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Could MySize’s Brand New Apparel Sizing Tech Be Ideally Timed, With A Boom In Fashion E-Commerce?

MySize, Inc.

While there may seem to be some indications that e-commerce growth is slowing amid the current inflation wave, however, equally strong signals suggest it may not be enough to stop U.S. retail e-commerce sales from surpassing a projected growth target of $1 trillion in 2022. Even amid the economic downturn, one sector — fashion and apparel — could fuel the e-commerce industry’s growth. A trend report by BigCommerce Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: BIGC) revealed that the fashion and apparel sector has been an e-commerce powerhouse this year, outpacing overall e-commerce sales in North America. BigCommerce is not the only platform projecting growth for the industry. Statista also indicates that the e-commerce fashion industry’s compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is expected to reach 14.2% between 2017 and 2025, with the industry hitting a $672.71 billion valuation by 2023. Sales of apparel, footwear and accessories catapulted in 2021, hitting $180.5 billion in the U.S. alone. The sector is expected to grow by 13% this year, with consumers set to spend $204.9 billion on fashion items online. Eliminating A Challenge For Growth Even though there seem to be great prospects for the industry, growth can be hampered if people still face frustrations in buying online — imagine receiving items, like garments, that don’t fit? Receiving an ill-fitting garment can be frustrating and can leave the customer unsatisfied. Correct sizing is key to growth, building consumer confidence in the purchase and reducing costly returns. MySize Inc. (NASDAQ: MYSZ) says its MySizeID product is the solution. But the company, an omnichannel e-commerce platform and provider of an artificial intelligence (AI) measurement solution that drives revenue growth and reduces costs for its clients, also reports pioneering a different technology that could change the hybrid shopping experience. MySize’s FirstLook Smart Mirror could be one of the first solutions for challenges with hybrid shopping — an emerging trend that combines online and in-store shopping. The company says the product is an interactive, mirrorlike touch display that offers: Personalized fit and product recommendations 3D try-it-on interactive avatar experience Speed shopping and self-checkout Integration with any third-party point-of-sales (POS) system High Valuations And Revenues MySize believes its algorithm-based technology has broad applications — that could match if not beat product offerings from competitors. Just as LivePerson Inc. (NASDAQ: LPSN) hit a $4 billion valuation at 10 times revenue with a chat application that transformed e-commerce by increasing conversion rates and decreasing costs, sizing technology is gaining traction to do the same, the company says. As comparable companies are acquired by major players such as Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP), Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS), Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Zalando SE (ETR: ZAL) at attractive valuations, MySize notes it could also attract the same level of attention and be an acquisition target. Luckily, a recent report of record revenues in the first half of the year could support the premise that MySize has the right product and business in a high-growth segment. Retailers Taking Notice MySize’s technology has been adopted by top brands in fashion such as Levi Strauss & Co. (NYSE: LEVI), Nautica, Gant and Dockers, and it doesn’t look like the company is resting on its laurels. From all indications, MySize may only be getting started as more companies are adopting its technology, which could be ideally timed with growth in the fashion e-commerce boom. The company recently announced an agreement with 7 For All Mankind (Brazil), a premium global clothing brand, to license MySizeID, and it could be going live in the third quarter of this year. MySize also has an agreement with luxury British fashion brand Temperley London to license MySizeID. MiSize kicked off the year by acquiring Orgad, an omnichannel e-commerce platform. MySize hopes the acquisition and incorporation of MySizeID into Orgad’s e-commerce solution will increase its profit by reducing costly returns. MySize, Inc. (NASDAQ: MYSZ) (TASE: MYSZ.TA) is an omnichannel e-commerce platform and provider of AI-driven measurement solutions to drive revenue growth and reduce costs for its business clients. Orgad, its online retailer platform, has expertise in e-commerce, supply chain, and technology operating as a third-party seller on Amazon.com and other sites. MySize recently launched FirstLook Smart Mirror, a mirror-like touch display that provides in-store customers an enhanced shopping experience and contactless checkout. FirstLook Smart Mirror extends MySize's reach into physical stores and is expected to contribute to revenues through unit sales and recurring service fees.MySize has developed a unique measurement technology based on sophisticated algorithms and cutting-edge technology with broad applications, including the apparel, e-commerce, DIY, shipping, and parcel delivery industries. This proprietary measurement technology is driven by several algorithms that are able to calculate and record measurements in a variety of novel ways. To learn more about MySize, please visit our website: www.mysizeid.com. This post contains sponsored advertising content. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice. Contact Details Or Kles, CFO ir@mysizeid.com Company Website https://mysizeid.com

October 27, 2022 09:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Discover $SOPA In The Philippines 🏝 Interview With Philippines' General Manager, Arbie Pagdanganan

Society Pass Incorporated

Contact Details Dennis Nguyen: Founder, Chairman & CEO +1 877-440-9464 dennis@thesocietypass.com Company Website https://thesocietypass.com

October 27, 2022 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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AI For All: How One Company Is Helping Small Businesses Improve Profitability Through AI

FatBrAin

Whether the economy is in a period of rapid growth or a major downturn, it’s often the topic of conversations and media attention alike. And while the stock market and big-name corporations often dominate headlines and news cycles around the state of the economy, many may be surprised to learn that it is small to medium-sized enterprises, also known as SMEs, that act as the true driving engine behind most economies globally. According to The World Bank, SMEs comprise a whopping 90% of businesses around the world and, on average, represent approximately half of employment. SMEs carry the bulk of the U.S.’s gross domestic product (GDP) output and generate millions of jobs. A report by the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy notes that SMEs account for 44% of U.S. economic activity. Another report by the World Bank shows that SMEs are responsible for around 50% of worldwide employment as well as 40% of emerging markets. These metrics show that SMEs are foundational components of the U.S. economy, and their growth is key for the health of the economy. The World Bank estimates 600 million jobs will be needed to absorb the growing workforce by 2030, opening new opportunities for SMEs to improve their operational efficiencies and deepen their integration into their respective value chains. The good news: Technologies that could improve the efficiency, effectiveness and thus the profitability of SMEs already exist. At the top of this list of technologies is one many are already familiar with: artificial intelligence (AI). The Role Of Artificial Intelligence In SME Growth The human relationship to AI has been around for decades. With impressions ranging from the post-apocalyptic (think “The Matrix”) to the utopic (think automatic cancer diagnosis), the world has pondered the influence that machine intelligence could have on life and business. Many of these ideas are no longer merely products of wishful imagination. As professor Melanie Mitchell of Portland State University puts it, “Today’s AI programs… can spot subtle financial fraud, find relevant web pages in response to ambiguous queries, map the best driving route to almost any destination, beat human grandmasters at chess and Go, and translate between hundreds of languages.” This cognitive power has also been leveraged to produce results in financial settings. AI has been lauded for its ability to cut costs, automate tasks and create solutions. A report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) illuminates the benefits of AI with great clarity and places a spotlight on its efficacy with SMEs. Per this report, “By identifying patterns in datasets and learning from tacit knowledge, new AI systems make automating nonroutine tasks possible and frees workers from repetitive lower value-added tasks,” the report states. “These new waves of automation could help SMEs increase productivity, e.g. by refocusing activities on higher value-added functions, by reducing human and economic costs associated with accidents or injuries, or improving work environment. The implementation of such systems could also help small businesses overcome administrative bottlenecks and increase reactivity at lower costs, for instance by enabling customer interaction 24/7.” Automation is coming to simple apps that can be downloaded from on-line app stores to do critical tasks like reconciling bank accounts. The problem: Capital and information barriers have kept AI largely in the realms of corporate giants like IBM (NYSE: IBM) and conveniently out of reach of those that most need them: SMEs. FatBrain: ‘Artificial Intelligence For All’ FatBrain AI (LZG International, Inc.) (OTCQB: LZGI ) aims to change that. As a specialist in AI solutions for SMEs and beyond, FatBrain has cultivated AI solutions that enable every organization to simplify decision-making and harness data to grow, save and do better business. Daily, weekly, monthly SME problem cycles could involve the spectrum from “How can I get paid faster?”, “How should I pay my workers?”, “How can I get insured quickly?” to “When should I invest in capital?” FatBrain lowers the barriers to adopting data-driven AI solutions to address such questions. FatBrain believes such problems facing SMEs today have been troubling business owners for decades. These problems have long been difficult to derive solutions for because they involve too much data, have too many variables, and require too much time to efficiently address. FatBrain offers a comprehensive suite of solutions. It works by plugging into existing software-as-a-service (SaaS) products — like QuickBooks (NASDAQ: INTU) Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP), and Hubspot (NYSE: HUBS) — and aligns data there with millions of diverse market data signals. Then, the collected data is passed through FatBrain’s AI 2.0 Peer Intelligence engine which, alongside FatBrain expert coaches, turns masses of disparate data into peer-intelligence and actionable insights. According to Chief Operating Officer Shawn Carey, FatBrain has worked with some of the biggest names in the business to help solve problems, including Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA), IBM (NYSE:IBM), Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (KRX: 005930) and Pilgrim’s Pride (NASDAQ: PPC). Now, it wants to level the playing field by bringing AI to the driving engine of the U.S. economy: SMEs. FatBrain has a growing suite of plug-n-play solutions for SMEs that provide peer intelligence and actionable insights using FatBrain’s AI 2.0 technologies that are not available elsewhere in the market today. Stay tuned to Benzinga to learn more about how FatBrain and its solutions suite is revolutionizing AI for all. FatBrain AI (LZG International, Inc.; OTC: LZGI) is the first and leading provider of powerful and easy-to-use AI solutions to millions of businesses of tomorrow driving the majority of the global economy, empowering them to grow, innovate faster and savemoney. FatBrain’s innovative solutions transform continuous learning, narrative reasoning, cloud, blockchain and Web3 technologies into auditable, explainable and easy to integrate products. FatBrain’ssubscription model allows all companies to deploy its advanced AI solutions quickly and easily, securely utilizing them on premises behind their firewalls or via cloud. The AI 2.0 pioneered by our teams is like WAZE for business growth, using advanced peerdynamics technology to automatically learn patterns from individual and peer behavior. This allows us to deliver coached, personalized AI solutions at hyperscale. FatBrain unifies insights from SaaS applications, turbo-charged by peer and market dynamics: 1) Realize attainable goals from explainable peer performance. 2)Turbo-charge human expertise with superhuman AI insights. 3) Accelerate growth through the contributory network effects. 4) Simplify harnessing data across common apps and market signals. This post contains sponsored advertising content. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice. Contact Details Shawn Carey ir@fatbrain.ai Company Website https://fatbrain.ai/

October 27, 2022 08:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Comcast Business Enhances Fiction Tribe’s Cybersecurity with SecurityEdge™ Solution

Comcast Oregon / SW Washington

Comcast Business today announced that it is supplying Portland-based creative agency, Fiction Tribe, with Comcast Business SecurityEdge ™, Business Internet and 4G LTE Connection Pro Services, enabling the business to better safeguard its data and keep its employees connected while using a hybrid work model. Fiction Tribe is an independent digital creative agency with 25 employees and 10 contractors. Unlike typical creative agencies, Fiction Tribe uses machine intelligence technology to analyze seemingly disconnected data points and identify real-time insights and recommendations to its clients. This technology, combined with Fiction Tribe’s digital and creative acumen, offers its clients unmatched deployment times, targeted messaging and actionable analytics. Because of this operational reliance on technology and data, Fiction Tribe counts on its internet and cybersecurity solutions from Comcast Business to help protect client data whenever needed, no matter where employees are working from. “With employees across the globe from Portland to Portugal, which is now standard, we need to spend time growing the business instead of worrying about online threats,” said James Rice, CEO of Fiction Tribe. “As a small business without an IT department, we rely on Comcast Business. With SecurityEdge, we can help protect employee, guests’ and contractors’ devices on the network.” A few years ago, cybersecurity solutions were less attainable for small businesses due to high costs and fixed solution designs. With SecurityEdge™, businesses have access to an advanced network solution. It works to help block threats like malware, ransomware, phishing and botnet attacks across all connected devices on a business’ network while simultaneously preventing guests and employees from accessing suspicious websites. Fiction Tribe’s finds this feature an especially important cybersecurity measure to have when working with contractors and remote workers. “I look forward to viewing the SecurityEdge Activity Summary Report. It tells me all about our network threats, including phishing, malware, and botnets,” Rice explained. “We are comforted that it helps protect our employees’ and customers’ devices.” Paired with Comcast Business’ Internet, SecurityEdge™ seamlessly runs in the background, helping to protect the network’s data, and will do so even if a small business does not have a dedicated IT department. "We want businesses to be empowered to grow. We know there is risk in that, and we want to help businesses have peace of mind," said Alan Goldsmith, vice president of Comcast Business’ Oregon/SW Washington. "As the distributed workforce continues to expand and push the boundaries of digital collaboration, network support solutions will increasingly help define a business' success. That's why Comcast Business is proud to play a role in supporting Fiction Tribe's security solutions and connectivity operations." About Comcast Business: Comcast Business offers a suite of Connectivity, Communications, Networking, Cybersecurity, Wireless, and Managed Solutions to help organizations of different sizes prepare for what’s next. Powered by the nation’s largest Gig-speed broadband network, and backed by 24/7 customer support, Comcast Business is the nation’s largest cable provider to small and mid-size businesses and one of the leading service providers to the Enterprise market. Comcast Business has been consistently recognized by industry analysts and associations as a leader and innovator, and one of the fastest growing providers of Ethernet services. For more information, call 866-429-3085. Follow on Twitter @ComcastBusiness and on other social media networks at http://business.comcast.com/social. Contact Details Comcast Business Amy Keiter +1 503-407-9109 amy_keiter@comcast.com Company Website https://business.comcast.com/

October 26, 2022 07:01 AM Pacific Daylight Time

Does $BKYI Hold The Key To Identity Protection? 🗝 Interview With Michael DePasquale, Chairman & CEO

BIO-key International, Inc.

Contact Details Catalyst IR- William Jones, David Collins +1 212-924-9800 BKYI@catalyst-ir.com Company Website https://www.bio-key.com/

October 26, 2022 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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WATI raises $23M series B funding round, powering WhatsApp for businesses

WATI

Over 2 billion people around the world use WhatsApp to communicate everyday things and it’s little wonder that businesses are taking to the messaging platform to support their customers where they feel most comfortable. Helping them supercharge this approach, customer and sales engagement tool WATI (which stands for ‘WhatsApp Team Inbox’) is today announcing a $23M series B funding round to scale the team and product and reach more businesses globally. The funding round was led by Tiger Global with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital India & Southeast Asia, as well as new investors DST Global Partners and Shopify. This marks Shopify’s first venture investment in a startup operating in the Southeast Asia region. This series B comes hot on the heels of a $8.3M series A round 10 months ago; in total, WATI has raised over $35M since 2020. WATI enables companies to have scalable, yet personalised, conversations with an easy-to-use customer engagement software that is built on WhatsApp’s Business API. WATI’s vision is to help businesses meet their customers where they are – on messaging platforms – so they are always accessible, personalised, and can engage in real time. Through the WATI platform, SMBs can send personalised notifications from their system in a programmatic way through WATI’s API. They can also support their customers through a collaborative team inbox with multiple agents, smart routing, canned responses, data tagging, and analytics. Many of these interactions can be automated through low-code workflow builders and chatbots. Bianca Ho, Co-Founder at WATI, commented: “It’s been an exciting 2022 at WATI culminating with this new funding round. We doubled down on our product with more automations, making it a seamless digital tool and must-have for any business. We went vertical in our approach and created integrations and partnerships with Zoho, Shopify, Google Sheets among others to really help scale growth and sharpen the product. The team has grown, revenue and customer numbers have doubled and now we look to scale the business, operations, teams around the world.” This year, WATI has grown its remote-first team by 50%, attracting leaders from Twitter and Freshworks. Revenues and customer growth have doubled in the past 12 months as users find ROI in both time saved and increased revenue from automated workflows connected to eCommerce platforms and CRMs. WATI has over 6000 customers across 78 countries including SMBs providing domestic house cleaning services to schools, tutorial centres, medical institutions and ecommerce, Shopify stores and many more. Ken Yeun g, co-founder at WATI, added: “The business messaging market has grown enormously. Meta estimates that around a billion people per week communicate with a business or service account across WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram. This insight is critical for what’s happening now and what’s coming ahead. About 40% of Meta’s advertisers globally - over 4 million businesses - use click-to-message ads, which redirect people from Facebook or Instagram into one of Meta’s messaging products to chat with a business. WATI is well placed to service this demand and beyond.” With additional funding, WATI will continually scale the team and invest in the product stack for low-code automation encouraging wider adoption of digital tools. WATI plans aggressive go-to-market plans in emerging markets, such as Latin America and Southeast Asia. Founders Bianca Ho and Ken Yeung started working together in 2016 with Clare.AI creating omni-channel AI digital assistants for large Asia enterprises. In 2020, they launched WATI to help SMB with a self-service, low code product on the WhatsApp Business API. Bianca has worked at Zendesk. Ken was a lead application developer for SaxoTraderGO, a cloud based trading platform that offered clients access to 37 stock exchanges. About WATI Founded in 2020 in Hong Kong, WATI helps companies have personalised conversations with customers at scale with an easy-to-use customer engagement software that’s built on WhatApp’s Business API. For further information visit: https://www.wati.io/ About Tiger Global Management Tiger Global Management, LLC is an investment firm focused on private and public companies in the internet, software, and financial technology sectors. Since 2001, Tiger Global has invested in hundreds of companies across more than 30 countries, including investments ranging from Series A to post-IPO. The firm aims to partner with dynamic entrepreneurs operating market-leading companies in its core focus areas. Tiger Global's investments have included JD.com, UiPath, Stripe, Databricks, Bytedance, Snowflake, Facebook, Alibaba, Procore, Chime, Blend, Peloton, Attentive, LinkedIn, Flipkart, and Toast. Contact Details WATI Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com Company Website https://www.wati.io/

October 26, 2022 07:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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NMTC Coalition Urges White House and Congressional Leadership to Make the NMTC Permanent

New Markets Tax Credit Coalition

Today, the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Coalition, a national membership organization of Community Development Entities (CDEs) and investors organized to advocate on behalf of the NMTC, released a letter signed by 700 community development stakeholders to President Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy in support of enactment of a permananent extension to NMTC in end of the year tax legislation. Signatories on the letter include 344 community development organizations, including 10 native-affiliated organizations; 74 housing organizations, including 41 Habitat for Humanity affiliates; 109 nonprofits, shelters, schools, healthcare facilities, and community service providers; and 134 businesses and community development-focused investors. The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the ten-year cost of a permanent extension of NMTC provisions at only $1.38 billion over ten years, while those funds will leverage an estimated $85 billion investment in economically distressed rural, urban, and tribal communities. These communities will benefit from improved services, increased private sector investment, and 700,000 new jobs at a federal cost of under $4,000 per job. “We strongly support making the NMTC permanent,” said Aisha Benson, President of the NMTC Coalition and President and CEO of Nonprofit Finance Fund. Recently, opinion pieces in support of making the NMTC permanent have appeared in publications in Little Rock and Cleveland. During this Congress, both the Senate and House introduced bills (S. 456 and H.R. 1321) with bipartisan support to make the NMTC extension permanent. Establishing permanence will provide certainty in delivering resources to low-income and marginalized communities, creating jobs, increasing economic opportunity, and improving lives at a time when underserved communities face significant challenges. Throughout its 20-year history, the NMTC has delivered more than $120 billion to rural and urban communities outside the economic mainstream, which has led to financing to more than 6,000 businesses and projects and over one million jobs. Establishing the NMTC as a permanent part of the tax code will provide certainty and further promote the in getting patient, flexible capital to low-income and marginalized communities, creating jobs, increasing economic opportunity, and improving lives at a time when the economic frailty of our underserved communities has never been more apparent. Established in 2000 in the Community Renewal Tax Relief Act (P.L.106-554), the New Markets Tax Credit is a bipartisan effort to stimulate investment and economic growth in low-income urban neighborhoods and rural communities. Since then, the New Markets Tax Credit has financed more than 6,500 projects and created over one million jobs in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. “Following devastating impacts from COVID-19, the New Markets Tax Credit is absolutely vital for many of America’s urban neighborhoods and rural communities and will provide billions of dollars for high-impact, community revitalization projects,” said Bob Rapoza, spokesperson for the NMTC Coalition. “Over the years, the credit has been instrumental in financing plant and equipment for small manufacturing businesses and patient, flexible capital to other small businesses, hospitals, healthcare centers, homeless shelters and other transformative projects that improve communities, create jobs and economic opportunity. A permanent extension of NMTC will provide more certainty to private sector investors, which will result in better pricing and more subsidy to hard-to-finance, essential projects.” For examples of how the NMTC is making an impact in each state, see the NMTC Coalition’s newly released report, NMTC at Work in Communities Across America, featuring updated state statistics sheets on NMTC efficacy and more than 80 Tax Credit success stories. About New Markets Tax Credit Program The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) was enacted in 2000 in an effort to stimulate private investment and economic growth in low-income urban neighborhoods and rural communities that lack access to the patient capital needed to support and grow businesses, create jobs, and sustain healthy local economies. Since its inception, the NMTC has generated more than one million jobs. Today, due to the NMTC, nearly $120 billion is hard at work in underserved communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. For more information, visit www.NMTCCoalition.org. Contact Details Bob Rapoza +1 202-498-9921 bob@rapoza.org Company Website https://nmtccoalition.org/

October 24, 2022 11:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time

VideoXRM Gets Your B2B Video Found

VideoXRM

VideoXRM, a B2B content distribution and discovery platform, launched its beta site today with a commercial launch slated for January 2023. VideoXRM merges the superior communications power of rich media with granular searchability to bring global exposure to video and rich media assets. VideoXRM is the launch brand and new corporate name for this cloud-hosted platform developed over two and a half years as Issuer Pixel. VideoXRM is a scalable media discovery platform leveraging proprietary indexing structures, industry taxonomies and search engine technology that lets content providers upload and individually index their rich media assets to be easily found. Industry Problem – B2B video is hard to find with precise results, which limits its value and potential. It’s either siloed on millions of corporate websites or buried on consumer video portals. Irrelevant results from conventional text searches create frustration rather than solutions. 59% of executives prefer video to reading text. 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool. 82% of consumer internet traffic will be video by 2022 Global corporate video investments exceed $20K per company, per year - but these assets are hard to locate. Solution – VideoXRM’s patent-pending technology uses highly sophisticated indexing and search technology to make unstructured video content easily discoverable with precision. This new ecosystem delivers huge value to searchers and content providers as businesses increasingly tap the power of video and rich media to differentiate their value and to reach new audiences. The platform is ideal for company-to-company and company-to-customer engagement, news media, researchers, supply chain and procurement managers, M&A sourcing, partnering and benchmarking. VideoXRM has the “Last Mover” advantage in the video and audio sharing industry, bringing structure, searchability, distribution and intelligence to rich media investments. About VideoXRM ( VideoXRM.com ) VideoXRM is a global, searchable video and audio sharing and networking platform connecting corporate rich media content with all potential stakeholders. The platform and smart search technology creates value and knowledge from mountains of unstructured digital media, delivering greater ROI from content investments. VideoXRM’s mission is harnessing the enhanced communicative power of rich media through a new distribution and discovery paradigm. VideoXRM was Co-founded by David N. Baker, who formed Revere Data LLC (Sectorbase) which was acquired by FactSet Data Systems, Inc. His Co-founders are Vadim A. Tarasov, Byron Kwok and David Guzy. Contact Details Catalyst IR David Collins +1 212-924-9800 VideoXRM@Catalyst-IR.com Company Website https://videoxrm.com

October 20, 2022 02:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time

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Skuad secures Series A funding to drive global expansion in helping companies hire, manage and pay talent globally

Skuad

Numerous large companies around the world have started to adopt globally distributed and hybrid team structures as part of business growth and expansion plans. However, they are struggling to remain compliant with local employment regulations, process cross-border payroll and find high-quality talent as they hire beyond borders. Skuad, a Singapore-based company that enables global hiring and payroll, announced today that it has raised US$ 15 Mn in Series A funding to help companies like these overcome challenges around building global teams. The funding round was led by a Southeast Asian venture capital fund alongside a U.S. strategic investor specializing in staffing and two leading global payments platforms. This round also saw participation from existing investors BEENEXT, Anthemis as well other prominent angel investors. This funding follows on from the US$4 Mn seed round in December 2020, taking the total capital raised to US$19 Mn. The brainchild of Sundeep Sahi, Skuad was founded in 2020 with the singular aim of simplifying the process of finding and managing the right talent while removing the limitations of boundaries. While the pandemic-induced lockdowns and the “work from home” situation enabled the rise of distributed working models and global teams, they also created a unique set of challenges for organizations that were used to a traditional “office” set-up. Skuad enables companies to build global, distributed teams by hiring the best talent beyond borders (without setting up a legal entity). Its array of services include onboarding, payroll, benefits, taxes and local compliance (at a fraction of the usual cost and time). “The way people work and companies hire has changed,” said Sundeep Sahi, Founder and CEO of Skuad. “ Our mission is to elevate lives by democratizing opportunities and talent globally. We started Skuad because we realized that talent was everywhere but opportunities were not. With the complexities of hiring in foreign markets and cross-border payments, companies were finding it hard to discover and hire the right talent and build global teams. On the other hand, talent did not have the right discovery platform for finding remote employment that invests and helps them grow in their career rather than working for transactional short term gigs. We want to change this status quo and actively work towards enabling 1 Mn workers to discover the best opportunities globally, work anywhere in the world & get paid anytime in their currency of choice”. To further its mission, Skuad is also finalizing its acquisition of Codejudge, a data-driven talent assessment platform that automates the tech interview process. On the Codejudge acquisition, Sundeep Sahi added: “Finding the right talent is only half the battle — being able to qualitatively assess, interview and hire this talent is fundamental to the success of talent acquisition and retention strategies. The acquisition of Codejudge will strengthen Skuad’s existing hiring and onboarding capabilities with an added layer of data-driven talent assessment functionalities. Skuad will leverage Codejudge’s robust code-simulation platform and code sandboxes to further enhance its product offerings and scale its acquisition capabilities.” Commenting on the funding, Dirk Van Quaquebeke, Managing Partner, Beenext, said, “Businesses are beginning to see the advantages of having teams not constrained by borders. This not only enables them to scale teams and enter new markets quickly, but also helps them find and hire the best talent without the need to relocate. As early investors in Skuad, we’ve seen the team bridge the gap between talent shortage and surplus markets. We are excited for this next phase of growth of the business — building global, distributed teams for thousands of customers.” In the last two years, Skuad has witnessed exceptional growth — with customers across 34 countries (>50% from North America and Europe), talent in 94 countries (>80% from emerging economies) and 3X growth in ARR since January 2022. Further, given Skuad’s affordable pricing plans — starting at US$199 per employee per month for payroll and US$499 per employee per month for talent discovered through the integrated platform — their clients range from emerging and early-stage startups to larger businesses. These companies have built their global teams on Skuad’s platform and are processing over US$120 Mn in payroll and payments worldwide in over 50 currencies. Skuad has also expanded its leadership team with experienced senior hires across all verticals (Product, Sales and Operations), resulting in brand visibility and big client wins in the US and EU in a short period of time. Remote and hybrid work trends have continued in the post-COVID world leading to a greater demand for digital knowledge workers, especially from the Asia-Pacific region. Evolving digital advancements across industries and sectors has led to the need for diverse and upgraded tech skills. This has resulted in the creation of new technology hubs in the Philippines, Malaysia, India and Indonesia. According to a McKinsey Global Institute article, Asia is expected to account for almost 40% of global consumption and generate more than 50% of world GDP by 2040. Skuad is built for this new world of work. Together with the funding capital and the Codejudge acquisition, the company plans to strengthen its tech features to scale across global hiring, payments and payroll. It will also continue to build growth functions to further penetrate prime markets and expand beyond current geographies. About Skuad Skuad is a fast-growing global employment and payroll platform, which enables large enterprises and emerging start-ups to employ and pay exceptional talent anywhere in the world, compliantly. Skuad is valued and trusted by leading global companies worldwide. Skuad’s digital employment infrastructure ensures companies can hire, onboard, and pay employees and contractors in 160+ countries, without setting up local entities, on a single unified dashboard. Our legal infrastructure manages all local compliances and provides a range of amazing country-specific benefits and insurance packages. Contact Details Skuad Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com Company Website https://www.skuad.io/

October 20, 2022 07:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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