Market Newsdesk

DALLAS, Nov. 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Symphony RetailAI, provider of the industry’s leading AI-enabled platform and customer-centric solutions that deliver profitable growth for retailers and CPG manufacturers, today announced that Buy-Low Foods LP is implementing Symphony RetailAI’s Retail Data Management platform for a singular view of operations and to support its omnichannel business.

Buy-Low Foods, a wholesaler, corporate retailer and food distributor, is one of the largest privately owned companies in Western Canada. To enable centralized ownership and flow of data to support its omnichannel business, Buy-Low Foods needed a unique and single view for all its retail operations. The company has five divisions, which until now each had its own ERP system, adding unnecessary costs and complexity to the business as it continues to grow and expand its retail footprint.

“Eliminating the complexity of many different ERP systems can’t be overemphasized when you consider the improvements to the efficiencies of our internal processes – including buying power – as we establish a singular view of products,” said Dan Bregg, President, Buy-Low Foods and Associated Grocers. “In addition to the tremendous efficiencies we’ll gain through having one integrated master data and product information management system, we can very effectively eliminate friction in e-commerce.”

Buy-Low Foods evaluated the market offerings of five major solution providers to choose which MDM and PIM solution would suit its needs. In the end, Symphony RetailAI was chosen because of its experience in multi-format operations and based on references from retail and wholesale customers.

“One of our core values is ‘easiest to do business with’,” said Graeme Cooksley President, Chief Operating & Revenue Officer, Symphony RetailAI. “Part of this ease is the elegance our platform has evolved to over decades. For example: Buy-Low Foods works with independent retailers and cannot dictate the activities of stores, so it requires flexibility. Symphony RetailAI works both with the vertically integrated retailer and wholesaler models seamlessly. There’s no need for added integration layers, and this saves time, money and eliminates complexity.”

Find out more about Symphony RetailAI Master Data Management.

About Buy-Low Foods

Buy-Low Foods is a proudly 100% Western Canadian privately-owned company whose core values are quality, integrity, a commitment to total customer satisfaction and recognition of the importance of our responsibility to the environment. At Buy-Low Foods our mission is to contribute to the health and well-being of our communities by providing a broad range of safe, healthy and affordable food and household products as well as relevant, convenient services. Our ultimate, overarching goal is to add value to people’s lives; especially our loyal customers and our dedicated associates.

About Symphony RetailAI

Symphony RetailAI offers the industry’s leading AI-enabled platform accompanied by a suite of customer-centric solutions that deliver profitable growth for retailers and CPG manufacturers. Symphony RetailAI’s innovations span the retail value chain from customer insights, agile merchandising, promotion optimization, personalized marketing, fresh and center store management, to demand forecasting and inventory management. Our role-based solutions and CINDE, the industry’s first personal decision coach, provides users predictive analytics and prescriptive recommendations that make it easier to identify growth opportunities, activate plans and realize profit and revenue growth, from supplier to shelf. A strong global partner ecosystem helps us serve more than 1,200 organizations worldwide – including 15 of the top 25 global grocery retailers and 25 of the top 25 global CPG manufacturers – all through the Microsoft Azure Cloud. Symphony RetailAI is a SymphonyAI company. 

Connect with Symphony RetailAI on social media:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SymphonyRetail
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/symphonyretailai/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SymphonyRetail/

About SymphonyAI

SymphonyAI is the fastest-growing private group of B2B AI companies, backed by a $1 billion commitment to deliver next-generation AI solutions for transforming the enterprise. SymphonyAI addresses use cases in healthcare and life sciences, retail and CPG, industrial manufacturing, energy, oil & gas, media and entertainment, defense, and financial services. Since its founding in 2017, SymphonyAI Group has grown rapidly to a group of seven companies with a combined revenue run rate of more than $300 million. Over 2,000 talented leaders, data scientists, and other professionals operate the group under the leadership of one of Silicon Valley’s most successful serial entrepreneurs, Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, founder of the Wadhwani Foundation. More at SymphonyAI.

Media Contact

Adrienne Newcomb
Ketner Group Communications (for Symphony RetailAI)
[email protected]

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Nov. 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — LPL Financial LLC (Nasdaq:LPLA), a leading retail investment advisory firm, independent broker-dealer and registered investment advisor (RIA) custodian, today announced that financial advisors Jerry Giordano and Joseph Praino have joined LPL Financial’s broker-dealer and corporate RIA platforms, leveraging LPL as custodian. Giordano and Praino reported having served approximately $350 million in advisory and brokerage assets*. They join LPL from HSBC Securities.

The advisors have teamed up with KM Capital Group, an existing LPL firm in Purchase, N.Y., that is dedicated to providing clients with personalized care, comprehensive wealth management and financial planning. “We are independent advisors sharing office space and ideas. Instead of operating in silos, we’re able to collaborate with other tenured advisors with valuable experience,” Giordano said, noting that Praino has been his mentor for more than 10 years.

After 26 years working in banks, Praino believes the move to independence provides him with the freedom and flexibility to serve his clients’ best interest. “No one is making decisions for me or telling me what products I should or shouldn’t offer to clients,” Praino said.

Giordano added, “LPL lets me operate my practice as I see fit, which opens the door for me to better serve my clients. I have the autonomy to access products and information that were not previously available. With more options, I feel I can now select a product mix based on what’s best for my clients instead of offering a cookie cutter strategy. This, coupled with LPL’s innovative capabilities, will help me take my business to the next level.”

Marc Stein, managing director and owner of KM Capital, stated, “This is an exciting time for everyone at our firm. The addition of Joe and Jerry to our team is a special accomplishment that really cements the foundation of our organization. They share our client-centric values and both bring a significant amount of expertise and banking experience, which helps round out the team.”

Stein founded KM Capital last year when he joined LPL from Cetera with a plan to scale the company from an individual practice into a firm. “I laid out a vision, and LPL has given us the tools to execute on it,” Stein said, referring specifically to the support from LPL’s recruiting team, business consultants and Marketing Solutions. Advisor Robert Blair joined the firm earlier this year as managing partner, and they are supported by a three-member office staff.

Rich Steinmeier, LPL Financial managing director and divisional president, Business Development, said, “We welcome Joe and Jerry to LPL and are proud to support their new independent practices. We also congratulate KM Capital on its continued growth. Our goal is to be a strategic partner to our advisors by understanding their businesses and delivering the relevant capabilities, technology and support that enables them to be successful in meeting the needs of their clients and managing their business. We look forward to a long partnership with the entire team at KM Capital.”

Learn more about KM Capital Group. Read about other firms that recently joined LPL in the LPL Financial News and Media section of LPL.com.

Advisors, find an LPL business development representative near you.

About LPL Financial


LPL Financial (https://www.lpl.com) is a leader in the retail financial advice market and the nation’s largest independent broker-dealer**. We serve independent financial advisors, professionals, and financial institutions, providing them with the technology, research, clearing and compliance services, and practice management programs they need to create and grow thriving practices. LPL enables them to provide objective guidance to millions of American families seeking wealth management, retirement planning, financial planning and asset management solutions.

Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a registered investment advisor. Member FINRA / SIPC.

KM Capital Group and LPL Financial are separate entities.

*Based on prior business and represents assets that would have been custodied at LPL Financial, rather than third-party custodians. Reported assets and client numbers have not been independently and fully verified by LPL Financial.

**Based on total revenues, Financial Planning magazine June 1996-2020

Throughout this communication, the terms “financial advisors” and “advisors” include registered representatives and/or investment adviser representatives affiliated with LPL Financial LLC, an SEC registered broker-dealer and investment advisor.

Connect with Us!

https://twitter.com/lpl

https://www.linkedin.com/company/lpl-financial

https://www.facebook.com/LPLFinancialLLC

https://www.youtube.com/user/lplfinancialllc

Media Contact:


Lauren Hoyt-Williams
(980) 321-1232
[email protected]

MIRAMAR, Fla., Nov. 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Generex Biotechnology Corporation (OTCQB:GNBT) today announced that Richard Purcell, Executive Vice President of Research & Development at Generex and NuGenerex Immuno-Oncology will be featured on the Yo! Dr. Yo Show to provide an update on the company’s COVID-19 vaccine development program. The interview will be live streamed at 2:00 PM on Friday, November 13, 2020 at can be heard at the following link:

https://streamyard.com/6pykxvt9m4

The Yo! Dr. Yo show is hosted by Dr. Ram Yogendra, MD, PhD, a board-certified anesthesiologist specializing in physiology and biometrics. He founded ECA Wellness to apply modern science and technology in order to offer a science-based approach to exercise, diet, and health through on-line collaboration with patients. Dr. Yogendra has built a loyal following for his on-line program Yo! Dr. Yo as he engages the audience with live discussions on popular health and wellness topics. On the show, Mr. Purcell will discuss Generex’ progress with developing the Ii-Key-SARS-CoV-2 II-Key COVID-19 vaccine and the power of the Ii-Key platform for vaccine development. He will also discuss the signed agreements with international partners to finalize development and commercialize the Ii-Key vaccine for global markets.

Mr. Purcell provided an overview of Generex’ vaccine development, “For our COVID-19 vaccine program, we manufactured 33 targeted peptide epitopes from the spike and membrane proteins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and linked them with our patented Ii-Key. We are finishing the screening of these 33 Ii-Key epitopes using ex-vivo human studies, whereby we test Ii-Key-SARS-CoV-2 epitopes against blood samples from patients who have recovered from COVID-19. Using this proprietary screening method, we can identify how each Ii-Key epitope regulates the immune system through T cell and B cell recognition, which allows us to select the targeted and specific Ii-Key-SARS-CoV-2 epitopes to include in the vaccine formulation. The results of the ex-vivo human blood screen to date are very encouraging, with demonstrated T helper cell activation, no Th2 response, and positive antibody binding in serum. Through targeted immune system regulation, we are developing the Ii-Key COVID vaccine as a “Complete Vaccine” that activates both the cellular and humoral (antibody) responses to provide long-term immune memory for protection from SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19.”

About Generex Biotechnology Corp.

Generex Biotechnology is an integrated healthcare holding company with end-to-end solutions for patient centric care from rapid diagnosis through delivery of personalized therapies. Generex is building a new kind of healthcare company that extends beyond traditional models providing support to physicians in an MSO network, and ongoing relationships with patients to improve the patient experience and access to optimal care.

About NuGenerex Immuno-Oncology

NuGenerex Immuno-Oncology, a subsidiary of Generex Biotechnology, is a clinical stage oncology company developing immunotherapeutic peptide vaccines for cancer and infectious disease based on the CD4 T-Cell activation platform, Ii-Key. NuGenerex Immuno-Oncology (NGIO) has been spun out of Generex as a separate public company to advance the platform Ii-Key technology, particularly in combination with the immune checkpoint inhibitors for the treatment of cancer. NGIO is currently engaged in a Phase II clinical trial of its lead cancer immunotherapeutic vaccine AE37 in combination with pembrolizumab (Merck’s Keytruda®) for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer. The company has also turned its Ii-Key technology on infectious disease, responding to the coronavirus pandemic with a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development program.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This release and oral statements made from time to time by Generex representatives in respect of the same subject matter may contain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements can be identified by introductory words such as “expects,” “plan,” “believes,” “will,” “achieve,” “anticipate,” “would,” “should,” “subject to” or words of similar meaning, and by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. Forward-looking statements frequently are used in discussing potential product applications, potential collaborations, product development activities, clinical studies, regulatory submissions and approvals, and similar operating matters. Many factors may cause actual results to differ from forward-looking statements, including inaccurate assumptions and a broad variety of risks and uncertainties, some of which are known and others of which are not. Known risks and uncertainties include those identified from time to time in the reports filed by Generex with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which should be considered together with any forward-looking statement. No forward-looking statement is a guarantee of future results or events, and one should avoid placing undue reliance on such statements. Generex undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Generex claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements that is contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act.

Generex Contact:

Generex Biotechnology Corporation

Joseph Moscato
646-599-6222

Todd Falls
1-800-391-6755 Extension 222

[email protected]

CHICAGO, Nov. 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Narrative Science, the global leader in data storytelling, launched the next phase of its Lexio product (narrativescience.com/lexio) during its Humanalytics event, a virtual conference dedicated to the art and science of communicating insight from data. Lexio is a first-of-its-kind augmented data storytelling product that is specifically designed to bring data insights to businesspeople.

“Lexio is specifically built for employees that are either not using or not satisfied with their BI dashboards today, by making it easy to understand and use data in a way that has never been done before,” said Narrative Science CEO and co-founder Stuart Frankel. “Unlike today’s typical BI tools, Lexio anticipates what employees need to know so they can make faster and better data-driven decisions. Data without context is useless, and Lexio brings that context and understanding to every single employee in plain language and in a consumer-like experience.”

“By 2025, data stories will be the most widespread way of consuming analytics, and 75% of stories will be automatically generated using augmented analytics techniques,” according to research firm Gartner’s Top Trends in Data and Analytics, 2020¹. “As a result of the shift to more dynamic, in-context data stories for insight monitoring and analysis, after more than 20 years of rising use of visual exploration-based dashboards and reports as the primary way users monitor and explore data, the percentage of time users spend in predefined dashboards will decline.”

Lexio meets the needs of two groups of employees:

• Businesspeople who need data insights to succeed, but don’t have the time or skills to be analysts
• Analytics leaders who are tasked with enabling all of their employees to be data-driven

Lexio started by connecting to Salesforce Sales Cloud, but has now expanded to write automated data stories about any business data. Lexio ingests and analyzes data from any source, such as SaaS applications and data repositories including popular data warehouses like Snowflake and AWS Redshift, and turns it into understandable and easily consumable plain-language stories. Narrative Science unveiled Lexio’s new consumer-friendly experience, including both a social-media-like newsfeed and an augmented data discovery user flow.

Lexio’s newsfeed surfaces the most relevant and insightful data to users through the familiar experience of a dynamic newsfeed. From the newsfeed, users can choose to read longer-form interactive data stories that now include an augmented data discovery experience. Today’s analytic tools, including dashboards and search-based BI tools, require business users to know what question to ask. Lexio has eliminated that need, providing anticipated follow-up questions and related answers within its data stories.

Narrative Science leveraged over ten years of natural language technology innovation and 70+ issued and pending patents to create Lexio’s groundbreaking user experience, enabling businesspeople to understand and use data faster and easier than ever before.

Links:

More information on Lexio: narrativescience.com/lexio
Humanalytics sessions on-Demand: narrativescience.com/humanalytics/stream
Top Trends in Data and Analytics, 2020: narrativescience.com/gartner-top-10-data-analytics-trends-2020

About Narrative Science:
Narrative Science is a leader in developing data storytelling technologies with a vision to put data and analytics in the hands of everyone by combining analytics and natural language technologies with innovative and consumer-like user experiences. The company’s newest product, Lexio, already used by 100+ companies, is the world’s first data storytelling product that is specifically designed for business people rather than for analysts.

Lexio enables employees with any level of analytical skill to understand and use data insights faster and easier than ever before. Lexio helps organizations empower their entire workforce to make data-driven decisions every day, resulting in increased efficiencies and better outcomes across their company.

For more information, visit narrativescience.com or narrativescience.com/lexio.

___________________________________
¹ Top 10 Trends in Data And Analytics. Gartner, May 2020. Rita Sallam, Svetlana Sicular, Pieter den Hamer, Austin Kronz, W. Roy Schulte, Erick Brethenoux, Alys Woodward, Stephen Emmott, Ehtisham Zaidi, Donald Feinberg, Mark Beyer, Rick Greenwald, Carlie Idoine, Henry Cook, Guido De Simoni, Eric Hunter, Adam Ronthal, Bettina Tratz-Ryan, Nick Heudecker, Jim Hare, Lydia Clougherty Jones.

Contact: Anna Walsh, Narrative Science, (248) 709-9155, [email protected] 

NEW YORK, Nov. 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — DoubleVerify (“DV”), a leading software platform for digital media measurement, data and analytics, today announced the launch of its Custom Contextual solution for programmatic advertisers. This new offering delivers privacy-friendly targeting by aligning ads to relevant content, in order to maximize user engagement and drive conversion. DV’s Custom Contextual solution will be available on leading DSPs that include: MediaMath, Verizon Media and Xandr.

“Increased privacy regulation and the decision by most web browsers to sunset the use of third-party cookies is ushering a shift away from third-party audience targeting,” said Jack Smith, Chief Product Officer of DoubleVerify. “Our Custom Contextual solution draws on DV’s 10+ years of experience in ontology, brand suitability and content classification and applies this to effectively match relevant ads to audiences at key points of interest or intent.”

DV’s recent global research shows that consumers are more receptive to contextually-relevant ads and reinforces the impact of contextual targeting for advertisers. According to DV’s findings, 69% of consumers would be willing to view ads that were relevant to the content they were consuming, and 44% of consumers have tried a new brand because they were served an ad relevant to the content they were consuming.

DV’s new Custom Contextual solution provides a range of benefits, including increased accuracy, customization, and ease of use and implementation. Importantly, DV’s solution does not depend on any cookie-based tracking — helping us ensure compliance with existing regulations, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

Advertisers can build targeting segments based on over 430 IAB categories, as well as seasonal, behavioral and dynamic categories — all from a centralized location within DV Pinnacle^®, the company’s unified service and analytics platform. Segments can be tailored to include site, app and language inclusions/exclusions and specific URL keyword lists. Advanced settings — such as the ability to include unclassified content or site and app exception lists that exempt designated supply sources from a brand’s broader suitability controls, can help unlock additional campaign scale. Enhanced controls, such as including only content that has been classified at the page level, can help make targeting more precise.

Semantic Science is at the core of custom contextual targeting — leveraging ontology and machine learning to drive accurate content classification at the page level and ensure the deepest, most accurate coverage. A dedicated team of professional linguists finely tune DV’s Semantic Science technology of content and context in 44 languages.

For more information about DoubleVerify’s Custom Contextual solution, contact [email protected].

About
DoubleVerify

DoubleVerify is a leading software platform for digital media measurement, data and analytics. DV’s mission is to be the definitive source of transparency and data-driven insights into the
quality and effectiveness of digital advertising for the world’s largest brands, publishers and
digital ad platforms. DV’s technology platform provides advertisers with consistent and unbiased data and analytics that can be used to optimize the quality and return on digital ad investments. Since 2008, DV has helped hundreds of Fortune 500 companies gain the most from their media spend by delivering best in class solutions across the digital advertising ecosystem, helping to build a better industry. Learn more at www.doubleverify.com.

Contact: [email protected]

TORONTO, Nov. 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — In general, dogs and cats make up a comparatively small percentage of research animals in Canada. So it’s likely many Canadians are unaware that lost, abandoned or surrendered pet dogs and cats are used in experimentation.

The Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC), which oversees animal research in Canada, does have rules about where researchers can procure pet dogs and cats—which is usually from pounds and shelters. As well, the organization’s guidelines state that these animals must be acquired legally.

But Liz White, Director of Animal Alliance of Canada and the campaign No Pets in Research says, “Neither the CCAC nor the Canadian public have any real idea as to how many pet dogs and cats are procured for research in Canada each year. On top of that, the research community seems unable to identify where about 11% of these dogs and cats came from. They’re simply categorized as ‘source unspecified’.

“In raw numbers, the most recent data shows 591 cats—or 10% of the total number—listed as ‘source unspecified.’ Meanwhile, 11%, or 1,364, dogs were categorized the same way,” White continued. “How is it possible that research facilities would not know where roughly two thousand research animals came from in a single year?”

The CCAC stipulates that institutions ensure research animals are legally acquired and that pet animals be given maximum time to be adopted, and/or returned to an owner searching for a lost pet. “With so many dogs and cats listed as ‘source unspecified’,” White pointed out, “it would be impossible for the research facility to meet the CCAC guidelines designed to give added protection to lost pets. Equally—and tragically—it would be impossible for someone to find a lost dog or cat, rather than having that pet wind up in research.”

White added that it is critically important to keep lost pets from going to research. “Many of them are subjected to Category D—i.e., painful—experimentation. The most recent figures show that close to 600 randomly sourced pet dogs and close to a thousand randomly sourced pet cats wound up in experiments causing the animal moderate to severe distress and discomfort. In addition, 335 dogs and cats from ‘sources unknown,’ were also subjected to cruel and painful experiments. Pet owners across Canada would be horrified if they knew what might happen to their beloved cat or dog who has gone missing or been stolen.”

The degree of invasiveness of Category D experiments includes: subjecting animals to major surgical procedures under general anaesthesia; prolonged (i.e., several hours or more) periods of physical restraint; inducing stress, such as depriving them of their mothers; subjecting them to aggression or predator-prey interactions; procedures which cause severe, persistent or irreversible disruption of sensory and motor systems, and the use of inflammatory agents, particularly Freund’s Complete Adjuvant, which can result in severe and lasting side effects.

Because the current situation of pet dogs and cats in research is unacceptable—particularly the failure of researchers and the CCAC to trace the source of so many who wind up in experimentation—the Animal Alliance is calling upon the federal government to:

Prohibit the use of pet dogs and cats in experiments in Canada, by directing funding agencies and health charities to withhold research dollars for any research involving pet dogs and cats.

As well, the Animal Alliance is calling upon the CCAC to:

1. Require research facilities to properly source all research animals, as a prerequisite to receiving the CCAC’s Certificate of Good Animal Practice, as well as public funding dollars;
2. Ensure that dog and cat statistics continue to differentiate purpose-bred animals from those randomly sourced, in order to meet CCAC guidelines on transparency, regarding the use of pets in research; and
3. Prohibit the use of any pet dogs and cats in experiments ranked as Category D or E levels of Invasiveness.

For further information: Liz White: [email protected] or 416-809-4371

www.animalalliance.ca

www.ccac.ca

HOUSTON, Nov. 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Raptor Technologies®, the nation’s leading provider of integrated school safety technologies, today announced that Gray Hall has joined Raptor as Chief Executive Officer. Hall succeeds Jim Vesterman who was Raptor’s CEO since 2012 and will remain on Raptor’s Board of Directors.

Hall’s career spans over 20 years of driving growth at cutting-edge technology companies. He was previously Chairman and CEO of Alert Logic where he grew the company from less than $10 million in revenues to over $125 million in revenues. Prior to that, Hall was co-founder and CEO of VeriCenter where he grew the company to over $80 million in annual recurring revenues.

“I’ve had the privilege of leading two tech companies through sustained rapid growth, while significantly impacting their respective market segments,” said Hall. “The team at Raptor is redefining and modernizing K-12 school safety and I’m excited to be playing a role in building the leading software company in such an important industry.”

“I believe that Gray will be a tremendous leader for Raptor as we continue to expand our partnerships with schools across the United States and follow our mission to protect every child, in every school, every day,” said Vesterman. Under Vesterman’s leadership, Raptor grew from serving 7,000 K-12 schools to serving more than 34,000 schools across the nation. Today, Raptor leads the country in providing K-12 software solutions for Visitor Management, Emergency Management, and Volunteer Management on one integrated technology platform.

“We are delighted to welcome Gray as Raptor’s CEO,” said Bob Nye, General Partner at 
JMI Equity and member of Raptor’s Board of Directors. “His exceptional leadership record, passion for building great teams, and ability to drive company growth will help Raptor continue expanding its market leadership in SaaS solutions for school safety.”

About Raptor Technologies®

Raptor Technologies is the nation’s leading provider of integrated school safety technologies for K-12 schools. Founded in 2002 with the mission to protect every child, every school, every day, Raptor® solutions include: Raptor Visitor Management, Raptor Emergency Management and Raptor Volunteer Management. Raptor’s newest product is Raptor Alert, an Alyssa’s Law compliant mobile panic alert system that expedites rapid response to school or district-wide emergency situations with a simple tap on a mobile device.

Currently, the Raptor system is being used by schools nationwide to screen students, staff, and visitors for COVID-19 via customized health screening questions and to run detailed contact tracing reports.

As of 2020, over 34,000 U.S. schools trust Raptor to help protect their students and staff.

Raptor Technologies is a privately held corporation based in Houston, Texas. For more information, visit www.raptortech.com.

About JMI Equity

JMI Equity is a growth equity firm focused on investing in leading software companies. Founded in 1992, JMI has invested in over 150 businesses in its target markets, successfully completed over 100 exits, and raised more than $4 billion of committed capital. JMI partners with exceptional management teams to help build their companies into industry leaders. For more information, visit www.jmi.com.

Media Contact

Ida Yenney, KCPR for Raptor Technologies
818-419-0516
[email protected]

ITASCA, Ill., Nov. 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Flexera, the company that helps organizations maximize business value from their technology investments, today announces it has been positioned by Forrester Research as a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Cloud Cost Monitoring and Optimization, Q4 2020.

Flexera and seven other vendors were evaluated for The Forrester Wave™ based on 27 criteria grouped into three categories: current offering, strategy and market presence. In the evaluation, Flexera received the highest possible scores in the criteria of product vision, market share, commercial model, access and permissions, resource discovery and cloud platform support, and billing.

According to Forrester’s evaluation, “Customers praised Flexera for its breadth of platform support. It currently supports visibility into AWS, Azure, Google, IBM, OpenStack, and VMware and rightsizing recommendations for AWS (EC2, RDS and S3), Azure (Blob Storage, Managed Disks, SQL DB and VMs) and GCP (Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL and GCE). Customers also liked the UI, which provides a single view for multiple platforms, along with its ability to drill down to the lower resource levels.”

“At Flexera, we’re committed to helping our customers get clarity and control of their entire IT estate, from on-premises to the cloud,” said Jim Ryan, President and CEO of Flexera. “We believe that being recognized as a Leader in the Forrester Cloud Cost Monitoring and Optimization Wave is a testament to our product vision and execution.

“But we’re focused on expanding that vision by unifying the management of on-premises assets, SaaS and cloud resources,” Ryan continued. “We’re integrating our solutions so customers can visualize their entire IT infrastructure and make data-driven, game-changing decisions from one user interface. That’s how we’ll continue to help our customers inform their IT so they can transform their IT.”

Resources:

• The Forrester Wave
  : Cloud Cost Monitoring and Optimization, Q4 2020
• 
  Flexera 2020 State of the Cloud Report
  
• 
  Flexera 2021 State of ITAM Report
  
  

About Flexera

Flexera helps business leaders succeed at what once seemed impossible: getting full visibility into, and control of, their company’s technology “black hole.” From on-premises to the cloud, Flexera helps organizations unravel IT complexity and maximize business value from their technology investments.

For more than 30 years, our 1300+ team members worldwide have been passionate about helping our more than 50,000 customers optimize IT to achieve their business outcomes. To learn more, visit flexera.com.

Contact:
[email protected]

San Diego, CA, Nov. 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Tesoro Enterprises, Inc. (OTC Pink: TSNP) (“Tesoro”) announced today that it has entered into an agreement with HUMBL, LLC (“HUMBL”) to merge the two entities. In an all-stock transaction, the members of HUMBL will receive preferred shares of Tesoro in exchange for their HUMBL holdings.

Tesoro, the surviving entity, will be renamed “HUMBL, Inc.” and following an imminent redomiciling of the corporation to Delaware, an application will be filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) for a change of the issuer’s name and symbol. The company will almost immediately begin the process for becoming an SEC filer and provide audited annual financials beginning with yearend 2020.

Consummate with the transaction, HUMBL, Managing Member and Founder, Brian M. Foote has acquired the control block of voting shares and a significant number of common shares from outgoing Tesoro President, Henry Boucher.

The Board of Directors has installed Mr. Foote and HUMBL associate, Jeffrey Hinshaw, as directors of Tesoro and to the officer positions of President and Secretary, respectively. In addition, Adam Wolfe has been named Chief Technology Officer, Michele Rivera has been named Vice President, Global Partnerships, and a director and Karen Garcia will become Vice President, Major Accounts.

Mr. Boucher has resigned all officer and director positions with Tesoro and the company thanks him for his careful guidance. All liabilities of the company to date were settled by Mr. Boucher prior to his resignation.

HUMBL is comprised of team members from companies like Western Union, Moneygram, Visa, American Express, Epson, Microsoft, Facebook and Qualcomm and was recently named a Forbes “Rising Startups to Watch” in June 2020 for recognizing the “major gap between the US and emerging markets regarding mobile payments.”

HUMBL has designed a mobile wallet (HUMBL^®) and merchant software (HUMBL Hubs^™), that help primarily cash economies migrate to digital money services across key vertical markets, such as: government, banking, wireless carriers and merchant services. HUMBL’s global money platform will deliver up to 50% estimated savings on transactions such as: sending, receiving, lending, borrowing, investing money and paying bills.

Brian Foote is the CEO, President and a founder of HUMBL and brings with him twenty years of consumer technology experience, having launched a number of top ranked global technology products at companies like Epson, where he was twice named to the Innovators Team Award for his work across merchant partners such as Amazon, Walmart, Costco, Target and Best Buy. Mr. Foote is a graduate of University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and is certified in blockchain, digital media and social media from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Jeff Hinshaw, MBA guides the daily financial and operational components of HUMBL, working with internal team members and external agencies on accounting, compliance, project management and financial accounting of the company. Jeff brings experience from roles in finance, operations and corporate strategy at Hewlett-Packard and Sempra Energy. He has served as a guest lecturer at San Diego State University (SDSU), where he was a member of the Aztec Equity Fund endowment steering committee and a mentor at the SDSU Lavin Entrepreneurship Center.

Adam Wolfe leads the technology deliverables of the company, bringing over a decade of experience in fintech, payments and blockchain engineering. Adam is a specialist in Cross-Platform Mobile Applications, Web Development, Java Script, Angular and Payment Cloud architectures that are required for HUMBL^® and HUMBL Hubs^™ product lineup. His technology background previously was in hybrid Information Technology and engineering roles at Qualcomm and PowerFleet.

Michele Rivera manages corporate sales for the Latin America region, as well as channel sales partners in government, banking, wireless and retail merchants in Africa, Caribbean and Asia Pacific. She brings with her national retail and sales training experience from The Walt Disney Company and Williams-Sonoma.

Karen Garcia manages major accounts in Latin America. She will also be working with major accounts in Africa, Caribbean and the Asia Pacific and is developing an extensive regional affiliate program in these markets. She received her corporate training at Nordstrom, Eddie Bauer and L Brands across functions such as vendor management, purchasing and key accounts.

The merger is being shepherded by well-known OTC Markets analyst, George Sharp, who brought the parties together and has provided valuable advice on strategies and compliance to complete the transaction.

An investor call, tentatively scheduled for December 9, 2020, will be held to introduce HUMBL to investors and shareholders and provide further insights for the public about HUMBL’s mission, positioning and corporate partnerships. The precise logistics of the investor call will be announced soon.

About HUMBL

The mission of HUMBL^® and HUMBL Hubs^™ is to deliver high quality, low cost digital payments and financial services. The HUMBL network was designed to disrupt entrenched regional banks, wire services and roadside finance providers in emerging markets such as Latin America, Caribbean, Asia and Africa to help reduce costs and improve settlement speeds for customers.

HUMBL maintains offices in San Diego (HUMBL – North America), Mexico (HUMBL – Latin America), Miami (HUMBL – Caribbean and Africa), and Singapore (HUMBL – Asia Pacific and Oceania Region) and has created a global network of regional affiliates, who stand ready to implement sales and marketing programs in these corridors.

The HUMBL^® Mobile App delivers borderless transactions, by integrating multiple currencies, payment methods, banks and financial services providers into one-click for the customer. HUMBL^® provides greater access and portability than US only mobile wallet providers, such as Venmo^® and Zelle^®.

For those customers without a smartphone, HUMBL Hubs^™ will allow participating merchants to deliver contactless payments, text ordering and money services across the full pyramid of end-users in these markets.

 “We didn’t build HUMBL for the 450 million digital customers using Apple Pay^®, but for the 7 billion people for whom money has a totally different set of global pathways, access points and cost structures,” according to the CEO of HUMBL, Brian Foote.

The HUMBL corporate website features global brand videos, product tours, market research, white papers and network architecture at www.HUMBLpay.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these statements by the use of the words “may,” “will,” “should,” “plans,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “continue,” “estimates,” “projects,” “intends,” and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the Company’s ability to successfully execute its expanded business strategy, including by entering into definitive agreements with suppliers, commercial partners and customers; general economic and business conditions, effects of continued geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, delays in completing various engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technical advances and delivering technological innovations, shortages in components, production delays due to performance quality issues with outsourced components, regulatory requirements and the ability to meet them, government agency rules and changes, and various other factors beyond the Company’s control.

CONTACT:

HUMBL, LLC
[email protected]

BOSTON, Nov. 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The coronavirus pandemic has facilitated rapid adoption of decentralized clinical trial execution, with more than half of all global clinical trials now using remote and virtual support—a sharp contrast to the vast majority of clinical trials that historically relied on in-person patient visits at research facilities—a recently completed analysis by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development has found.

Noting that 55% of active ongoing clinical trials have transitioned to remote and virtual execution models since early spring, Ken Getz, professor and deputy director of Tufts CSDD, said the appeal of these decentralized approaches “is compelling.”

“Among other benefits, decentralized trials have provided increased convenience and minimized coronavirus transmission risk for study volunteers, while offering drug developers potentially lower costs and faster access to scientific and operating data,” he said.

Getz cautioned, however, that decentralized clinical trials introduce a number of challenges, including those associated with remote communication and remediation, and data coordination and integration.

The analysis, based on global surveys of investigative sites and interviews with representatives of the largest pharmaceutical companies, was summarized in the November/December Tufts CSDD Impact Report, released today.

Other key findings from the analysis include the following:

• Telemedicine is the most frequently used approach to conducting decentralized clinical trials.
• Investigative sites conducting remote trials rate patient safety as their greatest concern.
• 60% of investigative sites report having had no prior experience with remote processes and solutions before the pandemic.
• For many developers, particularly smaller companies, contract service organizations have been the primary provider of remote monitoring personnel and capabilities.

ABOUT THE TUFTS CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF DRUG DEVELOPMENT

The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (http://csdd.tufts.edu) at Tufts University provides strategic information to help drug developers, regulators, and policy makers improve the efficiency and productivity of pharmaceutical R&D. Tufts CSDD, based in Boston, conducts a wide range of in-depth analyses on pharmaceutical issues and hosts symposia, workshops, and public forums, and publishes Tufts CSDD Impact Reports, a bi-monthly newsletter providing analysis and insight into critical drug development issues.

Contacts:	Tufts University Luna Rodriguez – 617-636-2170 [email protected]
	Business Communication Strategies Peter Lowy – 617-734-9980 [email protected]