Play Social Inc., the creator of the Play Playground social game experience with locations in Las Vegas and Nashville, announces the appointment of Phil Royle as its new chief executive officer, beginning Monday, Jan. 5, 2026. A veteran of Merlin Entertainments with more than 25 years of international attractions development experience, Royle will lead Play Social Inc.’s evolution as the company positions Play Playground for expansion into additional U.S. and global markets.

Lumen Bioscience—a clinical-stage biotech developing orally delivered biologics—today announced key leadership enhancements and the completion of its $30 million Series C financing led by WestRiver Group with participation by The Gates Foundation, Matt Horner, Executive Vice President of Global Enterprise at World Wide Technology, Jim Kavanaugh, Chief Executive Officer of World Wide Technology, Adebayo Ogunlesi, Five Raynham LLC, Jeff Raikes, former President of Microsoft Business Division and former Chief Executive Officer of the Gates Foundation, David Siegel, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Two Sigma, and Jerry Yang, Founder of Yahoo.

From space robots to AI storytelling, the latest edition of GeekWire’s startup radar features a diverse mix of early stage tech companies out of Seattle. 

We’re excited to include Anthony Bontrager, managing director at WestRiver Group, who provided his quick assessments — the “VC View” — on each startup.

As well as producing our own predictions for the year ahead, each year Sports Loft turns to the industry's leading investors and venture capitalists and ask for their insights, predictions and expectations for sports, media, and technology in the coming year.

Hyzon Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: HYZN), a high-power hydrogen fuel cell technology developer and global supplier of zero-emission heavy-duty fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), today announced its Board of Directors elected Erik Anderson as Chairman of the Board of Directors, effective August 24, 2023. Anderson replaces George Gu, who resigned his position. The Board also elected Andrea Farace as Vice Chairman of Hyzon's Board.

Seattle-area health tech startup Viome Life Sciences, which sells at-home kits that analyze the microbial composition of stool samples and provides food recommendations, as well as supplements and probiotics, closed a $86.5 million Series C round and announced a deal with CVS to sell its gut microbiome test in 200 CVS locations across the U.S.

One year after Tagboard, a next-generation cloud graphics platform, announced Its Series A funding, the fast-rising technology company is announcing an additional $4 million in funding from strategic investors to help fuel growth and innovation in cloud production.

Groopit, an enterprise SaaS platform that makes it easy to crowdsource insights from employees and use that data to solve complex problems.