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Betterness Closes $2.5m Seed Round and Launches Bett-i, the First Fully Autonomous Voice-First Life-Coaching System for Health and Performance

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A roster of leaders from health-tech, medicine, capital markets, elite athletic performance, and global culture join Betterness as investors and advisors, backing the company’s mission to build the agentic infrastructure for the $6 trillion global health and wellness industry.

MIAMI, April 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Betterness, Inc., the Augmented Wellness™ platform building agent-first infrastructure for the health and wellness industry, today announced the closing of its $2.5m seed round and the public launch of Bett-i™ — the first fully autonomous, voice-first AI life-coaching system ever created — available now at www.betti.bot.

The announcement marks a pivotal evolution for Betterness: from a longevity-focused consumer wellness platform into the company building the agentic operating layer on which the next generation of health and wellness products, services, and businesses will run. It follows the March 2026 debut of the Betterness MCP — the first agentic Model Context Protocol for real-world health and wellness services — and sets the stage for the upcoming launch of Betterness One, an enterprise solution that will fully automate health and wellness business operations on the same foundation.

“When we started Betterness, the question was whether AI could help any single person live better. Two years later the answer is obvious — and the real question has become whether AI can help every clinic, every gym, every longevity program, and every wellness brand run better. Our job now is to build the agentic infrastructure that makes that possible. Closing this round, launching Bett-i, and preparing Betterness One for enterprise is the trifecta that takes us there.”

— Demian Bellumio, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Betterness

Introducing Bett-i — the first fully autonomous voice-first life coach

Bett-i (www.betti.bot) is the first voice-first, fully autonomous AI life-coaching system designed to accompany a human being through an entire day — not as a chatbot, but as a continuously running team of specialist agents that can order a lab, interpret a result, adjust a training plan, cancel a class, or send a recovery check-in without being asked.

Where previous generations of AI health tools wait for the user to ask a question, Bett-i initiates. It reads signal, it pattern-matches across a person’s life, and it takes action — always under explicit consent, always audit-logged, always voice-native.

What Bett-i can do, out of the box

Voice-first every surface. Wake-word conversational access, phone and SMS fall-through, Telegram, e-mail, and any MCP-compatible agent as a client. No app required.Autonomous daily briefs. Morning recovery + sleep-readiness + day-priorities brief, delivered via the user’s chosen channel. Evening wind-down, supplement reminders, and sleep-optimization protocol activation.End-to-end lab ordering. Bett-i can order labs across major diagnostic networks — Quest, LabCorp, BioReference — schedule draws, track biomarker trends, and surface actionable changes the moment a result returns.Agent marketplace. Hundreds of specialist agents — nutrition, endurance, sleep, longevity, hormone, recovery, fertility, clinical — with more from top partners added weekly. Any specialist can be summoned by voice; many run continuously in the background.Native wearable integrations. Apple Health, Oura, WHOOP, Garmin, Withings, Eight Sleep, and more — all flowing into the same context so every recommendation is life-aware, not generic.Contextual, life-situation-aware coaching. If you’re training for a marathon, Bett-i layers endurance biomarkers and recovery protocols onto your panel. If you’re planning a pregnancy, it pivots to preconception optimization. If you’re on a GLP-1, it watches the specific markers that matter.HIPAA-grade governance and trust. Consent-gated access, full audit trail, end-to-end encryption, never sold. Every tool call and every agent interaction is logged.

Bett-i is powered natively by the Betterness MCP, meaning it can be plugged into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible agent, and extended by any developer building on Betterness’ open agentic infrastructure.

“Precision health has always existed — but only for those who could afford it. Bett-i was built to change that. Bett-i coaches people through the most important decisions they make about their own health and wellness — autonomously, in their voice, with the full context of their life. Not when they remember to open an app. Just continuously, proactively, in their corner, keeping up with their real life 24/7. That’s what everyone deserves. That’s what everyone wants. That’s what we built.”

— Ari Katz, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Betterness

The evolution of Betterness — an agentic infrastructure platform

The launch of Bett-i and the closing of this seed round complete the public picture of what Betterness has been quietly building: a coherent three-layer stack on which the global health and wellness industry can run.

Layer 1 — Betterness MCP (launched March 2026). The first agentic Model Context Protocol for real-world health and wellness services. Labs, biomarkers, wearables, provider networks, and specialist agents, accessible to any AI system under consent.Layer 2 — Bett-i (launching today at www.betti.bot). The first fully autonomous, voice-first life-coach ever deployed at consumer scale. Demonstrates the full surface area of the MCP in a product a human being can actually talk to and trust.Layer 3 — Betterness One (June 2026). The enterprise solution that takes the same agentic stack and automates the day-to-day operations of health and wellness businesses — clinics, gyms, longevity programs, wellness brands, med-spas. Zero missed leads, less admin work, members that stay. The business-side counterpart to Bett-i.

All three layers run on a shared enterprise-grade, HIPAA-compliant and SOC2-ready proprietary infrastructure platform.

Investors and advisors

The seed round and advisory board bring together operators, clinicians, capital-market builders, elite athletes, and cultural leaders across health-tech, medicine, capital markets, performance, and wellness lifestyle. Participating investors and advisors announced today include:

Health-tech founders & operators

Martin Varsavsky — Founder of Prelude Fertility and Certuma; one of Europe’s most prolific serial entrepreneurs in digital health and fertility.Justin Stone — Digital-health operator and general counsel to successive unicorn health-tech companies, including MDLIVE (acquired by Cigna), Thirty Madison, and Papa; long-time advisor to 40+ digital-health founders.

Medicine & longevity

Mark Rosenbloom, MD, MBA — Founder of Precision Performance Medicine℠, a concierge longevity and performance-medicine practice serving patients nationally; trained at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Stanford GSB. His forthcoming book, ALIVE AF, publishes May 2026.Rabin Rahmani, MD, FACG — Medical Director- Gastroenterology Associates of Brooklyn/South Brooklyn Endoscopy Center.Lloyd Camper, MD, MPH — Center Physician at Cenegenics Miami and board-certified Family & Sports Medicine physician; USC-trained, with a Sports Medicine fellowship at Kaiser Permanente where he cared for athletes from high-school through the pros, including the Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) of MLS.

Capital markets & digital infrastructure

Carlos Domingo — Co-Founder & CEO of Securitize; the leading tokenization platform for real-world assets, bringing deep expertise in regulated digital infrastructure.David Garcia — CIO and Managing Partner at Borderless Capital; a leading global venture firm bridging traditional capital with programmable financial infrastructure.

Elite performance

Eduardo della Maggiora — Founder & CEO of Betterfly, Latin America’s first “social unicorn” and a purpose-driven insurance and wellness-benefits platform operating across Latam and Europe; four-time Ironman World Championship finisher and two-time runner-up at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships.Apolo Ohno — Eight-time Olympic medalist, the most decorated American winter Olympian in history, and a long-time advisor to athletic-performance and longevity brands.

Culture, brand & wellness lifestyle

Vivie-Ann Bakos (BLOND:ISH) — BLOND:ISH is a globally touring DJ, producer, and movement-builder who left a small Canadian town to become one of electronic music’s most uncompromising forces. As founder of Abracadabra, Bye Bye Plastic, and the $NRG token, she operates on one principle: energy is the only real currency.Jose Molla — Co-Founder of La Comunidad (acquired by Publicis) and CEO & Co-Founder of Plural Doers Hub, the independent, minority-certified content-production studio.

About Betterness

Betterness is the Augmented Wellness™ platform building agent-first infrastructure for the global health and wellness industry. Its products — the Betterness MCP, Bett-i, and the upcoming Betterness One — run on a shared enterprise-grade, HIPAA-compliant and SOC2-ready stack designed to let developers, businesses, and individuals build and run the next generation of AI-powered health systems.

Learn more: www.betterness.aiwww.betti.bot

Media Contact

Jose Molla
Chief Marketing Officer, Betterness
jose@betterness.ai

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SOURCE Betterness, Inc.

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The Inner Circle acknowledges Colleen Reilly as a Pinnacle Professional Member Inner Circle of Excellence

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PORT ST. JOE, Fla., April 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Prominently featured in The Inner Circle, Colleen Reilly is honored as a Pinnacle Professional Member Inner Circle of Excellence for her contributions to Transforming Catering and Event Services in Northwest Florida.

Since 2015, Colleen Reilly has served as founder and CEO of Catering Connections, a company that has redefined catering in Northwest Florida’s beach communities through innovation, collaboration, and community focus. Guided by her motto “Just one call feeds them all,” Ms. Reilly established a unique model by partnering with local restaurants to showcase their specialties, fostering unity among businesses while providing clients with one-of-a-kind event experiences.

With over 15 years of industry expertise, Ms. Reilly specializes in coordinating weddings, family reunions, and corporate events, managing every detail from client consultation to menu planning and flawless execution. Her dedication to service has earned Catering Connections multiple recognitions, including the Couples Choice Award from WeddingWire from 2021 to 2025, the Best of Florida Award from 2022 to 2024, and the Lux Life Hospitality and Catering Award in 2023 and 2024.

Ms. Reilly’s career foundation includes an associate degree in paralegal studies, magna cum laude, from Volunteer State College, a reflection of her meticulous approach to detail and commitment to excellence. Beyond her business, she serves her community as a board member of the Historic St. Andrews Waterfront Partnership and as president of Friends of the Governor Stone Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to preserving maritime heritage in Panama City. Her previous civic contributions include serving five years as a guardian ad litem, advocating for children within the legal system, and volunteering as a school chaperone for international student trips.

A leader who blends innovation with service, Ms. Reilly continues to grow Catering Connections while deepening her commitment to the local community. Looking ahead, she remains dedicated to expanding her company’s impact, bringing people together, and creating meaningful experiences through food and fellowship.

Contact: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, editorialteam@continentalwhoswho.com

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SOURCE The Inner Circle

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Media Contributor Kianga Moore to Host Executive Media Roundtable On AI’s Transformational Impact in Retail

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Leaders from AdFury.ai, Vendormint, and New Nexus Group to Explore Real-Time Decision-Making, Resilience, and Growth in a Volatile Market

NEW YORK, April 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — As retailers navigate ongoing economic uncertainty, supply chain volatility, and rapidly shifting consumer expectations, the upcoming convening of a high-level roundtable discussion will examine how artificial intelligence is reshaping the retail landscape in real time.

Moderated by Media Contributor Kianga Moore, to be held on Wednesday, April 29 at 11h00am (EST), the roundtable will bring together senior leaders from AdFury.ai, Vendormint and New Nexus Group to discuss how modern enterprise platforms are leveraging AI to drive agility, efficiency, and long-term resilience across the retail ecosystem.

The discussion will additionally focus on how AI is enabling retailers to respond dynamically to changing demand signals, optimize marketing investments, and strengthen interoperability across increasingly complex vendor and marketplace networks.

“Retailers today are operating in a constant state of disruption”, stated Kianga Moore. “This roundtable will explore how AI is not just a tool for efficiency, but a strategic asset for anticipating change and building more resilient, adaptive American enterprise.”

Key discussion topics will include remarks on how, for example, enterprise AI platforms are helping retailers respond instantly to fluctuations in consumer demand, pricing pressures, and external supply chain disruptions and the role of AI in enhancing interoperability across vendors, partners, and marketplaces to create more agile and resilient retail infrastructures in 2026.

Rob Gonda, Chief Technical Officer at Vendormint, stated that, “Interoperability is the backbone of modern retail. AI enables seamless communication between platforms, vendors, and marketplaces—turning fragmented systems into cohesive, responsive ecosystems that can adapt under pressure.”

Discussion topics will also include machine learning’s ability to optimize ad spend, improving personalization, and delivering measurable ROI while maintaining brand trust and regulatory compliance.

Eric Howerton, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer of AdFury.ai, added that,”AI is fundamentally changing how brands approach customer acquisition. By leveraging machine learning through fine-tuned, retail-specific agentic flows, we can not only optimize ad spend in real time, but we can also ensure messaging is personalized, compliant, and aligned with evolving consumer expectations.”

And indeed the roundtable will include discussions on how AI-powered predictive analytics can help businesses anticipate economic, technological, and geopolitical disruptions ahead—and plan accordingly.

Cheryl Yarbrough, Vice President of Partnerships at New Nexus Group added that, “Resilience in retail is no longer built in quarterly planning cycles-it’s built in real time. AI gives organizations the ability to identify disruptions before they cascade, pivot strategies before momentum is lost, and maintain continuity when the market moves faster than any human team can react alone.”

The roundtable will be held via Zoom TeleConference, with questions from the press and key stakeholders to follow opening remarks and a 30-minute Q&A between the moderator and the panelists.

For all media inquiries and to register to attend, please contact: Sam Amsterdam, Amsterdam Group Public Relations Inc. – Sam@AmsterdamGroup.net / +1 (202) 910-8349

Vendormint (https://vendormint.com)New Nexus Group (https://www.newnexusgroup.com)AdFury.ai (https://www.adfury.ai)

Samuel Amsterdam
Communications Counsel
Vendormint
samuelamsterdam@gmail.com

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/media-contributor-kianga-moore-to-host-executive-media-roundtable-on-ais-transformational-impact-in-retail-302753148.html

SOURCE Vendormint

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Fairway Home Mortgage Earns Prestigious USA TODAY Top Workplaces Award For 6th Consecutive Year

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Fairway CEO Steve Jacobson Named #1 Leadership Award Winner of Companies With 2500+ Employees

MADISON, Wis., April 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Fairway Home Mortgage announced that it has earned the prestigious 2026 USA TODAY Top Workplaces award. This is the sixth year in a row Fairway achieved this honor.

The award honors organizations with 150 or more employees that have created exceptional, people-first cultures. This year, more than 40,500 organizations were invited to participate. The winners are recognized for their commitment to fostering a workplace environment that values employee listening and engagement. USA TODAY showcased the winners at the National Awards Summit in Nashville. Watch the video of the event here.

“Being recognized with this award reflects Fairway’s commitment to bringing our people together face-to-face,” said Fairway’s CEO and Founder Steve Jacobson. “Companies are better when their people are around each other. People need each other and they learn from each other, and we’re very intentional about creating opportunities for in-person collaboration at Fairway.”

Jacobson demonstrated that in-person collaboration when he traveled to Knoxville this week with Fairway Senior Vice President Dan Richards to spend time with one of Fairway’s branches and their local real estate partners. “We engaged in real conversations about the market, discussed what people are seeing on the ground, and talked about how Fairway keeps showing up for clients,” said Richards. “It’s a reflection of the same hands-on approach that has defined Fairway’s culture for more than two decades.”

“To be named a Top Workplace for six consecutive years speaks to Fairway’s leadership, our mindset, and the empowerment of our staff,” said Fairway’s Chief People and Engagement Officer Julie Fry. “Our strength isn’t just what we offer employees. What sets a top workplace apart is the daily commitment to people—prioritizing connection, valuing contributions, and creating an environment where employees feel energized to serve because they feel valued first.”

The winners are determined by authentic employee feedback captured through a confidential survey conducted by Energage, the HR research and technology company behind the Top Workplaces program since 2006. The results are calculated based on employee responses to statements about Workplace Experience Themes, which are proven indicators of high performance.

“Earning a USA TODAY Top Workplaces award is a testament to an organization’s credibility and commitment to a people-first culture,” said Eric Rubino, CEO of Energage. “This award, driven by real employee feedback, is more than just a recognition — it’s proof that your employees believe in the organization and its leadership. Job seekers and customers look for this trusted badge of credibility and excellence. It signals a company that values its people, and that kind of culture resonates in today’s competitive market”

About Fairway Home Mortgage
Madison, WI- and Carrollton, TX-based Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation (NMLS #2289) is a full-service mortgage lender licensed in all 50 states. Fairway is the #2 overall retail lender in the U.S.

About Energage
Making the world a better place to work together.™
Energage is a purpose-driven company that helps organizations turn employee feedback into useful business intelligence and credible employer recognition through Top Workplaces. Built on 20 years of culture research and the results from 30 million employees surveyed across more than 80,000 organizations, Energage delivers the most accurate competitive benchmark available. With access to a unique combination of patented analytic tools and expert guidance, Energage customers lead the competition with an engaged workforce and an opportunity to gain recognition for their people-first approach to culture. For more information or to nominate your organization, visit energage.com or topworkplaces.com.

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SOURCE Fairway Home Mortgage

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