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The University of Utah (one of the nation's leading research universities) and EPIC Ventures (a Salt Lake City based early-stage VC firm) have partnered to launch University of Utah Ventures, Powered by EPIC. And by combining the U's innovation engine with EPIC's extensive network, the partnership will catalyze growth for early-stage technology companies across various sectors, including software, health and life sciences and financial technology.

Hightower announced that the firm had made a strategic investment in Charles D. Hyman & Company, a wealth management practice located in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, with $2.3 billion in assets under management. And Charles D. Hyman & Co. manages assets for individuals, families, trusts, charitable interests, and foundations.

Rethink has raised its third and largest fund yet, taking the firm to over half a billion dollars. The fund raised over $250 million, which exceeded the goal.

Blitzy, a GenAI company born out of the Harvard Innovation Lab and launched by NVIDIA Serial Inventor Sid Pardeshi and serial entrepreneur Brian Elliott, aims to automate end-to-end custom software development. Blitzy's platform takes the requirements for a new product, runs it through a proprietary orchestration platform, and automates large portions of the software development process to achieve full autonomy in the coming years. And Blitzy also announced it is coming out of stealth with $4.4 million in initial capital from Link Ventures, Bessemer, Flybridge, NFX, Picus, and Asymmetric.

Nirvana, a health tech company that uses ML/AI to offer radical transparency to eligibility and insurance verification, announced it had raised $24.2 million in Series A funding. Northzone led the round, including Inspired Capital, Eniac Ventures, and Surface Ventures.

HavocAI, a leading innovator in autonomous uncrewed surface vessel technology, announced the successful closing of a $11 million Seed round of funding. Scout Ventures led the round, which was co-led by Trousdale Ventures. Other participants included Outlander VC, The Veteran Fund, BV.VC, Decisive Point, Alumni Ventures, and New North Ventures.

PathPresenter, a global image-sharing platform for pathology, announced that it had closed a Series A funding round of $7.5 million to accelerate the adoption of the company’s enterprise pathology workflow solution. This funding round was led by AVANT BIO, with participation from Barco NV and Modi Ventures.

GT Medical Technologies - a medical device company with a corporate purpose of improving the lives of patients with brain tumors - announced it has secured a $35 million venture loan facility, of which $15 million has been initially funded from Horizon Technology Finance Corporation, an affiliate of Monroe Capital.

Operant AI, which is the world’s only Runtime AI Application Protection Platform, announced that it has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round co-led by SineWave Ventures and Felicis, with participation from Alumni Ventures, Massive, Calm Ventures, Gaingels, alongside industry-expert angels.

NeoPrediX - a predictive analytics company focused on neonatal, maternal, and perinatal health - announced an investment from Springhood Ventures. This deal will further accelerate the development and deployment of NeoPredix's innovative solutions aimed at improving outcomes for newborns worldwide.

Spare, a leading provider of mobility operations software, announced the completion of a C$42 million Series B funding round. This funding round was led by Inovia Capital, a longtime partner and lead investor from Spare's Series A. Other previous investors, including Kensington Capital and Nicola Wealth, also joined.

Form3, a cloud-native account-to-account platform, announced a new investor, which is British Patient Capital. Along with existing strategic and financial investors including Visa, Form3 has now raised a total of $60 million in C-series extension funding to continue its growth journey.

Zephyr Cloud's platform for micro frontend deployment, observability, and orchestration announced it has raised $3.5 million in seed funding round led by True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal, with additional investment from Step Function, Ninja Capital, and Night Capital. The funding will accelerate Zephyr Cloud's ability to simplify the complex world of frontend architecture for organizations looking to modernize and scale their web and mobile frontend infrastructures.

Nostra AI, a conversion optimization software company for e-commerce brands, announced that it had raised $8.9 million to speed up websites and optimize performance. The funding round was led by High Alpha and included Signal Peak Ventures, Sugar Capital, Crosscut, and Good Friends, along with industry experts and angel investors such as Matthew Prince (Cloudflare CEO and co-founder).

Morphotonics announced the launch of its Series B funding round, marking a major endorsement of its mission to elevate global display technology. The company's new investors 3M and BOM (Brabant Development Agency) join existing investor Innovation Industries (with BOM and Innovation Industries as co-leads) in supporting Morphotonics’ vision for the future with the first closing of a $10+ million round, and a second closing anticipated by year-end.

BGO, a global real estate investment management advisor and provider of real estate services, announced that it has successfully raised €2 billion for its European investment program through its fourth European Value-Add Strategy. With this announcement, the Value-Add Fund has raised €1.463 billion in commitments and €520 million through co-investment opportunities in high-quality industrial and data center platforms in Europe. This is the fourth fund in BGO’s European Value-Add strategy, which has invested over c. €4 billion since 2014.

Brenus Pharma, a biotech company specializing in cancer vaccine development, announced the completion of a $25 million Series A funding round. This funding round was led by Angelor, an investment fund bringing together a cluster of investors from the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (AURA) region, including UI Investissement for the Fonds régional Avenir industrie Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Crédit Agricole Centre-France and Crédit Agricole Centre-Est, with two family offices. And the Belgian funds Noshaq and Investsud complete this significant deal. Together, they joined co-founder and lead investor Jacques Gardette (BIOJAG) and long-time investor Stéphane Legastelois (33 CALIFORNIE). Plus, Brenus Pharma has received non-dilutive funding from the French government and Bpifrance, as a beneficiary of the France 2030 call for projects.

TrueX, a non-custodial stablecoin-native exchange company, announced that it has officially launched out of stealth. TrueX is the flagship product of True Markets, a platform dedicated to offering markets and liquidity as a global service through reliable, innovative trading technology.

Hemi Labs announced a $15 million investment round to develop and launch the Hemi Network. Hemi is a modular blockchain network built on Bitcoin and Ethereum designed to deliver scaling, security, and interoperability.

Leading real estate data management and intelligence platform Cherre announced it has raised a $30 million Series C round led by HighSage Ventures. And additional participants in this round include leading real estate enterprise investors Nuveen Real Estate, RXR (RADV), certain principals of TA Realty, and others, as well as current investors Trustbridge Partners, Glilot Capital Partners, Intel Capital, and Carthona Capital.

AIR COMPANY, a carbon conversion technology company, announced it has raised $69 million in Series B funding to advance its technology, promote energy security, and drive emissions reductions in hard-to-abate sectors, such as aviation. Avfuel (a leading global supplier of aviation fuel and services) led this funding round and will be the preferred provider of distribution and logistics, plus environmental attribute tracking and reporting for AIR COMPANY. 

Ferrum Health, a software platform company deploying AI into health systems, announced that it has raised $16 million in a Series A funding round led by Foundry, with participation from Catalyst by Wellstar, Headwaters Ventures, and UnitedHealthcare Accelerator. The existing investors who also rejoined the current round include Blumberg Capital, Cercano, GSR, Urban Innovation Fund, and Singtel Innov8. This latest round brings Ferrum Health's total funding to $31 million.

Fika Ventures, a B2B-focused early-stage fund, announced the closing of its $160 million Fund IV. This new fund brings Fika's total assets under management (AUM) to over $500 million since its founding in 2016. And with Fund IV, Fika will continue its proven strategy of leading pre-seed and seed rounds in B2B software companies across sectors like vertical SaaS, fintech, commerce enablement, marketplaces, and healthcare, especially those harnessing AI to drive innovation.

Landbase, which is the world’s first agentic AI platform specifically designed for go-to-market, exited stealth with $12.5 million in seed funding. The funding round was co-led by A*, 8VC, and First Minute Capital, with participation from Inovia Capital, Picus Capital, and General Catalyst (La Famiglia).

Schroders Capital, a leading $97.3 billion private markets business of Schroders Group, announced it has achieved a significant funding milestone. Since January 2022, it has successfully raised over $2.6 billion for direct and co-investments in private equity, most recently driven by the successful €400 million close of one of its leading European buyout funds, Schroders Capital Private Equity Europe Direct III.

Connectly, a leader in conversational commerce, announced a $20 million Series B investment led by Alibaba, with participation from Unusual Ventures, Volpe Capital, RX Ventures, Falabella Ventures, and Philippos Kourkoulos Latsis. The company - which was launched in 2020 by industry veterans from Facebook, Google, Uber, and McKinsey - utilizes proprietary AI models to help retailers grow their business using personalized two-way customer messages in an increasingly digital-first world.

Protege recently announced a $10 million seed round and the launch of its AI training data platform to help resolve one of the biggest issues in AI development, sharing and accessing the right training data. CRV led this funding round with participation from SV Angel, Liquid 2 Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Flex Capital, Adam D'Angelo, Travis May, etc.

Luge Capital announced the successful closing of $96 million for Luge Capital Fund II, which is the firm’s second fintech-focused fund. And Luge previously announced a $71 million first close of the fund, with backing from CDPQ, Desjardins, BDC Capital, Sun Life, Industrial Alliance Financial Group (iA), Fonds de solidarité FTQ and Inovia Discovery Fund I. The new commitments in the closing are from Venture Ontario, Alberta Enterprise Corporation (AEC), AAF Management, and other strategic LPs.

LPL Financial announced that private client advisor John Duane and portfolio manager Gregory Giantsos have joined LPL Financial’s high-net-worth-focused employee affiliation model, LPL Private Wealth Management, to launch BrookBridge Private Wealth based in Long Island, New York. The team reported having served approximately $700 million in advisory, brokerage, and retirement plan assets and joining LPL from Bank of America Private Bank.