Archives

Certis Oncology Solutions: Interview With President & CEO Peter Ellman About The Precision Oncology and Translational Science Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Certis Oncology Solutions is a life science technology company committed to realizing the promise of precision oncology. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Certis Oncology Solutions President and CEO Peter Ellman to learn more about the company’s work in closing the translation gap in cancer therapeutics development.

Ares Management: Kipp deVeer And Blair Jacobson Named As Co-Presidents

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Leading global alternative investment manager Ares Management announced that it has appointed Kipp deVeer and Blair Jacobson to the newly created positions of co-presidents. And Jacobson and deVeer will report to Ares’ Chief Executive Officer Michael Arougheti. And deVeer and Jacobson will continue to be based in New York and London, respectively.

Novartis Buying Anthos From Blackstone For Up To $3.1 Billion

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Blackstone Life Sciences and Anthos Therapeutics (a transformative, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies for the treatment of cardiometabolic diseases) announced that the company has entered into an agreement with Novartis to buy Anthos for up to $3.1 billion.

iVeena: $3 Million (Series B-2) Raised For Accelerating Development Of IVMED-85 For Myopia

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

iVeena Delivery Systems - a biopharmaceutical company advancing IVMED-85 to treat pediatric myopia - announced that it has closed its fully subscribed Series B-2 financing of $3 million.

How OpenAI And California State University Are Bringing AI To 500,000 Students And Faculty

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

The California State University system (CSU) announced it is taking a historic step to expand the use of AI in higher education by providing 460,000+ students and 63,000+ staff and faculty with access to ChatGPT Edu, a version of ChatGPT customized for educational institutions. It is the largest implementation of ChatGPT by any single organization or company anywhere in the world. And with a system-wide rollout across 23 campuses, CSU will become the first AI-based university system in the United States.

How The Rutgers Startup Plexymer Helps Researchers Advance Their Work

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

A startup formed based on technology developed at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, looks to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to help researchers advance their work and make breakthrough discoveries. Plexymer was created at the Gormley Lab by Rutgers associate professor of Biomedical Engineering Adam Gormley, PhD, and his former student Matthew Tamasi, PhD, who now serves as Chief Technology Officer of Plexymer.

Miist Therapeutics: $7 Million (Seed) Raised For Creating Instant-Acting Medicine

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Miist Therapeutics, a physics-based developer of inhaled medicines, announced $7 million in seed funding from investors including Refactor Capital, 1517 Fund, Freeflow Ventures, Entrepreneur First, and California Innovation Fund. And Miist has clinically validated its approach and is currently advancing two assets: MST-01 for the treatment of smoking addiction and MST-02 for the treatment of migraine. The Phase 1 results for MST-01 demonstrate the speed of Miist’s therapies, with patients achieving 92% symptom relief in only 2 minutes post-dosing.

QIA Selects Rasmal Ventures Innovation Fund I As Part Of $1 Billion Fund Of Funds Program

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Rasmal Ventures, which is Qatar's first independent venture capital (VC) company that was established in 2023, announced funding from QIA as part of its Fund of Funds program.

Entos Pharmaceuticals Awarded $4 Million From The California Institute For Regenerative Medicine

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Entos Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage genetic medicines company committed to using its Fusogenix PLV technology to develop cures and improve the lives of patients and their families, announced that the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has awarded the company a $4 million grant. These funds will support the completion of IND-enabling activities for the development of ENTLEP001, a durable genetic medicine for the treatment of congenital generalized lipodystrophy (CGL).

RepScrubs Raises Funding From Pittco

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Pittco Management announced an equity investment in Prescient Logistics (doing business as RepScrubs) through a special purpose entity formed and managed by Rockmont Partners Management.

Overlap Holdings: $33 Million Inaugural Flagship Fund Launched

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Overlap Holdings, a VC firm utilizing elements of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, today announced the final close of its first fund, Overlap Holdings Flagship Fund 1 (OHF1). The inaugural fund of $33 million will invest in early-stage (Seed through Series B) startups building technologies at the intersection of scientific innovation and hardware.

GetWhys: $2.75 Million (Seed) To Advance AI-Based Customer Insights Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

GetWhys announced $2.75 million in seed funding to accelerate the growth of its AI-based customer insights platform. The funding round was led by Next Frontier Capital, with participation from Tuesday Capital and Capital Eleven. This funding brings GetWhys' total funding to $3.5 million and will expand the engineering team, fuel product development, and support customer growth.

Digital Harmonic Raises Investment from Caladan Capital

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Digital Harmonic, a leader in advanced video, signal, and image processing technologies, announced a strategic investment from Caladan Capital, led by Victor L. Vescovo, who is an accomplished private investor with over 30 years of experience in defense, aerospace, and electronics industries. This funding will accelerate Digital Harmonic’s growth and innovation across several vertical industries, including Media & Entertainment, Healthcare, and National Security.

Gemspring Capital Acquires Haircare And Skincare Products Company Creative Labs

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Gemspring Capital Management, a middle-market private equity firm, announced that an affiliate acquired Creative Labs and United Hair Care in partnership with the company’s CEO Brett Simmons. Creative Labs manufactures and develops branded and contract-manufactured haircare and skincare products. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Adams Street Opens Toronto Office Managed By New Hire Colin Miller

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Adams Street Partners (a leading private markets investment management firm with over $62 billion in assets under management) announced the opening of its Toronto office, the firm’s first in Canada. The new Toronto office is Adams Street’s sixth in North America and 13th worldwide.

Fay: $50 Million (Series B) Raised At $500 Million Valuation For Nutritional Therapy Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Fay, a leader in digital nutritional therapy, announced a $50 million Series B funding round led by Goldman Sachs at a $500 million valuation. And existing investors General Catalyst and Forerunner also participated in the round.

Audax Private Equity: Exit Of Proud Moments Completed

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Audax Private Equity announced that it has completed the sale of Proud Moments, an applied behavioral analysis (ABA) therapy provider, to children with autism. And Providence-based private equity firm Nautic Partners acquired Proud Moments. The terms of the deal were undisclosed.

Astra Security: Funding Raised To Simplify Cybersecurity With Pentesting

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Astra Security, a security platform with continuous vulnerability scanning and pentests, announced the closing of a growth capital round—led by Emergent Ventures, with participation from the Neon Fund, Better Capital, Blume Ventures, and PointOne Capital.

H.I.G. Capital Buying Converge Technology Solutions For About C$1.3 Billion

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Converge Technology Solutions announced it has entered into an arrangement agreement with an affiliate of H.I.G. Capital, under which H.I.G. has agreed to acquire all of the company's issued and outstanding common shares.

Little Otter: $9.5 Million Raised For Whole-Family Mental Health Care Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Little Otter, an innovator in digital whole-family mental health care, announced it has raised $9.5 million in a strategic funding round led by top-tier impact investors, including Pivotal Ventures, Torch Capital, Springbank, CRV, Next Legacy, G9, Gratitude Railroad, and Carrie Walton Penner's Fiore Ventures. This round brings total funding to date to $36.35 million and solidifies Little Otter’s position as a defining leader in the rapidly growing family mental health market.

Bourque Logistics: Over $100 Million Growth Financing Raised From Sixth Street

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Bourque Logistics (a leader in rail logistics systems) and Sixth Street announced that Bourque has closed a $100+ million financing from Sixth Street. This growth financing supports Bourque's recently announced acquisition of AllTranstek, which combines the respective rail fleet logistics and asset management expertise of Bourque and AllTranstek into a comprehensive solution for the rail industry.

Turn/River Capital Buying SolarWinds In $4.4 Billion Deal

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

SolarWinds - a leading provider of simple, powerful, secure observability and IT management software - announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Turn/River Capital in an all-cash deal for $18.50 per share or about $4.4 billion. The per-share price represents a premium of approximately 35% to the volume-weighted average closing price of SolarWinds stock for the 90 trading days ended on February 6, 2025.

Bain Capital To Buy Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma In $3.3 Billion Deal

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Bain Capital announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma in a carve-out transaction from Mitsubishi Chemical Group Corporation. Bain Capital’s Private Equity teams are leading the investment in Asia and North America along with the firm’s Life Sciences team and values the business at about billion JPY ($3.3 billion).

Epicore Biosystems: $26 Million (Series B) Raised To Advance Sweat-Sensing Wearables Platform

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Epicore Biosystems - a digital health solutions leader developing advanced sweat-sensing wearables - announced that it has raised $26 million in Series B funding led by the Steele Foundation for Hope (SFFH).

Riverwood Capital Acquiring Dynamic Pricing Platform Quicklizard

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Quicklizard, a leading AI-based dynamic pricing platform for retailers and brands, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Riverwood Capital. This strategic deal is set to supercharge Quicklizard’s research and development efforts, accelerating the evolution of its platform and reinforcing its position as the go-to pricing optimization platform for enterprises worldwide.

Nirmata: $9.6 Million Raised For Expanding AI-Based Policy-As-Code Solutions

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Nirmata, a leader in cloud-native security policy automation and governance solutions, announced a $9.6 million funding round led by Peak XV Surge (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA). Dallas Venture Capital, Dreamit Ventures, and existing investors Z5 Capital and Uncorrelated Ventures participated as well.

Warner Music Group Buys Controlling Stake Of Tempo Music

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Warner Music Group announced that it acquired a controlling stake in Tempo Music Investments, which is an investment platform for premium music rights, from Providence Equity Partners. And Providence will remain a minority investor in Tempo and continue to work with WMG in an advisory capacity.

Altus Power To Be Acquired By TPG In $2.2 Billion Deal

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Altus Power, which is the largest owner of commercial-scale solar in the US, announced it entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by TPG through its TPG Rise Climate Transition Infrastructure strategy for $5 per share of its Class A common stock in an all-cash transaction that values the company at about $2.2 billion, including outstanding debt.

XOi Announces Acquisition Of On-Demand Data Enrichment Company Specifx

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

XOi, a provider of job site-focused technology solutions for the field service ecosystem, announced the acquisition of Specifx, an on-demand data enrichment and metadata retrieval platform for field service equipment. The acquisition was enabled by an investment from funds managed by leading global investment firm KKR. This funding from KKR marks the most significant milestone yet in XOi’s journey to build out its system of work for the field service ecosystem.

Cerabyte: Interview With Co-Founder & CMO Martin Kunze About The Data Storage Company

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 12, 2025

Cerabyte is a deep-tech company developing a new ecosystem for sustainable low-cost long-term data storage at the verified prototype system level (TRL6). Pulse 2.0 interviewed Cerabyte co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Martin Kunze to learn more about the company.