August Portfolio Update

Wispr Flow announced a $280M Series B financing that values the company at $2 billion, with Menlo Ventures leading the round. The company said the proceeds will be used to deepen investment in its products, research lab, models, and team. This round positions Wispr as a billion-dollar company with significant capital to scale its voice-first technology and R&D efforts.

Gnosis announced Gnosis Chain will transition to be the inaugural Ethereum Economic Zone, enabling synchronous composability so contracts on Gnosis Chain can call and atomically use results from Ethereum mainnet. The framework is developed with ZisK, co-funded by the Ethereum Foundation, governed under a Swiss foundation, and Gnosis Ltd will operate the first instance; genesis is targeted for the turn of the year with full specifications to follow through 2027. The plan shifts settlement security to Ethereum validators (sunsetting the current validator set) and initially centralises sequencing while the protocol and proofing capabilities are developed; GIP-153 sets the direction without requesting funds or a final technical design.

Avalanche launched its Payments Collective, naming five members — Axiym Finance, Nonco, SMBC Group, StraitsX, and AeraTech — who are building cross‑border payments and treasury infrastructure on Avalanche. Axiym supported Hyundai Motor America’s stablecoin payment to its Mexico affiliate, which settled on Avalanche in minutes rather than days. SMBC is exploring wholesale stablecoin infrastructure and is working with MUFG and Mizuho on a potential yen‑pegged stablecoin initiative on Avalanche; StraitsX is working with KBank on Project BLOOM for Southeast Asian corridors. These collaborations indicate institutional pilots and real‑world payment settlements running on Avalanche’s network.

Kibo was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Commerce Solutions, Q3 2026, cited for its unified buying journey across cart & checkout, subscriptions, store fulfillment, and post-purchase support. Forrester also noted Kibo’s AI-powered product discovery and strengths in innovation, usability, and connected commerce. Kibo is the only Leader in the Commerce Solutions Wave that was also named a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Order Management Systems, Q1 2025, signaling cross-category industry recognition.

Plaid received a Tearsheet AI & Data Innovation Award for its network intelligence, foundational model efforts, and insight products that enable more accurate credit, fraud, and payment risk decisions. The recognition highlights Plaid's work to convert its data network into models that improve personalization, utility, and safety in financial services. Plaid notes that more than half of Americans with a bank account have used its platform and it processes over one million connections per day, underlining the scale behind the award.

Personio has integrated Remote’s Employer of Record (EOR) service as an embedded offering, enabling customers to hire and manage global employees directly within Personio’s HR workflows. Executives from both companies (Jep Esteve of Personio and Pim Altena of Remote) presented the Remote Embedded integration and its role in keeping hiring and payroll within existing HR tools. The announcement frames the integration as a solution for cross-border hiring and payroll complexity for HR teams.

Minicircle was selected as one of 10 Milestone 2 awardees in the $101M XPRIZE Healthspan competition, chosen from over 600 teams across 58 countries. The award recognizes progress toward demonstrating programmable, non-viral gene therapy for human vitality and healthspan. This third-party validation increases the company's visibility and may support future funding, partnerships, or recruiting efforts.

Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios have ordered an eight-episode series adaptation of Skybound's comic Stillwater, written by Chip Zdarsky with art by Ramón K Pérez. The series is being produced by Greg Berlanti, Carly Wray, Warner Bros. Television, Berlanti Productions and Skybound Entertainment and will premiere exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories. This continues Skybound's track record of high-profile screen adaptations following The Walking Dead and Invincible.

CEO Megan O’Connor discussed Nth Cycle’s alignment with U.S. critical-mineral policy and the design advantages of the OYSTER system in a Bloomberg TV interview. The post states the company plans to go public through a business combination with Kensington Capital Acquisition Corp. VI, positioning Nth Cycle to accelerate domestic refining capacity for battery materials.

SupraNova now verifies Ethereum consensus proofs directly on Supra Layer 1 and supports permissionless relayers that submit proofs which the protocol validates on-chain, removing a multisig/operator signer set. The release enables users to bridge ETH, USDC, USDT, and WBTC into Supra as supETH, supUSDC and other iAssets with 1:1 backing and to return original assets to Ethereum when wrapped tokens are burned. Support currently covers Ethereum; additional EVM-compatible chains will be evaluated for light-client feasibility and consensus compatibility.

Customer.io announced a new suite of product updates including an AI agent and reports the agent experienced "extremely broad adoption very quickly and lots of repeat use," according to CEO Colin Nederkoorn in Portland Business Journal. The company also cited 14 years in business, 360+ global employees, and 40% year-over-year growth as context for the launch. This positions the AI agent as a materially adopted feature rather than a minor update.

Mediar has entered a collaboration with ONO PHARMACEUTICAL CO., LTD. to co-develop novel antibody therapeutics targeting fibro-inflammatory diseases. The deal pairs Mediar’s fibrosis and myofibroblast biology expertise with Ono’s immunology research capabilities to pursue potential treatments across diseases characterized by scarring, inflammation, tissue remodeling, and risk of organ failure.