Tag: Africa

Zoom Drives Innovation of Video Communications with New Solutions to Empower the Hybrid Workforce

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 21, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZM) today announced the general availability of its latest innovations, Zoom Apps and Zoom Events. Zoom Apps seamlessly embeds third-party apps within the Zoom Meetings and desktop client experience, enhancing collaboration, productivity, and entertainment for today’s hybrid workforce. Zoom Events is an all-in-one platform for creating a wide range of interactive and immersive virtual events to reach and engage audiences.

“I’m thrilled to see our platform vision expand through Zoom Apps and Zoom Events, as the world embraces hybrid work, empowering the workforce today and into the future,” said Eric S. Yuan, Founder and CEO of Zoom. “These innovations will enhance the ways in which we connect and collaborate with our colleagues, clients, friends, family members, and others, improving productivity and collaboration while maintaining elements of fun and well-being.”

“Zoom Apps and Zoom Events are critical components in broadening Zoom’s offering and reach,” said Roopam Jain, Vice President, Information and Communications Technologies at Frost & Sullivan. “These solutions empower users to accomplish more with video communications and are a testament to Zoom’s focus of enabling customers to create and grow businesses entirely on its platform—whether through applications, integrations, events, or other services.”

Bringing Your Favorite Apps to the Zoom Platform
Zoom Apps expands the offerings of the Zoom App Marketplace, which already hosts over 1,500 third-party integrations. With Zoom Apps, you can boost productivity and stay focused on your workflows by incorporating your favorite apps into your meetings. There are over 50 Zoom Apps available now, ranging from enterprise to consumer use cases—including whiteboarding, project management, note-taking, and video games, with more in development and available soon. A few Zoom Apps currently available include:

• Asana: Host purposeful meetings with the ability to create in-meeting action items and next steps beforehand so your teams are always moving forward with clarity. You can also create, edit, and assign tasks, all without leaving your Zoom meeting.
• Dot Collector: The Dot Collector app allows everyone in a meeting to share their perspective through real-time feedback and polling. Dots are systematically collected, shared and preserved enabling adjustments to be made in the moment and over time. The Dot Collector app fosters more inclusive collaboration, transparency, and meaningful relationships among colleagues, while empowering individuals with insights that help them to unlock their full potential.
• Dropbox Spaces: Get more out of your meetings with the Dropbox Spaces app for Zoom. Keep everyone on the same page by collaborating in real time in a single shared workspace before, during, and after Zoom Meetings.
• Heads Up!: Heads Up! is a fun and hilarious game by Ellen DeGeneres. Heads Up! is the perfect party game to play with your colleagues and friends, and is a fun way to pass time with your coworkers while waiting for meetings to start. The app is developed for Zoom by Ellen Digital and Playco.
• SurveyMonkey Enterprise by Momentive: Drive more engaging and inclusive meetings with in-the-moment feedback from surveys and polls available directly within the Zoom meeting experience. Capture optimal stakeholder insights from customers, employees, patients—any meeting attendees. Take action to increase employee engagement, improve the customer or patient experience, and make remote meetings more productive.
• Wellness That Works by WW: Wellness that Works by WW, a leader in weight loss and wellness, helps users move more, eat better and shift their mindset with push notifications to stand and stretch, along with a hydration tracker, mindset tools, and go-to recipes. Wellness that Works reinforces WW’s credentials in behavior change science by helping users build and maintain healthy habits wherever they are… even in meetings!

Improving the Hybrid and Virtual Event Experiences
Zoom Events gives organizations the power to create engaging hybrid and virtual experiences. Zoom Events enables large and small businesses alike to seamlessly manage and host back-to-back event sessions from sales summits, customer events, trade shows, and internal events. Zoom Events offers features such as event hubs, dedicated corporate virtual event spaces, customizable registration, and networking through a chat-enabled virtual event lobby. Zoom Events also allows event-specific reporting around registration, attendance, and ticket sales. Zoom will be hosting its annual user conference, Zoomtopia, and Zoom Academy, on Zoom Events this year.

OnZoom, the consumer-focused Zoom Events solution, helps brands and small businesses reach a consumer audience by creating, hosting, and monetizing events, including fitness and cooking classes, theatrical presentations, and more. OnZoom will remain in beta and serve as a place where small businesses and entrepreneurs can host and publish events to our public event directory.

More Information

• To learn more about Zoom Apps, please visit the Zoom Apps page and read our blog detailing how Zoom Apps is bringing critical business applications directly within Zoom meetings.
• To learn more about Zoom Events, please visit the Zoom Events page and read our blog detailing how Zoom Events allows the seamless creation and management of virtual events of any size.

About Zoom
Zoom is for you. We help you express ideas, connect to others, and build toward a future limited only by your imagination. Our frictionless communications platform is the only one that started with video as its foundation, and we have set the standard for innovation ever since. That is why we are an intuitive, scalable, and secure choice for individuals, small businesses, and large enterprises alike. Founded in 2011, Zoom is publicly traded (NASDAQ:ZM) and headquartered in San Jose, California. Visit zoom.com and follow @zoom.

Zoom Public Relations
Farshad Hashmatulla
Product PR Manager
[email protected]

A better cost-effective option is now available for dietary supplement, functional food, and beverage manufacturers.

Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., July 20, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Blue California joins with the innovative Massachusetts-based biotech company Conagen to announce the commercialization of high-purity, fermentation-derived nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN). A nature-based metabolic component which has caught the attention of health-conscious consumers for supporting energy and longevity.

The quest to age healthily and support longevity is surging among health-conscious consumers. “Consumers are reassessing their dietary regimen to make room for ingredients that can support an increased healthspan,” said Chief Science Officer at Blue California, Dr. Priscilla Samuel.

NMN supplements are highly sought-after for healthy aging applications, including brain health, vitality, heart health, metabolic health, and even cosmetics. However, current NMN ingredients used in products on the market are mostly produced by chemical synthesis.

While consumers are exploring dietary supplements for a holistic approach to health, they are also demanding clean labels from their supplements, and moving away from synthetic ingredients. Blue California’s fermentation-derived NMN opens new opportunities for producers to consider consumers’ health more holistically while acquiring a closer-to-nature position.

NMN serves as a precursor to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), a coenzyme present in all living cells and critical for mitochondrial function.

Increased intracellular levels of NAD+ boost energy production and improve cellular health, but levels decline dramatically with age. Replenishing NAD+ in the body with its precursor NMN has been proposed as a way to possibly combat age-related degeneration and increase healthy lifespan.

“Our fermentation-derived offering is well-positioned to capitalize on the growing recognition of NMN as an important ingredient in the food and supplement spaces,” said Samuel. “NMN is a well-known molecule in the longevity research community, and emerging research also suggests potential applications for immune health as well as sports nutrition.”

Harvard professor David Sinclair, a well-recognized leader in the field of aging research, is an advocate of NMN for improving the health of aging populations.

“NMN is a logical extension to our line of “longevity ingredients” which includes ergothioneine and pyrroloquinoline quinone. All of these molecules are made by our own proprietary fermentation processes, enabling our customers to better serve consumers who might reject chemically-derived ingredients,” said VP of Innovation at Conagen, Dr. Casey Lippmeier. “Because of the way we make it, Conagen’s NMN is of the highest purity and quality.  It is also very cost-effective and compatible with clean-label trends, all of which demonstrates our strength as a strategic partner with Blue California.”

As innovation in dietary supplemental nutrition advances, so does the growth of global vitamin, mineral and supplement (VMS) launches. Mintel reported a growth of 67% of global VMS launches in Apr 2020 – Mar 2021, as compared to Apr 2016 – Mar 2017 — where the United States leads the VMS market.

About Blue California

Blue California is a vertically integrated technology company providing innovative ingredient solutions to global partners. With more than 20 years of innovation success, our ingredients are used in commercial products and applications in the industries of nutrition, personal care, healthy aging and wellness, functional food and beverage, and beauty. www.bluecal-ingredients.com

About Conagen

Conagen is making the impossible possible. Our scientists and engineers use the latest synthetic biology tools to develop high-quality sustainable nature-based products through systems of manufacturing on a molecular level and fermentation basis. We focus on the bioproduction of high-value ingredients for food, nutrition, flavors and fragrances, pharmaceutical, and renewable materials industries. www.conagen.com

Attachment

• Blue California NMN Press release

Ana Arakelian
Blue California ingredients
+1-949-635-1991
[email protected]

NEW YORK, July 19, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Madison Realty Capital, a vertically integrated real estate private equity firm focused on debt and equity investment strategies, today announced it has provided a $105 million loan to Fort Partners for the acquisition and modernization of the Four Seasons Hotel Miami located at 1435 Brickell Avenue in Brickell, Florida.  The loan was originated from Madison’s income strategy that offers transitional loans to institutional sponsors. In 2019, Madison provided a $210 million loan to Fort Partners for its construction of the Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences Fort Lauderdale.

“We are pleased to continue our work with Fort Partners, a best-in-class developer with a strong track record in South Florida, and deliver a timely, customized financing solution for this exciting project,” said Josh Zegen, Managing Principal and Co-Founder of Madison Realty Capital. “Fort Partners, in close collaboration with Four Seasons, have put forth a strong plan that will modernize the property focused on enhancing room configurations, pool deck and lobby, and upgrade the food & beverage options by partnering with renowned chefs and restaurateurs.  Moreover, Brickell is an attractive, established neighborhood in Miami that caters to both tourists and business clients given its proximity to South Beach. We look forward to supporting Fort Partners in the future.”

“This is our second large loan with Madison Realty Capital, and again they executed quickly and delivered certainty of execution. Madison offered a highly competitive rate with a flexible structure that will allow us to effectively implement our renovation and repositioning plan for this strategic asset,” said Michael Conaghan, partner with Fort Partners LLC.

The 221-key hotel is part of a 70-story mixed-use tower that includes class-A office space, residential condominiums, an Equinox health club, retail space and a parking garage.  Millennium Partners developed the property in 2003 and Handel Architects led the design. The acquisition marks the fourth Four Seasons property in Fort Partners’ Florida portfolio alongside hotels located in Surfside, Fort Lauderdale, and Palm Beach.

JLL Managing Director Jim Dockerty, Senior Managing Director, Kevin Davis, and Managing Director, Mark Fisher represented Fort Partners in the deal.

 

About Madison Realty Capital 

Madison Realty Capital is a vertically integrated real estate private equity firm that manages approximately $6 billion in total assets on behalf of an institutional global investor base. Since 2004, Madison Realty Capital has completed more than $15 billion in transactions in the U.S. providing reputable borrowers with flexible and highly customized financing solutions, strong underwriting capabilities, and certainty of execution. Headquartered in New York City, with offices in Los Angeles and Miami, the firm has over 60 employees across all real estate investment, development, and property management disciplines. Madison Realty Capital has been frequently named to the Commercial Observer’s prestigious “Power 100” list of New York City real estate players and is consistently cited as a top construction lender, among other industry recognitions. To learn more, follow us on LinkedIn and visit www.madisonrealtycapital.com.

Nathaniel Garnick/Grace Cartwright
Gasthalter & Co.
(212) 257-4170
[email protected]

 

The combination of Zoom’s robust communications platform with Five9’s intelligent cloud contact center will enable organizations to reimagine the way they engage with their customers

SAN JOSE, Calif. and SAN RAMON, Calif., July 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZM) today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Five9, Inc. (NASDAQ: FIVN), a leading provider of the intelligent cloud contact center, in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $14.7 billion. Combining Five9’s Contact Center as a Service (“CCaaS”) solution with Zoom’s broad communications platform will transform how businesses connect with their customers, building the customer engagement platform of the future.

The acquisition is expected to help enhance Zoom’s presence with enterprise customers and allow it to accelerate its long-term growth opportunity by adding the $24 billion contact center market. Five9 is a pioneer of cloud-based contact center software. Its highly-scalable and secure cloud contact center delivers a comprehensive suite of easy-to-use applications that allows management and optimization of customer interactions across many different channels.

“We are continuously looking for ways to enhance our platform, and the addition of Five9 is a natural fit that will deliver even more happiness and value to our customers,” said Eric S. Yuan, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Zoom. “Zoom is built on a core belief that robust and reliable communications technology enables interactions that build greater empathy and trust, and we believe that holds particularly true for customer engagement. Enterprises communicate with their customers primarily through the contact center, and we believe this acquisition creates a leading customer engagement platform that will help redefine how companies of all sizes connect with their customers. We are thrilled to join forces with the Five9 team, and I look forward to welcoming them to the Zoom family.”

“Businesses spend significant resources annually on their contact centers, but still struggle to deliver a seamless experience for their customers,” said Rowan Trollope, Chief Executive Officer of Five9. “It has always been Five9’s mission to make it easy for businesses to fix that problem and engage with their customers in a more meaningful and efficient way. Joining forces with Zoom will provide Five9’s business customers access to best-of-breed solutions, particularly Zoom Phone, that will enable them to realize more value and deliver real results for their business. This, combined with Zoom’s ‘ease-of use’ philosophy and broad communication portfolio, will truly enable customers to engage via their preferred channel of choice.”

Zoom’s acquisition of Five9 is complementary to the growing popularity of its Zoom Phone offering. Zoom Phone is a modern, cloud phone system that offers a digital alternative to legacy phone offerings, enabling organizations to connect and interact in new and convenient ways to keep businesses moving.

The combination also offers both companies significant cross-selling opportunities to each other’s respective customer bases. As a result of the acquisition, Zoom will play an even greater role in driving the digital future and bringing companies and their customers closer together.

Following the close of the transaction, Five9 will be an operating unit of Zoom and Rowan Trollope will become a President of Zoom and continue as CEO of Five9, reporting to Eric Yuan.

Details on the Proposed Transaction
As part of the agreement, Five9 stockholders will receive 0.5533 shares of Class A common stock of Zoom Video Communications, Inc. for each share of Five9, Inc. Based on the closing share price of Zoom Class A common stock as of July 16, 2021, this represents a per share price for Five9 common stock of $200.28 and an implied transaction value of approximately $14.7 billion.

The Boards of Directors of Zoom and Five9 have approved the transaction. The Board of Directors of Five9 recommends that Five9 stockholders approve the transaction and adopt the merger agreement. The transaction, which is anticipated to close in the first half of calendar year 2022, is subject to approval by Five9 stockholders, the receipt of required regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Additional details and information about the terms and conditions of the acquisition will be available in current reports on Form 8-K to be filed by Zoom and Five9 with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Advisors
Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC is serving as exclusive financial advisor and Cooley LLP is serving as legal counsel to Zoom. Qatalyst Partners is serving as exclusive financial advisor and Latham and Watkins LLP is serving as legal counsel to Five9.

Transaction Conference Call Information
Zoom and Five9 will host a Zoom Video Webinar for investors on Monday, July 19, 2021 at 5:30 am Pacific Time / 8:30 am Eastern Time. Investors are invited to join the Zoom Video Webinar by visiting: https://investors.zoom.us/. A replay will be available shortly after the call ends.

About Zoom
Zoom is for you. We help you express ideas, connect to others, and build toward a future limited only by your imagination. Our frictionless communications platform is the only one that started with video as its foundation, and we have set the standard for innovation ever since. That is why we are an intuitive, scalable, and secure choice for individuals, small businesses, and large enterprises alike. Founded in 2011, Zoom is publicly traded (NASDAQ: ZM) and headquartered in San Jose, California. Visit zoom.com and follow @zoom.

About Five9
Five9 is an industry-leading provider of cloud contact center solutions, bringing the power of cloud innovation to more than 2,000 customers worldwide and facilitating billions of customer engagements annually. The Five9 Intelligent Cloud Contact Center provides digital engagement, analytics, workflow automation, workforce optimization, and practical AI to help customers reimagine their customer experience. Designed to be reliable, secure, compliant, and scalable, the Five9 platform helps increase agent and supervisor productivity, connects the contact center to the business, and ultimately deliver tangible business results including increased revenue and enhanced customer trust and loyalty.

Forward-Looking Statements
This communication contains forward-looking information related to Zoom, Five9 and the acquisition of Five9 by Zoom that involves substantial risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Forward-looking statements in this communication include, among other things, statements about the potential benefits of the proposed transaction for Zoom, Five9 and their respective customers, Zoom’s plans, objectives, expectations and intentions with respect to the combined company, the size of the opportunity for Zoom in contact centers, the financial condition, results of operations and business of Zoom or Five9, and the anticipated timing of closing of the proposed transaction.

Risks and uncertainties include, among other things, risks related to the ability of Zoom to consummate the proposed transaction on a timely basis or at all; Zoom’s ability to successfully integrate Five9’s operations and personnel; Zoom’s ability to implement its plan, forecasts and other expectations with respect to Five9’s business after the completion of the transaction and realize expected synergies; the satisfaction of the conditions precedent to consummation of the proposed transaction; Zoom’s ability to secure regulatory approvals on the terms expected in a timely manner or at all, especially in light of recent regulatory developments in the United States and elsewhere; the ability to realize the anticipated benefits of the proposed transaction, including the possibility that the expected benefits from the proposed transaction will not be realized or will not be realized within the expected time period; disruption from the transaction making it more difficult to maintain business and operational relationships; any negative effects of the announcement or the consummation of the proposed transaction on the market price of Zoom’s Class A common stock or on Zoom’s operating results; the impact of significant transaction costs and unknown liabilities on Zoom’s operating results; the risk of litigation and/or regulatory actions related to the proposed transaction; the exertion of management’s time and Zoom’s resources, and other expenses incurred in connection with any regulatory or governmental consents or approvals for the transaction; the possibility that competing offers will be made to acquire Five9; the effect of the announcement or pendency of the transaction on Zoom and Five9’s business relationships, operating results, and business generally; the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related public health measures on Zoom and Five9’s businesses and general economic conditions; the impact of geopolitical events; Zoom’s service performance and security, including the resources and costs required to avoid unanticipated downtime and prevent, detect and remediate potential security breaches; cyberattacks and security vulnerabilities that could lead to reduced revenue, increased costs, liability claims, or harm to Zoom’s reputation or competitive position; excessive outages and disruptions to Zoom’s online services if Zoom fails to maintain an adequate operations infrastructure; competitive factors, including new market entrants and changes in the competitive environment and increased competition; customer demand for Zoom’s products and services; Zoom and Five9’s ability to attract, integrate and retain qualified personnel; Zoom’s ability to protect its intellectual property rights and develop its brand; Zoom’s ability to develop new services and product features; Zoom’s operating results and cash flow; the impact of the transaction on Zoom’s strategy of acquiring or making investments in complementary businesses, joint ventures, services, technologies and intellectual property rights; changes in tax and other laws, regulations, rates and policies; and the impact of new accounting pronouncements.

These risks, as well as other risks related to the proposed transaction, will be described in the registration statement on Form S-4 and proxy statement/prospectus that will be filed with the SEC in connection with the proposed transaction. While the list of factors presented here is, and the list of factors to be presented in the registration statement on Form S-4 are, considered representative, no such list should be considered to be a complete statement of all potential risks and uncertainties. For additional information about other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, please refer to Zoom’s and Five9’s respective periodic reports and other filings with the SEC, including the risk factors identified in Zoom’s and Five9’s most recent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Annual Reports on Form 10-K.

The forward-looking statements included in this communication are made only as of the date hereof. Zoom assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

Additional Information and Where to Find It

In connection with the proposed merger, Zoom intends to file with the SEC a registration statement on Form S-4, which will include a document that serves as a prospectus of Zoom and a proxy statement of Five9 (the “proxy statement/prospectus”). After the registration statement has been declared effective by the SEC, the proxy statement/prospectus will be delivered to stockholders of Five9. BEFORE MAKING ANY VOTING OR INVESTMENT DECISION, SECURITY HOLDERS OF ZOOM AND FIVE9 ARE URGED TO READ THE PROXY STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS (INCLUDING ALL AMENDMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTS THERETO) AND OTHER DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE MERGER THAT WILL BE FILED WITH THE SEC WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROPOSED MERGER. Investors and security holders will be able to obtain copies of the proxy statement/prospectus (when available) and other documents filed by Zoom and Five9 with the SEC, without charge, through the website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov. Copies of the documents filed with the SEC by Zoom will be available free of charge under the SEC Filings heading of the Investor Relations section of Zoom’s website at https://investors.Zoom.us/. Copies of the documents filed with the SEC by Five9 will be available free of charge under the Financials & Filings heading of the Investor Relations section of Five9’s website at https://investors.five9.com/.

Participants in the Solicitation

Zoom and Five9 and their respective directors and executive officers may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies in respect of the proposed transaction. Information about Zoom’s directors and executive officers is set forth in Zoom’s Form 10-K for the year ended January 31, 2021 and the proxy statement for Zoom’s 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, which were filed with the SEC on March 18, 2021 and May 5, 2021, respectively. Information about Five9’s directors and executive officers is set forth in Five9’s Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020 and the proxy statement for Five9’s 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, which were filed with the SEC on March 1, 2021 and March 29, 2021, respectively. Stockholders may obtain additional information regarding the interests of such participants by reading the registration statement and the proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant materials to be filed with the SEC regarding the proposed merger when they become available. Investors should read the proxy statement/prospectus carefully when it becomes available before making any voting or investment decisions.

No Offer or Solicitation

This communication shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities or a solicitation of any vote or approval, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. No offering of securities shall be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

Zoom Press Relations
Colleen Rodriguez
Global Media Relations Lead
[email protected]

Zoom Investor Relations
Tom McCallum
Head of Investor Relations
[email protected]

Five9 Press Relations
Allison Wilson
352-502-9539
[email protected]

Five9 Investor Relations
Barry Zwarenstein
Chief Financial Officer
925-201-2000 ext. 5959
[email protected]

The Blueshirt Group for Five9, Inc.
Lisa Laukkanen
415-217-4967
[email protected]

Forging the future with better sugar reduction solutions for food and beverages in the region.

Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., July 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Sweegen’s footprint in Europe became stronger after the European Union Commission published its approval of Sweegen’s non-GMO Signature Bestevia Rebaudioside M (Reb M) for use in food and beverages.

The approval of Sweegen’s Signature Bestevia Reb M leads the future of wellness in food and drink in Europe. Brands in Europe now have access to the best-tasting highly sought-after stevia sweetener. The availability broadens the toolkit for sugar alternatives to reimagine food and drink, opening new doors for creating healthy products for consumers.

“Sweegen’s Signature Bestevia Reb M approval is a celebration of good health and wellness for product developers and consumers alike,” said Luca Giannone, SVP of Sales. “This is just one of our many milestones in Europe to transform products for having a positive and lasting impact on our ever-evolving health.”

Consumers are increasingly aware of the need to reduce sugar in their diets for better health. Yet, when they are making decisions for purchasing food and beverages, consumers will ultimately select the brand with the best taste. Therefore, tackling the toughest sugar reduction challenges is a priority for brands as taste is the reason for repeat purchases.

The soft drinks industry in Europe is making a pledge to cut added sugars in Europe. The Union of European Soft Drinks Associations (UNESDA) announced on June 29 this year to reduce average added sugars in its beverages by another 10% across Europe by 2025.

In its further commitment to Europe, Sweegen has aligned the availability of its Reb M with commercializing the high-purity sweetener at its manufacturing facility in Europe. The facility is open in Europe for helping food and beverage manufacturers with rapid production and low cost-in-use sugar reduction solutions.

To compliment the approval of Reb M, Sweegen invested in designing and building its Innovation Studio in Reading, England, near London. The studio opened its doors in January 2021 with a full applications team to collaborate with food and beverage manufacturers on exploring the entire consumer landscape to understand what trends are driving consumer behavior, and then provide inspirational ingredients to represent those trend drivers.

“Our rapid innovation in application development enables our customer-focused solutions to help manufacturers create great-tasting, clean, natural, plant-based, sustainable products that meet today’s end-consumer needs and desires,” said Giannone.

Around the world, Sweegen’s Innovation Studios are open globally: Southern California, Mexico City, Reading (London) and very soon in Singapore. These studios will leverage local tastes and knowledge while serving as creative centers to explore and discover product innovations motivated by consumer trends and regional tastes.

“Sweegen’s global regulatory mission is the hallmark of opening new sugar reduction opportunities to manufacturers and brands for replacing sugar in foods and beverages, nutritional products, and many other market products world-wide,” said Hadi Omrani, director of regulatory affairs. “Europe is an important region in our global regulatory vision as we continually forge the future of wellness in food and drink around the world.”

Sweegen offers brands cost-effective and rapid innovation for sugar reduction solutions for beverage, dairy, savory and bakery with its Bestevia Taste Solutions for Europe.

Sweegen is the first company to receive the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) panel’s safety status for any steviol glycoside produced by alternative and sustainable technologies. To achieve high purity clean-tasting stevia leaf sweeteners, Sweegen uses a bioconversion process starting with the stevia leaf. This process enabled Sweegen to obtain the Non-GMO Project verification for its Signature Bestevia stevia sweeteners in the U.S. market.

Bestevia Reb M was commercialized in 2017 and has already been approved in many regions around the world.

About Sweegen

Sweegen provides sweet taste solutions for food and beverage manufacturers around the world.

We are on a mission to reduce the sugar and artificial sweeteners in our global diet.  Partnering with customers, we create delicious zero-sugar products that consumers love.  With the best Signature Stevia sweeteners in our portfolio such as Bestevia® Rebs B, D, E, I, M, and N, along with our deep knowledge of flavor modulators and texturants, Sweegen delivers market-leading solutions that customers want and consumers prefer.

For more information, please contact [email protected] and visit Sweegen’s website, www.sweegen.com.

Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including, among other statements, statements regarding the future prospects for Reb M stevia leaf sweetener. These statements are based on current expectations, but are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and are beyond the control of Sweegen, Inc.

Relevant risks and uncertainties include those referenced in the historic filings of Sweegen, Inc. with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements, and therefore should be carefully considered. Sweegen, Inc. assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events or developments.

Attachment

• Europe Reb M approval

Ana Arakelian
Sweegen
+1.949.709.0583
[email protected]

 

Combined companies will establish the most trusted, independent technology platform for omnichannel advertising with emphasis on cross-channel video and dynamic creative

NEW YORK, July 13, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Mediaocean, the mission-critical platform for omnichannel advertising, and Flashtalking, the leading independent ad management platform, announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement in which Mediaocean will acquire Flashtalking. The combined entity will infuse Flashtalking’s best-in-class solutions for primary ad serving, creative personalization, identity management, and verification with Mediaocean’s modern system of record used by the world’s leading brands and agencies.

The announcement comes at a critical inflection point for the advertising industry as marketers seek trusted, independent solutions to manage the rise of big tech. Mediaocean and Flashtalking customers will benefit from comprehensive and future-forward solutions for global strategic planning, omnichannel media management, closed ecosystems optimization, and financial reconciliation across traditional media, open web, closed ecosystems, and connected TV.

“Bringing together Mediaocean and Flashtalking is an incredible opportunity for our customers, employees, and the industry at large,” said Bill Wise, CEO of Mediaocean. “Flashtalking is the source of truth for digital and CTV ads and Mediaocean is the system of record for all media. Combined, we will deliver comprehensive and future-forward solutions for omnichannel advertising. Most importantly, our platform is not compromised by media ownership so we can focus solely on driving outcomes for marketers and their agency partners.”

“Our mission of enabling marketers to move consumers to action is a perfect fit for Mediaocean’s vision of a world where marketers market the way consumers consume,” said John Nardone, CEO at Flashtalking. “Over the years, we’ve built the most trusted, independent platform for driving advertising relevance and improving campaign performance. Together, our teams and complementary tech will help brands succeed in a future dominated by converged media and anchored on cookieless identity resolution.”

“As we continue to innovate, it’s crucial to have technology that enables us to meet the moment for consumers,” said Deborah Wahl, CMO of General Motors. “It’s encouraging to see companies like Mediaocean and Flashtalking come together to deliver on the omnichannel advertising imperative. The industry needs a neutral and independent player in the ecosystem to enable media convergence.”

“The combination of Mediaocean and Flashtalking signals a critical milestone as the industry moves towards open and interoperable solutions,” said Paul Gelb, Head of Digital Activation and Investment at Bayer. “One of the biggest opportunities in modern media is connecting technology across planning, buying, ad serving, and creative optimization. With Flashtalking, Mediaocean has improved its potential value proposition for omnichannel advertising.”

The acquisition of Flashtalking by Mediaocean builds on a partnership the companies launched in 2018 to incorporate ad serving data into media buyer workflow. The combined entity will represent an advertising technology platform with over $200 billion in annualized media spend and over 1 trillion monthly ad impressions. Earlier this year, Mediaocean announced its new product paradigm that unifies solutions across media intelligence, management, and finance. The company’s product transformation and emphasis on culture have been recognized with Customer’s Choice designation from Gartner Peer Insights¹ and Best Places to Work by Ad Age.

The global advertising industry is a $700 billion market² undergoing major transformation due to changing consumer habits and privacy expectations. This has led to the rise of CTV and closed ecosystems in which Mediaocean made a large investment via the acquisition of 4C in July 2020 and, now with Flashtalking, will enhance its best-in-class solutions. The combined companies will enable a number of innovative value propositions for advertisers and agencies:

• Unified planning and measurement of traditional and digital media including cross-channel video
• In-flight campaign optimization through AI-driven recommendations and automation
• Data-driven creative personalization across open web and closed ecosystems
• Flexible identity resolution to enable omnichannel reach in a cookie-less world as well as privacy compliance with CCPA and GDPR
• Advanced brand insights and analytics for media impact on sales conversions

The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2021.

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC served as exclusive financial advisor to Flashtalking and Travers Smith LLP and Goodwin Procter LLP as its legal counsel.

About Mediaocean
Mediaocean is the mission-critical platform for omnichannel advertising. With more than $200 billion in annualized media spend managed through its software, Mediaocean connects brands, agencies, media, technology, and data. Using AI and machine learning technology to control marketing investments and optimize business outcomes, Mediaocean powers campaigns from planning, buying, and selling to analysis, invoices, and payments. Mediaocean employs 1,200 people across 20 global offices and is part of the Vista Equity Partners portfolio. Visit www.mediaocean.com for more information.

About Flashtalking
Flashtalking is the leading global independent primary ad server and analytics technology company. The company uses data to personalize advertising in real-time, independently analyze its effectiveness and enable optimization that drives better engagement and return on spend for sophisticated global brands. Flashtalking’s platform leads the market with innovative products and services to ensure creative relevance and actionable insights across channels and formats, powered by unique cookieless tracking, data orchestration and advanced analytics. Flashtalking supports clients at the crossroads where data, personalized creative and unbiased measurement intersect with expertise, service and a deep partner ecosystem to drive successful digital marketing. The company is part of the TA Associates portfolio.

Media Contact
Aaron Goldman
CMO, Mediaocean
[email protected]

¹ Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
² Source: eMarketer Worldwide Total Media Advertising Spending, 2021

Platform delivers new AI-powered data preparation and management capabilities, deeper augmented analytics, improved data visualization and analysis to create actionable, industry-leading business insights

Austin, Texas, July 13, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Zoho Corporation, a leading global technology company, today announced its new Business Intelligence (BI) Platform — an AI-driven data analytics solution empowering businesses to surface precise and actionable insights through self-service data preparation and augmented analytics. Combining newly launched Zoho DataPrep with an enhanced version of Zoho Analytics, Zoho’s end-to-end self-service BI Platform enables organizations to cleanse, unify, and analyze cross-departmental data, obtain an encyclopedic view of the company, and ultimately move toward a more competitive business strategy based on real-time insights.

Zoho’s BI Platform brings together pre-built, visual dashboards, comprehensive data integrations, data preparation, augmented and embedded BI, security and privacy capabilities, flexible deployment models (cloud or on-premise), and scalability. Below are four standout pillars of this platform, which allow businesses to perform better and remain competitive in their industries:

1) Augmented Data Prep and Management – Zoho DataPrep, a new application, is an AI and machine learning-driven self-service data preparation tool. The addition of Zoho DataPrep to the BI Platform allows business users to easily create and manage data pipelines that enable them to integrate, model, cleanse, transform, enrich, and catalogue data before making it ready for analysis.

2) Data Stories – Zoho’s BI Platform now offers an integrated enterprise portal builder (Zoho Sites) and presentation software (Zoho Show). Embedding live reports and dashboards into a website or presentation allows administrators to wrap additional context around data and foster more immersive discussion on business matters. Data Stories reduces friction within an organization, so that businesses can be data-driven without needing to learn new tools.

3) Augmented Analytics – Ask Zia, Zoho’s conversational AI, enables business users — with or without technical know-how — to surface data through natural language querying. Additionally, the all-new Zia Insights provides textual narration of key insights from reports and dashboards, which significantly reduces the time and effort required to explore data and glean insights. Zia Insights also includes what-if capability, enabling scenario analysis for effective decision-making.

4) Marketplace – Through Zoho Marketplace, an apps marketplace, Zoho is enabling partners to develop and publish analytical apps and integrations to complement Zoho Analytics users, thereby strengthening the BI and Analytics platform. Another dimension is the launch of deep native analytical apps, with domain-specific advanced analytics, in third-party marketplaces such as Shopify, ServiceNow and Atlassian.

The new Zoho BI Platform is built for scale and is extensible to more than 250 data sources—including Zendesk, HubSpot, Microsoft, Mailchimp, Stripe and Google—allowing businesses to integrate and analyze data sourced from diverse third-party systems. Blending with outside data sources has always been one of the key strengths of Zoho Analytics, and a value demonstrated by the fact that 60% of existing users have chosen it as their BI tool while solely running on non-Zoho applications and data sources.

The BI platform gives users on-demand insight into operational data to inform critical business decisions with the support of Zia, Zoho’s AI tool. Zia augments data preparation and visualization by using natural language querying and generation, text narration of key insights from reports and dashboards, and cognitive and advanced analytics. These self-service and real-time capabilities make it possible to capture actionable data insights to boost operational efficiency and productivity.

With more than 50,000 organizations already using it, Zoho Analytics has consistently been one of the company’s fastest growing products. Within the last two years, Zoho Analytics has grown by 30% YoY with a 40% YoY increase in the enterprise segment. The application has seen a 10% jump in customers switching from competitive platforms. Also, 50% of the customers have chosen Zoho Analytics after evaluating multiple competitive BI products. With this new BI Platform, Zoho expects above 45% YoY revenue growth.

Statements for Media:

“We originally chose the Zoho BI platform because Zoho Analytics was able to give us a complete 360-degree view of our customer journey and made it easy to blend data from multiple systems to do so. It’s only continued to innovate. While we used to spend a lot of time writing and maintaining custom scripts to import data, fix errors, and transform the data, the new platform has helped us eliminate custom scripts and manual data preparation. With Zoho DataPrep, we easily found the errors in the data and fixed them all from within the tool, and are now able to completely automate data preparation. This brings immense value to our organization as we are able to get the most relevant and accurate insight into our company-wide analytics while spending our time on more valuable tasks.” –  Claudio Cabeza, Director of Grupo Premo

“Self-service data preparation, computer-augmented analysis and in-context story telling are three important, emerging capabilities that set industry-leading BI and analytics platforms apart. The ability to build and share analytic apps is yet another differentiator, so I’m particularly excited to see Zoho enabling customers to publish breakthrough, data-driven applications.” – Doug Henschen, principal analyst at Constellation Research

“For data to be a true catalyst of business growth, there can’t be any gaps in the collection, management, or analysis process. Too few BI platforms in the market excel in both data preparation and analytics, which leaves businesses with weak — or worse, flawed — insights. Zoho’s BI Platform is industry-leading because it ensures organizations are acting on legitimate data, which can be effectively leveraged to determine new revenue streams, refocus funds, drive productivity, and overall gain a competitive edge among peers in their market.” – Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist for Zoho

“Data is now the lifeblood of any organization of every size. The ability to harness analytics and transform it into actionable insights is a strategic imperative — and something that is now far too important to be held hostage by an enterprise analytics or business intelligence team. For this reason, a new generation of self-service-first tools, such as Zoho’s new BI platform, are changing the way organizations look at the entire data-to-insight pipeline. This democratized approach enables organizations to put the power of data — from collection, through cleaning and analysis, to insight — into the hands of those who are best positioned to act upon it, and create competitive advantage as a result.” – Charles Araujo, Principal Analyst, Intellyx

Pricing and Availability

Zoho BI Platform, which includes Zoho Analytics and Zoho DataPrep, is available immediately in two versions, cloud and on-premise. For monthly option, the cloud version is $8 per user, per month. The on-premise version is $30 per user, per month. For annual option, the cloud version is $96 per user, per year. The on-premise version is $360 per user, per year.

Zoho DataPrep is also available as a standalone. The standard plan starts at $40 per month for 2 million rows including 3 users while the enterprise plan is highly customizable and the pricing is based on the customization.

For more information, please visit https://www.zoho.com/analytics/

Disclaimer: All trademarks, product names, and company names cited herein are the property of their respective owners.

About Zoho

With 50+ apps in nearly every major business category, including sales, marketing, customer support, accounting and back office operations, and an array of productivity and collaboration tools, Zoho Corporation is one of the world’s most prolific software companies.

Zoho is privately held and profitable with more than 9,000 employees. Zoho is headquartered in Austin, Texas, with international headquarters in Chennai, India. Additional offices are in the United States, India, Japan, China, Singapore, Mexico, Australia, the Netherlands, and the United Arab Emirates.

Zoho respects user privacy and does not have an ad-revenue model in any part of its business, including its free products. More than 60 million users around the world, across hundreds of thousands of companies, rely on Zoho every day to run their businesses, including Zoho itself. For more information, please visit www.zoho.com

Attachments

• Statement Image from Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist, Zoho
• 6_DataStories_Ask_Zia_Embed

Sandra Lo
Zoho Corporation 
1-925-924--9500
[email protected]