Powering nearly 1,000 stores and processing $2B in GMV, Santé introduces autonomous AI sales tools to drive retail revenue

NEW YORK, Oct. 6, 2026 — Santé, a leading fintech and AI platform for the wine and spirits industry, today announced a $15 million Series A funding led by FINTOP alongside returning investors Bonfire Ventures, Operator Collective, Y Combinator, and Veridical Ventures. The funding comes 6 months after Santé announced its $7.6M seed, and during a period of immense growth where the business grew by 500%, serving nearly 1,000 retailers processing $2B in annual GMV.

The Problem: Regulatory Friction and Complex Inventory

Liquor and wine retailers face structural operational challenges that legacy and generic software does not handle, ranging from local tax compliance, strict state regulations and keg returns. Current market dynamics have made it more difficult than ever to run a liquor store. Between ongoing labor shortages and rising costs, these business owners are being squeezed on all sides.

Santé’s Solution: The First AI & Fintech Platform built for Wine & Liquor

Santé is taking a unique approach that is primed for the age of AI. The company’s platform covers every aspect of the liquor store business: in-store, eCommerce, delivery apps, marketing, subscriptions and more. Santé leverages the data across these products to fuel internal AI Agents that go to work for store owners; covering tasks across receiving and ordering goods, marketing to customers, SEO and employee scheduling.

Key Platform features include:

• AI Merchandising Agent: 25% of goods take 12+ months to turn a profit. Sante’s Merchandising Agents turns slow movers into cash flow with suggested pricing and promotional strategies based on item-level sales data for each store.
• AI-Powered Invoices: Scans distributor invoices and automatically updates inventory levels and unit costs in minutes, eliminating manual data entry.
• Marketing Agent: Segments customers based on purchase history to launch intelligent email and SMS campaigns to promote relevant products, events and discounts.
• Automated E-Commerce Cataloging: Generates SEO-optimized descriptions and images for thousands of wine, beer, and spirit SKUs instantly.
• Unified Delivery App Integrations: Aggregates orders from DoorDash, Uber Eats, GrubHub, and Instacart directly into the POS system.
• Employee Scheduling Agent: Leveraging store-level sales patterns to schedule employees across each role so that stores are appropriately staffed based on consumer demand every day of the week
• Liquor-Specific Logic: Native tools built for bottle/keg tracking, vintage management, and complex mix-and-match case discounts.

“When we started Santé, our mission was to eliminate the operational headaches that plague independent wine and liquor retailers,” said Darren Fike, CEO of Santé. “Now that we’ve spent the last year showing that, we want to build a growth engine that proactively drives sales, re-engages lapsed customers, and actively boosts the bottom line of our customers.”

“It’s rare to find a founder and team at this stage that have both proven the solution is superior and are executing at an elite velocity in a massive, complex vertical,” said Brittani Roberts, the Director at FINTOP who leads the firm’s Vertical SaaS and Embedded Fintech thesis. “The team has built intuitive and practical AI back office workflows, with embedded fintech throughout the platform, so store owners aren’t simply getting another tool to track inventory. They’re getting an intelligent platform that directly expands their profit margins and operational scale.”

To learn more about Santé, visit www.santehq.com.

About Santé

Santé is the complete operating system for wine and liquor stores, with receiving, e-commerce, delivery app management, marketing, and more in one platform. Santé helps these entrepreneurs generate more revenue with an AI-powered operating system, built for the modern era of retail. The company is backed by leading investors including FINTOP, Bonfire Ventures, along with Operator Collective, Y Combinator and Veridical Ventures. Learn more at www.santehq.com.

Riley Munks
PR Advisor
Activate PR
https://www.activate-pr.com/
[email protected]

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SOURCE Santé

Investment will expand the USI CDFI small business loan fund and bring capital, technical assistance, and pathways to ownership to entrepreneurs in five additional cities.

MEMPHIS, Tenn., Oct. 6, 2026 — Urban Strategies, Inc. (USI) announced they received a $1.5 million grant from Truist Foundation. USI is a national institution advancing people-centered, place-based strategies that strengthen families, build community wealth, and transform neighborhoods nationwide.

The grant will support the expansion of the USI Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), creating stronger bridges to capital, business growth, and wealth creation for emerging entrepreneurs in Memphis, TN; Fort Worth, TX; Houston, TX; Jacksonville, FL; and Philadelphia, PA.

The new grant builds on a $1.5 million grant Truist Foundation awarded to USI in 2023 to advance similar work in Norfolk, VA; Baltimore, MD; and Fort Myers, FL.

Together, USI and Truist Foundation are working to change more than who has access to capital; they are helping change the systems that determine who have the opportunity to build, own, grow, and create wealth.

The grant funding will allow the USI CDFI to expand its loan fund, business support infrastructure, and application system to reach entrepreneurs who have faced barriers to traditional sources of capital. Business owners will have access not only to financing, but also to credit-building tools, technical assistance, knowledge, networks, and resources necessary to start, sustain, and grow thriving enterprises.

“Economic growth begins with opportunity. When entrepreneurs have access to the capital, support, and resources needed to bring their vision to life, the impact extends far beyond a single business,” said Don Terrell, Truist market president. “Through this work, Truist Foundation is supporting the people and communities that drive local economies forward. We are honored to be a part of this initiative that expands opportunity, encourages business growth, and helps create lasting prosperity in Memphis and communities across the country.”

Terrell joined USI Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Donovan Duncan to formally announce the grant during a community celebration and launch event at Epicenter in Memphis.

“We are deeply grateful to Truist Foundation for continuing this journey with us. This work is about more than access to capital; it is about ownership, economic power, and creating the conditions for people and communities to build wealth on their own terms,” said Duncan. “Entrepreneurs are not simply beneficiaries of neighborhood revitalization; they are builders, employers, innovators, and essential drivers of it. This investment allows us to put capital and infrastructure behind their ideas and aspirations. What we are launching in Memphis and these additional communities is part of a much larger movement toward community ownership and shared prosperity. And we believe this is only the beginning.”

For nearly five decades, USI has worked alongside families and communities to confront the systems and conditions that perpetuate poverty. Its work recognizes that neighborhood transformation cannot be measured solely by new buildings or physical investment. Lasting transformation requires families to be stable, residents to have economic power, entrepreneurs to have access to capital, and communities to participate in and benefit from the wealth being created around them.

Through this work, USI is investing in that broader vision: communities where residents are not displaced from opportunity but positioned to own, lead, build, and prosper.

USI CDFI

Since 2018, USI’s CDFI has raised and deployed nearly $12 million in financing to support affordable housing development and economic growth. These investments have contributed to the creation of 3,820 jobs and the preservation of nearly 2,315 units of housing nationwide.

USI has also supported more than 250 entrepreneurs through technical assistance. 

The USI CDFI is an extension of the institution’s broader commitment to economic mobility and community wealth building. By combining flexible capital, technical assistance, business infrastructure, and USI’s deep presence in communities, the CDFI is helping build an ecosystem in which entrepreneurs can move from ideas to enterprises, enterprises to employers, and economic participation to ownership and wealth. Learn more at www.usi-cdfi.org.

Urban Strategies, Inc.

Urban Strategies, Inc. (USI) is a national nonprofit institution with nearly five decades of experience working alongside communities to build the conditions in which children, families, and neighborhoods can thrive.

Founded in 1978, USI has grown from a community-based organization into a national platform for people-centered, place-based transformation. Working at the intersection of housing, education, health, economic mobility, community leadership, and systems change, USI brings residents, public agencies, philanthropy, business, and community institutions together around a shared commitment to expanding opportunity and building stronger communities.

USI’s work is grounded in a simple belief: people should not merely survive neighborhood change; they should have the power, resources, and opportunity to shape it and prosper.

Today, USI is active in 63 communities across 19 states and two territories, partnering with more than 100,000 individuals, 30,000 families, and a network of more than 1,000 organizations.

Across its work, USI is helping move communities from programs to systems change, from access to ownership, and from managing poverty to building pathways toward prosperity and generational wealth. Learn more at www.usi-inc.org.

Truist Foundation

Truist Foundation is committed to Truist Financial Corporation’s (NYSE: TFC) purpose to inspire and build better lives and communities. The Foundation, an endowed private foundation established in 2020 whose operating budget is independent of Truist Financial Corporation, makes strategic investments in a wide variety of nonprofit organizations centered around two focus areas: building career pathways to economic mobility and strengthening small businesses to ensure all communities have an opportunity to thrive. Embodying these focus areas are the Foundation’s leading initiatives – the Inspire Awards and Where It Starts. Learn more at www.TruistFoundation.org.

SOURCE Urban Strategies, Inc

Three-year agreement brings Tyler robots to Northeast projects, multiplying skilled crews’ floor tiling capacity and reducing physical strain & injury

MORGANVILLE, N.J., Oct. 6, 2026 — Human Friendly Robotics (HFR) today announced a three-year robotic tiling contract worth up to $4 million with commercial subcontractor, Flooring Concepts of NJ. HFR will deploy its Tyler robots alongside Flooring Concepts’ installers across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the greater New York City metropolitan area.

A contract of this size for robotically installed flooring is a milestone first.

The installation capacity purchased represents at least 15%-40% of Flooring Concepts’ LVT tiling work over the next three years. HFR’s autonomous tiling robot, Tyler, is the flagship technology solution for accelerating commercial flooring buildouts.

“Tyler multiplies a tile setter’s efficiency and output,” said Shamoon Siddiqui, CEO of Human Friendly Robotics. “Our customers have more work than their crews can fulfill. We give skilled professionals a tool to complete their work 8X faster, and without tiring. Ultimately, we’re reducing physical strain and helping tile setters build longer careers in the trade.”

The agreement follows Starnet Commercial Flooring’s recent announcement welcoming HFR as their robotics service provider within its network. Their ~200 member subcontractors represent $4 billion or more in combined annual sales. Starnet announcement, network information.

Led by President John Pilot, Flooring Concepts is pioneering the adoption of robotic assistance across a substantial volume of commercial flooring work. Pilot and his crew have been working closely with the HFR team on various deployments with huge success.

“Growing our business starts with supporting our people,” said Pilot. “Tyler will help us expand capacity, improve scheduling and reduce some of the hardest physical demands on our crews. Thankfully, I can just pay per square foot of install instead of purchasing the equipment. It’s an investment in our workforce and our customers without undue capital expenditures.”

Meeting demand with the workforce already in place

An aging workforce and persistent recruiting challenges constrain installation capacity. In September 2026, AGC and NCCER reported that 42% of surveyed construction firms experienced project delays because of worker shortages. AGC/NCCER survey.

Flooring Concepts reports that its pipeline already includes significant work scheduled for 2028. Tyler helps existing crews address that demand with greater output and more predictable schedules.

Less strain, more sustainable careers

Tile installation involves repeated kneeling, bending, lifting and placement.

Tyler handles repetitive placement while installers retain responsibility for cuts, edges, finishing and quality control. With training, tile setters can operate Tyler without a robotics background. Tyler information.

The robot maintains production as workers tire toward the end of a shift and supports overnight or around-the-clock installation through staffed shifts where conditions permit. Operating Tyler also gives experienced tradespeople a less physically taxing way to apply their skills.

HFR reports that Tyler has already been deployed to dozens of jobsites in the New York City metropolitan area and Puerto Rico, including schools, malls and government buildings. The Flooring Concepts agreement turns that field experience into a sustained commercial commitment.

With demand exceeding available labor, HFR’s focus is on multiplying worker capacity. The company expects this agreement to be the first of many bringing robotic assistance into everyday flooring work.

About Human Friendly Robotics

Human Friendly Robotics develops robots that assist skilled tradespeople. Its Tyler robot multiplies a worker’s flooring installation capacity while reducing repetitive physical work. Visit https://www.humanfriendly.bot.

About Flooring Concepts of NJ

Flooring Concepts of NJ is a New Jersey-based commercial flooring contractor led by President John Pilot. Visit https://www.flooringconceptsinc.com.

Media contact: Don Skenderian, [email protected], 508-463-4753

SOURCE Human Friendly Robotics

Ampersand lets agentic applications read and write inside legacy systems of record, removing the integration work that has stalled AI projects industry-wide.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 6, 2026 — Ampersand today announced a $15 million Series A led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Matrix and Flex Capital. New investors participating in this round also include Yelp, Tenacity Capital, CTO Fund, Mana Ventures, and prominent angel investors. Lauri Moore, Bessemer Partner, will be joining Ampersand’s board. Ampersand is building integration infrastructure for enterprise agents, so agentic applications can read and write inside the CRM, ERP, and other systems of record that power the enterprise.

While enterprises are ready to adopt agentic software, they are running into a practical issue: legacy systems of record. CRMs and ERPs in different verticals have been around for decades, and every implementation is highly customized. AI-native software vendors looking to sell to the enterprise are faced with needing deep domain expertise on how these systems function before they can deliver value to enterprise customers. This practical reality slows AI adoption for the enterprise and limits the market size for AI vendors.

“With Ampersand, we’re able to serve new customers that were previously unavailable to us because of their complex integration requirements,” said John Pena, CTO at Hatch, an AI communications platform for service businesses, acquired by Yelp in 2026. “Now we’ve expanded our total addressable market without taking on months of maintenance headaches.”

Ampersand is closing the gap between legacy systems and agentic products by making every customers’ system legible to agents. Ampersand’s approach to legacy systems allows every end customer to adopt a custom data model that can handle custom fields, objects, permissions, and workflows so agents have the right context. Then enabling agents to take deep, bi-directional actions in these systems of record.

“We’re in this fascinating moment where AI has the potential to transform the enterprise, but CTOs are still faced with the old problem of systems of record,” said Ayan Barua, co-founder and CEO of Ampersand. “Our bet is that the saasapocalypse is overstated and systems of record like Salesforce and NetSuite aren’t going anywhere. Ampersand is designed to sit between these two generations of software and make them legible to each other.”

Ampersand’s mission is to provide a complete integration solution for AI-native companies. This includes integration infrastructure, deep domain expertise, forward-deployed expertise, and agentic support. Ampersand announced the beta release of its AI integration agent, Andi. Andi helps developers with the implementation work required to get their products running in each customer’s environment.

Ampersand’s founders bring decades of integration experience to the problem. Ayan Barua was CTO and co-founder of Siftery, later acquired by G2, and then VP of Engineering at G2, where CRM and ERP integration work routinely consumed the majority of his engineering team’s time. Lauren Long built Firebase Extensions at Google, connecting Firebase apps to third-party APIs at a scale that grew to billions of executions a day. The two spoke with more than 100 companies building integrations before writing Ampersand’s first line of code.

“An agent is only as useful as the systems it can reach. MCP enables agents to describe a tool. It didn’t address what happens at runtime, when tokens expire, schemas drift, and every customer’s Salesforce looks a little different,” said Lauri Moore, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. “Connecting an agent to a system of record is a demo. Keeping that connection alive across hundreds of customers, with writes you can’t afford to get wrong, is much harder. That’s what Ampersand is building.”

About Ampersand
Ampersand is integration infrastructure for enterprise agents. With Ampersand, AI-native software vendors are able to bridge the generation gap between their customers’ legacy systems of record, CRMs, and ERPs, and the agentic capabilities in their software. Founded by Ayan Barua and Lauren Long, Ampersand is based in San Francisco. Learn more at ampersand.ai

SOURCE Ampersand

Customers nationwide can search, compare, and buy care, seeing upfront what it costs with and without insurance.

The company’s product catalog now includes more than 2,900 products and services across medications, labs, telehealth, specialist e-consults, and select in-person visits and procedures.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 6, 2026 — General Medicine, a nationwide healthcare store, today announced $120 million in Series B financing led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from Matrix, VXI Capital, Eli Lilly and Company, Mercy Health through Granger Management, and BoxGroup. Vineeta Agarwala, MD, PhD, General Partner at a16z, led the investment. The round brings General Medicine’s total funding to $152 million. General Medicine is open nationwide. Shop for care with or without insurance at generalmedicine.co.

From Launch to Scale

Founded in 2023 and launched nationwide in May 2025, General Medicine organizes care around what customers need rather than around medical specialties or institutional structures. Since launch:

• Hundreds of thousands of customers have signed up across the country, with an NPS average of 80.
• 83% of General Medicine customers say the company helped them address a health need they had been putting off; a third had delayed care for more than six months.
• The average General Medicine customer’s health record spans 11 years, presented to clinicians as a prioritized summary at the time of care.

“Everyone’s building a healthcare AI agent that can tell you what you might need. What’s missing is the infrastructure that lets you actually get it,” said TJ Parker, Chief Executive Officer, General Medicine. “We’re entering a world where advice is abundant, but acting on it is still an enormous hassle. General Medicine makes it easy to get guidance from a clinician, shop for care, and see what it will cost before deciding.”

Building the Healthcare Store

General Medicine will use the new funding to expand its store into more categories of care. At its foundation is a product catalog that reconciles how customers, clinicians, insurers, laboratories, and health systems may each describe the same service differently. That common definition makes pricing, comparison, and clinical matching possible.

Customers can find the right next step in whichever way works best for them: search, compare, and purchase care directly when they know what they need; talk with a licensed clinician—usually available the same day—for a recommendation; or use General Medicine’s AI chat to explore symptoms or goals and understand their options. Their health history and context carry across each path, and a licensed clinician determines what is clinically appropriate whenever clinical review is required. The same infrastructure that allows a customer to shop today will allow an AI agent to shop on someone’s behalf.

Clinical decisions always remain independent: investor and commercial relationships do not determine which products customers see or which treatments clinicians recommend.

Quotes

“Consumers don’t shop by specialty. They shop by need,” said Ashwin Muralidharan, Chief Product Officer, General Medicine. “Healthcare has always been organized around who delivers care, not what someone is trying to accomplish. We built the store the other way: start with the need and organize everything underneath it to move someone from ‘I have a problem’ to ‘I’ve done something about it’ as quickly as possible.”

“The United States has extraordinary doctors and clinical care. But it’s unbelievably convoluted to get what you need, when you need it,” said Elliot Cohen, President, General Medicine. “When a customer can actually see their options and the price, the rest of the system has to compete, instead of the customer trying to navigate a system not built for them. That’s true for a payer, a health system, or a drug manufacturer.”

Agarwala commented: “General Medicine has built one of the best patient experiences we’ve seen in the market. One-click, comprehensive medical record collection, same-day specialist visits, prescriptions delivered to your door: the team has meticulously designed and built the core scaffold for almost every consumer healthcare product we could imagine. We can’t wait to see this scale to patients seeking all kinds of care.”

Key Facts

• Company: General Medicine is a nationwide healthcare store where customers can search, compare, and buy care, see insurance and cash prices before deciding, and get guidance from a licensed clinician.
• New funding: $120 million Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Matrix, VXI Capital, Lilly, Mercy Health through Granger Management, and BoxGroup. Total funding: $152 million.
• Founded: Fall 2023 by Ashwin Muralidharan, Elliot Cohen, and TJ Parker. Launched nationwide in May 2025.
• Leadership: TJ Parker joined General Medicine full time as CEO in October 2026, a structure Muralidharan, General Medicine’s founding CEO, decided was right for the company as he moved into the Chief Product Officer role, where he continues to lead product, engineering, design, clinical, operations, and much of the business day to day. Elliot Cohen is President. Before joining full time, Parker was a General Partner at Matrix, where he led General Medicine’s early funding rounds. He has served on the company’s board since its founding and continues to serve as a Venture Partner at Matrix.

About General Medicine

General Medicine is a nationwide healthcare store where customers can search, compare, and buy care, see insurance and cash prices before deciding, and get guidance from a licensed clinician. Its catalog includes more than 2,900 products and services across medications, labs, telehealth, specialist e-consults, and select in-person visits and procedures. General Medicine was founded in 2023 by TJ Parker, Elliot Cohen, and Ashwin Muralidharan and launched nationwide in May 2025. The company is based in San Francisco with offices in Boston.

About Andreessen Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz (aka a16z) is a venture capital firm that backs bold entrepreneurs building the future through technology. We are stage agnostic: We invest in seed to venture to growth-stage technology companies, across bio + healthcare, consumer and enterprise apps, crypto, fintech, infrastructure, and companies building toward American dynamism. a16z has over $100B under management across multiple funds.

Media Contact

Jacquelyn Miller, [email protected], ‪(617) 500-7441‬

SOURCE General Medicine

Strategic funding will expand Piranha manufacturing, accelerate flight testing, and support new long-range strike, one-way attack, and ISR platforms.

HERNDON, Va., Oct. 6, 2026 — Aventra Defense Systems, a defense technology company redefining the economics of long-range precision strike, today announced a $17.5 million strategic fundraise led by Konvoy. Existing investor Lavrock Ventures participated alongside new investment from Booz Allen Ventures, Sands Capital, Langford Industries, and a funding facility from Western Alliance Bank. The round will accelerate production of Piranha, Aventra’s low-cost, balloon-deployed autonomous precision payload system, while expanding the company’s product roadmap with new platform offerings across long-range strike, one-way attack, and ISR markets.

Since its founding in 2025, Aventra has put Piranha, the firm’s inaugural platform, directly into operator hands during the U.S. Army’s Arcane Thunder 26 exercise and an aggressive series of closed evaluations, exercises, and combat tests with additional U.S., allied, and partner military units. The system demonstrated autonomous stratospheric reentry, long-range glide, and precision kinetic and ISR effects delivery under realistic conditions across 400 flights.

“In under a year and with a lean capital investment, we took Piranha from concept to field deployment overseas, secured our first series of delivery contracts, and matured the system into a fully integrated platform. Today’s conflicts and the wars of the future will be won with volume, persistence, and affordability, which is why we’re working so hard to deliver more range and more kinetic effect. By using high-altitude balloons and stratospheric air currents to carry mass downrange without burning fuel, our approach delivers effects at greater distances, from higher altitudes, and at a fraction of the cost of conventional standoff munitions. We are leveraging physics to reshape economics and put cost-effective tools in the hands of the warfighter,” said Michael Weigand, co-founder and CEO of Aventra Defense Systems.

Aventra will use the new capital to advance five priorities:

• Scale Piranha manufacturing from field-evaluation quantities into low-rate initial production, expanding capacity at the company’s Herndon production facility.
• Expand flight test and demonstration campaigns with additional services, combatant commands, and allied partners.
• Qualify new payload and communications configurations across ISR, electronic warfare, and kinetic mission sets.
• Grow Aventra’s engineering and production teams with proven aerospace and UAS talent, backed by expanded operations and program support.
• Kick off development of a new, unannounced platform, extending Aventra’s approach to reshaping the economics of deep strike into new frontiers.

“Affordable mass is ultimately a manufacturing problem. The Pentagon needs low-cost autonomous systems in volumes the traditional industrial base was never built to deliver. Aventra pairs a design that is inherently inexpensive to produce with a team that has already put hardware in operators’ hands at breakneck speed. That combination of resilient supply, scalable production, and proven field performance is exactly what our critical industries thesis is built around,” said Jason Chapman, general partner at Konvoy.

“When we first backed Aventra, Piranha was a concept and a team with a sharp view of the problem. A year later, it has flown in several major Army exercises and is under multiple contracts. We’ve seen what happens when a team brings commercial speed and manufacturing discipline to a munitions category the Pentagon has long overpaid for, and Aventra is on that path. We’re proud to keep backing a team that treats affordability and producibility as design requirements from day one,” said Alex Poulin, partner at Lavrock Ventures.

“Aventra is demonstrating how innovative, cost-effective systems can deliver meaningful results at the speed and scale of today’s missions. The company’s rapid progress in bringing its technology from concept into the hands of warfighters reflects a team with the vision and urgency to turn information into action. We’re proud to support Aventra, whose progress reflects Booz Allen Ventures’ commitment to helping companies turn innovative technologies into real-world capabilities for our nation’s most critical missions,” said Travis Bales, managing director of Booz Allen Ventures.

The announcement comes in a year marked by record investment in alternative defense technologies and a sustained Pentagon focus on affordable mass, following directives to rapidly scale domestic production of low-cost autonomous systems and close the gap with the manufacturing capacity of near-peer adversaries. Aventra’s mission fits squarely inside this mandate: giving American and allied operators the volume of precision fires that modern conflict demands, at a cost that makes sustained employment possible.

About Aventra

Founded by multi-time venture-backed founders and former Army officers Michael Weigand, Brian Retherford, and Jessup Meng, Aventra Defense Systems is a defense technology company building autonomous stratospheric and ultra-long-range ISR and precision effects platforms. The company’s Piranha platform is an autonomous precision payload system designed for rapid fielding and employment across ISR, electronic warfare, and kinetic mission sets from stratospheric altitudes. Aventra works directly with operators and evaluators to ensure its systems are shaped by the realities of the field.

About Konvoy Ventures

Konvoy is a thesis-driven investment firm, investing in the deep tech and critical technologies. Based in Denver, Konvoy has a portfolio of more than 60 investments. The firm is actively making new investments out of its $150 million Fund III.

Media Contact
Aventra Defense Systems
[email protected] 

SOURCE Aventra Defense Systems Inc.

The company launches with an $8 million pre-seed round of financing led by Upfront Ventures, with participation from Unlock Venture Partners, Mucker Capital, and Genius Ventures. Outer Spaces was founded by serial entrepreneur Jiake Liu, designer Terry Lin, and CTO Robin Liao, the creators behind the direct-to-consumer outdoor living brand Outer. Together, they bring a combined background in engineering, product design, and consumer brand-building to residential energy.

Invisibly Powerful. Beautifully Structural.

With integrated solar, invisible battery storage, and multiple configurations, OS1 creates endless possibilities for gathering, working, cooking or recharging outside, all while powering the home. Its solar pavilion generates energy overhead, while the power deck houses ultra-thin battery storage beneath a finished outdoor deck. Together, they create an outdoor structure that produces power through the day and can provide backup power.

Until now, residential solar has been designed as industrial equipment: panels attached to the roof, exposed batteries occupying space in a garage or along an exterior wall. The technology has advanced considerably but the way it looks and the way it fits into people’s lives has not. Thoughtful design is what’s been missing.

“The land and sunlight outside our homes are two of our most valuable, yet underutilized resources. At the same time, the technology needed to generate and store energy at homes already exists,” said Jiake Liu, co-founder and CEO of Outer Spaces. “We believe power should do more than run a house. It should expand how you live in it. Rather than asking homeowners to compromise the appearance and safety of their homes, we’re giving them more livable space that also powers it.”

The first Outer Spaces systems will be available beginning in 2027, starting in Southern California and select markets. Homeowners will configure and order their system online, and the company will also sell through solar installers, builders, landscapers, developers and designers. Pricing will be announced in early 2027.

Homeowners can register today at www.outerspaces.co to receive updates on launch pricing and request priority scheduling in the initial installation markets, ahead of general availability. Installers, builders, developers, and designers interested in carrying the system can apply to the company’s partner program at the same address.

The first product will be offered in two sizes, 12 feet by 12 feet and 12 feet by 24 feet, adding 144 or 288 square feet of finished outdoor living space that can be used in multiple ways: as an outdoor living room, dining area, kitchen, office, gym or wellness space. Configurations will offer 2.4 TO 5.3 kilowatts of solar generation and between 15 and 60 kilowatt-hours of battery storage, enough to offset a meaningful share of a household’s daily electricity use and to keep the home running through an outage.

Configure Online. Assemble on Site.

Designed as a modular product that is simple, precise and predictable to install – rather than a custom construction project – the system requires minimal to no excavation. Designed for rapid on-site assembly, OS1’s innovative architecture significantly reduces installation complexity compared to traditional outdoor construction, with no concrete pouring or lumber cutting, and minimal noise, after which a licensed electrician connects the energy system to the home.

Built like Infrastructure. Feels Like Home.

“People care how their homes look, yet the solar industry has asked them to stop caring,” said Terry Lin, co-founder and chief design officer of Outer Spaces. “We approached residential energy as an architectural and consumer-design challenge to create a space people would want in their backyard.”

“Having personally gone through a painfully slow and expensive backyard deck construction project and solar installation, I wish Outer Spaces had existed,” said Kevin Zhang, General Partner, Upfront Ventures. “Thrilled to back Jiake and Terry again in this new vision: they have invented a beautiful, flexible backyard space that provides seamless home energy independence, and the best part is it doesn’t require full construction crews and lengthy permitting.”

Outer Spaces will use the funding to build the team and pursue channel partnerships. 

The company will show the system publicly for the first time at RE+ 2026, November 16–19 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, West Hall — Booth #W17153.

About Outer Spaces

Outer Spaces imagines a future where every backyard powers better living.  We are creating a new category beyond the walls of home: residential solar and battery storage built into the structure of an outdoor living space. OS1, our solar pavilion and power deck system, pairs on-site solar generation with invisible battery storage and multiple configurations, creating endless possibilities for gathering, working, cooking, training, or recharging outside – all while powering the home. Designed for rapid on-site assembly, OS1’s innovative architecture significantly reduces installation complexity compared to traditional outdoor construction, giving installers, developers, and designers an alternative to conventional rooftop arrays and wall-mounted battery packs. Outer Spaces was founded in 2025 by Jiake Liu, Terry Lin, and Robin Liao, the founders of outdoor living brand Outer, and is based in El Segundo, Calif. Learn more at www.outerspaces.co.

Media Contact: 
Tim Turpin, CodePR
[email protected]

SOURCE Outer Spaces

Venture investor, operator and founder coach joins the AI-native startup to scale partnerships and operations, and brings Cofounder.AI to every Good Trouble Ventures portfolio founder

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 6, 2026 — Cofounder.AI, the venture-backed, AI-native startup leveling the playing field for small business owners and entrepreneurs, today announced that AJ Thomas has joined as Chief Operating Officer. Thomas will lead Partnerships and oversee Finance, Legal and HR alongside CEO Clarence Wooten, her former colleague at Google X, Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory. At Google X, she served as Global Head of Talent & People Products. She is also cofounder of Troublemaker Ventures, home to the venture fund Good Trouble Ventures and the growth advisory firm The Troublemaker Lab.

The appointment brings Thomas’s work full circle. After years of investing in, coaching and championing founders, she will now help build technology that puts that same support in the hands of entrepreneurs everywhere.

“Most small business owners are building alone, without a cofounder, operating leverage or a board to lean on,” said Clarence Wooten, Founder and CEO of Cofounder.AI. “AJ has spent her career giving founders exactly that kind of support, at Google X, as an investor, and as an operator and leadership coach. She knows what it takes to build teams and companies that last, and she’s the right person to scale Cofounder.AI’s partnerships and operations.”

“I’ve sat on every side of the table: operator, investor and leadership coach. The pattern is the same everywhere. Talent is evenly distributed, but support is not,” said Thomas. “Cofounder.AI gives every entrepreneur the operating leverage that used to be reserved for founders with the right network. My job is to make sure humanity and technology get equal weight as we build it, so we can deliver on our mission for the entrepreneurs and small business owners who are the heartbeat of our economy.”

Capital, culture and community

Thomas brings more than 15 years of experience across venture capital, talent and company building. Her work at Troublemaker Ventures, which backs founders and their teams with both capital and hands-on support, runs on three levers:

Capital. As General Partner of Good Trouble Ventures, she invests in founders who challenge the status quo.

Culture. As Managing Partner of The Troublemaker Lab, she coaches founders and enterprise teams on growth strategy, go-to-market, operational rigor and building cultures that hold up under pressure, including adopting AI in ways that sharpen teams rather than replace them.

Community. She connects founders, investors, operators and technologists across AI, emerging tech and venture capital, widening access to the rooms and resources that shape innovation.

At Cofounder.AI, Thomas’s early priorities include expanding university and ecosystem partnerships that bring the platform to student and early-stage founders. She is also a sought-after voice on how AI is reshaping funding, teams and communities; an executive coach and advisor to multiple startups; and a bestselling children’s book author.

Alliance with Good Trouble Ventures

Alongside the appointment, Cofounder.AI and Good Trouble Ventures are forming an alliance partnership. Every current and future Good Trouble Ventures portfolio founder will receive a free one-year Cofounder.AI license, giving them an AI cofounder for fundraising readiness, diligence and day-to-day operations from day one.

“Capital alone doesn’t build a company. Operating leverage does,” said Kat Steinmetz, Cofounder and General Partner of Good Trouble Ventures. “Putting Cofounder.AI in every founder’s hands means our support doesn’t stop when the meeting ends.”

About Cofounder.AI

Cofounder.AI is a venture-backed, AI-native startup leveling the playing field for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Founded by Clarence Wooten, a two-time exited founder and former Executive Entrepreneur in Residence at Google X, Cofounder.AI gives every entrepreneur an AI cofounder to help them plan, fund and run their business.

About Troublemaker Ventures

Troublemaker Ventures is a holding company that backs founders with both capital and hands-on support. It operates through two businesses: Good Trouble Ventures, an early-stage fund investing in category-creating founders, and The Troublemaker Lab, an advisory firm that coaches founders and enterprise teams on growth strategy, financial and operational rigor, and culture.

Media Contact
[email protected] • 310.400.2434

SOURCE CoFounder.AI

The round is led by Duration Ventures, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Draper Associates, the GTMfund, Alumni Ventures, and strategic investment from Zoom. Avarra’s AI Avatar platform helps humans master and scalably execute complex sales processes 50% faster than traditional approaches. Accelerating both revenue and customer satisfaction.

SAN MATEO, Calif., Oct. 6, 2026 — Avarra today announced a $17 million Series A following a year in which the company grew ARR more than 400% YOY and expanded from sales training simulations into a full avatar platform for go-to-market teams.

Most AI companies selling into revenue organizations are betting that automating routine processes will increase sales productivity. Avarra is betting on the opposite. Durable competitive advantage in GTM doesn’t come from completing routine tasks quickly, it comes from reliably and scalability executing complex sales processes involving sophisticated products and deep industry knowledge. The Avarra platform captures the expertise required to effectively run these complex processes from leaders and experts and then upskills GTM teams by deploying AI avatars that use this expertise to develop every team-member, accelerate every deal and amplify coverage to every customer.

Avatars prep reps before calls, join live deals to answer questions a rep can’t, and meet buyers on the website at 2am. Because the same avatars handle both the internal and the customer-facing work, people and avatars are running one playbook. Change the play and it updates universally.

Customers like Elastic, Masimo, Proofpoint, Netskope, and Owner.com report ramp time cut roughly in half, meaningful lifts in win rate, and, with this new release, expert coverage will extend across accounts that previously had none. Multiple enterprise customers have deployed Avarra to scale their sales playbook to more than a thousand GTM professionals at their company.

The loop then closes on the other end. Every session, practice run and live call feeds signal back to leadership, showing which behaviors are landing with buyers and which are not. For most revenue leaders, that answers a question they have never been able to answer: when the number misses, was the play wrong, or did the team simply not run it properly?

Avarra runs natively on Zoom and Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom had this to say, “Revenue teams are the engine that drives businesses forward, and Avarra has built a distinctive platform that combines the power of AI with the unique human touch critical to what they do. Zoom Ventures seeks to support AI-native companies that strategically align with our goals of driving important innovation forward. We are delighted to be part of their next chapter of growth.”

Blake P. Sallé, the Chief Revenue Officer at Proofpoint had this to say. “As Proofpoint has accelerated our growth in data security and AI, we needed a way to get every seller confident talking about all our new capabilities. Avarra gives our reps a place to practice those conversations and get coached until they’ve nailed it. We’ve seen sellers improve 33% from their first attempt to their final one, with better objection handling, value narrative and discovery after coaching.”

Alongside this groundswell of support for the platform, contracted ARR from mid-market and enterprise customers grew 698% year over year, and sales teams now complete more than 10,000 AI coaching and role-play sessions on Avarra each week.

“I backed the Avarra team at seed, and the past year has proved the thesis” says Arif Janmohamed, Co-Founder & Managing Director at Duration Ventures. “AI avatars working collaboratively with humans can dramatically scale GTM team productivity driving both revenue growth and customer satisfaction. When we started Duration Ventures, leading this round was one of the first things we wanted to do because we believe Avarra is defining the future of work.” 

“The ability for AI to automate mundane tasks is well documented, but we see the real power of AI in upskilling how people execute complex, collaborative, high-value processes,” says Avarra CEO, David Knight. “Every sales leader wants their team to sell the way they would. We capture how teams actually win. Then every rep, CSM and line leader gets their own avatar coach on their own schedule, and an avatar expert sitting next to them on every live deal. The companies winning with AI aren’t replacing their people. They’re investing to make their people irreplaceable.”

While at Owner.com, their CRO Kyle Norton built and deployed over 100 custom sims using Avarra, “The biggest behavior change Avarra has unlocked is for sales reps to own their own development more. They’re no longer reliant on just their sales manager as their source of practice.”

This message is mirrored by other customers like Darrel Mitchell who is the Director of WW Field Enablement at Netskope. “With Avarra, our sellers practice high-stakes conversations before they’re in front of a customer. They rehearse with realistic AI buyers, get scored feedback right away and improve with each attempt, while managers coach to what the transcripts show.”

“Every enterprise is now figuring out how its people and its AI learn from each other. The core idea behind Avarra is to capture the expertise that lives inside a company and put it to work across the whole team, human or AI.” says Guru Chahal, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. “We backed David and the team at seed, and since then Avarra has seen strong enterprise traction. We believe this is a category-defining platform in the making, and we’re delighted to double down.“

“AI’s real power isn’t replacing people, it’s helping them scale their impact“, says Andy Tang, Partner at Draper Associates. “Nowhere is that clearer than in institutional knowledge and training.

The funding will go toward engineering and go-to-market hiring, and toward expanding the customer-facing side of the platform.

Avarra is available today at avarra.ai, where visitors can talk to an expert avatar in real time.

Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Avarra.ai