Tag: MENA

Zoom Drives Innovation of Video Communications with New Solutions to Empower the Hybrid Workforce

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 21, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZM) today announced the general availability of its latest innovations, Zoom Apps and Zoom Events. Zoom Apps seamlessly embeds third-party apps within the Zoom Meetings and desktop client experience, enhancing collaboration, productivity, and entertainment for today’s hybrid workforce. Zoom Events is an all-in-one platform for creating a wide range of interactive and immersive virtual events to reach and engage audiences.

“I’m thrilled to see our platform vision expand through Zoom Apps and Zoom Events, as the world embraces hybrid work, empowering the workforce today and into the future,” said Eric S. Yuan, Founder and CEO of Zoom. “These innovations will enhance the ways in which we connect and collaborate with our colleagues, clients, friends, family members, and others, improving productivity and collaboration while maintaining elements of fun and well-being.”

“Zoom Apps and Zoom Events are critical components in broadening Zoom’s offering and reach,” said Roopam Jain, Vice President, Information and Communications Technologies at Frost & Sullivan. “These solutions empower users to accomplish more with video communications and are a testament to Zoom’s focus of enabling customers to create and grow businesses entirely on its platform—whether through applications, integrations, events, or other services.”

Bringing Your Favorite Apps to the Zoom Platform
Zoom Apps expands the offerings of the Zoom App Marketplace, which already hosts over 1,500 third-party integrations. With Zoom Apps, you can boost productivity and stay focused on your workflows by incorporating your favorite apps into your meetings. There are over 50 Zoom Apps available now, ranging from enterprise to consumer use cases—including whiteboarding, project management, note-taking, and video games, with more in development and available soon. A few Zoom Apps currently available include:

• Asana: Host purposeful meetings with the ability to create in-meeting action items and next steps beforehand so your teams are always moving forward with clarity. You can also create, edit, and assign tasks, all without leaving your Zoom meeting.
• Dot Collector: The Dot Collector app allows everyone in a meeting to share their perspective through real-time feedback and polling. Dots are systematically collected, shared and preserved enabling adjustments to be made in the moment and over time. The Dot Collector app fosters more inclusive collaboration, transparency, and meaningful relationships among colleagues, while empowering individuals with insights that help them to unlock their full potential.
• Dropbox Spaces: Get more out of your meetings with the Dropbox Spaces app for Zoom. Keep everyone on the same page by collaborating in real time in a single shared workspace before, during, and after Zoom Meetings.
• Heads Up!: Heads Up! is a fun and hilarious game by Ellen DeGeneres. Heads Up! is the perfect party game to play with your colleagues and friends, and is a fun way to pass time with your coworkers while waiting for meetings to start. The app is developed for Zoom by Ellen Digital and Playco.
• SurveyMonkey Enterprise by Momentive: Drive more engaging and inclusive meetings with in-the-moment feedback from surveys and polls available directly within the Zoom meeting experience. Capture optimal stakeholder insights from customers, employees, patients—any meeting attendees. Take action to increase employee engagement, improve the customer or patient experience, and make remote meetings more productive.
• Wellness That Works by WW: Wellness that Works by WW, a leader in weight loss and wellness, helps users move more, eat better and shift their mindset with push notifications to stand and stretch, along with a hydration tracker, mindset tools, and go-to recipes. Wellness that Works reinforces WW’s credentials in behavior change science by helping users build and maintain healthy habits wherever they are… even in meetings!

Improving the Hybrid and Virtual Event Experiences
Zoom Events gives organizations the power to create engaging hybrid and virtual experiences. Zoom Events enables large and small businesses alike to seamlessly manage and host back-to-back event sessions from sales summits, customer events, trade shows, and internal events. Zoom Events offers features such as event hubs, dedicated corporate virtual event spaces, customizable registration, and networking through a chat-enabled virtual event lobby. Zoom Events also allows event-specific reporting around registration, attendance, and ticket sales. Zoom will be hosting its annual user conference, Zoomtopia, and Zoom Academy, on Zoom Events this year.

OnZoom, the consumer-focused Zoom Events solution, helps brands and small businesses reach a consumer audience by creating, hosting, and monetizing events, including fitness and cooking classes, theatrical presentations, and more. OnZoom will remain in beta and serve as a place where small businesses and entrepreneurs can host and publish events to our public event directory.

More Information

• To learn more about Zoom Apps, please visit the Zoom Apps page and read our blog detailing how Zoom Apps is bringing critical business applications directly within Zoom meetings.
• To learn more about Zoom Events, please visit the Zoom Events page and read our blog detailing how Zoom Events allows the seamless creation and management of virtual events of any size.

About Zoom
Zoom is for you. We help you express ideas, connect to others, and build toward a future limited only by your imagination. Our frictionless communications platform is the only one that started with video as its foundation, and we have set the standard for innovation ever since. That is why we are an intuitive, scalable, and secure choice for individuals, small businesses, and large enterprises alike. Founded in 2011, Zoom is publicly traded (NASDAQ:ZM) and headquartered in San Jose, California. Visit zoom.com and follow @zoom.

Zoom Public Relations
Farshad Hashmatulla
Product PR Manager
press@zoom.us

A better cost-effective option is now available for dietary supplement, functional food, and beverage manufacturers.

Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., July 20, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Blue California joins with the innovative Massachusetts-based biotech company Conagen to announce the commercialization of high-purity, fermentation-derived nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN). A nature-based metabolic component which has caught the attention of health-conscious consumers for supporting energy and longevity.

The quest to age healthily and support longevity is surging among health-conscious consumers. “Consumers are reassessing their dietary regimen to make room for ingredients that can support an increased healthspan,” said Chief Science Officer at Blue California, Dr. Priscilla Samuel.

NMN supplements are highly sought-after for healthy aging applications, including brain health, vitality, heart health, metabolic health, and even cosmetics. However, current NMN ingredients used in products on the market are mostly produced by chemical synthesis.

While consumers are exploring dietary supplements for a holistic approach to health, they are also demanding clean labels from their supplements, and moving away from synthetic ingredients. Blue California’s fermentation-derived NMN opens new opportunities for producers to consider consumers’ health more holistically while acquiring a closer-to-nature position.

NMN serves as a precursor to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), a coenzyme present in all living cells and critical for mitochondrial function.

Increased intracellular levels of NAD+ boost energy production and improve cellular health, but levels decline dramatically with age. Replenishing NAD+ in the body with its precursor NMN has been proposed as a way to possibly combat age-related degeneration and increase healthy lifespan.

“Our fermentation-derived offering is well-positioned to capitalize on the growing recognition of NMN as an important ingredient in the food and supplement spaces,” said Samuel. “NMN is a well-known molecule in the longevity research community, and emerging research also suggests potential applications for immune health as well as sports nutrition.”

Harvard professor David Sinclair, a well-recognized leader in the field of aging research, is an advocate of NMN for improving the health of aging populations.

“NMN is a logical extension to our line of “longevity ingredients” which includes ergothioneine and pyrroloquinoline quinone. All of these molecules are made by our own proprietary fermentation processes, enabling our customers to better serve consumers who might reject chemically-derived ingredients,” said VP of Innovation at Conagen, Dr. Casey Lippmeier. “Because of the way we make it, Conagen’s NMN is of the highest purity and quality.  It is also very cost-effective and compatible with clean-label trends, all of which demonstrates our strength as a strategic partner with Blue California.”

As innovation in dietary supplemental nutrition advances, so does the growth of global vitamin, mineral and supplement (VMS) launches. Mintel reported a growth of 67% of global VMS launches in Apr 2020 – Mar 2021, as compared to Apr 2016 – Mar 2017 — where the United States leads the VMS market.

About Blue California

Blue California is a vertically integrated technology company providing innovative ingredient solutions to global partners. With more than 20 years of innovation success, our ingredients are used in commercial products and applications in the industries of nutrition, personal care, healthy aging and wellness, functional food and beverage, and beauty. www.bluecal-ingredients.com

About Conagen

Conagen is making the impossible possible. Our scientists and engineers use the latest synthetic biology tools to develop high-quality sustainable nature-based products through systems of manufacturing on a molecular level and fermentation basis. We focus on the bioproduction of high-value ingredients for food, nutrition, flavors and fragrances, pharmaceutical, and renewable materials industries. www.conagen.com

Attachment

• Blue California NMN Press release

Ana Arakelian
Blue California ingredients
+1-949-635-1991
ana@bluecal-ingredients.com

NEW YORK, July 19, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Madison Realty Capital, a vertically integrated real estate private equity firm focused on debt and equity investment strategies, today announced it has provided a $105 million loan to Fort Partners for the acquisition and modernization of the Four Seasons Hotel Miami located at 1435 Brickell Avenue in Brickell, Florida.  The loan was originated from Madison’s income strategy that offers transitional loans to institutional sponsors. In 2019, Madison provided a $210 million loan to Fort Partners for its construction of the Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences Fort Lauderdale.

“We are pleased to continue our work with Fort Partners, a best-in-class developer with a strong track record in South Florida, and deliver a timely, customized financing solution for this exciting project,” said Josh Zegen, Managing Principal and Co-Founder of Madison Realty Capital. “Fort Partners, in close collaboration with Four Seasons, have put forth a strong plan that will modernize the property focused on enhancing room configurations, pool deck and lobby, and upgrade the food & beverage options by partnering with renowned chefs and restaurateurs.  Moreover, Brickell is an attractive, established neighborhood in Miami that caters to both tourists and business clients given its proximity to South Beach. We look forward to supporting Fort Partners in the future.”

“This is our second large loan with Madison Realty Capital, and again they executed quickly and delivered certainty of execution. Madison offered a highly competitive rate with a flexible structure that will allow us to effectively implement our renovation and repositioning plan for this strategic asset,” said Michael Conaghan, partner with Fort Partners LLC.

The 221-key hotel is part of a 70-story mixed-use tower that includes class-A office space, residential condominiums, an Equinox health club, retail space and a parking garage.  Millennium Partners developed the property in 2003 and Handel Architects led the design. The acquisition marks the fourth Four Seasons property in Fort Partners’ Florida portfolio alongside hotels located in Surfside, Fort Lauderdale, and Palm Beach.

JLL Managing Director Jim Dockerty, Senior Managing Director, Kevin Davis, and Managing Director, Mark Fisher represented Fort Partners in the deal.

 

About Madison Realty Capital 

Madison Realty Capital is a vertically integrated real estate private equity firm that manages approximately $6 billion in total assets on behalf of an institutional global investor base. Since 2004, Madison Realty Capital has completed more than $15 billion in transactions in the U.S. providing reputable borrowers with flexible and highly customized financing solutions, strong underwriting capabilities, and certainty of execution. Headquartered in New York City, with offices in Los Angeles and Miami, the firm has over 60 employees across all real estate investment, development, and property management disciplines. Madison Realty Capital has been frequently named to the Commercial Observer’s prestigious “Power 100” list of New York City real estate players and is consistently cited as a top construction lender, among other industry recognitions. To learn more, follow us on LinkedIn and visit www.madisonrealtycapital.com.

Nathaniel Garnick/Grace Cartwright
Gasthalter & Co.
(212) 257-4170
madisonrealty@gasthalter.com