Innovation

EP Wealth Advisors Expands In Arizona With Capital Insight Partners Partnership

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

EP Wealth Advisors (EP Wealth), a fee-only registered investment advisor, has partnered with Capital Insight Partners (CIP), a Scottsdale-based wealth management firm overseeing more than $730 million in assets under management, as EP Wealth continues to build out its presence in Arizona.

Heartwood Partners Sells Sur-Seal To Brodie Generational Capital Partners

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Heartwood Partners announced it has completed the sale of Sur-Seal to Brodie Generational Capital Partners (BGCP), marking the private equity firm’s fifth exit over the past 13 months. The transaction was executed by Heartwood Partners III, LP (Fund III) and affiliated entities.

Broadridge Closes Acolin Deal To Expand Cross-Border Fund Distribution And Compliance Services

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Broadridge Financial Solutions has completed its previously announced acquisition of Acolin, a Zurich-based provider of cross-border fund distribution and regulatory services, as the fintech provider deepens its push into data-driven solutions for global asset managers.

CoreX Acquires InSource’s ServiceNow Unit To Scale AI-Enabled Delivery Across the Americas

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

CoreX, a ServiceNow Elite Consulting and Implementation Partner backed by NewSpring Holdings, has completed the acquisition of InSource’s ServiceNow business unit, with the transaction closing in late December 2025. The deal combines two Elite Partners into a single organization aimed at meeting rising demand for end-to-end, AI-enabled ServiceNow transformations.

NinjaOne Tops $500 Million In ARR After Record FY2025

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

NinjaOne announced it closed fiscal year 2025 with annual recurring revenue surpassing $500 million, citing nearly 70% year-over-year ARR growth and demand for its Unified IT Operations Platform outpacing broader IT market growth. The company also reported expanding its customer base more than 60% year over year to 35,000 customers across more than 140 countries.

Qualinx: €20 Million Raised To Scale Ultra-Low-Power GNSS Chip For The Connected Edge

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Qualinx, a Delft-based European fabless semiconductor company, raised €20 million in funding led by Invest-NL, with participation from existing investors FORWARD.one, InnovationQuarter Capital and Waterman Ventures. The round brings Qualinx’s total funding to date to €40 million.

Lindsay Goldberg: Oversubscribed $4.9 Billion Fund VI Closed

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Lindsay Goldberg has raised $4.9 billion for its sixth flagship fund, an oversubscribed close that exceeded the firm’s $4.0 billion target and marked a step-up in scale versus its prior vehicle. The fund, Lindsay Goldberg VI L.P. and related vehicles (collectively Fund VI), closed more than 40% larger than Fund V, underscoring continued limited partner demand for the firm’s focused, relationship-driven approach to private equity investing.

Artis BioSolutions To Acquire Syngoi Technologies

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Artis BioSolutions, a San Diego-based advanced-therapies development and manufacturing company, said it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Syngoi Technologies, a Bilbao, Spain-based biotech developing enzymatic approaches for manufacturing synthetic DNA. The deal is intended to add faster, lower-cost synthetic DNA manufacturing to Artis’ broader “gene-to-drug” platform spanning early development through clinical manufacturing.

Capitol Meridian Partners And Stellex Capital Management Complete Acquisition Of Beaufort

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Capitol Meridian Partners and Stellex Capital Management have completed their carve-out acquisition of Beaufort, the aerospace and defense survival equipment division of Survitec, establishing Beaufort as an independent survival technologies platform backed by long-term private equity investment.

Windjammer Capital Acquires Specialty Chemicals Maker MFG Chemical From Platte River Equity

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Windjammer Capital has acquired MFG Chemical, a developer and manufacturer of specialty chemicals that supplies customers across water treatment and industrial coatings, the firm said. The deal adds another platform investment for Windjammer in engineered, mission-critical industrial products and positions MFG for an expansion plan centered on operational improvements, new product development, and potential add-on acquisitions.

Matrix One Buys Simploud To Add QMS and LIMS Software For Regulated Life Sciences Teams

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Matrix One, a life sciences software provider backed by Lauxera Capital Partners, has acquired Simploud, a cloud-based maker of Quality Management System (QMS) and Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) software.

Armko Becomes Align Capital Partners’ New AEC Platform After Acquisition

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Align Capital Partners (ACP) has acquired Armko Industries, a Dallas–Fort Worth-based engineering consulting firm specializing in building envelope, roofing, and waterproofing consulting, and will build the business as its newest platform investment in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) sector.

Accenture To Buy UK AI Specialist Faculty

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Accenture has agreed to acquire Faculty, a U.K.-based AI-native services and products company, in a move designed to deepen Accenture’s applied AI bench and expand its ability to help clients redesign critical business processes with “safe and secure” AI. Accenture said the transaction will strengthen its capacity to deliver AI systems that produce tangible outcomes, particularly in high-stakes environments. In these mission-critical environments, reliability, governance, and accountability are central requirements.

Excel Engineering Announces Strategic Investment And Partnership With Fusion Capital Partners

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Excel Engineering, a Diagonal, Iowa-based testing and certification firm serving North American original equipment manufacturers, has secured a strategic investment from Fusion Capital Partners, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm focused on engineered products and services in the industrial sector. The partnership is intended to help Excel scale its business and broaden its technical capabilities as OEMs and industrial customers navigate increasingly complex regulatory requirements and the continued evolution of powertrain and battery technologies.

Solutions By Text Acquires Triple Play Pay To Expand FinText Payments And Embedded Commerce Capabilities

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Solutions by Text announced it has acquired Triple Play Pay, a payments platform, in a move aimed at combining its compliance-first messaging capabilities with payment orchestration technology to provide a unified, compliant payments experience for consumer finance businesses and their customers. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Automated Logic Acquires CCG Automation To Expand Ohio Building Automation Footprint

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Automated Logic Contracting Services, part of Carrier Global Corporation, announced it has acquired substantially all of the assets of CCG Automation, Inc., a building automation solutions provider headquartered in Richfield, Ohio, as it looks to expand its presence in the state.

Lupus Research Alliance Launches Lupus Ventures Philanthropic Fund To Back New SLE Therapies And Diagnostics

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

The Lupus Research Alliance, the largest private funder of lupus research, said it has formed a philanthropic venture fund called Lupus Ventures to help advance treatments and diagnostics for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), its manifestations, and related autoimmune conditions.

xAI Raises $20 Billion Series E

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

xAI announced it has closed an upsized Series E funding round totaling $20 billion, surpassing its previously targeted $15 billion raise, as the company accelerates development of its AI models and the infrastructure behind them. The company said the financing included participation from Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among other investors. And xAI added that NVIDIA and Cisco Investments joined as strategic investors, backing efforts to scale compute capacity and expand what it described as some of the world’s largest GPU clusters.

LMArena: $150 Million At $1.7 Billion Valuation Raised To Expand Real-World AI Evaluation

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

LMArena announced it has raised $150 million in new financing to expand its community-driven platform for evaluating frontier AI models, valuing the company at $1.7 billion post-money. The round was led by Felicis and UC Investments, the University of California’s investment office, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, The House Fund, LDVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Laude Ventures.

Waiākea Adds Tetairoa McMillan, Devin Williams, Jerami Grant As Athlete Investors

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Waiākea Hawaiian Volcanic Beverages announced it has added three new athlete investors and “impact partners” as it continues to expand its roster of sports figures backing the Hawai‘i-based brand.

GSME: $35M Series B Raised To Expand Semiconductor Services Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

GS Microelectronics U.S. (GSME) announced it has raised $35 million in a Series B round led by Maverick Silicon, funding the company plans to use to expand its semiconductor services platform across advanced packaging, design enablement, and supply chain visibility.

H.I.G. Growth Partners Sells ProsperOps To Flexera In FinOps Automation Exit

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

H.I.G. Growth Partners has completed the sale of ProsperOps, an Austin-based provider of autonomous cloud cost optimization software, to Flexera, a portfolio company of Thoma Bravo.

HabitTrade: Nearly $10 Million Series A Raised To Accelerate Global Expansion

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

HabitTrade has closed a Series A funding round of nearly $10 million to expand its global brokerage footprint and deepen its compliance and risk-control capabilities, the company said. The round was led by Newborn Town Inc., with participation from Bright Venture Capital, StableStock, and other investors.

Core & Main Agrees To Buy Pioneer Supply

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Core & Main announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Pioneer Supply, expanding the distributor’s footprint in the water, wastewater and storm drainage markets across Texas and Oklahoma.

Bentley Buys Talon Aerolytics And Pointivo Technology To Expand AI-Driven Asset Analytics

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Bentley Systems said it has acquired Talon Aerolytics and the technology and technical expertise of Pointivo in a pair of deals that closed in December, strengthening the company’s push into asset analytics for infrastructure owner-operators.

Evolution Metals & Technologies Completes SPAC Merger Ahead Of Planned Nasdaq Debut

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Evolution Metals & Technologies announced it has completed its business combination with Welsbach Technology Metals Acquisition Corp., creating a newly formed public company focused on building a vertically integrated supply chain for critical minerals and materials, including rare earth magnets and battery materials.

Sony Honda Mobility Unveils AFEELA Prototype 2026

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Sony Honda Mobility announced at CES 2026 a roadmap that blends automated driving, conversational AI, in-car entertainment, and creator-led software development as core pillars of its “Mobility as a Creative Entertainment Space” vision. During a press conference at CES, the Sony-Honda joint venture showcased AFEELA 1 as a pre-production vehicle and reiterated that it expects first customer deliveries in California to begin within 2026. The company said it plans to expand sales to Arizona in 2027, while also targeting Japan deliveries in the first half of 2027, framing the rollout as a phased approach that pairs product launch with a broader services and experiences strategy.

Lucid, Nuro, And Uber Unveil Global Robotaxi, Begin Autonomous Road Testing

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Lucid Group, Nuro and Uber announced at CES 2026 the production-intent vehicles they plan to deploy in a global robotaxi service, alongside an Uber-designed in-cabin rider experience that the companies said is being shown publicly for the first time.

Intel Launches Core Ultra Series 3, The First AI PC Platform Built On Intel 18A

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Intel unveiled its Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors at CES 2026, positioning the lineup as the company’s first compute platform built on Intel 18A process technology and its most broadly adopted AI PC platform to date. Intel said the chips will power more than 200 laptop designs from global partners, with initial consumer systems available later this month.

Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon X2 Plus For Windows 11 Copilot Plus PCs

By Amit Chowdhry ● Jan 6, 2026

Qualcomm Technologies introduced the Snapdragon X2 Plus platform at CES 2026, expanding its Snapdragon X Series lineup and broadening access to Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs aimed at modern professionals, aspiring creators and everyday users seeking portable designs, fast performance, built-in AI features and multi-day battery life.