Connect with us

Technology

Jolt Capital and Fonds de solidarité FTQ form strategic partnership to enhance Québec’s Venture Capital ecosystem via AI-powered intelligence platform

Published

on

MONTREAL and PARIS, May 7, 2026 /CNW/ – Jolt Capital, a leading European private equity firm specializing in growth-stage deeptech, and the Fonds de solidarité FTQ (“Fonds”), Québec’s largest development capital fund, today announced a strategic partnership to accelerate the growth of the province’s technology sector.

Under this agreement, the Fonds’ partner venture capital funds will gain exclusive access to Jolt.Ninja, Jolt Capital’s proprietary AI-native investment platform. Developed internally since 2016, Jolt.Ninja leverages advanced the latest developments in foundation models, natural language processing and agentic AI to monitor over 5 million company profiles in real-time and analyze more than 8 million patents to identify high-fidelity investment signals. This initiative marks the first step in a broader long-term collaboration between Jolt Capital and the Fonds aimed at strengthening the Québec innovation pipeline.

Augmenting the Québec VC Ecosystem

The integration of Jolt.Ninja provides Québec investors with an “always on” digital smart companion that augments every stage of the investment lifecycle:

Deal Sourcing: Identification of “off-radar” targets through automated screening that adds one new company every minute.Research & Analysis: Comprehensive sector analysis and access to an AI agent that supports partners at all stages of investment.Value Creation: Automated document ingestion, portfolio management playbooks, and monitoring of 8 million key executives for management transitions.Strategic Intelligence: Access to a repository of deeptech research reports–the Jolt Library–covering semiconductors, AI, and energy to democratize complex market insights.

This partnership underscores a shared commitment to an “alliance of middle powers” as recently extolled by Prime Minister Mark Carney. By bridging the investment ecosystems of Canada and Europe, both organizations are fostering a strategic corridor that allows high-growth technology companies to scale across international markets more efficiently.

Jean Schmitt, President and Managing Partner of Jolt Capital, commented:

“At Jolt Capital, we believe that the next generation of industrial giants will be built on data-driven discipline. By opening Jolt.Ninja to the Fonds and its partners, we are empowering the local ecosystem with the same intellectual engine we use to scale deeptech leaders in Europe. This collaboration is a testament to the power of middle powers working together to secure technological sovereignty and industrial excellence.”

Dany Pelletier, Executive Vice-President, Private Equity and Impact Investing at Fonds de solidarité FTQ, added:

“Our mission has always been to drive Québec’s socio-economic growth by supporting the businesses of tomorrow. Partnering with Jolt Capital allows our network of VC funds to leverage world-class AI tools to identify and support the most promising innovations. This is about giving our ecosystem a competitive edge on the global stage while ensuring sustainable value creation for the workers of Québec.”

Philippe Huneault, Vice President, Private Equity and Impact Investing,  Fund Management and Chief of International Business Development at Fonds de solidarité FTQ, stated:

“This partnership represents a natural evolution of our efforts to internationalize the investment landscape in Quebec. By combining Jolt’s technological capabilities with our deep local roots, we are creating a unique synergy that benefits the entire investment chain. This reflects our commitment to a fair technological transition, for the benefit of our partners and the economy as a whole.”

Jolt Capital’s Expansion in Canada

The partnership coincides with the unveiling of Jolt Capital’s new Montreal office at 1555 rue Peel. This milestone follows a period of rapid expansion by the PE firm in the Canadian market:

May 2024: Opening of the Montreal HQ and the recruitment of Clement Bourgogne to lead regional operations.November 2024: Execution of Jolt Capital’s first Canadian investment (Dolphin Semiconductor).August 2025: Relocation of Managing Partner Eoghan Hickey to Montreal to oversee North American growth.March 2026: Appointment of Tara Akhavan as the third full-time partner in Canada, further solidifying the local leadership team.

About Jolt Capital (www.jolt-capital.com)

Jolt Capital is a leading private equity firm specialized in growth investing in deeptech companies, with a mission to build future European leaders with a global focus. Since 2011, Jolt Capital invests in European B2B companies with revenues between €10M and €50M. Jolt Capital’s team is composed solely of experienced investors and managers of high-tech companies. Its proprietary AI platform, Jolt.Ninja, enables enriched sourcing, accelerated due diligence and automatic detection of investment or acquisition targets. Jolt Capital is located in Paris, Lausanne, Copenhagen, Milan, Montreal, Seoul, Tokyo, and London.

About the Fonds de solidarité FTQ

The Fonds de solidarité FTQ is a source of pride in Québec, delivering on its mission through a unique business model created more than 40 years ago. Since then, the Fonds has mobilized and engaged Québec by leveraging the retirement savings of more than 816,000 shareholders-savers.

With net assets totaling $23.0 billion as of November 30, 2025, the Fonds supports thousands of companies through direct and indirect venture and growth investments, guided by the belief that its investments generate both financial and societal impact. For more information, visit fondsftq.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

SOURCE Le Fonds de Solidarité des Travailleurs du Québec (FTQ)

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Technology

He Sold Everything and Moved to Colombia for Her. Then Built the Translator They Needed and Named It After Her.

Published

on

By

Nayerly, a patent-pending iPhone app, is the first translator both people can talk over at once. Fully offline, 22 languages.

EDMONDS, Wash., Aug. 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Michael Wilson sold everything he owned and left the US for Colombia to be with the woman he loved. They did not share a language.

Every translator they tried forced them to take turns: one speaks, stops, waits for playback, and only then can the other answer. It worked. It also turned every conversation into a transaction.

So he built his own, alone, and named it after her. Nayerly is now on the App Store.

Nayerly is full duplex, meaning it listens and speaks at the same time instead of taking turns. The app keeps listening while it is speaking, so you can talk over the translation, and it keeps listening when more than one person talks, so two people can talk over each other and it still works. No phone passed back and forth. It works like a personal interpreter sitting between you.

“Every other translator is a walkie-talkie. You talk, you stop, you wait,” Wilson said. “I built this so I could speak better with someone I love. That is the only way you make a real connection. It works so well you forget you are using it and start talking over each other.”

Everything runs on the device. All 22 language models download during setup, so it works with no Wi-Fi and no signal – on a plane, abroad, off the grid – and no audio ever leaves the phone. Hands-free works with any AirPods, not just the premium ones.

Key features:

– Full duplex: listens and speaks at the same time, so you can talk over the translation and over each other
– 100% offline in 22 languages, including Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and Ukrainian
– Hands-free with any AirPods
– Private by design: audio is never recorded or stored
– Free to download, 10 minutes of translation daily

Unlimited use is $1.99 per month during launch, billed annually. A one-time lifetime option includes Apple Family Sharing. New languages will be added in future updates at no additional cost to existing users.

Videos of Wilson and his girlfriend using Nayerly in Colombia, both speaking at once in English and Spanish, are on Instagram at instagram.com/nayerlyapp and TikTok at tiktok.com/@nayerlyapp.

Availability

On the App Store for iPhone now: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6762064110
More: https://nayerly.com 

About Nayerly
Nayerly is an independent iPhone app built alone by Michael Wilson and named for the woman he built it for. It exists so two people without a shared language can just talk.

Media Contact
Michael Wilson
Founder, Nayerly
421311@email4pr.com
425-220-5237

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/he-sold-everything-and-moved-to-colombia-for-her-then-built-the-translator-they-needed-and-named-it-after-her-302859030.html

SOURCE Nayerly

Continue Reading

Technology

Eleven GovTech Startups Named to Pitch at State of GovTech 2026

Published

on

By

Companies from across the country will pitch live to government and investor judges in Montgomery County, Maryland, September 9–10. Registration is free for government employees.

SILVER SPRING, Md., Aug. 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — CivStart today announced the eleven startups selected to pitch at State of GovTech 2026, the organization’s seventh annual national govtech summit, taking place September 9–10 at the Silver Spring Civic Building in Montgomery County, Maryland.

The selected companies span permitting, public safety, emergency management, grant administration, constituent services, and civic infrastructure finance. They will pitch live on the main stage to a judging panel drawn from local government, county technology leadership, and the govtech investment community.

The 2026 Startup Cohort

Appellate  (Bentonville, AR) — system of record for police towing and vehicle custodyAyla  (Washington, D.C.) — public-sector recruiting on a live government labor-market data engineCODICE  (Washington, D.C.) — no-code permitting, licensing, and inspections platformGostly  (Westminster, MD) — real-time command center for urban infrastructureGrantwell  (Los Angeles, CA) — AI grant management across the full lifecycleGreen Stream Technologies (Wake Forest, NC) — flood and weather early warning systemsGovstream  (Seattle, WA) — AI-driven permitting intakeLabrynth  (US, Australia, EU, UK) — AI-native regulatory intelligence for permittingManyBond — crowdfinancing for community-supported local investmentReadyly  (Connecticut) — agentic AI resolving resident inquiries across every channelSamora AI  (Bellevue, WA) — multilingual voice AI for citizen information lines

The Judging Panel

Hillary Orr, Deputy Director of Transportation, City of Alexandria, Virginia Rita Reynolds, Director of Public Sector, CAI Thao Hill, Co-Founder and CEO, Govinity Tom Spenger, CEO, SOVRA Eyal Feder-Levy, CEO, Zencity

The pitch competition is one part of a two-day agenda built around working sessions rather than passive programming. Attendees draft AI use policies, run live cybersecurity breach simulations, and bring unresolved problems from their own jurisdictions to work through with peers.

State of GovTech 2026 is expected to draw more than 200 attendees, split roughly evenly between public sector leaders and the entrepreneurs, investors, and industry practitioners who serve them. The venue sits directly on the Washington Metro, and registration is free for government employees. Full agenda and registration at civstart.com/sogt26.

About CivStart

CivStart is a govtech organization connecting government leaders with the technology solutions and entrepreneurs solving public sector challenges. Through its accelerator programs, industry events, and products including Clarity and GovFit, CivStart helps state and local governments define their challenges and find partners equipped to solve them. State of GovTech is CivStart’s flagship annual summit, now in its seventh year. Learn more at civstart.com.

Media Contact:

Nick Lyell

Co-Founder & COO

421351@email4pr.com | 608.234.2166

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/eleven-govtech-startups-named-to-pitch-at-state-of-govtech-2026-302859026.html

SOURCE CivStart

Continue Reading

Technology

Goodix Unveils New Generation Touch Screen Controllers for Medium and Large Displays

Published

on

By

SHENZHEN, China, Aug. 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Goodix has launched its new-generation GT9976 series of high-performance touch screen controllers for medium and large displays, targeting premium flexible OLED tablets, foldable smartphone main screens, and other smart devices. Delivering major upgrades in gaming control, touch performance in challenging environments, and active stylus support, the series enables device makers to create differentiated large-screen products for gaming, work, and learning.

As an early commercial deployment of the series, Lenovo’s latest Legion Y700 Wuji gaming flagship tablet and Tab Pen Pro 2 integrate Goodix’s innovative portfolio, including the GT9976N touch screen controller, an active stylus driver chip, and an ultra-narrow side-key capacitive fingerprint sensor, to deliver a more responsive and immersive user experience.

Faster Response for Smoother Large-Screen Interaction

High-refresh-rate displays used in competitive gaming place greater demands on touch response and data processing. The GT9976 series features Goodix’s proprietary full-screen parallel sensing architecture, which achieves a higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) within a shorter scan time — significantly accelerating finger-signal capture and processing efficiency.

Supporting 7- to 9.5-inch flexible OLED displays, the new series delivers industry-leading touch report rates and instant sampling rates. From everyday browsing and app switching to sudden stops, sharp turns and rapid multi-taps in high-frame-rate games, the GT9976 series ensures smooth, precise, and highly responsive touch interaction.

Reliable, High-Precision Touch Performance in Demanding Conditions

To address the noise interference from flexible OLED panels under heavy system loads, the GT9976 series adopts an industry-leading high-noise-suppression analog front end (AFE) sampling architecture that doubles SNR over the previous generation. Combined with Goodix’s proprietary gaming algorithms, the controllers accurately identify valid touch signals even in complex noise environments, delivering stable, precise coordinate data at all times.

In demanding scenarios such as FPS, MOBA and rhythm games, the GT9976 series combines a higher SNR, high-speed scanning and sampling, and enhanced real-time noise monitoring with frequency-hopping technology to enable faster tap response and stable multi-finger control without jitter or drift. This improves responsiveness and tracking accuracy for pixel-level actions such as flick aiming, recoil control, combo execution and movement.

The series also integrates advanced dual-mode self- and mutual-capacitance sensing with complementary algorithms to improve palm rejection, effectively reducing false touches caused by grip and edge contact. Dedicated optimization for sweaty hands, wet fingers and gaming finger sleeves helps maintain sensitive and stable touch performance under challenging real-world conditions.

Enhanced Active Stylus Support for Productivity and Creativity

For mobile productivity, education and professional drawing, the GT9976 series also delivers significantly enhanced active stylus performance. When paired with Goodix active stylus driver chip, the solution supports a 360Hz pen report rate. Together with Goodix’s proprietary stylus anti-interference algorithm, it achieves outstanding linearity and precision — accurately reproducing every stroke for tasks such as note-taking, fine annotation, sketching, and handwriting practice.

For flagship OLED tablets with large screens, Goodix also offers the GT7A series, which supports display sizes ranging from 10 to 14 inches while delivering the same high overall performance, further strengthening its portfolio for mid- to large-size touch applications. Both the GT9976 and GT7A series have been validated by leading device brands and display panel manufacturers, and are set to be adopted in foldable smartphones, gaming tablets, and slim flagship tablets — enabling smoother, more precise, and more reliable large-screen interaction.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/goodix-unveils-new-generation-touch-screen-controllers-for-medium-and-large-displays-302859395.html

SOURCE Goodix

Continue Reading

Trending