Market Newsdesk

LOS ANGELES, March 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Consumer insights platform DISQO today announced that it is Great Place to Work-Certified™ for the second consecutive year. Using validated employee feedback gathered with Great Place to Work’s rigorous, data-driven methodology, this certification confirms 96% of employees have a consistently positive experience at DISQO.

Great Place to Work, the global authority on workplace culture, employee experience, and leadership behaviors proven to deliver market-leading revenue and increased innovation, found that 96% of employees at DISQO say it is a great place to work — compared to 59% of employees at US companies on average. Contributing to this are highly competitive employee benefits, including 100% health coverage, flexible time off and a supportive, vibrant culture focused on individual and team growth.

“We’re committed to fostering an environment where our employees feel valued and appreciated in everything they do, with a laser focus on individual and collective growth,” said Tiffany Chelsvig, Vice President of People Operations at DISQO. “We’re a great place to work, not only because of the programs we’ve put in place but because our people have deeply committed to making DISQO collaborative and nurturing. This is not a people operations win, but a company-wide accomplishment. Together, our people and principles make DISQO a truly great place to work.”

“We congratulate DISQO on their certification,” said Sarah Lewis-Kulin, Vice President of Best Workplace List Research at Great Place to Work. “Organizations that earn their employees’ trust create great workplace cultures that deliver outstanding business results.”

To learn more about DISQO, please visit https://www.disqo.com/. To learn more about this recognition, please visit http://www.greatplacetowork.com/.

About DISQO

DISQO is a next-generation consumer-first insights platform that delivers unprecedented data and analytics to the market research industry. The company powers insights professionals and marketers with automated solutions that drive consumer research and improve ad effectiveness. Today, DISQO delivers an accurate and complete view of the consumer journey via technology built on the foundation of first-party research from millions of engaged consumers. By engaging consumers who choose to share their attitudes and behaviors, DISQO captures the highest quality data, empowering its clients to make confident decisions. Founded in 2015, DISQO is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, and has over 160 employees.

About Great Place to Work®

Great Place to Work® is the global authority on workplace culture. Since 1992, they have surveyed more than 100 million employees around the world and used those deep insights to define what makes a great workplace: trust. Great Place to Work helps organizations quantify their culture and produce better business results by creating a high-trust work experience for all employees. Emprising®, their culture management platform, empowers leaders with the surveys, real-time reporting, and insights they need to make data-driven people decisions. Their unparalleled benchmark data is used to recognize Great Place to Work-Certified™ companies and the Best Workplaces™ in the US and more than 60 countries, including the 100 Best Companies to Work For® and World’s Best list published annually in Fortune. Everything they do is driven by the mission to build a better world by helping every organization become a Great Place to Work For All™.

Contact

Stacee Collins
Blast PR for DISQO
[email protected] 

San Francisco, CA, March 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Waud Capital has selected Treya Partners as the preferred service provider for procurement value creation. Waud Capital is a middle market private equity firm focused on partnering with exceptional management teams to build leading companies in their focus sectors of healthcare services and business and technology services. Waud is partnering with Treya Partners to implement Treya’s Managed Portfolio Procurement (MPP) program to drive cost reduction through strategic sourcing, monitoring of savings & compliance, managing volume leveraged vendor contracts, and moderating procurement best practices roundtables.  

Established in 2006, Treya Partners is one of North America’s leading procurement consulting firms for private equity. Treya Partners has worked with over 45 private equity firms on various procurement value creation initiatives including due diligence support, cross portfolio GPO and direct contract management, and pre-exit spend optimization.  Treya’s MPP program was launched in 2019 in response to their private equity firm client’s requests for a holistic managed program. MPP program is a 5-prong approach to procurement value creation – Spend Analytics/Spend Cube, GPO contract implementation, PE-level direct contract implementation, CFO/CPO roundtables, and strategic sourcing.  

Shaun Chambers, Treya’s Managing Director, stated, “Treya Partners is pleased to be selected as a Waud Capital preferred service provider.  Waud Capital and their portfolio companies have established a strong name for themselves in the Private Equity industry.  We are eager to apply additional resources to existing efforts within the Waud portfolio and to launching new initiatives to increase procurement efficiencies and drive EBITDA improvements.” 

Felipe Soares, Waud Capital Director – Business Intelligence & Strategy, commented, “Treya Partners brings an additional layer of experience and expertise to ensure we are maximizing value in all key spend categories for our portfolio companies. Treya’s MPP program is a complete offering that will provide additional, procurement driven, value creation levers to our investments.” 

About Treya Partners 

Treya Partners is a management consulting firm specializing in procurement value creation, strategic sourcing, and spend management advisory services for Private Equity.  Treya was established in 2006 by a seasoned group of supply management professionals and has served hundreds of PE-owned companies across a broad range of industry sectors including manufacturing, distribution, retail, financial services, life sciences, healthcare, and technology.  Treya delivers meaningful EBITDA improvements from indirect (SG&A) and COGS categories in addition to implementing transformative procurement projects.  For further information, visit Treya Partners online at https://www.treyapartners.com. 

About Waud Capital 

Since its founding in 1993, Waud Capital has raised approximately $3.2 billion of capital commitments and has made more than 325 growth-oriented investments. Waud Capital partners with exceptional management teams to build leading companies in their focus sectors of healthcare services and business and technology services. Waud Capital’s disciplined and process-oriented approach has resulted in consistently superior risk-adjusted returns for their investors.

Attachment

• Waud and Treya Logos

Shaun Chambers
Treya Partners
1-703-731-6495
[email protected]

Philadelphia, PA, March 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — via NewMediaWire — Pennexx (PNNX) introduces https://MaozUSA.com, a worldwide quick-serve franchise group, to its https://YourSocialOffers.com (YSO) social media marketing platform.

Adding MaozUSA to the YSO platform is another accomplishment for https://YourSocialOffers.com in growing the YSO platform and introducing YSO to MaozUSA’s existing clients. 

Introducing successful brands like MaozUSA educates the public and merchants of our valuable YSO program to maintain current customers while bringing in new customers through social media sharing.

Joe Candito, President of Pennexx, stated, “YSO can be very instrumental in helping businesses, like Maoz, bounce back from the hardship created by the COVID epidemic. YSO provides merchants the ability to inexpensively and organically reach thousands of new customers through word-of-mouth social sharing offering savings and rewards.”

Maoz Vegetarian is a fast-food restaurant franchise with locations in Florida, Illinois, New York, and their international countries include Spain, The Netherlands, France, and Brazil.

Maoz opened their first restaurant in 1991, and they consider themselves “the world expert” for their falafel. Maoz has been working for over 20 years on perfecting the best tasting nutritious meals. Maoz has “more than 15 salads and sauces made with the finest ingredients from local farmers and purveyors.”

For More Information

Pennexx will do their best to openly and publicly answer your questions and concerns via social media on Twitter https://twitter.com/pennexx @pennexx, or you may email [email protected].

You may also follow them on Twitter; Joe Candito (@jcandito) https://twitter.com/jcandito, Ms. Sunny Sweet (@sunnysweettweet) https://twitter.com/sunnysweettweet and Mr. Risalvato (@vrisalvato) https://twitter.com/vrisalvato.

About Pennexx Foods Inc.

About Pennexx Foods Inc. (PNNX: OTCMKTS US). Pennexx, through its wholly-owned subsidiaries, is a holding company within the Software/Internet Industry focused on social media, prepaid debit cards, BitGift™, artificial intelligence, targeted marketing, and consumer rewards.

Safe Harbor Act: This release may contain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. “Forward-looking statements” describe future expectations, plans, results, or strategies and are generally preceded by words such as “may,” “future,” “plan” or “planned,” “will” or “should,” “expected,” “anticipates,” “draft,” “eventually” or “projected.” You are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events, or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, including the risks that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, and other risks identified in a company’s annual report.

For additional information, you may also visit our website at https://yoursocialoffers.com or https://pennexx.net or call 866-928-6409. Please follow us on Twitter @Pennexx.

OpenReel’s remote video technology has transformed how global enterprise teams create professional quality video; new funding accelerates product development and fortifies global expansion

NEW YORK, March 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) —  OpenReel, the leading Remote Video Creation™ platform, today announced it has closed a $19M Series A financing from global software investor Five Elms Capital. The company plans to further expand its offering into the enterprise video stack while continuing to develop its patented technology that enables globally distributed teams to remotely control, direct, record, and collaborate on high-definition video projects in over 125 countries.

Thousands of professionals at enterprises, consumer brands, media companies, and agencies trust OpenReel’s reliable and secure Remote Video Creation™ technology as a critical component of their workplace tech stacks and digital transformation strategies. Companies that use OpenReel’s platform can reduce the time, expense, and organizational burdens posed by in-person video shoots and workarounds using video conferencing or streaming tools.

“Due to the accelerated digital transformation we’ve experienced in the past year, there has been a fundamental shift in the way enterprises are creating content,” said Lee Firestone, CEO of OpenReel. “We continue to see organizations utilizing video in exciting new ways and are well-positioned to iterate on our product to meet the growing demand from the hybrid workforce of the future.”

Over the past 12 months, OpenReel has experienced 12x ARR growth as its patented technology disrupted the video creation industry as an end-to-end remote solution. Today, OpenReel is trusted by more than 200 enterprise clients and hundreds of small-to-medium-size businesses to securely and confidently create high-quality, polished video. Built for enterprises, OpenReel’s patented technology, ISO 27001 certification, in-shoot support, dedicated account management, and powerful features put the tools of a traditional shoot into the hands of professionals and video beginners alike.

“Five Elms loves investing in businesses that challenge the old way of doing things, and OpenReel does just that,” said Thomas Kershisnik, with Five Elms Capital. “OpenReel has proven itself as an important component of the remote technology stack, as well as a vital tool in the broader content creation toolbox, empowering enterprises to enhance their content and create more of it. Five Elms Capital is excited to partner with Lee, Joe, and their growing team as they broaden the way creatives and enterprises think about video content creation.”

Current investors in OpenReel include Las Olas Venture Capital, Alpine Meridian Ventures, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, Forefront Ventures, WorkerBee.TV as well as notable angel investors. Total investment in OpenReel has now passed $23.9M including equity and debt financings.

About Five Elms

Five Elms Capital is a global growth equity firm that invests in fast-growing B2B software businesses that users love. Five Elms provides capital and resources to help companies accelerate growth and further cement their role as industry leaders. Since firm inception in 2007, Five Elms has focused exclusively on software investing, building an unmatched network and deep domain expertise. Today with $700+ million AUM and a team of over 50 investment professionals, Five Elms has invested in more than 40 software platforms globally. To learn more about the company, visit: www.fiveelms.com.

About OpenReel

OpenReel™ enables remote video creation for enterprises, media, and entertainment companies worldwide, empowering them to direct and film up to 4K video content from over 125 countries. With its patented suite of remote video direction, capture, and collaboration capabilities, OpenReel™ makes it possible for businesses of all sizes to cut down on the time- and resource-intensive process of on-location video shoots and scale content creation initiatives efficiently and effectively. OpenReel is based in New York, with its employees currently distributed worldwide. To learn more about the company, visit: www.openreel.com.

Contact:

OpenReel
Teresa Hill
[email protected]

 

LONDON, March 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NordVPN is proud to announce a new feature — Nord Account, a secure and simplified way to use and manage accounts of the Nord family products. Nord Account is a platform that unifies the login and sign-up process across NordVPN, the world’s leading VPN service provider, NordPass, a next-generation password manager, and NordLocker, an end-to-end file encryption tool with a private cloud. Additionally, with the launch of Nord Account, Nord is starting to introduce the MFA sign-in process.

“Since the Nord suite of cybersecurity services is expanding, the time has come to introduce a new centralized solution that will help our users manage their accounts in a hassle-free way from a single place,” says Vykintas Maknickas, Product Strategist at NordVPN. “We’re following the industry standards, where platforms similar to Nord Account are used by tech giants.”

How the user benefits from Nord Account

• One account instead of multiple.
• Seamless experience.
• The same unified user authentication process for all products.
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA).
• Centralized account management. Nord Account allows users to see all their active subscriptions to Nord products in one place, extend or cancel them, see the billing history, download apps, change account preferences, and read the latest security reports.
• Ability to authenticate input-constrained devices remotely.
• Log in with a simple click of a button. If a user is logged in to their Nord Account in a browser, NordVPN, NordPass, and/or NordLocker will recognize the user’s data and will let them log in with one click.

How Nord Account works

Nord Account works with NordVPN, NordPass, and NordLocker individually, as a mix of any two, or all three combined.

For existing users, a Nord product account will be automatically transferred to Nord Account, so there’s no need to register again or manually change account details. Users just need to look for ‘Log in with Nord Account’ in their Nord product apps or create their Nord Account here.

The technology behind Nord Account

To act as a centralized identity provider and authorization server for Nord products and services, Nord Account is built on the OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect 1.0 protocols. “Once logged in to Nord Account in their default browser, users won’t need to enter their password to log in to Nord apps,” explains Vykintas Maknickas. “This is a future-proof technology, and Nord Security is the only provider on the market to use such efficient and high-level standards. Hopefully, we’re starting a new era of login security.”

“With Nord Account, we also hope to reduce the password burden for our users and help them to avoid password reuse, which might result in credential stuffing attacks,” Vykintas Maknickas points out.

Future plans

In the nearest future, Nord Account will offer its users to log in using third-party logins, such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft, making it even smoother and quicker for new users to register and for existing ones to log in. Together with the roll-out of a single Nord Account, Nord is starting to introduce MFA sign-on to all its products. The new feature will be released gradually on all platforms and products.

“Nord Account is planning to support security keys, such as YubiKey, which offer strong MFA,” says Vykintas Maknickas. “And we’re not going to stop here. Additional multi-factor authentication methods, such as biometrics, will be implemented soon. The industry is moving towards passwordless flows, and we’re striving to keep up.”

At the moment, NordVPN is celebrating its 9th birthday with a great deal — buy a 2-year plan with 68% off and automatically get extra service time as a gift. Meanwhile, NordPass is having an “End of Winter” sale with 70% off the Premium 2-year plan and 60% off the 1-year plan, whereas NordLocker comes with a 50% discount on its 1-year Premium plan.

ABOUT NORDVPN

NordVPN is the world’s most advanced VPN service provider used by over 14 million internet users worldwide. NordVPN provides double VPN encryption, malware blocking, and Onion Over VPN. The product is very user-friendly, offers one of the best prices on the market, has over 5,000 servers in 60 countries worldwide, and is P2P-friendly. One of the key features of NordVPN is the zero-log policy. For more information: nordvpn.com.

Contact:

Skirmante Akinyte
[email protected]

LOS ANGELES, March 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Frederator Studios, a WOW! Unlimited Media Inc. (“WOW!” or the “Company”) (TSXV: WOW; OTCQX: WOWMF) company, has secured the rights to develop and produce a brand new series based on the award-winning hit preschool show Maggie and the Ferocious Beast.

The new series is created by Mickey Paraskevas and Maria Bruno, and produced by Michael Hirsh. Hirsh also produced the original show, which was based on the Simon & Shuster book of the same title, Maggie and the Ferocious Beast, that was created by Betty Paraskevas and Mickey Paraskevas. The new show will focus on the adventures of the Ferocious Beast and his friend Hamilton Hocks, as they travel the world to meet Ferocious Beast’s far-reaching family members.

“It’s exciting that the children who grew up with this wonderful show will be able to look forward to introducing their children to the charming Ferocious Beast and his family,” says Frederator CEO Michael Hirsh.

Through meeting unique family members, the Beast learns that everyone has unique and extraordinary qualities, teaching viewers the importance of empathy, and keeping an open mind towards people who are different from them.

Creator Mickey Paraskevas says, “I’m looking forward to new episodes and a return to Nowhere Land while also exploring our wide world, reuniting with Beastly family members, and being introduced to new countries, cultures and embracing diversity with two of the finest and most charming characters in animation that my mother, Betty, created: The Ferocious Beast and Hamilton Hocks.”

When Maggie and the Ferocious Beast series first premiered, it averaged in the top three shows for Nick Junior. Airing on Nick Jr. and Nickelodeon channels internationally, the show garnered huge acclaim, winning a Gold award from the Parent’s Choice Foundation in 2001 and a Gemini Award in the category of Best Preschool Program or series in 2002.

About
Frederator Studios

Founded in 1998, Frederator Studios is a critically acclaimed Emmy-award winning animation studio. Frederator is the leading studio in paving the way for new genres in animation, starting new trends in the space with their hit series “Adventure Time,” “Castlevania,” “Bee and PuppyCat,” and “The Fairly OddParents.”

About Michael Paraskevas

Michael Paraskevas is an award-winning artist, illustrator, children’s book writer and animator. He has a master’s degree from the School of Visual Arts in visual journalism. Michael and his mother created three animated series: Maggie and the Ferocious Beast, Marvin the Tap-Dancing Horse, and Kids from Room 402. He now lives and works with his lovely wife, Maria, in Southampton NY with their three rescue cats. Mr. Paraskevas is represented by John Goldsmith of Metropolis Talent Agency.

About

WOW!

Unlimited Media

WOW! is creating a leading animation-focused entertainment company by producing top-end content and building brands and audiences on engaging media platforms. The Company produces animation in its two established studios: Mainframe Studios in Vancouver and Frederator Studios in Los Angeles. The Company’s media offerings include Channel Frederator Network on YouTube, as well as WOW! branded programming on Crave, Canada’s premier streaming entertainment platform, owned by Bell Media. The Voting Shares are listed on the TSXV (TSXV: WOW) and the OTCQX Best Market (OTCQX: WOWMF).

For further information visit: www.wowunlimited.co

Neither TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Media Contact:
Colleen Kirk
1-310-251-0030
[email protected]

Investor Relations:
Bill Mitoulas
1-416-479-9547
[email protected]

Boston, Massachusetts, March 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — As part of its strategic framework to move forward boldly in a post-pandemic world, Wentworth Institute of Technology is beginning to lay the foundation for its next century, including new programing and real estate development.

“We are entering a new and exciting phase in Wentworth’s history,” said the school’s president, Mark A. Thompson. “We are located in the heart of a thriving city with a booming expansion in the life sciences, technology and manufacturing sectors, offering high-demand degrees in those industries.”

This year, Wentworth added seven new graduate degrees, including in the growing fields of Data Science and Business Analytics. It also reorganized into five schools of Engineering, Computing & Data Science, Architecture & Design, Management, and Science and Humanities. Applications are up nearly 6 percent while the average for colleges overall is down.  

Wentworth has launched a transformative strategic plan to bolster inclusive excellence, offer a high-value education and transformative student experience, and secure next generation partnerships. Wentworth pivoted during the pandemic accelerating its progress toward offering its powerful applied learning model online as well as in its 60 labs, studios and makerspaces.

“We are perfectly poised to build on our successes and real estate assets, among the most valuable in the region,” said Thompson.

To that end, Wentworth is partnering with Cushman and Wakefield, a leading global real estate services firm with deep experience in the Boston market, and Brailsford & Dunlavey, a preeminent, national higher education development advisory firm. This year Wentworth will work with the firms on two important phases of planning work:

• development of project capital plans and property valuations, and
• funding, financing and development strategies. 

Ultimately, the work will lead to an implementation plan on all proposed real estate projects, which will help to shape Wentworth’s next 10-year Institutional Master Plan.

“Today, we sit at the most critical moment in the university’s history. As we emerge from the pandemic, we must seize upon this singular moment and embrace this opportunity with optimistic urgency,” said Thompson.

Founded in 1904, Wentworth Institute of Technology provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, project-based education that integrates classroom, laboratory, studio, cooperative and experiential learning. The university’s vision is to be a student-centered institution of inclusive excellence that offers high-quality undergraduate, graduate, and life-long learning programs; embraces a culture of innovation and creativity; serves society through urban engagement; and promotes growth for the local, regional, and national economies.

Dennis Nealon
Wentworth Institute of Technology
617-989-4291
[email protected]