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PointFive Raises $16M in Seed Funding To Enable Continuous Cloud Cost Optimization with Deeper Detection and Collaborative Remediation

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The company, which helps customers map out saving opportunities of 15-30% of their total cloud spend, has launched its platform in early 2024

TEL-AVIV, June 19, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — PointFive, a cloud cost optimization platform for enterprise companies specializing in uncovering deeper, typically overlooked, cloud waste, announced today that it has raised $16 million in seed funding. PointFive redefines cloud cost optimization with an end-to-end platform that goes far beyond surface insights to uncover deep, infrastructure-level savings opportunities. PointFive transforms deep analysis into action, empowering engineers to exceed industry standards and propel customers beyond the competition. The round was led by Index Ventures with participation from Entree Capital, Sheva Capital, and Vesey Ventures, and angel investors, including Assaf Rappaport, CEO and Co-Founder at Wiz; Mickey Boodaei, CEO and Co-Founder at Transmit Security; Tamar Yehoshua, Former Chief Product Officer at Slack; Rakesh Loonkar, Amiram Shachar, Guy Podjarni, David Politis, Dean Sysman and additional notable angels. PointFive will use this funding to expand its team, invest in R&D, and support sales and marketing in the US.

“Our technology and innovation goes deeper than any other solution, and we not only show customers where they stand, but also help them cross the finish line.”

PointFive’s unique DeepWaste™ detection technology delves into the intricacies of cloud spending, revealing hidden, typically overlooked inefficiencies and providing actionable pathways for remediation. Beyond deeper insights, PointFive also provides easy, action-ready next steps for remediation, with workflows designed for seamless implementation by the engineering team. The platform fosters proactive collaboration between FinOps and engineers, empowering them to continuously manage and optimize cloud costs by uncovering unseen inefficiencies, contextualizing insights for practical decision-making, implementing actionable workflows that facilitate effortless remediation and generally cultivating a sense of cost-awareness within the engineering team.

PointFive goes deeper into AWS cost architecture than competitors—into services that are not covered by any other player in the market—and AWS promotes PointFive to its customers because it understands the value of helping customers optimize their spend. PointFive’s platform not only surfaces architectural cloud cost issues and how to remediate them, but also aligns it with broader organizational goals of sustainability and growth. Competitors help customers see how much they are spending, while PointFive helps customers deeply optimize for an ongoing, more efficient infrastructure and so that customers can spend less and reroute their funds away from waste, and into innovation. That frees up funds for those customers to invest more in innovation and growing their business, creating mutually beneficial partnerships across the board.

“PointFive helped us make a major leap towards our vision of continuous cloud cost efficiency. Their innovative platform not only identifies a wide range of saving opportunities—from the straightforward to the highly complex—but also empowers our engineers with actionable insights and automation. Partnering with PointFive has enabled us to delegate cost responsibilities to the engineers, and improve our overall operational efficiency in the engineering organization.”

Dani Matzlavi, VP of Engineering – Platform Engineering and Cloud Infrastructure, Blackhawk Network

The PointFive founding team—Alon Arvatz, Gal Ben-David, and Amir Hozez—have been working together for over a decade and collectively have over 40 years of cybersecurity experience. A team of repeat entrepreneurs and 8200 graduates, they previously built IntSights, a cybersecurity startup acquired by Rapid7 for $350M in 2021. This team brought IntSights to global scale with over $30M in ARR and hundreds of enterprise customers. When they joined Rapid7, they were tasked with reducing cloud costs, and immediately recognized the difficulty of tracking that problem in the enterprise. It was there that the idea for PointFive started, as they saw an opportunity to build a new centralized platform that seamlessly transformed insight into action. Although building another cybersecurity company seemed like the more natural path, especially given how that sector is thriving in Israel, they chose to apply their passion, perspective and expertise to transforming FinOps. PointFive’s technology typically maps out saving opportunities in customer environments of between 15-30% of their total cloud spend.

“In today’s economy, where financial efficiency is critical and downsizing common, short-term optimizations fall short,” said co-founder and CEO Alon Arvatz. “We founded PointFive to equip engineers and FinOps leaders with tools that enable them to move from reactive fixes to proactive optimization, which is vital for long-term resilience and adaptability. We understand that cloud cost management is an ongoing strategy and not a one-off tactic. Our technology and innovation goes deeper than any other solution, and we not only show customers where they stand, but also help them cross the finish line.”

PointFive’s research team is also launching its S3DMap, a pioneering open-source tool designed to revolutionize Amazon S3 storage optimization. Unlike traditional bucket-oriented methods, S3DMap introduces an advanced, prefix-oriented methodology that significantly reduces S3 costs through detailed prefix-level analysis. This innovative approach allows for more precise and effective management of S3 storage and usage, focusing on individual prefixes rather than entire buckets.

Optimizing cloud costs has remained a significant and expensive struggle due to poor visibility, tracking, and minimal contextualization of engineering activities, which has made it difficult for businesses to understand and act on cloud cost implications efficiently. Most of the existing players treat cloud cost optimization as an issue of visibility rather than one of urgency, performing high level analysis of cloud spend and delivering limited and basic recommendations about cloud inefficiencies. Furthermore, challenges in calibration and accountability have hindered the adoption of a frugal engineering approach, thwarting effective cost optimization, misaligning cloud service usage with strategic business aims, and blocking the achievement of operational efficiency and meaningful cost reductions.

“PointFive is positioned at the intersection of evolving industry dynamics that are making the optimization of spending and the maximization of value derived from cloud investments a top priority,” said Juriaan Duizendstraal of Index Ventures. “These evolving industry dynamics include a higher emphasis on profitability over rapid, high-growth strategies; the evolution of the FinOps role, which is becoming more technical; and the transition to an engineering mindset, reflecting a move from centralized cloud management to empowering application developers. PointFive is playing a pivotal role in helping enterprises navigate the cost aspect of cloud services amid these shifts.”

For more information about PointFive visit www.pointfive.co.

Further details and access to S3DMap visit S3DMap on GitHub.

About PointFive

PointFive redefines cloud cost management with an end-to-end platform that goes far beyond surface insights, uncovering deep, infrastructure-level savings opportunities. PointFive’s platform enables enterprise organizations to promote continuous cloud cost efficiency through actionable and collaborative remediation workflows. Backed by prominent investors including Index Ventures, Entree Capital, Sheva Capital, Vesey Ventures, and notable angel investors including Assaf Rappaport, CEO and Co-Founder at Wiz; Mickey Boodaei, CEO and Co-Founder at Transmit Security; Tamar Yehoshua, Former Chief Product Officer at Slack; Rakesh Loonkar, Amiram Shachar and additional notable angels. PointFive empowers engineering and FinOps teams to optimize cloud spending effectively. Through its innovative DeepWaste™ detection technology, PointFive enables organizations to achieve long-term resilience and efficiency in cloud cost management.

Media Contact

Amber Moore, Moore Communications, 1 5039439381, amber@moorecom2.com 

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SOURCE PointFive

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Strengthening the Foundation for Mass Production: Lead Intelligent’s Warm Isostatic Pressing Machine Accelerates Solid-State Battery Industrialization

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WUXI, China, Oct. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Solid-state batteries are at a critical stage of transition from pilot production to large-scale manufacturing. To address key challenges in densification and solid-solid interface contact, Lead Intelligent has developed a horizontal warm isostatic pressing machine that delivers uniform three-dimensional pressure of up to 600 MPa across a wide temperature range from room temperature (RT) to 150°C. The machine achieves temperature control accuracy of ±2°C and pressure control accuracy of ±2%. Integrating automatic loading and unloading with precise, coordinated temperature and pressure control, the machine can increase cell density to over 95%, accelerating the industrialization of solid-state batteries.

As solid-state batteries move toward mass production, two major challenges remain: high impedance caused by insufficient solid-solid interface contact, and the limitations of conventional unidirectional pressing, including uneven density and pronounced edge effects. Based on Pascal’s principle, isostatic pressing applies isotropic pressurization within a sealed chamber to achieve multidimensional material compaction and densification. It is a key processing route for addressing solid-solid interface contact challenges in solid-state batteries.

For the practical requirements of large-scale solid-state battery manufacturing, warm isostatic pressing offers an effective balance between densification performance, production efficiency, and manufacturing cost, making it a highly cost-effective option for mass production. As construction of solid-state battery capacity accelerates, warm isostatic pressing machines are becoming core incremental machines for battery manufacturers’ next-generation solid-state production lines.

Core Technology: Precise Temperature-Pressure Coordination for High-Precision Process Control

Building on its R&D system, Lead Intelligent’s horizontal warm isostatic pressing machine overcomes the “black box” limitations of traditional warm isostatic pressing process by enabling real-time monitoring of temperature and pressure inside the chamber. The machine upgrades from conventional unidirectional pressing to precise temperature-pressure coordination to promote closer contact between electrodes and electrolytes, making it well suited for solid-state battery mass production.

Pressure system: It delivers uniform three-dimensional pressure of up to 600 MPa, with pressure control accuracy ≤±2%. Automatic pressure compensation and emergency depressurization functions keep pressure fluctuations within ±2% during a 30-minute pressure holding period, ensuring process stability and repeatability.

Temperature system: The working temperatures can reach up to 150°C, and can be adjusted within a wide operating range from room temperature (RT) to 150°C, with temperature control accuracy of ±2°C. The initial heating time to 150°C takes no more than three hours, balancing process adaptability with mass production cycle-time requirements.

Chamber specifications: The working chamber inner diameter is ≥400 mm, the effective length is ≥4,000 mm, and the volume is around 500 L. It accommodates batch processing of workpieces in various sizes and meets the capacity requirements of GWh-scale production lines.

Designed for Mass Production: Comprehensive Optimization for Large-Scale Manufacturing

For GWh-scale manufacturing, warm isostatic pressing machines must do more than meet core process specifications. They shall also coordinate with whole line cycle time, logistics systems, and upstream and downstream processes. To meet these requirements, Lead Intelligent has optimized machine structure, automatic operation, and safety systems in parallel.

Horizontal Design for Continuous Production Lines

The horizontal working chamber and automatic loading and unloading design significantly reduce factory height requirements while seamlessly integrating with automatic logistics systems to meet the needs of continuous production and material transfer between upstream and downstream processes, adapting to takt-based operation on large-scale production lines. Electrodes and solid electrolytes can be stacked and assembled before being loaded into the chamber for pressing and densification, simplifying process flow.

Full-process Automation to Minimize Manual Intervention

The machine enables unmanned operation throughout cell pretreatment and material box circulation. It integrates four key functions: cell hot air preheating, cold air drying and cooling, automatic fixture loading and unloading, and material box automatic circulation. The machine covers the entire workflow including loading, pretreatment, isostatic pressing and unloading, minimizing manual intervention and improving production efficiency and process consistency within each batch.

Multi-Layered Safety Controls for Reliable Operation

The machine incorporates a comprehensive multi-layered safety assurance system. At the foundational level, the machine is equipped with dual pressure and temperature monitoring for the chamber, together with pipeline pressure-relief ports to safeguard machine operation. In addition, an innovative triple deformation monitoring system provides real-time monitoring to enhance operational safety and maintain process precision.

As a world-leading provider of intelligent manufacturing solutions for the new energy industry, Lead Intelligent has completed the full-process layout for solid-state battery manufacturing, covering key stages including dry electrode processing, high-precision stacking, warm isostatic pressing, and formation and grading. The company has the capacity for batch delivery of GWh-level solid-state battery whole line solutions.

Looking ahead, Lead Intelligent will continue to strengthen its intelligent manufacturing equipment capabilities, accelerating the industrialization of solid-state batteries and other advanced battery technologies and contributing LEAD power to the global new energy industry.

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SOURCE LEAD Intelligent

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Ascendion Expands AI Advisory Community with Four Global Business and Technology Leaders

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Former Global CTO of Banco Santander, former Group CIO of Currys, former CEO of IBPAP, and former Microsoft CVP and CTO of AI join the advisory community

Advisors will provide guidance on AAVA platform innovation, AI strategy, C-suite alignment, and enterprise adoption across Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America, and the UK

The growing community of advisors will bring practitioner perspective closer to Ascendion as enterprises move AI from experimentation to governed, production-scale outcomes

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Oct. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ascendion, an AI-native software engineering company, today announced the appointment of four global business and technology leaders to its AI Advisory Community: Andy Gamble, Jack Madrid, Julieta Ross, Ph.D., and Joseph Sirosh, Ph.D. 

The advisors bring perspectives rarely found in one group: executives who answered to Boards, regulators, and C-suites for what technology actually delivered; a builder of AI and data platforms at global scale; and a leader who shaped one of the world’s largest technology-services and talent ecosystems. Their experience spans banking, high-tech, media, and retail. Each will work directly with Ascendion’s regional and engineering leaders, so their counsel reaches the decisions it is meant to shape. 

“We are changing how software gets built. Enterprise leaders have moved past experiments. They want AI that delivers outcomes boards can measure and risk they can manage. Andy, Jack, Julieta, and Joseph have the experience and know where transformation succeeds. They will challenge our thinking, raise our ambition, and help us navigate a period of intense — and exciting — change,” said Karthik Krishnamurthy, CEO, Ascendion.  

Each advisor will map to a different part of the business, strengthening Ascendion’s alignment with leadership communities across the globe. 

Julieta Ross, Ph.D., former Global CTO of Banco Santander, brings two decades of leading technology inside global banks, along with public-company board experience. She will work with Ascendion’s leadership on executive relationships, go-to-market strategy, and growth, and will help the company meet the governance, regulatory, and risk expectations that banking and financial services leaders place on AI. 

Andy Gamble, former Group CIO of Currys plc, has spent nearly three decades as a technology buyer and transformation leader across consumer electronics, industrial, and retail businesses. He will advise Ascendion’s work across Europe and the UK, with a focus on consumer goods, manufacturing, and retail, and will share what executive teams and Boards expect from a technology partner. 

Joseph Sirosh, Ph.D., former Microsoft CVP and CTO of AI, has spent his career building and scaling machine learning platforms in the high-tech industry. He will advise Ascendion’s engineering leadership on the evolution of AAVA and its broader platform strategy as AAVA becomes an orchestration and harness layer for enterprise AI. 

Jack Madrid, former President and CEO of IBPAP, spent five years leading the industry association behind one of the world’s largest technology and business-services ecosystems, centered in the Philippines. He brings robust experience working across industries, including banking, high-tech, and media, and will advise Ascendion on Asia-Pacific markets and on how AI is reshaping global delivery, skills, and workforce models. 

Together, the advisors give Ascendion an outside perspective on the full spectrum of enterprise AI, from agentic platform strategy and product engineering to industry alignment and delivery. They will add capacity to Ascendion’s ongoing work on AI governance, helping ensure trusted impact from AI-native software engineering, and their practice-based insight will inform how Ascendion applies its Engineering to the Power of AI™ approach to commercial models, platform design, service execution, and workforce development. 

About Ascendion

Ascendion is a global AI-native software engineering company delivering trusted business outcomes – capital unlock, innovation velocity, lower risk – to 250+ enterprise clients. The company delivers business outcomes at scale by combining expert engineers, AI agents, and AAVA, Ascendion’s agentic AI platform. Together, they design, engineer, and operate production-ready software that improves everyday work and life. Learn more at www.ascendion.com.

Engineering to the Power of AI™, Engineering to Elevate Life™, and AAVA™ are trademarks or service marks of Ascendion. AAVA™ is pending registration. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.

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Canara HSBC Life Insurance Earns ‘Leader’ ESG Rating from NSE Sustainability Ratings & Analytics

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Achieves ESG score of 71, with strong performance across environmental stewardship, governance and stakeholder well-being

NEW DELHI, Oct. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Canara HSBC Life Insurance Company Limited (“Canara HSBC Life Insurance”) has been recognised in the ‘Leader’ Rating Category in the FY2026 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) assessment conducted by NSE Sustainability Ratings & Analytics Limited. The Company achieved an overall ESG score of 71, including an Environment score of 79, Governance score of 75 and Social score of 63, reflecting its continued focus on sustainable business practices, stakeholder welfare and strong corporate governance.

The assessment highlighted the Company’s environmental performance, including greenhouse gas emissions from direct operations and energy consumption that are below industry averages, significantly lower energy and waste intensity compared to peers, and strong waste recycling and recovery practices.

On the social front, the assessment recognised the Company’s focus on employee well-being and workplace safety, including a lost-time incident rate of zero, no employee fatalities during the year, and 100% employee coverage under health and safety training. The assessment also noted a balanced workforce, with women accounting for 36.69% of employees, and customer complaint frequency below relevant benchmarks.

The governance assessment recognised Canara HSBC Life Insurance’s robust oversight framework, including Board independence levels exceeding regulatory requirements, strong independent representation across key Board committees, and comprehensive anti-corruption and sustainability governance policies.

Anuj Mathur, MD & CEO, Canara HSBC Life Insurance, said, “Being recognised in the ‘Leader’ category is a strong affirmation of our belief that sustainable growth and responsible business practices go hand in hand. At Canara HSBC Life Insurance, ESG is not a standalone agenda but an integral part of how we create long-term value, manage risk, strengthen stakeholder trust and build organisational resilience. As we continue to grow, we remain committed to embedding these principles across our business and delivering meaningful outcomes for our customers, employees, shareholders and communities.”

The FY2026 ESG assessment was conducted by NSE Sustainability Ratings & Analytics Limited using a structured, sector-specific framework that evaluates companies across environmental, social and governance parameters. The assessment considers an organisation’s performance, policies, disclosures, governance practices and management of material ESG risks and opportunities. It is based on publicly available information, including annual reports, Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reports (BRSR), stock exchange filings, company disclosures and other public sources, and benchmarks companies against relevant industry peers.

About Canara HSBC Life Insurance

Incorporated in 2007, Canara HSBC Life Insurance Company Limited is a public listed company co-promoted by Canara Bank (36.5%) and HSBC Insurance (Asia-Pacific) Holdings Limited (25.5%), with the remaining shareholding held by public shareholders, including Punjab National Bank (13%). As a bancassurance-led insurance company with its corporate office at Gurugram, Haryana and 107 branch offices as of September 30, 2026, pan India, Canara HSBC Life brings together the trust and market knowledge of public and private banks.

For more than 18 years now, Canara HSBC Life Insurance has sold insurance products to customers through multiple channels and a well-diversified network of Canara Bank, HSBC Bank and its other bancassurance partners located in multiple Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities across the country. Canara HSBC Life Insurance has a vast portfolio of life insurance solutions and offers various products across individual and group spaces comprising of life, term plans, retirement solutions, credit life and employee benefit segments through partner banks and digital channels.

With an aim to provide simpler insurance and faster claim process, Canara HSBC Life Insurance intends to keep the promises of their customers alive with their ‘Promises Ka Partner’ philosophy.

For further press queries email us on prateek.sharma@canarahsbclife.in

 

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