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Pioneering Education and Workforce Investors Close $450 Million Fund to Tackle AI-Driven Labor Market Disruption

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Backed by Cambridge Associates, JP Morgan Asset Management, and Prudential, among others, Achieve Partners’ latest fund expands on its success building apprenticeships in talent-starved industries

NEW YORK, April 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Achieve Partners today announced the close of Achieve Partners Workforce II, a $450 million fund designed to respond to AI’s impact on the labor market and address talent shortages in the fastest-growing segments of the economy. Backed by institutional investment leaders including Cambridge Associates, JP Morgan Asset Management, Prudential, Ingka Investments, and ZOMA Capital, the new fund – more than double the size of Achieve Partners Workforce I – reflects a unique strategy to build apprenticeship programs to accelerate growth in sectors with talent shortages.

“Achieve is proving that private capital—paired with an innovative approach to talent—can drive meaningful economic mobility for American workers while delivering strong returns for investors,” said Tyler Jayroe, Portfolio Manager at J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s Private Equity Group. “That combination is rare and increasingly valuable in an AI-enabled workplace.”

The new fund arrives as artificial intelligence is reshaping the global economy at an unprecedented pace, eliminating some jobs, transforming others, and creating urgent demand for workers with AI-ready skills. Built to respond to – and anticipate – the needs of a fast-changing and increasingly AI-dependent labor market, Achieve’s model focuses on transforming its companies into engines of new AI talent.

Achieve Workforce I has delivered significant returns on the strength of this strategy. As of September 30, 2025, Achieve Partners Workforce Fund I was in the top quartile of the Cambridge Associates U.S. Buyouts benchmark across net DPI, TVPI, and IRR metrics and in the top 5% for DPI. Workforce I has announced three exits, including the recent agreement to sell Optimum Healthcare IT to Infosys for $465M.

“Throughout history, every technological revolution has created more jobs. While AI will cause immense disruption, it will also reward companies that can effectively deploy talent to succeed in a technology-enabled environment,” said Daniel Pianko, co-founder of Achieve Partners. “This is about helping companies develop AI-enabled workforces at scale — and in the process, putting thousands of Americans on new pathways to economic mobility.”

The foundation of Achieve Partners’ approach is apprenticeship, the earn-and-learn model that generates a 144 percent return-on-investment for businesses that hire apprentices, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Achieve will deploy capital from the fund in high-growth, talent-starved sectors including behavioral health, biotech, cloud migration, data centers, and energy, with the aim of building and scaling apprenticeship programs in each acquired company.

“Private equity has spent the last decade asking how technology can replace workers. Our approach is rooted in a different question: how do you build the talent that makes technology actually work?” said Ryan Craig, co-founder of Achieve Partners and author of Apprentice Nation and A New U: Faster + Cheaper Alternatives to College, which address the need for new models of talent development to meet changing labor market demand. “AI will always fail without the people to deploy it, manage it, and build on top of it. Building that talent is good for the companies who commit to it and good for the country.”

“At Ingka Investments, we support innovative projects that create a better everyday life for many people,” said Samuel Rundle, Head of Financial Markets Investments at Ingka. “Achieve Partners’ focus on apprenticeships offers a smart way to develop talent, providing valuable career paths and building strong businesses, especially as AI reshapes our world. It’s a testament to how practical learning can lead to both great opportunities and impressive growth.”

About Achieve Partners
Achieve Partners is engineering the future of learning and earning by investing in cutting-edge technologies and novel business models to bolster skill development and secure the future of work for millions of Americans. By harnessing digital transformation to build new models for learning and new pathways to good jobs, Achieve is helping to level the playing field, improve socioeconomic mobility, and rekindle the American Dream.
www.achievepartners.com

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SOURCE Achieve Partners

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PhotonPay Recognized as Global FinTech Trailblazer with Dual Prestigious Service Awards

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PhotonPay has earned dual industry honors from EqualOcean and Jiemian Cailian Intelligence Institute for its next-generation financial operating system powered by stablecoin.

HONG KONG, June 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — PhotonPay today announced its recognition as “EqualOcean 2026 GoGlobal FinTech Service Enablers Top 10”, and its selection as “New-Quality Service Provider of the Year” by Jiemian Cailian Intelligence Institute. Conferred during major industry summits in Shanghai, these dual honors underscore PhotonPay’s pivotal role in accelerating the next generation of global commerce and systemic economic enablement.

The selections were finalized through exhaustive, multi-month evaluation frameworks — incorporating the data-and-expert review of Jiemian Cailian Intelligence Institute, alongside EqualOcean’s rigorous screening of over 500 international applicants. By assessing candidates on deep structural capability, regulatory adaptability, and systemic empowerment, these evaluations validate PhotonPay’s position as a foundational layer of global financial orchestration.

Globalization has evolved. Instead of just shipping goods via linear supply chains, businesses now operate complex, multi-market ecosystems. Navigating fragmented regional regulations and shifting trade patterns introduces significant operational friction. To scale effectively, enterprises require global financial networks that are resilient, compliant, and deeply integrated.

PhotonPay delivers this agility through a unified financial operating system powered by stablecoins, which has served over 200,000 enterprises globally. Whether managing digital ads spend, global logistics payout, e-commerce collection, or global payroll, businesses use PhotonPay to consolidate fragmented capital workflows. By combining traditional clearing networks with emerging stablecoin rails, the platform reduces conventional banking friction, mitigating FX volatility and accelerating fund velocity.

Underpinning this operational efficiency is a robust global compliance architecture, fortified by over 15 critical financial and payment licenses across key jurisdictions. PhotonPay leverages AI to automate risk management. By acting as an intelligent layer over the core infrastructure, these AI tools scan shifting local regulatory matrices, handle high-frequency AML/CFT screening, and detect fraud in real time — allowing businesses to transact globally with confidence and security.

“Global commerce thrives when financial friction disappears,” said Lewison Chen, Founder and CEO of PhotonPay. “We don’t view payments as isolated transactions, but as the essential infrastructure that drives business scale. This recognition reinforces our commitment to building an intelligent financial operating platform that helps enterprises navigate global markets with agility.”

Moving forward, PhotonPay will continue deepening its global compliance network and scaling its digital financial infrastructure. By bridging TradFi with emerging technologies like stablecoins and agentic commerce, the company aims to simplify international liquidity and empower more businesses to achieve borderless growth.

About PhotonPay

PhotonPay is a stablecoin-powered financial operating system built for the stablecoin era. Designed for modern enterprises, PhotonPay enables businesses to send, receive, convert, and settle funds across both fiat and stablecoin rails through a single, compliance-first integration, spanning 200+ countries and territories.

For more information, visit [www.photonpay.com].

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SOURCE PhotonPay

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Manz Asia Successfully Delivers World’s First 310mm × 310mm Panel-Level Packaging ECD Production System

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World’s first 310mm × 310mm panel-level packaging (PLP) Electrochemical Deposition (ECD) production system delivered to customer lineOmni x-series covering 310mm, 510mm, and 700mm platforms, enabling a broad range of panel-level manufacturing applications.Supports FOPLP, CoPoS, and TGV applications for AI, HPC, and advanced memory markets

TAOYUAN, June 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A leading semiconductor advanced packaging equipment manufacturer, Manz Asia, has successfully delivered the world’s first 310mm × 310mm panel-level packaging (PLP) Electrochemical Deposition (ECD) mass production system. The system expands Manz Asia’s advanced packaging portfolio and showcases its integrated in-house expertise in process innovation, equipment engineering, and high-volume manufacturing.

The new ECD platform is designed with high flexibility to support both glass and metal square carriers and integrates wet chemical process modules for Redistribution Layer (RDL) fabrication. It is engineered for FOPLP-, CoPoS-, and TGV-based advanced packaging architectures. The 310mm × 310mm format offers advantages in scalability, panel utilization, and production yield, positioning it as a key enabling technology for panel-level packaging to support AI, high-performance computing (HPC), high-bandwidth memory (HBM), and high-speed interconnect applications.

Advanced packaging is increasingly converging with leading-edge semiconductor process technologies, with manufacturing capacity progressively concentrated in Taiwan. This shift is accelerating integration across process nodes and packaging architectures in the global semiconductor supply chain. Leveraging strong in-house R&D capabilities and close collaboration with leading IDM and packaging customers, Manz Asia continues to accelerate technology iteration and volume production deployment, strengthening its position in the global panel-level packaging equipment ecosystem.

The ECD system seamlessly integrates a full suite of wet chemical process modules, including cleaning, developing, etching, and stripping, and supports both spin and spray processing modes, creating a comprehensive 310mm × 310mm panel-level RDL manufacturing solution under the “Omni 310x” platform.

The Omni x-series now spans Omni 310x (310mm × 310mm), Omni 510x (510mm × 515mm), and Omni 700x (700mm × 700mm), forming a scalable platform architecture for panel-level mass production. The modular system design enables flexible configuration across different device architectures, process flows, and production capacity requirements, supporting development, qualification, pilot production, and high-volume manufacturing. It strengthens Manz Asia’s competitiveness in the global advanced packaging equipment market.

Robert Lin, CEO of Manz Asia, said the successful deployment of the Omni 310x into customer production lines reflects growing market demand for advanced packaging platforms that combine flexibility with production readiness. “As advanced packaging becomes increasingly central to AI and high-performance computing (HPC) architectures, capabilities such as process control, scalability, and seamless integration into high-volume manufacturing environments have become key competitive differentiators,” he said.

He added that Manz Asia will continue to advance its technology roadmap as a global-class equipment supplier, further strengthening its integration of ECD and wet chemical process technologies to improve manufacturing efficiency, yield stability, and production ramp-up. “We aim to accelerate the deployment of next-generation packaging technologies in FOPLP, CoPoS, and TGV, while reinforcing supply chain resilience across the semiconductor ecosystem,” he said. “Through a multi-platform strategy spanning 310mm, 510mm, and 700mm, we provide a consistent technology pathway from process development to high-volume manufacturing, enabling customers to scale efficiently and predictably. The Omni x-series roadmap is designed to support sustainable and scalable capacity expansion for next-generation semiconductor packaging applications.”

About Manz Asia

Manz Asia delivers semiconductor equipment and solutions built on core technologies in Electrochemical Deposition (ECD), wet chemistry, digital printing, automation, and software integration. Our expertise covers advanced packaging (FOPLP / CoPoS) and IC substrate processing (glass and organic core), supporting customers from R&D to high-volume manufacturing. Through system solutions, contract manufacturing, and sales representation, we help customers accelerate time-to-market, boost yield, and stay competitive in the fast-evolving semiconductor industry.

www.manz.com.tw/en

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SOURCE Manz Asia

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Midea Launches “Agentic Factory Overseas Expansion Solution,” Marking a New Stage for Chinese Enterprises Going Global

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FOSHAN, China, June 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — On June 9, 2026, Midea Group launched its “Agentic Factory Overseas Expansion Solution”.Building on the transformation of its Jingzhou washing machine factory, which received the world’s first WRCA Agentic Factory certification in August 2025, Midea has launched a modular, standardized, and field-validated solution. It includes cross-cultural employee training and cross-border supply chain traceability, and has been deconstructed into 12 rapidly replicable modules for global factory deployment.

According to Deloitte, 55% of Chinese enterprises hope to seek growth through overseas expansion. Midea has identified three persistent challenges: long-distance cross-border supply chains, inconsistent quality standards across export markets, and multinational workforce management difficulties caused by differences in language, culture, and labor regulations.

The solution has been validated at Midea Thailand Refrigeration Plant. Through 72 AI applications and 13 major agents across 25 scenarios, the factory reduced end-to-end order lead time by 43%, lowered customer complaint rates by 32%, and shortened employee training and certification cycles by 62%, demonstrating that China’s intelligent manufacturing capabilities can be replicated globally.

For workforce training, Midea introduced an AIGC + VR multilingual training system, reducing new employee training from eight days to three days. For quality control, Midea launched a VOC-to-VOP seven-step quality solution powered by an expert knowledge base of more than 12 million quality-related cases, enabling customer complaints to be traced to production lines and root causes within seconds.

For supply chain resilience, Midea developed a cross-border supply chain AI agent that monitors 35 core nodes in real time, reducing exception-handling response time from 48 hours to within 12 hours and keeping raw material on-time arrival rates above 96%. Together with Annto’s integrated KD logistics solution, the material kitting rate can exceed 99%.

At the Thailand factory, the finished product defect rate has been reduced by 50%. Midea Cloud,KUKA, Annto, Hiconics, CLOU Electronics, and Midea Building Technologies further support cost reduction and efficiency improvement through automated production, reusable packaging, and integrated energy-saving solutions.

Midea also introduced the “Midea Go-Global Partner Program.” According to Simon Zhang, Vice President and Chief Digital Officer of Midea Group, the program is not merely about standardized equipment, but about turning Midea’s accumulated experience into practical guidance and implementation support.

This co-building model has already delivered results. Wuhan Honghai Technology completed its 2024 Thailand capacity expansion from infrastructure construction to production launch in five months with Midea’s support, and its Thailand business volume increased by 1.6 times in 2025. Xiamen Hexing Packaging, an 18-year Midea partner, has expanded from a domestic supplier into a global partner, establishing factories in Southeast Asia and North America and joining Midea’s global strategic partner whitelist in 2025.

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SOURCE Midea Group Co., Ltd

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