AppTech Payments Corp., a pioneering Fintech company powering frictionless commerce between business to business and business to consumer, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement for the purchase of Alliance Partners, LLC, the owners of FinZeo, a software development company centered around the movement of money, nationally and globally. This transaction aligns with AppTech’s recent initiatives, reinforcing the company’s commitment to developing innovative technologies, driving global expansion through strategic partners, and exploring M&A opportunities to create revenue synergies and expand product offerings.

FinZeo was founded in 2018 and is dedicated to delivering innovative payment and banking technology solutions for businesses of all sizes. By integrating the FinZeo platform, AppTech believes it can augment its technology offerings, furnishing users with cutting-edge tools accessible via online portals or through an API.

FinZeo’s API enables AppTech to efficiently integrate with software providers and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), facilitating rapid technology implementation. The onboarding process for ISVs will be streamlined with the support of video tutorials, a dedicated customer center, and a sandbox API environment. With the assimilation of FinZeo, AppTech evolves into a Payment Facilitator (PayFac), propelling the company’s aggregation model.

"We believe that the integration of FinZeo will cement AppTech's status as a leader in specialty payments," commented Luke D’Angelo, AppTech’s Chairman & CEO. "We believe that FinZeo's product line enhances our Commerse™ platform, offering a comprehensive PaaS and BaaS solution. This move will not only amplify our product capabilities but also extend our market influence, especially concerning significant airport contracts throughout the United States.”

The management of AppTech believes that the closing of this strategic acquisition can help propel enhancements to AppTech’s Commerce platform, clearing the project roadmap and positioning the Company at the forefront of technological progress. FinZeo enables capabilities to now span all banking-as-a-service products, such as virtual accounts and cards, and encompass money transmitter licenses, thus complementing AppTech’s existing product suite.

One of AppTech’s new standout features is its digital onboarding and underwriting process, which accelerates the implementation of new fraud protection measures, fortifying the payment and banking sectors. This integration will empower AppTech with comprehensive control over funds and the approval procedure.

In addition to the integration of product, a pivotal aspect of this union will be the acquisition of FinZeo's vast resources, including a seasoned software technology team and a management and sales division boasting over 20 years of sales experience in payment processing.

"Additionally, with FinZeo's inclusion, we foresee an expedited global expansion, complemented by our strategic alliances with InstaCash and PayToMe. We're excited to have FinZeo's team of professionals join AppTech upon closing this transaction, and together, we aim to redefine the global payment ecosystem," Luke D’Angelo concluded.

This transaction is intended to be completed by October 31, 2023, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

Leading threat detection company charts international expansion strategy with key global partnerships

Xtract One Technologies, a leading technology-driven threat detection and security solution that prioritizes the patron screening experience by leveraging AI, today announces its next phase of growth with targeted and strategic international expansion.

Xtract One has successfully landed contracts with three significant multi-national companies, including a global entertainment organization, for deployment of SmartGateway at their venue. This three-year deal, totaling over US$5.1 million includes hardware, software, installation, and support components.

Using that initial customer deal as a launchpad into global markets, the Company has taken a strategic and intentional approach of partnering with key global customers and establishing agreements with resellers and install partners to support and help scale into these markets. These strategic partnerships have generated further interest from similar entertainment organizations, professional sports franchises, and other international organizations.

Over the past six months, Xtract One has established the necessary requirements for international expansion and is now expanding beyond its core North American market, effectively responding to international demand for its solutions. The focus has been on ensuring product fit and function to serve unique international requirements, completing certification activities, and establishing key channel partners to provide selling and support services.

“Over the past two years, we've been committed and focused on mitigating the pressing issue of weapon threats in North America, staying hyper-focused on serving our target market well, and establishing Xtract One as a well-recognized provider of weapons detection solutions. We have unique differentiators to other solutions in the market, specifically our ability to detect knives with a high degree of accuracy. This separates Xtract One, and the SmartGateway, as the key provider of solutions to the international markets where knives, not firearms, are the prevalent concern. Today, we're taking our innovative solutions to the global stage,” said Peter Evans, CEO of Xtract One. “The strategy has always been to grow effectively and thoughtfully. For geographical growth this means moving into international markets when significant ‘anchor’ accounts have been won, and we can build the business on top of those key customers. I am proud to say that we have established those wins with significant global customers who have deployed or are deploying our solutions today. Our strategic collaborations with these major multi-national businesses have been instrumental in navigating the intricacies of international regulations, certifications, and operations. These partnerships serve as a solid foundation for our pragmatic global expansion.”

Viant Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: DSP), the leading people-based advertising technology company, today announced it will be hosting Viant Innovation 2023, on October 26th at 1pm PT / 4pm ET. At Viant Innovation 2023, Viant’s Co-Founders Tim and Chris Vanderhook will provide a glimpse into the future of advertising technology and showcase the company’s latest advancements in adtech including AI, supply path optimization, and sustainability.

To join the virtual event, click HERE.

The accompanying presentation materials will be available in the News & Events section on the Company’s investor relations website at investors.viantinc.com immediately prior to the start of the presentation and a replay will be available on the investor relations website following the presentation for approximately 30 days.

NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal, powered by NetApp Keystone, lets organizations power business-critical workloads with a full stack solution as-a-service.

NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), a global cloud-led, data centric software company, today announced their new joint Bare-Metal-as-a-Service (BMaaS) solution, NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal. NetApp Storage integrated with Equinix Metal is delivered as an as-a-service model through NetApp Keystone®, which offers a real hybrid cloud experience—in a single subscription—so users can choose the storage capacity and performance they need without overprovisioning. Keystone® greatly reduces upfront costs with the flexibility to add more storage on demand as business needs dictate.

NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal provides customers with a full stack of compute, networking and storage infrastructure with low-latency interconnection to all major public clouds. This environment can be either single tenant or dedicated, and meets most stringent performance requirements, provides elasticity, and is packaged, priced, billed and supported under a single agreement.

“Today’s rapid pace of cloud innovation enables companies to move more workload types to the hybrid multi-cloud more easily and in greater numbers than ever before,” said Sandeep Singh, Senior Vice President and GM of Enterprise Storage at NetApp. “NetApp is a leader in delivering native cloud and first-party solutions on all three major public clouds that provide a unified hybrid multicloud experience for customers. NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal further illustrates the industry value of our partnership and our collective commitment to providing as-a-service, hybrid multicloud solutions with higher performance, scalability, and simplified management.”

Key benefits of NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal include:

• Integrated Solution: NetApp Storage is fully integrated with Equinix Metal's infrastructure, ensuring a cohesive full stack experience for storage (file, block, and object), compute, and networking as-a-Service under a single subscription.
• Cloud Adjacent: Customers can choose how they want to build their hybrid multicloud experience while maintaining control of their data in a low latency, high performance environment—on premises, in the cloud, or anywhere in between—on all three major public clouds.
• Higher performance for demanding workloads: When NetApp Storage is combined with Equinix Metal's high-performance dedicated bare metal servers, users unlock fast data access, minimal latency, and the ability to handle the most demanding workloads with ease.
• Scalable Capacity and Performance On-Demand: With NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal, customers can scale their storage resources as required to meet evolving business needs.
• Superior Data Security: NetApp Storage delivers industry-leading encryption, ransomware, and security features, and enables customers to receive industry-leading physical and environmental security in an Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX^®) data center to help ensure customer data remains protected. NetApp’s proactive ransomware detection capabilities can identify potential cybersecurity threats and automatically perform an additional immutable back up of data if a threat is suspected.
• Global Reach: Equinix's extensive global footprint lets users take advantage of NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal in Equinix IBX data centers across the world. As of June 2023, Equinix has a total of 250 IBX data centers globally in 71 metros with 26 Equinix Metal locations.
• Simplified Management: NetApp's unified control plane for storage and data services provides customers with comprehensive control and visibility over their data no matter where it resides. Equinix Metal's automated provisioning platform further simplifies deployment and management.

“The growth of cloud adoption, the acceleration of AI, and the desire to derive real-time insights from data puts significant pressure on customers to optimize data management to gain a competitive advantage,” said Brian Stein, Senior Vice President, Edge Infrastructure Services at Equinix. “Achieving our goal of an integrated, full stack, solution is another milestone that provides enterprise customers low latency access to all clouds while keeping control of their data. This cloud adjacency helps transform how companies deploy applications, design their own solutions, and generate new revenue streams while simplifying operations and containing costs.”

NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal is a strategic expansion of NetApp’s Cloud strategy, adding a true hybrid multicloud experience. NetApp can now deliver the entire stack in Equinix IBX data centers outfitted with Equinix Metal. The solution provides an optimized connection to most major public clouds through local, high-speed connectivity through on ramps. On Equinix’s global dedicated bare metal equipment, users have full access to NetApp cloud services such as Cloud Volumes ONTAP.

Leading customer engagement platform is now available in AWS Marketplace enabling simplified procurement and fast deployment on AWS

Braze (Nasdaq: BRZE), the comprehensive customer engagement platform that powers interactions between consumers and the brands they love, announced today that it’s now available in AWS Marketplace, a digital catalog with thousands of software listings from independent software vendors that make it easy to find, test, buy, and deploy software that runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The launch signals a deepening relationship between Braze and Alloys partner AWS, and makes it easier for Braze customers and prospects to enjoy the simplified procurement that AWS Marketplace offers.

Today’s consumers increasingly expect relevant, timely, and personalized brand experiences across channels. To meet this growing demand, it's essential that brands have easy access to a powerful customer engagement platform to seamlessly create multi-channel experiences that exceed customer expectations, building strong loyalty and retention that drive business outcomes. In fact, brands that leverage cross-channel customer engagement strategies across in-product messaging, like in-app/browser messaging, and out-of-product messaging, like email or push, can boost 90-day retention rates by 55% and help brands achieve an average 3.2X uplift in purchases per user.

Braze believes a brand's most valuable asset is its customer relationships. Leading companies use Braze to power customer-centric interactions in a meaningful and valuable way. The Braze platform empowers brands to listen to their customers better, understand them more deeply and act on that understanding in a way that is human and personal. Using Braze, brands ingest and process customer data in real time, orchestrate and optimize contextually relevant, cross-channel marketing campaigns, and continuously evolve their customer engagement strategies.

“Together with AWS, we continue to help companies power compelling and innovative customer engagement strategies and experiences at scale to seamlessly deliver loyalty, advocacy, and ongoing business value,” said Matt McRoberts, SVP of Global Alliances of Braze. “This expanded availability of Braze will allow our shared customers to better leverage AWS cloud investments and the convenience of AWS Marketplace.”

Find Braze in AWS Marketplace here. Learn more about Braze’s relationship with AWS here.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements regarding the expected benefits resulting from availability of Braze in AWS Marketplace and the anticipated performance and benefits from the Braze product platform. These forward-looking statements are based on the current assumptions, expectations and beliefs of Braze, and are subject to substantial risks, uncertainties and changes in circumstances that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Further information on potential factors that could affect Braze results are included in Braze’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended July 31, 2023, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on September 8, 2023 and the other public filings of Braze with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the views of Braze only as of the date of this press release, and Braze assumes no obligation, and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

Combines the power of Andi’s proprietary knowledge model and Skills Builder framework with new Generative AI capabilities to help bankers be more efficient and effective

Q2 Holdings, Inc., a leading provider of digital transformation solutions for banking and lending, today announced the launch of the Andi^® copilot platform, an artificial intelligence (AI) solution suite purpose-built for bankers, enhanced with Generative AI (GenAI) language model capabilities. The Andi copilot platform also combines GenAI with Q2’s proprietary Skills Builder framework, which enables financial institutions to teach the AI platform to execute custom coaching, insights, and workflows to meet their organization’s unique needs.

The Andi copilot platform is an evolution of Q2’s proven language model-based AI assistant for commercial relationship managers, which has been in production through Q2’s PrecisionLender solution and is used by some of the largest banks in the world. Andi, introduced in 2017 as the first AI copilot designed to provide in-the-moment, contextual coaching to bankers and client relationship managers, provides a proven proprietary knowledge model based on seven years of loan pricing customer interaction data from more than 150 banks and 29,000 bankers and approximately $1.6 trillion in active loan balances.

Key benefits of the Andi copilot platform:

• Enables bankers to be more efficient and effective - By automating time-consuming tasks and providing applicable, in-the-moment coaching on key banking decisions, Andi empowers bankers and staff to be more productive and work more effectively to focus on what is essential, such as serving clients and prospects. Over time, this will extend to data-driven, next-best-action experiences programmable by the client using the Andi Skills Builder framework.
• Bank-ready and bank-tested knowledge model - Unlike general GenAI or GPT tools, Andi understands the unique requirements of the banking industry, policy and workflows (a knowledge model), which is essential for financial institutions. In addition, Andi can easily be trained with new skills, or for specific financial institutions’ policies and procedures, through the Andi Skills Builder tool.
• Powered by Q2’s proprietary data extraction and classification technology - Enables Andi to read and ingest a wide range of forms and data inputs, such as handwritten loan applications – a critical capability to support bankers.
• Secure and compliant - Andi meets the world's largest banks' high security and compliance standards. All data is non-attributable and de-identified, and encrypted with TLS (Transport Layer Security) 1.2+ and 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) protocols.

“AI and new language models have the potential to transform banking, but they must be connected to a knowledge model that has a robust set of data, specifications, and instructions that trains the technology on how to operate within a specific industry,” said Q2 President Kirk Coleman. “Andi’s proprietary knowledge model provides a deep, data-driven understanding of bank policies, procedures, and workflows while understanding regulatory and compliance requirements.”

“Over 60 percent of surveyed financial institutions report that they expect to deploy generative AI capabilities within the next two years,” said Gilles Ubaghs, Datos Insights strategic advisor for Commercial Banking & Payments. “That number is likely to rise incredibly quickly as banks and credit unions understand how AI can better help them across their organizations. Back office and relationship management roles are a critical starting point here for empowering staff to operate more effectively and rapidly benefiting from this transformative technology.”

“Andi was the first copilot purpose-built for financial institutions, pre-dating the arrival of the GenAI-powered copilots by nearly a decade,” said Corey Gross, head of Q2's AI Center of Excellence. “Since then, Andi has empowered bankers to be more productive and effective. The secret behind Andi's success is its unique understanding of how banking works, cultivated from millions of interactions with commercial bankers so that we can deliver the right advice to the right relationship manager at exactly the right time. GenAI makes interacting with Andi a more human, more engaging experience, but without a knowledge model like Andi's to do the heavy lifting, GPT solutions will fall short of providing meaningful value to financial institutions.”

The next generation of Andi is scheduled to go into limited production at the end of Q1 2024. Q2 aims to unlock powerful new use cases that will address the highest-value areas where bankers need copilot help. By integrating new GenAI capabilities into the Andi copilot platform, Q2 will make Andi easier to interact with, empowering it to understand and do more for bankers. The Andi copilot platform represents an expansion of Andi from a single copilot embedded in PrecisionLender, to a platform developing AI copilot solutions across Q2’s product portfolio, supporting bankers across their entire application stack.

Queclink, a global leader in IoT devices and solutions, attended the IoT Tech Expo 2023 in Amsterdam and demonstrated its expertise in IoT connectivity. With its innovative industrial routers and AI-powered dashcam (AI-powered dashcam) capturing the attention of attendees from a variety of industries, Queclink confirms its place at the forefront of the IoT revolution.

New to the IoT Tech Expo, a global IoT event for professionals looking to stay ahead of this rapidly evolving sector, Queclink attended the show for the first time this year, most importantly showcasing its ability to revolutionize operations , promoting connectivity and ultimately creating a smarter future for businesses of all kinds.

The company showcased a range of industrial routers designed to meet the evolving connectivity needs of businesses in industrial environments. The robust, high-performance routers are reliable, stable and compatible with multiple protocols including Modbus, MQTT, HTTP, etc., enabling adaptability and remote management in all types of applications.

Another standout feature at Queclink's stand was the video telematics solution, the AI-driven dashcam. By combining advanced AI algorithms with real-time monitoring capabilities supported by LTE Cat 6 cellular technology, the camera can significantly improve vehicle safety, which has been met with acclaim. Fleet operators were particularly intrigued by the dashcam's ability to detect driver fatigue, detect dangerous road conditions and reduce accidents.

At the event, Queclink also showed an e-bike model in collaboration with its partner company NINEBOT. The e-bike, integrated into Queclink's latest e-mobility product SC350MG, enables intelligent management as it communicates directly with the controller and the battery management system (BMS) via CAN or UART connection.

The company welcomed large partners and customers as well as small and medium-sized businesses to its booth, indicating the increasing use and adoption of IoT on a larger scale. As the IoT market develops and expands, connectivity is evolving from a typical consideration for fleets, rental services and manufacturers to a common theme for businesses of all sizes, including poultry butchers, drone fleets and more.

In addition to showcasing its exceptional products, Queclink had the opportunity to network and collaborate with top-notch experts in edge computing, AI and data management. By collaborating with industry leaders in these areas, Queclink ensures that its IoT solutions are always at the cutting edge of innovation. The company's commitment to collaboration and knowledge sharing positions it as a trusted partner in the IoT ecosystem.

As Queclink looks to the future, its commitment to connecting with industry experts and the latest opportunities and trends remains unwavering. This commitment ensures that its solutions continue to be at the forefront of IoT hardware design and manufacturing, enabling the industry to thrive in the era of connected devices and digital transformation.