Partnership combines GoTraveler’s category leadership and an iconic travel programming library with Ionic’s operating apparatus, audience platform, and direct buyer access, sharpening one of CTV’s most engaged genres into a destination environment for travel advertisers.

NEW YORK, June 15, 2026 — Ionic Studios LLC (“Ionic”) and Questar Entertainment Group, Inc. (“Questar”) today announced the formation of Ionic Questar Holdings, LLC, a joint venture to operate, monetize, and grow GoTraveler, North America’s largest travel channel on free ad-supported streaming television. Under the partnership, Ionic serves as Publisher of Record and brings its full operating apparatus to the channel, while Questar contributes the GoTraveler brand and a content library built over more than four decades. Both companies are equally invested in establishing GoTraveler as the definitive travel destination on connected television.

GoTraveler is one of the most established channels in the FAST ecosystem, distributed across DIRECTV, LG Channels, VIZIO WatchFree+, Xumo, Sling TV, Dish Network, Plex, and additional connected television platforms across the United States. The channel runs 24/7 programming spanning destinations on six continents, with a content slate that balances destination guides, culinary travel, cultural immersion, and adventure programming. It is, by design, a lean-back, aspirational, brand-safe environment built to keep travel-engaged viewers on the screen.

What sets GoTraveler apart is the library behind it. Questar has been building travel and lifestyle programming since 1985, and the channel draws from a catalog that includes some of the most recognizable franchises in the category, among them Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour, Rick Steves’ Europe, Exploring Mexico’s Kitchen with Rick Bayless, Smart Travels with Rudy Maxa, Curious Traveler, Dream of Italy, and America’s National Parks. The result is a channel with a clear editorial identity and a viewer who comes back to it intentionally, in a market where most travel inventory in FAST is recycled, thinly packaged, or sold against broad demographics.

Ionic brings the operating apparatus of a modern connected television publisher: ad operations and demand integration, agentic ad serving, SSP and DSP relationships, direct sales execution, and platform-level distribution expansion. Audience identification across GoTraveler runs on Ionic’s behavioral and contextual platform, surfacing high-intent travel viewers, both active travelers and those in the planning window, without relying on demographic assumptions alone. Buys can be structured through Ionic’s iX Access framework, giving travel brands, hospitality companies, online travel agencies, destinations, and financial services advertisers direct and transparent access to GoTraveler inventory rather than navigating opaque exchange supply.

The partnership comes as FAST audiences in the United States are projected to reach 131.4 million in 2026, accounting for 54% of all connected television users (eMarketer), while U.S. travel industry digital ad spend is on pace to approach $9.4 billion this year, nearly double its 2021 level. Travel as a category has the audience curve and the advertiser curve, but FAST has largely treated it as filler rather than a genre worth building. Ionic and Questar are taking the opposite view, and putting the operating investment behind it.

“GoTraveler has built something genuinely rare in FAST: a channel with a clear editorial identity and a viewer who comes back for it intentionally,” said Shafi Mustafa, Managing Director of Ionic Studios. “That is the kind of supply that deserves better than open-auction CPMs and broad-stroke demographics. With this partnership, we are putting GoTraveler in front of advertisers who understand the difference between reaching someone and reaching someone in the right moment, and we are building the channel into the destination the travel category has been missing in connected television.”

“GoTraveler is the connected television expression of a travel content business we have been building since 1985,” said Jonathan Plowman, Chief Executive Officer of Questar Entertainment. “Partnering with Ionic gives us the monetization, distribution, and commercial execution to scale that work the way it deserves, in front of the travel advertisers who should be in this environment. We are aligned with the Ionic team on what GoTraveler can become in CTV, and on the path to get there.”

The joint venture begins immediate work across three fronts: platform distribution expansion into additional FAST endpoints, content investment to deepen and refresh the GoTraveler programming slate, and direct advertiser activation across the 2026 and 2027 commercial cycles. Both parties are invested in the long-term growth of the channel as a category-defining destination on connected television.

About Ionic Studios

Ionic Studios is the studio for the open streaming ecosystem. The company assembles a scaled portfolio of exclusively represented, brand-safe FAST channels into a single, unified buying system, bringing the consistency, reach, and activation standards advertisers expect from premium walled gardens to the open CTV market. Ionic builds the portfolio through three paths: channels it owns and operates, joint ventures with content partners, and exclusive strategic partnerships with leading independent studios. The portfolio today reaches more than 100 million U.S. households across 94 exclusively represented channels, with over 250 million hours streamed monthly and 5.2 billion monthly ad impressions. For more information, visit ionic.tv.

About Questar Entertainment

Questar Entertainment, founded in 1985 in Chicago, is a media company specializing in travel and lifestyle content. Its flagship asset, GoTraveler, is the largest travel channel on free ad-supported streaming television in North America, distributed across the major FAST platforms in the United States. GoTraveler’s programming spans destinations on six continents and draws from a library of iconic travel franchises developed across four-plus decades of category-defining production. For more information, visit questarentertainment.com.

Media Contact
Ionic Studios
Warda Baig
[email protected]

SOURCE Ionic Studios

The founder-led venture firm triples in size from inception, expands its operating bench, and doubles down on New York based accelerator

NEW YORK, June 15, 2026 — Gutter Capital today announced the opening of applications for the second cohort of Elbow Grease, the firm’s small-batch accelerator in New York City, sponsored by Mercury and Orrick, alongside the close of Fund III at $75M.

Fueled by performance, the firm has closed a total of three funds in under three years. Both Funds I and II are in the top quartile of their respective vintages, according to Cambridge Associates benchmarks. Companies backed by Gutter Capital are twice as likely to graduate from Seed to Series A, and from Series A to Series B, based on Carta data.

The firm attributes that performance to a hands-on approach to early stage investing that has been core to Gutter since its founding, and is central to Elbow Grease. Gutter Capital was founded in 2021 by Dan Teran, former co-founder and CEO of Managed by Q, and James Gettinger, a computer scientist and professional gambler turned investor. The pair made over 110 angel investments together prior to Fund I, and in 2020 began working closely with a small handful of companies out of a shared office in downtown New York, helping founders to recruit early teams and navigate early strategic decisions.

“We saw that founders without typical Silicon Valley pedigree can do incredible things with the right team around them,” said Teran, who founded his company at age 24 and led as CEO through a $200M exit. “In a market that is obsessed with second time founders, we saw a big opportunity to do old school venture capital – partner closely with overlooked founders to build companies of consequence.”

To scale their impact, Teran and Gettinger have built a senior bench of Operating Partners. Richard Hughes joined as founding Head of Talent at inception. Since joining, Hughes has recruited over 100 engineers, designers, sellers, and marketers to Gutter companies. This year, Vince Li joined Gutter as Head of Product, to accelerate critical product, engineering, and design work within Gutter portfolio companies.

“It is hard to overstate how critical the Gutter team has been to Rebuild’s success” said Alex Toporek, Co-Founder and CEO of Rebuild, a Fund II investment. “Richard helped recruit almost every member of our incredible NYC-based team, and Vince has raised the bar on our product while helping to deliver critical features in record time.”

In January 2026, the firm launched the inaugural cohort of Elbow Grease, a small batch, founder-led accelerator in New York City, to return to their hands-on, early stage roots. The second cohort, starting this fall, will consist of up to 15 teams. Each company will receive a $300k initial investment, and spend 10 weeks on-site at Gutter’s headquarters, where they will work directly with the Gutter Capital partnership.

“Elbow Grease brings out the best in Gutter, and offers something different,” said Gettinger. “We partner with founders to help them achieve their goals, and when they do, we keep investing, so they can spend their time building the company, not prepping for demo day.”

In addition to working one-on-one with Teran and Gettinger, each company will be matched with a mentor; founders who have raised past Series B or exited, including Carly Strife, Co-Founder of Bark Box; Ryan Denehy, CEO of Electric AI; and Zach Garippa, CEO of Order. Mentors have close ties to the firm, many have taken investment from Gutter themselves, and are investors in Gutter funds.

“We joined Elbow Grease because of the opportunity to learn from some of the best operators in the business,” said Rohan Kumar, CEO of QuickSecure, who at age 19 took a leave of absence from Georgia Tech to participate in the inaugural cohort. “We didn’t need the money.”

Elbow Grease is at the center of the thriving New York tech ecosystem. Participating teams work alongside more than 70 founders and operators in Gutter’s headquarters in Chinatown. Founders participating this fall will join a series of off-the-record conversations with industry leaders in New York, including Scott Belsky, Partner at A24; Neil Blumenthal, Co-CEO of Warby Parker; and Kate Ryder, CEO of Maven.

During the first cohort, Rohan Kumar and his co-founder made the decision to relocate to New York to continue building QuickSecure at Gutter headquarters. “After seeing the value Gutter could bring to our company in just a few weeks, we knew this was where we needed to be.” Since the program’s conclusion, they have made their first two hires, and raised follow-on investment from Gutter Capital.

Applications for Elbow Grease are open now at elbowgrease.gutter.cc and close July 31, 2026. The accelerator will run from September 15 through November 19, 2026.

About Gutter Capital

Gutter Capital is an early-stage venture firm that builds companies of consequence in partnership with mission-driven founders. Gutter was founded in 2021 by Dan Teran and James Gettinger. The firm is small by design, making few investments each year and providing direct operational support to achieve exceptional results. Gutter Capital has been recognized by Business Insider as a Top 100 Seed Investor in 2023, 2024, and 2025.

SOURCE Gutter Capital

LOS ANGELES and MINNEAPOLIS, June 15, 2026 — Truelink Capital (“Truelink”), a Los Angeles-based private equity firm focused on growth and long-term value creation, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to make a significant investment in Horwitz (“Horwitz” or the “Company”), a leading provider of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (“MEP”) services supporting complex commercial and industrial facilities across the Twin Cities region. Horwitz primarily serves high-growth private sector end markets, including data centers, medtech, semiconductor fabrication, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing. Horwitz’s management team, led by CEO Matt Dekkers, will continue to lead the business and will retain a significant ownership stake in the Company. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.

Founded in 1918 and headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Horwitz is a regional MEP services provider of HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and building automation solutions focused on servicing complex, mission-critical commercial and industrial facilities across the Twin Cities and broader Midwest region. The Company operates in a large and fragmented regional MEP services market with strong demand driven by data centers, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing. Horwitz is active across three core service lines: service & maintenance, retrofit & upgrades, and new systems, underpinned by a strong recurring revenue base. With approximately 720 employees, including 540 highly skilled technicians, the Company serves a diversified base of long-tenured customers with over 10,000 annual engagements across the facility lifecycle.

“We are excited to establish this partnership with the Horwitz team to execute Truelink’s value creation playbook of driving operational improvements and accelerating growth through strategic investments and a robust M&A strategy,” said Luke Myers, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Truelink Capital. “Horwitz’s differentiated service capabilities, scaled regional platform, and deeply experienced management team make it an ideal partner as we look to build a leading and diversified MEP services business.”

“Partnering with Truelink Capital marks an exciting new milestone for Horwitz,” said Matt Dekkers, CEO of Horwitz. “Truelink shares our commitment to operational excellence and our vision for expanding the capabilities and reach of our platform. This partnership is a testament to the hard work of our entire team, and we look forward to leveraging Truelink’s resources and expertise to build on the strong foundation we have created.”

This partnership reflects Truelink’s continued focus on industry-leading companies in the industrials and business services sectors, and marks the 12th platform investment for Truelink Capital’s Fund I since its launch in 2022.

William Blair served as financial advisor and Fredrikson & Byron P.A. served as legal counsel to Horwitz and Svoboda Capital Partners.

ABOUT TRUELINK CAPITAL
Truelink Capital is a private equity firm based in Los Angeles. Truelink pairs deep industry experience in the industrials and business services sectors with a commitment to building partnerships that drive long-term value through an operationally focused strategy. Truelink partners with management, corporate sellers, and founders to accelerate growth through the execution of strategic initiatives and transformative add-on acquisitions. Learn more at: www.truelinkcap.com.

ABOUT HORWITZ
Horwitz is an MEP services provider headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, focused on complex, mission-critical commercial and industrial facilities across the Twin Cities region. The Company delivers mechanical, electrical, and plumbing services to a diversified base of customers across data centers, medtech, pharmaceutical, semiconductor fabrication, healthcare, education, industrial, and government end markets. Learn more at: www.horwitz.com.

ABOUT SVOBODA CAPITAL
Svoboda Capital Partners is a Chicago-based private equity firm that invests in the professional services, industrial & commercial services, and transportation & logistics services sectors. Svoboda seeks to partner with outstanding management teams with a track record of success and a desire to execute on well-defined growth initiatives. Learn more at: www.svoco.com.

MEDIA CONTACTS
Peter Lewis
Head of Business Development
[email protected]
Truelink Capital

SOURCE Truelink Capital

Construct Capital leads round to scale software-driven manufacturing of quick-turn industrial control panels

NEW YORK, June 15, 2026 — Podium Automation, the Brooklyn-based manufacturer reimagining how industrial control panels are designed and built, today announced it has raised $18 million in Series A funding led by Construct Capital, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Transition Ventures, Sunflower Capital, and Banter Capital. The round brings Podium’s total funding to more than $23 million and will fuel a rapid scale-up of manufacturing capacity to meet growing demand for quick-turn control panels from customers ranging from scale-ups to Fortune 500 manufacturers. As part of the financing, Dayna Grayson, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Construct Capital, will join Podium’s Board of Directors.

Industrial control panels are the central nervous system of automated production and infrastructure, and govern how equipment starts, stops, communicates, and operates safely. Historically, control panel design and fabrication has been a bottleneck for manufacturers: lead times often exceed 12 weeks, and quality depends heavily on the tacit knowledge of veteran technicians.

Podium designs and manufactures control panels in less than 4 weeks using a software-enabled process that reduces time and errors. Digital models take the place of hand-drawn schematics, automated fabrication and intuitive work instructions handle physical assembly, and each panel is fully validated in Podium’s UL 508A certified facility before shipping.

Podium’s proprietary software streamlines the end-to-end process of panel design-build by connecting customer requirements, eCAD design tools, and shop floor instructions. Instead of relying on an electrical engineer’s knowledge of a vast component landscape, Podium’s software intelligently selects and connects electrical components based on customer and UL requirements. Panels are not only designed for manufacturability, but also for speed and availability of components in the upstream supply chain.

“Control panels are everywhere, but the way they’re designed and built hasn’t fundamentally changed in decades,” said Jamie Niu Serota, Co-Founder and CEO of Podium Automation. “We founded Podium to build the vendor we always wished we had. Ordering a control panel should be fast, accurate, and transparent. At Podium, faster and better are the same thing.”

“The industrial economy runs on essential components like control panels, and the legacy supply chain behind them is exactly the kind of foundational infrastructure Construct was built to invest in,” said Dayna Grayson, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Construct Capital. “Jamie, Jacob, and the Podium team have created the modern vendor this category has been waiting for, and the demand they’re already seeing makes it clear how much the market needs what they’re building.”

“Podium is an excellent example of what happens when world-class software meets a foundational industrial category,” said Oliver Hsu, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “Jamie and Jacob are founders who understand both the legacy world of control panel manufacturing and how to rebuild it from first principles. The result is a combination of product and operational excellence that meets the current moment for American reindustrialization.”

With the new capital, Podium will rapidly expand manufacturing capacity, grow its engineering and operations teams, and continue investing in the software platform that powers its design and fabrication process.

About Podium Automation

Podium Automation is one of the fastest UL 508A control panel manufacturers in the US, serving companies who need high-quality panels delivered quickly and efficiently. Podium’s software layer unlocks speed, quality, and transparency from first quote to final delivery. Founded in 2024 and headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, Podium is backed by Construct Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Transition Ventures, Sunflower Capital, Banter Capital, and SV Angel. Learn more at www.podiumautomation.com.

Media Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Podium Automation

SUMMIT, N.J., June 15, 2026 — Simplicity Group (“Simplicity”) today announced the acquisition of August H. Velten & Associates, Inc., an independent retail wealth management and annuity producer based in Melbourne, Florida. With this acquisition, founder August Velten becomes a Simplicity Partner, and the RIA will soon rebrand as Simplicity Wealth Advisors: Melbourne.

“Augie Velten and his talented team have been exceptional partners to Simplicity for years, achieving impressive growth by leveraging our integrated training, marketing, and wealth management resources,” said Bruce Donaldson, Partner and CEO of Simplicity Group. “This transaction demonstrates our ability to successfully design and execute continuity and succession plans for our integrated advisors.”

“Joining Simplicity as a full partner is an exciting step forward for our firm and our clients,” said August Velten. “By deepening our alignment with Simplicity, we gain access to an unparalleled depth of institutional support, cutting-edge technology, and a broader array of products. This ensures our team is perfectly positioned to grow, while cementing a clear, stable succession path that guarantees our clients will be taken care of for a long time in the future.”

About Velten & Associates
Velten & Associates is a family-owned financial practice dedicated to helping clients design and secure their ideal retirement lifestyle. The team delivers tailored wealth management and long-term planning strategies accessible to individuals and couples at every economic level.

About Simplicity Group
Simplicity is the leading partner for advisors, financial institutions, and consumers by delivering the best combination of wealth accumulation and financial protection products that meet the needs of a consumer-oriented holistic financial plan. As one of the fastest growing partnerships in the financial services industry, Simplicity offers an unrivalled array of tools and technologies to grow and protect wealth, which can be accessed through affiliation, outsourcing, or joining the partnership. In an ever-changing environment, Simplicity’s commitment to working in our clients’ best interest is unwavering and has always been anchored to our commitment to Education, Value, and Partnership. For more information, please visit: www.simplicitygroup.com and follow the Company on LinkedIn.

MEDIA CONTACT
Denielle Webb, Simplicity Group – P: 347-204-7181 / E: [email protected]

SOURCE Simplicity Group Holdings

Security-first identity platform for the agentic era, rebuilt from the ground up for humans and AI agents.

Designed to eliminate prominent supply-chain risks across the modern enterprise identity stack.

Backed by Cyberstarts, Index Ventures, and Evolution Equity Partners.

TEL AVIV, Israel and SAN FRANCISCO, June 15, 2026 — NewCore today emerged from stealth with a security-first identity platform for the agentic enterprise, rebuilt from the ground up for the workforce that actually exists today: humans, machines, and AI agents. The company has raised $66 million from Cyberstarts, Index Ventures, and Evolution Equity Partners, and is led by a founding team of cybersecurity and enterprise-IT veterans whose prior exits include Check Point’s acquisition of Dome9.

Identity has become the primary attack surface in the enterprise. The largest breaches of the past three years, from MGM to Change Healthcare to Snowflake customers to compromises of major identity platforms themselves, share a common root cause: identity infrastructure designed for an earlier era, asked to manage a workforce it was never built to support.

The agentic era demands a new identity architecture

AI agents now operate alongside the human workforce across the enterprise, spinning up in seconds and requiring fine-grained, revocable access to production systems. Yet the dominant identity platforms were architected fifteen years ago for a world of employees logging into web apps, built on aging protocols such as SAML, static service accounts, and password-derived session tokens that were never designed to serve as the security perimeter for this environment.

That gap cannot be closed with incremental upgrades or bolt-on products. A modern identity platform has to be designed for it from the start.

What NewCore built

NewCore is a single platform that discovers, secures, and governs every identity in the modern enterprise, human and agentic alike. It was built from the ground up to reduce risk, not just manage access, eliminating categories of exposure that prior architectures left open by design.

• Eliminating the identity single point of compromise. Secure Split Key (SSK) removes the single point of failure in SAML and OIDC signing infrastructure, closing the class of attacks (Golden SAML, adversary-in-the-middle, session theft, token replay and identity vendor supply-chain exposures) behind some of the largest identity breaches on record.
• Pioneering secure agentic identity. AI agents are first-class identities with their own lifecycle, trust scoring, and revocation path, not service accounts in disguise. Agent governance is a core design constraint of the platform, not an add-on. NewCore also ships an Agentic Skill: an integration package for all leading coding agents, including Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor, that lets them authenticate and operate within the enterprise trust map as first-class citizens, enabling secure agentic access in some of the most demanding production scenarios in the modern enterprise.
• Retiring phishable factors. VisualMFA turns user verification into an out-of-band, visually verifiable exchange that resists relay, replay, and social engineering. Hardware-bound credentials, anchored in TPM and Secure Enclave, replace phishable factors entirely.
• Discovering every identity. NewCore continuously discovers and maps every identity in the enterprise, human and agentic, including the shadow accounts, orphaned credentials, and ungoverned agents that legacy platforms never see. You cannot secure what you cannot see.
• Inventing agentic migration. Customers move onto the platform in hours through an agent-driven coexistence model that preserves existing federations and policies: a clean, zero-downtime cutover with no disruption to users or applications.

The platform is engineered for environments where agentic identities outnumber human ones by two orders of magnitude or more. For modern identity, the meaningful measure is not uptime or provisioning speed but the volume of risk removed from the enterprise.

Leadership

NewCore was founded by seasoned cybersecurity professionals with deep technical expertise and a proven record of building successful businesses:

• Zohar Alon, Co-founder and CEO, a three-time cybersecurity founder with nearly 30 years in the industry. He founded and led Dome9, acquired by Check Point, after building Provider-1, one of Check Point’s foundational enterprise products, earlier in his career.
• Amihai Neiderman, Co-founder and CTO, founder of Nym Health and a pioneer in applied AI, a former research leader in Unit 8200, Israel’s elite signals-intelligence unit, and a veteran offensive-security researcher.
• Erez Yarkoni, Co-founder and CCO, former Chief Information Officer at T-Mobile USA and Telstra, with deep enterprise operating experience from two of the world’s largest telecommunications carriers.

Under their leadership, the company has grown to more than 50 employees across Tel Aviv and the United States.

From founders, investors, and analysts

“Identity is broken, and yet it has become the control plane of the modern enterprise. We built NewCore for the workforce that actually exists today, one of humans, machines, and agents, and we built it security-first from day one. The goal isn’t to manage identity better. It’s to remove categories of risk that the industry and our customers have lived with for far too long.”

— Zohar Alon, Co-founder and CEO, NewCore

“Yesterday’s identity platforms were built for a very different world. AI agents are changing the shape of the workforce, and that demands a new architecture, not another layer of patches. Zohar and his co-founders have rebuilt identity from the ground up for a world of humans, machines, and agents.”

— Shardul Shah, Partner, Index Ventures

“What stands out about NewCore is that security isn’t a feature layer, it’s the foundation. Split-key architecture and phishing-resistant MFA at the platform level change the conversation CISOs can have about identity risk.”

— Lawrence Pingree, Head of Data Security and AI Research, Software Analyst Cyber Research (SACR)

Availability

NewCore is available to enterprise customers today. The company will demonstrate the platform at Identiverse in Las Vegas, June 15–18, 2026.

About NewCore

NewCore is the security-first identity platform for the agentic era. Rebuilt from the ground up, it secures, enables, and governs every human and agentic identity under a single, scalable architecture. Founded by cybersecurity veterans and Unit 8200 alumni. Backed by Cyberstarts, Index Ventures, and Evolution Equity Partners. NewCore. Identity Secured.™

Learn more at newcore.com.

Media contact

[email protected]

SOURCE NewCore

86 exits. 13 in 2025. The exit doesn’t end the relationship — it puts someone in your corner who already paid for your exact mistake.

DALLAS, June 15, 2026 — When a Champion Leadership Group founder exits, they don’t graduate. They stay — and they’re expected to.

That’s not a feel-good policy. It’s the structural engine behind the Founder Flywheel™, revealed today by Champion Leadership Group — a model built on the idea that the most valuable person in a founder’s corner is someone who already survived their exact situation, with their own money at stake.

The exit is complicated. What looks like a finish line from the outside can feel like a void from the inside. The deal that represents the biggest financial event of a founder’s life can simultaneously erase the professional identity that took years to build — the calendar, the relationships, the sense of purpose, all of it. A wire transfer doesn’t fix that. A room full of people who get it does.

Exited founders also carry something that can’t be replicated — the wrong VP of Sales hired at the wrong stage, the enterprise deal that consumed six months and never closed, the acquirer who repriced at LOI over a customer concentration problem that should have been addressed two years earlier. That operational scar tissue is perishable. The Flywheel captures it before it walks out the door. Think of it as experienced physicians working alongside residents — except these doctors remember exactly what it felt like to not know what they know now.

Over 60% of Champion Leadership’s exited founders start their next company — most of them inside the same community. The culture is collaborative, not competitive. Two current portfolio founders met inside the community years ago, each built and exited independently, and are now building their next company together. That outcome isn’t the exception. It’s what the model is designed to produce.

“This isn’t a mentorship program,” said Jeff Mains, CEO of Champion Leadership Group. “It’s what happens when the people who already paid for your exact mistake are strategically in the room before you make it. The exit doesn’t end the relationship — it makes them our most valuable asset.”

The Flywheel runs on three layers: a Fractional C-Suite of exited founders and domain experts accessible to member companies; the SaaS Fuel Operating System™ and Futureproof Value Index™, built on 81,000+ closed transactions; and a community of 260 active founders, exited operators, and investors — 86 exits and funding events since 2014, including 13 in 2025 alone.

About Champion Leadership Group
Champion Leadership Group™ helps B2B SaaS, AI, and Tech founders escape the chaos of “messy growth” and scale profitably — without burning out or losing control. Built on the Founder Flywheel™, exited founders stay in the community to mentor, invest, and build again alongside the next generation. 260 active founders. 86 exits and funding events since 2014. Founder Jeff Mains: five companies, four exits, 10,000 mistakes. ChampionLeadership.com

Media Contact:
Alex Carter
[email protected] | 469-640-8545

SOURCE Champion Leadership Group

STOCKHOLM, June 15, 2026 — Vaja AB, an emerging leader in next-generation solar tracking technologies, has raised €3.1 million in seed funding, bringing total capital to date from equity investment and grants to €6 million. The new round was led by The Footprint Firm, with participation from node.vc.

The funding will be used to accelerate Vaja’s market entry and product validation. Specifically, Vaja will use the funds to deliver the company’s solar tracking technology across numerous customer installations, advance Vaja’s core solar tracking innovations, and carefully scale the team.

Horizontal solar tracking went from niche to global standard within a decade, transforming the economics of solar at lower latitudes. Vaja is building the equivalent for the other half of the planet. VajaTrack™, the world’s first cost-efficient vertical single-axis tracking system, delivers 25-50% higher revenue versus fixed-mount installations across Europe, most of North America, and large parts of Asia by capturing both higher energy output and more valuable morning and evening electricity prices.

“Vaja is a pioneer for vertical solar tracking technology, a much-needed innovation that harnesses significantly more solar energy across more of the day and year for a significant part of the world,” said Henrik Eskilsson, Vaja’s CEO. “Over the next decade, we believe that vertical solar tracking can emerge as the dominant form of solar installation beyond 30° latitude, just as horizontal solar tracking has become the standard near the equator.”

At a time when European energy security and independence have become strategic imperatives, VajaTrack’s ability to increase solar yields substantially across northern latitudes has the potential to make domestic renewable generation more economically competitive, accelerating the transition away from imported energy and toward energy self-sufficiency.

“Solar is fundamental to a credible energy transition, and the companies that will define the next decade are the ones solving the parts that are still genuinely hard. Vaja is one of those companies. VajaTrack solar tracking technology unlocks substantially higher energy where conventional solutions have historically underperformed,” said Jakob Wichmann, Co-founder and Partner of The Footprint Firm. “With a founding team that combines deep structural engineering expertise with the commercial track record needed to bring a fundamentally new technology to market, this is exactly the kind of venture we want in our portfolio. We are proud to back Henrik, Anders, and the entire Vaja team as they scale the company and its technology.”

Due to strong demand, Vaja is opening additional installation slots for 2026 and is accepting reservations for agricultural installations and for pilot installations with professional developers of solar farms. Learn more here: VajaTrack – Vaja.  

About Vaja AB

Founded by serial entrepreneurs Henrik Eskilsson (previous CEO and co-founder of Tobii/Dynavox) and Anders Olsson (founder of Soldags), Vaja develops and supplies a novel solar tracking system that significantly increases both energy production and revenue. Vaja is backed by investments from The Footprint Firm, node.vc, and grants from the Swedish Energy Agency.

SOURCE Vaja AB

Leading instant payments platform adds real-time¹ debit card funding, delivering a single API designed to support a broad range of deposits and withdrawal use cases that modern financial businesses demand.

NEW YORK, June 15, 2026 — Interchecks, a leading instant payments platform serving sportsbooks, fintechs, and financial institutions, today announced a $50 million Series C led by Bettor Capital, Commerce Ventures, Decades Holdings, and Thayer Street Partners. Alongside the raise, the company announced the general availability of Account Funding Transactions (“AFT”) that enables businesses to fund eligible accounts using debit credentials, with transaction processing designed to support fast, secure funding experiences. This expands Interchecks’ platform to cover the full lifecycle of money movement for its clients.

“Since we founded Interchecks a decade ago, our goal has been simple: make money move faster, more safely, and with more control than anyone thought possible,” said Dylan Massey, Co-Founder and CEO of Interchecks. “This raise lets us go deeper on the technology and the team, and AFT is a direct expression of what we’ve been building toward.”

“Interchecks’ differentiated platform, outstanding team, and strong commercial momentum all align perfectly with Bettor Capital’s thesis of backing premier software and technology suppliers within our vertical, and we are thrilled to continue supporting the Company via its Series C fundraise.” – Jake Kleiner, Partner, Bettor Capital

The AFT product addresses one of the most common friction points in digital finance: accepting deposits quickly and safely while helping businesses manage risk through built-in controls. With AFT, Interchecks clients can fund accounts in real time using debit card rails, with layered fraud protections built directly into the transaction flow. The product is purpose-built for use cases including account-to-account transfers, neobank, neobrokerage, and crypto wallet funding. It joins Interchecks’ existing Pay-by-Bank funding solution on a single RESTful API, meaning clients can offer a broad spectrum of deposit methods without managing multiple integrations.

Risk controls embedded in AFT include account verification, real-time duplicate card detection, customizable velocity limits benchmarked to industry standards, and proactive monitoring of suspicious activity — all designed to reduce chargeback exposure before funds move.

“Interchecks continues to advance the payments ecosystem by delivering solutions that help businesses move money more quickly and securely. We’re pleased to collaborate in bringing capabilities to market that support real-time funding experiences and greater flexibility for a wide range of use cases.” — Justin Zhao, VP, Head of Visa Direct, North America.

Interchecks has processed more than $50 billion in transactions over its 10-year history, achieved triple-digit net revenue growth year-over-year for the past seven years, and operated profitably since 2023. The company is a certified PCI Level 1 Service Provider and SOC 2 Type 2 certified, and works with major global networks including Visa and Mastercard.

Learn more at www.interchecks.com.

About Bettor Capital

Bettor Capital is a growth equity and venture investment firm focused on the real-money online gaming market. We are primarily focused on opportunities within the software supply chain powering the continued digitalization of the online gaming industry. Learn more at www.bettorcapital.com.

About Commerce Ventures

Commerce Ventures is a pioneering, sector-focused venture firm that thematically invests in founders reshaping commerce and financial services. Since 2013, the firm has invested in 150 companies including category leaders like BILL, Canary, Cardless, Crossmint, Forter, Kin, Marqeta, Mudflap, MX, Paystand, Socure, and Vestwell. Learn more at www.commerce.vc.

About Decades Holdings

Decades Holdings is an investment firm that backs category defining technology companies. Learn more at www.decadesholdings.com.

About Thayer Street Partners

Thayer Street Partners is a boutique private investment firm based in New York City focused on opportunistic investments in recurring revenue businesses operating in the financial services, business services, and real estate services sectors. Learn more at www.thayerstreet.com.

¹ “Real-time” means that funds are generally available for withdrawal from the recipient’s account within 30 minutes after the transaction is initiated.

SOURCE Interchecks Technologies, Inc.