Latest news with #Canvas
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Franklin Templeton Adds Managed Options Strategies to its Custom Indexing Platform, Canvas
Further strengthens Canvas as a leading platform for personalized and tax-managed investment solutions SAN MATEO, Calif., July 21, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Franklin Resources, Inc. [NYSE:BEN], a global investment management organization operating as Franklin Templeton, today announced the addition of managed options strategies to its custom indexing platform, Canvas. This latest enhancement will provide financial advisors a single account solution to implement options programs that add risk-management guardrails, target income generation, and/or diversify away from concentrated stock risk. The new strategies will be managed by the Franklin Managed Options Strategies Team (MOST), pioneers in the "risk-managed" options business with over 30 years of options investing experience. "The introduction of managed options strategies on Canvas reflects Franklin Templeton's continued commitment to bringing innovative, customized investment and practice management solutions to financial advisors," said Roger Paradiso, Head of Franklin Templeton Custom Client Solutions. "This development enhances advisors' ability to build custom, tax-managed SMAs that address specific client needs, and reinforces Franklin Templeton's continued leadership in the fast-growing SMA industry, bolstered by the rapid expansion of direct and custom indexing." Drawing on the fundamentals of direct indexing, Canvas is an end-to-end multi-asset investment platform for advisors to easily automate tax management, simplify portfolio transitions, and personalize and manage accounts at scale. Over the past year its asset allocation choices have significantly expanded to include fundamental active equity strategies, municipal bonds, and active fixed income strategies, building on its core passive, factor, and custom indexing capabilities. "We are excited about the added benefits options bring to custom indexing," said Jon Orseck, Co-CIO of Franklin MOST. "Beyond their complementary benefits from an investment perspective, both managed options and custom indexing aim to provide investors greater control and transparency. By unifying them within a single account on Canvas, advisors gain enhanced tax and operational efficiency that ultimately can help to deliver a better client experience." Franklin Templeton is a leading provider in the SMA industry, with approximately $155 billion in SMA assets under management as of June 30, 2025, strengthened by the year-over-year growth of its Canvas platform, which accounts for $13.8 billion. About Franklin Templeton Franklin Resources, Inc. [NYSE: BEN] is a global investment management organization with subsidiaries operating as Franklin Templeton and serving clients in over 150 countries. Franklin Templeton's mission is to help clients achieve better outcomes through investment management expertise, wealth management and technology solutions. Through its specialist investment managers, the company offers specialization on a global scale, bringing extensive capabilities in fixed income, equity, alternatives, and multi-asset solutions. With more than 1,500 investment professionals, and offices in major financial markets around the world, the California-based company has over 75 years of investment experience and $1.6 trillion in assets under management as of June 30, 2025. For more information, please visit and follow us on LinkedIn, X and Facebook. Copyright © 2025. Franklin Templeton. All rights reserved. O'Shaughnessy Asset Management, LLC and Franklin Managed Options Strategies, LLC are Franklin Templeton affiliated companies. WHAT ARE THE RISKS? All investments involve risks, including possible loss of principal. Tax management practices may impact performance, portfolio characteristics and holdings; and may not result in favorable outcomes. IMPORTANT INFORMATION CANVAS® is an interactive web-based investment tool developed by O'Shaughnessy Asset Management, L.L.C. ("OSAM") that permits an investment professional to select a desired investment strategy for the professional's client. At all times, the investment professional, and not OSAM, is responsible for determining the initial and ongoing suitability of any investment strategy for the investment professional's underlying client. The professional's client shall not rely on OSAM for any such initial or subsequent review or determination. Rather, to the contrary, at all times the professional shall remain exclusively responsible for same. Franklin Templeton, its affiliates, and its employees are not in the business of providing tax or legal advice to taxpayers. These materials and any tax-related statements are not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used or relied upon, by any such taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding tax penalties or complying with any applicable tax laws or regulations. Tax related statements, if any, may have been written in connection with the "promotion or marketing" of the transaction(s) or matter(s) addressed by these materials, to the extent allowed by applicable law. Any such taxpayer should seek advice based on the taxpayer's particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor. View source version on Contacts Franklin Templeton Corporate Communications:Rebecca Radosevich, (212) 632-3207,
Business Wire
a day ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Franklin Templeton Adds Managed Options Strategies to its Custom Indexing Platform, Canvas
SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Franklin Resources, Inc. [NYSE:BEN], a global investment management organization operating as Franklin Templeton, today announced the addition of managed options strategies to its custom indexing platform, Canvas. This latest enhancement will provide financial advisors a single account solution to implement options programs that add risk-management guardrails, target income generation, and/or diversify away from concentrated stock risk. The new strategies will be managed by the Franklin Managed Options Strategies Team (MOST), pioneers in the 'risk-managed' options business with over 30 years of options investing experience. 'The introduction of managed options strategies on Canvas reflects Franklin Templeton's continued commitment to bringing innovative, customized investment and practice management solutions to financial advisors,' said Roger Paradiso, Head of Franklin Templeton Custom Client Solutions. 'This development enhances advisors' ability to build custom, tax-managed SMAs that address specific client needs, and reinforces Franklin Templeton's continued leadership in the fast-growing SMA industry, bolstered by the rapid expansion of direct and custom indexing.' Drawing on the fundamentals of direct indexing, Canvas is an end-to-end multi-asset investment platform for advisors to easily automate tax management, simplify portfolio transitions, and personalize and manage accounts at scale. Over the past year its asset allocation choices have significantly expanded to include fundamental active equity strategies, municipal bonds, and active fixed income strategies, building on its core passive, factor, and custom indexing capabilities. 'We are excited about the added benefits options bring to custom indexing,' said Jon Orseck, Co-CIO of Franklin MOST. 'Beyond their complementary benefits from an investment perspective, both managed options and custom indexing aim to provide investors greater control and transparency. By unifying them within a single account on Canvas, advisors gain enhanced tax and operational efficiency that ultimately can help to deliver a better client experience.' Franklin Templeton is a leading provider in the SMA industry, with approximately $155 billion in SMA assets under management as of June 30, 2025, strengthened by the year-over-year growth of its Canvas platform, which accounts for $13.8 billion. About Franklin Templeton Franklin Resources, Inc. [NYSE: BEN] is a global investment management organization with subsidiaries operating as Franklin Templeton and serving clients in over 150 countries. Franklin Templeton's mission is to help clients achieve better outcomes through investment management expertise, wealth management and technology solutions. Through its specialist investment managers, the company offers specialization on a global scale, bringing extensive capabilities in fixed income, equity, alternatives, and multi-asset solutions. With more than 1,500 investment professionals, and offices in major financial markets around the world, the California-based company has over 75 years of investment experience and $1.6 trillion in assets under management as of June 30, 2025. For more information, please visit and follow us on LinkedIn, X and Facebook. Copyright © 2025. Franklin Templeton. All rights reserved. O'Shaughnessy Asset Management, LLC and Franklin Managed Options Strategies, LLC are Franklin Templeton affiliated companies. WHAT ARE THE RISKS? All investments involve risks, including possible loss of principal. Tax management practices may impact performance, portfolio characteristics and holdings; and may not result in favorable outcomes. IMPORTANT INFORMATION CANVAS® is an interactive web-based investment tool developed by O'Shaughnessy Asset Management, L.L.C. ('OSAM') that permits an investment professional to select a desired investment strategy for the professional's client. At all times, the investment professional, and not OSAM, is responsible for determining the initial and ongoing suitability of any investment strategy for the investment professional's underlying client. The professional's client shall not rely on OSAM for any such initial or subsequent review or determination. Rather, to the contrary, at all times the professional shall remain exclusively responsible for same. Franklin Templeton, its affiliates, and its employees are not in the business of providing tax or legal advice to taxpayers. These materials and any tax-related statements are not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used or relied upon, by any such taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding tax penalties or complying with any applicable tax laws or regulations. Tax related statements, if any, may have been written in connection with the 'promotion or marketing' of the transaction(s) or matter(s) addressed by these materials, to the extent allowed by applicable law. Any such taxpayer should seek advice based on the taxpayer's particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.
Qatar Tribune
2 days ago
- Health
- Qatar Tribune
Local, int'l high school students explore medicine at WCM-Q
Tribune News Network Doha Eighty-three local and international high school students aspiring to pursue careers in medicine had the opportunity to gain early exposure to the field through the Medical Minds Online Programme (MMOP), a summer programme organised by Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q). The week-long virtual event was part of the Summer Enrichment Programmes, designed to introduce pre-college students to the field of medicine and science through engaging and interactive sessions led by WCM-Q's faculty and staff, who are experts in their field. Offered by WCM-Q's Office of Student Outreach and Educational Development, the programme aims to provide an overview of the opportunities and challenges in the medical field to students with a keen interest in medicine and the sciences. It targets students in Qatar's high schools and from different parts of the world who have shown academic excellence in the sciences and mathematics. Fifty girls and 33 boys from 43 schools engaged in a variety of live Zoom sessions and self-paced modules, such as medical ethics, anatomy, surgery, forensic biology, and the admissions process at WCM-Q. The participating students, entering grades 10, 11, and 12, came from various schools across Qatar, while international students joined the sessions from Algeria, Brazil, Canada, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. Conducted by physicians, medical educators, and WCM-Q student mentors, the programme offered both academic knowledge and personal development skills, including building a professional identity in medicine and exploring career pathways. The students also learned how to work on Canvas, a learning management system used by educational institutions. The programme explored different specialties in medicine to give the students a chance to see which field they were passionate about. To inspire them further, the faculty shared personal stories about their medical journeys. Additionally, five WCM-Q pre-medical students served as student assistants in a session titled 'Building your Professional Identity in Medicine', where they facilitated group discussions that asked students to identify their personal values, reflect on what drew them to medicine, and link these values to their vision of medical practice. The students were Fatima Abdulla, Shaikha Al Ishaq, Nouf Alabdulmalik, Noof AlMalik, and Mohammed Ali Abdulla. WCM-Q medical and pre-medical students, Reem Al Janahi, Batoul Arabi, Fatima Al Mohammed, Anns Mahboob, and Ola AboMoslim, also conducted a panel discussion where they tackled topics such as writing personal statements, interview techniques, and student life at WCM-Q. Following the conclusion of the programme, all students were awarded a certificate of completion. Noha Saleh, director of premedical Administration, Student Outreach, and Educational Development, said: 'The MMOP was a wonderful opportunity for high school students to get a glimpse of the medical field. By combining both academic content and real-life insights from professionals and our students, I believe this will help the students make informed decisions about their future and build a strong foundation for those considering careers in the healthcare sector. Offered online, the programme's international reach expanded attracting students from more than 10 different cities around the world, in addition to Doha, Qatar.' Student participant Faisal Alazawi of The Hamilton International School, who is heading to grade 12, said: 'The programme was an eye-opener, and I have learned that everyone's journey into medicine is personal and unique. Hearing the doctors share their experiences, including the challenges they have encountered, motivations, and turning points, was really inspiring, which showed me that there's no single path to becoming a physician. 'The programme being held virtually made it incredibly accessible, allowing us to learn from anywhere while still gaining insight into what WCM-Q students experience. The self-paced modules kept me productive now that we are on summer break.' Dr. Rachid Bendriss, assistant professor of Education in Medicine, associate dean for Foundation, Student Outreach, and Educational Development programmes, and professor of English as a second language, said: 'I believe that besides introducing the students to medical topics, the programme helped them build essential skills like critical thinking, communication, and self-directed learning. It's incredible to see young minds grow more confident about pursuing their goals in medicine in the future.'
Hans India
4 days ago
- Business
- Hans India
Slack Supercharges with AI: Smarter Search, Transcripts, and Workflow Tools Now Live
Slack has announced a robust set of AI-powered upgrades aimed at making work more efficient and connected for teams using its platform. These features, part of its Business and Enterprise plans, bring smarter search, AI-generated transcriptions, meeting summaries, and more to help users stay focused and informed. One of the standout features is Slack's enhanced AI search, which now enables users to seamlessly browse through multiple channels and integrated apps like Google Drive, Salesforce, and Microsoft Teams. This cross-platform capability is designed to streamline workflows and reduce time spent digging for critical files or messages. Slack's broader strategy continues to focus on integrating powerful tools that improve user productivity and platform utility. Huddles — Slack's audio and video call feature — are also receiving a smart upgrade. Now, users will benefit from AI-generated transcriptions and key action item highlights, ensuring important details are captured and easily accessible. This is particularly helpful for team members who miss meetings or want a quick recap. Additionally, the platform will summarise discussions within channels and threads, helping users catch up without scrolling endlessly. This new layer of summarisation aims to improve team alignment and minimise missed context. Further strengthening collaboration, Slack will introduce a feature that offers summaries of user profiles, including their roles and recent work. "The company said that it will roll out a way for users to get a summary of another user's profile, showing their role and recent work." This should help teams quickly understand who's working on what and streamline handoffs and communication. Also in the works is a smart message explanation feature. "Slack added that it is working on a feature that would let you use AI to explain a message in the context of the given conversation." This could significantly cut down on misunderstandings and foster more productive discussions across distributed teams. Slack's Canvas feature, a shared workspace for guides, docs, and project notes, is also getting an AI assistant. This tool will help users draft content from any conversation or reformat existing material more effectively—another step in making collaboration more fluid and content management more intuitive. These changes reinforce Slack's vision of becoming the go-to workspace where teams can connect, collaborate, and get work done with less friction. Coinciding with major industry events like TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, where companies like Netflix and Sequoia Capital are scheduled to share startup insights, Slack's latest innovations underline its commitment to staying ahead in the ever-competitive productivity software space. By creating a more integrated and intelligent platform, Slack aims to redefine how modern teams communicate and organise their work in a hybrid and digital-first era.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Builders eye later-stage startups in funding ventures
This story was originally published on Construction Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Construction Dive newsletter. When it comes to venture investing in construction, contractors have operated like they do in the field. Instead of looking at shiny new toys, they're deploying established methods to help turn a profit. This approach has emerged via two key trends: Builders are ramping up their own venture funding arms, and they're looking for startups that are commercial-ready, rather than starting out. Take DPR Construction. Its Redwood City, California, headquarters is located in the heart of Silicon Valley. Its inhouse investment arm, WND Ventures, has been active since 2015, according to its LinkedIn, and has put money toward established startups such as reality capture platform DroneDeploy, AI-based document tracking tool Trunk Tools and automated layout robot creator Dusty Robotics, according to the company's portfolio. Another contractor on the hunt for tech companies with a proven track record is Suffolk Technologies, the venture capital offshoot of Boston-based Suffolk. The firm runs its BOOST incubator program annually, tapping promising startups to deploy existing solutions on jobs while offering not only investments, but coaching from the inside out. To date, the cohort has featured 36 different startups, according to its website. Suffolk Technologies initially invests $100,000 on a post-money SAFE, or a Simple Agreement for Future Equity, which allows an investor to put money into a company and solidify the percentage it will own when that cash is converted to shares. Graduates of this program include San Francisco-based Canvas, which creates robots that help with the drywall process. The company, which focuses on drywall finishing, completed a $24 million Series B in April 2021, in which Suffolk Construction participated. Since then, Canvas has partnered with drywall manufacturer USG and construction equipment manufacturer Hilti in 2023 and released a new robot in 2024. Then there is San Francisco-based Webcor, which is a new player on the block — the builder unveiled Webcor Ventures, its investment offshoot, on Nov. 15. It acquired a 10% stake in the Oakland, California-based modular construction firm R2 Building as its inaugural investment. And even Turner Construction, the New York City-based building giant, has gotten into the game, launching Turner Ventures on March 17. Anatomy of funding Funding rounds for startups can be thought of as a company's maturity indicator. A company raising a pre-seed funding round, for example, can be seen as in its infancy and is reflected as such in its investors — friends, family, supporters and the founders themselves. Additionally, some companies never extend beyond Seed funding into later rounds, like Series A. Percentage of built environment deals that were Series B funding rounds or later by year. This embedded content is not available in your region. By contrast, a company raising a later stage round, such as Series A or B, is more established and can attract the presence of other, larger investors. These more mature rounds also tend to attract more money. One example is Buildots, based in Tel Aviv, Israel, which delivers an AI-powered project tracking solution. Buildots completed a $45 million Series D funding round in May, which brought its total capital raised to $166 million. Indeed, even Series A rounds must demonstrate not just a great idea, but also a strong strategy to generate profit. This differs from Seed funding, where a company raises cash to finance its first steps, such as establishing a final product and its target demographic. Taken together, this means Series A funding also comes later in a firm's lifecycle. Corporate investments in Series A and later funding rounds take up larger share of investment volume This embedded content is not available in your region. 'I think startups are beginning to realize that there are no disruptions in this space,' said Dan Laboe, founding principal of Nymbl Ventures. 'It's more of a slow transformation into the future.' Over the last five years, these firms have matured during the COVID-19 pandemic, international conflicts and now, tariff-induced economic uncertainty. Observers say that over the next five years, new opportunities are available for firms — and contractors in particular — that put in the grunt work to identify solutions that are viable in the field today. Gonzalo Galindo, the head of Cemex Ventures, the contech-focused venture capital arm of Monterrey, Mexico-based building materials firm Cemex, said that firms that make it to the Series B stage have had to overcome obstacles already. 'It's a normal course of business, because many of the people in Series B have been, for a year to a year and a half, trying to raise money,' Galindo said. 'Those which are actually still alive are showing that they are resilient, that they know how to manage business, how to manage the funding, and certainly will be more prone to get money these days.' Builders seeking solutions Along the way, these tech survivors have established a toehold in construction by tailoring solutions to the industry's endemic challenges — labor shortages, environmental unpredictability and cash bottlenecks — that threaten to derail projects, either on the jobsite or before they even start. In the current environment, artificial intelligence reigns supreme as the most hyped technology. Additionally, robots, software platforms and physical equipment also play an important role on jobsites. For example, Providence, Rhode Island-based Gilbane Building Co. used New York City-based Trunk Tools, which tracked around 21,000 discrete documents on the $456 million renovation of Milwaukee's Baird Center to save money. Another — Zachry Construction, based in San Antonio — used Menlo Park, California-based Alice Technologies to speed up its estimating process, which helped the builder save 28 days on a $149 million highway project's timeline. Follow the money The broader venture capital landscape is flush with cash — global venture funding reached $321 billion in 2024, doubling over the last decade, according to Crunchbase. However, contech makes up a more diminutive portion of the total — the sector managed to pull $3.1 billion in 2024 following a sharp downturn in 2023, according to analysis by Cemex Ventures. Nevertheless, construction, with its thin profit margins and a reputation for doing things the way they've always been done, has become a favorite target for startups looking to disrupt it, due to its well-known technology adoption gap. While that gap narrowed during the pandemic, critics say construction still lags far behind other industries in productivity gains due to integrating new technologies. With that in mind, experts say that though the sector is small, it is mighty, and ripe with opportunity for those who seek it. 'I think 2025 is going to be a transitional year for really understanding where the technology investments need to be made,' Nymbl's Laboe said. Bigger kids on the block This is where more mature startups can prove attractive to builders. Laboe said that the later-stage startups represented a quid pro quo relationship with builders, who can capitalize on the immediate rewards of a commercially ready product while boosting a startup's growth trajectory. It's also a reassuring sign for other builders if they can see a contractor investing in a product, Laboe said. 'These are long-standing industries and industry players. It takes a lot of time to gain their trust in this space,' Laboe explained. 'Having corporate backers in your investments gives them immediate economic reason to adopt the technology and help guide it toward the future.' Where contractors fit The question then becomes how are contractors getting involved? And how are they putting their money to use? Atul Khanzode, CTO at DPR Construction works with WND Ventures to seek out new solutions for the firm to leverage on its jobsites. He maintains that there's a time and place for the cash, as long as it's paired with boots-on-the-ground experience or even experimentation. For those firms that already have financial backing from strategic investors, WND and other contractor venture arms have an interesting value proposition beyond dollars: contractor input. 'They are very interested in our opinions about how useful their technology is or not, and want to partner with us even sooner,' Khanzode said. Wan Li Zhu, the co-founder and managing director of Suffolk Technologies, the venture capital offshoot of Boston-based Suffolk, offered a different sort of analysis. The firm's venture arm, Zhu said, sits at the intersection of the funding ecosystem to be an early-stage validator. Some startups, he said, come in with grand expectations. 'A lot of entrepreneurs that don't come from construction may have a perception that it's trillions of dollars of volume, so there must be a significant technology budget. That's often not the case, and the fragmentation is part of the friction as well,' Zhu pointed out. So, what's next? The simple answer, experts said, is more investor cash, particularly fueled by the AI boom, a sentiment that has borne fruit through the first quarter of 2025. Already, investors have pumped $521 million into AI-based contech offerings, the highest amount since 2021. And those investors seem to be willing to stay the course — a survey from Burlingame, California-based Zacua Ventures, an investor in the contech space, showed that few are backing down. Its data showed that 90% of surveyed contech investors intended to either increase, at 47%, or maintain, at 43%, their capital deployment in 2025. Percentage of surveyed investors that are planning to change their investments by year. This embedded content is not available in your region. 'This trend reflects the recovery in early-stage ConTech investment sentiment observed since the sharp decline in 2022, indicating growing confidence in the market's long-term potential,' the firm wrote in a summary of its results. Zhu, for his part, is bullish on innovation. 'I think the next five years are going to look very different from the last two decades in construction time,' Zhu said. 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