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Bacula and Backblaze Form Strategic Agreement for Advanced Backup Ransomware Protection and Single Tier Storage

Bacula Systems

Accelerating its leadership in high performance backup and recovery for large enterprises and managed services providers, Bacula Systems today announced its strategic partnership with Backblaze. This helps organizations with large or complex IT environments seeking protection to use a single backup and high speed recovery platform combined with especially high value and easy cloud hot storage. The partnership further broadens Bacula’s exceptionally wide compatibility with diverse technologies. “Customers of both Backblaze and Bacula Systems are typically from medium or large organizations that are looking for simplicity, single tier storage, ransomware protection, and keeping costs down,” said Elton Carneiro, Senior Director, Partnerships at Backblaze. “This strategic partnership helps both companies to work together to increase security and drive costs down for our customers.” The companies’ combined technologies deliver: Increased simplicity of storage and backup Significantly reduced costs Especially high protection from Ransomware Single tier storage and control Single pane of glass backup and recovery for complex IT departments “ We see most companies looking to make significant improvements to their backup security while driving costs down, and we expect this need to increase into 2023. Backblaze’s hot storage clearly complements Bacula’s high RTO performance, efficient network usage, immutability options, low cost and extreme flexibility ” said Frank Barker, CEO of Bacula Systems. Bacula Enterprise is a highly scalable backup and recovery solution that integrates with an especially wide range of virtual machines, databases, clouds and containers. Users benefit from the expanded range of applications Bacula protects natively within the Cloud. Bacula Systems customers include NASA, Navisite, Texas A&M University, Sky PLC, Warner Bros. Discovery, Locaweb and many more. About Bacula Systems: Bacula Enterprise is a highly secure, scalable backup and recovery software for large organizations, data centers and MSPs. www.baculasystems.com About Backblaze: Backblaze makes it astonishingly easy to store, use, and protect data. The Backblaze Storage Cloud provides a foundation for businesses, developers, IT professionals, and individuals to build applications, host content, manage media, back up and archive data, and more. With over two billion gigabytes of data storage under management, the company currently works with more than 500,000 customers in over 175 countries. Founded in 2007, the company is based in San Mateo, CA. www.backblaze.com Contact Details Rob Morrison rob.morrison@baculasystems.com +41 21 641 60 80 rob.morrison@baculasystems.com Company Website https://www.baculasystems.com/

March 29, 2023 07:42 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Fyle launches real-time expense management Mastercard integration

Fyle

Fyle Inc, the expense management platform, is today announcing the launch of a real-time credit card feed integration for business cards issued on the Mastercard network. With this capability, any Mastercard consumer or small business customer who signs up for Fyle can access real-time transaction feeds from cardholders that enroll and provide their consent, in order to help the customer improve operational efficiencies and get a sharper lens on their financial numbers. Despite digital advances, many smaller businesses are often still managing expenses manually. These businesses may have to wait up to 30 days before they can download card statements to reconcile spending, which delays accounting and reporting cycles. The Fyle integration with Mastercard's card linked services product reduces a substantial burden on both accountants and finance teams, as well as the cardholders themselves. The real-time feeds offers greater insights for budgeting and planning,. Fyle also streamlines processes for enrolled and consented employee cardholders, who can reply to real-time SMS text notifications with an image of their receipts for Fyle to match with the relevant transactions, completely automating reconciliation. “Fyle is democratizing access to businesses’ expense data,” said Yashwanth Madhusudhan, CEO and Co-Founder of Fyle. “This integration with Mastercard will empower small businesses to harness the power of real-time visibility for any card that suits their small business needs. We look forward to working with Mastercard to boost these businesses with productivity and bridge the digital divide for the ecosystem.” About Fyle Fyle has the singular aim of reducing the time spent on business expense management. Nestled within everyday productivity tools like Gmail, Outlook, Slack, MS Teams, text messages, and email forwarding, Fyle provides employees with a unique and simple way of submitting expense receipts on the go. Fyle is also easy to use and significantly increases adoption rates for employees. Fyle's AI-enabled engine instantly codes spend information, assigns it to the right projects & cost centers, and pushes the data to cloud-first ERP and accounting software like NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Online, or Xero. Contact Details Fyle Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com Company Website https://www.fylehq.com/

March 29, 2023 06:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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News Release

Guardforce AI and Blue Pin Smart AI Hotel Solutions taking off in recovering travel industry

Guardforce AI Co Ltd

Guardforce AI chairwoman and CEO Olivia Wang and Blue Pin CEO Dr Gary Leung join Proactive's Natalie Stoberman to share details of their partnership in Smart AI Hotel Solutions which combines Blue Pin HK Limited’s Guest Services Robotics with Guardforce's concierge robots. Guardforce AI is a global security solutions provider, building on its legacy secured logistic business, while expanding and transforming into an integrated AI and Robot-as-a-Service (RaaS) business. Contact Details Proactive Investors +1 347-449-0879 na-editorial@proactiveinvestors.com

March 28, 2023 12:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time

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Payscore Secures Funding to Accelerate Sales, Increase Customer Efficiency

Payscore

Payscore, the PropTech company automating income verification for property managers and consumer lenders, announced the successful close of a financing round led by ff Venture Capital of New York. SeaChange Fund, Hamilton Ventures and Seattle’s Alliance of Angels also joined the round. “Verification of income deserves disruption on both sides of the transaction,” said Mark Fiebig, CEO and co-founder of Payscore. “We’re making it simple for applicants and operators to easily share and accurately assess the truth about income.” The industry’s historic reliance on paystubs to verify income leads to problems. Inaccurate and unfair income assessments are frequently subject to delay, and often leave operators exposed to fraud and liability risk. In response, co-founders Fiebig and Stephen Arifin, CTO, developed a solution that delivers accuracy by design. Arifin says, “Eliminating waste from an old-school process ignites the engineering team every day. We’re delivering efficiencies and accuracy like no one else in the industry.” In fact, Payscore has stripped at least an hour out of time spent processing each candidate and has accelerated a cumbersome process while also minimizing the operators’ liability exposure risk due to fraud. “When verifying income, accuracy is everything,” said Alex Katz, MD Partner at ff Venture Capital and Payscore board member. “By analyzing consumer-permissioned data, Payscore ensures every applicant is evaluated fairly and objectively, even when income is cash-based, like tips, or fluctuates, like commissions.” Facilitating this digital migration for industry, Payscore yields the delivery of accurate income reports at a rate of 2-3X other options. Payscore eliminates a root source of fraud by integrating directly with financial institutions, reporting 100% bank-verified data and eliminating the need to collect and evaluate financial documents, or to guess whether those documents have been falsified. Fiebig noted, “We deliver the truth about income.” The U.S. residential rental market is comprised of roughly 42 million units with an average turnover of 3 years, and multiple applications per vacancy. “Rental demand exceeded supply for the last 10 years, consistently 35 percent of us are renters, and the market for income verification is large, growing, and self-renewing,” said Prashant Kothari, MD of Hamilton Ventures, and the newest investor in Payscore. “The emerging dynamics of the modern workforce, inflation, and interest rate pressures create demand for property managers to reduce costs by automating processes, broadly increasing the value of Payscore’s solution.” Payscore has decades of experience in the property management and software industries. Mark Fiebig succeeded in leadership roles at venture-backed and self-funded technology startups in several sectors including in real estate, and specifically in property management and vehicle dealership operations. Stephen Arifin and his engineering team provide technological leadership, having successfully shipped multiple products inside Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta. Additional members of the team each have over 30 years of directly relevant expertise. This combination, including a customer-driven design and a bootstrapping mentality, makes this the right team to scale Payscore. Payscore established its beachhead delivering property management efficiency and is eager to leverage Hamilton’s strategic real estate network to accelerate growth. About Payscore: Payscore delivers automated income verification reporting to resolve the most common challenges faced by onsite property management teams, credit reporting agencies, and consumer lenders. By automatically connecting to 99% of financial institutions in North America, Payscore generates uniquely valuable insight and eliminates a major source of fraud, delinquency, and eviction; increases accuracy and efficiency; and helps ensure increased compliance and objectively fair income analyses. About ff Venture Capital: ffVC is an international venture capital firm headquartered in NYC with seven funds across the US and Europe. Since 2008, ffVC has been empowering startup founders with seed funding and resources to launch transformative technologies that have improved the lives of millions worldwide. The ffVC model is simple – invest early, stay highly engaged, and focus on revenue growth. Our team works actively with founders to develop products, target markets, and accelerate growth. Learn more at ffvc.com. About Hamilton Ventures: Hamilton Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm investing in proptech and real estate tech startups. Today, real estate and technology are at an inflection point: AI, machine learning, data and analytics, and software-as-a-service are on the verge of wide deployment in real estate. Our definition of real estate is broad – covering residential, commercial, construction, climate technologies, and hospitality. Hamilton’s mission is to help PropTech founders accomplish their goals by leveraging the collective expertise and network of our investors – former real estate CXOs, entrepreneurs, and financiers. Learn more at hamiltonventures.io. About SeaChange Fund: SeaChange invests in early-stage startups in the Pacific Northwest. We provide passionate founders the funding and guidance they need to grow their startups into strong, scalable, & successful companies. Contact Details Payscore Craig Fiebig +1 206-450-3693 craig@payscore.com Company Website https://www.payscore.com/

March 28, 2023 09:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time

A Global Email and Web Hosting Provider Has Been Hacked Multiple Times Now — Tech CEO Alain Ghiai Explains Why This Keeps Happening And How Sekur Private Data Provides An Alternative

Sekur Private Data Ltd

By Faith Ashmore, Benzinga Popular web hosting mogul GoDaddy reported a huge data breach in late 2022. Hackers had stolen source code and installed malware on servers due to a cPanel breach. According to reports, the incidents were part of a multi-year campaign, especially alarming to GoDaddy’s client base. CEO Alain Ghiai of Sekur Private Data Ltd. (OTCQX: SWISF) (CSE: SKUR) (FRA: GDT0) recently spoke to New to The Street to share his thoughts on these data hacks and how Sekur is different. Ghiai shares that GoDaddy operates on open-source technology. For those that are unfamiliar, open-source software is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify and enhance. In other words, the software design is publically accessible. Programmers who have access to a computer program’s source code can change or hack anything they have available. The majority of Big Tech is open source because at the turn of the century when Web 2.0 was expanding, open source allowed developers to share code and create usable solutions to expand technology. These days open source is considered a vulnerability. The multi-year GoDaddy data breach drives this point home. That’s why Ghiai preaches the importance of closed-source software and why his company, Sekur, stands out from the crowd when it comes to privacy and security. Proprietary or closed-source software is the opposite of open source. These networks and programs have a source code that can only be modified by the person, team or organization who created it and maintains exclusive rights to it. Sekur is an example of a proprietary or closed source. Sekur is a US-listed cybersecurity and internet privacy company that provides private and secure communications and data management. It uses military-grade encryption security and combines it with its proprietary encryption and Swiss data privacy laws. Since its wholly-owned servers are hosted in Switzerland, all user data is protected by the Swiss Federal Data Protection Act (FADP) and the Swiss Federal Data Protection Ordinance. The company’s use of some of the strongest privacy protection in the world for individuals and entities makes its Swiss-hosted services attractive. Additionally, it uses its own servers and does not host its software with any Hyperscaler, or big tech hosting companies, and does not sell or lend any of its user’s data, guaranteeing full privacy. Sekur is a closed-loop platform with multiple layers of privacy and security. Its products like SekurMail, SekurMessenger and SekurVPN offer users complete privacy because their code is unavailable for the manipulation that causes hacks. In the 10 years that Sekur has existed, they have had zero ransom instructions from hackers. Sekur has successfully built a brand that prides itself on state-of-the-art technology allowing for secure and private communication. This article was originally published on Benzinga here. Sekur Private Data Ltd. is a Cybersecurity and Internet privacy provider of Swiss hosted solutions for secure communications and secure data management. The Company distributes a suite of secure cloud-based storage, disaster recovery, document management, encrypted e-mails, and secure communication tools. Sekur Private Data Ltd. sells its products through its websites www.sekur.com and www.sekursuite.com, and approved distributors, and telecommunications companies worldwide. Sekur Private Data Ltd. serves consumers, businesses and governments worldwide. This post contains sponsored advertising content. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice. Contact Details Corporate Department corporate@sekurprivatedata.com Company Website https://sekurprivatedata.com

March 28, 2023 09:45 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Video

Orange Tree Employment Screening Accelerates Momentum with Expansion of Senior Leadership Team

Orange Tree Employment Screening

Orange Tree Employment Screening, a technology-driven services company in the background screening industry, today announced that it has expanded its leadership team to include three new senior roles. Justin Jovle will serve as the new Chief Operating Officer (COO), while Bridget George will be the new Vice President of Client Services, and Brooke Boeser will help guide company expansion as the new Vice President of Marketing. The new hires will help the company continue to accelerate its strong growth while delivering unparalleled client service. “Over the past 18 months, Orange Tree has grown significantly, both organically and through acquisition. To continue this growth, it is important to strategically expand our leadership team,” said Renee Ernste, CEO of Orange Tree. “We are not stopping here. We have expansion plans which require expertise to enable the successful integration of the companies we’ve purchased and to support future acquisitions.” In addition to growing via acquisition and new sales, Orange Tree recently released an innovative online buying experience which provides buyers new levels of choice and pricing transparency. Available to all businesses, the online platform is targeted to the midmarket and small business customer who wants help in choosing the best solution with full visibility to pricing previously reserved for only enterprise businesses. “The buyers’ preferences have changed, and we are delivering what today’s customer expects and deserves,” said Jeff Ernste, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. “Customers want to buy solutions tailored to their needs, in a way and at a time that is convenient for them, and with full transparency to the pricing and terms of their program. We are delivering a solution which aligns precisely with their needs. “The strategic decision to bring in tested leadership and launch a game-changing online buying platform means that Orange Tree’s growth momentum is just beginning,” concluded Ernste. About Orange Tree Employment Screening For more than 30 years, Orange Tree has provided technology-enabled background screening, drug testing, and occupational health services that are fast, easy to use, and can be tailored to the unique needs of each employer. Orange Tree streamlines hiring decisions, integrates with HCM and ATS platforms, and empowers employers in Healthcare, Manufacturing, Hospitality, Retail, Staffing, and other major industries to quickly fill open positions while delivering an engaging candidate experience. Learn more at www.orangetreescreening.com. Contact Details Razor Sharp PR Ray Young +1 512-694-6097 ray@razorsharppr.com Company Website https://www.orangetreescreening.com/

March 28, 2023 08:30 AM Central Daylight Time

Even As Retail Trader Participation Grows, The Collapse Of SVB May Highlight The Importance Of Reliable, Real Time Information — Enter Social Investing App Equichat

Equichat

By Ernest Dela Aglanu, Benzinga The recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has sent shock waves through the financial community. The bank, which had been a major player in the venture capital world for over 40 years, was closed by regulators on March 10 after a run on deposits by panicked customers. The bank reported that it needed to raise $2.25 billion, sparking panic among the bank’s investors and customers. When SVB subsequently halted trading on its plummeting stock, there was a mad rush among depositors to withdraw their money. The collapse of the bank, the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history and the largest since the 2008 financial crisis, has seen a swarm of customers shifting their accounts to large banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC). But as the dust settles on this once-mighty institution, many are left wondering what went wrong, especially as Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS) and Signature Bank (NASDAQ: SBNY) have also collapsed. While many had blamed the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hike campaign, others held the view that the SVB failed to manage risk properly. Lessons For Retail Investors? The stock’s rise and fall could hold significant lessons for retail investors that all too many have learned the hard way. It’s easy to understand why the stock was attractive to many. Just a few months before the collapse, global brokerages had overweight and buy ratings on the stock. In February 2023, Forbes magazine had ranked Silicon Valley Bank among America’s best banks. However, SVB’s CFO, CMO and even CEO had all reported the sale of their shares over the past month, and the CEO sold 10% of his holdings in the bank just 10 days before the collapse — possible warning signals that could be investigated and information that investors should keep an eye out for. As such, the collapse of the bank highlighted the need for better and more reliable information sources for retail traders given that one barrier they face is a lack of trust. Traders need to be able to share information and discuss such potential red flags for awareness in real-time. The collapse of SVB also had a ripple effect on the other U.S. regional banks, with some falling more than 40% in a single day. Timely information thus remains crucial for investors to truly protect their portfolios, especially given that by the time some investors found out about the crash in SVB’s price it had already fallen 60%. SVB’s case may serve as a warning to retail investors and other financial organizations that the world changes and changes fast. To remain up to speed and competitive in the years ahead, many are looking to stay active and embrace new technologies like Equichat to be in the know of how stocks or investments are performing and be able to identify risks quickly. The Current Retail Investing Landscape The number of retail investors continues to grow with a new crop of generation investors also popping up. Reports indicate that over 130 million people used stock trading apps in 2021 alone — a 49% increase from 2020 figures. Stock trading apps generated $22.8 billion in revenue in 2021. Retail trading hit an all-time high earlier this year, with retail investors making up an unprecedented 23% of total trading volume between January 25 and February 1. The generally agreed-upon vision is that retail investor participation in the markets will continue to grow, and the World Economic Forum (WEF) is calling for more technology and digital platforms to support the secondary market — where investors buy and sell securities from other investors. In today’s world with its growing retail investor landscape, staying connected in the investing world is often crucial for both retail and institutional investors. By building relationships with a range of players and getting access to the right information, investors can gain insights, build trust, and be better able to navigate market conditions. This could be particularly important for retail investors, who lack the resources and expertise of larger institutional players. However, a lack of trust, education and information present barriers for retail investors. Amid this landscape, Equichat says it has set out to remove barriers for retail investors and help empower them through its social investing platform that gives an avenue for investors to have serious conversations. Bridging The Gap Between Stock Market Chat and Trading Equichat, a new fintech app, is empowering investors by providing a single platform to discover, discuss, and trade stocks in real-time. This new mobile app, available for download in both the Google Play Store and iOS App Store, provides users with a full suite of social investing tools to share trade ideas, follow other investors, and track their favorite stocks. Users can securely connect their existing online broker and place verified trades right from the app for other investors to see. Additionally, users have the ability to create custom watchlists, build their own profiles, and follow like-minded investors and co-shareholders. Equichat’s powerful notification system delivers streaming news as it crosses the wires and alerts users of new trades and important headlines for the stocks they follow. With the ability to chat across more than 10,000 dedicated stock channels, in-app trading capabilities, and a slew of social investing features, Equichat looks to bridge the gap between real-time chat and trading for investors. Equichat is completely free for investors and can be downloaded from the App Store and the Play Store. This article was originally published on Benzinga here. Equichat is a stock messaging app built for the 21st century that allows investors to discover, discuss and trade stocks. Explore over 10,000 dedicated stock channels across all major U.S. stock exchanges. Enjoy real-time discussion, in-app trading, streaming stock quotes and instant news like never before. FULL LIST OF APP FEATURES: - Real-Time Discussion: Chat with like minded investors across 10,000+ dedicated stock channels - Broker Connect: Link up your online broker and trade stocks right from the app; current integrations include ETrade, TDAmeritrade, Robinhood, and Webull- Streaming Newswire: Market moving press releases delivered in real-time as they cross the wires - Follow Feed: Create a custom Follow Feed to track the activity of other investors and traders - Custom Watchlist: Build your custom stock Watchlist and share it with other investors- Direct Messaging: Meet fellow shareholders, discuss new ideas and expand your investor network This post contains sponsored advertising content. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice. Contact Details John Jewells- Director of Communications hello@equities.chat Company Website https://equities.chat/

March 28, 2023 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Avvir announces product enhancements and releases case study with HITT Contracting

Avvir

Avvir, an automated risk analysis company that’s part of Hexagon, today announced key product enhancements across its suite of offerings. These updates will streamline processes and improve customer experience to further Avvir’s mission of automating workflow for construction and contractors. The announcement comes alongside the release of a case study with HITT Contracting, one of the nation’s largest general contractors offering lifecycle construction services. The product enhancements will impact four different areas of the Avvir platform. One of the key product updates will give Avvir users more control over exported information and bulk export deviations to.BCF format based on parameters like scope and defined deviation tolerance. Additionally, the company has enhanced its keyboard shortcuts, allowing users to spend less time clicking buttons and more time analyzing the data. Avvir will also add a feature for better understanding through Dynamic Point Cloud Trimming. This feature was developed at Avvir’s annual hackathon, and will enable a better understanding of worksites by facilitating visual comparison of point clouds to elements and providing precise deviation results. As users move around the scanned spaces, they can remove non-salient point cloud noise. While reviewing deviations in the platform, businesses can multi-select a group of deviations and act on them all at once. “Our focus in Q1 was to enhance and streamline the many capabilities of Avvir,” said Matt Curry, Head of Product at Avvir. “We are so proud of the improvements we’ve made for our users in 2023 and are excited to continue our momentum for changing how the construction industry interacts with the built world.” Avvir and HITT Contracting have released a case study that explores the findings surrounding their collaboration on constructing a four-story, 360,000-square-foot building in Northern Virginia. HITT faced the challenge of meeting accelerated timelines in a job that included many systems and ancillary systems that needed to interact with each other. The company’s use of BIM coordination and laser scanning led them to Avvir. Upon partnering, HITT and Avvir participated in weekly BIM coordination meetings to present findings, including potential future clashes. “If the clashes hadn’t been found, rework would have been required, which means additional labor and material expenses. One of Avvir’s findings alone saved the team approximately $25,000 in future repair spend,” said Russell Intermaggio, Senior Project Manager at HITT Contracting Inc. “Avvir helped HITT put its data to work and capitalize its investment in modeling and reality capture.” Avvir will continue to enhance future clash detection and inspect UI updates. These enhancements will continue to simplify workflows and prevent costly reworks by identifying installation mistakes. These updates will be released in Q2, 2023. To download the Avvir - HITT Contracting case study, please click here. For more information on Avvir, please visit Avvir.io. About Avvir Avvir, part of Hexagon, provides construction teams with control through its automated risk analysis platform, featuring automated schedule tracking, cost and earned value analysis and installation issue detection. Avvir delivers the only hardware agnostic platform that not only provides critical insights but closes the loop by updating the BIM with as-built conditions, allowing customers to focus on solving issues, not finding them. Avvir is based in New York City and has a customer base that spans across North America, Europe and Japan, and includes well-known customers such as AECOM, Related, Columbia and DPR. Learn more at avvir.io. Hexagon (Nasdaq Stockholm: HEXA B) has approximately 23,000 employees in 50 countries and net sales of approximately 4.3bn EUR. Learn more at hexagon.com and follow us @HexagonAB. Contact Details Bianca Facey +1 203-577-7588 avvir@n6a.com Company Website https://www.avvir.io/

March 28, 2023 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Two EVs at Plymouth State University Delivered 1 MWh of Energy with Fermata Energy Bidirectional EV Charging Platform

Fermata Energy

Two Nissan LEAF electric vehicles (EVs) at the Plymouth State University (PSU) provided 1 MWh of energy to the PSU’s ALLWell Center, offsetting some of the building’s electricity needs. EVs are more than sustainable transportation; they are “batteries on wheels” that can send energy stored in their batteries to a building when paired with a bidirectional EV charging platform. The university is able to reduce its electricity bill and support grid resilience by taking part in an innovative utility rate program developed by its local utility New Hampshire Electric Cooperative (NHEC), electrification software provider Bellawatt, and Fermata Energy, the developer of the leading AI-driven bidirectional EV charging platform. The program at PSU is groundbreaking because it brings together EVs, a bidirectional EV charging system, and advance notice on hourly electricity pricing – called a Transactive Energy Rate (TER), enabling the university to easily make decisions about using the Nissan LEAF batteries as mobile energy storage assets. Under the program, PSU sent energy stored in the EVs’ onboard batteries to offset the ALLWell Center’s building load for approximately 90 hours during a 6-month period. One MWh is equivalent to the electricity used by about 330 homes for one hour. Through the NHEC application, TER forecasts electricity pricing one day in advance. Daily alerts about the next day’s hour-by-hour electricity prices are sent by NHEC to Fermata Energy’s AI-powered bidirectional charging platform, which then analyzes those rates, simplifies the information, and advises PSU about times the vehicles can discharge the batteries to maximize value for the university. The university controls whether to discharge by parking the EVs and plugging them into the Fermata Energy bidirectional charger. “Through this program, we better understand how we use electricity and can actively reduce our electricity costs. We could do that with stationary energy storage systems, but EVs are more affordable and are easy to manage,” said Donald Brix, president of Plymouth State University. “NHEC has always been a great partner for us. Fermata Energy's technology puts the EV batteries ‘behind the meter,’ sending electricity to the ALLWell Center to reduce our costs. Anything left over is shared with the grid. Not only did the university save money, but we provided a fantastic learning experience to our students.” The day-ahead electricity pricing enables PSU to buy electricity from the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative at low prices and store that energy in the EV batteries. When the price of electricity is higher, PSU can then discharge the batteries and sell the energy back to NHEC. This is known as electricity arbitrage. The successful outcome of this hourly electricity pricing program creates a pathway for NHEC to compensate its members for power exported from Distributed Energy Resources, such as EV batteries and solar. "V2G is working today. Bidirectional EVs are valuable assets that can help stabilize the grid by dispatching energy stored in batteries - when and where that energy is needed most,” said David Slutzky, founder and CEO of Fermata Energy. "The NHEC program is one of the country’s most innovative rates and works very well with our AI-driven, vehicle-to-grid platform." "We are fortunate to have such great collaborators like Fermata Energy and Plymouth State University (PSU) on this project,” said NHEC Vice President of Power Resources and Access Brian Callnan. “Technology from Fermata Energy allows us to purchase the necessary grid services to serve our members from PSU, who happen to be a member themselves. We’re thrilled to see members serving members with this program.” Callnan continued, “Bidirectional charging and TER allow the university to redefine their electric vehicles as a distributed energy resource (DER) that benefits them and all our members in the electric cooperative." The Nissan LEAF is one of the few EVs currently on the road and able to participate in bidirectional charging. Fermata Energy’s bidirectional charging platform manages the EV’s state of charge, sends alerts to customers, and allows fleet owners to both charge and discharge EV batteries. Until recently, commercial fleet EV operators could only use unidirectional chargers, meaning the power went from the grid to the EV, costing the EV owner money. Unidirectional charging is also an unpredictable electricity demand that utilities need to manage and plan for. Bidirectional charging changes that dynamic. Fermata Energy’s platform can also monitor building load data, helping to manage electricity usage better. The technology is referred to as vehicle-to-everything and includes V2G (vehicle-to-grid), V2B (vehicle-to-building), and V2H (vehicle-to-home) projects. Fermata Energy has V2X bidirectional programs working in several New England utilities, including Green Mountain Power, Eversource, and Rhode Island Energy. These programs have proven effective at offsetting surging customer demand by dispatching power from customer-owned batteries. About Fermata Energy Park it. Plug it. Profit. Fermata Energy’s proprietary vehicle-to-everything (V2X) bidirectional charging platform turns EVs into batteries on wheels, enabling EV fleet owners to earn money from their local utility. With managed bidirectional charging, utilities can add EVs as grid edge resources to increase resilience, easily add them to virtual power plants, and avoid building new peaker plants. V2X includes V2G (vehicle-to-grid), V2B (vehicle-to-building), and V2H (vehicle-to-home) installations. Fermata Energy is a technology-agnostic developer of AI-driven bidirectional charging platforms. Learn more at www.fermataenergy.com and follow us on LinkedIn. About Bellawatt Bellawatt is a software consultancy that specializes in assisting energy industry participants with researching, designing, and building their most innovative ideas. Visit bellawatt.com to learn more. About NHEC NHEC is a nonprofit, member-owned electric distribution cooperative providing energy and energy solutions to members in 86,000 homes and businesses in 118 New Hampshire communities. Visit www.nhec.com to learn more. Contact Details Fermata Energy Daniel Cherrin +1 313-300-0932 dcherrin@northcoaststrategies.com Company Website https://www.fermataenergy.com

March 28, 2023 08:37 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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