Bitvore Corp., an Irvine-based artificial intelligence software maker for financial institutions, brought on Elizabeth Pritchard as chief executive.
Pritchard succeeds Jeff Drake, who served in the role for four years, and will remain president of the company.
Pritchard most recently provided advisory services to alternative data and data infrastructure providers through White Rock Data Solutions. She was previously global head of market data at Goldman Sachs and chief operating officer of AIG. She also co-founded and led market strategy at Crux Informatics, a data delivery company whose investors include Goldman Sachs, Two Sigma and Citi.
“The market opportunity to provide today’s business leaders with valuable insights from unstructured data is huge,” Pitchard said in a statement.
“Bitvore’s track record of landing top tier financial institutions as customers throughout the last year, despite challenging business conditions, is a clear validation of its powerful value proposition.”
Bitvore uses data and artificial intelligence to gather insights about business decisions, providing clients with the ability to identify emerging risk and opportunity, according to the company’s website.
Nirveda Cognition Inc. of Costa Mesa announced Justice Halim Dhanidina (Ret.) has joined the company’s advisory board to help guide its LegalTech product.
“The new LegalTech product will be a strategic focus for Nirveda Cognition in the coming years, as it is being envisioned to cater to the growing demand for comprehensive digital transformative solutions with agility and scale in the legal industry vertical,” Saurabh Ranjan, chairman and CEO of Nirveda Cognition, and CEO of CerraCap Ventures, said in a statement.
“I am confident that [Halim’s] lifetime of experience, leadership and deep understanding of this sector will help us provide innovative & impactful offerings to the legal sector.”
Founded in 2017, Nirveda built an enterprise document intelligence platform that enables organizations to make data-driven decisions, faster and smarter.
It evolved into a deep-tech company orchestrating artificial intelligence products to reimagine, automate and enhance the document-intensive business processes with a conscious focus on human-centered-user-experience powered by Cognitive Automation.
Clients include the Moulton Niguel Water District, which serves over 170,000 customers in south OC.
Patient-focused financing company PatientFi LLC of Irvine recently added Gerry Cuddy to its board of directors.
Cuddy was the CEO of Beneficial Bank from 2007 through 2019. During his tenure, Cuddy led Beneficial through its initial public offering ahead of its acquisition by WSFS Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: WSFS) in 2019. Prior to joining Beneficial Bank, he held senior lending positions at Commerce Bank, Bank of America, and Citicorp.
PatientFi, founded in 2017, offers 0% APR promotional financing plans ranging from 6 to 24 months.
It recently launched a co-marketing partnership with Allergan Aesthetics to provide financing options to patients interested in Natrelle breast implants.
FINANCING
Syxsense Inc., an IT and security management software maker, raised $6 million in a round of financing.
The round for the Aliso Viejo-based company was led by Oquirrth Ventures and Origami Capital Partners.
The company’s offering allows customers to reduce infrastructure management costs by combining IT operations management, patch management (patches used to correct errors in software) and security vulnerability management into a single cloud-based tool, according to its website.
“Customers realize that patch management is only part of good security management. Companies require a complete picture of their security exposure but most importantly an ability to remediate that exposure,” Chief Executive Ashley Leonard said.
“We have seen rapid growth in our enterprise customer base as these companies further embrace the cloud and replace legacy technologies.”
Leonard previously led Newport Beach-based NetworkD Corp., an IT management consulting company, which grew to more than 6,000 customers ahead of its acquisition by Sparxent in 2008.
The company offers a 14-day free trial followed by subscription plans and primarily caters to the middle market. Syxsense customers include Best Western Hotels & Resorts, hardware maker Netgear, Wiley publishing company, CCS Medical and law enforcement agencies and school districts, among others.
LAUNCH
Cicero Diagnostics Inc. has introduced a diagnostic test for women struggling to get or stay pregnant to 80% of fertility clinics and 700 reproductive endocrinologists in the U.S.
The Huntington Beach-based company’s ReceptivaDx test looks for two biomarkers that are highly associated with endometriosis, which is a condition linked to unexplained infertility.
The recent milestone is one of several for the company, which saw sample volume increase 250% year-over-year due to “pent-up demand” from patients and “greater education” among the physician community, Chief Executive Chris Jackson said.
Social media and online support groups have served as a “great equalizer,” allowing Cicero as a small company to exceed annual growth projections of 40%, he added.
Cicero, started in 2017, is currently validating a new biomarker for endometriosis and evaluating better sample methods, such as saliva collection rather than a biopsy procedure. It expects to announce results by year’s end.
Denteractive Solutions Inc. of Newport Beach this month unveiled marketing and practice management tools to help dentists attract more patients.
The teledentistry firm said its new widgets, banners, and a patient triage tool can be added directly to dental business websites to increase customer engagement and education and automate virtual appointments.
As part of its push to connect with more businesses, Denteractive also rolled out a free version of its platform for dentists that includes unlimited messaging, file sharing and up to six video sessions per month.
The company, founded in 2014, generates revenue via a $100 per month per dentist subscription plan that includes unlimited video sessions, personalized onboarding and virtual training.
Denteractive has seen an uptick in interest in the last year, and has more than doubled its funding to about $1.3 million, according to regulatory filings.
