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TacnIQ.ai raises US$1.5 million from In Group Holdings to scale tactile AI

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Part of a US$3 million pre-seed round, the funding will accelerate the physical AI start-up’s tactile foundation model, engineering team and commercial deployments across five key industries

SINGAPORE, Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — TacnIQ.ai, a physical AI startup building technology that enables machines and robots to interpret touch, has secured US$1.5 million from lead investor In Group Holdings as part of a US$3 million pre-seed round. The funding will support the development of TacnIQ.ai’s  tactile AI foundation models, expansion of its engineering team, and scaling of commercial deployments.

The TacnIQ.ai platform enables machines to interpret signals generated through physical contact so they can understand and respond more reliably to real-world interactions. TacnIQ.ai has deployed a scalable, commercially validated and field-tested model with paying customers across five key industries: logistics, construction, e-commerce, hospitality, and healthcare. These deployments, which gather signals through sensor-based data collection nodes, deliver real-world value by improving workplace safety and ergonomics, while giving TacnIQ.ai the raw sensor data it needs to build a robust, reliable, and commercially ready foundation model.

“Our mission is to build AI models that deliver real-world impact today and transform how engineers design and develop hardware,” said Aashish Mehta, Co-founder and CEO of TacnIQ.ai. “We are grateful to In Group Holdings for backing that mission. Securing this investment is an important milestone and will enable us to hire talented engineers, build advanced tactile models, and to fully develop the technology into practical, scalable industry applications.”

To date, TacnIQ.ai has built one of the world’s largest tactile datasets with more than 5,000 hours of interactions collected from both controlled experiments and commercial deployments. The company is developing additional sensor nodes to capture a wide range of physical signals, which will broaden the multimodal data available to train its models.

While many tactile AI systems are trained on laboratory data or built for specific applications, TacnIQ.ai uses its proprietary dataset to train its model across different industries, tasks and operating conditions. This enables its model to generalize across industries and physical tasks, perform more reliably in complex environments, and reduce the need for application-specific training.

Liu Song, CEO of In Group Holdings, said: “Physical AI is emerging as one of the next major frontiers in artificial intelligence. TacnIQ.ai is building a critical intelligence layer for the physical world, underpinned by proprietary tactile data and real-world commercial deployments. We believe this combination of data, technology and practical applications strongly differentiates the company, and we are excited to lead this funding round and support the team as it scales.”

TacnIQ.ai is working with Synaptics to close the gap between research and commercially ready tactile applications. Commenting on the investment, Mahesh Srinivasan, Vice President & GM, Touch & Display at Synaptics, said: “We are delighted to partner with the TacnIQ.ai team in unlocking the potential of touch-based AI. For physical AI to move beyond the lab, systems must be able to interpret complex physical signals reliably and in real time. TacnIQ.ai is tackling that challenge by turning tactile intelligence into robust, commercially ready hardware.”

TacnIQ.ai is hiring across AI, software engineering and business development. Interested candidates can explore opportunities to help build the foundation model for physical interaction at https://www.tacniq.ai/careers#open-positions.

About TacnIQ.ai

TacnIQ.ai is a physical AI startup building foundational sensor models for physical interaction, starting with tactile. Backy, its tactile wearable data node, is deployed across logistics, construction, e-commerce, hospitality, and healthcare environments, delivering real-world impact while serving as the company’s testing ground for a robust, reliable tactile model. Additional data nodes are in development to capture physics primitives and support generalization across applications. TacnIQ.ai’s mission is to bridge AI and the physical world by building the foundation model for physical interaction. For more information, visit https://www.tacniq.ai/.

About In Group Holdings

In Group Holdings is a Singapore-based investment firm focused on backing high-growth companies across artificial intelligence, deep technology, healthcare, climate technology, semiconductors, robotics, quantum technologies, and other frontier sectors. The firm partners with visionary founders to accelerate commercialization, scale globally, and create long-term value through strategic capital, active governance, and access to its extensive network of industry partners, customers, and co-investors. For more information, visit https://ingroupholdings.com/

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SOURCE TacnIQ.ai

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Edvance and CWG Bring RealRelay.ai to Singapore, an Agentic AI Platform with Trust Built In

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Hong Kong-listed Edvance (HKEX: 1410) signs a three-year agreement with Singapore’s CWG Innovations, pairing more than 20 years of cybersecurity expertise with a platform that lets organisations build AI agents they can trust

SINGAPORE, Sept. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Singapore is moving quickly on AI. Schools, universities and businesses are starting to use AI agents, software that can plan and act on its own, to teach, analyse and handle everyday work. With that comes a harder question. Can these agents be trusted?

In January 2026, the Infocomm Media Development Authority launched a Model AI Governance Framework for Agentic AI, which flags the risk of agents taking unauthorised or erroneous actions once they have access to sensitive data and systems. The Cyber Security Agency of Singapore has also issued guidance on securing agentic AI. For any organisation putting agents to work, security and governance need to be there from the start.

RealRelay.ai has been designed with this in mind. Edvance International Holdings Limited (HKEX: 1410) (“Edvance”), a Hong Kong-listed cybersecurity group, has signed a three-year strategic cooperation agreement with Singapore-based CWG Innovations Pte. Ltd. (“CWG”) to bring RealRelay.ai, a unified agentic AI platform the two companies are developing together, to market. The agreement was entered into through Paradise Matrix Pte. Ltd., Edvance’s wholly-owned subsidiary in Singapore.

A trust layer at the core

At the heart of RealRelay.ai is a trust layer. A built-in security agent tests each AI agent on the platform and tests it again every time it changes, so organisations can deploy agents with confidence. This is where the two companies meet. The trust layer draws on Edvance’s more than 20 years in cybersecurity, and CWG brings its experience in building and deploying AI across ASEAN.

Around that trust layer, RealRelay.ai gives enterprises and institutions one place to create, govern and deploy AI agents without writing code. More than 300 mainstream AI models sit behind a single interface, each task is matched to an appropriate model, and the platform is designed to run in the cloud, on-premises or fully offline.

What the agreement means for Edvance

Edvance will be responsible for commercialising the platform, drawing on its cybersecurity distribution business and enterprise customer base, with the aim of generating subscription revenue. CWG will operate and manage the platform from Singapore. All intellectual property developed for the platform’s cybersecurity AI agents will belong exclusively to Edvance.

The agreement marks Edvance’s entry into agentic AI and follows through on the strategy it set out earlier this year, to build its own solutions where AI and cybersecurity meet. It is designed to add recurring, subscription-based revenue alongside Edvance’s established business, with the potential to strengthen earnings visibility over time.

Education first, with early results

Education is the first vertical, with planned features including personalised learning and no-code agent building for students and educators. Cybersecurity follows, with tools for security operations centre triage and automated adversary simulation, and fintech has been identified as the next vertical after that.

The platform has already met its first users. At APEX Bootcamp: RealRelay Edition, organised by the Digital Defence Alliance Singapore and co-hosted by CWG on 12 and 13 September 2026, students and young working adults with no technical or AI background built working AI agents in two days. The programme was oversubscribed, and every team delivered a working minimum viable product. Participants said having many models in one place let them focus on the problem, and that security checks ran while they were building.

Edvance’s foray into safe, trusted agentic AI comes at an opportune time for Singapore. The government is investing more than S$1 billion in its National AI Research and Development Plan for 2025 to 2030, and from the 2027 academic year all students entering Singapore’s institutes of higher learning will take compulsory modules covering baseline AI competencies. Edvance and CWG will begin in Singapore and plan to expand across ASEAN.

About Edvance International Holdings Limited

Edvance International Holdings Limited (HKEX: 1410) is a Hong Kong-headquartered value-added distributor of cybersecurity products and provider of cybersecurity services, with more than 20 years of experience in the market. Paradise Matrix Pte. Ltd. is Edvance’s wholly-owned subsidiary in Singapore. For more information, visit https://www.paradisematrix.sg.

About CWG Innovations Pte. Ltd.

CWG Innovations Pte. Ltd. is a Singapore company focused on AI solutions development and enterprise AI deployment across ASEAN. CWG is the operator of RealRelay.ai. For more information, visit https://www.cwgsg.ai.

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SOURCE Edvance International Holdings Limited; CWG Innovations

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Avalara Ushers in New Era of Agentic Tax and Compliance with Avalara Aviator

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Avalara’s new agent hub brings together specialized AI agents to execute complex tax and compliance workflows while keeping people in control of the decisions that matter

PUNE, India, Sept. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Avalara, Inc., the agentic AI leader in global tax and compliance, today unveiled Avalara Aviator at its CRUSH customer and partner conference. The new agent hub for tax and compliance turns days of manual work into minutes of oversight, with an audit-defensible record for every action.

As businesses expand across markets, channels, and business models, tax and compliance requirements are becoming more interconnected, more digital, and increasingly real-time. For years, tax software has automated individual compliance tasks, but much of the work between those tasks has remained manual and siloed. Avalara Aviator is designed to close that gap with intelligent agents that can understand context, coordinate work, monitor variance, and take action. Humans delegate the work while remaining in control of the decisions.

“Our customers need a system they can trust to get real work done,” said Hugo Sarrazin, Chief Executive Officer at Avalara. “Avalara Aviator fulfills that need. It’s built on more than 22 years of closed-loop compliance data, which informs every calculation, every filing, and every report. And that’s what enables us to turn days of manual compliance work into minutes of confident oversight.”

A turning point for compliance

For years, tax software has automated discrete compliance tasks, such as calculating taxes, filing returns, and managing exemption certificates. While that sped up each task, finance professionals have been left bridging the gaps between them, such as having to manage configurations, interpret reports, chase approvals, and understand how to construct business logic to meet their requirements.

Avalara is the first company to bridge these industry-wide deficits by bringing specialized AI agents, tax and compliance workflows, and Avalara’s trusted compliance technology into a connected agent hub. This helps customers move from understanding what needs to happen to getting the work done.

Customers interact with Avalara Aviator in plain language through Avi, its orchestrator AI agent. Avi can orchestrate by reaching out to “lead agents” that oversee key areas like research, certificates, and returns. The agents validate, reconcile, proactively surface insights, and execute compliance work, while keeping people in control of decisions requiring judgment and oversight.

The initial Avalara Aviator experience supports compliance operations, including capabilities that help customers:

Map products to tax codesReport transaction and tax liability dataValidate exemption certificatesAuto-generate tax matricesAnalyze results across multiple applicationsConfigure custom rules

For example, a customer can describe a needed tax rule in plain language. Avi then drafts the rule, simulates its impact on past transactions, and flags any conflicts with other rules. The customer reviews and approves the change before Avi activates the rule.

Avalara Aviator is initially being delivered to existing customers at no additional cost. Over time, Avalara plans to extend agentic capabilities across more of the compliance lifecycle and into the ERP, e-commerce, finance, and collaboration platforms customers already use. The goal is to make Avalara’s trusted tax and compliance platform available wherever work is happening.

Built for trust, accuracy, and control

Generic AI tools can struggle with complex, multi-step workflows that require context, accuracy, and continuity over time. They can’t connect to critical business systems fast enough to be useful, and they aren’t purpose-built for the accuracy that business-critical workflows demand.

In contrast, Avalara Aviator combines agentic AI with the compliance infrastructure Avalara has built for more than 22 years. That includes proprietary data and learnings from the market’s most trusted tax and compliance platform.

The result is an agentic experience designed to go beyond plausible answers and deliver source-backed, explainable, and expert-verified outcomes customers can understand, trust, and defend.

Preya Chandan, Senior Tax Accountant with Singer Equipment Company, Inc., a distributor of foodservice equipment and an Avalara Aviator beta customer, said the technology has changed how she approaches her work.

“As a tax accountant focused on audit readiness, I need tools that go beyond answering questions to help me think about the ones I haven’t asked yet,” Chandan said. “Avalara Aviator does that in one place, explaining taxability in plain language, surfacing considerations I might have missed, and providing trusted research I can rely on for detailed, defensible work.”

Industry analysts say that a combination of usefulness and defensibility is particularly important as AI moves deeper into regulated business processes.

“Agentic AI adoption in finance has moved well beyond exploration, and the question is now about how to broadly scale its use,” said Kevin Permenter, Research Director at IDC. “Finance teams are prioritizing agentic AI because they see it as an important operational capability. Scaling that impact depends on security and compliance, data quality and governance, and reliable outputs. That’s why many finance organizations lean toward agent capabilities that sit directly alongside their core SaaS systems, where existing security controls and financial data models are already established.”

The next era of agentic tax and compliance

Avalara Aviator advances Avalara’s broader vision for agentic tax and compliance: intelligent systems that find and manage risk before it finds you. It’s designed to not only monitor but proactively recommend actions. Upcoming enhancements will include features such as self-healing, in which agents examine changes to your business and recommend fixes to root discrepancies before they can turn into filing liabilities. It will be able to catch anomalies unloading a traditional human review onto an agentic worker.

Avalara Aviator will be generally available following next month’s Avalara CRUSH Europe event.

About Avalara
Avalara is the agentic AI leader in global tax and compliance. For more than two decades, Avalara’s trusted tax content, deep compliance expertise, proprietary data, and technology have helped customers succeed on a global scale. Avalara now pairs that foundation with agentic AI to help businesses execute complex compliance work while keeping people in control. Avalara processes more than 54 billion AvaTax API calls annually and supports millions of businesses worldwide. For more information, visit Avalara.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding Avalara’s product plans, technology capabilities, and expected availability dates. These statements describe Avalara’s intentions as of the date of release and are subject to change without notice.

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Reconova Makes Its Debut at PTE Asia 2026, Accelerating the Global Expansion of Smart Aviation through Embodied Intelligence

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SINGAPORE, Sept. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — From September 23 to 24, Reconova (07656.HK) made its debut at PTE Asia 2026, the inaugural Asian edition of Passenger Terminal Expo, in Singapore. The company showcased a range of embodied AI products and solutions, including its baggage transfer robot and intelligent passenger processing solutions, demonstrating how embodied intelligence can enhance airport operations and productivity. The exhibits attracted strong interest from airport operators, industry experts, and aviation stakeholders from across Asia.

According to ACI data, airports across Asia and the Middle East are entering an unprecedented cycle of infrastructure investment, with approximately US$240 billion expected to be invested over the next decade in new airports, terminal expansion, and modernization. At the same time, demand for technologies such as AI and automation continues to grow.

Reconova has been deeply engaged in smart aviation for nearly a decade, with its solutions now deployed at more than one-third of China’s civil airports. Building on years of technological development and large-scale project delivery experience, the company is systematically adapting its products and solutions to meet the evolving digitalization and automation needs of airports across Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East.

As a provider of productivity-focused commercial robotics, Reconova has developed a full-stack embodied intelligence technology architecture spanning visual perception, cognition, reasoning, and execution. Its technology stack is built on capabilities including vision foundation models, with visual agents serving as a core capability and embodied robots as a strategic extension.

The AntOne baggage transfer robot and related solutions showcased at PTE Asia 2026 demonstrate how this technology strategy is being applied to real-world airport operations.

Reconova’s participation in PTE Asia 2026 marks another important step in its international expansion. Through an asset-light, deep-collaboration model, the company aims to bring its technologies and technical standards to global markets. Its international strategy initially focuses on leading airports in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, establishing reference projects before expanding to other major airports across these regions and further into Europe and the broader Asia-Pacific market.

Reconova’s intelligent passenger processing solution is currently undergoing a proof of concept (PoC) at Tashkent International Airport in Uzbekistan, while the AntOne baggage transfer robot is being introduced to markets including Europe and Japan.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/reconova-makes-its-debut-at-pte-asia-2026-accelerating-the-global-expansion-of-smart-aviation-through-embodied-intelligence-302888580.html

SOURCE Reconova

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