Connect with us

Technology

Esports Foundation and adidas Announce Landmark Partnership to Outfit Every Team at the Inaugural Esports Nations Cup

Published

on

Over 100 countries and territories will wear custom adidas national jerseys at the Esports Nations Cup (ENC), equipping every team competing across 16 of the world’s most popular esports titles. The inaugural four-week event is set to take place starting November 2, 2026 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. National team jerseys will be revealed in the coming weeks.The partnership directly supports the ongoing convergence of esports, culture, entertainment and sports, creating a defining moment for the esports industry and the global sport landscape.

Media Kit

Watch Announcement Video

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia and HERZOGENAURACH, Germany, July 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Esports Foundation (EF) and adidas made sports history today, announcing a landmark partnership that will see the sportswear company outfit every national team at the inaugural Esports Nations Cup (ENC), the first nation-based esports event of its scale, set to debut November 2, 2026 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The partnership directly supports the ongoing convergence of esports, culture, entertainment and sports, creating a defining moment for the esports industry and the global sport landscape.

As Official Kit Partner and a Global Partner of ENC, adidas will design and produce custom competition apparel for the more than 100 participating countries and territories, with each delegation – including 2,000 athletes and coaches – receiving uniquely tailored jerseys and tracksuits that reflect their national identity while celebrating the global spirit of esports competition. National team jerseys will be revealed in the coming weeks. Fans can follow the national team jersey reveals at esportsnationscp.com/jerseys.

“National team jerseys carry identity, pride and the ambition of an entire country or territory,” said Mohammed Al Nimer, Chief Commercial Officer, Esports Foundation. “By partnering with adidas, one of the most iconic brands in global sport, we are giving esports athletes the opportunity to represent their nations on the world stage with the same sense of meaning and prestige seen across traditional sport. This partnership will help the Esports Nations Cup create powerful national moments and inspire a new generation of players and fans.” 

“At adidas, we’ve spent decades outfitting athletes at the world’s biggest sporting events, and we understand the role a jersey plays in identity, belonging and competition,” said Phillip Waller, adidas SVP Brand Development. “The Esports Nations Cup gives us the opportunity to bring that experience into esports at a global scale.”

The Esports Nations Cup introduces nation-based competition to the global esports calendar in a structured and recurring format. By enabling countries and territories to organize their teams, develop talent pathways, and compete on a global stage, the ENC provides a framework for expanding participation and strengthening esports ecosystems worldwide.

The Esports Foundation has worked to establish the global structure of the ENC through the appointment of Official National Team Partners, National Team Managers, and more than 700 national team coaches across 100 countries and territories. Drawn from over 90 leading esports organizations, the coaches oversee player selection and team development across the world’s top esports titles, helping bring the first large-scale national team ecosystem in esports to life ahead of the event in Riyadh.

For the latest information about the Esports Nations Cup, visit esportsnationscup.com, and follow ENC on X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

About the Esports Nations Cup
The Esports Nations Cup (ENC) is a biennial global esports competition created by the Esports Foundation (EF) that brings national pride to the world stage. Launching in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2026, the ENC will feature the world’s best players competing not for their clubs, but for their countries and territories, across a lineup of leading esports titles. Built in collaboration with game partners, clubs, and esports organizations, the ENC establishes the first recurring, large-scale platform for national teams in esports. Beyond competition, it aims to fuel fandom, inspire heroes, and provide sustainable pathways for nations, players, and partners to grow within the global esports ecosystem. esportsnationscup.com

The ENC features a $20 million prize pool with equal pay per placement, ensuring players and coaches receive the same prize money for the same finishing position across all 16 titles. Backed by a $45 million overall funding commitment, the ENC also includes a $20 million Development Fund that supports National Team Partners, local esports ecosystem development, travel, and national team operations.  

About the Esports Foundation
The Esports Foundation (EF) is a non-profit organization based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, dedicated to advancing and professionalizing the global esports industry. Through the annual Esports World Cup (EWC) and the biennial Esports Nations Cup (ENC), EF brings together the world’s top players, leading clubs, and millions of fans for the biggest stages in competitive gaming. Beyond hosting tournaments, the Foundation works year-round to grow the esports ecosystem, support talent development, and create lasting opportunities for players, teams, and partners worldwide.

About adidas
adidas is a global leader in the sporting goods industry. Headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany, the company employs more than 65,000 people across the globe and generated sales of € 24.8 billion in 2025.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/esports-foundation-and-adidas-announce-landmark-partnership-to-outfit-every-team-at-the-inaugural-esports-nations-cup-302838681.html

Continue Reading

Technology

Lumos Launches MCP Governance to Provide Agent Runtime Security

Published

on

By

Security and IT teams get visibility and control over MCP usage and agent tool calls, starting with Claude Code and Codex.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Lumos, the identity management platform for the agentic era, is releasing MCP Governance for Claude Code and Codex. MCP Governance checks an AI agent’s permissions at the moment it acts, and blocks the action if policy does not allow it.

Enterprises are rolling out AI coworkers faster than they can govern them. An agent inherits the permissions of the person who launched it, and then works at machine speed. A single employee might delete one Salesforce record by mistake, but their agent can delete a thousand in seconds.

“We spent twenty years learning to govern humans, and we still have not finished,” said Andrej Safundzic, CEO and co-founder of Lumos. “Now we have agents doing the same work ten times faster. Just here at Lumos, with fewer than 200 employees, we measured over 450,000 agent actions in a single week. That kind of scale is impossible to track with old methods.”

The industry has answered this problem with inventory, but registering every agent only tells a security team that an agent exists. It does not tell them what that agent can reach, and it does not tell them what it did.

Lumos is taking a different position. Permissions set the upper bound of what an agent is allowed to do. What the agent actually does happens at runtime, and until now identity teams have had no way to govern that moment. MCP Governance moves the decision to the point of action.

“The teams I talk to are not trying to slow AI down. They are trying to say yes,” said Safundzic. “One customer would not turn on an integration for their marketing team because too many people had access to the underlying tool. That decision cost them pipeline. Governance at the moment of action is how you turn that no into a yes.”

“Identity has always governed what someone is allowed to do,” said Leo Mehr, co-founder of Lumos. “It has never governed what they actually did, because humans move slowly enough that review after the fact was good enough. Agents changed that. By the time you review an agent’s activity, it has already made a few thousand decisions. The only place left to govern is the moment before the action runs.”

MCP Governance extends the work Lumos has already done on non-human identity. Lumos maps every identity and permission across human, machine, and AI identities. MCP Governance covers the other half of the problem, which is control over what those identities do.

MCP Governance is available today for teams running Claude Code and Codex, with support for more agents to follow.

Learn more about MCP Governance by scheduling a demo today.

About Lumos

Lumos is the first identity platform built around autonomous agents, not manual workflows. Security teams use Lumos to give every human, machine, and AI agent a living control layer that watches and governs access in real time. Traditional identity governance was built for human workflows and periodic reviews. AI makes the problem bigger, messier, and faster: more identities to protect, more permissions to govern, and less time to catch abuse. Lumos helps teams at companies like Mars, Netskope, Assurant, and GitLab move faster, reduce risk, and prove compliance, all while keeping humans in control.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lumos-launches-mcp-governance-to-provide-agent-runtime-security-302886418.html

SOURCE Lumos

Continue Reading

Technology

Ande Raises $52M Seed and Series A to Launch The First Entertainment Operating System For Enterprises

Published

on

By

Ande brings corporate entertainment into a single platform and gives venues a direct channel to enterprise bookings.

NEW YORK, Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ande, the AI-native network for corporate entertainment, emerges from stealth with more than $52 million in seed and Series A funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Duration Ventures, and Sierra Ventures, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures.

Enterprises spend an estimated $325 billion a year on entertainment from client dinners and team outings to catering, sporting events, and gifting. Yet the booking and expense management behind it is fragmented across credit cards, AP systems, and consumer apps creating an extremely manual reconciliation process for finance teams.

Ande brings structure to one of the last unmanaged categories of enterprise spend by giving teams a single platform to book entertainment effortlessly, while finance and legal teams keep full visibility and control over every dollar spent.

Ande’s agentic workflows surface venue availability, book experiences, route approvals, execute contracts, and reconcile expenses automatically. Executive assistants, office managers, field marketers, GTM teams, and their managers all work together in a single, multiplayer workspace in order to book team offsites and deal-closing dinners, while the agents move each request through approval, signing, and payment.

More than 60 enterprises already run their entertainment on Ande, reporting savings of 12 to 15 percent. Customers like Cloudflare, Salesforce, McGraw Hill, Netskope, Navan, Sigma Computing, Monday.com, Workato, Semgrep, Checkout, Rillet, and many more contribute to over $400 million in entertainment spend flowing through the platform annually.

“Entertainment is one of the most important things a company does. It builds culture, closes deals and deepens the relationships that matter most. Yet the infrastructure to manage it is broken on both sides of every transaction,” said Lohit Sarma, CEO and co-founder of Ande.

“Ande is the first enterprise channel between corporate buyers and the world’s best entertainment vendors. Part of the reason this is such a hard problem to solve is that venues and entertainment providers don’t have a centralized distribution system to plug into. We had to build it. We’ve spent two and half years working with venues to digitize their data, and train models and agents for these workflows that are unique to enterprises,” continued Sarma.

For venues on the other side of the transaction, Ande is the corporate sales and marketing channel that never existed. Venues have historically had no pipeline into the corporate market. Ande gives them a platform to market to, engage with, and transact with corporate buyers at scale. Among the current partners are 1,600 hospitality venues including some of the largest and most decorated hospitality groups like Altamarea Group, Che Fico, Gracious Hospitality, JKS, The Mina Group, MML, Nobu, Riviera Dining Group, Tao Group Hospitality, Unapologetic Foods, Bacchus Management Group, Wish You Were Here, and Wolfgang Puck. Over 93,000 entertainment venues are on Ande’s network today.

“Our programs are high stakes and high visibility, with our executive leadership team and key customers at the core of each event we host,” said Vicky Chung, Director of Corporate Events at Netskope. “My team and I trust Ande’s platform, and especially the team behind it. I have real-time visibility into what’s happening across every event, and when I need something done right, I know it will be. My team is now focused on reaching the executives that matter and scaling the program vs. worrying about the logistics.”

“Entertainment is every enterprise’s biggest expense line that is not yet well managed. For that reason, there are financial inefficiencies and a poor experience,” notes Arif Janmohamed, Venture Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners and Co-Founder of Duration Ventures. “Ande is the connective tissue, the perfect handshake between corporations and venues. Lohit is an exceptional founder, and the size of the market opportunity is largely unbounded.”

Redpoint Ventures Managing Director Alex Bard notes, “Particularly when we invest in an early-stage company, our confidence has everything to do with the founder and their ambition. Lohit has both startup DNA and the enterprise experience to solve this problem. His vision for Ande is bold and ambitious.”

About Ande

Ande is the AI-native network for corporate entertainment. Over 60 enterprises, including Cloudflare, Salesforce, and McGraw Hill already book, manage, and measure every experience through Ande, moving more than $400 million a year through a network of 93,000 entertainment providers across 90+ cities. For the vendors on the other side of the transaction, Ande is the dedicated corporate channel that’s never existed. Learn more at ande.ai.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ande-raises-52m-seed-and-series-a-to-launch-the-first-entertainment-operating-system-for-enterprises-302885220.html

SOURCE Ande

Continue Reading

Technology

Ascensus Appoints John Shapiro as Chief Product Officer

Published

on

By

Experienced product leader to help strengthen client-centered innovation and advance the company’s next phase of growth

DRESHER, Pa., Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ascensus, the engine at the center of America’s savings ecosystem, today announced that John Shapiro has joined the company as Chief Product Officer and a member of the executive leadership team. Reporting directly to CEO Nick Good, Shapiro will shape Ascensus’ enterprise-wide product vision and strengthen how the company develops and delivers products, makes decisions, and sets priorities across the business.

As Ascensus continues to enhance the client experience and position the company for its next phase of growth, strong product leadership will play an increasingly important role in helping connect client insights, business priorities, and technology to create more integrated solutions and better outcomes. Shapiro will lead the Product organization and help foster unified, client-focused, and outcome-oriented approaches to product development across the enterprise.

“Ascensus has tremendous momentum, and we’re investing in the capabilities that will help drive our next phase of growth,” said Nick Good, CEO of Ascensus. “Delivering an exceptional client experience is central to that strategy. We want to make it easier for clients and partners to do business with us while creating more connected solutions and better outcomes. John brings a powerful combination of client focus, product leadership, and business acumen, and I’m excited about the impact he will have as we continue to grow and evolve.”

“Ascensus stands out for its clear purpose, talented team, and unique position in the market,” said John Shapiro. “I’m thrilled to join the company at such an important time and help build on its strong foundation by creating solutions and experiences that deliver greater value for clients, partners, and savers.”

Shapiro joins Ascensus from Lightspeed Commerce, where he served as Chief Product Officer. Earlier in his career, he held product leadership roles at Wayfair, Intuit, and Adobe Systems. Throughout his career, he has built and led large-scale product organizations, bringing new ideas to market and helping businesses serving millions of users accelerate growth.

Shapiro earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Stanford University.

About Ascensus
Ascensus is the engine at the center of America’s savings ecosystem. The company makes saving easier by bringing together intuitive technology, AI, and high-touch service to support better financial outcomes for savers, small- to mid-sized businesses, state governments, and leading corporations and financial institutions. Ascensus offers comprehensive qualified and nonqualified retirement plan solutions, third-party retirement plan administration, 529 education and ABLE savings program administration, corporate- and bank-owned life insurance solutions, as well as fiduciary and total rewards services. The company supports over 16 million savers1 and oversees more than $1.3 trillion in assets under administration2 as of August 3, 2026. For more information, visit ascensus.com.

1 Figure includes American Trust Retirement recordkeeping participants
2 Figure includes AmericanTCS AUA

Contact:
Greg Winter, SVP of Communications, Ascensus
gregory.winter@ascensus.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ascensus-appoints-john-shapiro-as-chief-product-officer-302886387.html

SOURCE Ascensus

Continue Reading

Trending