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TRUST & WILL RELEASES FINDINGS FROM SECOND ANNUAL ESTATE PLANNING STUDY OF 20,000 MILLENNIALS

Trust & Will

Trust & Will, the leading digital estate planning platform in the U.S., today released the findings of its second annual millennial estate planning study, providing insight from more than 20,000 millennials on end-of-life planning preferences. As the U.S. enters into another year of living in a pandemic, estate planning continues to see an uptick as Millennials overtake Baby Boomers as the largest generation caring for young children and their aging parents, entering into what is known as the ‘Sandwich Generation.’ “Millennials are building their own families while also caring for their aging parents amid a global health crisis, prompting more caregivers to plan for the future,” said Cody Barbo, Founder and CEO of Trust & Will. “Even though millennials are taking the lead on writing wills and establishing trusts to set up their families’ financial health, the majority of American adults still do not have any plan in place. We hope that by making digital estate planning as accessible as possible, more families will create a plan for their unique needs and situations.” Key findings from this year’s report, “Millennial Estate Planning Continues in a Pandemic” include: 34% report that having a child prompted them to create an estate plan 22% are part of the Sandwich Generation, caring for both their children and their parents 77% of pet owners designated a specific pet guardian within their plan 57% only want to receive end-of-life care if benefits outweigh the burdens 81% elected to donate their organs According to the study, most millennials (75%) chose to complete a will-based estate plan, enabling them to appoint guardians for minor children, along with pets, and make decisions about healthcare wishes and final arrangements. Only 19% opted for a trust, which helps those with more complex estates manage and distribute assets during their lifetime and after death. The study explored the top reasons millennials create estate plans. Consistent with last year’s results, the birth of a child continues to be the leading reason, followed by the death of a family member (11%) and buying a home (9%). The pandemic and work-from-home policies spurred many families across the nation to add a pet to their families. More than half of the millennials in the cohort have a pet, with three-fourths of pet owners designating someone to act as a pet guardian. The data shows that it’s clear that millennials are flouting certain traditional family norms. The study indicated that Millennials are steering away from tradition to create modern, personalized legacies. On average, millennials now list seven people in their estate plans. Their closest circle might not necessarily include blood relatives. Nearly one in four of those surveyed said they chose a non-family member as a guardian for their kids or pets or to act as an executor, trustee, or beneficiary. The study also revealed trends in end-of-life planning. Nearly 40% of the cohorts completed their health documents, including a HIPAA Authorization form, and the majority (57%) elected to receive care only if benefits outweigh the burdens. In terms of end-of-life preferences, nearly half of the cohort (48%) chose to have their body cremated, with only one in four choosing a conventional burial. Eight percent wanted their body to be donated to science. These numbers suggest that millennials are moving away from traditional end-of-life arrangements. The millennial generation is passionate about causes that matter to them and donating to non-profit organizations. Like last year, the top charities for bequests included St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, Planned Parenthood, and Girl Scouts. This year, there was an increase in planned gifts to The Trevor Project, which provides crisis support for LGBTQ+ teens. For the full findings and to download a copy of the report, visit https://trustandwill.com/learn/millennial-estate-planning-study-2022. Methodology Trust & Will analyzed data from 22,850 individuals aged 25 to 44 in a proprietary study to explore specific insights and behaviors of the millennial generation when it comes to estate planning. Additionally, Trust & Will surveyed 323 individuals aged 25 to 44 to ask them about the process of creating their Estate Plans. Trust & Will plans to revisit this data each year to see how trends and behaviors among millennials continue to change over time. ABOUT TRUST & WILL Trust & Will is a modern approach to digital estate planning, offering legally valid documents designed and approved by estate planning attorneys to adhere to individual state guidelines. Since 2017, more than 300,000 Trust & Will members have created an online estate plan to set up their family legacy. We make estate planning simple, affordable, and accessible by providing a secure way to set up a plan online in minutes, using bank-level encryption that protects customer data and complies with the highest security standards, including SOC2. Trust & Will is the official estate planning benefit provider for AARP members and is a proud partner of several leading financial institutions, including Northwestern Mutual and Haven Life. To learn more, visit www.trustandwill.com. Contact Details Trust & Will Danielle Nuzzo +1 631-807-7772 danielle@trustandwill.com Company Website https://trustandwill.com

February 22, 2022 07:16 AM Eastern Standard Time

Bluepeak – an Innovative Fiber Internet Provider – Has Arrived to Push the Boundaries of Possibility for Communities

Bluepeak

Bluepeak, an innovative fiber internet provider known today as Vast Broadband in its South Dakota and Minnesota markets, announced its plan today to transition to its new brand name across all its markets this summer. The rebrand was the result of months of market research, gathering employee feedback and the new journey the company embarked upon since beginning expansion to new markets. More than a name change, the new Bluepeak brand represents: The foundation of the values, work and achievements of the Vast Broadband team. The path to growth the company has charted, including ongoing expansion into markets in Wyoming, Oklahoma, North Dakota and more. The Bluepeak vision which is to be relentlessly for customers and bring cutting edge technology to places that have lacked access to it without the things that get in the way of great service, like red tape, hidden fees, and long wait times. “Bluepeak is more than a name to us. It’s who we are and speaks to the impact we aim to have in our communities,” said Rich Fish, CEO of Bluepeak. “This is a great day for our teams and customers. Bluepeak’s purpose is to push the boundaries of possibility for communities by providing big-city broadband with small-town service and future-proof fiber internet for how customers live their lives.” Existing customers may notice a seamless transition – from the Vast Broadband brand currently operating in South Dakota and western Minnesota to Bluepeak – of everything from product package offerings, bill statements and advertisements, retail location signs, employee uniforms, company vehicles and more, in the near future. The transition to the new Bluepeak brand will happen over the coming months and be complete in June of this year. The new Bluepeak brand is anchored in a simple, blue logo and gold, orange and blue color pallete. Current and new customers can also still count on Bluepeak to offer speedy broadband, safe connections and more innovation alongside its dependable neighborly service. Current customers will not experience any disruptions in their service. Bluepeak is hiring for several roles as the company grows in South Dakota, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Colorado. Current openings can be found online on the Bluepeak Careers page. About Bluepeak Bluepeak is building a faster, more reliable internet without the things that get in the way of great service—like red tape, hidden fees, and slow response times. Offering up to 5 gigabits of speed for residential customers and 10 gigabits for businesses, Bluepeak is a whole new ballgame — from internet to TV, to connecting every device in a home, to powering a business, Bluepeak not only provides the best fiber connections in the communities it serves but also meets the growing needs for how its customers live. Bluepeak (Clarity Telecom LLC) is known as Vast Broadband today in South Dakota and portions of western Minnesota until those markets rebrand as Bluepeak in the summer of 2022. Visit www.meetbluepeak.com to learn more. Contact Details Jesse Granger jesse.granger@mybluepeak.com Company Website https://mybluepeak.com

February 21, 2022 08:03 AM Mountain Standard Time

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Brush Up on Oral Health: Technology For Your Mouth Leading To Healthy, Confident Smiles

YourUpdateTV

A video accompanying this announcement is available at: https://youtu.be/UIgoM06hR04 How do you get that ‘fresh from the dentist’ clean feeling on the 360+ days you’re not at the dentist? You turn to a revolutionary kit that integrates advanced technology to deliver brighter, whiter smiles and cleaner, healthier teeth. The result is that consumers look and feel their best and enjoy greater confidence as they go about their day. Built by dental professionals, izzoTM was developed by fourth-generation family-owned Premier Dental, a global developer and manufacturer of dental and medical products that has been in business for 100+ years, with a presence in 76 countries. Julie Charlestein, the President and CEO of Premier Dental, conducted a nationwide media tour to discuss the launch of izzo TM, an innovative new direct to consumer initiative designed to elevate at-home oral care. While brushing your teeth regularly is certainly important, izzo TM is the first and only 4-in-1 oral care system that goes significantly beyond just the typical toothbrush to give your teeth a whole new level of clean. izzo is technology for your mouth leading to healthy, confident smiles. izzo not only helps you brush effectively, it helps you polish to remove surface stains for a brighter, whiter smile; scale to remove plaque and debris between teeth; and sanitize your brush to ensure it’s germ-free for your next use. Best of all, it gives you that ‘fresh from the dentist’ clean feeling and a healthy confidence to look and feel your best. The revolutionary izzo system is currently available online for purchase at www.izzosmile.com for $129.95. For more information or to read first-hand product reviews, please visit www.izzosmile.com. About izzo TM izzo TM is the revolutionary 4-in-1 home oral care system that helps consumers look and feel their best through healthier, whiter smiles. izzo includes a toothbrush, polishing system (polisher & enamel polishing paste), scaler and sanitizer. Made in partnership with Premier ® Dental Products Company, a 4th generation, family-run business established in 1913, izzo reflects the knowledge of over 100 years in developing professional-grade oral care products. This differentiated product introduces innovative in-home dental care directly to consumers through an easy-to-use kit and a convenient Subscribe & Save program. For more information, please visit www.izzosmile.com. About Premier Dental ® Products Company Premier Dental ® is a global privately-held business dedicated to delivering inspired solutions for daily dentistry. Dental professionals have turned to Premier for over 100 years as a leader in bringing innovative products to market that improve their daily procedures, practices and patient outcomes. Contact Details YourUpdateTV +1 212-736-2727 yourupdatetv@gmail.com

February 18, 2022 01:54 PM Eastern Standard Time

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Be My Eyes Featured in U.S. Senate Committee Testimony on Overcoming Barriers to Employment for People with Disabilities

InclusionHub

Underscoring the importance of accessibility and inclusion as part of the hiring and employment process, Jenny Lay-Flurrie, chief accessibility officer at Microsoft, was recently invited to testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions. Titled “Lessons Learned from COVID-19: Highlighting Innovations, Maximizing Inclusive Practices and Overcoming Barriers to Employment for People with Disabilities,” the hearing also featured Dr. Lisa Schur, a professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at Rutgers University; Francis A. Kineavy, a disability advocate; and Brian Dennis, a Disability Services Workforce Program coordinator for Iowa Workforce Development. In her address, Lay-Flurrie discussed key action areas related to disability employment, and outlined the current challenges facing people with disabilities in the job market. However, as might be expected for a Microsoft executive, some of the most insightful parts of her testimony dealt with the opportunities around accessible technology—during which she highlighted a number of current tools and features already in use at Microsoft. These included InclusionHub Founding Partner Be My Eyes, a free mobile app the company uses to support blind and low-vision customers through its dedicated Disability Answer Desk. Accessible Technology Use Cases In total, Lay-Flurrie’s testimony outlined the following seven key use cases for accessible technology: Improving Content Accessibility Making Accessibility Features Easy to Find Improving Remote Meeting Tools Expanding & Improving Legibility Options Creating & Improving Tools to Help Developers Identify & Mitigate Accessibility Issues Improving Awareness of Issues, Features & Etiquette Related to Accessibility & Disability Providing Support When & How People Need It (The Key Use Case for Be My Eyes) Lay-Flurrie also highlighted the need for addressing accessibility issues at scale, noting that individuals with disabilities are twice as likely to be unemployed as those without—a gap that persists even among college graduates. “I’m so glad to see these issues and potential solutions being highlighted in the Senate,” said Joe Weber, manager of Accessibility Solutions at Be My Eyes. “Around 70% of blind and low-vision people around the world are unemployed, which is a key challenge that we set out to solve with our app. Microsoft was one of the earliest adopters of our help desk solution, and we couldn’t be more proud to be part of their accessibility toolset.” Full video of the hearing can be found here. (Lay-Flurrie’s testimony begins at 39 minutes, while she also participates in a Q&A session beginning at the 55-minute mark.) Lay-Flurrie’s full written testimony—in which she mentions Be My Eyes—can be found on Microsoft’s blog. Contact Details Be My Eyes Todd Kuipers todd@bemyeyes.com InclusionHub Bryan Koegel bryan@inclusionhub.com Company Website https://www.bemyeyes.com/

February 18, 2022 09:45 AM Eastern Standard Time

Velocity Global integrates Contractor Payments to its Global Work Platform

Velocity Global

Increased demand for a simple hiring solution as number of independent workers wanting to work from anywhere is on the rise Velocity Global makes hiring and managing independent contractors easy with consolidated invoicing, automated, seamless payments, and locally compliant contracts Manage all talent in one place, including contractors and employees Velocity Global, the leading provider of global talent solutions, today announced the integration of its Contractor Payments solution into its Global Work Platform ™ as the latest solution for businesses and talent to work with anyone, anywhere, anyhow. “Contractor management and payments are traditionally a cluttered time suck for both businesses and talent, but now the Velocity Global platform removes this friction,” said Eric Schroeder, Velocity Global chief operating officer. “In today’s virtual workplace, companies want to engage the best talent in any country, which adds more complexity. Our platform simplifies the process from onboarding to payments for contractors around the world. This now creates one single location for managers and talent to connect, contractors and employees alike, freeing them to focus on the task at hand - delivering results.” Businesses are increasingly turning to independent workers, a rising classification of knowledge workers. The number of full-time, part-time and occasional independent workers in the U.S. increased by 34% over just two years to 51.1 million in 2021, according to the State of Independence in America survey, and spending by businesses on contingent talent rose by 23%. “We are in a new era of work in which talent takes more control over their time, location, and how they choose to engage with their employers,” said Schroeder. “With this shift in talent comes a shift in investment from businesses to meet talent where it is. The world of work is changing quickly and we offer all of the tools for businesses and talent to engage with each other in a single, accessible platform.” Currently, most contractors face archaic onboarding processes and payment confusion, while companies face the administrative complexity of managing a distributed workforce. Velocity Global’s new Contractor Payments solution provides locally compliant contracts, consolidated invoicing, automated and seamless payments, and mobile access to solve these issues for both sides. Velocity Global’s Contractor Payments solution is now available in the company's Global Work Platform. Learn more at https://velocityglobal.com/platform/contractor-payments/ About Velocity Global Velocity Global accelerates the future of work for anyone, anywhere, anyhow. Its Global Work Platform™ simplifies the employer and talent experience through its proprietary cloud-based talent management technology, backed by personalized expertise and unmatched global scale. With talent solutions in more than 185 countries and all 50 United States, the platform combines global Employer of Record and Contractor Management to onboard, manage, and pay talent worldwide. More than 1,000 brands rely on Velocity Global to build global teams without the cost or complexity of setting up foreign legal entities or state registrations. Velocity Global was named a “Leader” in Global Employer of Record services by prominent analyst firm NelsonHall. Founded in 2014, the company has hundreds of employees across six continents. For more information visit velocityglobal.com. Contact Details Velocity Global John Hall +1 720-650-4348 news@velocityglobal.com Company Website https://velocityglobal.com/

February 17, 2022 07:01 AM Mountain Standard Time

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GMS Drives Business Growth & Performance Excellence to Increase Market Penetration with CSG’s Future-Ready Digital Platform

CSG

LONDON, February 17, 2022 – CSG ® (NASDAQ: CSGS) enables today’s leading companies with game-changing technologies that drive dynamic customer experiences and business growth. Today, Global Message Services (GMS), the international messaging service provider for mobile operators and communications platform provider for enterprises, uses CSG’s integrated digital wholesale platform to boost efficiency and scale its business to add more value for customers. With CSG's technology at the heart of its operations, these gains empower GMS's overall performance, drive new growth, and enable access to the strategic person-to-application market. “At GMS, we aspire to deliver impactful value that sparks growth for more than 900 mobile partners as we continue our journey to become the leader for trusted and transparent messaging worldwide,” said Oleksandr Panov, Chief Financial Officer, GMS. “CSG’s leading revenue management and integrated digital wholesale platform provides the versatility to deliver best-of-breed services to GMS customers and partners. With CSG, we have modernised the way we collect data from the network and injected the agility and scalability we need to react to emerging business opportunities quickly." With CSG’s solution, GMS transforms how it connects the mobile messaging ecosystem while advancing its traffic processing performance to provide more flexible billing cycles. The improved performance system means GMS can drive more dynamic growth for its B2B partners, increase market penetration, and seamlessly scale as its business grows into the digital future. “Few markets are as competitive as wholesale telecom, and with players and partners constantly in flux, ambitious messaging service providers, like GMS, need agility to adapt and develop as fast as the market,” said James Kirby, CSG SVP and head of EMEA. “CSG’s digital wholesale platform enables GMS to accelerate its digital transformation and leverage the flexibility and scalability it provides to future-proof its business and enter new markets. We look forward to supporting GMS on this journey and helping to extend its industry leadership for trusted and transparent messaging worldwide.” CSG's digital wholesale platform empowers communication service providers to take the complexity out of wholesale relationship management and seamlessly manage and scale at pace with increasing transaction volume growth. The platform helps the world's leading brands capture, store, and process customer usage events of any kind. The platform also unifies processes across networks to reduce costs without compromising quality, increases efficiency, and scales digital service offerings to participate and prosper in the digital economy. Part of CSG’s Revenue & Customer Management solutions suite, CSG Digital Wholesale is the world's most widely deployed and proven partner management technology. Through comprehensive billing, mediation, and revenue management, the wholesale platform helps companies optimise efficiency, protect and improve interconnect margins, and deliver extraordinary customer experiences. CSG has a long-standing track record of delivering innovative wholesale solutions in disciplines such as trading, routing, QoS assurance and billing and settlement. The company has been twice recognised with Frost & Sullivan's Global Stratecast CSP Monetization Interconnect & Settlement Market Leadership Award. # # # About CSG CSG is a leader in innovative customer engagement, revenue management and payments solutions that make ordinary customer experiences extraordinary. Our cloud-first architecture and customer-obsessed mindset help companies around the world launch new digital services, expand into new markets, and create dynamic experiences that capture new customers and build brand loyalty. For 40 years, CSG’s technologies and people have helped some of the world’s most recognizable brands solve their toughest business challenges and evolve to meet the demands of today’s digital economy with future-ready solutions that drive exceptional customer experiences. With 5,000 employees in over 20 countries, CSG is the trusted technology provider for leading global brands in telecommunications, retail, financial services, and healthcare. Our solutions deliver real world outcomes to more than 900 customers in over 120 countries. To learn more, visit us at csgi.com and connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter. About Global Message Services GMS is an international messaging service provider for Mobile Network Operators and a communications platform provider (CPaaS) for Enterprises worldwide. GMS brings the mobile messaging ecosystem together by providing a single access point for messaging traffic exchange between mobile operators and enterprises. As a trusted partner of mobile operators, GMS enables their messaging business by optimizing P2P and P2A interworking while enhancing enterprise A2P messaging traffic management for revenue growth. For enterprises, GMS’s communications platform (CPaaS) enables brands to unify customer communications via a single API and self-service platform, making it simple to send and receive messages orchestrated across multichannel touchpoints - including SMS, Push, Viber, WhatsApp, and RCS. GMS is headquartered in Baar, Switzerland, with regional offices worldwide. To learn more, visit GMS at gms-worldwide.com and connect with GMS on LinkedIn and Facebook. Copyright © 2022 CSG Systems International, Inc. and/or its affiliates (“CSG”). All rights reserved. CSG® is a registered trademark of CSG Systems International, Inc. All third-party trademarks, service marks, and/or product names which are referenced in this document are the property of their respective owners, and all rights therein are reserved. Contacts: Kristine Østergaard Public Relations +44 (0)79 2047 7204 kristine.ostergaard@csgi.com John Rea Investor Relations +1 (210) 687-4409 john.rea@csgi.com Contact Details Kristine Østergaard +44 7920 477204 kristine.ostergaard@csgi.com Company Website https://www.csgi.com

February 17, 2022 01:08 AM Eastern Standard Time

OPPO to Launch its Flagship Find X5 Series on 24 February 2022

OPPO

Find X5 series is the first to feature OPPO's self-designed NPU MariSilicon X Find X5 Pro will feature Snapdragon® 8 Gen 1 Mobile Platform CHINA, SHENZHEN - Media OutReach - 17 February 2022 - The pioneering smart device brand, OPPO, today announced the launch of its high-end flagship smartphone with world-first imaging experiences – OPPO Find X5 series. OPPO marries breathtaking high-end design with best-in-class technology and camera innovation. Join OPPO and #EmpowerEveryMoment at the global Find X5 Series launch event, to be streamed live via OPPO’s official channel on 24 February 2022 at 11:00 GMT/19:00 GMT+8. At OPPO INNO Day 2021, OPPO announced MariSilicon X, the dedicated imaging Neural Processing Unit, which overcomes smartphone video capture’s greatest challenge – nighttime recording. Taking quality to new heights with its cutting-edge 6nm architecture, real-time RAW processing, and up to 20x faster 4K AI performance – Find X5 Pro shines a light on the night. Powered by the latest-generation, multicore Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, the Find X5 Pro stays cool under pressure and is supercharged to handle the most demanding games and applications. On the outside, it embodies a futuristic design to express a sense of calm and timeless beauty. With an ultra-hard, true ceramic back, the Find X5 Pro achieves clean, modern sophistication while creating a surface texture that reduces fingerprints, and follows a perfectly-smooth, uniform incline to gently cushion the camera module. With unrivalled night shooting capabilities, the high-end 5G flagship Find X5 Pro builds on the core DNA that makes OPPO a hit with consumers and critics alike. With a futuristic aesthetic, new ColorOS, world-class performance, ultra-fast connectivity and a camera system that’s out of this world, Find X5 Pro raises the bar for smartphones. Join the global online launch event to #EmpowerEveryMoment on Thursday February 24 th at 11:00 GMT/19:00 GMT+8 on OPPO’s official channel. About OPPO OPPO is a leading global smart device brand. Since the launch of its first mobile phone in 2008, OPPO has been in relentless pursuit of the perfect synergy of aesthetic satisfaction and innovative technology. Today, OPPO provides a wide range of smart devices spearheaded by the Find and Reno series. Beyond devices, OPPO provides its users with the ColorOS operating system and internet services like OPPO Cloud and OPPO+. OPPO operates in more than 40 countries and regions, with 6 Research Institutes and 5 R&D Centres worldwide, as well as an International Design Centre in London. More than 40,000 of OPPO's employees are dedicated to creating a better life for customers around the world. Contact Details OPPO OPPO International PR Team press@oppo.com

February 16, 2022 08:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

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Temporal.io Raises $103 Million Series B, Company Valuation Passes $1.5 Billion

Temporal

Temporal, the leading state management systems company, today announced it raised $103 million in Series B funding. Index Venture Capital led the round and was joined by Sequoia Capital, Amplify Partners, Madrona Venture Group and Addition Ventures. Temporal raised more than $120 million since its founding in 2019, and Series B funds will be used to expand the team with a heavy focus on developer empowerment, growing the vibrant open source community, and developing new features for Temporal’s cloud offering. Temporal was founded by Maxim Fateev and Samar Abbas, the leading experts in application state management. Fateev and Abbas led the design and development of Simple Workflow at AWS, which was the first technology to solve the state management problem. Over the last decade, they architected business critical systems including Durable Task Framework and Uber Cadence before arriving at the ideal solution: Temporal - an MIT licensed platform for unifying and managing application state. “The challenges Samar and I saw at Amazon 15 years ago are the same challenges in front of almost every company today,” said Maxim Fateev, Temporal co-founder and CEO. “The average business application now lives across dozens of stateful servers and services, which has been great for flexibility and scale, but it’s also made applications increasingly brittle and difficult to troubleshoot or enhance.” “The cloud permanently changed software development,” said Mike Volpi, partner and co-founder of Index Venture Capital’s San Francisco office. “The benefits are tremendous but the cost of cloud application complexity is not sustainable. For more than a year, our conversations with Temporal users have revealed their extraordinary enthusiasm for Temporal's solution. The exponential growth of the community is a testament to Maxim and Samar's unique vision. Temporal has all the right ingredients and we're honored to partner with the company on its journey to become one of the industry's enduring software companies.” To further illustrate these challenges, containerization and service based architectures require engineers to manage state, a time consuming and error prone process which shifts the software development focus from business logic to brittle plumbing. Developers have historically relied on database transactions to maintain application consistency, but this is not an option for scalable cloud applications. So they’re forced to crudely assemble infrastructure like queues, databases, CRON jobs and more in order to reach some semblance of a cohesive application experience. Temporal provides a consistent and unified backend for stateful applications that empowers developers to use the languages, tool stacks, and deployment environment of their choice. Temporal’s underlying technology was built by its co-founders at Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, and is used to solve state management at big cloud and leading tech companies today including: Netflix, Doordash, Snap, Box, Stripe, Hashicorp, Coinbase and many more. Examples include: AWS, Azure and Google Cloud: Temporal’s co-founders led teams at AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, to address the challenge of writing and running modern stateful applications. Netflix: chose Temporal as the foundation for its next-gen CI/CD system which will be used by almost every Netflix developer. “We’ve been using Temporal as a critical and core component in developing our next-gen CI/CD platform at Netflix, where it’s being used to help orchestrate fast, safe, and reliable software delivery to multiple cloud providers’ data centers around the world,” said Rob Zienert, Netflix senior software engineer. “Netflix engineers spend less time writing logic to maintain application consistency or guard against failures because Temporal does it for them. The Temporal platform is easy to operate and fits naturally in our development workflow.” Descript: relies on Temporal to eliminate production incidents. "Descript had one incident every week just on the transcription workflow because it was too complicated to maintain,” said Nicolas Gere-lamaysouette, software engineer at Descript. “Engineers can test each worker separately, but it was impossible to test the logic for every new feature end-to-end, so they were afraid of doing any changes in that code path. The frequency of production incidents has declined from once-a-week to virtually zero." Instacart: seamlessly migrated multiple core systems to Temporal and now runs over 75 million monthly workflows. “The Temporal technology has been core to many new Instacart offerings, growing rapidly and without drama to over 75 million monthly workflows across vastly different use cases within only a few months after production launch,” said Josh Wickham, Instacart engineering manager, systems and frameworks. “Temporal the company and community have been key to that success, providing Instacart with clear, timely assistance and guidance for how to use the product at such a large scale.” Datadog: leverages Temporal for database reliability and developer experience, boasting over 100 internal Temporal users. Snap: is a vocal early adopter of Temporal, embracing it as a cross-organization solution for services orchestration and infrastructure deployments. “Temporal Cloud provides Snap a highly reliable and scalable foundation for Snap Stories, enabling us to deliver the amazing global experience our users have come to expect,” said Saral Jain, Director Of Engineering, Enterprise and Cloud Services at Snap Inc. About Temporal: The Temporal platform enables developers to create reliable applications using familiar tools that make them productive. Temporal is used by Netflix, Doordash, Snap, Box, Stripe, Hashicorp, Coinbase and others. Developers are empowered to build and operate resilient applications using developer-friendly primitives. Developers write business logic - not glue code - and Temporal takes care of the rest. More information is available at temporal.io. Contact Details Owen Media Forrest Carman +1 206-859-3118 forrestc@owenmedia.com Company Website https://temporal.io/

February 16, 2022 09:00 AM Pacific Standard Time

Funding Societies raises US$294m to fuel expansion plans in Southeast Asia

Funding Societies

Funding Societies (which goes by Modalku in Indonesia), Southeast Asia’s largest SME digital financing platform, today announced that it has raised* US$144 million in an oversubscribed Series C+ equity round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with new investors notably Vietnamese tech giant VNG Corporation, Rapyd Ventures, Asia-based global investor EDBI, Indies Capital, K3 Ventures, and Ascend Vietnam Ventures. The company also received US$150 million in debt lines from institutional lenders across Europe, the United States, and Asia, some of which have been drawn down since 2021. This comes on the back of its US$45 million Series C raised between 2020 and 2021. The funds solidify Funding Societies’ position as a market leader in digital financing, and propels its expense management, and B2B payments services for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) across Southeast Asia. Its latest fundraise also provides US$16 million to former and existing employees via the company’s stock option plan, in the form of share buyback. Funding Societies was founded in 2015 by Kelvin Teo and Reynold Wijaya out of Harvard Business School to empower MSMEs in Southeast Asia. The FinTech company solves MSMEs’ key pain points for growth, starting with the region’s US$300 billion financing gap. Although small enterprises make up almost 99% of total enterprises in Southeast Asia, they also face many hurdles in obtaining business loans from traditional financial institutions due to a lack of a credit track record or collaterals to pledge. Funding Societies offers micro loans from US$500 up to US$1.5 million, which can be disbursed in as fast as 24 hours, answering in a timely manner to MSMEs who face the pertinent challenge of accessing business funds. Instead of using a traditional corporate supply chain approach to financial inclusion, Funding Societies has differentiated itself as a one-stop shop in SME financing with an AI-led credit model and value-added products to under-served businesses. A recent impact study**, with calculations using methodology by the Asian Development Bank, revealed that Funding Societies-backed MSMEs contributed US$3.6 billion in GDP. Seven years in, the FinTech company is now licensed and registered in four countries across the region - Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and operating in Vietnam. To date, it has disbursed over US$2.1 billion in business financing to MSMEs through more than 5 million loan transactions in Southeast Asia. Co-founder and Group CEO, Kelvin Teo, said, “We’re honoured by the faith of our new and existing shareholders. We started Funding Societies | Modalku to empower SMEs by solving their biggest problem, access to financing, especially unsecured financing. A common misconception is that we compete with banks. The reality is we ‘compete’ with savings, friends and families, and personal credit cards. There is a huge unsecured financing gap because it takes patience and focus, or you risk losing a lot of money. Having proven our AI-led credit capabilities in an unprecedented financial crisis, we look to serve SMEs even better with neobanking and deeper regional presence in Southeast Asia.” “SMEs across Southeast Asia have historically struggled to access institutional finance and instead been forced to mainly rely on personal funding to support growth”, said Greg Moon, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “Funding Societies is establishing a bridge for these companies to access more sustainable and cheaper financing by building unique data sets on their performance and using AI-led technology to assess their creditworthiness more effectively than traditional models. We are delighted to partner with Kelvin Teo and the team to support their mission to improve societies in Southeast Asia by funding worthy and underserved SMEs.” Funding Societies’ annualised loan origination has exceeded US$1 billion in Q4 2021. Separately, a portion of the Group’s outstanding loan exposure comes from Europe-based institutional lenders. Since 2019, Funding Societies has expanded its suite of financial services beyond lending and plans to bring its operations to more locations in Southeast Asia within the next 12 months. About Funding Societies Funding Societies | Modalku is the largest SME digital financing platform in Southeast Asia, expanding into a leading SME neobank. It is licensed and registered in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and operating in Vietnam. It is backed by SoftBank Vision Fund, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Sequoia Capital India, Alpha JWC Ventures, SMBC Bank, Samsung Ventures, BRI Ventures, Endeavor, SGInnovate, Qualgro, and Golden Gate Ventures amongst others. The FinTech company provides business financing to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), annualising US$1 billion disbursement in 2021. It was given the MAS FinTech Award in 2016, the Global SME Excellence Award at the United Nations’ ITU Telecom World in 2017, KPMG Fintech100 in 2018, Brands for Good in 2019, and ASEAN Startup of the Year by Global Startup Awards in 2020. In 2021, it was honorably mentioned as Responsible Digital Innovator of the Year by World Bank IFC SME Finance Forum and won the MAS Fintech award for the second time.https://fundingsocieties.com/ Contact Details Funding Societies Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com Company Website https://fundingsocieties.com/

February 16, 2022 09:58 AM Eastern Standard Time

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