggregating demand to support them as they scale. 

We have a vanishingly tiny window to start the acceleration curve towards the 10 billion tonne annual CDR capacity required by 2050, and we are proud to play an early market leading role in helping this industry scale.”

Commenting, Paul Murphy, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners said:

“Supercritical is doing something unique. By focusing exclusively on carbon removal offsets, they are helping businesses invest in the places that will actually deliver climate impact while they work in parallel to decarbonise. By aggregating demand, including through innovative future-proofing models, they are providing the resources that CDR projects need to scale in time. 

Net zero is simply unattainable for the vast majority of corporations without a robust, quality carbon removal platform like Supercritical. We are so pleased to be part of their journey.”

About Supercritical
Supercritical is a vetted carbon removal marketplace that helps businesses achieve net zero. Founded in London, its technology makes it easy for companies to understand their climate impact and purchase high-quality carbon removal offsets to reduce it.
Already, 35% of the world’s carbon removal customers use Supercritical to purchase carbon removal offsets. The company has two customers in the top 20 buyers of carbon removal worldwide, and recently helped Tide become the first fintech in the world to remove 100% of its emissions.
Supercritical is backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, GreenCode Ventures, MMC Ventures. It has been previously backed by LocalGlobe and angel investors including Peter Reinhardt (Twilio Segment and Charm Industrial), Yancey Strickler (Kickstarter), Alice Bentinck (Entrepreneur First), Gustaf Alströmer (Y Combinator) and Evelyn Bourke (Bupa).
Its founders are repeat technology entrepreneurs who started the company as a way to build a better future for their children. www.gosupercritical.com
Images of the Supercritical co-founders are available to download here.

Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2108174/Supercritical_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Supercritical

Financing round led by Ysios Capital and Gilde Healthcare with participation from Novartis Venture Fund, New Enterprise Associates, and Lightstone Ventures

Unique Click-to-Release platform enables on-target activation of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and immunomodulators, as well as off-target deactivation of radiopharmaceuticals

Proceeds will be used to advance the lead program, a click-cleavable ADC targeting TAG72, into the clinic, and expand the pipeline

Chris Martin, DPhil, former CEO of ADC Therapeutics, appointed Board Chair and Jay Feingold, M.D., Ph.D., former Chief Medical Officer of Pyxis Oncology and ADC Therapeutics, appointed CMO

NIJMEGEN, Netherlands and BOSTON, June 22, 2023 — Tagworks Pharmaceuticals BV (“Tagworks”), the pioneer of Click-to-Release chemistry designed to deliver more effective and safer systemic therapies, today announced a $65 million Series A financing led by Ysios Capital and Gilde Healthcare with participation from Novartis Venture Fund, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), and Lightstone Ventures. They join existing investors including Meneldor and Oost NL. In conjunction with the financing, Thomas Harth (Ysios Capital), Edwin de Graaf (Gilde Healthcare), Marianne Uteng, Ph.D. (Novartis Venture Fund), Michele Park, Ph.D. (NEA), and Christina Isacson, Ph.D. (Lightstone Ventures), joined the Board of Directors.

The financing will support the advancement of TGW101, Tagworks’ lead click-cleavable ADC program, and the company’s proprietary Click-to-Release platform.

Tagworks’ platform enables controlled drug release induced by an in vivo click reaction with a trigger molecule. When applied to ADCs the triggered on-target release expands the scope to non-internalizing targets, affording a high bystander effect for the killing of tumors with heterogenous target expression. The platform also enables the on-target activation of immunomodulators, and the off-target deactivation of radiopharmaceuticals, enhancing their safety and therapeutic index.

Marc Robillard, Ph.D., is co-founder and CEO of Tagworks. He initiated and led the team working on Tagworks’ in vivo chemistry within Philips Healthcare, leading its spinout into Tagworks, where the click-to-release approach and other in vivo click-mediated therapeutic applications were further developed.

He commented: “Our Click-to-Release approach is poised to change the standard of care for patients with solid tumors. The limitation of today’s conventional ADCs is that they rely on suitable internalizing targets, which are not necessarily expressed by every cancer type and cancer cell. Our ADC therapy, however, does not depend on internalizing targets as it is based on chemically controlled release of the payload in the tumor micro-environment, thereby killing heterogenous tumors where not every cancer cell expresses the target. Accordingly, Tagworks has the potential to enhance efficacy in a safe manner through controlled payload release, and so, boost the therapeutic index. Importantly, our unique approach to targeting non-internalizing receptors also offers the opportunity to address a whole new cancer target landscape. This financing is an important step in unlocking the wide range of potential applications for Click-to-Release technology, to treat cancer types not addressed by current therapies.”

The company’s lead program, TGW101, is a click-cleavable ADC targeting tumor-associated glycoprotein 72 (TAG72), a clinically validated non-internalizing target widely expressed in solid tumors. TGW101 is designed to enable targeted and controlled drug release and activation in the tumor microenvironment, thus facilitating the killing of tumors with heterogenous target expression, which are difficult to treat with current therapies. The proceeds of the financing will support Tagworks in bringing this program towards initial clinical proof-of-concept, and in advancing the company’s broader pipeline, currently focused on oncology.

Tagworks owns a broad intellectual property estate on in vivo Click-Conjugation and Click-to-Release technology and is initially leveraging its approach to expand the number of ADC targets. In addition to TGW101, the pipeline includes discovery phase programs in ADCs and radiopharmaceuticals. Tagworks’ technology is compatible with small molecules, peptides, and larger biomolecules, such as antibodies and fragments, and covers a wide range of toxin and immunomodulator classes.

Chris Martin, DPhil, Tagworks’ Chairman of the Board commented: “I am very pleased to join the Tagworks Board as Chair, and to support and guide the team in working to rapidly move their lead ADC program into clinical development. ADCs have long held great promise as powerful, highly targeted cancer therapies, and Tagworks’ platform represents an opportunity to expand both the therapeutic index and reach of these therapies to additional tumor types, and to make a truly transformative impact on cancer patients not served by existing therapies.”  

Thomas Harth, Principal at Ysios Capital stated: “We are proud to have assembled such a strong, international syndicate of investors around Tagworks. Click-to-Release shows tremendous potential to bring forward a new generation of biologic therapeutics with higher efficacy and improved safety that could be very meaningful for patients. We look for companies with truly differentiated approaches, and thus we are delighted to support Tagworks in its next phase of development.”

Edwin de Graaf, Managing Partner at Gilde Healthcare added: “Tagworks’ cutting-edge technology platform is very promising for the development of first and best in class therapeutics, such as ADCs, immunomodulators and radiopharmaceuticals. The ability to enable on-target activation or off-target deactivation is a potentially game-changing opportunity in the field of drug development. We look forward to working closely with this top-tier team as it advances powerful new treatments for cancer and other diseases.”

About Tagworks Pharmaceuticals
Tagworks Pharmaceuticals, pioneer of the Click-to-Release approach, is a precision therapy company, leveraging its technology platform, which is protected by a broad patent estate, to develop a new standard of care for patients suffering from severe diseases including cancer. With operations in the Netherlands and the U.S., Tagworks is developing a pipeline of click-cleavable therapies. Its lead program, TGW101, is an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) targeting TAG72, a clinically-validated, pan-carcinoma target that so far has remained out of reach of current ADC therapies. Tagworks’ technology enables on-target activation of ADCs and immunomodulators, as well as off-target deactivation of radioimmunotherapies to enhance their therapeutic index. For more information, visit us at www.tagworkspharma.com.

About Ysios Capital
Ysios Capital is a leading Spanish venture capital firm that provides private equity financing to early- and mid-stage, highly innovative life science companies bringing life-changing treatments to patients, with a focus on indications with high unmet need. Our diverse international team in San Sebastián and Barcelona is driven by science, with the ambition to transform capital into medical breakthroughs. Ysios Capital was founded in 2008 and has over €400 million in assets under management through its three funds. For more information, please visit www.ysioscapital.com.

About Gilde Healthcare
Gilde Healthcare is a specialized healthcare investor managing over €2.5 billion across two fund strategies: Venture&Growth and Private Equity. The Venture&Growth fund of Gilde Healthcare invests in fast growing companies active in digital health, medtech and therapeutics, based in Europe and North America. The Private Equity fund of Gilde Healthcare participates in profitable lower mid-market healthcare companies based in North-Western Europe. For more information, visit the company’s website at www.gildehealthcare.com.

About Novartis Venture Fund
Novartis Venture Fund is a financially driven corporate life science venture fund whose purpose is to foster innovation, drive significant patient benefit and generate superior returns by creating and investing in innovative life science companies at various stages of their development. For more information, go to www.nvfund.com.

About NEA
New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a global venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. Founded in 1977, NEA has over $25 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2023 and invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages in a company’s lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firm’s long track record of investing includes more than 270 portfolio company IPOs and more than 450 mergers and acquisitions. For more information, please visit www.nea.com.

About Lightstone Ventures
Lightstone Ventures is a global venture capital firm investing in biotech and medtech companies pioneering big ideas poised to transform patient outcomes. We were founded in 2012 to empower visionary entrepreneurs with the resources and operational guidance necessary to bring their innovative therapeutics and technologies to the patients who need them most. Our investment team has led deals resulting in 19 acquisitions and 20 initial public offerings over the last two decades. The firm has offices in Boston, Mass., Menlo Park, Calif., and Dublin, Ireland. For more information, please visit www.lightstonevc.com

Contact
Media and Investors
Sarah Sutton/Cameron Willis
Argot Partners
(212) 600-1902
[email protected]

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SOURCE Tagworks Pharmaceuticals BV

Museum actively seeking applicants for new education-based AmeriCorps program

STURBRIDGE, Mass., June 21, 2023 — Old Sturbridge Village has been selected by the Massachusetts Service Alliance as one of 31 Bay State organizations to receive an AmeriCorps grant. AmeriCorps is the federal agency for national service and volunteerism and provides opportunities for Americans to serve their country domestically. Old Sturbridge Village is the first museum in Massachusetts to receive this sort of grant.

As the host site for an AmeriCorps program, Old Sturbridge Village is actively recruiting a diverse group of 16 dedicated, service-minded individuals to live on-site and be part of its new education-based program launching in September 2023. The AmeriCorps program will serve elementary students in after-school programs across Central Massachusetts. Corps members will work as community-based museum educators and will be responsible for developing fun and engaging hands-on lessons for students and will work directly with students in after-school and community settings. 

To apply, access the application here or download a PDF copy of the application here. Completed applications can be sent to [email protected]. 

“Old Sturbridge Village is thrilled to be partnering with AmeriCorps and the Massachusetts Service Alliance to create this new education-based program that will benefit students across Central Massachusetts,” said James Donohue, President and CEO of Old Sturbridge Village. “Community based education has always been an important mission of the museum. This new program will enable us to expand our educational reach and bring the unique hands-on learning experience our museum is known for, out into the community.”

About Old Sturbridge Village

Old Sturbridge Village, first opened to the public in 1946, is one of the country’s oldest and largest living history museums, celebrating life in early New England from 1790-1840. It is the largest living history museum in the Northeast. Each year, more than 250,000 visitors interact with costumed historians, experience up-close demonstrations of early American trades, and meet heritage breed farm animals. Situated on 200 scenic acres, the Village is a collection of more than 40 historic buildings – including homes, meetinghouses, trade shops, working farms, restaurants, shops and three water-powered mills.

Located just off the Massachusetts Turnpike and Routes I-84 and 20 in Sturbridge, Mass., Old Sturbridge Village is open year-round, but days and hours vary seasonally. Daily admission is: $30 for adults, $28 for seniors, $15 for College Students, $15 for children ages 4-17, children 3 and under admitted free. For details, visit https://www.osv.org/plan-your-visit/. 

Old Sturbridge Village is also the managing partner of Coggeshall Farm Museum in Bristol, R.I. Members at OSV receive reciprocal membership at Coggeshall Farm Museum.

SOURCE Old Sturbridge Village