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VIPC Celebrates 10,000 New High-Growth Startups in Virginia with Governor Glenn Youngkin

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Virginia’s Innovation and Entrepreneur Ecosystems Fostering 
Accelerated Growth and Opportunity Across the Commonwealth

RICHMOND, Va., Aug. 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation (VIPC) celebrated the Commonwealth’s realization of 10,000 new high-growth/high-wage startup companies created in Virginia within the first two years under Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration, the fastest such milestone has been achieved under any Virginia governor administration during at least the past 15 years, according to Chmura Economics & Analytics, a leading labor market data and analysis consulting firm based in Richmond, Virginia. Analyzing data from the Virginia Employment Commission, Chmura’s consulting team reported that Virginia generated 10,337 new high-growth/high-wage startups during 2022-2023, reflecting a quarterly average of 1,292 new such startups which is +62% higher compared to the historical quarterly average during 2010-2021. Virginia’s accelerated rate of new high-growth/high-wage startups during the 2022-2023 period occurred across all nine ‘GO Virginia regions’ of the Commonwealth, demonstrating broad-based positive directional growth trends.

“All startups should come to Virginia because we are fostering an environment of success!” -Governor Glenn Youngkin

Governor Youngkin joined Virginia Innovation Partnership’s CEO Joe Benevento and over 150 entrepreneurs and founders, university commercialization innovators, economic development partners, venture capital investors, industry corporate leaders, and public legislator representatives at a Virginia startup celebration event on August 1 at ZEBOX, a startup accelerator and innovation hub in Arlington, to announce this momentous goal achievement. The startup celebration event featured an interactive entrepreneur showcase exhibition sample of over 30 Virginia startups representing multiple geographic regions of the Commonwealth and spanning diverse industries such as healthcare, energy, logistics, transportation, fintech, agriculture, cybersecurity, space, autonomous systems, and communications.

“At the beginning of my administration, I pledged to reinvigorate job growth and foster an environment for 10,000 new startups in Virginia and we’ve achieved it in record time. Through our Compete to Win strategy, we’ve reached this incredible milestone by driving innovation, fostering entrepreneurship, bolstering our talent pipeline, providing needed tax relief, and truly creating an environment where startups and businesses can thrive. Our efforts to bolster our business environment over the past two and a half years have earned Virginia the top state for business accolade. All startups should come to Virginia because we are fostering an environment of success!” said Governor Glenn Youngkin.

“It’s exciting to see accelerated growth in new startup formation as well as increased attraction of venture capital investment here in Virginia,” said VIPC President and CEO Joe Benevento. “As part of Virginia’s Compete to Win, VIPC is expanding collaboration and partnership with public and private stakeholders across the many unique ecosystems throughout the entire Commonwealth to help foster a statewide environment that’s supportive of entrepreneurship, innovation, and growth.”

At the Virginia startup celebration event, host Liz Ward, Head of ZEBOX America, shared how ZEBOX opened its North American innovation headquarters in Virginia in 2022, and has since helped connect numerous startups and large companies together, enabling them to co-innovate, accelerate growth, and scale solutions to face today’s and tomorrow’s global challenges.

Virginia has a rich history of fostering innovation and supporting new ventures,” said Liz Ward, Head of ZEBOX America. “We are thrilled to celebrate this remarkable milestone and Governor Youngkin’s unwavering support of the entrepreneurial spirit that defines our Commonwealth.”

Over 150 attendees also heard the inspiring story of entrepreneur Ryan Joyce and GenLogs, a Virginia startup launched in early 2023 that is revolutionizing America’s truck logistics industry via freight intelligence.  Following a $100,000 technology commercialization grant award from VIPC, GenLogs went on to successfully raise a $3.5 million seed round from early-stage venture capital investors late last year.

GenLogs Co-Founder and CEO, Ryan Joyce, shared “Virginia has been incredibly catalytic for GenLogs since our startup was launched in 2023. From Startup Shenandoah Valley to ZEBOX to Lighthouse Labs to VIPC and beyond, we’ve been afforded ample resources, critical mentorship and connections, and funding that has allowed us to validate our technology and generate that all-important ‘spark’.”

“Despite encouragement to set up our company elsewhere, our team knew the talent, resources, and capital that Virginia could offer and were united in our desire to plant our flag here. Not a day goes by that I’m not reminded that Virginia is exactly where we need to be to grow, succeed, and change the face of industry,” he added.

VIPC has worked with Chmura’s consulting team since 2022 to research and measure new startup company formation and growth in Virginia, as new businesses are a critical driver of Virginia’s economy.

“A high-paying job in a rapidly growing industry will increase the state’s average wage and growth rates, thereby enhancing the overall standard of living,” said Dr. Christine Chmura, Founder and CEO of Chmura Economics & Analytics. “They significantly boost economic productivity and offer the greatest opportunities for the residents of the Commonwealth.”

Additional research analysis support conducted by Chmura’s consulting team can be found here.

About Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation (VIPC)
Connecting innovators with opportunities. VIPC operates as the nonprofit corporation on behalf of the Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority (VIPA). VIPA / VIPC is Virginia’s designated authority for leading innovation and economic development in the Commonwealth of Virginia through research, commercialization, and technology advancement; entrepreneurship, startup, and venture capital growth; and regional ecosystem, tech hub, and industry sector expansion. As part of its operations, VIPC manages internal funds which make direct equity investments in technology and innovation-led early stage / growth startup companies and venture capital funds, provides research commercialization grants to universities and entrepreneurs, and offers resources and support for entrepreneurial ecosystems, innovation networks, and public-private partnerships at local, state, federal levels.

VIPC’s programs include: Virginia Venture Partners (VVP) | Commonwealth Commercialization Fund (CCF) | Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Development | Regional Innovation Fund (RIF) | Smart Communities | The Virginia Smart Community Testbed | The Virginia Unmanned Systems Center | Virginia Advanced Air Mobility Alliance (VAAMA) | The Public Safety Innovation Center (PSIC) | Federal Funding Assistance Program (FFAP) for SBIR & STTR | University Partnerships | Startup Company Mentoring & Engagement.

For more information, please visit www.VIPC.org. Explore the latest news from VIPC and images from VIPC-supported stakeholder events. Follow VIPC on FacebookX (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn.

About Chmura Economics & Analytics
Chmura Economics & Analytics is a leading provider of economic research, analytics, and forecasting solutions for businesses, policymakers, and organizations worldwide. With a proven history of excellence spanning 25 years, the company delivers actionable insights and innovative data solutions that drive informed decision-making and fuel economic growth. For more information, please visit www.chmura.com.

Contact
Angela Costello
VP of Communications & Marketing, VIPC
Angela.Costello@VirginiaIPC.org

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SOURCE VIPC

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Safetyfirst Systems, LLC Provides Notice of Data Security Event

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PARSIPPANY, N.J., July 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Safetyfirst Systems, LLC (“SFS”) is providing notice of a data security event that may involve information relating to certain individuals. While SFS is not aware of any misuse of information associated with this event, it is providing notice to potentially affected individuals out of an abundance of caution.

On January 19, 2026, SFS identified suspicious activity involving a limited portion of its server environment. Upon discovering the activity, SFS quickly took steps to secure its systems, notified federal law enforcement, engaged leading third-party forensic specialists, and performed a detailed investigation into the nature, scope, and impact of the activity. The investigation determined that an unauthorized actor accessed and/or acquired certain files from limited SFS systems between January 16, 2026, and January 19, 2026. SFS then conducted a comprehensive review of the affected files to determine what information may have been involved and identify the individuals to whom the information relates. The review has recently concluded, and SFS is providing this notification to potentially impacted individuals out of an abundance of caution. Although the types of information vary by individual, the affected information may include names, Social Security numbers, and driver’s license numbers.

Protecting the privacy and security of the information entrusted to SFS is a responsibility the company takes very seriously. In response to this event, SFS promptly strengthened security measures, continues to enhance its technical safeguards and monitoring capabilities, and is reviewing existing policies and procedures to further protect against similar incidents in the future. SFS is also providing notice to potentially affected individuals and, where required, appropriate regulatory authorities.

Although SFS is unaware of any misuse of personal information impacted by this event, individuals are encouraged to remain vigilant against events of identity theft by reviewing account statements, explanation of benefits, and monitoring free credit reports for suspicious activity and to detect errors. Any suspicious activity should be reported to the appropriate insurance company, health care provider, or financial institution.

Individuals seeking additional information regarding this event can contact SFS’s dedicated assistance line at 1-833-289-5523 between the hours of 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. Individuals may also write to SFS at PO Box 101, 3299 US Highway 46, Parsippany, NJ 07054-9998.

 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/safetyfirst-systems-llc-provides-notice-of-data-security-event-302831894.html

SOURCE Safetyfirst Systems, LLC

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Sunrate and Mastercard Release White Paper on Agentic AI and the Future of B2B Global Payments

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SHANGHAI, July 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Sunrate, the global payment and treasury management platform, and Mastercard, a global technology company in the payments industry, unveiled a joint white paper, Beyond Automation: Defining Agentic Global Payments, at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC).

Among the first reports in the payments industry to examine the impact of Agentic AI on B2B cross-border payments, the white paper provides a comprehensive framework for understanding how AI agents are reshaping enterprise payment operations. It proposes that cross-border payments are evolving beyond digitisation and automation into a new stage: Autonomy—where AI agents with reasoning, planning, and execution capabilities can independently orchestrate and optimise end-to-end payment and treasury workflows within defined governance frameworks.

As businesses expand across borders, B2B cross-border payments continue to be constrained by fragmented workflows, disconnected systems, foreign exchange inefficiencies, rising compliance requirements, and complex reconciliation processes. While traditional automation improves individual tasks, the white paper demonstrates that Agentic AI represents a fundamental shift by enabling intelligent agents to coordinate entire payment journeys across systems, counterparties, and approval workflows.

Drawing on Sunrate’s global payment infrastructure and AI-native product capabilities, together with Mastercard’s expertise in secure payment networks and data intelligence, the white paper defines Agentic Global Payments — a new category of AI-native global payment infrastructure built to automate and manage complex enterprise workflows.

The report identifies 16 major pain points across the B2B payment lifecycle and outlines 13 high-value AI use cases spanning supplier onboarding, accounts payable and receivable, virtual commercial cards, payment routing, foreign exchange management, compliance screening, fraud detection, reconciliation, and conversational operational support. It also demonstrates how AI agents can automate complex workflows—from extracting information across multiple document formats and conducting compliance checks to initiating payments, optimising FX execution, and completing reconciliation—while operating within enterprise governance and control frameworks.

The white paper further highlights that trusted adoption of agentic payments depends on more than technological capability. It identifies governance, transparency, security, and ecosystem collaboration as essential foundations for enterprise deployment, supported by frameworks such as Know Your Agent (KYA), payment tokenisation, auditability, and cross-industry interoperability.

Sunrate.AI portfolio currently includes the Payment Agent, FX Agent, Compliance Agent, Onboarding Agent, and Chat Agent, designed to help enterprises automate and optimise critical payment and treasury processes while maintaining compliance and operational control.

Mastercard has also been actively building the foundations for trusted agentic commerce – combining AI capabilities with verifiable authorisation, clear accountability and proven payments security. Its work in this area, including Agent Pay (alongside Agent Pay for Machines) and Verifiable Intent, are proof points in how Mastercard is enabling AI to participate in commerce safely and transparently. 

“Our mission is to make global payments seamless, compliant, and intelligent,” said Paul Meng, Co-founder and CEO of Sunrate. “As businesses continue expanding internationally, AI agents will fundamentally reshape how enterprises manage global payments—enabling smoother capital flows, reducing operational friction, and embedding real-time intelligence into every payment decision. This white paper represents an important step in helping the industry understand how Agentic AI can be deployed responsibly at enterprise scale.”

“Agentic commerce is changing how businesses make and execute payment decisions, but speed without accountability creates new categories of risk,” said Anouska Ladds, Executive Vice President, Commercial & New Payment Flows, Asia Pacific, Mastercard. “As AI starts to act on behalf of businesses, autonomous payment decisions need a clear, auditable chain of identity, intent and action. That’s what allows organisations to delegate with genuine confidence — and what will determine whether agentic commerce scales past pilots.”

Released under WAIC 2026’s theme, “Intelligent Partners, Co-creating the Future,” the white paper provides business leaders with practical guidance on adopting AI-driven payment capabilities, covering implementation approaches, governance considerations, and real-world enterprise applications.

By combining Sunrate’s expertise in global payments and treasury management with Mastercard’s trusted payment infrastructure and network capabilities, the collaboration reflects a shared commitment to accelerating the next generation of intelligent, secure, and autonomous B2B global payments.

Click here to check the white paper.

About Sunrate

Sunrate is a leading global payment and treasury management platform for businesses worldwide. Founded in 2016, Sunrate has enabled companies to operate and scale both locally and globally in 190+ countries and regions with its cutting-edge infrastructure, global network, and unified solutions.

Sunrate operates through offices across key markets, including Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and London. The company partners with the top global financial institutions, such as Citibank, Standard Chartered, Barclays, J.P. Morgan. Sunrate is also the principal member of Mastercard and Visa. To learn more about Sunrate, visit https://www.sunrate.com/.

About Mastercard

Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re building a resilient economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential. 

www.mastercard.com

SOURCE Sunrate

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JAMS Launches AI for Enterprise Job Scheduling: JAX and JAMS MCP

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A new AI agent and an open-standard connector let IT teams query, diagnose, and manage automation in plain language, on the model they choose, with operational data able to stay onshore inside their own network

SYDNEY, July 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — JAMS Software, an orchestration solution for scheduled and event-driven automation, today announced the general availability of two AI capabilities for enterprise job scheduling: JAX, an AI agent built into the JAMS Web Client, and JAMS MCP, a connector built on the open Model Context Protocol standard that brings JAMS into external AI coding tools. Both capabilities ship at no additional cost as part of JAMS Web.

Automation environments grow faster than the teams that run them. Jobs multiply across SQL Server, Azure Data Factory, Airflow, SAP, JDE, and Banner, and when one fails, finding the root cause often means searching several consoles at once, frequently outside business hours. At the same time, IT leaders carry pressure to adopt AI while staying accountable for where operational data goes. JAX and JAMS MCP close both gaps together.

Full details on how JAX and JAMS MCP work, including the control model behind every action, are available at jamsscheduler.com/product/ai.

JAX is an AI agent that runs inside the JAMS Web Client. It finds jobs, troubleshoots failures, and answers how-to questions in plain language, with each response grounded in the JAMS user guide and checked against a built-in glossary. JAX acts only when a user asks it to. Reads flow freely, and every write action pauses for the user’s explicit approval before it runs. JAX does not learn between sessions, and conversations are not retained on the server.

JAMS MCP is a connector, built on the open Model Context Protocol standard, that brings JAMS into the AI tools engineering teams already use, including Cursor, VS Code with Copilot, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and Codex. Users query jobs, investigate failures, and manage runs in plain language without leaving their tool.

Both capabilities run inside the customer’s own network and act as the signed-in user, with that user’s exact JAMS permissions. There is no elevated AI account: whatever a user cannot do in the JAMS interface, JAX and JAMS MCP cannot do on that user’s behalf. Every JAX and MCP operation is recorded in its own dedicated log, and changes made through the JAMS API land in the JAMS audit trail like any other change. Customers choose their own AI model, whether a commercial provider such as OpenAI or Anthropic or a model running entirely on their own hardware, and JAMS never trains on customer data. In the current release, neither feature edits or deletes a job, folder, schedule, or agent definition. For teams that need operational data to stay onshore, JAX runs on a local model entirely inside the customer’s own network, so nothing leaves at all.

“Adopting AI usually means giving something up, most often visibility into where your data goes,” said Pete Hegland, Chief Executive Officer of JAMS Software. “We built JAX and JAMS MCP so that trade does not have to happen. Every action runs as the signed-in user, every change waits for approval, and the model can run on the customer’s own hardware, keeping operational data onshore.”

“For teams across Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, two things matter: keeping data onshore, and getting answers when a job fails after hours,” said Shayne Cooper, Account Executive for APAC at JAMS Software. “JAX and JAMS MCP address both. The model can run on the customer’s own hardware, and the answer arrives in plain language at the moment it is needed.”

JAX and JAMS MCP are available now to all JAMS Web customers across Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, with no separate licence, SKU, or additional cost. AI-assisted creation of new jobs and workflows from a plain-language description is on the roadmap for a future release, gated by the same approvals and permissions as every other action.

Learn how JAX and JAMS MCP work at https://jamsscheduler.com/product/ai.

Fast facts

JAX is an AI agent built into the JAMS Web Client for job scheduling and workflow automation.JAMS MCP is a connector built on the open Model Context Protocol standard, for Cursor, VS Code with Copilot, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and Codex.Both act as the signed-in user, with that user’s exact JAMS permissions, and there is no elevated AI account.Customers choose the AI model, including a local model that runs entirely inside their own network.JAMS never trains on customer data.Both are available now at no additional cost as part of JAMS Web.

About JAMS Software
Founded in 1987, JAMS Software is an orchestration solution that helps IT teams centralize, automate, and manage scheduled and event-driven jobs across complex, hybrid environments. Over 850 customers rely on JAMS to run their automated workloads. JAMS Software, LLC is headquartered at 108 Patriot Drive, Suite A, Middletown, DE 19709.

Media Contact
Bobby Schmidt, Vice President of Marketing
press@jamssoftware.com
800.261.4267

 

 

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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/jams-launches-ai-for-enterprise-job-scheduling-jax-and-jams-mcp-302833800.html

SOURCE JAMS Software

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