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NJ FAST powered by Plug and Play Graduates 14 Startups in its Inaugural Program

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HOBOKEN, N.J., Dec. 31, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Plug and Play, the world’s leading global innovation platform, has concluded its inaugural cohort, graduating 14 startups for its newest program, the New Jersey Fintech Accelerator at Stevens Institute of Technology powered by Plug and Play (NJ FAST).

Earlier this year, Plug and Play and its founding partners, New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA), Prudential Financial, and the Stevens Institute of Technology, announced the establishment of NJ FAST.

“Over the past seven years, we have transformed New Jersey’s innovation economy, firmly positioning our state as a national leader in this space and cementing our reputation as the best place for entrepreneurs to start and grow their businesses. Through NJ FAST and our partnerships with Plug and Play, Stevens Institute of Technology, and Prudential, we are empowering emerging leaders in the fintech industry to advance their cutting-edge ideas right here in New Jersey. I look forward to seeing what the inaugural cohort of this program accomplishes in the coming years,” said Governor Phil Murphy.

Building on this foundation, NJ FAST will leverage New Jersey’s longstanding legacy as a leader in the financial industry. With a dedicated focus on fintech, NJ FAST aims to support the growth of innovative companies and create new career opportunities, further expanding New Jersey’s influence in the national finance and fintech sectors.

“NJ FAST will have a long-term impact on the entrepreneurial ecosystem of New Jersey, creating a legacy of success and innovation within the financial services industry for years to come,” said Saeed Amidi, Founder and CEO of Plug and Play. “This initiative is about embedding a culture of innovation in New Jersey, and beyond, with startups we believe can change the world.”

NJ FAST is designed to offer entrepreneurs a platform to drive innovation across the state of New Jersey. Selected startups will benefit from mentorship, funding resources, and opportunities to collaborate with industry experts. As part of the program, startups will have access to Plug and Play’s extensive network of corporate, government, investor, and university partners, providing them with invaluable insights, support, and potential strategic partnerships.

“Since taking office, Governor Murphy has prioritized growing New Jersey’s innovation economy by ensuring that companies of the future have access to first-rate resources and support,” said NJEDA Chief Executive Officer Tim Sullivan. “Through NJEDA’s Strategic Innovation Centers initiative, centers like NJFAST are working to empower startups to develop cutting-edge technologies that create jobs, support long-term sustainable economic growth, and attract world-class talent. The graduation of NJFAST’s inaugural cohort serves as a testament to the initiative’s success fostering innovation, and solidifying New Jersey’s role as a leader in fintech and insurtech.”

Plug and Play is accepting applications for Batch 2 of NJ FAST until January 6th, 2025.

The inaugural batch of NJ FAST consists of the following startups:

DIRO is the first Original Documents capture platform to offer full global coverage.

Physis Investments leverages AI and its proprietary in-house database of over 176 million data points to generate sustainability insights through a SaaS platform and a generative AI-based chatbot.

SPIN Analytics brings digital transformation in credit risk management by leveraging predictive analytics, AI, and ML techniques on big data.

Balcony Technology Group leverages distributed ledger technology to provide the real estate ecosystem with a blockchain-based solution for improved Security, Automation, Transparency, Integration, And Interoperability.

Intergen DATA Develops proprietary AI/ML algo’s to predict when Life Events may occur, what it could be, & how much of a financial impact it would make.

Muse Tax is an A.I.-based tool that finds every tax deduction and credit for you, showing you ways to save on taxes.

Multimodal automate complex, knowledge-based workflows in banking, insurance, and healthcare using generative AI agents.

bckers is an AI and Fintech information services company that specializes in delivering data and analytical tools to assess and score the performance, integrity, and risk of organizations and teams.

Hydronos Labs transforming access to comprehensive weather and climate risk assessment, planning and mitigation capabilities in a constantly changing climate, delivering the latest science in an easy-to-digest and cost-effective manner.

LexFund is the first US marketplace for the multi-billion dollar litigation finance industry.

Synthera.ai generate realistic yield curves, stock prices, FX rates and more using cutting edge generative AI., allowing investors to  test their portfolios on thousands of unseen market scenarios and unlock novel insights previously beyond reach.

Mobysign is a mobile application that offers strong authentication for payments, logins, document signatures and any transaction.

CurraPay is building the Booking.com of the international money transfer market.

Accern NoCodeNLP Platform empowers citizen data scientists to extract fast and easy insights from unstructured data.

For more information about NJ FAST, visit https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/plug-and-play/innovation-services/our-programs/nj-fast.

About Plug and Play

Plug and Play is the leading innovation platform, connecting startups, corporations, venture capital firms, universities, and government agencies. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we’re present in 60+ locations across five continents. We offer corporate innovation programs and help our corporate partners in every stage of their innovation journey, from education to execution. We also organize startup acceleration programs and have built an in-house VC to drive innovation across multiple industries where we’ve invested in hundreds of successful companies including Dropbox, Guardant Health, Honey, Lending Club, N26, PayPal, and Rappi. For more information, visit https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/ 

Media Contact
press@pnptc.com

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SOURCE Plug and Play

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Bloomberg Introduces Spread-to-Benchmark Quoting for EUR and GBP Portfolio Trading Baskets

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LONDON, June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Bloomberg today announced the launch of Spread-to-Benchmark quoting and trading for Euro (EUR) and Sterling (GBP) denominated portfolio trades through its Portfolio Trading Basket Builder (PTBB). The new functionality expands the range of quoting protocols available for European credit portfolio trading and reflects growing client demand for spread-based execution workflows, alongside increased dealer support for the convention across EUR and GBP markets.

Spread-to-Benchmark quoting is a well-established protocol for USD credit portfolio trades and is used by market participants to evaluate and execute portfolio trades. By extending this workflow to EUR and GBP portfolio trades, Bloomberg enables clients and dealers to transact using a familiar spread-based methodology across additional credit markets. 

The introduction of Spread-to-Benchmark quoting for EUR and GBP baskets reflects increased client interest in evaluating portfolio trades through a spread-based lens and the growing adoption of spread-based execution workflows in European credit markets. The workflow provides market participants with an additional framework for assessing the relationship between credit spread risk and underlying government bond yields when pricing and executing portfolio trades. 

Additional Workflow Flexibility 
The workflow complements Bloomberg’s existing portfolio trading capabilities, which support the full range of market-standard quoting conventions, including Price, Yield, Spread-to-Benchmark and Spread based workflows that reference Bloomberg’s evaluated pricing service (BVAL). This gives clients flexibility to compare and execute portfolio trades using the quoting methodology that best aligns with their investment objectives, execution preferences and internal risk management processes. 

“European credit clients continue to look for execution workflows that reflect how they evaluate risk and monitor portfolio trading outcomes,” said Harry Street, Global Head of Credit and Equities Trading Product at Bloomberg. “By expanding dealer support for Spread-to-Benchmark quoting for EUR and GBP baskets, Bloomberg is broadening the range of workflow options available to clients trading European credit portfolios.” 

“Portfolio trading workflows in fixed income continue to become more sophisticated as institutional investors look for ways to evaluate execution quality in changing market conditions,” said Kevin McPartland, Head of Market Structure & Technology Research at Crisil Coalition Greenwich. “Spread-based quoting helps market participants more clearly distinguish between the impacts of credit spread and underlying rates movements when determining how best to execute a portfolio trade.” 

Bloomberg’s Electronic Markets solutions are used by leading financial institutions to trade efficiently in over 175 markets around the world. More than 9,000 client firms use Bloomberg Electronic Markets to access industry-leading depth and breadth of liquidity across asset classes from over 800 dealers globally. Bloomberg Electronic Markets provides market participants with comprehensive solutions across the trading lifecycle, including robust price transparency, analytics, automation and execution, powered by Bloomberg’s high-quality, multi-asset class data and tools.

About Bloomberg
Bloomberg is a global leader in business and financial information, delivering trusted data, news, and insights that bring transparency, efficiency, and fairness to markets. The company helps connect influential communities across the global financial ecosystem via reliable technology solutions that enable our customers to make more informed decisions and foster better collaboration. For more information, visit Bloomberg.com/company or request a demo.

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SOURCE Bloomberg L.P.

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Dr. Sunho Kang, a senior battery-technology executive with leadership experience at major global battery and EV manufacturers, joins TeraWatt Technology as Head of Product and Technology

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SAN FRANCISCO, June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — TeraWatt Technology Inc. (Headquartered in California, USA) is pleased to announce that Dr. Sunho Kang has joined the company as Head of Product and Technology.

Dr. Kang is a globally recognized battery-technology executive with more than 25 years of leadership experience spanning the United States, Asia, and Europe, and a distinguished track record of advancing innovations from laboratory research through gigafactory-scale production. He has held senior executive positions at world-leading organizations including Samsung SDI, Apple, and Volkswagen Group of America, and brings deep expertise in lithium-ion battery materials, cell engineering, and product industrialization across a broad range of applications, including electric vehicles and energy storage systems.

At TeraWatt, Dr. Kang will lead global product development and the commercialization of TeraWatt’s battery technology platform, aiming to accelerate the delivery of TeraWatt’s competitive products as well as the technology and commercialization roadmap including manufacturing scale-up.

Dr. Kang commented:

“I am thrilled to join TeraWatt Technology as Head of Product and Technology. TeraWatt’s innovative battery platform presents a tremendous opportunity to push the boundaries of lithium-ion technology, and I look forward to working with the team to accelerate product development and commercialization to deliver meaningful impact.”

TeraWatt Technology founder CEO Ken Ogata, Ph.D. commented:

“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Kang as our Head of Product and Technology. His deep expertise in battery materials, cell engineering, and productization will be instrumental in accelerating TeraWatt’s product roadmap and technology leadership. Together with Dr. Kang, we will continue to drive our mission forward.”

About TeraWatt Technology Inc.
TeraWatt Technology Inc. is a California-based company that produces lightweight, high-power, and safe next-generation lithium-ion batteries.

Company Overview
Name: TeraWatt Technology Inc.
Representative: Co-founder and CEO Ken Ogata
Headquarters: 28 Geary St, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94108, United States
Founded: January 2020
Established: December 2019
URL: https://www.terawatt-technology.com/

 

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SOURCE TeraWatt Technology Inc.

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Tencent Cloud and Soniox Announce Strategic Partnership: Combining Advanced Speech-to-Text (STT) Technology with Global Real-Time Infrastructure

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HONG KONG, June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Tencent Cloud, the cloud business of global technology company Tencent, today announced a strategic partnership with Soniox, a San Francisco-based speech AI company that specializes in developing high-accuracy, low-latency speech AI solutions. The collaboration integrates Soniox’s speech-to-text (STT) technology with Tencent Cloud’s Real-Time Communication (TRTC) enterprise-grade global infrastructure, enabling enterprises to build and deploy multilingual voice AI applications across 200+ countries and regions.

Elevating Enterprise Voice AI at a Global Scale

In enterprise voice AI deployments, latency directly affects user experience and application reliability. The integration of Soniox’s high-accuracy, low-latency STT with TRTC’s global transmission infrastructure reduces latency across the entire pipeline, creating a comprehensive end-to-end solution for enterprises deploying conversational AI applications worldwide.    

Soniox is the voice platform for every language. Unlike legacy speech AI, which was built primarily for English-speakers, Soniox delivers native-speaker accuracy across 60+ languages. Its technology can handle mid-sentence language switching — a user can switch between English and Chinese in a single utterance, and Soniox will capture every word with complete accuracy. All of this works through a single API that works for both speech-to-text and text-to-speech.

By integrating TRTC, the partnership leverages an enterprise-grade real-time communication backbone featuring more than 3,200 global nodes, sub-300 ms worldwide latency, and advanced capabilities such as AI noise suppression and weak-network resilience. These capabilities enable conversational AI applications to operate reliably across diverse network environments, including regions such as Southeast Asia and Africa.

With the roll out of this partnership, developers can integrate the Soniox STT API directly within the Tencent Cloud console. Whether targeting English-speaking markets or supporting languages such as Arabic, Hindi, and Malay, enterprises can build global voice applications — including intelligent customer service, voice assistants, real-time translation, and meeting transcription — to address the demands of expansion into emerging markets and multilingual scenarios.

Wison Xie, Head of Product at Tencent RTC, stated: “Tencent RTC has always been committed to providing reliable real-time communication infrastructure for global enterprises. Our partnership with Soniox brings together our strengths in enterprise-grade audio transmission and Soniox’s advanced speech recognition technology. Together, we are making it easier for businesses to deploy accurate, low-latency voice AI applications across any language and any market.”

Klemen Simonic, CEO at Soniox Inc., stated “At Soniox, our mission is to help businesses understand every word, in any language, with native speaker accuracy and exceptional speed. Partnering with Tencent Cloud combines our speech AI with world-class real-time infrastructure, enabling enterprises to build voice AI experiences that scale globally with low latency and reliability.”

About Tencent Cloud:

Tencent Cloud, one of the world’s leading cloud companies, is committed to creating innovative solutions to resolve real-world issues and enabling digital transformation for smart industries. Through our extensive global infrastructure, Tencent Cloud provides businesses across the globe with stable and secure industry-leading cloud products and services, leveraging technological advancements such as cloud computing, Big Data analytics, AI, IoT, and network security. It is our constant mission to meet the needs of industries across the board, including the fields of gaming, media and entertainment, finance, healthcare, property, retail, travel, and transportation.

About Tencent RTC:

Tencent RTC provides real-time communication solutions, including audio/video calling, live streaming, and in-game voice. With enterprise-grade security, AI-powered enhancements, and a global network of over 3,200 nodes, Tencent RTC powers mission-critical communication for customers worldwide.

About Soniox:

Soniox is a next-generation voice AI company bringing about the end of English-first speech AI. Most people on the planet did not grow up speaking English and often mix languages mid-sentence; and yet legacy speech AI was built for just English. Soniox is different: native-speaker accuracy across 60+ languages, true mid-sentence language switching, and flawless alphanumeric recognition that legacy providers still can’t match. For developers building global apps, Soniox is the only option. Try it for yourself at soniox.com.

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SOURCE Tencent Cloud

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