Latest news with #Point72Ventures
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Exclusive: Crypto and stablecoin infrastructure startup Zerohash to raise $100 million at an almost $1 billion valuation
Stablecoin fever is still running hot. Zerohash, a crypto and stablecoin infrastructure startup, is set to raise about $100 million at nearly a $1 billion valuation, according to two sources familiar with the deal. The publicly traded online brokerage Interactive Brokers is leading the funding round, said the two sources, who spoke to Fortune on the condition of anonymity to discuss private business dealings. Spokespeople for Zerohash and Interactive Brokers declined to comment. The fundraise follows Zerohash's Series D from 2022, when the company raised $105 million from investors including Bain Capital, Nyca, and Point72 Ventures. The Series D valued the company at $340 million, according to data from PitchBook. Founded in 2017, Zerohash (formerly styled as Zero Hash) provides backend infrastructure that helps banks, brokerages, as well as fintech companies offer cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other digital assets to their customers. Now, the company has become an influential player in the hot sector of stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to underlying assets like the U.S. dollar. Zerohash partnered with Stripe to help the fintech giant's customers go from cash to stablecoins through Zerohash's network of banking relationships and regulatory licenses. It has also worked with Securitize, another crypto startup, to help traditional finance titans like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton enter the tokenization race, or when issuers put traditional financial assets like money market funds into blockchain wrappers. Zerohash lets customers exchange stablecoins for tokenized assets. Other Zerohash clients include prediction marketplace Kalshi as well as neobank MoneyLion. Zerohash isn't the only stablecoin startup to attract tens of millions of dollars in venture capital over the past year. After Stripe announced its acquisition of the stablecoin company Bridge for $1.1 billion in October, similarly positioned startups have raked in investor funds. In December, BVNK raised $50 million in a Series B that valued it at around $750 million. In March, Mesh said it had raised $82 million. And on Thursday, Nick van Eck, son of noteworthy investment management CEO Jan van Eck, announced that Agora, a stablecoin company he cofounded, had raised $50 million in a round led by longtime crypto investor Paradigm. The Bridge acquisition is just one reason why investors are piling into stablecoins. The crypto markets are frothy again as Bitcoin has repeatedly notched new all-time highs in 2025. In early June, the stablecoin issuer Circle went public in a gangbusters IPO. Its shares have more than quintupled since its stock started trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The company's market capitalization is around $46 billion as of Friday morning. And in mid-June, the Senate passed a bill that would regulate crypto assets. The House is now considering the legislation. Amid the regulatory push and crypto boom, Fortune 500 companies have shown interest in the technology. Retailers like Walmart and Amazon are looking into stablecoin adoption. And Big Tech firms like Meta, Apple, Airbnb, and Google have all spoken with crypto companies since January about integrating stablecoins into their payments infrastructure. As opposed to issuers like Agora, which has its own stablecoin and creates white-label tokens for its partners, Zerohash acts as the connective tissue for the stablecoin ecosystem. Its tools for developers let customers more easily go between cash and stablecoins, serving as an intermediary amid skyrocketing demand for the sector. This story was originally featured on
Geek Wire
08-07-2025
- Business
- Geek Wire
Pokee AI, a new AI agent startup led by ex-Meta manager, lands $12M to automate online workflows
GeekWire's startup coverage documents the Pacific Northwest entrepreneurial scene. Sign up for our weekly startup newsletter , and check out the GeekWire funding tracker and venture capital directory . From left: Michael Cai, head of product engineering), Christopher Wu (head of ML engineering), Zheqing (Bill) Zhu (founder and CEO), and Yi Wan (founding research scientist). (Pokee AI Photo) Point72 Ventures led a $12 million seed round for Pokee AI, a new Seattle-area startup aiming to build AI agents that automate online workflows. Qualcomm and Samsung also invested. Founded last year by a former Meta manager and Stanford Ph.D., Pokee AI is developing a general-purpose AI agent designed to plan, reason, and take actions across thousands of internet tools and platforms — everything from generating marketing videos to formatting slides and posting on social media. Pokee is one of many new startups building so-called AI agents, or autonomous systems that execute tasks beyond static outputs like text or code. These companies are attracting plenty of attention from early stage investors. Pokee differentiates itself by applying reinforcement learning to help agents sequence and use tools efficiently, rather than relying solely on large language models. Reinforcement learning is a type of machine learning where an agent takes actions and learns through trial and error. The company claims its technology delivers 'over 97% accuracy when selecting from thousands of tools,' and avoids the limitations of function-calling via LLMs by offloading planning to a custom-built AI agent. 'The AI world has solved the generation problem, but no one has solved the execution problem,' said CEO Zheqing (Bill) Zhu. 'We want to solve the execution problem.' One early use case is social media marketing, where the agent can create content, enhance media, post across platforms, and monitor engagement. Pokee is not generating revenue but has design partners and is working with Google on enterprise partnerships. Its platform is now in public beta. Pokee supports integrations with Google Workspace, Meta, LinkedIn, YouTube, Jira, GitHub, Slack, Notion, and other popular web services. It eventually plans to release tools for enterprise users. Zhu was previously head of applied reinforcement learning at Meta, where he worked for more than seven years. He completed his Ph.D. at Stanford in the same field and did his graduate and undergrad studies at Duke. Pokee's other co-founders include Michael Cai, head of product engineering; Christopher Wu, head of ML engineering; and Yi Wan, founding research scientist. Other backers include Salience Capital, SCB 10X, Typeface founder Abhay Parasnis, and former Intel board member Lip-bu Tan. The company has around 10 employees and is hiring for open roles in Bellevue and the Bay Area.
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Citi invests in HANetf to bolster ETF white-label services
HANetf, a European provider of white-label exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and exchange-traded commodities (ETCs), has secured a minority equity investment from Citi in HANetf Holdings Limited. The investment sees Citi join other institutional shareholders, including Elkstone, Point72 Ventures, and ThirdStream Partners. Under the agreement, Citi will delegate the capital markets operations for its forthcoming ETF white-label platform to HANetf. Andrew Jamieson, Citi's global head of ETF product, reportedly described HANetf as the 'most credible' partner for this collaboration. The Citi Velocity ETFs platform is slated for launch later this year. HANetf plans to channel the investment into accelerating its expansion to capitalise on growing interest from European and global asset managers entering the ETF market. Currently, HANetf supports 22 clients, accounting for over 16% of the 131 brands in the European ETF sector. Established in 2017, HANetf introduced the white-label ETF model to Europe and has $7.7bn in assets under management. While both Citi and HANetf will offer competing white-label services, Jamieson noted to ETF Stream that 'there are clients who specifically want the Citi name behind the business. In many cases, these are long-standing Citi clients with existing relationships across the firm.' Unlike Citi, HANetf provides distribution support to its prospective issuers. HANetf co-founders and co-CEOs Hector McNeil and Nik Bienkowski said: 'We've always believed that ETF white-labelling would become a core part of the asset management and servicing ecosystem as it has done so before within the broader funds industry. We're proud to add Citi to our cap table.' Last month, Carlyle announced partnership with Citi to explore asset-backed financing in the fintech specialty lending sector, sharing market insights and evaluating co-investment opportunities. "Citi invests in HANetf to bolster ETF white-label services" was originally created and published by Private Banker International, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Apex Unveils Satellite Bus Comet: Delivering Breakthrough Power and Economic Efficiency for Large-Scale Constellations
Comet, Apex's newest fully productized satellite bus, provides over 5 kilowatts of power to payloads in a unique flat pack configuration, enabling direct-to-device and unique sensing constellations. LOS ANGELES, May 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Apex, the world's first spacecraft manufacturer to offer productized, high-rate configurable satellite bus platforms, announced Comet, the largest satellite bus in its product line. Comet, with a unique flat design, meets the needs of commercial customers launching high-power LEO missions, including Direct-to-Device constellations, as well as government customers requiring large aperture payloads. Comet delivers more than 5 kilowatts of continuous power to payloads while its compact design allows it to stack flat in a launch vehicle's 5-meter fairing. This form factor allows more satellites to fit on a single rocket launch, reducing costs. Engineered specifically to meet rigorous technical requirements at an economically viable price point, Comet optimizes capital expenditure for organizations deploying satellite networks at scale. Comet is specially designed to support advanced antenna systems that enable large networks of satellites, serving both commercial and national security needs. "Apex developed Comet to enable a variety of commercial capabilities and defense missions," said Ian Cinnamon, CEO of Apex. "From cell phone towers in space for consumer technology, unique sensing missions, or as an interceptor platform for Golden Dome, Comet is the clear choice to accelerate the most ambitious space missions." Apex's differentiated approach to satellite bus productization has created a strong underlying foundation for the business. The introduction of Comet bolsters the company's growing product line, including Aries, which celebrated one year on-orbit in March 2025. Apex also announced Nova in 2024, an ESPA-Grande satellite bus platform built to support 300kg of payload for mixed-use constellation customers. As the sole producer of truly productized satellite buses, Apex is committed to helping customers get to space faster and will continue to scale production to achieve that goal. Earlier this year, Apex also announced a $200 million financing round led by Point72 Ventures and 8VC to increase production to meet customer demand. Media Contact: Claude Chafin, Invariant chafin@ About ApexApex is the leading manufacturer of high-rate configurable satellite bus platforms designed to meet the demands of the rapidly expanding space industrial base. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Apex manufactures scalable spacecraft solutions for both commercial and government customers. For more information, visit View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Apex Space Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Cheehoo Raises $10 Million To Build AI Tools For 3D Animation
Los Angeles-based startup Cheehoo has raised $10 million to build what it describes as a "creative engine" for animation and interactive storytelling, putting advanced AI-enhanced workflows into the hands of artists, animators, and IP owners. The company was incubated at production company Rideback ("The LEGO Movie," "Avatar: The Last Airbender"). The round was led by Point72 Ventures with participation by Greycroft, Basis Set, Headline Asia, and others. Cheehoo's founding leadership team blends Hollywood and Silicon Valley experience, including former DreamWorks Animation President Chris deFaria, AI scientists from Apple and Stanford, and Rideback Co-CEOs Michael LoFaso and Jonathan Eirich. Rideback founder Dan Lin is also a co-founder. The company's early focus is on professional studios, IP holders, and select artists participating in a closed pilot program. Cheehoo is building a modular platform designed to reduce the time, friction, and cost associated with animated content production. LoFaso, who remains co-CEO of Rideback while helping lead Cheehoo, described it as a flexible and nimble animation pipeline that maintains compatibility with industry-standard tools like Maya and Unreal Engine, while incorporating AI to accelerate processes that typically bog down production. "Our sole focus is empowering artists," LoFaso told me in an interview. "We're trying to give them better tools — to eliminate the friction points that slow down iteration and prevent them from spending more time on the creative aspects of their work." Rather than scraping the internet for training data — a controversial tactic among some AI firms — Cheehoo generates its own proprietary 3D assets in-house and allows clients to retain ownership of anything they contribute. The system applies metadata to models and animation files, making it easier to search, repurpose, and build upon assets across projects. Over time, as studios and creators produce more with the platform, they generate a growing "data flywheel" that fuels further automation. Cheehoo's system can train mini-models on specific characters or projects using relatively small datasets compared to the massive corpuses typically needed to train pixel-based video generators. By focusing on 3D asset-based workflows, rather than pure video synthesis, the platform offers greater control and fidelity — a critical requirement for professional animation. The company is initially targeting enterprises but has a long-term vision of opening the platform to smaller studios, prosumers, and eventually, user-generated content creators. In LoFaso's view, the biggest immediate opportunity isn't replacing traditional studios but helping creators meet the ever-increasing demand for frequent, serialized content across platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and streaming services. "Studios spend years and tens of millions to produce one major animated feature," LoFaso said. "But building a franchise today increasingly requires consistent, high-quality output — in addition to the big tentpole events." Cheehoo plans to announce its first creative partners and project slate later this year.
