Connect with us

Technology

Aventra Raises $17.5M to Scale Production of Piranha, Delivering Affordable Mass and Precision to U.S. and Allied Operators

Published

on

Strategic funding will expand Piranha manufacturing, accelerate flight testing, and support new long-range strike, one-way attack, and ISR platforms.

HERNDON, Va., Oct. 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Aventra Defense Systems, a defense technology company redefining the economics of long-range precision strike, today announced a $17.5 million strategic fundraise led by Konvoy. Existing investor Lavrock Ventures participated alongside new investment from Booz Allen Ventures, Sands Capital, Langford Industries, and a funding facility from Western Alliance Bank. The round will accelerate production of Piranha, Aventra’s low-cost, balloon-deployed autonomous precision payload system, while expanding the company’s product roadmap with new platform offerings across long-range strike, one-way attack, and ISR markets.

Since its founding in 2025, Aventra has put Piranha, the firm’s inaugural platform, directly into operator hands during the U.S. Army’s Arcane Thunder 26 exercise and an aggressive series of closed evaluations, exercises, and combat tests with additional U.S., allied, and partner military units. The system demonstrated autonomous stratospheric reentry, long-range glide, and precision kinetic and ISR effects delivery under realistic conditions across 400 flights.

“In under a year and with a lean capital investment, we took Piranha from concept to field deployment overseas, secured our first series of delivery contracts, and matured the system into a fully integrated platform. Today’s conflicts and the wars of the future will be won with volume, persistence, and affordability, which is why we’re working so hard to deliver more range and more kinetic effect. By using high-altitude balloons and stratospheric air currents to carry mass downrange without burning fuel, our approach delivers effects at greater distances, from higher altitudes, and at a fraction of the cost of conventional standoff munitions. We are leveraging physics to reshape economics and put cost-effective tools in the hands of the warfighter,” said Michael Weigand, co-founder and CEO of Aventra Defense Systems.

Aventra will use the new capital to advance five priorities:

Scale Piranha manufacturing from field-evaluation quantities into low-rate initial production, expanding capacity at the company’s Herndon production facility.Expand flight test and demonstration campaigns with additional services, combatant commands, and allied partners.Qualify new payload and communications configurations across ISR, electronic warfare, and kinetic mission sets.Grow Aventra’s engineering and production teams with proven aerospace and UAS talent, backed by expanded operations and program support.Kick off development of a new, unannounced platform, extending Aventra’s approach to reshaping the economics of deep strike into new frontiers.

“Affordable mass is ultimately a manufacturing problem. The Pentagon needs low-cost autonomous systems in volumes the traditional industrial base was never built to deliver. Aventra pairs a design that is inherently inexpensive to produce with a team that has already put hardware in operators’ hands at breakneck speed. That combination of resilient supply, scalable production, and proven field performance is exactly what our critical industries thesis is built around,” said Jason Chapman, general partner at Konvoy.

“When we first backed Aventra, Piranha was a concept and a team with a sharp view of the problem. A year later, it has flown in several major Army exercises and is under multiple contracts. We’ve seen what happens when a team brings commercial speed and manufacturing discipline to a munitions category the Pentagon has long overpaid for, and Aventra is on that path. We’re proud to keep backing a team that treats affordability and producibility as design requirements from day one,” said Alex Poulin, partner at Lavrock Ventures.

“Aventra is demonstrating how innovative, cost-effective systems can deliver meaningful results at the speed and scale of today’s missions. The company’s rapid progress in bringing its technology from concept into the hands of warfighters reflects a team with the vision and urgency to turn information into action. We’re proud to support Aventra, whose progress reflects Booz Allen Ventures’ commitment to helping companies turn innovative technologies into real-world capabilities for our nation’s most critical missions,” said Travis Bales, managing director of Booz Allen Ventures.

The announcement comes in a year marked by record investment in alternative defense technologies and a sustained Pentagon focus on affordable mass, following directives to rapidly scale domestic production of low-cost autonomous systems and close the gap with the manufacturing capacity of near-peer adversaries. Aventra’s mission fits squarely inside this mandate: giving American and allied operators the volume of precision fires that modern conflict demands, at a cost that makes sustained employment possible.

About Aventra

Founded by multi-time venture-backed founders and former Army officers Michael Weigand, Brian Retherford, and Jessup Meng, Aventra Defense Systems is a defense technology company building autonomous stratospheric and ultra-long-range ISR and precision effects platforms. The company’s Piranha platform is an autonomous precision payload system designed for rapid fielding and employment across ISR, electronic warfare, and kinetic mission sets from stratospheric altitudes. Aventra works directly with operators and evaluators to ensure its systems are shaped by the realities of the field.

About Konvoy Ventures

Konvoy is a thesis-driven investment firm, investing in the deep tech and critical technologies. Based in Denver, Konvoy has a portfolio of more than 60 investments. The firm is actively making new investments out of its $150 million Fund III.

Media Contact
Aventra Defense Systems
press@aventra.io 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aventra-raises-17-5m-to-scale-production-of-piranha-delivering-affordable-mass-and-precision-to-us-and-allied-operators-302899968.html

SOURCE Aventra Defense Systems Inc.

Continue Reading

Technology

HelloNation Article Featuring Eye Care Experts, Dr. R. Krishna Sanka and Dr. Singh, Examines Whether Reducing Glaucoma Eye Drops Can Improve Quality of Life

Published

on

By

The article explains how newer glaucoma treatment options may help simplify long-term glaucoma care for some patients.

KENOSHA, Wis., Oct. 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Can reducing the frequency of glaucoma eye drops improve comfort and consistency for patients managing vision loss over time? HelloNation has published an article that explores how newer glaucoma treatment approaches may help reduce medication dependence while supporting healthy eye pressure control.

The article features insights from Dr. R. Krishna Sanka, Vice President of Amazing Eye Centers of Racine and Kenosha in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The HelloNation article explains that glaucoma treatment often begins with prescription medications designed to lower eye pressure and protect the optic nerve from further damage. While glaucoma eye drops remain effective for many patients, long-term daily use can become difficult for some individuals.

The article notes that some patients experience irritation, redness, burning, or dry eyes from prolonged use of glaucoma eye drops. These symptoms may interfere with comfort during daily activities and make it difficult to maintain treatment consistency. In some cases, patients may struggle to remember multiple doses or maintain refill schedules, especially when balancing other health conditions and medications.

According to the article, advances in glaucoma treatment are creating additional options for patients seeking more manageable care plans. Newer procedures, including selective laser trabeculoplasty and minimally invasive glaucoma surgery, may help reduce reliance on daily medications while continuing to manage eye pressure effectively. The article explains that these treatments are helping ophthalmologists address glaucoma management earlier in the disease process.

The HelloNation article describes selective laser trabeculoplasty as an in-office laser procedure that improves fluid drainage in the eye. By improving drainage, the treatment may help lower eye pressure and reduce the need for multiple glaucoma eye drops. The article explains that many patients appreciate having an option that may delay the need for additional medications.

The article also discusses minimally invasive glaucoma surgery as another approach for certain patients with mild to moderate glaucoma. Minimally invasive glaucoma surgery uses small surgical devices to improve fluid flow within the eye while minimizing disruption to surrounding tissue. In some situations, minimally invasive glaucoma surgery may be performed during cataract surgery, creating an opportunity to address both conditions at the same time.

The article emphasizes that reducing dependence on glaucoma eye drops may improve the quality of life for some patients. Fewer medications may simplify routines, reduce irritation, and make long-term glaucoma management easier. The article notes that older adults, in particular, may benefit from treatment plans that reduce daily maintenance and support more reliable care.

The HelloNation article also explains that glaucoma eye drops remain an important part of glaucoma treatment for many individuals. Although these medications are generally considered safe, some preservatives found in certain formulas may contribute to chronic eye surface irritation after years of use. This concern is one reason specialists continue to explore treatment strategies that support effective control of intraocular pressure with fewer medications when appropriate.

The article highlights the importance of individualized long-term glaucoma care. Treatment decisions depend on several factors, including the type and severity of glaucoma, overall eye health, and how well medications are tolerated. Some patients continue to use glaucoma eye drops successfully for many years, while others may benefit from combining medications with selective laser trabeculoplasty or minimally invasive glaucoma surgery earlier in their care.

The article concludes that ongoing advances in Kenosha eye care are giving patients more flexibility in glaucoma management. Through regular monitoring and personalized treatment planning, patients now have additional ways to preserve vision, maintain comfort, and support consistent long-term glaucoma care.

“Can Reducing Eye Drop Use Improve the Quality of Life for Glaucoma Patients in Kenosha” features insights from Dr. R. Krishna Sanka and Dr. Singh, Eye Care Experts of Kenosha, Wisconsin, on HelloNation.

About HelloNation

HelloNation is America’s Good News Network, a premier media platform built on the idea that good news travels faster when real people tell real stories. Through its community-focused publications and innovative “edvertising” approach, HelloNation delivers content that informs, inspires, and spotlights the leaders making a meaningful impact in their communities.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hellonation-article-featuring-eye-care-experts-dr-r-krishna-sanka-and-dr-singh-examines-whether-reducing-glaucoma-eye-drops-can-improve-quality-of-life-302841403.html

SOURCE HelloNation

Continue Reading

Technology

HAEVN Launches Goose, Bringing Real-Time Compatibility Checking to Singles Events

Published

on

By

As singles move from dating apps toward in-person experiences, Goose lets event guests privately check their compatibility with someone who catches their attention, without taking chemistry out of the equation.

TAMPA, Fla., Oct. 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Singles events are good at answering one of dating’s most immediate questions: Am I attracted to this person? They aren’t designed to answer the question that usually takes much longer: Are we actually compatible?

HAEVN wants to put both answers in the same room.

The Tampa-based matching company has launched Goose, a real-time compatibility tool built for singles event producers. Goose allows guests at mixers, speed-dating events and other in-person singles experiences to privately check their compatibility with someone who has caught their attention.

The idea is deliberately simple: See someone you like. See their number. Check your compatibility. Decide whether to say hello.

“We built Goose to support chemistry, not replace it,” said Rik Foote, founder of HAEVN. “Being in the same room lets you see attraction, presence and energy in a way technology never can. Goose gives you a head start on the part you can’t see: whether the two of you actually want compatible things from a relationship.”

A wingman for intentional dating

Goose takes its name from Maverick’s wingman in Top Gun. HAEVN describes the product as an intentional dating wingman, designed to give singles useful information at the moment they are deciding whether to pursue a connection.

Guests at a Goose-enabled event complete HAEVN’s approximately 15-minute relationship survey before the event. HAEVN uses those responses to evaluate factors including relationship intent and expectations, preferred relationship structure, communication, lifestyle compatibility and other areas that can affect how well two people align.

At the event, participating guests wear numbered badges.

When someone catches a guest’s attention, the guest opens Goose on their phone, verifies their identity using the email address associated with their HAEVN survey and enters the other person’s badge number.

Goose privately returns a compatibility percentage and one of three results: Recommended, Worth Exploring or Not Recommended.

The result includes short explanations covering relationship intent, overall compatibility and what the result may mean for the potential connection. An 84% Recommended result, for example, might indicate that the two people have closely aligned relationship intentions along with compatible communication preferences and expectations around time together and independence.

Goose does not tell someone whether attraction or chemistry exists.

That part, HAEVN says, belongs to the people in the room.

“A compatibility score isn’t a prediction that two people will fall in love,” Foote said. “It’s a way of asking a much narrower and more useful question: based on what these two people have told us matters to them, does it make sense to invest the time and energy to get to know each other?”

HAEVN began making matches in July and has generated approximately 2,000 Matches and Recommendations to date. The company says it is continuing to collect feedback and does not claim that its compatibility percentages predict relationship outcomes.

Technology designed to get out of the way

Goose arrives as two dating trends increasingly intersect: fatigue with traditional dating apps and growing interest in more intentional, face-to-face ways of meeting people.

HAEVN believes those trends don’t require abandoning technology. They require changing its role.

“The problem isn’t technology. It’s what we’ve asked technology to do,” Foote said. “Goose isn’t designed to keep you looking at your phone. It’s designed to help you decide whether it’s worth putting the phone down and saying hello.”

That distinction shaped the product.

Goose does not display a digital catalog of people attending an event or rank the room by compatibility. Guests first notice someone in real life and decide they are interested. Only then can they enter that person’s badge number and privately see their compatibility.

The person being checked is not notified, searches are private, and Goose does not reveal either participant’s individual survey responses or personally identifiable information in the compatibility result.

“We don’t want technology choosing who you’re attracted to,” Foote said. “Chemistry gets the first vote. Goose simply gives you more information about what might be underneath it.”

Built for the people already creating the rooms

HAEVN originally considered producing its own singles events before deciding there was little reason to compete with the growing number of producers already doing it well.

Instead, the company built Goose as infrastructure those producers can add to their own experiences.

“We’re not in the event business. We’re in the human connection business,” Foote said. “Event producers are already creating great reasons for singles to get into the same room. Goose gives them infrastructure that can help the people in that room make more intentional connections.”

Goose is offered to event producers for $10 per Goose-enabled guest. Producers control their own ticket pricing and can absorb the cost, pass it through to guests or incorporate Goose into a higher-priced event experience.

HAEVN is initially focusing on independent singles-event producers, speed-dating operators, bars and venues that host singles nights, and producers of other social experiences who want to add singles-focused events.

The company expects eventually to work with larger regional and national event organizations.

Goose became generally available nationwide on Oct. 1. HAEVN has begun onboarding its first event producer, with the first Goose-enabled events expected in November.

The event ends. The introductions don’t.

Goose also gives participating event producers something unusual: a way for the value of a single event to continue after everyone goes home.

Guests who complete the HAEVN survey become part of the HAEVN matching network and can continue receiving compatible introductions through Match Monday, HAEVN’s weekly matching program.

Each Monday, HAEVN searches for highly compatible people who meet a member’s criteria and geographic preferences. Members can review detailed compatibility information about those introductions at no charge. Members who want to see identities, photos and communicate with a potential match can upgrade to HAEVN+.

There is no additional charge to continue receiving Match Monday introductions.

“Give your guests more than one night to find the right person,” Foote said. “The event creates the opportunity to meet someone face-to-face. Goose helps you understand the people who catch your attention while you’re there. And if your person isn’t in that room that night, Match Monday keeps working for you afterward.”

For event producers, that creates an experience that can extend well beyond the ticketed event while allowing the producer to retain control of the event itself.

Their event. Their brand. Their audience. Their pricing. HAEVN provides the infrastructure.

A different model for modern matchmaking

HAEVN describes itself as a city-by-city matching network positioned between traditional dating apps and professional matchmaking.

Rather than asking members to continually browse or swipe through profiles, HAEVN uses its compatibility system to search the network on their behalf and surface highly aligned potential connections.

The company currently has members in Austin, Texas; Portland, Oregon; and Tampa, Florida, with several thousand people having joined the network since its Austin launch in July.

Goose, however, is not geographically limited to HAEVN’s existing markets and is available to event producers nationwide.

Foote, a former Fortune 500 technology executive, founded HAEVN nearly two decades after meeting his wife online, before swiping became the dominant model for digital dating.

“I’ve spent most of my career using technology to solve complicated problems, but this one is personal,” Foote said. “Human connection is one of the most important things in our lives. If we can use technology to make finding the right connection a little less exhausting and a little more intentional, that’s worth building.”

About HAEVN

HAEVN is a city-by-city matching network built around compatibility, intentionality and human connection. Positioned between traditional dating apps and traditional matchmaking, HAEVN combines technology-enabled scale with a compatibility-first approach designed to help people find more aligned potential partners without the swipe-based experience.

HAEVN is based in Tampa, Florida.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/haevn-launches-goose-bringing-real-time-compatibility-checking-to-singles-events-302900129.html

SOURCE HAEVN

Continue Reading

Technology

d-Matrix Recognized on Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech List

Published

on

By

d-Matrix’s Corsair Inference Platform, Now Shipping to Priority Customers, Named Foundational AI Technology on Annual List Honoring Groundbreaking Technologies

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — d-Matrix, a leader in AI inference compute, today announced its Corsair™ AI data center platform has been named to Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech, an annual list recognizing breakthrough technologies with the potential to transform industries and shape the future.

Shipping to priority customers now, d-Matrix Corsair is recognized within the list’s Foundational AI category for its memory-centric design that brings compute directly into memory — a breakthrough innovation that eliminates critical data-movement bottlenecks and enables faster, more energy-efficient AI at scale.

“The speed and overall cost of running AI is tied directly to how efficiently data moves between memory and compute,” said Sid Sheth, Founder and CEO of d-Matrix. “From day one we designed Corsair to solve this data movement bottleneck, knowing that memory-centric compute would be the answer. Recognition from Fast Company is a meaningful milestone for our team, coming at the same time customers are beginning to deploy Corsair at scale to make faster, more sustainable inference a reality.”

Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech recognizes innovative technologies developed by established companies, startups, and research teams that are making meaningful progress toward transforming the lives of consumers, businesses, and society. This year’s honorees span industries, with each innovation demonstrating the potential to create significant impact in the years ahead.

“The most exciting technology innovations are the ones that move beyond promise to demonstrate real potential for impact,” said Brendan Vaughan, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. “The companies and teams recognized on this year’s list are tackling ambitious problems with new ideas, products, and approaches that have the potential to fundamentally shape the years ahead.”

For more information or to view the complete Fast Company 2026 Next Big Things in Tech list, visit here.

About d-Matrix
d-Matrix is a leader in AI inference compute, delivering memory-centric compute chips, software and rack-scale systems for data centers, making AI faster, more energy efficient, and more accessible.

By bringing compute directly into memory, d-Matrix overcomes the cost, latency, and power limitations of traditional architectures — working independently or in partnership with GPUs and other compute platforms. Its multi-generation roadmap, from planar to 3D memory-compute substrates and rack-scale systems, is built to help hyperscalers, frontier labs, and AI clouds deploy advanced AI experiences at global scale.

As demand for inference accelerates, d-Matrix is charting the path to infinite inference with no latency. For more information, visit www.d-matrix.ai.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/d-matrix-recognized-on-fast-companys-next-big-things-in-tech-list-302900135.html

SOURCE d-Matrix

Continue Reading

Trending