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Global tier 1 telco operator signs three year agreement with Arqit to secure its Quantum-Safe Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) Deployment

LONDON, April 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Arqit Quantum Inc. (Nasdaq: ARQQ, ARQQW) announces a global tier 1 telco operator has signed a 3 year contract for Arqit’s NetworkSecure™. The telco operates in 32 countries, providing secure digital infrastructure, with a backbone spanning over 600,000 km of fiber. Arqit’s Quantum-Safe NetworkSecure technology will be deployed as part of its Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) suite. This agreement marks a major step in securing enterprise and government communications against emerging cyber threats, including those posed by quantum computing.

Quantum-Safe over Internet (QSI) service is now available to order, meaning enterprises and governments worldwide can now access the operator’s Quantum-Safe over Internet (QSI) service utilizing its NaaS platform powered by Arqit’s NetworkSecure.

As demand for the operator’s offering scales, Arqit sees potential for expansion beyond this initial contract.

Andy Leaver, CEO of Arqit, commented: “This multi-year agreement represents a major step forward in protecting global communications from emerging threats. As quantum computing advances, the need for robust security solutions is paramount. Our customer’s leadership position in global networking, combined with Arqit’s pioneering quantum-safe encryption, ensures enterprises can access next-generation security with the agility of a NaaS framework. We are excited to help bring this technology to market at scale.”

Notes to Editors

About Arqit

Arqit Quantum Inc. (Nasdaq: ARQQ, ARQQW) supplies a unique encryption software service which makes the communications links of any networked device, cloud machine or data at rest secure against both current and future forms of attack on encryption – even from a quantum computer. Compatible with NSA CSfC Components and meeting the demands of NSA CSfC Symmetric Key Management Requirements Annexe 1.2. and RFC 8784, Arqit’s Symmetric Key Agreement Platform uses a lightweight software agent that allows end point devices to create encryption keys locally in partnership with any number of other devices. The keys are computationally secure and facilitate Zero Trust Network Access. It can create limitless volumes of keys with any group size and refresh rate and can regulate the secure entrance and exit of a device in a group. The agent is lightweight and will thus run on the smallest of end point devices. The product sits within a growing portfolio of granted patents. It also works in a standards compliant manner which does not oblige customers to make a disruptive rip and replace of their technology. In September 2024, Arqit was named as an IDC Innovator for Post-Quantum Cryptography, 2024. Arqit is winner of two GSMA Global Mobile Awards, The Best Mobile Security Solution and The CTO Choice Award for Outstanding Mobile Technology, at Mobile World Congress 2024, recognised for groundbreaking innovation at the 2023 Institution of Engineering and Technology Awards and winner of the National Cyber Awards’ Cyber Defence Product of the Year 2024 and Innovation in Cyber Award 2022, as well as the Cyber Security Awards’ Cyber Security Software Company of the Year Award 2022. Arqit is ISO 27001 Standard certified. www.arqit.uk or read our latest white paper.

Media relations enquiries:

    Arqit: [email protected]

Investor relations enquiries:

    Arqit: [email protected]

Caution About Forward-Looking Statements

This communication includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, may be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on Arqit’s expectations and beliefs concerning future events and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. These factors are difficult to predict accurately and may be beyond Arqit’s control. Forward-looking statements in this communication or elsewhere speak only as of the date made. New uncertainties and risks arise from time to time, and it is impossible for Arqit to predict these events or how they may affect it. Except as required by law, Arqit does not have any duty to, and does not intend to, update or revise the forward-looking statements in this communication or elsewhere after the date this communication is issued. In light of these risks and uncertainties, investors should keep in mind that results, events or developments discussed in any forward-looking statement made in this communication may not occur. Uncertainties and risk factors that could affect Arqit’s future performance and cause results to differ from the forward-looking statements in this release include, but are not limited to: (i) the outcome of any legal proceedings that may be instituted against Arqit, (ii) the ability to maintain the listing of Arqit’s securities on a national securities exchange, (iii) changes in the competitive and regulated industries in which Arqit operates, variations in operating performance across competitors and changes in laws and regulations affecting Arqit’s business, (iv) the ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other expectations, and identify and realise additional opportunities, (v) the potential inability of Arqit to successfully deliver its operational technology, (vi) the risk of interruption or failure of Arqit’s information technology and communications system, (vii) the enforceability of Arqit’s intellectual property, (viii) market and other conditions, and (ix) other risks and uncertainties set forth in the sections entitled “Risk Factors” and “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” in Arqit’s annual report on Form 20-F (the “Form 20-F”), filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on 5 December 2024 and in subsequent filings with the SEC. While the list of factors discussed above and in the Form 20-F and other SEC filings are considered representative, no such list should be considered to be a complete statement of all potential risks and uncertainties. Unlisted factors may present significant additional obstacles to the realisation of forward-looking statements.



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InspireMD Announces Inducement Grants Under Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4)

MIAMI, April 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — InspireMD, Inc. (Nasdaq: NSPR), developer of the CGuard™ Prime carotid stent system for the prevention of stroke, today announced that the Compensation Committee of InspireMD’s Board of Directors approved inducement grants to 11 new non-executive employees in the aggregate amount of 299,398 shares of restricted stock (the “Inducement Grants”) outside of InspireMD’s 2021 Equity Compensation Plan, with a grant date as of April 1, 2025, as an inducement material to the employees and the director entering into employment with InspireMD, in accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4).

The Inducement Grants were granted under the InspireMD’s 2024 Inducement Plan, which is used exclusively for the grant of equity awards to individuals who were not previously employees of InspireMD, or following a bona fide period of non-employment, as an inducement material to such individuals entering into employment with InspireMD, pursuant to Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4).

The restricted stock vests over a three-year period, with one-third vesting on the first anniversary of the grant and the remainder vesting in two equal installments on the second and third anniversaries of the grant date, subject to continued employment with InspireMD as of such vesting dates.

About InspireMD, Inc.

InspireMD seeks to utilize its proprietary MicroNet® technology to make its products the industry standard for carotid stenting by providing outstanding acute results and durable, stroke-free long-term outcomes. InspireMD’s common stock is quoted on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “NSPR”.

We routinely post information that may be important to investors on our website. For more information, please visit www.inspiremd.com.

Forward-looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements.” Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding InspireMD or its management team’s expectations, hopes, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding future events, future financial performance, strategies, expectations, competitive environment and regulation, including potential U.S. commercial launch. Such statements may be preceded by the words “intends,” “may,” “will,” “plans,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “projects,” “predicts,” “estimates,” “aims,” “believes,” “hopes,” “potential”, “scheduled” or similar words. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, are based on certain assumptions and are subject to various known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company’s control, and cannot be predicted or quantified and consequently, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, risks and uncertainties associated with our history of recurring losses and negative cash flows from operating activities; substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern; significant future commitments and the uncertainty regarding the adequacy of our liquidity to pursue our complete business objectives; our need to raise additional capital to meet our business requirements in the future and such capital raising may be costly or difficult to obtain and could dilute out stockholders’ ownership interests; market acceptance of our products; an inability to secure and maintain regulatory approvals for the sale of our products; negative clinical trial results or lengthy product delays in key markets; our ability to maintain compliance with the Nasdaq listing standards; our ability to generate revenues from our products and obtain and maintain regulatory approvals for our products; our ability to adequately protect our intellectual property; our dependence on a single manufacturing facility and our ability to comply with stringent manufacturing quality standards and to increase production as necessary; the risk that the data collected from our current and planned clinical trials may not be sufficient to demonstrate that our technology is an attractive alternative to other procedures and products; intense competition in our industry, with competitors having substantially greater financial, technological, research and development, regulatory and clinical, manufacturing, marketing and sales, distribution and personnel resources than we do; entry of new competitors and products and potential technological obsolescence of our products; inability to carry out research, development and commercialization plans; loss of a key customer or supplier; technical problems with our research and products and potential product liability claims; product malfunctions; price increases for supplies and components; insufficient or inadequate reimbursement by governmental and other third-party payers for our products; our efforts to successfully obtain and maintain intellectual property protection covering our products, which may not be successful; adverse federal, state and local government regulation, in the United States, Europe or Israel and other foreign jurisdictions; the fact that we conduct business in multiple foreign jurisdictions, exposing us to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, logistical and communications challenges, burdens and costs of compliance with foreign laws and political and economic instability in each jurisdiction; the escalation of hostilities in Israel, which could impair our ability to manufacture our products; and current or future unfavorable economic and market conditions and adverse developments with respect to financial institutions and associated liquidity risk. More detailed information about the Company and the risk factors that may affect the realization of forward-looking statements is set forth in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K and its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Investors and security holders are urged to read these documents free of charge on the SEC’s web site at http://www.sec.gov. The Company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise its forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Investor Contacts:

Craig Shore
Chief Financial Officer
InspireMD, Inc.
888-776-6804
[email protected]

Webb Campbell
Gilmartin Group LLC
[email protected]
[email protected]



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Snowflake Unveils Apache Iceberg™ Innovations, Giving Enterprises the Best of Open Data and AI-Ready Performance

Snowflake Unveils Apache Iceberg™ Innovations, Giving Enterprises the Best of Open Data and AI-Ready Performance

  • Customers now get the best of both worlds: Iceberg’s flexibility and interoperability coupled with Snowflake’s powerful platform to make their data easy, connected, and trusted
  • Thousands of customers including Illumina, Komodo Health, Medidata, and WHOOP can now easily activate open-format data with best-in-class performance

No-Headquarters/BOZEMAN, Mont.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW), the AI Data Cloud company, announced that it is bringing its core capabilities — unparalleled performance, secure data sharing, and data protection — to Apache Iceberg™ tables1, one of the fastest-growing open table formats, empowering organizations to activate data faster with zero data movement and open interoperability. As a result, Snowflake customers can now seamlessly accelerate their open lakehouse strategies, unlocking data access and analysis across open and managed environments in order to build, scale, and share advanced insights and AI-powered apps faster.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250408288168/en/

Snowflake Unveils Apache Iceberg™ Innovations, Giving Enterprises the Best of Open Data and AI-Ready Performance

Snowflake Unveils Apache Iceberg™ Innovations, Giving Enterprises the Best of Open Data and AI-Ready Performance

Until now, organizations have been forced to make tradeoffs when it comes to managing their data — relying on integrated data platforms or opting for open, interoperable data formats like parquet. With Snowflake’s full support for Apache Iceberg tables, customers now gain the best of both worlds. Users can store, manage, and analyze their data in an open, interoperable format, while still benefiting from Snowflake’s easy, connected, and trusted platform. All of this happens without vendor lock-in, enabling thousands of global customers with unparalleled performance and flexibility so they can tap into all of their data, and ultimately propel their AI strategies forward.

“The future of data is open, but it also needs to be easy,” said Christian Kleinerman, EVP of Product, Snowflake. “Customers shouldn’t have to choose between open formats and best-in-class performance or business continuity. With Snowflake’s latest Iceberg tables innovations, customers can work with their open data exactly as they would with data stored in the Snowflake platform, all while removing complexity and preserving Snowflake’s enterprise-grade performance and security.”

Snowflake’s enhanced Iceberg tables support can be used to accelerate:

  • Lakehouse Analytics: Customers can now experience the same compute engine of Snowflake’s native table format on Iceberg tables, and apply Search Optimization Service (general availability soon) or Query Acceleration Service (general availability soon) on Iceberg tables for enhanced query performance. With Snowflake’s managed Iceberg tables, customers gain the flexibility of open storage formats while preserving the industry-leading price-performance of Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud. Snowflake is actively collaborating with the Apache Iceberg community to launch support for VARIANT data types.
  • Comprehensive Security and Governance, with Built-In Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery: Snowflake brings seamless security to Iceberg tables, providing powerful, intuitive controls to keep open lakehouse environments secure and easy to manage, while enabling customer compliance. Customers get the best of both worlds — open data flexibility with built-in security. Snowflake is also extending its reliable data replication and syncing to Iceberg tables (in private preview), ensuring that in the case of a ​​system failure, cyberattack, or other disasters, companies can quickly restore their data without major disruptions, all while supporting open lakehouse architectures.
  • Data Sharing: By bringing Snowflake’s secure data sharing technology to Iceberg tables, customers can access, share, distribute, and monetize their data seamlessly, just as they do with native Snowflake table formats.

Driving the Future of Open Source and Data Innovation

Snowflake is deeply invested in advocating for open standards and community-driven open source projects that enhance data interoperability and transparency. In fact, 35% of Snowflake’s acquisitions over the last four years have been companies with technologies that strengthen open data ecosystems, underscoring the company’s investment in openness.

Notable open source projects that Snowflake contributes to include:

  • Apache IcebergTM: Snowflake’s contributions to Iceberg enable efficient, governed data lake management with schema evolution, partitioning, and transaction management.
  • Apache NiFi: Built on NiFi, Datavolo (acquired by Snowflake in 2024) simplifies ingestion, transformation, and real-time pipeline management.
  • Apache PolarisTM (Incubating): Designed to overcome vendor lock-in challenges, Apache PolarisTM (Incubating) ensures enterprise security and Iceberg interoperability across major cloud providers.
  • Modin: Snowflake accelerates pandas workloads with Modin (acquired by Snowflake in 2023), enabling seamless scaling without code change.
  • Streamlit: Snowflake’s integration with Streamlit (acquired by Snowflake in 2022) allows users to build and share interactive web applications, data dashboards, and visualizations with ease.
  • TruEra: TruEra (acquired by Snowflake in 2024) boosts AI explainability and model performance monitoring for bias detection, compliance, and performance insights.

Supporting Snowflake Customer Quotes on the Power of Iceberg:

  • Illumina: “By running analytics on Apache Iceberg tables with Snowflake, we’ve unlocked flexibility and performance in managing our manufacturing system data at scale2. This open architecture allows us to seamlessly analyze vast datasets while maintaining cost efficiency, delivering faster insights to improve manufacturing processes and faster access to critical data for self-service. Snowflake’s support for Iceberg has not only improved our data agility but also reinforced the industry-wide push toward open standards, ensuring that innovation in genomics remains accessible, scalable, and impactful for the entire scientific community.” — Stephen Horn, Staff Data Solutions Architect, Illumina
  • Komodo Health: “At Komodo Health, our mission is to reduce the global burden of disease through our comprehensive Healthcare Map®, platform, tooling, and analytics solutions. Apache Iceberg and open source catalogs like Polaris Catalog have been transformative in helping us create actionable and governed insights from complex healthcare data. Open table formats provide the flexibility, interoperability, and enhanced data governance we need, while Snowflake’s unparalleled performance capabilities ensure we can scale these insights effectively with maximum efficiency. Together, this powerful technology foundation empowers us to make healthcare data more accessible and actionable, ultimately improving patient outcomes across the healthcare ecosystem.” — Laurent Bride, Chief Technology Officer, Komodo Health
  • Medidata, a Dassault Systèmes brand: “Innovations like Apache Iceberg are critical for Medidata and drive usability for our products like Clinical Data Studio to help our customers achieve faster, more flexible, and simpler data operations. A unified data layer is the foundation for our AI powered platform. Open, interoperable data standards, particularly through Snowflake’s robust open catalog, Iceberg tables, and data collaboration technologies, will further advance our data strategy and propel our industry.” — Tom Doyle, Chief Technology Officer, Medidata.
  • WHOOP: “Data interoperability and flexibility are essential to delivering accurate, real-time insights to our customers. The vendor-neutral design of Apache Iceberg and Apache Polaris Catalog ensures we can seamlessly activate diverse data sources without having to copy it or get locked into a single ecosystem.” — Matt Luizzi, Senior Director of Business Analytics, WHOOP

Learn More:

  • Get started with Apache Iceberg tables and Snowflake using this quickstart.
  • See how thousands of global organizations are powering their open data lakehouses with Snowflake through these resources.
  • Stay on top of the latest news and announcements from Snowflake on LinkedIn and X.

1 “Apache” is a registered trademark or trademark of the Apache Software Foundation in the United States and/or other countries.

2 For research use only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains express and implied forward-looking statements, including statements regarding (i) Snowflake’s business strategy, (ii) Snowflake’s products, services, and technology offerings, including those that are under development or not generally available, (iii) market growth, trends, and competitive considerations, and (iv) the integration, interoperability, and availability of Snowflake’s products with and on third-party platforms. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including those described under the heading “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in the Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and the Annual Reports on Form 10-K that Snowflake files with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In light of these risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. As a result, you should not rely on any forward-looking statements as predictions of future events.

© 2025 Snowflake Inc. All rights reserved. Snowflake, the Snowflake logo, and all other Snowflake product, feature and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Snowflake Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other brand names or logos mentioned or used herein are for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their respective holder(s). Snowflake may not be associated with, or be sponsored or endorsed by, any such holder(s).

About Snowflake

Snowflake makes enterprise AI easy, efficient and trusted. More than 11,000 companies around the globe, including hundreds of the world’s largest, use Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud to share data, build applications, and power their business with AI. The era of enterprise AI is here. Learn more at snowflake.com (NYSE: SNOW).

Media Contacts:

Sandya Kola

Product PR Specialist, Snowflake

[email protected]

KEYWORDS: United States North America Montana

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS: Professional Services Data Management Security Technology Data Analytics Artificial Intelligence

MEDIA:

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Omeros Corporation To Introduce Its Proprietary T-CAT™ Program for the Treatment of Multidrug-Resistant Pathogens in Plenary Session at Upcoming European Congress on Infectious Diseases

Omeros Corporation To Introduce Its Proprietary T-CAT™ Program for the Treatment of Multidrug-Resistant Pathogens in Plenary Session at Upcoming European Congress on Infectious Diseases

— Targeted Complement Activating Therapy™ Represents Next-Generation, Broadly Applicable Antimicrobial Therapeutics –

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–
Omeros Corporation (Nasdaq: OMER) today announced that the first public presentation of its proprietary Targeted Complement Activating TherapyTM (T-CATTM) platform will occur at the European Congress on Infectious Diseases 2025 in Rome, Italy on Monday, April 14. The plenum presentation, titled Augmenting cytotoxicity of pathogen-specific antibodies which initiate complement activation independent of the classical pathway, will be delivered by Prof. Wilhelm Schwaeble, Ph.D., D.Sc., Director of Research DVM at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Omeros-Cambridge Center for Complement and Inflammation Research.

Omeros’ T-CAT platform presents a novel class of pathogen-targeting recombinant antibodies designed for broad applicability against diverse microbial species, including multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), without promoting or enhancing the development of drug resistance. The global rise of MDROs – microorganisms, predominantly bacteria, that are resistant to one or more classes of antimicrobial agents – has massive clinical and economic implications. More than 2.8 million antimicrobial-resistant infections occur in the U.S. each year, and more than 35,000 people die as a result.

The mechanism of action of T-CAT recombinant monoclonal antibodies is unique. The heavy chains of each T-CAT antibody construct are engineered to contain an active complement-cleaving enzyme to trigger direct activation of complement on the microbial cell surface, leading to microbial destruction and clearance. Each engineered T-CAT construct is targeted, binding to surface antigens that are highly conserved across multiple microbial serogroups and essential for the targeted microbe’s survival, making each different T-CAT antibody construct lethal for a given microbial species while avoiding significant “off-target” effects. In well-established in vivo animal models considered predictive of efficacy in humans, T-CAT recombinant antibodies clearly demonstrated effectiveness in treating life-threatening infections caused by Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacterial pathogens, specifically Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Neisseria meningitidis, three of which have been designated by the World Health Organization as priority bacterial pathogens. Each T-CAT recombinant antibody demonstrated marked clearance of bacteria from blood and lung tissues, resulting in significant reduction of organism-mediated and inflammatory pulmonary injury as well as significantly increased survival compared to animals receiving the corresponding parent conventional antibody.

“T-CAT technology constitutes a new groundbreaking weapon for combatting multidrug-resistant organisms by activating complement directly on the cell surface of microbial pathogens,” stated Thomas J. Walsh, MD, PhD, Founding Director of the Center for Innovative Therapeutics and Diagnostics (https://citdx.org/leadership/) and a distinguished physician-scientist who has helped to develop from laboratory to clinical trials 24 small molecule antimicrobial agents and immunomodulators. “The T-CAT animal studies support a long plasma half-life and show substantially greater than 99% reduction of organisms in both blood stream and lung tissue, as well as marked reduction in organism-mediated pulmonary injury. Based on the data, initial clinical approaches include frontline treatment of MDR Gram-negative sepsis and pneumonias. Also, in combination and acting synergistically with beta-lactam/beta-lactamase antibiotics, T-CAT antibodies could help preserve the use of beta-lactam/beta-lactamase agents in the fight against MDRO infections. We are now evaluating T-CAT antibodies in the treatment of lethal fungal diseases, and I expect that they could well become especially important in the expanding global burden of antifungal-resistant pathogens, including Candida auris and triazole-resistant Aspergillus fumigatus. The ability of the T-CAT technology to harness monoclonal antibodies engineered to deliver complement activation onto the cell surface of pathogens independent of the classical pathway creates a new and exciting paradigm of attack against the global pandemic of MDROs.”

The T-CAT technology is designed to overcome shortcomings of current small-molecule and conventional antibody antimicrobials. The misuse and widespread administration of broad-spectrum small-molecule antibiotics in clinical practice have accelerated the selection and spread of MDROs, further exacerbating the global antibiotic resistance crisis. The development of new small-molecule antibacterial agents has been followed by the rapid emergence of resistance within months of their introduction, greatly limiting their potential utility. The current lack of effective new small-molecule antibiotic classes has led to an increasing interest in conventional antibodies to treat microbial infections, yet outcomes of clinical trials have been similarly disappointing. Conventional pathogen-targeting antibodies require the initiation of complement activation via the classical pathway C1 complex, but pathogens have been selected by their ability to evade C1-mediated complement activation, preventing their complement-driven killing and elimination. In contrast, T-CAT recombinant antibodies can bypass the limitations of the classical pathway initiation complex C1 by initiating robust complement activation directly on the surface of the microbe. Unlike small-molecule antimicrobials, T-CAT antibodies are not subject to resistance. Instead, they are engineered to be effective over a wide range of bacteria, including MDR bacteria, as well as fungi, viruses, and parasites across immunocompetent and immunocompromised patients without promoting the development of drug resistance. Because of their enhanced pathogen-specific cytotoxicity, T-CAT antibody dosing frequency and duration are expected to be significantly reduced relative to those of conventional anti-infectives.

“The T-CAT data to date across multiple Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacterial species are impressive, with extremely high killing activity and no apparent side effects in animal studies,” said Gregory A. Demopulos, M.D., Omeros’ Chairman and CEO. “The rapidly expanding MDRO threat and growing MDRO-related death rates globally demand a new and effective therapeutic approach. The established mechanism of our proprietary T-CAT platform should overcome the life-threatening shortcomings of current antimicrobials – effective against MDROs in both immunocompetent and immunocompromised hosts without enhancing drug-resistance and broadly applicable to the full range of often-lethal bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. Funding opportunities to combat the MDRO crisis are significant, and we look forward to securing resources to move our technology quickly into the clinic.”

In 2024, sales of anti-infectives were $46 billion in the U.S. and $135 billion globally. Over the next 25 years, more than 39 million people worldwide are estimated to die from MDR bacteria alone.

About Omeros Corporation

Omeros is an innovative biopharmaceutical company committed to discovering, developing and commercializing first-in-class small-molecule and protein therapeutics for large-market and orphan indications targeting immunologic disorders, including complement-mediated diseases and cancers, as well as addictive and compulsive disorders. Omeros’ lead MASP-2 inhibitor narsoplimab targets the lectin pathway of complement and is the subject of a biologics license application pending before FDA for the treatment of hematopoietic stem cell transplant-associated thrombotic microangiopathy. Omeros’ long-acting MASP-2 inhibitor OMS1029 has successfully completed Phase 1 single- and multiple-ascending dose clinical studies. Zaltenibart, Omeros’ inhibitor of MASP-3, the key activator of the alternative pathway of complement, is in Phase 3 clinical development for paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria and is being evaluated in an ongoing Phase 2 clinical trial for complement 3 glomerulopathy. Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Omeros’ lead phosphodiesterase 7 inhibitor OMS527 is in clinical development for the treatment of cocaine use disorder. Omeros also is advancing a broad portfolio of novel cellular and molecular immuno-oncology programs. For more information about Omeros and its programs, visit www.omeros.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which are subject to the “safe harbor” created by those sections for such statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, which are often indicated by terms such as “aim,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “goal,” “intend,” “likely,” “look forward to,” “may,” “objective,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “slate,” “target,” “will,” “would” and similar expressions and variations thereof. Forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the anticipated therapeutic benefits or commercial prospects of Omeros’ therapeutic technologies or investigational agents, and statements regarding the availability of funding opportunities, are based on management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information available to management only as of the date of this press release. Omeros’ actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements for many reasons, including, without limitation, unfavorable results of preclinical or clinical development activities, unavailability of capital resources to support planned development activities, regulatory processes and oversight, challenges associated with conducting clinical trials, intellectual property claims, competitive developments, litigation, and the risks, uncertainties and other factors described under the heading “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 31, 2025, and in our subsequently filed Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Given these risks, uncertainties and other factors, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, and we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

Jennifer Cook Williams

Cook Williams Communications, Inc.

Investor and Media Relations

[email protected]

KEYWORDS: United States North America Washington

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS: Oncology Health Infectious Diseases Stem Cells Clinical Trials Pharmaceutical Biotechnology

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Introducing Amazon Nova Sonic: A New Gen AI Model for Building Voice Applications and Agents

Introducing Amazon Nova Sonic: A New Gen AI Model for Building Voice Applications and Agents

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–
Today, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) introduced Amazon Nova Sonic,a new foundation model that unifies speech understanding and speech generation into a single model, to enable more human-like voice conversations in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Available in Amazon Bedrock via a new bi-directional streaming API, the model simplifies the development of voice applications, such as customer service call automation and AI agents across a broad range of industries, including travel, education, healthcare, entertainment, and more.

“From the invention of the world’s best personal AI assistant with Alexa, to developing AWS services like Connect, Lex, and Polly that are used across a wide range of industries, Amazon has long believed that voice-powered applications can make all of our customers’ lives better and easier,” said Rohit Prasad, SVP of Amazon Artificial General Intelligence. “With Amazon Nova Sonic, we are releasing a new foundation model in Amazon Bedrock that makes it simpler for developers to build voice-powered applications that can complete tasks for customers with higher accuracy, while being more natural, and engaging.”

Traditional approaches to building voice-enabled applications involve complex orchestration of multiple models, such as speech recognition to convert speech to text, large language models (LLMs) to understand and generate responses, and text-to-speech to convert text back to audio. This fragmented approach not only increases development complexity but also fails to preserve crucial acoustic context and nuances like tone, prosody, and speaking style that are essential for natural conversations.

Nova Sonic solves these challenges through a unified model architecture that delivers speech understanding and generation, without requiring a separate model for each of these steps. This unification enables the model to adapt the generated voice response to the acoustic context (e.g. tone, style) and the spoken input, resulting in more natural dialog. Nova Sonic even understands the nuances of human conversation, including the speaker’s natural pauses and hesitations, waiting to speak until the appropriate time, and gracefully handling barge-ins. It also generates a text transcript for the user’s speech, enabling developers to use that text to call specific tools and APIs for building voice-enabled AI agents (e.g., an AI-powered travel agent that can book flights by retrieving up to date flight information). These capabilities, along with its lightning-fast inference, make voice applications powered by Nova Sonic more natural and useful.

State-of-the-art accuracy and quality

Nova Sonic has been rigorously tested against a wide range of industry standard benchmarks for speech understanding and generation, demonstrating exceptional quality and accuracy for human-like, real-time voice conversations.

The model excels in natural dialog handling, seamlessly understanding and adapting to pauses, hesitations, and interruptions while maintaining conversational context throughout the interaction. This capability contributed to strong performance for overall quality and accuracy in turn-taking tests.

Nova Sonic demonstrates strong performance on overall conversation quality compared to other models in the industry, which at this time include a select few with similar real-time conversational speech capabilities, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4o (Realtime) and Google Gemini Flash 2.0 (available via Gemini’s experimental live API). For example, single-turn dialogs in its American English masculine-sounding voice achieved a 51.0% and 69.7% win-rate against OpenAI’s GPT-4o (Realtime) and Google’s Gemini Flash 2.0 respectively, based on the Common Eval data set. Likewise, Nova Sonic’s American English feminine-sounding voice scored 50.9% and 66.3% win-rate against OpenAI’s GPT-4o (Realtime) and Google’s Gemini Flash 2.0 respectively on the same data set. Nova Sonic also exceeds performance for its British English feminine-sounding voice, scoring a 58.3% win-rate against OpenAI’s GPT-4o (Realtime).

Since recognizing spoken words is critical in generating accurate responses, measuring Nova Sonic’s speech recognition accuracy in terms of word error rate (WER) across a wide range of languages, dialects, and accents is also critical. On the Multilingual LibriSpeech, Nova Sonic achieved a WER of 4.2%, which is 36.4% relative lower than OpenAI’s GPT-4o Transcribe model, when averaged across English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

On English utterances of the Multilingual LibriSpeech (MLS) data set, it has 24.2% relative lower WER compared to OpenAI’s GPT-4o Transcribe model.

Nova Sonic is also robust to noisy conditions, with 46.7% relative lower WER for English compared to OpenAI’s GPT-4o Transcribe model measured on Augmented Multi Party Interaction (AMI) meeting benchmark that consists of real-world noisy and multi-speaker interactions.

Tool-use for function calling and agentic workflows

Nova Sonic also supports tool-use for applications—like customer service call automation—that require the responses to be factually grounded in enterprise data, such as pricing plans, available inventory, and schedule availability. Nova Sonic’s native tool-use also enables the model to resolve complex customer queries and complete tasks on behalf of customers, for example, “make a reservation” or “find alternate flights.”

Multiple native voices and speaking styles

Nova Sonic supports three expressive voices, including both masculine-sounding and feminine-sounding voices now generally available in English, and supports speech generation in different English accents including American and British. Support for additional languages and accents will be coming soon.

Industry-leading speed and price performance

Nova Sonic delivers an average customer-perceived latency of 1.09 seconds from the time the customer is done talking to the time the system generates the first speech response. This is compared to 1.18 seconds for OpenAI’s GPT-4o (Realtime), and 1.41 seconds for Google’s Gemini Flash 2.0 (available via Gemini’s experimental live API), per benchmarking by Artificial Analysis.

Nova Sonic is the most cost-efficient model in the industry, when compared to models that have similar functionality of real-time speech conversations and have public pricing available. For example, it is nearly 80% less expensive than OpenAI’s GPT-4o (Realtime).

Amazon Nova Sonic is helping companies drive better customer satisfaction and productivity

ASAPP empowers enterprise customers’ contact centers to deliver unmatched customer service through GenerativeAgent, a fully conversational generative Al voice agent. “At ASAPP, we are focused on using generative AI to deliver reliable, secure, and high-performing solutions for improving customer service in contact centers. We’ve been particularly impressed by Amazon Nova Sonic’s highly accurate speech understanding capabilities which allow for more natural voice interactions and precise dialog handling over telephony,” said Nirmal Mukhi, VP of AI Engineering at ASAPP. “We’re excited to continue using Nova Sonic to deliver secure, high-quality, and precise conversations that meet the demands of enterprise contact centers.”

Education First (EF) is a leader in international education through its networks of schools and offices in over 50 countries. “Amazon Nova Sonic enables EF students to practice new vocabulary and refine their pronunciation in a dynamic learning environment, while the interactive nature of the model allows students to receive immediate feedback on their pronunciation attempts, contributing to a more efficient and effective learning process. The model is capable of accurately understanding non-native English speakers with a variety of accents. We were also impressed with the barge-in feature of Nova Sonic, where the model quickly reacts to interruptions,” said Tim Hesse, VP of AI and Data at EF. “The scalability and reliability of the technology will allow us to expand our capacity to serve a larger student population simultaneously, without compromising the quality of instruction.”

Stats Perform is a sports data and AI technology provider, serving global media organizations, betting operators, and professional sports teams. “At Stats Perform, our goal is to empower the world’s top sports broadcasters, media, federations and teams with magic in the detail of our vast live and historical Opta sports dataset, to help them win audiences, customers and trophies. With the Opta AI Chat they can generate unique, accurate, and contextual responses, driven by live data insights with remarkable speed, in multiple formats and languages, to find a winning analytical or storytelling edge,” said Mike Perez, Chief Operating Officer at Stats Perform. “We’ve been testing Amazon Nova Sonic and have been particularly impressed by the system’s low latency, which enables near-instantaneous responses even to complex queries of our model, creating a seamless user experience that turns human experts into superhuman experts. The intuitive prompting capability and ease of setup have exceeded our expectations, making implementation simple. Overall, Nova Sonic has proven to be a fantastic solution.”

Amazon is committed to the responsible development of artificial intelligence

Amazon Nova models are built with integrated safety measures and protections. The company has launched AWS AI Service Cards for Nova models, offering transparent information on use cases, limitations, and responsible AI practices.

To get started with Amazon Nova models, visit: https://aws.amazon.com/nova/

To learn more, visit: About Amazon for details on today’s announcement.

Amazon.com, Inc.

Media Hotline

[email protected]

www.amazon.com/pr

KEYWORDS: United States North America Washington

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS: Apps/Applications Technology Audio/Video Software Retail Data Management Artificial Intelligence Consumer Electronics Online Retail

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Dell Technologies Unveils Infrastructure Innovations Built to Power Modern AI-Ready Data Centers

Dell Technologies Unveils Infrastructure Innovations Built to Power Modern AI-Ready Data Centers

  • Dell introduces innovations across its industry-leading infrastructure portfolio to help customers accelerate their data center modernization journeys
  • Server, storage and data protection advancements help customers easily meet the needs of traditional and modern workloads with improved performance, efficiency and scalability

ROUND ROCK, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–
Dell Technologies (NYSE: DELL) introduces advancements across its industry-leading server, storage and data protection portfolios designed to help organizations achieve data center modernization.

Why It Matters:

Organizations are rethinking their IT strategies to respond to the rise of AI, the need to support both traditional and modern workloads and increased cyber threats. IT teams are moving toward disaggregated infrastructure that abstracts compute, storage and networking into shared resource pools to deliver improved scalability, efficiency and adaptability.

Dell Technologies server, storage and data protection innovations are designed to help customers rethink their IT infrastructure approach to better meet the needs of traditional and modern workloads.

Dell PowerEdge servers deliver advanced performance, energy efficiency and scalability

Dell PowerEdge R470, R570, R670 and R770 servers with Intel Xeon 6 Processors with P-cores are single and double-socket servers in 1U and 2U form factors that easily handle demanding traditional and emerging workloads like HPC, virtualization, analytics and AI inferencing:

  • Improves Workload Consolidation: Consolidate legacy platforms, freeing up power and up to 80% of space per 42U rack with the Dell PowerEdge R770. These systems save up to half of the energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions, and support up to 50% more cores per processors1 and 67% increased performance.2 This reduces data center footprints to help achieve sustainability goals and lower overall total cost of ownership without sacrificing performance.
  • Delivers Extreme Power with Efficiency: The powerful and efficient Dell PowerEdge R570 achieves record-breaking Intel performance per watt, helping enterprises save on energy costs while maintaining high performance workloads.3
  • Future-Ready Designs: Simplify and future-proof operations with the Data Center – Modular Hardware System (DC-MHS) architecture, as part of the Open Compute Project (OCP). DC-MHS standardizes server design, supporting easier integration into existing infrastructure, improving customer choice.
  • Streamlined management: PowerEdge servers deliver streamlined management and robust protection through Dell OpenManage enhancements and Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (IDRAC 10) updates, including real-time monitoring. When paired with PERC13 PCIe Gen 5 HW Raid controller, customers can see up to a 33X reduction in write latency.4

Dell PowerStore boosts performance and security while simplifying data management

Dell PowerStore’s intelligent software design delivers an automated, highly programmable platform with advanced data reduction and independently scalable storage services suited to the needs of modern disaggregated architectures. PowerStore’s latest software release delivers:

  • AI-Powered Analytics: Reduce cost and eliminate manual effort with Smart Support alerts and remediation, performance headroom analytics and carbon footprint forecasting using Dell AIOps (formerly CloudIQ) software.
  • Enhanced Zero-Trust Security: Control access and boost availability with DoD smart card authentication support, automated certificate renewal and enhanced Storage Direct Protection integrations that deliver up to 4X faster backup restores5 plus support for the latest Dell PowerProtect systems.
  • Advanced File System Support: Enhance system performance with advanced file management capabilities, robust data protection with secure file snapshots, capacity insights for smarter storage planning and streamlined migration from Dell Unity systems.

The next generation of Dell ObjectScale drives improved performance and scale

Dell introduces the next generation of Dell ObjectScale, the industry’s highest-performing object platform.6 Dell ObjectScale delivers massive scalability, performance and efficiency for AI workloads. Dell is modernizing the enterprise-grade architecture of ObjectScale and introducing new all-flash and HDD appliance options to provide:

  • Fast Object for AI: Innovate faster with the industry-leading AI workload performance of ObjectScale XF960, delivering up to 2X greater throughput per node than the closest competitor7 andup to 8X greater density than previous-generation all-flash systems.8
  • Accelerate Modern Workloads: HDD-based Dell ObjectScale X560 accelerates key workloads like media ingest, backups and AI model training with 83% faster read throughput.9
  • Extreme Efficiency and Resiliency: Easily operate and secure AI data lakes with multi-site federation, copy-to-cloud, geo-replication, global namespace and data governance capabilities, backed by a new hybrid cloud solution powered by ObjectScale, developed in collaboration with Wasabi.

Dell PowerScale innovations unlock the power of AI data

Dell PowerScale’s scale-out architecture makes it ideal to use as the backbone for modern AI-driven operations. Advancements improve performance-per-terabyte, enhance data center floorspace utilization and balance affordability with performance to optimize TCO.

  • High Density All-Flash Storage: 122TB SSDs maximize GPU utilization with up to 6 PBs10 of high-speed data access in a single 2U node configuration and deliver leading performance density to meet massive AI throughput requirements.
  • Hybrid and Archive Nodes: PowerScale A & H series nodes (H710, H7100, A310, A3100) deliver reduced latency and improved performance with a refreshed compute module for HDD-based platforms. Customers can future proof their data centers and retain AI training data longer with a flexible, TCO-optimized portfolio mix to improve accuracy and efficiency.

Dell PowerProtect improves cyber resilience with greater performance and efficiency

Dell, the industry leader in purpose-built backup appliances11, introduces data protection updates designed to help customers strengthen their cyber resilience while controlling costs with enhanced performance, security and efficiency:

  • Scalable and Efficient Data Protection for All: Dell PowerProtect DD6410, with a capacity of 12 TB to 256 TB, is ideal for commercial, small business and remote site environments. It delivers up to 91% faster restores and scalability for traditional and modern workloads plus efficient operations with industry-leading up to 65X deduplication.12
  • All-Flash Performance and Efficiency: Dell PowerProtect All-Flash Ready Node, the first step in Dell’s all-flash data protection journey, delivers more secure and efficient data protection with a 220 TB capacity system that offers over 61% faster restore speeds, uses up to 36% less power, and features a 5X smaller footprint.13
  • Strengthened Enterprise Resiliency: PowerProtect Data Manager updates help customers quickly identify security risks with Anomaly Detection, manage Microsoft Hyper-V and Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization virtual machine backups and easily archive data to Dell ObjectScale for long-term retention.

Perspectives:

“Modern applications require a new breed of infrastructure that will help customers keep pace with everchanging data center demands,” said Arthur Lewis, president, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies. “From storage to servers to networking to data protection, only Dell Technologies provides an end-to-end disaggregated infrastructure portfolio that helps customers reduce complexity, increase IT agility and accelerate data center modernization.”

“Organizations are refocusing their IT strategies to take a disaggregated approach to infrastructure that improves resource management and simplifies management complexity,” said Simon Robinson, principal analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group, now part of Omdia. “Dell Technologies is delivering updates across its infrastructure portfolio designed to help customers easily overcome these challenges so that they’re ready to manage any workload.”

Availability

  • Dell PowerEdge R470, R570, R670 and R770 servers featuring Intel Xeon 6 Processors with P-cores and E-cores are available now.
  • Dell PowerStore software updates are available now.
  • Dell ObjectScale is available now as a software update for current Dell ECS environments.
  • HDD-based ObjectScale X560 will be available in April 2025.
  • All-Flash ObjectScale appliances will be available beginning in Q3 CY2025.
  • Dell PowerScale HDD-based nodes will be available in June 2025.
  • Dell PowerScale with 122TB drives will be available in May 2025.
  • Dell PowerProtect DD6410 and All-Flash Ready Node will be available in April 2025.
  • Dell PowerProtect Data Manager updates are available now.

Additional resources

About Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies (NYSE: DELL) helps organizations and individuals build their digital future and transform how they work, live and play. The company provides customers with the industry’s broadest and most innovative technology and services portfolio for the AI era.

Copyright © 2025 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell Technologies and Dell are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners.

  1. Based on Dell analysis comparing the SPECint and SPECFP scores of the Dell PowerEdge R770 with Intel 6th Gen Xeon SP 6787P (1550 and 1560) with the same scores for an Intel Xeon 8280 in a Dell PowerEdge R740XD ( 375 and 296). The ratio of the scores shows that 5 of the R740xd servers would give a total score similar to that for the single R770 as configured above. The Energy costs and green house gases are calculated from EIPT tool- https://dell-ui-eipt.azurewebsites.net/#/. Actual performance will vary. Spec Results submitted on March 10, 2025, done in Dell Perf labs.
  2. Based on Dell testing with Servers at Dell Performance Labs on March 10 2025 for Dell PowerEdge R770 with Intel 6th Gen Xeon SP 6787P (86 cores) with CPU INT Rate Base of 1550 as compared to R760 with 5th gen 8592+ (64 cores) score 1070 and compared to R760 with 4th gen Intel xeon SP 8480+ (56 cores) score of 976.
  3. Based on Dell testing with Servers at Dell Performance Labs and publicly available performance results submitted on https://www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/results/ on March 10 2025 for Dell PowerEdge R570 with Intel 6th Gen Xeon SP 6787P (86 cores) which achieved average Perf/watt 21,089 as compared to all submissions on 2U, 1 Socket with 6787P CPU.
  4. Based on Dell and Broadcom testing on PowerEdge R770 with Intel Xeon 6th Gen CPU, for System Responsiveness, the Write latency has been reduced from over 200 microseconds to just 6 microseconds, a 33x improvement that directly impacts application performance. Actual results may vary.
  5. Based on internal testing of restore performance using Storage Direct Protection between PowerStore 5200T and DD6900.
  6. Based on Dell internal analysis of publicly available data as of Mar. 2025. Dell performance is based on large object read throughput per node and cluster configurations configured with ObjectScale XF960 and Ethernet networking. Actual results may vary.
  7. Based on Dell internal analysis of publicly available data as of Mar. 2025. Dell performance is based on large object read throughput per node and cluster configurations configured with ObjectScale XF960 and Ethernet networking. Actual results may vary.
  8. Based on Dell analysis comparing highest planned drive capacity options on ObjectScale XF960 compared to available drive capacity options on ECS EXF900, Mar. 2025.
  9. Based on Dell analysis comparing ObjectScale X560 with 4.0 to ECS EX500 with 3.8 for small-object reads, Mar. 2025. Actual results may vary.
  10. Based on effective capacity analysis considering data reduction on an appropriately configured cluster with 122TB SSDs (Releasing May 28th, 2025). PowerScale also guarantees a 2:1 Data reduction ratio, See terms and conditions for details at: dr-guarantee-tc-powerscale.pdf (delltechnologies.com)
  11. Based on revenue from the IDC 4Q24 Purpose-Built Backup Appliance (PBBA) Tracker.
  12. Based on Dell internal testing comparing a PowerProtect DD6410 appliance vs. a PowerProtect DD6400 appliance.
  13. Based on Dell internal testing comparing a PowerProtect Data Domain All-Flash Ready Node vs. a PowerProtect DD6410 appliance, February 2025. Actual results may vary.

Media Relations: [email protected]

KEYWORDS: United States North America Texas

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS: Data Management Technology Other Technology Software Artificial Intelligence Internet

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RCI Reports 2Q25 Club & Restaurant Sales

RCI Reports 2Q25 Club & Restaurant Sales

HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–
RCI Hospitality Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: RICK) reported club and restaurant sales for the fiscal second quarter ended March 31, 2025. Sales do not include non-core operations and are subject to final closing. Full 2Q25 financial results are expected to be reported by May 12, 2025.

Eric Langan, President & CEO of RCI, commented: “Due to bad weather in January and February, 18 clubs and Bombshells had to close 1 or 2 days each. Even if they were able to open, a number of those and other locations experienced slower business, particularly on weekends when temperatures were below zero or had heavy snow and ice, for example, in Dallas and Houston. Then sales began to improve in March with warmer temperatures.”

“The quarter also included the acquisition of Flight Club in Detroit and the opening of Bombshells Denver, both in late January, and the opening of Chicas Locas El Paso in March. Year over year, most of the second quarter’s sales decline was due to the previously announced divestiture and closure of underperforming Bombshells locations.”

Club & Restaurant Sales ($ in Millions)

2Q25

Total Sales

Total Sales vs. 2Q24

Same-Store Sales vs. 2Q24

Nightclubs

$57.1

-3.1%

-3.5%

Bombshells

$8.2

-35.6%

-13.4%

Combined

$65.4

-8.9%

-4.7%

Nightclubs: Total sales reflected the decrease in SSS and the absence of a club due to fire in July 2024, partially offset by five new and reformatted clubs not in SSS (three for the whole quarter, Flight Club starting in late January, and Chicas Locas El Paso starting in early March).

Bombshells: Total sales primarily reflected the divestiture and closing of five locations in 4Q24 and 1Q25 and the decline in SSS, partially offset by two locations not in SSS (Stafford, TX, and Denver, CO).

6M25

Total Sales

Total Sales vs. 6M24

Same-Store Sales vs. 6M24

Nightclubs

$118.4

-0.9%

0.0%

Bombshells

$17.8

-30.1%

-10.4%

Combined

$136.2

-6.1%

-1.2%

Notes: Revenues from non-core operations, such as third-party rents, and revenues from RCI’s Other segment, are not included in the sales above. All references to “RCI Hospitality Holdings, Inc.,” “company,” “we,” “our,” and similar terms refer to RCI and/or its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

About RCI Hospitality Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: RICK) (X: @RCIHHinc)

With more than 60 locations, RCI Hospitality Holdings, Inc., through its subsidiaries, is the country’s leading company in adult nightclubs and sports bars-restaurants. See all of our brands at www.rcihospitality.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause the company’s actual results to differ materially from those indicated, including, but not limited to, the risks and uncertainties associated with (i) operating and managing an adult entertainment or restaurant business, (ii) the business climates in cities where it operates, (iii) the success or lack thereof in launching and building the company’s businesses, (iv) cyber security, (v) conditions relevant to real estate transactions, and (vi) numerous other factors such as laws governing the operation of adult entertainment or restaurant businesses, competition and dependence on key personnel. For more detailed discussion of such factors and certain risks and uncertainties, see RCI’s annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2024, as well as its other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company has no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements to reflect the occurrence of future events or circumstances.

Media & Investor Contacts

Gary Fishman and Michael Wichman at 212-532-3232 or [email protected] or [email protected]

KEYWORDS: United States North America Texas

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS: Retail Restaurant/Bar

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iBusiness Funding Launches First-Of-Its-Kind Agentic Lending AI Solution and Announces $100 Million Commitment Toward AI

iBusiness Funding Launches First-Of-Its-Kind Agentic Lending AI Solution and Announces $100 Million Commitment Toward AI

 

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–
iBusiness Funding (iBF), the technology and lending services division of Ready Capital Corporation (NYSE: RC), today announced the launch of Lendsey AI – the industry’s first agentic AI platform specifically designed for SMB lending. The business banking technology innovator also announced a $100 million commitment toward the advancement and integration of AI across its platform.

“Today marks a major change for the way small businesses access capital,” said Justin Levy, CEO of iBusiness Funding. “Lendsey AI is both borrower- and lender-facing, augmenting both sides of the lending process with instant feedback and actually executing work on behalf of the borrower and lender. This announcement marks the beginning of a bold new era in financial technology – one where speed, security and intelligence converge to better serve the businesses that drive the U.S. economy.”

Lendsey is exclusively available as an add-on to iBusiness Funding’s secure end-to-end platform, LenderAI – a groundbreaking Loan Origination System (LOS) that enables financial institutions to use AI on their own terms in a separate, secure environment. With its own loan processing division, iBF processes over $100 million in SBA and conventional loans each month. iBusiness Funding is uniquely positioned as the only AI company that leverages data and models from its own lending operations – opposed to using bank and client data – for the benefit of lender clients and borrowers. LenderAI’s suite of proprietary built-in tools – including telephony, email, OCR, chat, document generation, and e-signing – empowers Lendsey to act agentically: not only analyzing and deciding but also taking independent action, including communication and execution, all in-house.

“We have supported Justin and iBusiness Funding for the past decade and have seen the impact of their technology firsthand,” said Tom Capasse, CEO of Ready Capital. “Their exponential growth and evolution of product offerings without increasing costs are truly impressive, and we are excited to support them as they launch this next chapter in AI. With solutions that have been field-tested on over $11 billion in loans, iBusiness Funding is poised to be the clear leader in the lendtech AI space.”

This commitment of funds will be internally financed through operating revenue, reflecting the company’s strong performance and long-term confidence in AI-driven lending. With a decade of product innovation, domain expertise, and a trailblazing approach to agentic AI, the company is transforming the legacy lending process and powering the future of secure, intelligent, and autonomous lending.

To learn more about iBusiness Funding and Lendsey, visit ibusinessfunding.com/lendsey.

About iBusiness Funding, LLC

iBusiness Funding is a leading provider of lending solutions for banks and lenders of all sizes, specializing in SBA lending. The company is dedicated to streamlining the business lending process, enabling lenders to efficiently deliver capital to small and medium-sized businesses. iBusiness Funding has processed over $7 billion in SBA loans to date and handles over 1,200 business loan applications daily. iBusiness Funding is wholly owned by Ready Capital Corporation.

About Ready Capital Corporation

Ready Capital Corporation (NYSE: RC) is a multi-strategy real estate finance company that originates, acquires, finances, and services lower-to-middle-market investor and owner-occupied commercial real estate loans. The company specializes in loans backed by commercial real estate, including agency multifamily, investor, construction, and bridge loans, as well as U.S. Small Business Administration loans under its Section 7(a) program. Headquartered in New York City, the company employs approximately 350 professionals nationwide.

Media

Derrius Rodgers

Caliber Corporate Advisers for iBusiness Funding

[email protected]

KEYWORDS: United States North America Florida

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS: VoIP Banking Software Professional Services Fintech Technology Small Business Commercial Building & Real Estate Asset Management Construction & Property Artificial Intelligence Security Finance

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Thryv to Release First Quarter 2025 Financial Results on Thursday, May 1

Thryv to Release First Quarter 2025 Financial Results on Thursday, May 1

DALLAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Thryv® Holdings, Inc.(NASDAQ:THRY) (“Thryv” or the “Company”), provider of the leading small business marketing and sales software platform, announced today that it will release its first quarter 2025 financial results on Thursday, May 1, before the market opens. The release will be followed by a conference call at 8:30 a.m. ET to discuss the results with the investment community.

To register for this conference call, please use this link or visit Thryv’s Investor Relations website at investor.thryv.com. After registering, a confirmation email will be sent, including dial-in details and a unique code for entry. We recommend registering a day in advance or at minimum thirty minutes prior to the start of the call. A live webcast will also be available on the Investor Relations section of the Company’s website at investor.thryv.com.

Downloadable files of the press release and an audio replay of the call will be available on the Company’s website after the live event.

ABOUT THRYV

Thryv Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:THRY) is the provider of the leading sales and marketing platform designed to help small businesses attract new and repeat customers. Thryv software offers SMBs everything they need to manage day-to-day operations and grow efficiently. The platform’s AI-supported marketing and business automations help business owners save time, compete, and win. More than 100K businesses globally use Thryv software to connect with customers and run and grow their business. For more information, visit www.thryv.com.

Media Contact:

Julie Murphy

Thryv, Inc.

617.967.5426

[email protected]

Investor Contact:

Cameron Lessard

Thryv, Inc.

[email protected]

KEYWORDS: United States North America Texas

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS: Software Finance Marketing Artificial Intelligence Communications Small Business Professional Services Technology

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Sallie Mae to Release First-Quarter 2025 Financial Results

Sallie Mae to Release First-Quarter 2025 Financial Results

Webcast Scheduled for Thursday, April 24, at 5:30 p.m. ET

NEWARK, Del.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–
Sallie Mae® (Nasdaq: SLM), formally SLM Corporation, will release first-quarter 2025 financial results after market close on Thursday, April 24, 2025.

A live audio webcast and presentation slides will be available at SallieMae.com/investors and the hosting website. Investors should log in at least 15 minutes prior to the broadcast.

The earnings news release will be available at SallieMae.com/investors. A replay will also be available on the site.

Sallie Mae (Nasdaq: SLM) believes education and life-long learning, in all forms, help people achieve great things. As the leader in private student lending, we provide financing and know-how to support access to college and offer products and resources to help customers make new goals and experiences, beyond college, happen. Learn more at SallieMae.com. Commonly known as Sallie Mae, SLM Corporation and its subsidiaries are not sponsored by or agencies of the United States of America.

Category: Corporate and Financial

Media

Rick Castellano

302.451.2541

[email protected]

Investors

Melissa Bronaugh

571.526.2455

[email protected]

KEYWORDS: United States North America Delaware

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS: Personal Finance Finance Professional Services University Education

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