Following $30M Series A Funding Round, Sentra Hires Leading Cybersecurity Sales Executive To Support Rapid Growth
NEW YORK, March 7, 2023 — Sentra, a cloud data security company, has appointed Joseph Hoban to vice president of sales. In his new role, Hoban will draw from more than 15 years of experience leading successful global sales teams to increase Sentra’s revenue growth, and scale the company’s customer base worldwide. Hoban will lead Sentra’s sales team, identify new business opportunities, as well as drive the company’s channel strategy and partner ecosystem.
Sentra’s agentless Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) platform enables security teams to gain full visibility and control of data, as well as protect against sensitive data breaches across the entire public cloud stack. In the last six months, Sentra opened its new North American headquarters in New York City and secured a $30 million Series A funding round led by Standard Investments with participation from Munich Re Ventures (MRV), Moore Strategic Ventures, Xerox Ventures and INT3 as well as existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Zeev Ventures. Hoban’s appointment comes at a critical time as the company works to meet the growing demand for its cloud-native data security solutions.
“Joseph brings a vast amount of cybersecurity experience to Sentra’s executive team,” said Yoav Regev, co-founder and CEO of Sentra. “He will be an instrumental asset as we grow our U.S. presence and further establish our footprint worldwide. His knowledge of the market, extensive work in building successful partner ecosystems, and the ability to grow and inspire sales teams is exactly what Sentra needs at this stage of our journey.”
Hoban has a proven track record in building high-performing U.S. sales teams as well as developing new market opportunities in Asia-Pacific, EMEA and Latin America. He most recently served in a sales leadership role at Axonius and has held senior sales positions at Centrify, FireEye and Mandiant.
“As the amount of data continues to grow in the cloud, so do the data security challenges enterprises face,” said Hoban. “Sentra is solving a crucial problem around securing sensitive data that the cybersecurity industry has struggled with since the acceleration of cloud adoption. I’m excited to be part of the Sentra team that is building a data-centric future where enterprises have the confidence they need to move large amounts of data to and across multi clouds.”
About Sentra
Sentra is a data security platform that helps organizations discover and remediate the top data security risks in their public environments. Sentra automatically detects if sensitive data is vulnerable due to misconfigurations, over-permissions, unauthorized access, data duplication or other security issues. The company was founded in 2021 and is co-headquartered in New York City and Tel Aviv. For more information, please visit www.sentra.io.
Media Contacts: Brianna McGarry Bateman Agency for Sentra [email protected] +1-717-881-6123
SAN FRANCISCO, March 7, 2023 — Elad Gil, Akash Garg, and Rebecca Rettig have joined as Electric Capital Advisors to support crypto founders.
Elad Gil is the co-founder of Color Health, former VP at Twitter, began Google’s Mobile team, and an investor in over 40 companies worth over $1 billion, including Airbnb, Airtable, Coinbase, Figma, Opensea, and Stripe.
Akash Garg is the former CTO of Moonpay, CTO at Afterpay (acquired by Block), and led engineering teams at Uber and Twitter that onboarded millions of new users.
Rebecca Rettig is Chief Policy Officer at Polygon, former Chief Legal and Policy Officer at the Aave Companies, and a pioneer in understanding legal considerations surrounding DeFi, DAOs, and more.
Electric Advisors Are Experts Who Support Crypto Founders
Building crypto companies and protocols is uniquely challenging. Founders must build easy-to-use products on entirely new software platforms, navigate complex and nuanced regulatory questions, and create new markets to support creators and promote financial inclusion. Electric Advisors are the world’s leading experts in these areas and are available to help founders navigate these challenges. Elad, Akash, and Rebecca will join existing Electric Capital Advisors Jay Clayton, the 32nd Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Kevin Warsh, a former Federal Reserve Board of Governor, and Pratiti Raychoudhury, Head of Research at Meta.
Elad Gil Entrepreneur, Investor, and Advisor
Elad Gil co-founded Color Health and Mixer Labs (acquired by Twitter). He helped scale Twitter from 90 to 1,500 people, started Google’s Mobile team, and authored the High Growth Handbook. Elad has invested in over 40 companies worth $1 billion or more, 30 of which he funded at the seed or series A, including Airbnb, Airtable, Anchorage, Brex, Coinbase, Figma, Instacart, Opensea, and Stripe.
Elad will work with founders on fundraising, product strategy, and organizational growth.
Akash Garg Former Engineering Executive at MoonPay, Afterpay (acquired by Block), Uber, Twitter
Akash Garg was CTO of MoonPay, CTO at Afterpay (acquired by Block), and led engineering teams at Twitter and Uber. At Afterpay, he founded and led the technology teams that were responsible for Afterpay’s US expansion. Block acquired Afterpay in 2021 for $29 billion. Previously, he led all technology products for Uber’s 3.5+ million drivers including onboarding, compliance, and driver experience, as well as led technical teams that added tens of millions of users to Twitter.
Akash will work with founders in engineering architecture, building and scaling high-performing engineering teams, and more.
Rebecca Rettig Chief Policy Officer, Polygon Labs
Rebecca Rettig is the Chief Policy Officer at Polygon Labs, where she oversees global policy and drives relationships with regulators across the globe. She was previously Chief Legal and Policy Officer at the Aave Companies, where she advocated for policies supporting decentralized blockchain technology. Rebecca was previously a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and FisherBroyles, where she represented well-known DeFi & crypto software development companies in litigation and regulatory matters. Rebecca is a pioneer in understanding the complex legal considerations aroundeDeFi, DAOs, legal structures around protocols, tokens, and more.
Rebecca will work closely with founders in areas such as legal and regulatory compliance, government relations, and public policy.
About Electric Capital
Electric Capital is one of the largest crypto-native venture capital firms. Electric has raised over $1 billion in capital to invest in early-stage crypto companies and protocols with investment sizes ranging from $1m to $50m. Electric is unique in its ability to provide founders with deep expertise in engineering, product design, token economic design, liquidity provisioning, on-chain governance support and cryptography. Two-thirds of the Electric Capital team are engineers and former founders with successful exits. Electric Capital’s investments include Aven, Bitwise, Bitnomial, Certora, dYdX, Frax, Hashflow, Magic Eden, NEAR, Slingshot and more.
CHICAGO, March 7, 2023 — Betsperts Media and Technology Group (https://www.betspertsgroup.com/) is pleased to announce that Ari Borod has joined its Board of Directors, effective immediately.
Borod brings extensive experience in sports media, revenue generation, and commercial partnerships to the Betsperts team. He is the Chief Business Officer of Fanatics Betting and Gaming and has held senior positions at FanDuel and Action Network. His expertise in the sports betting vertical will be invaluable to Betsperts as the company continues to expand its platform and develop new products and services.
“We are thrilled to have Ari Borod join our Board of Directors,” said Betsperts CEO, Reid Rooney. “Ari’s experience and track record of success in the betting space will be a tremendous asset to our team as we continue to innovate and grow.”
Borod added, “I am excited to join the Board of Directors at Betsperts and contribute to the company’s ongoing success. Betsperts has a talented team and a strong vision for the future, and I look forward to working with them to build the next generation of media and technology solutions for the sports betting and media industry.”
Betsperts Group has achieved profitability in 2023, boasting total revenue growth through February of 76%, and traffic scaling to more 22M page views (+260% growth) through February. Betsperts Group has had over 850,000 podcast downloads and 500,000+ YouTube views through February, combining for +200% growth in the podcast and video vertical.
Betsperts Group has successfully closed their first $3 million of their Series A2 raise led by Verance Capital while actively seeking $2M in growth capital. Participants in this round include HBSE Ventures, Parlay Capital, and other current Betsperts investors. The additional funding will be used to support the company’s ongoing content development and expansion / acquisition plans. With the new funding, Betsperts is well-positioned to continue to innovate and grow as the sports betting industry continues to rapidly evolve.
About Betsperts Media and Technology Group
Betsperts Media and Technology Group (https://www.betspertsgroup.com/) is a leading provider of sports content, technology, and analytics. The company’s platform offers users access to expert analysis, tools, and sports news, as well as a suite of data and analytics tools designed to help sports fans make informed decisions.
Led by Aspiration and One Small Planet, Funding Will Help Trusted Environmental Asset Developer Create Long-Term Value for Frontline Communities and Investors
DENVER, March 7, 2023 — RenewWest, an environmental asset developer, today announced its $3.2 million seed financing round, which was led by Aspiration and One Small Planet. Other participating investors include Clear Sky Advisors, a subsidiary of Concord Ltd. RenewWest will use the funding to expand its technical team, grow the project pipeline, and invest directly with land stewards around the world.
RenewWest is removing carbon at scale by delivering some of the highest quality nature-based projects in the market. Every RenewWest project has two objectives: optimize carbon storage capacity by accelerating the restoration lifecycle and collaborate with local land stewards to equitably distribute economic benefits. Nature-based climate solutions have the ability to provide around 30% of the global emissions reduction needed to achieve the 1.5 degree target under the Paris Agreement, according to a report by the World Economic Forum and McKinsey, all while supporting frontline communities and improving biodiversity.
“We are advancing scientifically rigorous methodologies in order to deliver high-integrity, long-lasting conservation and restoration outcomes, while ensuring frontline communities have tangible economic benefits like revenue sharing, jobs, education, and economies,” said John Cleland, CEO, RenewWest. “This funding will allow us to expand globally, helping communities that are disproportionately impacted by climate change.”
“In my country, local communities are benefiting from conserved wetlands, which ultimately provide better livelihoods through protection of their houses, protection and recovery of fishing, ecotourism income, and a growing cultural appreciation for their natural assets,” said Dr. Jorge Alfredo Herrera Silveira, a Yucatán-based marine biologist and global pioneer in research on mangroves and coastal ecosystems. “Projects like the ones RenewWest is developing in Yucatán, Mexico have a direct economic benefit for local communities.”
Since 2018, RenewWest has spearheaded the Collins-Modoc Reforestation Project, the largest carbon reforestation project in US history, and has expanded their work to restore and conserve ecosystems in the United States, Peru, Mexico, Jamaica, and Papua New Guinea.
“The nature-based solutions market is rapidly expanding, signaling a growing recognition that healthy ecosystems are the world’s most powerful carbon sink. The pressure is on for businesses to demonstrate measurable impact,” said Olivia Albrecht, CEO, Aspiration. “Investing in environmental repair is an effective way to do this. We’re partnering with RenewWest because they’re one of the few developers whose track record proves that they can deliver complex projects with high integrity and high-quality credits at scale.”
“As we work to accelerate the harmony of environmental and economic wealth, we are incredibly excited about the high-energy team at RenewWest, their forestry expertise, and high-quality reforestation efforts,” says Jack Wielebinksi, who runs the venture capital arm of One Small Planet, a company working to bridge the natural and financial worlds.
To learn more about RenewWest’s approach to environmental repair, visit RenewWest.com.
About RenewWest
RenewWest is an environmental asset developer demonstrating that scientifically rigorous strategies can create economic value while mitigating climate change. The company operates projects in the United States, Central and South America, and Oceania and works across multiple ecosystems like temperate forests, rainforests, wetlands and mangroves, peatlands, and degraded rangelands. Since 2018, the company has worked on developing nature-based projects that will deliver high-quality, independently verified carbon credits while increasing biodiversity, returning value to investors, and improving economic outcomes for frontline communities. RenewWest integrates science, technology, and operational expertise to accelerate the project lifecycle and generate more predictable, higher-quality credits. The team has been at the forefront of forestry and carbon markets since its founding and led the largest carbon reforestation project in United States history. RenewWest is headquartered in Colorado and backed by Aspiration and One Small Planet. For more information, visit RenewWest.com.
About One Small Planet
One Small Planet is an organization focused on the evolution of the global economy by integrating natural intelligence with modern technologies and systems in support of harmonious environmental and economic wealth. The company manages an investment fund deploying capital for ecological, social, and economic wealth creation; supports and operates regenerative land projects; provides philanthropy for indigenous-led and other frontline organizations; and convenes a community of thought leaders and innovators around the world. For more information, visit OneSmallPlanet.org.
About Aspiration
Aspiration is a high-impact climate finance company working at scale to help enterprises, consumers, and investors achieve their climate goals. Founded in 2013, the company sources, monitors and invests in carbon removal projects across the globe to generate high-quality carbon credits. Every project in Aspiration’s portfolio is held to the most rigorous standards, ensuring each drives tangible, positive impacts for people and the planet. Aspiration is a Certified B Corp, a member of Project Drawdown, 1t.org, Climate Pledge, and many other critical industry groups dedicated to accelerating climate action. For more information, visit Aspiration.com or Aspiration.com/business.
Round led by climate software investment firm Energize Ventures underscores critical need for disruptive technology solutions that can promote and scale new renewable energy infrastructure projects
SAN FRANCISCO, March 7, 2023 — Banyan Infrastructure, the leading sustainable financing software platform, today announced a $25 million Series B funding round, bringing the company’s total funding to over $42 million. Climate software investor Energize Ventures led the round, with participation from new investors SE Ventures and Elemental Excelerator, and existing investors VoLo Earth and Ulu Ventures. Juan Muldoon, partner at Energize, has joined Banyan’s board of directors.
Banyan Infrastructure, the leading sustainable financing software platform, today announced a $25 million Series B funding round led by Energize Ventures. The California-based company was started by Will Greene (CEO) and Amanda Li (COO) to unlock capital for renewable infrastructure by making sustainable project finance fast, efficient, and scalable.
Banyan unlocks capital for renewable infrastructure by making sustainable project finance fast, efficient, and scalable. Its purpose-built project finance software enables banks, financiers, and developers to automate and track complex project finance transactions with a unified risk and data management system. With Banyan, customers can rapidly grow their sustainable infrastructure portfolio and achieve net-zero targets.
“Because standardization is lacking for sustainable technology, risk averse investors are hesitant to move quickly in this relatively new industry. Our software focuses on reducing transaction costs and increasing transparency to create previously unseen speed and scale of project finance,” said Banyan Cofounder and CEO Will Greene. “The support from Energize and our new investors helps unlock the rapid deployment of sustainable infrastructure that our planet needs.”
Despite the Inflation Reduction Act unlocking $369 billion in clean energy funding, investing in complex sustainable infrastructure projects has been hamstrung by manual and inefficient processes. Banyan’s technology solves critical pain points by replacing spreadsheets, email, and varied documents with digitized loans and workflows in addition to automating data ingestion, risk monitoring, and contractual compliance for each loan. The result is faster financing and greater capital deployment with more efficiency, scale, and liquidity across the deal lifecycle.
“The deployment of renewable energy assets – from large utility-scale projects to community developments and residential energy efficiency upgrades – requires well-functioning financing mechanisms. There are billions of dollars dedicated to financing the energy transition, but the process of underwriting, reporting, and managing project finance is often complex and inefficient,” said Muldoon. “We believe software holds the key to maximizing investment dollars and unlocking a capital efficiency flywheel, and we’re thrilled to partner with the Banyan team as they build the software platform for financing sustainable infrastructure at scale.”
NY Green Bank, a $1 billion sustainable infrastructure investment fund and a division of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, has utilized Banyan to support its portfolio management activities. With nearly $2 billion in total financial commitments since inception, NY Green Bank manages a sizable portfolio spanning a variety of asset classes and borrower types.
“Renewable energy financing requires a high level of coordination and management across many different stakeholders,” said Lindsay Drogin, Director at NY Green Bank and head of Investment Administration and Portfolio Support. “Banyan’s platform has been a critical tool to streamline our work and has allowed us to operate efficiently while managing risk and compliance. This has become especially important as we’ve grown our portfolio.
“Software is key to making the very nuanced and complex project financing process quicker and more profitable, especially given the unique challenges around financing renewable energy projects,” said Banyan Cofounder and Chief Operations Officer Amanda Li. “These projects are far smaller and more distributed, which can lead to the underwriting and risk management process being too complex, or too unprofitable with current timelines and overhead. Working at Generate Capital, I saw the limitations of the status quo firsthand and it severely limits the growth potential of our industry.”
With this new investment, Banyan plans to more than double headcount and further develop the company’s proprietary software. Founded in 2018, Banyan Infrastructure experienced 700% year-over-year growth over the past year, securing partnerships with leading customers in infrastructure lending, investing, and development, including SMBC and Standard Solar. The company also recently announced its participation in Elemental Excelerator, a nonprofit with an innovative model for funding climate tech deployment. To-date, Banyan is enabling billions of sustainable infrastructure investments across seven countries and thousands of projects.
To learn more about Banyan Infrastructure and to view open positions visit here.
About Banyan Infrastructure
Banyan Infrastructure is a purpose-built project finance software designed to simplify, accelerate, and optimize the financing of sustainable infrastructure across the full life cycle. Built by prior project financiers specifically for banks, investors and developers, the platform helps to replace spreadsheets, email, and pdfs with digitized loans and workflows, automating data aggregation and compliance tracking. This enables streamlined origination, servicing, and securitization of renewable energy loans and investments at higher volume and lower cost. Visit banyaninfrastructure.com for more information.
About Energize Ventures
Energize is a climate software investor focused on scaling sustainable innovation. Founded in 2016 and based in Chicago, Energize has funded 25 companies to-date and is backed by strategic, institutional, and impact LPs including CDPQ, Invenergy, Schneider Electric, General Electric, Caterpillar, and more. Leveraging the team’s industry and operational expertise, Energize works in partnership with climate technology companies at various stages of maturity by helping them scale and realize their full potential, from early commercialization to the public markets. For more information on Energize, please visit www.energize.vc.
Contact David Ganske DG+ for Banyan Infrastructure (424) 209-2394 [email protected]
Confidential computing will revolutionize cloud security in the decade to come and has become a top C-level priority for industry leaders such as Google, Intel and Microsoft; Edgeless Systems is leading these advancements to ensure all data is always encrypted
BOCHUM, Germany, March 7, 2023 — Edgeless Systems, a pioneering confidential computing company that is turning the public cloud into the safest place for sensitive data, today announced it has raised $5 million in its seed round led by Berlin-based SquareOne with angel investors that include Evan Weaver (founder of Fauna), Mirko Novakovic (exit of Instana to IBM), Paolo Negri (founder of Contentful), Mathias Biilman and Chris Back (founders of Netifly).
The company is also hosting the annual Open Confidential Computing Conference (OC3) on March 15, 2023 where CTOs from Intel, Microsoft, AMD, Nvidia and others will discuss the state of confidential computing.
“Too many companies remain locked out of the cloud due to security concerns, but confidential computing technologies are poised to dramatically address this challenge in the coming months and years,” said Georg Stockinger, Partner, SquareOne. “Edgeless Systems is already light years ahead of anyone else building the tools to make confidential computing easily accessible for developers in the enterprise. Its Constellation platform for Kubernetes is proof of its deep technical knowledge and first-mover position.”
Edgeless Systems’ flagship open source platform, Constellation and its associated tools, are already being used by hundreds of developers and DevOps engineers at companies such as Bosch, IBM and Intel, among others. Constellation is a confidential orchestration platform for Kubernetes. It leverages confidential computing to isolate and runtime-encrypt entire Kubernetes deployments, finally allowing enterprises to use the public cloud like their private cloud.
“We are turning the public cloud into everyone’s private cloud,” said Felix Schuster, CEO of Edgeless Systems. “By encrypting data all the time, even at runtime, and providing the best possible protection against infrastructure-based threats like malicious admins or co-tenants, Edgeless Systems can transform the way developers build and secure their public cloud workloads.”
Moving workloads to the public cloud has many proven benefits but raises major compliance and data security concerns. Unfortunately, data leaks and compliance violations are realities associated with cloud transformation. Confidential computing is a hardware-based technology that shields computer workloads from their environments and keeps data encrypted even during processing. The required hardware (largely big hyperscalers) to realize the promise of confidential computing has only recently become available. Edgeless Systems has been an active driver of this emerging technology and today brings to bear both the technologies and financial backing to take it to the next level.
Edgeless Systems will use the seed funding to sustain its product lead, expand into the United States and add exciting features to its Constellation platform. It aims to be the defacto standard for 100 percent secure Kubernetes in the coming years. It will also build out its marketing and sales teams to help educate the industry on confidential computing and support advancements in this area.
About Edgeless Systems Edgeless Systems develops leading open source software for confidential computing to make the cloud the safest place for sensitive data. Edgeless Systems’ Constellation is the first Kubernetes platform to ensure that hackers, cloud admins and foreign governments cannot access any data. The company was founded in 2020 by industry experts in Bochum, Germany, and has renowned investors and customers such as the Swiss stock exchange SIX and Bosch. For more information, please visit: https://www.edgeless.systems/
SALT LAKE CITY, March 7, 2023 — Red Door Capital Partners, LLC, an independent private equity firm, is proud to announce their investment, with support from their network of high-net-worth individuals and family offices, in DrnxMyth, a product and technology of In Spirit Group, Inc. https://drnxmyth.com . Red Door has also been appointed a seat on the Board of Directors.
Co-founders Lawrence Cisneros and Brandon Schwartz have developed a proprietary and patented fresh-bottling technology to mix fresh juices with alcohol creating a new super-premium category of “fresh” in the ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktail category. Having proven the demand for the product and technology via its eCommerce channel, DrnxMyth is now focusing on manufacturing in the U.S. and scaling for its national retail distribution plan.
“We are very excited about this segment within the beverage industry” said Richard Wolpow, Managing Director of Red Door Capital Partners. “We have never seen the combination of product and patented technologies create such a level of interest, it truly is a game changer in the ready-to-drink alcohol category. The Series A Round was led by one of the nations’ leading beverage venture firms, with co-investments from other recognized names in the space such as: Goat Rodeo Capital, a venture fund focused on opportunities in alcoholic beverages, and 99 Proof, Doehler Ventures, Spiral Sun Ventures, and Vamos Ventures. Red Door is proud to invest side-by-side with them all. We also welcome a new group of family office investors through our relationship with FORCE Family Office, I would specifically like to acknowledge and thank Rubicon Wealth Management of Blue Bell. PA,” Wolpow concluded.
Commenting on Red Door’s investment into DrnxMyth’s Series A Round, Lawrence Cisneros, CEO, “We are thrilled to have Red Door join our team as we continue to scale up distribution and drive retail growth. Their confidence in our company and intellectual property means a great deal to us, and we are grateful for their support as we continue to innovate and bring our products to new markets so people everywhere can have the best tasting bottled cocktails,” Cisneros concluded.
About Red Door Capital Partners LLC The Red Door team is a team of industry experts from private equity operations, investment, wealth management, and legal services, that have joined together to identify, invest in, and manage private equity transactions. Many Red Door opportunities are investing side-by-side with institutional funds and family offices with terms and safeguards in place typically only provided to institutional investors. Red Door partners with founders and entrepreneurs that seek real capital partners to create collaborative relationships, deploy strategic oversight, implement governance and professionalize operations – all to ensure our family of investors are protected and prepared for a successful exit transaction. For more information on Red Door and its latest transactions visit www.reddoorcp.com or contact us at [email protected]
About DrnxMyth DrnxMyth, known for its patented bottle technology that allows for the creation of fresh bottled cocktails, has experienced rapid growth over the past three years. Led by Lawrence Cisneros, a former attorney and influencer in the LA Latino community who turned to alcohol entrepreneurship, the company has used its proprietary twist-to-mix bottle technology that employs high-pressure technology to stabilize cold-pressed juice for nine months without heat pasteurization or preservatives. As a result, this now-proven cocktail concept has generated over $6.5 million in revenue. With an 11% compound annual growth rate propelling forward the RTD category, DrnxMyth is poised to become the leader in the ultra-premium RTD segment, which is growing at 600% year-over-year.
Significant Capital to Fuel Next Phase of Growth for Manufacturing Plant Floor Audit Software Leader
SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. and SAN FRANCISCO, March 7, 2023 — Luminate Capital Partners, a private equity firm focused on enterprise software, today announced a majority-stake growth investment in Ease, Inc. (“Ease”), a leader in manufacturing plant floor audit software.
Luminate’s investment will help Ease expand its leadership position in the manufacturing software sector by accelerating new product development, innovation, and other key growth initiatives.
The EASE plant floor audit SaaS platform is purpose-built to serve the manufacturing industry. EASE harnesses plant floor data, provides deep insights into manufacturing processes, and delivers immediate ROI for customers via higher productivity, improved quality and safety and lower costs and defects. EASE is used in more than 40 countries and 20+ languages to conduct millions of audits every year and is trusted by hundreds of global enterprise customers from automotive to aerospace, electronics, medical devices, food & beverage, packaging and more.
“Manufacturers are just embarking on their digital transformation journey and EASE is right at the center. We are transforming business critical audit processes and providing actionable insights in real time for all types of manufacturing,” said Eric Stoop, CEO of Ease. “Ease is proud to be able to work hand in hand with manufacturers to drive efficiency, increase quality and employee safety, and reduce risk. We are excited to start this next chapter with Luminate and leverage their extensive experience in scaling and driving growth through product expansion and innovation.”
Dave Ulrich, Partner at Luminate, said, “Ease is addressing a large global opportunity. Their innovative platform helps manufacturers simplify how they administer, conduct, and respond to plant floor audits, a process still often done manually on paper. Ease’s platform delivers significant value to customers today and we believe through additional product investment there’s opportunity to offer even more.”
“Ease has seen impressive growth in recent years,” added Chris Murphy, Operating Partner at Luminate. “We are excited to partner with the team to support their continued growth and success.”
In connection with the investment, Hollie Haynes, Chris Murphy, and Dave Ulrich will join Eric Stoop on Ease’s Board of Directors. Spotlight Equity Partners, Ease’s previous majority shareholder, will retain a minority stake.
Suken Shah, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Spotlight said, “We have been impressed with the entire Luminate team and believe they are a great partner for Ease going forward. We look forward to collaborating with them to build on the company’s strong momentum.”
Lincoln International provided M&A advisory services to the shareholders of Ease and legal advice was provided by McDermott Will & Emery.
Kirkland & Ellis was legal advisor to Luminate.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
About Ease
Ease’s multi-tenant SaaS solution is built for manufacturers of all sizes. The solution automates manual and time-consuming plant floor audits, inspections, and data collection to digitize a historically manual, paper-based approach. Leading manufacturers in 40+ countries around the world, including Dana, Eaton, and 3M, trust Ease to automate plant floor audits and keep pace with manufacturing requirements. Founded in 1986, Ease is headquartered in San Clemente, California. For more information, please visit https://www.ease.io/
About Luminate Capital
Luminate Capital Partners is a private equity firm investing in growth software companies, based in San Francisco. Luminate’s portfolio of market leaders has included Axonify, Conexiom, Compliance & Risks, StarCompliance, Quantivate, Thought Industries and Suralink. For more information, please visit https://www.luminatecapital.com.
About Spotlight Equity Partners
Spotlight Equity Partners is a private equity firm investing in enterprise software companies. Spotlight’s current portfolio of software companies includes ScaleGrid, Pharos, Nicus, cFive, SirsiDynix, and Identity Automation. For more information, please visit www.spotlightequity.com.
Media Contact:
For Ease: Andrea Walter Chief Marketing Officer Ease [email protected]
For Luminate: Chris Tofalli Chris Tofalli Public Relations, LLC 914-834-4334
The round was co-led by Pivot Investment Partners and UBS
NEW YORK, March 7, 2023 — Droit, a technology firm at the forefront of computational law and regulation, today announced it has closed a $23 million Series B investment in its latest funding round. The round was led by Pivot Investment Partners and UBS, the leading global wealth manager, through its venture and innovation unit UBS Next. Goldman Sachs, an existing investor, is also participating in the financing round.
Since its founding in late 2012, Droit has established itself as a technology provider advancing global regulatory compliance in the capital markets space, with its patented Adept platform now used by the world’s largest financial institutions for pre- and post-trade decision-making and auditability.
The investment will support Droit’s expansion into wealth management through the development of new products specifically for the sector, including Cross Border and Product Suitability. This natural extension of the Adept platform for use in wealth management will allow financial institutions to benefit from the same transparent decision-making infrastructure deployed for capital markets. The investment will also support Droit’s expansion of new and existing products, including Position Reporting, Transaction Reporting, advancements in Droit’s Pre-Trade product suite, and the build-out of new cloud-based services.
“This year marked Droit’s 10-year anniversary and we greatly appreciate the support from our investors and their confidence in our future success. This funding will enable us to accelerate the innovation of our new product lines,” said Brock Arnason, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Droit. “We are also excited to join UBS Next’s portfolio of fintech companies and look forward to partnering with them on building out our wealth management capabilities.”
“We believe Droit’s capabilities will help companies unlock potential revenue streams by simplifying and driving real-time regulatory compliance,” said Mike Dargan, Chief Digital & Information Officer, UBS. “Through this investment, we will work with Droit to build out their product offering to support the industry and look forward to extending our relationship with them across our wealth management business.”
This funding round comes at a period of strong growth for Droit. Over the past two years, Droit commercialized four new product lines and increased its headcount by nearly 70 percent, adding key leadership roles in business development and technology. Droit also expanded its global footprint establishing a presence in Singapore to support existing clients and build new relationships in the region.
“Since our initial investment in Droit, we have been incredibly impressed with how the team leaned into regulatory complexity, built breakthrough products using its innovative and patented platform, and paved the way for a new approach to consensus-driven compliance. We are proud to co-lead this round and see immense potential in the expansion of the Adept platform for use in Wealth and beyond,” said Dinkar Jetley, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Pivot Investment Partners.
About Droit Droit is a technology firm at the forefront of computational law and regulation within finance and other domains. Founded in 2012, Droit counts many of the largest financial institutions as its clients. Its award-winning, patented platform Adept provides an implementation of regulatory rules reflecting industry consensus. The Adept platform processes tens of millions of inquiries a day, deciding in real-time which interactions are legally permissible across the globe. Adept is used by institutions to evaluate, with sub-millisecond latency, the full regulatory implications of any given interaction within their transactional infrastructure.
For more information visit droit.tech. To obtain more information about Droit’s products, please contact [email protected].
About Pivot Investment Partners Pivot Investment Partners LLC is a team of CEO-level operating executives who have grown and transformed financial services businesses around the world. The firm works closely with a select set of high-potential FinTech and InsurTech companies, investing operating expertise and capital in their success and accelerated growth. For more information, please visit www.pivotinvestment.com.
About UBS UBS convenes the global ecosystem for investing, where people and ideas are connected and opportunities brought to life, and provides financial advice and solutions to wealthy, institutional and corporate clients worldwide, as well as to private clients in Switzerland. UBS offers investment solutions, products and impactful thought leadership, is the leading global wealth manager, provides large-scale and diversified asset management, focused investment banking capabilities, and personal and corporate banking services in Switzerland. The firm focuses on businesses that have a strong competitive position in their target markets, are capital efficient and have an attractive long-term structural growth or profitability outlook.
UBS is present in all major financial centers worldwide. It has offices in more than 50 regions and locations, with about 30% of its employees working in the Americas, 29% in Switzerland, 20% in the rest of Europe, the Middle East and Africa and 21% in Asia Pacific. UBS Group AG employs more than 72,000 people around the world. Its shares are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
