Business, Free News Articles, Funding and Investment

Neurosoft Bioelectronics Receives Nearly $3 Million in Funding

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Neurosoft Bioelectronics, an early-stage company developing tools for unmet needs in epilepsy and tinnitus, was awarded nearly $3 million USD, from the SERI-Funded European Innovation Council Accelerator Grant and a share of the $165,000 USD through the European Research Council Proof-of-Concept Grant. Additionally, the firm secured a $100,000 convertible note from the Fongit Innovation Fund.

Proceeds will fund continued development of the company's soft flexible electrodes to be marketed as SOFT ECoG™, a family of implantable devices which can seamlessly interface with the brain. The novel devices are up to 1000x softer and 2x thinner than clinical electrodes, with integrated electrode sites up to 100x smaller, making them suited for high-resolution recording and stimulation of the brain for up to thirty days. Their conformability and softness make them ideally suited for placement in the sulci of the brain - hard to reach areas of the brain where many disorders may best be treated. The deep folds of a sulcus are inaccessible for other electrodes while SOFT ECoG can be safely and precisely placed for stimulation and recording.

"Given that 70% of the surface of the brain is buried in sulci, it was critical to develop a technology that could safely and effectively work in those spaces," said Neurosoft Bioelectronics' CEO, Nicolas Vachicouras, Ph.D. "We're eager to put these significant funds toward clinical testing and regulatory approval of SOFT ECoG in the upcoming months, which will simultaneously drive progress of SOFT TINNIT. Together, these products have the potential to bring relief to epilepsy, brain tumor, and tinnitus patients, and in the future will impact those living with other neurological disorders such as deafness, blindness, tetraplegia, and chronic pain."

Vachicouras will present an update about the company and technology at the Bioelectronic Medicine Forum in New York today.

Most of the funds are designated for the further development of SOFT ECoG however, the innovations made will simultaneously advance the company's second product, SOFT TINNIT™. SOFT TINNIT is a chronic implant to perform closed-loop neuromodulation of the cortex to provide relief for patients suffering from severe tinnitus. Severe tinnitus, which has no cure, affects more than 7 million people in the U.S. and Europe.

Learn more: https://www.neurosoft-bio.com/technology

About Neurosoft Bioelectronics

Neurosoft Bioelectronics Ltd. is a Swiss medtech spin-off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). Neurosoft Bioelectronics develops next generation soft implantable electrodes to interface with the brain for the treatment of severe neurological disorders. Its main product is a fully implantable closed-loop Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) to treat severe tinnitus, a condition that affects 7M people in the US and Europe, of which 7% attempt suicide every year. It is also developing a family of subdural electrodes intended for monitoring during brain tumor and epilepsy resection surgery.

Learn more at: https://www.neurosoft-bio.com/

RELATED LINKS:

https://neurotechreports.com/pages/bioelectronic-medicine-forum.html

Related link: https://www.neurosoft-bio.com/

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Business, Fine Art and Artists, Free News Articles

The NFT Art Market Just Got Safer and Faster – VR-All-Art Integrates Solana Blockchain to Develop New Protocol

ZUG, Switzerland -- VR-All-Art, one of the leading platforms for exhibiting and acquiring art in virtual reality, today announced an integration with the Solana blockchain. The adoption of a blockchain infrastructure for virtual exhibitions is meant to ease art trade in virtual reality while bringing liquidity and regulation to the growing NFT art market. The platform will ensure that art registered on the blockchain is compatible with established regulations and copyright laws by developing the All-Art Protocol on Solana.

With the All-Art Protocol, VR-All-Art is aiming to bring constant liquidity to the world of tokenized art by creating a unique type of AMM (automated market maker) liquidity pools for NFTs. The protocol introduces a new standard, the NFT-PRO, designed for stakeholders in the art market. The NFT-PRO standard will enable artists to customize license rights for each art piece they create and embed them into NFT-PRO smart contracts. Through this mechanism, the All-Art Protocol will protect both artists and collectors, while enabling new use cases for owning, exhibiting and trading art on the blockchain.

"What we have witnessed with the latest trend in registering art as NFTs is a lack of proper infrastructure to handle the demand," said Vitomir Jevremovic, CEO and Founder of VR-All-Art. "Ethereum transactions are slow, while the fees for minting and trading NFTs are skyrocketing. The environmental impact of a single NFT mint is enormous. This is not sustainable. Artists and galleries need affordable ways to put their art on the blockchain and have real-time transactions to handle live auctions. This is why we have chosen Solana. It is the fastest and most promising blockchain with a low energy-consumption footprint. We simply need things to work when people are minting NFTs and creating virtual exhibitions."

Talking about the NFT standard currently in use, Jevremovic said, "The art market got a good introduction to what blockchain can do for it, but it was a tough lesson to learn because NFTs are just not a good enough solution." He went on to state, "With the current NFT model, you basically own a string of text in the form of a hash or a link. This is not an art piece. We need better ways to incorporate art license rights into smart contracts. We believe the global art market needs a blockchain standard in line with the regulatory framework for art. Only then can we expect the art market to expand and scale in the digital and virtual space, with more people engaging and transacting value through NFTs."

Anatoly Yakovenko, the President of the Solana Foundation said, "Fast, low-cost NFTs have the potential to bridge legal rights and digital authentication in ways never before possible. I'm delighted the All-Art Protocol is choosing to build on Solana, and look forward to their launch." VR-All-Art invites other platforms to use the All-Art Protocol and join its efforts to regulate the NFT art market and provide more liquid assets for stakeholders.

Don't miss any news about the All-Art Protocol and hot NFT topics on Twitter @allartprotocol.

About VR-All-Art

VR-All-Art is an established platform in the art and XR space. It is a platform and a marketplace for artists, galleries, museums and the general public to exhibit, explore and acquire art in virtual exhibitions. A virtual space, a metaverse of galleries and exhibition spaces with no physical boundaries, it is revolutionizing art exhibitions and art spaces by giving new power to artists as they are no longer constrained to the limitations of real world space and time.

To learn more, please visit https://vrallart.com/. To learn more about the All-Art Protocol, please visit https://allart.io/.

About Solana

Solana is a high-performance Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain focused on delivering scalability without sacrificing decentralization or security.

Until now, blockchains have been single-threaded computers, guaranteeing no two transactions conflict if executed in parallel. Solana unlocks concurrent GPU-parallelization for the first time, using Proof of History (PoH), a clock before consensus, delivering high speed, low latency, and inexpensive transactions, all at layer 1 without sharding.

Developed by a team of former Qualcomm, Apple, Intel, and Dropbox engineers, Solana is stewarded by The Solana Foundation and is advanced by a loyal community of decentralized developers around the world. To learn more, please visit https://solana.com/.

*PHOTO link for media: https://www.Send2Press.com/300dpi/21-0518s2p-vrallart-300dpi.jpg

Related link: https://vrallart.com/

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Business, e-Commerce, Free News Articles, Software

Deal-closing tool, heymate, adds new board member and two strategic advisors

ZUG, Switzerland -- heymate, the portable deal-closing tool, which allows workers in the gig economy to create, negotiate and settle offer-for-work contracts in under 20 seconds on any non-transactional marketplace, proudly announced the appointment of a new board member and two strategic advisors.

The new strategic advisors and the board member, who are also investors, will help guide heymate through its public launch, provide connections with their wide and diverse equity investor networks and support the scalability of the platform as it reaches a global audience over the next two years.

"To prepare for heymate's next stage of growth, we needed intellectual firepower that would help us in tech-ops, business scaling, international go-to-market initiatives, and corporate governance," said heymate's CEO and founder, Philipp Toth.

Heymate's new Board of Directors member:

Dr. Matteo Maccio
Dr. Matteo Maccio is the Chief Financial Officer and Executive Committee member of Falcon Private Bank, a leading Swiss wealth manager and the first private bank in Switzerland to provide institutional crypto-asset management solutions. Besides being an experienced angel investor, Matteo has held various senior management positions at several Swiss banks, such as CFO, Chief Risk Officer, and Chief Accountant.

"I personally admire his deep understanding of accounting, tax and capital market rules - a very important value-add to the corporate governance of a Swiss AG with significant growth ambitions," Toth said, when welcoming Dr. Matteo Maccio to his Board of Directors.

Heymate's new strategic advisors:

Alain Kunz
Alain Kunz is the CEO and founder of the Swiss Crypto Valley embedded TokenSuisse AG, a leading European provider for crypto asset investment solutions. He is an expert in blockchain venture investing and has international clients, including institutional asset advisors, family offices, commercial and private banks, as well as Ultra High Net Worth individuals.

"With his vast network as well as his passion for deep-tech businesses Kunz will have a high impact on our joint venture ambitions and equity placement activities," Toth said.

Saeed Gouda
Saeed Gouda, the managing partner at Berlin- and Zug-based ZEOS CAPITAL, is a serial entrepreneur with international success in scaling tech companies, specializing in e-commerce, m-commerce, and blockchain. Two mobile marketplace companies that he founded were acquired by Rocket Internet and Carousell. He also led DeliveryHero's international pre-IPO growth.

"Gouda's tremendous company building experience and global network in the digital marketplace sector will be highly instrumental to heymate's growth," Toth said.

About heymate:
Heymate aims at bringing gig-economy micro-entrepreneurs the flexibility they want while securing their revenue. The heymate platform helps to simplify and formalize deal terms and conditions, manage escrow payment and resolving disputes, all while offering an ecosystem of services such as getting short-term and on-demand insurance, micro-loans, etc., to support micro-entrepreneurs as they grow.

Website: https://heymate.works

Saeed Gouda - https://www.linkedin.com/in/saeedgouda/
Alain Kunz - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alainkunz/
Dr. Matteo Maccio - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mmaccio/

Editorial note: "heymate" is spelled with a lower-case "h" unless at the start of a sentence.

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Business, e-Commerce, Free News Articles, Product Launches, Software

‘Easy as a handshake’ deal closing-platform, heymate, launches testable alpha version, Sept. 5, 2018

ZUG, Switzerland -- Heymate, a deal-closing platform which will allow micro-entrepreneurs to easily create, close and administer secure professional contracts within 20 seconds, launched their testable product on Sept. 5, 2018, available via invitation on Android and iOS smartphones. The heymate app is the first product of the heymate platform, which is operated by Blockchain Applications AG.

Heymate (*note 1) is a mobile app for the global gig economy that offers freelancing micro-entrepreneurs (e.g., millennials, part-timers, retirees, etc.) a deal-closing tool that allows them to create, advertise and close on professional-quality offers for work or goods to be sold/rented.

Currently, micro-entrepreneurs in the "help wanted" or "for sale or rent" ecosystem have to rely on slow and outdated methods of terms and conditions negotiations, such as phone calls or emails, for their work. The mobile app will streamline this planning process for micro-entrepreneurs by integrating offer terms and negotiation into an easy to manage and understand e-contract. Once both parties agree to the terms, the deal is closed, stored on the blockchain and becomes a legally enforceable peer-to-peer contract.

"Heymate's goal is to make peer-to-peer deal-closing as simple and trustful as the good-old fashioned handshake," said heymate's founder and CEO, Philipp Toth.

The heymate app also guarantees micro-entrepreneurs are paid for their work. According to a study by Tipalti (*note 2), 73 percent of micro-entrepreneurs would be willing to leave a marketplace due to issues with receiving on-time and correct payment for their work. Heymate protects its users by escrowing payments upon contract agreement, ensuring that once the legally binding terms and conditions agreed upon by both parties are met, the predetermined payment will be sent to the worker on time.

Once the app has developed its customer base, heymate plans to integrate a variety of worker benefits, such as insurances, loans, etc., for key partners to offer their independent contractors. The platform plans to become the place where independent workers go to seek offers for any type of service that can be advertised or consumed. Heymate will also offer these benefits to workers who engage with large managed markets, such as Uber or Lyft, which have been increasingly pressured to offer benefits to their independent contractors.

The product will officially launch as a free-to-use open beta on Apple and Android app stores in Q1, 2019.

About heymate:

Heymate aims at bringing gig-economy micro-entrepreneurs the flexibility they want while securing their revenue. The heymate platform helps to simplify and formalize deal terms and conditions, manage escrow payment and resolving disputes, all while offering an ecosystem of services such as getting short-term and on-demand insurance, micro-loans, etc. to support micro-entrepreneurs as they grow.

The heymate mobile app is the first product of the heymate platform, operated by Blockchain Applications AG. With it, 100 million people will be able to do business for the first time, and everyone else will be able to close a deal 100 times faster.

Website: https://heymate.works

(*note 1) "heymate" is spelled with a lowercase "h"
(*note 2) Report of Gig Economy Workers Finds Payment Satisfaction Problematic for Global Marketplaces: http://info.tipalti.com/20180424-Email-FreelancerReport_05.SSDownloadPage.html

*PHOTO link for media: Send2Press.com/300dpi/18-0910s2p--heymate-at-CFC-SF-300dpi.jpg
*Photo Caption: heymate CTO, Frank Hartmann talking about the heymate platform with Eric Van der Kleij at the Crypto Finance Conference in San Francisco.

*VIDEO (YouTube): https://youtu.be/ey79DCYHYjs

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