Category Archives: News

Doubling down on our investment in Framer: the best way for companies to design, publish and scale their websites

Atomico

Hillary Ball, Partner, Atomico

Over a decade ago, all personal websites were built in HTML, which meant it was a relatively time-consuming endeavour that required developer support. Then came visual website builders, like Wix and Squarespace, with easy-to-use and templated solutions which made it possible for anyone to build a website without knowing code. Now, almost all personal websites are built with these visual builders, which has opened up website building for mass consumers.

For the same shift from code to visual builders to take place for professional websites, it requires a visual builder that can handle the complexity of professional websites, while also still delivering the design-flexibility that the best designers demand. Framer has built this platform: a fully flexible visual design canvas, with all the product depth, high control, and features that a scaling company needs, from a powerful CMS, to A/B testing, to enterprise security and beyond. With Framer, a designer can ship a full-scale production website, with no developer resourcing required.

This is enabling Framer to usher in a market shift worth tens of billions of dollars where professional websites can now be built with a visual builder. This makes it easier, faster, and less expensive to ship & host your company’s beautifully designed website. Global leading companies today, such as Miro, Perplexity, Mollie, and Bird, are customers who use Framer as the fastest way for them to design, publish and scale their entire website presence.

Building a platform with this level of capability has been made possible by remarkable product velocity at Framer. The team is always shipping – new features, higher performance, and new ways for creators on Framer to earn, which also let users build faster.

Hillary Ball, Partner, Atomico

Building a platform with this level of capability has been made possible by remarkable product velocity at Framer. The team is always shipping – new features, higher performance, and new ways for creators on Framer to earn, which also let users build faster. This has made it stand apart in the broader competitive landscape as the website builder that is truly loved by designers, while being capable of supporting complex enterprise use cases.

Today, Framer is powerful enough to support websites and companies of any size. Framer is also uniquely positioned to continue to capitalise on the AI opportunity for professional use cases – making professional generated sites work, with brand guidelines, enterprise-grade collaboration and continuous optimisation.

Atomico first partnered with Framer in 2018, when we led the company’s Series B round. Co-founders Koen and Jorn have deep backgrounds in product design, sold their first company to Facebook in 2011, and have worked together for the past two decades. Seeing Koen and Jorn work for the past 7 years has been a remarkable example of a founding team that is able to combine vision with relentless execution. There are a number of exceptional qualities about this team, but there are a few that have continued to stand out to us over the years:

  1. Talent magnets: Koen & Jorn have attracted ambitious talent into the team and built a culture of high agency that has enabled them to achieve remarkable scale with high efficiency. People who work at Framer have high standards and they get things done. The majority of the executive team at Framer has been there for over 6 years, growing with the company through a pivot journey. Everyone in the team deeply understands their product and customer.
  2. Product velocity: The team is always shipping. This is fueled by a deeply ingrained designer community they have fostered and built feedback loops with, which informs the product direction. They have maintained an unparalleled pace of product velocity that keeps the product always at the cutting-edge, and makes Framer the platform that designers are proud to bring to their teams.
  3. A team that skates where the puck is going: Based on their own deep experiences in product design, and the close engagement that they have built with the design community, the team knows how to build for the future of design. They see a few moves ahead of everyone else in terms of how a new technology or feature will shift designers’ needs or create new workflows, and they build for that, and they have a product velocity that enables them to do it successfully.

All of these qualities have enabled the Framer team to reach their incredible scale today and are the qualities that are going to continue to propel them into this next phase as the category winner for companies to design and run their websites.

We could not be more thrilled to be doubling down on our partnership with Framer by co-leading the company’s $100m Series D round at a $2 billion valuation alongside Meritech, and for all that’s still ahead for Framer.

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Gimv partners with Novicare to drive innovation and sustainable growth in specialized healthcare services.

GIMV
  • Novicare was founded in 2008, and now employs around 250 healthcare professionals delivering specialized medical and paramedical services to elderly and disability care institutions.
  • Gimv is pleased to support Novicare in response to the growing demand for specialized care services. Meeting this need requires the adoption of innovative, effective, and efficient solutions, while upholding the highest standards and quality of care, which are cornerstones to the Novicare model.
  • Gimv and Novicare will further invest in people and (digital) solutions, contributing to a resilient and sustainable Dutch healthcare system.
  • This transaction is part of a growth plan with the management team, who will continue to lead Novicare.

Novicare (novicare.nl) provides specialized medical and paramedical (geriatric) services to elderly care homes and disability institutions. With about 250 staff serving over 70 institutions and 4,500+ patients, Novicare stands out for its use of telecare, digital tools, and a “stepped care” model, enabling professionals to deliver efficient, high-quality care in collaboration with local partners.

At the core of Novicare is the healthcare professional. To support these professionals, Novicare provides a safe working environment with a strong focus on personal development and flexibility. Furthermore, Novicare is active in the education of new professionals. Thereby Novicare better retains scarce healthcare professionals and actively contributes to training the next generation.

As pressure on the Dutch healthcare system grows, Novicare plays an important role by helping to maintain care access, quality, and continuity through its stepped care model and local partnerships. Gimv will support Novicare’s continued growth to ensure optimal service for clients/ patients both now and in the future.

The partnership with Gimv aims to advance Novicare’s development of care models and its supportive and inspiring work environment for professionals. In line with IZA agreements, we will reinforce sustainable, locally embedded operations in collaboration with (local) sector stakeholders. This to ensure efficient and accessible care being delivered at the right place.

Jet Wiechers and Wencke van der Meijden, CEO and Deputy CEO, state: “Novicare is dedicated to supporting the healthcare sector through a focus on innovation and quality while striving to maximize our impact. Gimv is an ideal partner in this respect, given its strong track record in these areas.”

Elderd Land and Thomas Goudriaan, Partner and Principal in Gimv’s healthcare team in the Netherlands, declare: “We are excited to support Novicare in its mission to making specialized care available to everyone. Novicare uses technology and innovation to help healthcare professionals deliver more efficient and effective care. The company’s unique approach ensures that patients receive the right level of care at the right time, tailored to their specific needs and ultimately leads to optimal outcomes for patients by enhancing continuity, accessibility, and quality of care. This strongly aligns with Gimv’s ambition to support leading innovative companies to the benefit of society.”

Gimv will acquire a majority stake in Novicare from Gilde Healthcare. The investment is aligned with the Gimv ambition of investing in sustainable businesses together with talented management teams. The transaction is subject to customary (regulatory) approvals including works council approval.

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Maisa: Why We Invested

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Forgepoint

 

I’m excited to share that Forgepoint Capital International is investing in Maisa’s $25M Seed funding round led by Creandum, with participation from existing investors NfX and Village Global. We are thrilled to partner with the team at Maisa, innovators in trustworthy agentic AI transforming business process automation (BPA) at enterprise scale. 

Untapped process automations and the unfulfilled potential of agentic AI 

BPA and knowledge work automation are ripe for disruption. Existing BPA is cumbersome and costly, requiring substantial human intervention to manually define processes and encode automations.  

Recent advancements in agentic AI have driven a surge of interest in AI-enabled BPA. However, there is far more hype and ‘AI washing’ than substance in the market. Buyers are more likely to see products like AI assistants, RPA tools, and chatbots branded as agentic AI than substantial agentic capabilities.  

Enterprise AI adoption also remains sluggish. Trust in AI is a core issue, with persistent concerns around AI hallucinations and output explainability. Many businesses struggle to equip their workforce with the necessary expertise and skills to support AI implementations.  

These intersecting challenges have resulted in a dearth of AI-driven automation. Many businesses eschew BPA in favor of human-centered business process outsourcing (BPO), while those that pursue AI automation find limited success: 88% of AI pilot projects fail to progress beyond a proof-of concept.  

Maisa: Flexible and trustworthy AI agents unlocking BPA at scale 

Maisa enables AI automation for complex business tasks with ‘digital workers,’ AI agents that eliminate BPA cost barriers, address AI explainability and trust challenges, and alleviate AI expertise requirements.  

Maisa’s digital workers are hallucination-resistant, auditable, and enterprise-ready. Knowledge workers without IT, coding, or AI expertise can develop and deploy digital workers thanks to Maisa’s Human Augmented LLM Processing (HALP) approach, a novel framework in which AI agents learn through interactions with humans. Employees simply use natural language commands to train digital workers for specific automation use cases. This dramatically reduces training time, increases trust, and reduces costs to unlock BPA at scale. 

Maisa’s innovative architecture, the Knowledge Processing Unit (KPU), acts as a reasoning engine built for cognitive work. The KPU enhances Large Language Models (LLMs) to manage complex processes and orchestrate computational calculations, memory, data flows, and external tools- a critical capability in complex enterprise environments. 

Tangible trust from day one 

At Forgepoint, we believe AI will open the door to previously impractical or impossible process automations, particularly in large enterprises. Agentic AI is particularly interesting to us given its potential to redefine enterprise BPA.  

Successfully deploying AI agents is an exercise in trust- in AI implementations, reasoning, and outcomes. As investors, we look for AI companies that prioritize trust while developing differentiated technologies, validated approaches, and strong teams with the vision to scale globally. That’s precisely what Maisa brings to the table.  

Maisa has unique and valuable technology with trust at the core of its products and operations, led by a driven and proven team of AI experts- a rare combination of advantages. Maisa’s KPU not only enables agentic AI-driven automations; it delivers a highly traceable and auditable record of agent logic, execution, and workflows to reduce hallucinations, ensure verifiable outcomes, and build customer trust.  

This winning approach can be traced to Maisa’s exceptional co-founders, CEO David Villalon and Chief Scientific Officer Manu Romero. We first met David in 2023 prior to Maisa’s founding, while he was the Chief AI officer at AI infrastructure firm Clibrain AI. When David and Manu- the former Chief Scientific Officer at Clibrain AI- launched Maisa in early 2024, we immediately saw the potential in their complementary track records, with David’s product leadership acumen and Manu’s software engineering expertise. 

Since then, Maisa has made exceptional progress in a remarkably short amount of time. Following a $5M pre-seed funding round, the Maisa team has quickly scaled to meet emerging enterprise customer needs around AI governance and trust.  

Maisa’s momentum hasn’t gone unnoticed: the company was recently featured in Gartner’s AI Hype Cycle and Future of Work Hype cycle reports. Maisa’s customers- large global businesses across financial services, banking, energy, and automotives- are finding immense value in Maisa’s adaptable AI-enabled automations. Enterprises plan to use Maisa’s digital workers to unlock new automations including supply chain monitoring, invoice processing, fraud detection, and regulatory monitoring.  

Automating knowledge work and closing the AI adoption gap 

As we look ahead, we are confident that Maisa can disrupt enterprise BPA and play a significant role in the $7B+ Agentic Process Automation (APA) market, expected to grow to $41B+ by 2030, with its novel approach to agentic AI reliability, accountability, and accessibility. The company has the potential to bridge the enterprise AI adoption gap, unlock a massive number of untapped automations, and lay the foundation for responsible AI governance, robust data management, and transparent decision-making across the enterprise. 

We look forward to working alongside David, Manu, and the Maisa team as they innovate AI agents to redefine complex process automations. 

 

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Why we invested in Treefera

Endeit

Treefera founders

An interview with Sara Resvik, Partner Nordics at Endeit Capital 

We recently invested in Treefera, as part of its $30 million Series B round led by Notion Capital. Treefera is the leading AI-enabled data fabric for supply chain resilience. The London-based company helps organisations monitor and manage environmental risks deep within their supply chains, starting with the so-called “first mile,” where raw materials are sourced. The funding will support Treefera’s global expansion and continued product development. 

As part of our climate tech focus, we see Treefera as a category-defining platform built for transparency, compliance and long-term sustainability. We spoke with Sara Resvik, Partner at Endeit Capital, about why this investment matters now, and what makes Treefera stand out.

Climate tech is an important segment for Endeit. Where does Treefera fit into this? 

Sara: “The climate transition creates enormous opportunities. We see this in broad areas, such as energy, but we’re also focused on targeted solutions. Treefera is one of those. They offer a precise, data-driven platform that addresses a critical piece of the sustainability puzzle.”

Treefera helps companies understand risks in their nature-based supply chains. They collect data from satellites and on-the-ground sources, then apply AI to generate actionable insights. Sara adds: “The platform provides a scalable and holistic solution – a data fabric of the world. It enables customers to track land use, ownership, and environmental impact in real time.”  


Sara Resvik – Partner Endeit Capital

Why is the first mile such a valuable space to invest in right now? 

Sara: “There are two main reasons. First, large enterprises must transition to more environmentally sustainable ways of working, which requires a deep understanding of their supply chains. Second, the effects of extreme weather are becoming impossible to ignore: land is being damaged, and yields are suffering. Treefera helps companies stay ahead of these challenges.” 

The first mile is also where the most risk lies, and where the least structured data has historically been available. Treefera enables companies to assess supply risk at ecological, geopolitical and environmental levels, and to do so at scale.

What stood out when you first met the Treefera team? 

“The founders immediately stood out. Jonathan Horn (CEO) has decades of experience in risk analysis and data from major financial institutions. Caroline Grey (CRO) has helped scale a company from startup to IPO. That’s a unique founder combination: scientific depth and commercial execution,” explains Sara. 

Furthermore, Treefera is only two years old, but has already achieved strong growth and secured serious funding. This reflects the quality of the team and the strength of their vision. 

What makes Treefera’s data platform so relevant today? 

Sara: “It’s the combination of high-resolution satellite data with historic, ground-based insights. In some regions, people have collected this kind of data for over a hundred years. That adds incredible depth. But what’s most important is making this data useful.” 

Treefera’s AI-enabled software translates raw data into clear, business-ready insights. Their clients don’t need to be experts in satellite imaging or ecology. They just get answers to the questions that matter: what is growing where, who owns the land, or is it being used responsibly?  

How does regulation influence the investment case? 

Regulations, such as the EU Deforestation Regulation, which takes effect in December 2025, will require companies to demonstrate that their products are not linked to deforestation. Failure to do so may result in fines or loss of market access. 

Sara: “Treefera is ahead of the curve here. They’ve built a platform that can help companies prepare for these rules and stay compliant. That’s a major competitive advantage.” 

What excites you about Treefera’s next chapter? 

Sara: “I’ll be joining the board of directors, which is a great opportunity to support their next stage of growth. The foundations are in place. Now it’s about scaling across regions and sectors, and we’ll be closely involved in that process. Also, the company is ready to grow its customer base across food, consumer goods and agriculture as well as within financial services and insurance. The timing is right, and the momentum is building.” 

What impact do you hope Treefera will have? 

“They have the potential to become the standard for first-mile data. That would be transformative, not just for compliance, but for the entire sustainability landscape. The first mile is where the most risk lies, and where the least data is available. That’s what Treefera is changing. We believe their platform will be essential in building future-proof supply chains,” elaborates Sara.  

Treefera joins Endeit’s growing Climate Tech portfolio, where data, compliance and impact go hand in hand. As the regulatory landscape sharpens, platforms like Treefera will become not just useful, but essential. 

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Netskope S-1 Breakdown

Meritech

Netskope ($NTSK) filed for an IPO, making them only the 2nd pure-play software company in 2025 behind Figma’s blockbuster IPO. In a world where companies like Databricks can raise billions at $100B+ valuations, Netskope is opting for the public markets.

While they are not the fastest-growing (or most efficient) company at $700M+ in ARR, growing ~30% and still burning money, it’s a good time to be going out as the only other venture-backed software IPO except Figma in 2025. If they trade well and get a strong “IPO pop”, the company could exceed their 2021 post-money valuation of ~$7.5B.

The company does stretch the boundaries on some of their efficiency metrics. For example: 1) gross revenue retention does not include contraction, 2) they introduce a new set of metrics called “incremental gross margin” and “incremental operating margin” which is an attempt to show operating leverage, and 3) it appears much of their increase in free cash flow margin comes from billing changes.

Even so, being the first venture-backed software/infrastructure company behind Figma is a good place to be, and they should generate significant demand. The “IPO pop” will determine if they get past their 2021 series H post-money valuation of $7.5B.

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Carlyle to Acquire intelliflo from Invesco

Carlyle

Atlanta & London, August 26, 2025 – Global investment firm Carlyle (NASDAQ: CG) and Invesco (NYSE: IVZ), a leading global asset management firm, announced today an agreement for Carlyle to acquire intelliflo from Invesco. intelliflo is a market leading provider of cloud-based practice management software for independent financial advisors (IFAs) in the UK. The transaction includes intelliflo’s US-based subsidiaries, including RedBlack, a provider of SaaS-based portfolio rebalancing tools, and intelliflo Portfolio, a Portfolio Management software solution for US Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs).

The purchase price of up to $200 million is comprised of $135 million at closing, which is expected in the fourth quarter of this year subject to certain closing conditions, and up to an additional $65 million in potential future earn outs.

Founded in 2004 and headquartered in London, intelliflo offers an end-to-end software platform used by over 30,000 professionals at approximately 2,600 advisory firms, supporting the management of approximately £450 billion in client assets. intelliflo’s platform delivers CRM, financial planning, client onboarding, compliance workflows, and reporting functionality. Its cloud-native, multi-tenanted SaaS architecture integrates with over 120 third-party applications. The transaction aims to strengthen intelliflo’s market-leading position in the UK and accelerate its growth in Australia.

As part of the transaction, intelliflo’s US-based subsidiaries will be established as a standalone business called RedBlack, run by a separate management team. This separation will allow both businesses to better serve and focus on their existing customers and markets. intelliflo will focus purely on delivering market leading software and innovation for the UK and Australian markets, and RedBlack will focus solely on delivering for RIAs and other financial advisors in the United States. Carlyle will support the carve-out of both businesses from Invesco and partner with both leadership teams to execute their respective growth initiatives.

Equity for the investment will be provided by Carlyle Europe Technology Partners (“CETP”) V, a €3 billion fund which invests in technology companies across Europe. The CETP team has significant experience in financial software, wealthtech, and vertically focused SaaS, with current and recent investments including SER Group, CSS, SurePay, and Calastone.

Fernando Chueca, Managing Director in the CETP investment advisory team, said: “intelliflo is a mission-critical software provider to the UK’s wealth management ecosystem, with a deeply embedded and loyal customer base. We are excited to partner with Nick, Bryan, and the team to unlock the company’s full potential and deliver a new stage of growth.”

Nick Eatock, CEO and Founder of intelliflo, said: “This is an exciting moment for intelliflo. Carlyle’s investment reflects its trust in our business and its deep experience in scaling software companies make it an ideal partner for our next phase of growth. With Carlyle’s support, we will continue to focus on delivering great value to our clients, with a renewed focus on building innovative solutions for the evolving needs of our core UK and Australian customer bases.”

Bryan Perryman, the CEO of the newly formed RedBlack, said: “Our team is highly motivated by the opportunity to bring our full focus onto the US market as an agile, standalone company. RedBlack has a rich history of delivering market-leading software solutions for our US RIA customer base. We are excited to be backed in this endeavour by a sponsor with the reputation and credentials of Carlyle, which will continue to best position RedBlack to support advisors’ needs.”

Doug Sharp, Senior Managing Director, Head of Americas and EMEA, at Invesco, said: “As intelliflo and the newly incorporated RedBlack embark on their next phases of growth with Carlyle, we are confident that both companies are well-positioned for continued success and innovation in the wealth technology space. We look forward to our continued relationship with intelliflo and RedBlack through our common interaction with wealth advisor clients.”

Evercore served as financial advisor to Invesco and HSF Kramer acted as legal adviser. Altman Solon, PWC, Oliver Wyman and Ringstone conducted due diligence on the acquisition. Gibson Dunn acted as legal counsel to Carlyle.

About Carlyle

Carlyle (NASDAQ: CG) is a global investment firm with deep industry expertise that deploys private capital across three business segments: Global Private Equity, Global Credit, and Carlyle AlpInvest. With $465 billion of assets under management as of June 30, 2025, Carlyle’s purpose is to invest wisely and create value on behalf of its investors, portfolio companies, and the communities in which we live and invest. Carlyle employs more than 2,300 people in 27 offices across four continents. Further information is available at www.carlyle.com. Follow Carlyle on X @OneCarlyle and LinkedIn at The Carlyle Group.

About intelliflo

intelliflo provides market-leading practice management solutions to financial advice firms, supporting over 30,000 users across the UK and internationally. Its core SaaS platform, intelliflo Office, is a central system for CRM, planning, compliance, and client communication. intelliflo is shaping the digital future of financial advice.

About RedBlack

RedBlack is a leading provider of wealth technology and managed services, empowering financial advisors to scale with confidence and deliver superior outcomes for clients. With its award-winning investment management solutions, RedBlack enables financial advice firms of all sizes to enhance their value, streamline operations, and drive growth. Trusted by the wealth management industry for over 15 years, RedBlack supports more than $825 billion in assets across its platforms. Discover how RedBlack is redefining investment management at www.RedBlackSoftware.com.

About Invesco

Invesco Ltd. (NYSE: IVZ) is a global independent investment management firm dedicated to delivering an investment experience that helps people get more out of life. Our distinctive investment teams deliver a comprehensive range of active, passive and alternative investment capabilities. With offices in more than 20 countries, Invesco managed US$2 trillion in assets on behalf of clients worldwide as of June 30, 2025. For more information, visit www.invesco.com/corporate. 

Media Contacts

Carlyle

Nicholas Brown

nicholas.brown@carlyle.com

+44 7471 037 002

Invesco

Jane Drew

Jane.drew@invesco.com

+44 2033 701 104

intelliflo

Rebecca Mayo

intelliflo@lansons.com

+44 7974 177 160

RedBlack

Amber Bush

amber@williammills.com

+1 706 248 6272

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Holland Capital announces acquisition of HealthConnected by software company Visma

Holland Capital

Amsterdam, 27th of August 2025 – Investment firm Holland Capital, active in Healthcare and Technology in the Benelux and Germany, today announces the acquisition of its portfolio company HealthConnected to software company Visma.

With this acquisition, Visma further expands its healthcare portfolio. HealthConnected is a leading provider of primary care platforms, offering solutions for GP practices (HIS), out-of-hours GP services (HAPIS) and integrated and network care (NIS). Over the years, HealthConnected has proven its strength in developing valuable digital solutions for the healthcare sector. The company now joins Visma, alongside well-known healthcare providers such as Ecare, Therapieland, SureSync, Esculine and ZorgDomein. .

HealthConnected & Holland Capital

With support from Holland Capital, HealthConnected has developed into a leading platform for primary care, placing the healthcare professional at the heart of its mission. The platform’s user-friendly design helps care providers work more efficiently and spend more time with patients. Since 2020, Holland Capital has actively supported the company’s operational and strategic growth.

“I have seen HealthConnected’s journey up close and I am impressed by the team’s innovation and determination,” says Jan Frens van Giessel, Partner at Holland Capital. “With Visma as its new owner, HealthConnected has found the right partner to accelerate its growth, expand its platform and make an even bigger impact in healthcare.”

Paul Witteman, Founder and CEO of HealthConnected, looks back on a period of intensive collaboration with Holland Capital. “Collaboration is easy when everything goes according to plan, but it was precisely in the moments when this was not the case that Holland Capital truly proved its added value. That has been the foundation of a successful partnership.”

Primary care as a key link in digitalization

Visma specializes in cloud solutions that simplify and automate complex work processes, improving user experience and saving time. In healthcare, Visma’s ecosystem accelerates digitalization by improving integration and collaboration across systems.

“In our search for an innovative HIS provider, we identified HealthConnected as the perfect fit,” says Sander van de Merwe, Business Area Director Healthcare & Education at Visma. “Together, we can further scale the platform and bring strong parties under one umbrella. For example, HealthConnected and ZorgDomein can now collaborate even more effectively to address the challenges in healthcare. Boards, our joint solution for integrated and network care, already demonstrates the power of this partnership.”

Independent, with shared ambitions

HealthConnected will continue to operate independently with its own products, teams and partnerships, while benefiting from the synergies within the Visma group.

“This step allows us to innovate faster and support GPs with a platform that grows with their needs,” says Paul Witteman. “By joining Visma, we gain access to expertise in software development, security and privacy, as well as the strength of other Visma companies. At the same time, we will remain an independent organization, fully committed to openness and collaboration with other systems.”

Building a stronger healthcare ecosystem

Healthcare digitalization requires deep expertise, due to the diversity of applications, integrations and complex processes. For professionals, collaboration across the care chain is essential to support patients effectively. “Healthcare doesn’t need one all-encompassing system, but a strong ecosystem with collaboration, long-term vision and room for innovation,” says Paul Simoons, CEO of ZorgDomein, who will join the board of HealthConnected on behalf of Visma. “This acquisition allows HealthConnected and ZorgDomein to strengthen their partnership and build a seamless chain of systems. This benefits patients, healthcare providers, and creates new opportunities for our partners.”

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Wugen Secures $115 Million to Advance Pivotal Study of First-in-Class Allogeneic CAR-T Therapy, WU-CART-007

Abingworth

— Financing led by Fidelity Management & Research Company with participation from RiverVest Venture Partners, Lightchain Capital, LYZZ Capital, Abingworth, Intermediate Capital Group (ICG), Tybourne Capital Management, Aisling Capital Management, and other top-tier life sciences investors —

— Proceeds will fund the ongoing pivotal T-RRex trial in relapsed/refractory T-ALL/T-LBL — 

— WU-CART-007 achieved 91% overall response rate in global Phase 1/2 trial, substantially outperforming current standard of care — 

— BLA filing targeted for 2027; therapy holds potential to be first approved “off-the-shelf” CAR-T for T‑cell malignancies —

 

ST. LOUIS, MO, August 27, 2025 – Wugen, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering the next generation of allogeneic, off-the-shelf CAR-T cell therapies, today announced the closing of $115 million equity financing led by Fidelity Management & Research Company, with participation from RiverVest Venture Partners, Lightchain Capital, Abingworth, ICG, LYZZ Capital, Tybourne Capital Management, Aisling Capital Management, and other leading life sciences investors. The proceeds will advance the ongoing pivotal T-RRex study of WU-CART-007 in relapsed/refractory T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) and T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma (T‑LBL).

WU-CART-007, also known as soficabtagene geleucel, is a CD7-targeted, CRISPR-edited allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy with potential to be the first approved “off-the-shelf” CAR-T for T-cell malignancies. In a completed global Phase 1/2 study, WU-CART-007 achieved an overall response rate (ORR) of 91% and a composite complete remission (CRc) rate of 73% at the recommended Phase 2 dose. The median duration of response exceeded six months with manageable safety. These data, presented at the 2024 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, substantially surpass the outcomes achieved with current standard-of-care therapies.

“This financing comes at a decisive time for Wugen as we advance WU-CART-007 through our ongoing pivotal study with a clear path to a BLA filing in 2027,” said Kumar Srinivasan, Ph.D., MBA, president, and chief executive officer of Wugen. “Relapsed and refractory T-ALL/T-LBL are aggressive malignancies resistant to current treatment options. We are committed to delivering an accessible, off-the-shelf therapy that can significantly improve the trajectory of patients’ care. We are grateful for the support of a world-class syndicate of investors who share our vision of transforming the treatment landscape for T‑cell malignancies.”

“WU-CART-007’s robust response in a heavily pretreated patient population—coupled with manageable safety and scalable manufacturing—positions it as a potential first-in-class therapy,” said Cherry Thomas, M.D., chief medical officer of Wugen. “Our pivotal T-RRex trial is designed to evaluate WU‑CART-007 in a single study for both pediatric and adult patients, with the goal of offering a potentially curative option where current salvage therapies fail.”

“RiverVest has been impressed by the Wugen team’s efforts advancing WU-CART-007 into this pivotal study, and we are pleased that several of the world’s leading cancer centers are participating,” said Niall O’Donnell, Ph.D., Managing Director at RiverVest. “We are optimistic about Wugen’s potential to transform care for patients who currently face poor outcomes and limited treatment options, and we look forward to supporting WU-CART-007’s continued progress.”

 

Use of Proceeds and Next Steps
Proceeds from this financing will fund the advancement of the pivotal T-RRex trial in patients with relapsed/refractory or minimal residual disease-positive T-ALL/T-LBL, regulatory engagement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA), and preparations for commercial-scale manufacturing. The company anticipates a Biologics License Application (BLA) submission in 2027.

About WU-CART-007

WU-CART-007 is an allogeneic, off-the-shelf, CD7-targeted CAR-T cell therapy engineered to overcome the technological challenges of harnessing CAR-T cells to treat T-cell cancers. Wugen is deploying CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology to delete CD7 and the T cell receptor alpha constant (TRAC) genes, thereby preventing CAR-T cell fratricide and mitigating the risk of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). WU‑CART-007 is manufactured using healthy donor-derived T cells to eliminate the risk of malignant cell contamination historically observed in the autologous CAR-T setting. WU-CART-007 is currently being evaluated in a global pivotal clinical trial for relapsed or refractory T-ALL/T-LBL. More information on the Phase 1/2 trial is available on clinicaltrials.gov, identifier NCT04984356 and on the pivotal trial on clinicaltrials.gov, identifier NCT06514794.

WU-CART-007 has received Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT), Fast Track, Orphan Drug, and Rare Pediatric Disease designations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Priority Medicines (PRIME) Scheme designation in the European Union for the treatment of relapsed or refractory T-ALL/T-LBL. RMAT and PRIME designations provide increased agency support to expedite the development and review of promising therapies for patients in need.

About Wugen
Wugen, Inc., headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing next-generation, allogeneic CAR-T cell therapies for cancer. Wugen’s proprietary gene-editing platform is designed to overcome key limitations of first-generation cell therapies, enabling scalable, off-the-shelf treatments with biologics-like cost of goods margins. The lead program, WU‑CART-007, targets CD7 and has demonstrated best-in-class efficacy in T-ALL/T-LBL, with the potential to be the first approved allogeneic CAR-T therapy for T-cell malignancies.

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Investor Contact:

Mark Lewis, Ph.D.

Wugen

Mlewis@wugen.com

314-501-1968

Media Contact:

Cory Tromblee

Scient PR

cory@scientpr.com

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Bencis acquires majority stake in Cadac Group

Bencis

Bencis acquires majority stake in Cadac Group

Investment firm Bencis has acquired a majority stake in automation company Cadac Group from Heerlen. Bencis is taking over approximately 70 percent of the shares from founder Jan Baggen and from development company LIOF, which has been a co-shareholder since 1998.

Bencis is an independent Dutch investment company that invests in medium-sized, successful businesses in the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium. Bencis supports entrepreneurs in realizing their growth ambitions, with a focus on engaged entrepreneurship and sustainable value creation. Bencis currently has 32 companies in its portfolio, together generating a turnover of €2.5 billion and employing more than 13,000 people.

“For Cadac, Bencis is the best option,” says founder Jan Baggen, who established the company in 1986 and grew it into a leading automation firm with a turnover of more than €66 million last year and nearly 200 employees. “By choosing a private equity partner, changes will be minimal; only the ownership structure of Cadac Group Holding will change.”

Confidence
Jacob Versteeg of Bencis expressed great satisfaction with the transaction:“We look forward to supporting Cadac with its growth ambitions. Cadac is a market leader in automation around design, engineering, and construction software, and is known for the high quality of its services. The company is active in various markets that are particularly interesting due to the increasing demand for automation and integration among chain partners. We therefore have a lot of confidence in Cadac, but above all in the collaboration with Jan Baggen, Paul Smeets (CTO), and the rest of the Cadac team. We have known Jan and his team for a long time and are excited to now intensify our cooperation.”

Two Options
The two parties have been in serious discussions behind the scenes for quite some time. “Since 2024,” explains Baggen. “Despite my love for Cadac and my desire to remain involved with the company forever, I had to be rational and think about Cadac’s future without me. Broadly speaking, I had two options: keep the shares and hope that one of our children would take over the company, or look for a new investor. The first option would have been the most beautiful, but it placed an enormous burden on our family. That’s why we started looking for a new investor. Bencis is the right candidate, I am convinced of that.”

Autodesk
Cadac is one of Autodesk’s largest partners, particularly in the Benelux, Germany, and Southern Europe. Autodesk is an American software company globally recognized for its advanced design, engineering, and construction software, such as AutoCAD and Revit. Digitalization is in full swing in the manufacturing industry, construction sector, and government. Cadac Group’s experts help clients embrace this digital transformation with both Cadac and Autodesk software and related services.
Baggen: “We could have chosen to partner with another major Autodesk partner, but with this transaction we safeguard Cadac’s independence, continuity, and identity. For us, it is important that the current vision and strategy are continued. During our discussions with Bencis, trust has grown. This was not just a financial transaction—it is also about our people and the resources to continue investing and growing.”

LIOF
Development company LIOF, which has been an involved investor, shareholder, and partner of Cadac for more than 25 years, fully supports the sale of its shares.
“We wholeheartedly support this acquisition,” says Siska van Houdt, Manager Investing. “Our collaboration dates back to the period when LIOF was actively investing in the then-emerging ICT sector. Cadac has since grown into a leading Limburg-based company within the ICT industry. The acquisition by Bencis strengthens the foundation for the future. Cadac retains both its international position and its regional ties with Limburg.”

Shares
The share transaction was officially signed on Wednesday, August 27, 2025, by all parties involved.
Jan Baggen will remain CEO of Cadac Group and will retain a quarter of the shares through his holding company TwinPort. Slightly less than 5 percent of the shares will remain with management and several key employees, including CTO Paul Smeets and CFO Astrid van de Sande.

Contact InformationPlease contact Jan Baggen via +31 (0)88-932 2333.
Visit www.cadac.com for more information about Cadac and www.bencis.com for more information about Bencis.

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Attio raises $52M to scale the first AI-native CRM for go-to-market builders

Balderton

Over the past two years, Attio has grown to 5,000 paying customers, including AI leaders like Lovable, Granola, Modal, and Replicate

Attio, the AI-native CRM for the next era of companies, today announced it has raised $52 million in Series B funding. The round was led by GV (Google Ventures), with participation from existing investors Redpoint Ventures, Point Nine, 01A and Balderton – who first invested in Attio’s seed round in 2021. Attio has raised $116 million to date.

This investment will accelerate Attio’s mission to build the first AI-native CRM that understands every customer and gives teams the power to build their go-to-market systems exactly as they need, at scale.

 

CRM is one of the most important categories in B2B, but it’s been stuck in the past. AI-native CRM needs a completely different foundation — one that allows you to truly understand every customer, take action fast, and gives you the freedom to build the exact go-to-market systems you need at scale. That’s what we’re building with Attio, and this funding will allow us to accelerate our vision.

Nicholas SharpCEO and co-founder, Attio

Since its launch two years ago, Attio has become the CRM of choice for the next generation of companies. 5,000 customers are now building their go-to-market on the platform, including leading AI companies like Lovable, Granola, Modal, and Replicate. The company is on track to 4x ARR this year.

 

This round follows incredible momentum in customers, revenue, and team growth. But what excites us most remains the same as the very first day I met Nick four years ago, and the reason we have continued to back Attio from Seed through to Series A to now: game-changing product philosophy, world-class technological leadership and delivery, and resulting customer delight.

Daniel WaterhousePartner, Balderton

Shaping the next era of CRM

CRM has been the backbone of B2B software for decades, but its foundations haven’t kept up with how business actually works today. As a result, many core go-to-market capabilities were built outside the system, spawning a fragmented ecosystem of thousands of point tools that companies have had to stitch together at great cost. The result for go-to-market builders has been inflexible systems, expensive integrations, and slow innovation.

That era is ending. Two powerful forces are colliding to reshape the market:

  1. AI is exposing the limits of legacy architecture. Today’s CRMs were built for a world of static workflows, manual data entry, and human-only operators. Bolting AI onto those foundations can automate tasks, but it can’t remove the structural constraints.
  2. AI is empowering a new generation of go-to-market builders and leaders. They’re building alongside AI, creating in days what once took months, and are no longer constrained by vendor roadmaps or 12-month rollouts.

 

Today’s go-to-market builders expect platforms that they can shape to fit their vision, not rigid systems they’re forced to work around. To truly capture the opportunities AI creates in CRM, it has to be deeply integrated into the architecture of the platform, not just bolted on as an afterthought. Retrofitted solutions will always be less effective because the foundations of legacy CRMs weren’t designed for the scale, autonomy, and extensibility that AI demands.

Alexander ChristieCTO and co-founder, Attio

That’s why Attio was built differently from day one: to remove those constraints entirely and give teams an AI-native CRM platform for go-to-market (GTM) that has complete customer context, is endlessly adaptable, and can be shaped by its users.

The primitives of AI-native CRM

To make this possible, Attio is built from the ground up on a new foundation, with AI-native primitives that give teams the freedom to build go-to-market systems that fit exactly how they work. These core building blocks define all next-generation software and are essential for any AI-native CRM:

  • Native data ingestion – clean, real-time GTM data from every source, unified in one place — no duplicates or stale records
  • Intelligent workflow engine – powerful automation that scales across systems and teams, end-to-end
  • Programmable surfaces – APIs, SDKs, and natural language interfaces for building applications, features, integrations, and workflows directly inside the CRM
  • Agent collaboration – designed for humans and AI to operate together across every GTM process
  • Granular permissions – fine-grained access control across users, data, and AI agents
  • Predictive intelligence – context that continuously learns and surfaces the right insights and actions at the right moment

Customers are using native data ingestion to unify accurate, real-time data from across their go-to-market stack, intelligent workflows to automate complex processes in record time, and programmable surfaces like Attio’s App SDK (now in beta) to build and launch apps and new features directly within the platform. Additional primitives, including agent collaboration and advanced permissions, are in active development and will expand capabilities even further as they are released.

What’s next

With its Series B, Attio will scale engineering, fast-track product development, and deliver on its vision to build the CRM that powers the next generation of go-to-market — one that understands every customer, adapts to any team, and gives them the power to shape it to their business.

On the engineering side, Attio will invest heavily in R&D to ship product faster than ever before, with a focus on advanced agent collaboration, granular permissions, and predictive intelligence.

On the go-to-market front, the company will double down on reaching the new generation of GTM builders — giving them the freedom to build and deploy the exact tools they need, without waiting for vendor roadmaps or long implementation cycles.

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