Christopher & Banks Private Equity is a New Zealand based private equity firm which invests predominantly in NZ-founded, US-based companies.

Christopher & Banks Private Equity

Accel is an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that powers a global community of entrepreneurs. Accel backs entrepreneurs who have what it takes to build a business.  Accel’s vision for entrepreneurship and business enables it to identify and invest in the companies that will be responsible for the growth of next-generation industries. Accel-backed companies include Atlassian, Braintree, Cloudera, DJI, Dropbox, Dropcam, Etsy, Facebook, Flipkart, Lookout Security, MoPub, Qualtrics, Slack, Spotify, Supercell, Vox Media, and others.

Accel

Matrix is an early-stage venture capital firm, investing from idea through Series A. As a close-knit team of former founders and company builders, Matrix has partnered with companies from Apple and FedEx to Oculus and Canva.  Other Matrix investments include Fivetran, Side, Afterpay, CTRL-Labs, Oculus, Zendesk, Hubspot, Apollo GraphQL, Flock Safety, GOAT, Postmates, Acacia Communications, and Sila.

Matrix

Since 1993, Gemini Israel Funds has helped many of Israel's most talented entrepreneurs to build innovative and world-changing companies.  With over $700M under management, Gemini invests in early stage and growth-stage companies across a range of industries including communications, consumer electronics, enterprise software, Internet software and services, semiconductors, and environmental technologies.   The companies backed by their investment professionals include Allot Communications, Ceragon Networks, Commtouch, Diligent Technologies, Mellanox Technologies, Outbrain, Passave, Precise Software Solutions, PrimeSense, Saifun Semiconductors, Traiana, Takadu, Verisity, and many others.

Gemini Israel Ventures

Clearlake Capital Group is a private equity group that invests in communications, healthcare, and industrial companies. Clearlake has a flexible mandate to invest in both private and public transactions across the capital structure in debt or equity securities in the lower and middle market through buyouts, corporate divestitures, recapitalizations and reorganizations.

Clearlake Capital Group

Tactical Opportunities (Tac Opps) is an opportunistic investing platform seeking to capitalize on global investment opportunities that are time-sensitive, complex, or in dislocated markets where we believe risk is fundamentally mispriced.   The Tac Opps’ team invests globally across asset classes, industries and geographies, and can leverage intellectual capital from across Blackstone’s businesses to inform investment due diligence and execution. Our flexible investment mandate enables us to dynamically adjust to changing market conditions and to focus on deep value opportunities that may be overlooked by less nimble market participants.

Blackstone Tactical Opportunities

Diligent

Remote learning is driving an education technology revolution.

EdTech: K-12

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 Formerly named ClassEDU, Class Technologies is the creator of Class, a suite of tools for teachers that allows them to create a more engaging learning experience on Zoom and make the virtual classroom feel more like a real classroom. The company’s co-founder and CEO is Michael Chasen, former co-founder and CEO of Blackboard. 
 
 
 Class software features include instruction tools and management tools. Instruction tools include the ability to launch live assignments, quizzes, and tests for completion in real-time and polls. The product also allows teachers and students to talk privately without leaving the Zoom call. Management tools include attendance trackers, the ability to monitor how long students speak, how engaged they are, and the ability to integrate learning management systems with Zoom. Teachers are also able to determine whether students have other browser windows open besides Zoom during a test.
 
 
 Class was launched for Apple’s MacOS desktop operating system in September 2020 and was made available for Chromebooks, iPhone, Android, and Windows devices in June 2021. The product will be marketed to schools at an annual subscription ranging from USD 10,000-USD 65,000, based on the number of students per class. As of April 2021, Class had more than 125 paying customers, of which 10% were corporations, and the remainder split evenly between K-12 and higher education institutions. More than 7,500 K-12 and higher education institutions and corporations have expressed interest in the product since its launch, which is being used in the US and more than 20 countries globally as of July 2021.
 
 
 In May 2022, the company 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10594">
 acquired Collaborate,
 </a>
 Blackboard’s virtual class tool, for USD 210 million, to strengthen its suite of products.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In June 2022, the company partnered with Open LMS, an e-learning solution provider, to further promote hybrid learning.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In July 2021, the company raised 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4563">
 USD 105 million in Series B
 </a>
 funding to be allocated for domestic growth and expansion into new global markets.
 
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Educational technology plays a pivotal role in driving and enabling the revolution in post-secondary learning

Higher EdTech

Class is a virtual classroom software developed by Class Technologies Inc., a company founded by education software pioneer Michael Chasen. Built on top of Zoom and Microsoft Teams platforms, Class adds teaching and learning tools that enable instructors to perform many activities typically done in a physical classroom. The software is designed to increase student engagement and facilitate active learning in online and hybrid educational settings for K-12, higher education, and corporate training.
Class offers features like enhanced breakout rooms, instructional whiteboards, polling, quizzes, and the ability to launch assignments during live sessions. It also provides engagement analytics and a centralized environment for managing instruction. The software aims to create an active, collaborative virtual learning experience by maintaining learner focus through its unique layout, which keeps the instructor visible at all times. Class collects feedback on student participation and allows instructors to see non-verbal cues and track student attention.
In July 2023, Class Technologies announced Class 2.0, introducing a simplified user interface, new collaborative features for real-time document editing, enhanced Learning Management System (LMS) integrations, and improved stability. The company also plans to introduce an AI Teaching Assistant powered by ChatGPT later in the year to improve learning engagement and outcomes.
Key customers and partnerships
Class serves over 10 million users from more than 1,500 educational institutions, corporations, and government agencies worldwide as of April 2024. The company has partnered with Microsoft to launch Class for Microsoft Teams, integrating with Microsoft 365. Class has also collaborated with Blackboard, incorporating key features from Blackboard Collaborate to facilitate customer transition to its platform.

Class provides Class for Zoom, which integrates the Class software on the Zoom Meetings platform to help teachers take attendance, hand out assignments, give a quiz or test, grade work, proctor exams, or talk one-on-one with a student.

Diligent is the largest governance, risk and compliance (GRC) SaaS provider, serving more than one million users from over 23,000 organizations around the globe. Our modern GRC platform ensures boards, executives and other leaders have a holistic, integrated view of audit, risk, information security, ethics and compliance across the organization and up to the board.      Diligent brings technology, insights and confidence to leaders so they can build more effective, equitable and successful organizations. We empower 62% of the Fortune 500, 90% of the FTSE 100 and 83% of the ASX 200 to improve their bottom line, keep pace with stakeholder expectations and create lasting, positive impact on the world.   Diligent is valued at $7 billion with more than $500 million in revenue.

Diligent launches AI-powered platform to strengthen risk response for GRC professionals

Promises increased productivity, cost-efficiency, and competitiveness in the legal industry

LegalTech

Platforms that connect lawyers to clients (includes online listing, reputation, comparison, and booking systems) and those that support networking among lawyers.

Includes tools for intelligently extracting information from documents and flagging anomalies, the automated creation and simplification of legal documents, filing and serving documents online, and exchanging documents for discovery. Also includes providers of white-labeled digital legal documents and notarization tools that allow the notarization of documents online, assuring their security, authenticity, and integrity.

Tools to manage and digitize the legal practice of individual lawyers and law firms. Features include intake management, legal case/project management, team and client management, team collaboration, client communication and engagement, document storage systems, time and expense tracking, and billing and invoicing.

Includes platforms that provide legal content from various publishers; tools that support legal teams with conventional and contextual search of relevant case law and authoritative sources; and tools that search, analyze, and organize copious numbers of documents and large datasets. AI-based legal research systems replicate the work of a human legal research assistant and are referred to as AI lawyers/attorneys, digital lawyers/attorneys, or virtual lawyers/attorneys. Analytics tools include those that support lawyers with tracking trial cases, receiving email alerts for cases, and predicting trial timelines, along with those that mine big data to determine lawyers' success rates, when to settle, and when to press the advantage. It also includes tools for corporations that predict the outcomes of litigation.

Includes tools to manage large volumes of data; identify key issues for litigation, internal investigations, and compliance projects; and select relevant web content for use as evidence.

Software solutions that support regulatory compliance. Includes platforms that promote compliance among employees by providing simplified summaries of applicable legislation on-demand, and those that support compliance teams with tracking changes in legislation, sharing and tracking documents within the organization, and collecting evidence. IP/trademark management platforms include those that protect brands from online counterfeiting, digital piracy, and distribution fraud by scouring online marketplaces and social networks, along with those that offer simplified licensing solutions using digital rights technology.

Includes platforms that offer contract lifecycle management from their creation, negotiation, compliance, review, and approval, to execution, tracking, and monitoring. They can automate the processing of routine contracts with a high degree of accuracy and may include technology to organize, understand, and extract data from contracts. Also comprises tools for identity verification, electronic signatures, electronic registered delivery, and electronic time stamp.

Includes commoditized law solutions and do-it-yourself legal services for consumers (individuals, families, and business owners), as alternatives to engaging a lawyer or law firm. Examples include platforms that aid with immigration and asylum applications, consumer claims, class actions, closing funding rounds, and drafting simple contracts, wills, and divorce documents. Litigation finance platforms facilitate third-party funding for litigation. Such pre-settlement funding allows victims to pay their legal fees while awaiting a resolution.

Providing AI-driven market intelligence and workflow automation to give firms an edge

Capital Markets Tech

Platforms that help financial market participants collect, manage, and use traditional and alternative data, derive market insights from news, and provide trade signals to make informed decisions.

Platforms that help institutions such as asset managers, investment banks, and hedge funds to develop platforms to trade and operate brokerage services for various financial assets and instruments such as stocks, fixed income securities, derivatives, commodities, and foreign currencies.

Companies that use blockchain technology to share and synchronize data and improve efficiency across the trading workflow and post-trade actions such as clearing and settlement.

Platforms that help companies meet anti-money laundering requirements and provide identity verification tools such as KYC checks.

These platforms provide services such as risk detection, regulatory compliance, risk management, risk intelligence, collateral management, internal processes management, and strengthening of internal controls.

Climate Risk Analytics

INCUMBENTS_PRESENT

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

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Canada's climate intelligence platform, Manifest Climate, and GRC SaaS organziation Diligent have teamed up to create an extensive climate measurement and reporting solution using Diligent's ESG solution. Manifest will supply AI-powered climate analytics to allow corporate clients to perform gap analyses and peer bench-marking. The partnership aims to incorporate climate regulatory requirements, standards, and frameworks to improve their services.
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Diligent

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