PRESS RELEASE

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–VTEX Cloud Commerce Platform, a leading e-commerce platform serving brands and retailers in 28 countries, has closed a $140 million investment round from SoftBank’s Latin America fund in conjunction with Gávea Investimentos and Constellation Asset Management. The investment will support VTEX’s continued global expansion and advancements to its cloud commerce offerings.
“For the past four years, we’ve focused on building a platform that enables global commerce by unifying our clients’ operations online and offline,” said Mariano Gomide, co-founder and co-CEO of VTEX. “During that time, we’ve opened US and EU offices and strengthened our position in Latin America. This investment from SoftBank and its partners validates our dedication to delivering a scalable, secure, global unified commerce platform.”
With a compounding organic growth of 43% per year in the last five years, VTEX has become one of the largest global players in the Digital Commerce market. Headquartered in London, the company has been recognized by IDC and Gartner as a player to watch, based on the user experience VTEX delivers, its ease of configuration, and its rapid time-to-implement.
In the beginning of 2019, VTEX purchased UniteU, an e-commerce platform based in the US. “Acquiring UniteU was only the first step of a responsible and consistent expansion of VTEX in the US. We have big plans to accelerate our continued global growth and product innovation,” said Gomide.
VTEX provides commerce solutions to 2,500 global brands, including Levi’s, Sony, Walmart, L’Oréal and Motorola. The company’s innovations include a patent-pending passwordless checkout called SmartCheckout, an architectural network of microservices to seamlessly deliver continuous updates, and the company’s VTEX IO serverless development framework that enables clients to develop scalable, production-ready web applications for global commerce without infrastructure complexity.
“Becoming the global power in unified commerce platforms for medium and large companies is our goal,” said Geraldo Thomaz, VTEX’s other co-founder and co-CEO. “With this investment, we will be able to invest more in R&D, respond to market demands faster, and deliver a more robust product that leverages AI to take us into the future of commerce.”
“VTEX has three attributes that we believe will fuel the company’s success: a strong team culture, a best-in-class product and entrepreneurs with a profitability mindset,” said Paulo Passoni, managing investment partner at SoftBank’s Latin America fund. “Brands and retailers want reliability and the ability to test their own innovations. VTEX offers both, filling a gap in the market. With VTEX, companies get access to a proven, cloud-native platform with the flexibility to test add-ons in the same data layer.”
Riverwood, who invested in 2014, continues to be a relevant shareholder, betting into VTEX’s new phase.
About VTEX
VTEX is the only multitenant commerce platform that unifies customer experiences across all channels into a comprehensive enterprise solution. With an auto-scaling cloud infrastructure and a powerful set of tools, the platform accelerates the commerce transformation of complex operations. VTEX is trusted by Sony, Walmart, Whirlpool, Coca-Cola, Stanley Black & Decker, Nestlé and over 2,500 online stores in 28 countries. In 2018, the company was named a major player on IDC MarketScape Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled B2C Digital Commerce Platforms and ranked in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce. As a result of the platform’s cutting-edge infrastructure, as well as its numerous native integrated solutions (more than 1,000 partners strategically positioned globally, including marketplaces, SI’s, payment and logistics companies) that add to its excellent functioning, VTEX continues to lead in an industry where many companies are providing outdated services. Visit www.vtex.com.
About Gávea Investimentos
Gávea Investimentos is an independent asset management boutique focused on Emerging Markets, founded in 2003 by Arminio Fraga and Luiz Fraga. It has two main lines of business: Private Equity Funds and Global Macro Hedge Funds. Since 2006, Gávea deployed approximately USD 5.0bn in Private Equity, with an emphasis on supplying growth capital to Brazilian companies via minority investments with shared governance rights. Gávea has partnered with 55 local companies over the course of five Private Equity Funds, of which 46 have been fully divested, including 12 IPOs in Brazil and abroad. www.gaveainvest.com.br/en/empresa
About Constellation
Constellation is one of the leading independent investment firms in Brazil, with more than 20 years of experience in investing in Brazilian companies. Constellation has a fundamental long-term investment horizon, a collaborative approach with its invested companies and a proven track record. The firm currently manages USD 2.0bn in capital, mostly from long-term international institutional investors. The company is structured as a partnership, and its Executive Team has worked together for more than a decade. For more information on Constellation, please visit the website: https://constellation.com.br/en/home-en/.
About Riverwood
Riverwood Capital is a private equity firm that invests in high-growth, middle-market companies in the technology, technology-enabled, and other related industries. Riverwood offers a unique combination of operational, strategic, technology, and financial insight to portfolio companies that typically need growth capital and expertise to scale. The firm invests in established businesses with dynamic management teams, proven technology and business model, and the proper fit in terms of culture and values. Riverwood invests globally and participates in both minority and control deals. The firm has offices in Menlo Park, CA; New York, NY; and Sao Paulo, Brazil. Please visit www.riverwoodcapital.com.

PRESS RELEASE

Coralogix Closes $10M Series A Funding Round Led by Aleph

Company also announces ML-powered security information and event management solution (SIEM), and intrusion detection system (IDS)

SAN FRANCISCO — NOVEMBER 26, 2019 — Coralogix, provider of the leading ML-powered log analytics solution, today announced it has raised a $10 million Series A funding round, bringing the company’s total amount raised to $16.2 million. New investor Aleph led the round with participation from StageOne Ventures, JANVEST Capital Partners, and 2B Angels. The new capital will be used to scale sales and marketing and accelerate product innovation for Coralogix‘s best-in-class log analytics platform.

This announcement also includes a notable board appointment. Matt Handler, former VP of Sales and Channel at Sumo Logic and Guy Bloch, will join the Coralogix board of directors.

Coralogix is also announcing today they are officially entering the cybersecurity market with the launch of an integrated security information and event management solution (SIEM) and intrusion detection system (IDS) specifically designed for DevOps teams. Leveraging the latest in machine learning, the new solution gives companies a multidimensional view of their cloud and on-premise security data. The combined solution enables DevOps teams to tap into their server, audit, VPC Flow Logs, and CloudTrail logs to monitor and analyze their security events. It then leverages the company’s new security service for security anomaly detection within network packets to detect and eradicate any potential threats.

“What impressed us most about Coralogix is the cult following they’ve earned from the developer community,” said Aaron Rosenson, General Partner at Aleph. “Engineers are fanatic about this product and are spreading its value by word of mouth, leading to remarkable sales momentum. We look forward to supporting the company as they execute their ambitious plan to scale the company and product globally. They are a young company, yet they serve several Fortune 500 enterprises and thousands of leading companies including, Postman, Monday, Fiverr, KFC and Caesars Palace. We look forward to playing a role in the company’s continued growth.”

Founded in 2015 by data and security experts from the Israeli Intelligence Corps, Coralogix uses cutting-edge algorithms to autonomously manage and analyze log data in cloud applications. Using Coralogix, engineers can instantly narrow down hundreds of millions of logs to suspected logs, broken flows, error trends, and problematic version upgrades.

“Companies have become dependent on the cloud to run every aspect of their business, yet diagnosing operational problems continues to be a major challenge,” said Ariel Assaraf, CEO and co-founder, Coralogix. “My CTO Yoni Farin and I re-built Coralogix in 2017 to help companies manage the growing complexity of distributed cloud applications. Here we are two years later, and it’s astonishing what we’ve been able to achieve. This new capital will help complete our vision to empower DevOps to control operations and security data from collection through to insights and decisions — with the ultimate goal to make raw log data obsolete.”

ABOUT CORALOGIX

Coralogix is a log analytics platform that empowers DevOps teams to autonomously manage and analyze log data in cloud applications. The platform’s machine learning engine enable users to reach faster time to market, avoid customer attrition and accelerate their version delivery without compromising quality or stability. Over 1000 global-leading companies including Payoneer, BookMyShow, and PayU use Coralogix to power their businesses. For more information, please visit https://coralogix.com/

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PRESS RELEASE

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW), the global cybersecurity leader, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Aporeto Inc., a machine identity-based microsegmentation company. Under the terms of the agreement, Palo Alto Networks will pay approximately $150 million in cash to acquire Aporeto, subject to customary adjustments. The acquisition is expected to close during Palo Alto Networks fiscal second quarter, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.
Palo Alto Networks provides the most complete cloud security suite in the industry, with a broad set of capabilities in all critical areas of cloud security. The proposed acquisition of Aporeto will further strengthen the company’s Cloud Native Security Platform delivered by Prisma Cloud.
Aporeto identifies workloads and applies microsegmentation across all infrastructures, helping customers secure their applications at scale. The company was recognized as a Gartner Cool Vendor in Cloud Security in 2018 and named to the 2019 CNBC Upstart 100 list. Aporeto co-founders Dimitri Stiliadis and Satyam Sinha have agreed to join Palo Alto Networks.
Quotes:
“We are thrilled to welcome Aporeto to the Palo Alto Networks family. We believe the addition of Aporeto’s unique machine identity technology will further enhance our leading Prisma Cloud capabilities and strengthen our commitment to helping customers secure their journey to the cloud.”
– Nikesh Arora, chairman and CEO, Palo Alto Networks
“We have dedicated ourselves to helping organizations securely embrace the cloud. Teaming up with Palo Alto Networks allows us to bring our machine identity-based microsegmentation technology to a large customer base. We are thrilled to join forces to help customers secure their journey to the cloud.”
– Dimitri Stiliadis, co-founder and CTO, Aporeto
About Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks, the global cybersecurity leader, is shaping the cloud-centric future with technology that is transforming the way people and organizations operate. Our mission is to be the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life. We help address the world’s greatest security challenges with continuous innovation that seizes the latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, analytics, automation, and orchestration. By delivering an integrated platform and empowering a growing ecosystem of partners, we are at the forefront of protecting tens of thousands of organizations across clouds, networks, and mobile devices. Our vision is a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. For more information, visit www.paloaltonetworks.com.
Palo Alto Networks, Prisma, and the Palo Alto Networks logo are trademarks of Palo Alto Networks, Inc. in the United States and in jurisdictions throughout the world. All other trademarks, trade names or service marks used or mentioned herein belong to their respective owners.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains “forward-looking” statements that are based on our management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to management. Such forward-looking statements include statements regarding our intention to acquire Aporeto, Inc., expectations regarding the timing of when the acquisition will be completed, the expected benefits of the acquisition of Aporeto to us, and the expected impact of the acquisition on our offerings. These forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. There are a significant number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from statements made in this press release, such as risks associated with new product and subscription releases, including our ability to successfully integrate Aporeto into our product offerings; risks associated with managing our rapid growth; our ability as an organization to successfully integrate Aporeto and acquire and integrate other companies, products or technologies in a successful manner; the risks associated with new products and subscription and support offerings, including the discovery of software bugs; our ability to attract and retain new customers; delays in the development or release of new subscription offerings, or the failure to timely develop and achieve market acceptance of new products and subscriptions as well as existing products and subscription and support offerings; rapidly evolving technological developments in the market for network security products and subscription and support offerings; length of sales cycles; and general market, political, economic and business conditions. Additional risks and uncertainties are included under the captions “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” in our annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) on September 9, 2019, which is available on our website at investors.paloaltonetworks.com and on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Additional information will also be set forth in other filings that we make with the SEC from time to time. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to us as of the date hereof, and we do not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements provided to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made or to update the reasons why actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.
SOURCE Palo Alto Networks, Inc.

PRESS RELEASE

RAD AI LAUNCHES WITH $4 MILLION IN FUNDING TO BUILD INNOVATIONS IN RADIOLOGY

Seed Round Led by Google’s AI-focused Fund Gradient Ventures, Startup Will Present First Products at Upcoming 2019 Annual RSNA Meeting

Berkeley, CA—November 25, 2019— Rad AI, a startup transforming radiology with the latest advances in technology, today announces its company launch and a $4 million seed round led by Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI-focused venture fund. Investors UP2398, Precursor Ventures, GMO Venture Partners, Array Ventures, Hike Ventures, Fifty Years VC and various angels also participated in this round.

Founder Dr. Jeff Chang, the youngest radiologist and second youngest doctor on record in the US, was troubled by high error rates, radiologist burnout, and rising imaging demand despite a worsening shortage of US radiologists, so he decided to pursue graduate work in machine learning to identify ways that AI could help. After he met serial entrepreneur Doktor Gurson,
they created Rad AI in 2018 at the intersection of radiology and AI. Built by radiologists, for radiologists, Rad AI is transforming the field of radiology with the inside perspective as its driving force.

“Radiology is facing severe pressures that range from falling reimbursements to market consolidation. There is also a radiologist shortage that is exacerbated by rising imaging volumes nationwide. We help radiology groups significantly increase productivity, while reducing radiologist burnout and improving report accuracy. By working closely with radiologists, we can make a positive impact on patient care,” said Dr. Chang.

Rad AI uses state-of-the-art machine learning to automate repetitive tasks for radiologists so they have more time to focus on what matters: accurate and timely diagnosis for patients. The first product automatically generates the impression section of radiology reports, customized specifically to the preferred language of each radiologist. Initial customers have shown significant reduction in radiologist burnout, error rates, and turnaround time — improving radiologists’ well-being and patient care.
Rad AI’s current partners include Greensboro Radiology, Medford Radiology, Einstein Healthcare Network, and BICRAD, the 8th largest private radiology group in the United States, as well as other radiology groups that have yet to be announced. Product rollouts have demonstrated an average of 20% time savings on the interpretation of CTs and 15% time savings on radiographs — translating into an hour a day saved for each radiologist.
With this new capital, Rad AI will build out its engineering team and expand the rollout of its first product to more radiology groups and customers.
Zachary Bratun-Glennon, Partner at Gradient Ventures, added, “The team at Rad AI is uniquely suited to apply innovative technology to this field, with strong radiology and AI experts and firsthand knowledge of this market. It’s exciting to see the quantitative benefits and positive feedback from their radiology customers, and we’re looking forward to the impact of their future products.”

Rad AI is participating in the upcoming RSNA 2019 Annual Meeting in Chicago later this month, located in the AI Showcase at #10514B (North Hall, Level 2). The team will also present and demo at the Nvidia, AWS, and M*Modal (3M) booths – #10939, #10942, and #6513.

For more information on RAD AI, please visit: https://www.radai.com/

About Rad AI
Founded in 2018 by Doktor Gurson and Dr. Jeff Chang, Rad AI uses machine learning to transform the practice of radiology. Its AI products are designed by radiologists, for radiologists. By streamlining existing workflow and automating repetitive manual tasks, Rad AI increases daily productivity while reducing radiologist burnout. In addition, Rad AI provides more consistent radiology reports for ordering clinicians, and higher accuracy for the patients it serves.
The company has raised over $4 million in funding and is based in Berkeley, CA. For more information, visit: https://www.radai.com/

About Gradient
Gradient Ventures is Google’s AI-focused venture fund – investing in and connecting early stage startups with Google’s resources, innovation, and technical leadership in artificial intelligence. The fund focuses on helping founders navigate the challenges in developing new technology products, allowing companies to take advantage of the latest advances in machine learning, so that great ideas can come to life. Gradient was founded in 2017 and is based in Palo Alto, California. For more information, visit www.Gradient.com.

PRESS RELEASE

At Paytm, we have been committed to expanding the reach and adoption of Payments and Financial Services in our country. We are today announcing our latest equity fundraise from a group of investors, including existing shareholders such as Ant Financial, Softbank Vision Fund, and new investors including funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. among others. Discovery Capital, an existing shareholder of the company has also participated in the round.

In its first phase of growth, we pioneered low-cost digital payment acceptability in India using our QR-code technology in local shops and retailers. Currently, serving merchants in over 2000 towns and cities spanning across 650 districts, our aim is to bring low-cost mobile-enabled financial services to rural India. We will invest and support millions of rural Indians towards self-sustainability through job creation.

In the next phase, we are expanding our offerings in consumer internet and accelerating the vision of bringing new-age financial services such as lending, insurance, investments, stockbroking to the masses. We are also strengthening user engagement with content services under Paytm Inbox that offers games, news, videos and more.

Our Founder & CEO, Vijay Shekhar Sharma shared,

“At Paytm, we are committed to bringing half a billion Indians to the mainstream economy by onboarding them in the formal financial ecosystem. This new investment by our current and new investors is a reaffirmation of our commitment to serve Indians with new-age financial services.”

We will invest Rs. 10,000 Cr. over the next 3 years to bring financial inclusion to more underserved users in the country.

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PRESS RELEASE

Montréal, Québec – November 21, 2019 – Silofit, the world’s first network of private fitness spaces, today announced that it has raised $1 million in seed funding. The investment round was led by Whitecap Venture Partners and Courtside Ventures, with participation from NFL player, Ndamukong Suh. The funds will be used to support the company’s expansion, which includes growing the Silofit team, adding new facilities to its portfolio, and entering new markets.

Leveraging technology to fuel its growth, Silofit has established itself as the world’s first network of private fitness spaces and is focused on improving the end-to-end experience for wellness professionals and their clients. The company leases small office spaces and turns them into private gym studios that can be booked by fitness trainers or individual gym-goers, on-demand, and by the hour, using its app on the App Store and Google Play. The app is used to locate a space, and select the date, time, and duration for a fitness session. Ahead of the booked session, users receive instructions for using the “Silo,” including a unique access code to unlock the door.

“We are seeing a growing shift in the fitness market where fitness professionals, in particular, are moving away from traditional, large-scale gyms, and instead looking at using our well-equipped micro-gyms, which provide the space and equipment needed for a full-body workout, but without the high costs that both trainers and their clients pay to a gym,” said Wilfred Valenta, co-founder and CEO of Silofit. “With zero investment in advertising, our current facilities are already at capacity. With support from our investors, we are now very well positioned to build on this momentum we are seeing in the market and expand our operations to meet the growing demand.”

Since its launch in January 2018, Silofit has developed its reservations app and established two micro-gyms in downtown Montreal, both of which get fully booked on a weekly basis. To address the growing demand for its facilities, Silofit plans to open two more studios in Montreal, including a bigger studio that will provide space to host both fitness classes and group training sessions.

In early 2020, Silofit is bringing its network of private fitness spaces to Toronto. The company has signed two leases for spaces in the downtown core and plans to open these new locations in Q1 2020. Silofit will be expanding to the U.S. market in 2020.

“Silofit has established a great business model that leverages technology and small real estate footprints to attract fitness professionals and consumers,” said Shayn Diamond, partner at Whitecap Venture Partners. “Shifting from the traditional large gym to the micro-gym concept while managing the service provider’s business through its app, Silofit is at the forefront of a massive opportunity in the fitness industry.”

“Based on the early success and strong utilization of Silofit’s first micro-gym spaces, it’s clear that their approach is unique and the demand for such an offering is incredibly underserved,” said Deepen Parikh, partner at Courtside Ventures. “When we looked at the impact of the first few Silofit locations, coupled with the scalable vision of the founders, we made the decision to work with Wilfred and team on changing the landscape of the out-of-home fitness industry.”

About Silofit
Silofit turns small office spaces into high-end, private micro-gyms that are used by fitness trainers and their clients, and individual gym-goers. The company, which was founded in 2018, delivers a great customer experience and is disrupting the gym industry one space at a time. For additional information, visit silofit.com.

PRESS RELEASE

EDMONTON, Nov. 21, 2019 /CNW Telbec/ – Lube City Corp. (the “Company”, or “Lube City”), a leading Canadian provider of quick service oil changes, announced today a partnership with Motosel Industrial Group Inc. (“Motosel”) and BDC Capital to finance its ownership transition to the second-generation of the Kallis family, and enable the Company to pursue the next stage of growth and strategic expansion.

Through this new strategic relationship with Motosel, a fast-growing national provider of premium motor oil, Lube City is able to control its oil supply chain and continue to offer customers the highest-quality products, which are warranty-approved by all major OEMs. With Motosel’s involvement in the business and BDC Capital’s minority equity investment, the Company remains one of the few chains of quick service oil change businesses owned and operated by Canadians.

“We are very excited about this new partnership with Motosel and BDC Capital and look forward to pursuing the next chapter in Lube City’s growth,” said Jason Kallis, Lube City’s President. “This partnership enables our family business to continue to provide the same high quality service that our customers have relied upon, while enabling us to accelerate and expand our reach beyond our current store footprint.”

“Lube City is a great Alberta business and we look forward to working closely with Jason and his team to continue the Company’s expansion”, said Arash Iranpour, Operations Manager at Motosel. “It is an honour to partner with Lube City and supply the business with Motosel’s high quality motor oil and related products.”

“We are very excited to partner with both Motosel and the Kallis family,” said Jeremy Billan, Partner, Growth Equity at BDC Capital. “This partnership not only brings together two great entrepreneurial businesses to execute a generational transfer, but it also positions Lube City to pursue its next stage of meaningful growth.”

About Lube City
Based in Edmonton, Alberta, Lube City Corp. is one of the largest Canadian owned operators of quick service oil changes with 27 locations across Alberta. The Company offers a full suite of manufacturer warranty-approved automotive maintenance services, including oil changes, engine and transmission flushes, filter replacements, wiper blade replacements, and other regular automotive maintenance services, along with a complementary 31-point inspection on all packages. Lube City’s no-hassle drive-through locations are designed for the average person’s busy lifestyle, requiring no appointments and providing consistent high-quality customer service. For more information, please visit www.lubecity.ca.

About Motosel
Based in Coquitlam, BC, Motosel is a leading manufacturer and distributor of motor oil, lubricants and other petrochemical products, with products available in over 1,000 retail locations across Canada. Motosel has a track record of providing top quality products at competitive prices to customers on a global scale. Motosel’s top tier quality control measures ensure that all of the products meet the strict standards of global automobile manufacturers’ specifications. For additional information, please visit www.motosel.com.

About BDC Capital
BDC Capital is the investment arm of BDC – Canada’s only bank devoted exclusively to entrepreneurs. With more than $3 billion under management, BDC Capital serves as a strategic partner to the country’s most innovative firms. It offers a full spectrum of risk capital, from seed investments to transition capital, supporting Canadian entrepreneurs who wish to scale their businesses into global champions. Visit www.bdc.ca/capital.

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PRESS RELEASE

Paris, November 21, 2019
After exceeding 2 million users, Foodvisor, the French leader in nutritional coaching apps, has completed a fundraising of $4.5 million with the VC fund Agrinnovation operated by Demeter and some business angels. The startup plans to accelerate its growth in the US and to perfect its food recognition technology based on Artificial Intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence for Healthy Eating

Foodvisor was launched in 2018 in France with the mission of helping people know how to eat smart so they can live healthier and better lives. It is the most advanced A.I-powered food diary, providing automatic photo recognition and personalized coaching in a fun and playful way.

The app is based on Deep Learning algorithms which are able to identify more than 1200 different food items, estimate serving sizes and provide a detailed report on their nutritional content. The algorithm integrates new users’ food images into its database for future recognition, allowing it to thrive in a constant state of learning. It also learns from each user’s personal habits to become even more accurate and personalized over time.
Heading for the United States where more than 70% of the population is overweight Foodvisor app launched in the US in September 2019 and has already 20% of its users coming from the US. To accelerate its growth in the US, the startup has just completed a $4.5 million round of financing with the VC fund Agrinnovation operated by Demeter and some business angels.

“With this fundraising, we aim to make the United States our largest market. As 70% of the Americans are overweight or obese, the US represents a big market for our company whose mission is to make nutritional coaching accessible to all.”

Charles BOES, CEO of Foodvisor.
Three major challenges: revolutionize mobile nutrition coaching, create an international brand and perfect the technology
Foodvisor has three major challenges for the coming year:
 Improve the app to build the future of personalized nutrition
 Create a strong and renowned international brand in the wellness sector
 Strengthen its position as a leader in food image recognition algorithms
In order to achieve its objectives, the startup plans to double its workforce from 15 to 30 employees.

“Foodvisor is the result of a unique technology associated with strong nutritional expertise. Our hiring plan will focus on engineering profiles to improve our algorithms and also on nutritionists to provide even more personalized nutritional coaching.” Aurore TRAN, Marketing Director

“Foodvisor’s intelligent picture analysis algorithms bring a real breakthrough technology in nutritional coaching apps market. Consumers are asking for healthiest food and wellness. Foodvisor is providing an efficient tool to address those needs through a solution allowing nutritional daily intake monitoring and tracking. We strongly believe in the growth of this market and we trust the management of the company to make Foodvisor the leading app in this sector.” explains Riadh SHAÏEK, Partner in charge of Agrinnovation fund at Demeter.

About Foodvisor:
Foodvisor was born after the observation that 2 billion people are overweight or obese and that manual-entry food-logging apps are tedious, bothersome and time-consuming. After three years of perfecting the A.I. algorithms on which it is based, the app was officially launched in 2018 on iOS, Android and in Premium version. From a simple photo, Foodvisor provides the nutritional information of your meal and allows you to quickly and easily monitor your diet, allowing you to adopt better eating habits and to live healthier. The startup was co-founded by three A.I. specialists Charles BOES, Yann GIRET and Gabriel SAMAIN joined by Aurore TRAN specialized in Marketing and Innovation. The startup now employs 15 people and has won numerous awards.

About Demeter:

Demeter (www.demeter-im.com) is the leading European private equity company in energy and ecological transition. Its funds invest between 1 and 30 million euros in companies in the sector at every stage of their development: innovative and disruptive startups, fast-growing SME’s and midcap companies, and infrastructure projects. The Demeter team has 35 people in Europe, located in France, Spain and Germany. With 1,000 million euros under management and 130 investments made over the past 15 years, Demeter has established itself as one of the main energy-transition, environment, and sustainable-development funders. In 2018, Demeter launched Agrinnovation, a fund intended to finance innovative start-ups in the agricultural sectors that contribute to the food transition and to more sustainable agriculture. The Agrinnovation fund has raised €72 million in commitments from institutional and industrial investors from and several Family Offices.

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PRESS RELEASE

NEW YORK — Nov. 20, 2019 — Bunch, the party app for mobile games, has raised $3.85 million from top games companies including Supercell, Tencent, Riot Games, Miniclip and Colopl Next, bringing its total funding raised to more than $8.5 million. The strategic investment from key players in games and mobile showcases the power and potential of Bunch’s app to set the industry standard for social networking and video chat with friends in mobile games. The company will use the funding to accelerate product development and expand partnerships and integrations.

“We are very excited to have the endorsement and support of global leaders in real-time multiplayer games who are excited about our approach to making mobile games truly social and more fun,” said Selçuk Atlı, CEO and co-founder, Bunch. “Live multiplayer games are the new social networks and are increasingly how a generation of people spend time together. At Bunch, our goal is to create the easiest and most fun way to communicate with friends while playing their favorite games. All the while, helping developers bring players back more often, along with their friends.”

Alongside the new funding, Bunch has expanded its leadership team. Jonas Christiansen, who previously held senior product design roles at Facebook and Google, has joined as Head of Product. Greg Essig is also on board as Head of Business Development, bringing his history of building partnerships at mobile games streaming service, Mobcrush, and on the App Store Management team responsible for the Games category at Apple.

The Bunch app creates a frictionless experience to party up with friends on video chat; and jump together into the same game session. Bunch’s long term vision is to help people spend more face to face time together, playing their favorite games – anytime, anywhere.

“Most new players to League of Legends join the community through their friends. That’s why social is a huge part of what we do here at Riot,” said Brendan Mulligan, Senior Corporate Development Manager, Riot Games. “As we begin to offer new multiplayer titles, including mobile games, reducing friction to play together is even more important. We love that Bunch is like a LAN party in your pocket, and we think their team and execution are best in class.”

“At Supercell, we believe that the social experience has a crucial role in making games that players keep playing for years,” said Jaakko Harlas, Head of Developer Relations & Strategic Finance, Supercell. ”We are constantly looking for ways to make playing our games with friends as easy and enjoyable as possible. Bunch is the most thoughtful experience we’ve seen that tackles this problem – and we are looking forward to working together closely.”

Learn more about the newly redesigned Bunch by visiting http://bunch.live.
Players can download Bunch today by visiting the App Store or Google Play.

About Bunch
Bunch is the party app for friends to communicate before, during and after playing their favorite mobile games. The company offers Bunch KIT that allows game developers to bring Bunch’s rich functionality to their own games. Bunch is co-founded by Selcuk Atli, Jason Liang, and Jordan Howlett. With offices in New York City and Toronto, Bunch is backed by LVP, Tencent, Supercell, Riot, Miniclip, Founders Fund, Betaworks, North Zone and more.

PRESS RELEASE

TEL AVIV, Israel – [November 20, 2019] – Vayyar Imaging, the global leader in 4D radar imaging sensor technology, today announced it closed a $109 million Series D financing round. The new round is led by Koch Disruptive Technologies (Koch), with Regal Four and all existing investors including Battery Ventures, Bessemer Ventures, ICV, ITI, Walden Riverwood, Claltech, bringing the total capital raised to-date to $188 million USD. Vayyar will use the funds to further enhance its core technology, evolve its global footprint, and expand its offerings in key industries.

Raviv Melamed, co-founder, CEO, and Chairman of Vayyar, said: “We are excited to partner with Koch and Regal Four as we drive our business forward. Koch’s entrepreneurial culture and market leadership in multiple industries can help accelerate Vayyar’s growth much faster than we did before. With this new funding round, we will continue to create the next generation of sensing technology that is miniature, affordable and versatile enough to impact everyone’s lives.

“Advancements in imaging sensors are vital as technology continues to disrupt all aspects of society,” said Chase Koch, president of Koch Disruptive Technologies. “We see incredible potential in combining Vayyar’s innovative technology and principled leadership team with Koch’s global reach and capabilities to create breakthroughs in a wide range of industries.”

Vayyar Imaging is a global leader in 4D radar imaging technology, providing highly advanced intelligent sensors to a wide variety of industries including automotive, smart home, robotics, retail and medical. The company’s sensors can see through walls and objects and track and map everything happening in an environment in real-time. Unlike other products that rely on cameras and optics, Vayyar’s sensors do not collect any optic data, protecting users’ privacy at all times.

Utilizing a state-of-the-art embedded chip and advanced imaging algorithms, Vayyar’s mission is to help people worldwide improve their health, safety and quality of life using mobile, low-cost 4D intelligent imaging sensors. In 2018, Vayyar Imaging was named a Technology Pioneer with the potential to transform society and industry by the World Economic Forum. Visit vayyar.com to learn more.

About Vayyar Imaging
Vayyar Imaging is a global leader in 4D radar imaging technology, providing affordable, highly advanced sensors to a wide variety of industries. With applications in the automotive, smart home, robotics, retail, RF testing and medical sectors, Vayyar’s intelligent sensors can see through walls and objects, map environments, and track movements in real-time. Its state-of-the-art chip covers imaging and radar bands from 3-81Ghz, with up to 72 transceivers in each chip and an integrated high-performance DSP. Vayyar’s multi-antenna sensor produces unprecedented levels of accuracy, enabling high-resolution 4D point-cloud images. Vayyar’s sensors can work in any environmental condition, unaffected by line-of-sight, lighting or weather conditions. Vayyar is developing the next generation of sensing technology that is miniature, affordable and versatile enough to impact everyone’s lives. Welcome to a world where intelligent sensing is part of the everyday.

About Koch Disruptive Technologies
Koch Disruptive Technologies, LLC (KDT) is a unique investment firm, partnering with principled entrepreneurs who are building transformative companies. KDT is a subsidiary of Koch Industries, Inc., one of the largest privately-held companies in America with over $110 billion in annual revenues, according to Forbes. KDT provides a flexible, multi-stage investment approach, and works with companies that can help Koch transform its capabilities, disrupt existing businesses, or expand into new platforms. KDT helps its partners unlock their full potential by bringing Koch’s full capabilities and network to them, structuring unique capital solutions and embracing a long-term, mutual benefit mindset. For more information about KDT, please see https://www.kochind.com/companies/koch-disruptive-technologies.

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PRESS RELEASE

NOVEMBER 20, 2019: Dream Games – the Turkish mobile gaming company founded by the team that worked on hit puzzle games Toy Blast and Toon Blast – has raised $7.5 million in its first highly competitive round of seed funding.

In just three months, Dream Games has already attracted interest from a number of leading game companies and VCs, including Makers Fund who led this round, and co-investor Balderton Capital.

The investment will be used to fund the recruitment of new talent to join the Dream Games team in Istanbul as it looks to increase its personnel five-fold over the next two years.

The company has been co-founded by the former Product Director at Peak Games, Soner Aydemir, who worked for Toy Blast and its successor Toon Blast. Joining Soner on the Dream Games founding team are Ikbal Namli and Hakan Saglam, the former engineering leads; Eren Sengul and Serdar Yilmaz, the product manager and 3D artist.

In its first year, Dream Games wants to grow this team size to 20. In year two, this team will expand further as the company gears up for launch and requires additional expertise.

“Supercell built amazing games with very small teams,” said Soner, “proving you don’t need huge teams spread across regions to build something people want to play. What you do need, however, is a talented team. We plan to focus our investments on building a highly skilled team to develop high-quality games.”

A high-quality approach
Rather than releasing game after game into a relatively saturated mobile space, Dream Games is setting itself apart by focusing on quality over quantity.

“We don’t believe in a hit-or-miss approach towards game development” added Soner. “For us, its evolution over innovation, execution over ideas. We plan to fix the pain points for players in existing games and our experience makes us confident we can build something truly global by focusing on a single high-quality, long-standing game instead of multiple flash-in-the-pan titles. We’d rather people were loyally playing our one game for 10 years than losing interest every six months when something new comes along.”

It’s Turkey’s time to shine
Part of Dream Games appeal is that it’s part of a flourishing gaming ecosystem coming out of Istanbul that’s attracting interest from the industry’s biggest players; a region that is establishing itself as a leading market.
In 2017, Peak Games sold its card and board games studio to mobile gaming giant Zynga for $100 million. Zynga later opened a studio in Istanbul and made further acquisitions, paying $250 million for Gram Games, the Turkish developers behind hugely popular puzzle titles.

This helped kickstart an ecosystem of leading hyper-casual gaming studios, with the likes of Good Job Games, Ruby Games, Alictus, Rollic Games and Bigger Games all launching in the region over the past two years and being responsible for some of the United States’ most popular and most downloaded games.

Dream Games is hoping its seed round investment, coupled with this thriving ecosystem, will help attract top talent to join the gaming industry in Turkey.
Michael Cheung, Partner at Makers Fund said:

“Casual puzzle games are some of the most successful and long-lasting titles in the industry, with recent successes showing there’s further room for growth. The Dream Games team’s achievements speak to a dedication and devotion to cracking the genre; together with their focus on Istanbul, a city we believe will be the next major hub for gaming. We’re honoured to be supporting them early in their journey.”

Rob Moffat, Partner at Balderton Capital said:
“Our thesis in mobile games is very simple, to invest in the very best teams. We were blown away by the intensity, ability and cohesiveness of the Dream Games founding team. Their experience in building two of the most successful casual games of the last few years really stands out. At Balderton, we have been lucky enough to invest in several success stories in mobile casual games (Big Fish, Wooga, Natural Motion) and we believe Dream Games could be even bigger than these.”

About Dream Games
Dream Games is a mobile gaming company based in Istanbul. Our objective is to combine technology and creativity to develop high-quality mobile games that will be played for years.
www.dreamgames.com

About Makers Fund
Makers Fund is a venture capital firm created to support founders in the global Interactive Entertainment industry, by combining deep industry experience with multi-stage investment across Seed to Series B.
www.makersfund.com

About Balderton
Balderton Capital is a London-based venture firm focused exclusively on backing the best European-founded technology companies. In the two decades since our founding, we have worked with hundreds of extraordinary European founders, and raised seven funds totalling more than $2.7bn. Previous exited investments include Betfair (FTSE: BET), Magic Pony (Twitter), NaturalMotion (Zynga), Recorded Future (Insight Partners), Sunrise (Microsoft), Talend (NASDAQ: TLND) and Yoox Net-a-Porter (BIT: YNAP). Among Balderton’s current portfolio of over 90 companies are Aircall, Carwow, Citymapper, Contentful, Frontier Car Group, GoCardless, Hiya, The Hut Group, Kobalt Music, Labster, Nutmeg, Prodigy Finance, Revolut, SOPHiA Genetics, Vestiaire Collective, Vivino and Voi

PRESS RELEASE

Neon receives investment of R$ 400 million from General Atlantic and Banco Votorantim

São Paulo — November 19, 2019 — Neon Pagamentos, a leading Brazilian fintech, announced today an investment of R$ 400 million by General Atlantic (GA), a leading global growth equity firm, and Banco Votorantim (BV). The round is considered to be the largest Series B investment made in Brazil. The venture capital funds Monashees, Omidyar Network, Propel, Quona and Mabi, existing Series A investors, followed the contribution in this second round, reinforcing the confidence of the shareholders.

The capital will be used to accelerate the company’s growth and raise the brand presence in other Brazilian cities outside the Rio-São Paulo corridor.

“This new fundraising rounds off our business model and gives us the strength to keep growing at an even more intense pace and to invest even more in technology and marketing”, said Pedro Conrade, partner and founder of Neon, highlighting that Neon’s management will continue to lead the company and sustain its values and business model.

Founded in 2016, Neon already has almost 2 million opened accounts. The capital now invested in the company will be used to expand its product offering, including the development of credit modalities and investment alternatives to customers, as well as advertising and marketing campaigns, technology infrastructure and talent base.

“Both GA and BV bring invaluable operational and strategic expertise as we enter the next phase of Neon’s growth. This latest investment shows that we have ability to compete with traditional financial institutions on an equal footing, offering innovative solutions in the customer experience in financial services,” continued Jean Sigrist, managing partner at Neon.

This is Neon’s second round of funding. The first investment, valued at R$ 72 million, was made in May 2018 by the funds Monashees, Omidyar Network – of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar – Propel, Quona and Mabi.

“Neon has proven the strength of its business model in a short period of time,” said Luiz Ribeiro, Principal at General Atlantic. “The Brazilian banking industry is ripe for change, and Neon is providing new solutions that are resonating with Brazilian customers. We are excited to be supporting the Neon team on its path to transforming banking.”

“We believe Neon combines an experienced team with a clear vision to build an innovative multi-product platform in Brazil. The strong growth and high engagement show that the company is creating value and trust and becoming the place where customers center their financial lives,” said Marcelo Lima, partner of Monashees.

“As a fintech focused fund, we are proud and lucky to be early supporters of the Neon team. Neon stands alone as the only neobank to build a sustainable business model that covers the customers payments, savings and credit needs. We are excited that GA shares our visions and will help fuel the next stage of Neon’s growth,” said Jay Reinemann, general partner of Propel Ventures.

Throughout 2019, Neon has made strategic decisions to strengthen its business in the corporate segment, such as the acquisition of MEI Fácil, in addition to launching its first advertising campaign and hiring key executives in the areas of risk and control.

Neon points out that the investment is subject, among other conditions, to regulatory approval.

PRESS RELEASE

TISSIUM Closes €39M Series B Funding Round

Paris, France, November 20, 2019—TISSIUM, a privately-owned life science company developing fully synthetic, biomorphic programmable polymers, announced today it has raised €38.75 million ($42.78 million) in a Series B round of funding. This funding round comprises new investors BNP Paribas Développement, the European Investment Fund (EIF), M&L Investments, ValQuest Partners in addition to TISSIUM’s returning investors Bpifrance, CM-CIC Innovation, Cap Décisif Management, Omnes Capital and Sofinnova Partners.

The funding raised in this round will be used to support the Company’s global expansion of its platform of polymers across a variety of therapeutic fields, including nerve repair, cardiovascular and gastroenterology, among others.

The TISSIUM platform leverages proprietary technology, initially developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) & Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, that serves as the foundation of a family of fully synthetic, biomorphic and programmable polymers. These polymers are designed to be used inside the body as sealants, adhesives, barriers, plugs or as a vehicle for drug delivery, as well as implantable devices created outside of the body using 3D printing technology.

In addition to supporting the growth of the platform, the funding is expected to support the broader strategy of creating a streamlined clinical development and regulatory process across multiple geographies. While the company remains headquartered in Paris, these efforts will also be focused towards the U.S. out of its newly opened Boston affiliate office.
Streamlined innovation and product development will also be simplified as a result of the completion of TISSIUM’s state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Lille, France.

In addition, following the completion of the Series B, Jay Watkins, a serial Medtech entrepreneur and executive, is joining TISSIUM’s Board of Directors as Independent Chairman.

Christophe Bancel, CEO of TISSIUM, said: « This new round of funding is a testament to the support we continue to receive from investors for our strategy and vision for the broad TISSIUM ecosystem of products that we have in development. We look forward to moving swiftly towards multiple verticals and expanding into new clinical fields in the coming months.
We are thrilled to have Jay joining our board as Chairman. He brings tremendous experience and depth in building innovative Medtech companies into next generations leaders and will allow us to shape and expend our ecosystem into multiple verticals. I take the opportunity to thank our co-founder, Bernard Gilly, co-founder and Chairman of iBionext, who has led the company as its Chairman since our inception. »

Jay Watkins, Chairman of TISSIUM, added: « I am delighted to join TISSIUM as Chairman. I have been impressed with the breadth of applications for its biomorphic programmable polymers across a wide range of therapeutic fields. The organization has already demonstrated its ability to innovate and create novel product opportunities and I look forward to working with the team to extend our impact in the Medtech space. »

About TISSIUM:
TISSIUM is a privately-owned life sciences company based in Paris, France that is dedicated to the rapid development and commercialization of a unique biopolymer platform to address various unmet clinical needs.

The company’s platform is based on a proprietary polymer family with unique properties including the ability to conform to, and integrate with, surrounding tissue to enable natural healing. Furthermore, the modular design of the polymers enables customization to match tissue-specific requirements for different therapeutic areas. The company also develops delivery and activation devices for enhanced performance and usability of its family of polymers.

The Company’s technology is based on world-class research and intellectual property from the laboratories of Professor Robert Langer (MIT) and Professor Jeffrey M. Karp (Brigham and Women’s Hospital), who co-founded the company in 2013. For more information, please visit: www.TISSIUM.com and @TISSIUMtech.

PRESS RELEASE

New York, NY — NOVEMBER 19, 2019 — Bison Trails, a technology company that provides secure, enterprise-grade infrastructure for multiple blockchain networks, announced today it has completed a $25.5MM Series A round of financing. Blockchain Capital led the investment round, with participation from Kleiner Perkins and Coinbase, joined by Collaborative Fund, A Capital, Consensys, and Sound Ventures, as well as early investors Initialized, Accomplice, Galaxy Digital, and Notation.

Bison Trails is the preferred infrastructure provider for 20+ protocol projects and is a Founding Member of the Libra Association. The company removes the need for customers to spend resources on developing in-house security, devops, infrastructure, and blockchain protocol engineering competencies by providing a robust infrastructure for deploying participation node clusters on any protocol. By lowering the barriers to participating in the decentralized ecosystem, Bison Trails has helped accelerate the innovation and adoption of the fastest-growing protocol projects in the world.

“When we started building Bison Trails, we wanted to bring transparency and ease to entrepreneurs bold enough to build in a decentralized ecosystem, investors wise enough to back a nascent market, and enterprises courageous enough to commit to a technological inevitability like blockchain technology and cryptocurrency,” said Joe Lallouz, CEO of Bison Trails. “We have become the easiest way to run infrastructure on multiple blockchains. And have helped the world’s leading protocols, companies and builders launch and manage secure, highly-available, and geographically distributed nodes on blockchain networks.”

The Series A financing builds on a momentous year for Bison Trails. In mid-October, the company joined the Libra Association Council as one of 21 Founding members to ensure that the Libra Network is decentralized, secure, and well-orchestrated. Working at the protocol level with various teams, Bison Trails will be playing a key role in strengthening the network to support billions of transactions. This year alone, Bison Trails partnered with dozens of blockchain founders and protocol teams to test, launch, and scale their blockchains.

Bison Trails’ team is comprised of serial entrepreneurs and experienced engineers with a deep understanding of building distributed systems and secure infrastructure. Its co-founders, whose previous venture was acquired by Etsy, are well-positioned to bridge the gap between the blockchain and startup industries to further accelerate the growth of adoption.

“We are building a block production and validation infrastructure platform that is secure, reliable, globally-distributed,” said Aaron Henshaw, CTO of Bison Trails. “Our team and culture plays a major role in that and is a huge focus for us as we continue expanding — we aim to bring together world-class engineering, product, and design teams to work together on some of the most interesting and challenging opportunities in the infrastructure space.”

Bison Trails is hiring in New York City. Learn more about opportunities to join the team and build pathways to a decentralized future.

About Bison Trails
Bison Trails, an innovative technology company based in New York City, provides a multi-cloud, geographically distributed infrastructure platform with enterprise-grade security, orchestration, redundancy, and scaling to run highly efficient nodes on blockchain networks.

About Blockchain Capital
Blockchain Capital is a leading venture firm in the blockchain industry with over 80 investments in companies and protocols in the sector, across different stages, geographies and asset types over the last 7 years.
The company was founded in October 2013 by Bart Stephens, Bradford Stephens and Brock Pierce, chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation.

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PRESS RELEASE

Seattle, WA – November 19, 2019 –Shield Compliance (https://www.shieldbanking.com/) has signed new agreements to provide its compliance management platform to financial institutions serving legal cannabis markets in Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, and Washington. Combined with its partnership with a multi-state MRB payroll processor, the company now serves all states with legalized cannabis sales programs.

Shield also announced a $5 million Series A funding round led by Copia Investments, bringing the company’s post-money valuation to $20 million. Building on its $5 million seed round in March, the funds will be used to support the continued development of the Shield Data Hub (https://www.shieldbanking.com/shield-data-hub) while increasing the pace of deployment at financial institutions across the U.S.

“Shield Compliance offers a complete and secure platform built for bankers by bankers,” said Scott Walker, fund manager of Copia Investments, a growth venture equity firm focused on services and software within the financial technology industry. “Shield’s solution meets the diverse compliance requirements faced by financial institutions serving MRBs and addresses a critical need in a rapidly growing, yet woefully underserved market. Under the direction of the company’s experienced leadership team, Shield is gaining strong traction in legal cannabis states and is quickly becoming the clear choice for the banking industry.”

“We are pleased to see the confidence Copia Investments and a growing set of customers across the country have in our product,” said Noah Carey, founder and CEO of Shield Compliance. “It reflects our core belief that the cannabis industry must have access to banking services, and that our purpose-built solution meets the compliance requirements of this industry while enabling financial institutions to operate efficiently and effectively.”
Shield Data Hub –Compliant Cannabis Banking

The Shield Data Hub is a central component of Shield’s cannabis banking platform. It works by aggregating financial institutions’ transaction data and demographic records with restricted and publicly available information from state and local governments, seed to sale tracking, and client financial statements. This automated approach allows banks and credit unions to streamline compliance and scale their operations while accessing new sources of low-cost deposits and gaining a first-mover advantage on MRB customers.

“Despite the ongoing conflict between state and federal law, a pathway exists for financial institutions to serve the cannabis industry and pass compliance exams,” said Tony Repanich, president and COO of Shield Compliance. “Shield is rapidly expanding its footprint serving banks and credit unions in legal cannabis states, helping them improve compliance outcomes, better manage risk, and drive down operational costs.”

Growing Demand for Cannabis Banking Services
Today, some form of medical or recreational marijuana is legal in 33 states, representing approximately 95 percent of the U.S. population. As more states pass legalization measures and federal cannabis legalization and banking policies gain support, demand for banking services is growing.

In Michigan and Illinois, legal recreational cannabis programs expected to generate millions of dollars in new state revenue are slated to go online on December 6 and January 1, respectively. Only a few financial institutions in each of these states, however, are offering services to MRBs. Ohio, which has a robust medical marijuana program, may only have two financial institutions serving this market. In mature cannabis states such as Colorado and Washington, banking competition for top-performing MRBs is escalating rapidly.

While increased competition will result in lower fees for MRBs, the costs to financial institutions serving these customers will remain relatively unchanged. As a result, many bankers are seeking to improve the efficiency of their compliance efforts as they launch new cannabis banking programs.

About Shield Compliance
Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Shield Compliance is transforming the way financial institutions manage risk, comply with regulations, and satisfy operational demands associated with serving the legal cannabis market across the U.S. Its purpose-built AML/BSA compliance management software solution sits behind the financial institution to simplify compliance, automate processes across multiple data sources, create efficiencies, unlock new revenue, and scale operations. For more information, please visit https://www.shieldbanking.com or contact info@shieldbanking.com.

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PRESS RELEASE

11/19/2019 – Launched in November 2018, Kimaï is a direct-to-consumer fine jewelry brand using lab-grown diamonds and recycled gold, aiming to bring transparency, innovation and inclusivity to a consciously-minded generation of consumers. “Diamonds are still being marketed to men, fine jewelry stores remain unapproachable and intimidating, and design and quality come with a high price-tag,” says co-founder Jessica Warch. “It’s time for a change.”

Today, Kimaï announces that it has raised a $1.2 million seed funding round led by Talis Capital. Investors in the company include fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff, the Head of the Facebook App, Fidji Simo, and billionaire businessman Xavier Niel. Early adopters of the brand include The Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle, Emma Watson and Jessica Alba.

Founders are Antwerp-raised, 26-year-old childhood friends Jessica Warch and Sidney Neuhaus. Having grown up to diamond-trading families, and disillusioned by the controversies and outdated practices that have plagued the industry, they questioned how they might set about changing it.
“Our generation represents more than 45% of the global luxury goods market, but the industry is still stuck in their old ways,” says co- founder Sidney Neuhaus.

The duo was particularly concerned with the uncertainty and opacity surrounding diamonds. “It is almost impossible to know where our diamonds come from,” says Warch, “and child labour is sadly still a reality.” The pair started to look for alternatives and discovered lab-grown diamonds.
“We are not talking about cubic zirconia or crystals, but diamonds that are chemically and physically identical to their mined counterparts,” explains Neuhaus, “without the environmental or social impact.”

Matus Maar, co-founder and managing partner at Talis Capital, a London-based VC firm says: “We have followed Jessica and Sidney’s journey since inception and have been impressed by their vision and brilliant execution. They know how to use technology to better engage with their customers and create ethical but also beautiful designs straight to your door. We look forward to helping them shake up the 87 billion traditional diamond industry.”

With lab-grown diamonds, Neuhaus and Warch were able to bring to life their desire for ethical fine jewelry without having to compromise on quality or design. Kimaï is a brand made for their generation, who engages increasingly with transparent brands that have purpose and meaning. The pieces are handmade in Antwerp, using the highest-quality lab-grown diamonds and 18k recycled gold. By selling directly to customers online, Kimaï is able to offer the same quality found at luxury jewelers, at a fraction of the price.

The company leverages a millennial-friendly drop model to introduce new pieces on a monthly basis and focuses on a carefully curated selection of unique designs with quality and design over quantity. “Our pieces are made to order, which enables us to respond quickly to our customers’ evolving demands and wants,” Warch explains.

Since launch, Kimaï has grown its community organically. With this new round of funding, the brand aims to continue to grow its existing loyal customer base, expand current product offering, and build out a team based between New York and Antwerp.

“We believe in a world where luxury is more than just a price-tag,” says Warch. “It’s about the highest- quality products, the most transparent processes and a highly inclusive experience.”

ABOUT KIMAI
Kimaï is a direct-to-consumer fine jewelry brand founded by Sidney Neuhaus and Jessica Warch in November 2018. Working with recycled 18K gold and lab-grown diamonds, Kimaï aims to bring transparency, innovation and inclusivity to a consciously-minded generation of consumers, without compromising on design or quality. Shipping handmade, custom pieces worldwide, Kimaï aims to make the luxury industry more inclusive and transparent.

About Talis Capital
Talis Capital is a venture capital investment firm that takes smart money from some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs and business people and invests it strategically in early-stage technology companies with global potential. Talis has invested over $600 million worth of transactions since 2009 and the portfolio includes Darktrace, Onfido, iwoca, Pirate Studios, Luminance, Threads, Ynsect and Oh My Green. Focused on building long-term partnerships, Talis leverages its network to give some of the world’s most innovative startups the opportunity to thrive.
For more, see www.taliscapital.com.

PRESS RELEASE

NEW YORK – November 19, 2019 — Today, Studs, a new ear piercing experience that enables consumers to express themselves through earscaping, launches nationwide online and in its first brick and mortar location in New York City’s Nolita neighborhood. The company plans to expand its physical retail presence to additional locations in 2020.

Founded by Anna Harman and Lisa Bubbers, Studs was created to modernize the traditional “mall piercing” experience. By combining healthy ear piercing services with omnichannel retail operations and a wide assortment of accessibly-priced earrings, the company offers consumers a seamless path for navigating the previously bifurcated piercing and jewelry landscapes.

For decades, the ear piercing industry has been defined by two types of offerings — antiquated mall brands that are fast and cheap, but use dangerous piercing guns, and local tattoo parlors that often utilize needles, but don’t focus their services specifically on ear piercing and only offer a limited assortment of piercing jewelry. Studs combines the best of both models and reimagines the piercing process from start-to-finish by prioritizing the customer experience, focusing on safe and healthy piercing practices, and connecting with its customer’s individual style expression. Studs also offers an online retail destination where customers can shop curated earscapes, single earrings, collections and access after-care.

“With traditional piercing retailers losing popularity and failing to meet the needs of today’s consumers, there’s a lack of brands in the piercing and retail landscape that prioritize healthy needle piercing, offer a trend-driven product assortment and accessible pricing,” said Anna Harman, co-founder and CEO of Studs. “By having a singular focus on the ear piercing experience from start to finish, we’re confident that Studs can close the gap and deliver a service not only centered around ear piercing, but optimized for every possible need related to either piercing or jewelry in a way that no other brand is doing today.”

The company also announced $3 million in funding led by First Round Capital with participation from Lerer Hippeau, as well as additional angel investors. Financing will be used for building retail locations, enhancing the ecommerce experience and expanding the Studs team.

“Gen Z has evolved beyond mall brands like Claire’s, and is uninspired by getting pierced at their pediatrician’s office. With the increasing demand for multiple piercings and jewelry styles becoming particularly trendy amongst this age demographic, tattoo parlors, which can be intimidating, expensive and limited in selection, have become more or less the default,” said Hayley Barna, Partner at First Round. “I was fortunate to lead Studs’ first funding round and invest in two remarkable founders tackling a large market ready for a new service paradigm and brand voice. This is a unique investment for First Round and we couldn’t be more excited to be breaking into the space with a brand that is so tapped into the mind of today’s consumer and ready to deliver to their high standards and ever-changing needs.”

“Anna and Lisa are the perfect team to bring to life a reimagined retail experience around ear piercing and enable self-expression through adornment,” says Caitlin Strandberg, Investor at Lerer Hippeau. “We’re eager to watch consumers fall in love with the unique Studs experience and excited to see the brand help usher in the future of retail.”

Headquartered with a storefront in NYC, Studs is available both online at Studs.com and in-store. Check out the brand’s Nolita shop at 12 Prince St. for ear piercing and jewelry.

ABOUT STUDS
Studs is a new ear piercing experience that enables consumers to express themselves through earscaping. The company offers a modern solution to the previously outdated ear piercing industry and cumbersome process surrounding it. For years, there’s been a gap in the market comprised of antiquated mall brands, tattoo parlors and high-end boutiques that are either unsafe, intimidating or drastically overpriced. Studs closes this gap and improves the customer journey by connecting a healthy ear piercing service with trend-driven and accessibly-priced jewelry, available to shop both online and in-store. From personal consultations and safe needle-piercing (never guns) with implant-grade metals, to aftercare check-ins and merchandised earscapes, Studs is the new authority in ear piercing and earrings.

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PRESS RELEASE

Paris, 19th November 2019

Luko, the home insurance company, announces that it has raised a €20 million Series A led by leading global venture capital firm Accel, with participation from Founders Fund and Speedinvest.

Home insurance has become a 100 billion euro industry in Europe, but its opaque terms and conditions, multi-stage and elongated processes and ‘guilty before proven innocent’ approach to claims have eroded consumers’ trust. On average, after the experience of making a home insurance claim, 40% of consumers choose to change provider. In addition, the industry has been slow to embrace technology and move online, failing to provide the experiences consumers have come to expect from other services.

Founded in 2017 in Paris by Raphael Vullierme and Benoit Bourdel, Luko has customer service at its heart, providing simple, transparent insurance and fast home repair. Its online platform has transformed the insurance experience: it takes two minutes to obtain coverage, two hours to receive payment for a claim and two days for damage to be repaired. Gone are the days of waiting days or weeks for repairs while balancing life’s other commitments.

Currently offering flat and home insurance for individuals and landlords in France, Luko has attracted more than 10,000 customers in its first 10 months of operation. It is now Europe’s fastest-growing insurance company, having seen strong organic growth through word of mouth from happy customers, who are hungry for a new option in a staid industry.

While other neo-insurance companies are focused on offering traditional insurance cover through digital means like an app, Luko is focused on creating insurance 3.0, a new product category that goes way beyond coverage. Luko is developing proprietary home protection technology, so it can reinvent homecare and move insurance from a post-incident, claims-based model, to avoiding home accidents to begin with. The technology will monitor a home’s front door, water supply pipe and electric meter, and machine learning will analyse this data to help prevent floods, fires and burglary.

Raphael Vullierme said: “We believe consumers need fairer insurance options that they can clearly understand and that will bring them peace of mind. While customer churn is traditionally an industry problem, Luko’s is nearly nil, and our Net Promoter Score is five times the industry average.

“This is the first step to our true endgame, avoiding home accidents altogether. We believe the future of homecare is in effectively protecting homes, and this investment will help us get there faster. We will use the new funding to accelerate our home protection technology development, expand from France across Europe and develop additional HomeCare Services.”

As part of Luko’s mission to transform the insurance industry for a better society, the company charges a flat fee, which is used for claims management, operational costs and to pay claims. At the end of a year, if there is money left over, Luko donates it to charities chosen by its customers through its Giveback programme. It received BCorp certification in June 2019.

Additionally, as part of the Series A round, all participating investors agreed to sign Luko’s social and environmental impact mission, to accept that Luko won’t trade its mission and impact for growth.

Luca Bocchio, who led the investment for Accel and will join the board, said: “Insurance is still largely a very traditional industry. With only eight per cent online penetration, the whole industry is poised for change. Consumers have suffered long enough with poor home insurance options, and Luko is bringing a new option to market with fairness at its core. With an ambitious team, a sleek product, impressive technology under development and strong customer love, Luko will change the equation for millions of home insurance customers across Europe, as it pioneers an end-to-end homecare solution.”

About Luko
Luko has reinvented home insurance with social responsibility and technology. It is the number 1 neo-insurance company in France, insuring more than 15,000 homes, and the fastest growing insurtech company in Europe.

Beyond a simple insurance contract, Luko aims to move insurance from a reactive claims-based model to a prevention model with its proprietary technology.

Co-founders Raphaël Vullierme, a serial entrepreneur, and Benoît Bourdel brought together their expertise to create a company that has a positive and concrete impact on society, which was recognised by BCorp certification in July 2019. They have since been joined by a strong team working on machine learning, hardware, UX, behavioral economics and operations from leading companies such as Facebook, BCG, Axa, Doctolib and Airbnb.

About Accel
Accel is a leading venture capital firm that partners with exceptional founders with unique insights, from inception through all phases of private company growth. Atlassian, Algolia, Avito, Celonis, Cloudera, Crowdstrike, Deliveroo, DJI, Dropbox, Etsy, Facebook, Flipkart, Funding Circle, Kayak, Kry, QlikTech, Rovio, Slack, Shift Technology, Spotify, Supercell, UiPath and WorldRemit are among the companies the firm has backed over the past 35+ years. The firm seeks to understand entrepreneurs as individuals, appreciate their originality and play to their strengths. Because greatness doesn’t have a stereotype. For more, visit www.accel.com, www.facebook.com/accel or www.twitter.com/accel.

About Founders Fund
Founders Fund invests in the world’s most important and valuable companies across all sectors and stages. The firm has been an early backer of some of the most impactful companies of the past decade, including SpaceX, Facebook, Spotify, Airbnb, Stripe, Palantir and Oscar Health Insurance. Founders Fund pursues a founder-friendly investment strategy, providing maximum support with minimum interference. For more information, visit www.foundersfund.com.

About Speedinvest
Speedinvest is a pan-European venture capital fund with €230M under management and offices in London, Berlin, Vienna, Munich and San Francisco. Employing a vertical investment structure, we fund innovative early-stage technology start-ups in the areas of Fintech, Insurtech, Healthtech, Consumer Tech, Marketplaces / Network Effects, Deep Tech and Industrial Tech. Speedinvest actively deploys its global network and dedicated team of in-house experts to support our portfolio companies, including with US market expansion. Find out more: www.speedinvest.com.

PRESS RELEASE

BlueVine Raises $102.5 Million To Build Next-Generation Small Business Banking 

Series F Financing Will Enable the Company to Scale the Vision for BlueVine Business Banking, an end-to-end SMB Banking Solution with Integrated Financing

REDWOOD CITY, CALIF. — November 19, 2019 — BlueVine, the leading provider of small business banking, announced it has raised a $102.5 million in Series F round of equity financing. This funding round was led by ION Crossover Partners with participation from all major existing investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, 83North, SVB Capital, Nationwide, Citi Ventures, Microsoft’s venture fund, M12, and private investors. The round also included new investors MUFG Innovation Partners Co., Ltd, O.G. Tech – Eyal Ofer’s VC, Vintage Investment Partners, ION Group, Maor Investments and additional private investors.

BlueVine will use the funding to further build and scale its vision for BlueVine Business Banking, an end-to-end banking platform featuring a business checking account seamlessly integrated with BlueVine’s technology-enabled suite of online financing products. The BlueVine Business Checking Account, announced in October 2019, simplifies and enhances the banking experience for today’s small businesses with an intuitive, easy-to-use dashboard and the BlueVine Business Debit Mastercard® to manage everyday finances, while features like 1.00% interest on balances and zero monthly fees will help small businesses save and grow their money.

“The recent launch of BlueVine Checking demonstrates our commitment to revolutionize banking for small business owners with a full suite of services designed specifically to meet their unique needs,” said Eyal Lifshitz, CEO and co-founder of BlueVine. “This funding further validates our mission and will help democratize true business-grade banking for small businesses who have been underserved for so long.”

“BlueVine has demonstrated a track record of success with their multiple financing products and set themselves apart with their vision of a complete platform of innovative banking products for small businesses,” said Jonathan Kolodny, Partner at ION Crossover Partners. “We’ve been following the company closely since its early days, and have witnessed the demand, and frankly the economic need, for BlueVine’s banking services. We believe the company is exceptionally well-positioned, thanks to its world-class management team, to change the way small businesses manage their financial needs today and in the future.”

The funds will help develop future BlueVine Business Banking features, such as integrations with BlueVine’s existing working capital solutions – Line of Credit, Invoice Factoring and Term Loan – which have already provided over 20,000 small business owners with access to more than $2.5 billion in financing since the company’s inception in 2013. The funding round will also help continue to grow the BlueVine team, including hires across engineering, product and revenue organizations.

About BlueVine

BlueVine empowers small businesses with innovative banking designed for them. BlueVine’s advanced online platform is intuitive and offers a convenient solution for the banking and working capital needs of businesses. BlueVine offers a suite of products designed to meet the diverse financial needs of today’s business owners including BlueVine Business Checking , Line of Credit, Term Loan, and Invoice Factoring. Based in Redwood City, California, BlueVine has provided small and medium-sized businesses with access to more than $2.5 billion in financing and is backed by leading private and institutional investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, 83 North,SVB Capital,Citi Ventures, Nationwide Insurance, and M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Arm). All lines of credit and term loan products are issued by Celtic Bank, a Utah-chartered Industrial Bank, Member FDIC. Bank account services are provided by The Bancorp Bank, Member FDIC.

No monthly fees on a BlueVine Business Checking Account. Card Replacement Fees and Wire Transfer Fees may apply. You may be charged out-of-network ATM fees.  You may be charged a fee by the ATM owners, even if you don’t complete the transaction.

The BlueVine Business Debit Mastercard is issued by The Bancorp Bank pursuant to a license

from Mastercard International Incorporated and may be used everywhere Mastercard is

accepted. Mastercard is a registered trademark, and the circles design is a trademark of

Mastercard International Incorporated.

BlueVine^® is a registered trademark of BlueVine Capital Inc. 2019 BlueVine Capital Inc. All Rights Reserved.

For more information, please visit www.bluevine.com

PRESS RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO, 18 NOVEMBER 2019: Mobility startup, Bolt has launched in America with the world’s first platform to offer an accessible Light Electric Vehicle solution for delivery couriers and businesses.

Couriers using Bolt’s Light Electric Vehicles have up to 30 percent more earning potential, enabling them to make more deliveries per shift, with Bolt’s servicing network keeping them on the road for longer.

The launch follows a USD$2.5 million seed funding round led by global mobility Venture Capital (VC) firm, Maniv Mobility, along with European e-mobility VC, Contrarian Ventures, individual VCs and former executives of Uber and Deliveroo.

Co-founded in 2017 by Mina Nada, former executive at Deliveroo (Europe’s largest food delivery company) and Mobike (China’s largest dockless bike share company) and former Bain & Co consultant, Michael Johnson, the Sydney-based start-up has launched in San Francisco and London, with key food delivery partners in each location.

By 2020, Bolt aims to increase its fleet to ten times its current size. With a team of 20, it plans to expand across more cities in the US, UK and Australia.
Mina Nada, CEO and Co-founder, Bolt said:

“Being in the food delivery industry since its inception, we saw that Light Electric Vehicles were the real future of ‘last mile’ logistics, yet no-one was offering the right vehicle, financing or maintenance solution.

“We are proud to be serving the real needs of delivery couriers while building the logistics infrastructure of the future.”

Postmates, the app that pioneered on-demand anything in communities across the country, believes in the potential of Bolt to provide new mobility solutions for its fleet of Postmates, and has been piloting a rental program in San Francisco since June.

Claire Sands, Director of Community Communications and Engagement, Postmates said: “Bolt has the potential to provide yet another mobility solution for our Postmates to navigate dense urban areas and quickly deliver goods from pick up to drop off, helping to boost efficiency, power additional earnings for the fleet, and create more sales for local businesses.”

Today, Technavio forecasts the global on-demand food delivery market will grow by 32 percent annually through to 2021 to become a $57.59 billion industry. The booming delivery sector demands an efficient mobility service, like Bolt, with a low carbon footprint to reduce urban pollution and congestion on the roads.

BOLT
E-BIKE BENEFITS
RENT: $39/week (week to week contract).
No risk trial – First week is free
Week-to-week contract, meaning no monthly or annual subscription.
High battery capacity, fast charge time, high-security lock, rear rack for deliveries and front and rear integrated lights for safety.
Full maintenance and customer support across both rental and outright purchase options.

For further information, visit www.getboltbikes.com

ABOUT BOLT
Founded in 2017 by Mina Nada (former Deliveroo and Mobike Executive) and Michael Johnson (former Bain & Co executive), Bolt Bikes is the world’s first platform offering logistics players Light Electric Vehicles as a Service. Bolt provides vehicles on flexible subscriptions which include vehicle servicing. Currently operating in Sydney, San Francisco, London and Melbourne, Bolt is an accessible, sustainable and efficient solution for the booming delivery sector, offering unrivalled features and services, including full maintenance and ongoing customer support.

For further information, visit www.getboltbikes.com

ABOUT POSTMATES
Postmates enables you to get anything you want on-demand. Launched in 2011, Postmates led the creation of on-demand delivery in the U.S and has grown to be the #1 platform in Los Angeles, amongst other markets and has the most merchant selection in the country, including hundreds of exclusive LA merchants such as Sugarfish, Salt + Straw, Trejos Tacos and The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. The company now operates in more than 3,500 cities across the U.S. and Mexico, provides access to over 500,000 merchants and has recently launched innovative new products including Postmates Party. Postmates is headquartered in San Francisco and has more than 1,000 employees. Learn more: www.postmates.com.

PRESS RELEASE

Dallas, Texas (November 18, 2019) – Freedom Leaf, Inc. (“Freedom Leaf” or the “Company”) (OTCQB: FRLF), a first in class hemp consumer packaged goods company that recently acquired Green Lotus to build its position as a leading provider of natural cannabinoid-rich hemp products, announced today that it closed a $5 million convertible note financing led by an affiliate of Merida Capital. David Goldburg, Chairman of the Board, and Dave Vautrin, Independent Director, invested $125,000 and $67,000, respectively, in the convertible note financing. Proceeds from the financing will primarily support the Company’s production, marketing, and sales efforts as it continues to build its position as a leading CBD and hemp company servicing the North American and Mexican markets.

The financing is in the form of a unit consisting of a three-year senior unsecured note accruing interest at 8%, convertible at the holder’s option into the Company’s common stock at $.20 per share, and a three-year warrant to acquire shares of the Company’s common stock. A portion of the proceeds in the financing represent the cancellation of existing promissory notes held by affiliates of Merida Capital. For additional details, please reference the Form 8-K to be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Carlos Frias, CEO and Board Member of Freedom Leaf, commented: “This financing will give the Company the necessary capital to fulfill a robust pipeline of new orders from our distribution partner in Mexico, CBD Life SA; Greenlane Holdings, a leading distributor of cannabis and CBD products in the U.S; and several other leading regional and national retailers who are increasingly looking to meet consumer demand with today’s highest quality CBD and hemp products.”

David Goldburg, Chairman of the Board of Freedom Leaf, added: “The acquisition of Green Lotus has positioned the Company to become a leading consumer packaged goods CBD and hemp player in North America. The conversion price of the convertible note, which is at a substantial premium to the current market price, reflects the high level of confidence Merida has in the ability of the Company to execute on its business plan.”

Freedom Leaf acquired Green Lotus on May 31, 2019, immediately enabling the launch of a more robust product line focused on leading CBD and hemp products, enhanced distribution capabilities and penetration into high-growth emerging markets worldwide.

About Freedom Leaf, Inc.
Freedom Leaf Health is a first-in-class hemp consumer packaged goods company with a family of trusted brands that provide premium hemp products for greater wellness, balance and longevity. Green Lotus and IrieCBD are the Company’s foremost brands, offering premium hemp products such as topicals, tinctures, vapables, softgels and sparkling beverages. Freedom Leaf Health is a fully reporting and audited publicly-traded company trading under the symbol (OTCQB: FRLF).

About Green Lotus
Green Lotus is a premium hemp brand that provides responsibly produced, natural cannabinoid-rich products to consumers and businesses. The brand is veteran-led and powered by a diverse team dedicated to promoting a world where the restorative power of hemp is accessible to all people. For more information, please visit https://greenlotushemp.com.

Source: Press Release

PRESS RELEASE

LONDON, ENGLAND – November 18, 2019 – Wayve, a startup dedicated to accelerating autonomous mobility through learning based approaches instead of hand-coded rules, today announced a $20M Series A funding round to launch a pilot fleet of autonomous vehicles in central London. The investment was led by Eclipse Ventures, with participation from Balderton Capital, existing investors and several undisclosed preeminent leaders in machine learning and robotics.

Wayve believes that the complexity of self-driving cars will be solved by better artificial intelligence “brains,” not by more physical sensors and hand-coded rules. Launched in Cambridge, England – arguably the birthplace of modern computing and artificial intelligence – and recently relocated to London, this is the first time a European self-driving car company has attracted premier Silicon Valley venture capital funding to lead a Series A investment. “Wayve’s differentiated approach to autonomy builds on timely advances in the fields of reinforcement learning, simulation and computer vision,” said Seth Winterroth, Partner at Eclipse Ventures. “Furthermore, by locating the company in the UK, the team has access to an extraordinary talent pool and numerous complex testing environments.”

In Spring 2019, Wayve publicized an unprecedented achievement, demonstrating a self-driving car navigating on roads it had never previously driven before. This had been accomplished by using only cameras, a 2D map, and a unique, end-to-end, deep learning driving brain. A good human driver can quickly adapt to navigating a new jurisdiction, however existing autonomous solutions lack the requisite ability to detect and respond appropriately to potential hazards. By contrast, Wayve is committed to building a general and scalable driving brain applicable to any driving environment.

“The average human learns to drive in just 50 hours with visual input primarily. Once we have learned, we are capable at driving on roads around the world despite vastly differing traffic laws and cultural context,” said Suranga Chandratillake, Partner at Balderton Capital. “Wayve’s self-driving technology is the closest to this human approach to learning. The great advantage of solving the problem this way is that it is robust in the face of a global opportunity.” To date, self-driving vehicle testing has been carried out on highly structured and modern roads in USA and China. While these are “live” driving environments, such geographies lack the irregular, diverse and complex streets of most other global cities. Wayve has successfully begun on-road public autonomous driving trials supported by insurance partner, Admiral.

End-to-end machine learning based systems have dominated traditional rule-based approaches in natural language processing, image recognition, speech synthesis and more. “As computational power and data continue to grow, learning-based approaches will become more inevitable, especially for mobile robotics,” said Amar Shah, Wayve Co-Founder and CEO, “the human brain has evolved over millions of years, computers have only had a few decades, but are catching up quickly.”

About Wayve
Wayve is pioneering the intersection of artificial intelligence and mobile robotics using state of the art research in machine learning, computer vision and reinforcement learning. Self-driving vehicles are Wayve’s first commercial application area. Find out more by visiting https://wayve.ai/

About Eclipse Ventures
Eclipse Ventures is a technology-focused investment firm specializing in complex operations and full-stack solutions. Founded in 2015 and based in Palo Alto, CA, Eclipse partners with entrepreneurs boldly transforming the essential industries that define and propel economies. To learn more, visit http://eclipse.vc/

About Balderton Capital
Balderton Capital is a London-based venture firm focused exclusively on backing the best European-founded technology companies. In the two decades since our founding, we have worked with hundreds of extraordinary European founders, and have raised seven funds totalling more than $2.7bn. To learn more, visit https://www.balderton.com/

PRESS RELEASE

Three years after its launch, Lalilo, an EdTech startup that helps students learn to read at their own pace, is entering an acceleration phase in France and abroad. Founded in 2016 by three engineers, the company aims to solve the challenge of supporting a growing number of struggling readers by putting technology and artificial intelligence in the hands of some of the most influential stakeholders: teachers.

Lalilo is an online tool that Kindergarten-2nd grade teachers can use in the classroom to differentiate reading instruction. The program guides students through exercises on targeted foundational reading skills while teachers receive detailed data on their performance.

Thousands of students already use Lalilo in USA and France. Each month, more than 5.000 teachers and 90.000 students complete several million exercises in their classrooms.

How does Lalilo work?
Lalilo is an online literacy program with 2 parts:
> A playful and interactive world: students work on more than 3.000 adaptive exercises in phonics, word recognition, and comprehension.
> A data reporting: teachers can track whole class and individual progress. They can also assign specific lessons

New Fundraising Round
While they are delighted to be able to support French students in their literacy journey, Lalilo also spreads its influence beyond the national and European market. From its inception, Lalilo has been focused on the US EdTech market.

This allows the company to get inspiration and mentorship from the numerous EdTech innovations that are thriving in the US and to focus on a robust English language product that can be exported to other English-speaking countries. To advance this drive for growth beyond France, Lalilo raised a new round of $5.5 million from Partech, EduCapital, and Citizen Capital.

“We are proud to have raised with three funds which reflect Lalilo’s dynamics: international ambition with Partech, education with EduCapital, and social impact with Citizen Capital.” Amine Mezzour, co-founder

RFP with the French Government
In France, Lalilo’s request for proposal was recently accepted and the company was granted a prestigious partnership with the Ministry of Education. The innovation partnership, entitled “development of a teaching assistant based on artificial intelligence technologies for the learning of literacy and STEM,” finances a 12-month Research & Development phase for three selected projects in both STEM and literacy. At the end of the first R&D phase, selected projects will continue through a six-month scaling-up phase after which they can then be bought by the State to be implemented in French classrooms. In concrete terms, this partnership acts as a stimulus for the development of the national EdTech sector. With the backing of the Ministry of Education, Lalilo was able to strategically form partnerships with Academies (districts) of Paris, Versailles, Creteil, and Montpellier.

“This partnership with the Ministry of Education is an opportunity for us to help even more school teachers counteract school drop-out rates in the country where we founded our company.” Laurent Jolie, co-founder

Business model
In the United States (more than half of its user base), Lalilo sells its program to schools and districts through a premium model: use of the program is free for teachers and students, but detailed student reporting and other advanced teacher features are purchased through an annual license. In France, thanks to the partnership with the Ministry of Education, the entire program remains free for school teachers.

About Lalilo
Lalilo is a french edTech start-up founded in 2016 by 3 Polytechnique students after attending an entrepreneurship program at UC Berkeley (California). Lalilo’s mission is to end Illiteracy, #1 education problem that affects young students and is proven to have a critical impact on their educational and professional future.

Lalilo has built a revolutionary A.I-based learning software that helps every child learn how to read at their own pace, and empowers teachers to personalize learning in their classroom.

About Partech
Partech is a global investment firm with offices in San Francisco, Paris, Berlin and Dakar. We bring together capital, operational experience and strategic support for entrepreneurs at seed, venture and growth stages across multiple continents, with over €1.3B investment capacity. Investments range from $200K to $50M in a wide range of technologies and businesses for enterprises and consumers, from software, digital brands and services, to hardware and deep tech across all major industries. Companies backed by Partech have completed more than 20 initial public offerings and more than 50 strategic exits above $100M.

Our current portfolio: https://partechpartners.com/companies

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PRESS RELEASE

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – November 14, 2019 – FanAI, the leading performance sponsorship data platform, announced today the closing of its $8m Series A funding round led by Japanese business conglomerate, Marubeni Corporation, to support FanAI’s continued expansion and growth.

The latest investment, which saw participation from Allectus Capital, CRCM Ventures, Courtside Ventures, GC Tracker Fund, M Ventures, Sterling VC, and GFR Fund, brings the total raised capital to over $12.5 million for the Santa Monica-based data analytics firm.

FanAI connects fan data to purchase, social and streaming data to drive better business outcomes for rights-holders and brands. This unique combination of data enables purchase-based audience targeting as well as comparing the sales impact of fan bases across an entire sponsorship portfolio.

Measurement based on real purchase data also provides a common denominator for brand CMOs to compare spend outcomes across sponsorships and digital media.

“We couldn’t imagine a better strategic investor than Marubeni to help realize our business objectives in a brand new market,” said Johannes Waldstein, CEO of FanAI. “Marubeni has forged incredibly strong business relationships throughout the region, and with this partnership we are positioned to expand our team and continue to build out our self serve sponsorship data platform.”

“Digital measurement based on real purchase data is a tremendous opportunity for brands as they optimize spend outcomes across entertainment and sports,” said Daniel Welt of Marubeni. “Marubeni’s Next Generation Business Development sees FanAI as a strategic partner for the APAC region to bring leading platform analytics to that market.”

About FanAI
FanAI is the leading sponsorship data platform, that drives better business outcomes for rights-holders and brands. The unique combination of fan data with purchase, social and streaming data, enables clients to improve sponsorship and digital media effectiveness across sports & entertainment. Measurement based on real purchase data also provides a common denominator for brand CMO’s to compare spend outcomes across sponsorships and digital media.

Clients include: Capcom, HiRez Studios, 100 Thieves, NYXL, Philadelphia Fusion and Gen G. For more information, visit http://fan.ai

About Marubeni Corporation
Marubeni Corporation is a publicly traded Japanese trading house (“Sogo Shosha”) with business lines across wide-ranging fields including lifestyle, ICT & real estate business, forest products, food, agri business, chemicals, power, energy, metals & mineral resources, plant, aerospace & ship, finance & leasing business, construction, auto & industrial machinery, and next generation business development. Marubeni is a truly global company with 136 branches and offices in 67 countries and regions, consisting of 12 Japan branches and offices, 57 overseas branches and offices and 29 overseas corporate subsidiaries with 67 offices.
https://www.marubeni.com/en/

About Marubeni Next Generation Business Development
The Next Generation Business Development Division (“NextGen”) is Marubeni Corporation’s innovation department. NextGen sponsored and created Marubeni Ventures, Inc. (“MVI”), which is Marubeni’s Corporate Venture group, and actively pursues corporate development in esports/Entertainment, Wellness, Fintech, SmartCity and other areas critical to Marubeni’s growth through 2030. NextGen also houses Marubeni’s Data Science group, which applies AI/ML/Data Science to internal business problems and opportunities.

https://www.marubeni.com/en/business/development/

Source: Press Release