Latest news with #Maven
Cision Canada
19 hours ago
- Health
- Cision Canada
Bridging the Gap: Manulife Partners with Maven Clinic to Bring Women's and Family Health Services to Members Français
New partnership will help provide support and navigation for women, spanning fertility and family building, maternity and newborn care, parenting and pediatrics, and menopause and midlife TORONTO, June 5, 2025 /CNW/ - Manulife Canada is excited to announce it has partnered with Maven Clinic ®, the world's largest virtual clinic for women's and family health 1. This partnership will provide eligible Manulife Group Benefits plan members with unlimited access to Maven's award-winning digital programs for tailored support 2. Maven specializes in supporting women and families through some of their most important stages of life, including fertility, family building and planning; maternity and newborn care; parenting and pediatrics; and menopause and midlife. The need to prioritize women's health has never been more apparent. Research indicates narrowing gaps in women's health care could contribute as much as $1 trillion per year to the global economy by 2040 3. Globally, women spend 25 per cent more time in poor health compared to men, with nearly half of this health burden occurring during their prime working years—often limiting their ability to earn an income and support themselves and their families 4. In Canada, unmanaged menopause symptoms during critical career years (ages 40 to 55) cost the Canadian economy $3.5 billion annually and cause 1 in 10 women to leave the workforce 5. "Together with Maven, Manulife is not just responding to gaps in women's and family health—we're redefining what comprehensive support looks like during key life transitions like family planning and menopause," says Jennifer Foubert, Head of Product, Manulife Group Benefits. "We're proud to be the first insurance company in Canada to offer these important programs through Maven that will help our members access personalized and holistic support and navigation when they feel they need it most, wherever they are on their journey." Beginning this fall, Manulife Group Benefits plan members, whose employers enroll in Maven, will have 24/7 virtual access to Maven's platform, connecting them to a global network of providers across more than 30 specialties who speak more than 35 languages. While this is not an alternative for visiting in-person health care providers, with more than one in five Canadians without access to a primary care physician 6, Maven can help women and families navigate the Canadian healthcare system through its digital platform and help members find in-person care. Maven's diverse network of providers helps ensure that non-medical support is accessible and inclusive for individuals from all backgrounds. Plan members and their eligible dependants will benefit from unlimited access to virtual care, delivering high-quality, personalized support tailored to their unique health needs 2. "We are excited to partner with Manulife to help women and families receive comprehensive, personalized care," said Stephanie Glenn, Chief Commercial Officer at Maven Clinic. "As an organization, we set out to address the fragmented experiences women and families often face in health care through offering a holistic approach with tailored support, leading to better health outcomes and smoother journeys through life's critical phases. By expanding our global footprint with partners like Manulife, Maven is thrilled to deliver personalized guidance and assistance to Manulife members across Canada." Maven's offerings are built around four key pillars that most impact women's and family health: Fertility & Family Building: helping individuals and couples navigate their family-building journeys, including support for preconception and trying to conceive, fertility treatment like IVF and IUI, adoption, and surrogacy. Maternity & Newborn Care: extensive support during pregnancy, postpartum, and return to work, including access to virtual, non-medical consultation with participating OB-GYNs, doulas, lactation consultants, career coaches, and mental health providers. Maven also provides compassionate support for individuals experiencing loss. Parenting & Pediatrics: this program provides resources and consultations for parenting challenges and pediatric care, so families have access to the support they may need as their children grow. Menopause & Midlife Health: provides support through every phase of the menopause journey for women and midlife health support for men, including hormonal changes, mental health, sexual health, and overall well-being. Maven is a global leader in women's and family health, serving members across more than 175 countries. Beginning this fall, eligible Group Benefits Members and their eligible dependants will be able to access Maven through the Manulife Mobile app or plan member site. For more information, visit About Manulife Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider, helping our customers make their decisions easier and lives better. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we operate as Manulife across Canada, Asia, and Europe, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States, providing financial advice and insurance for individuals, groups and businesses. Through Manulife Wealth & Asset Management, we offer global investment, financial advice, and retirement plan services to individuals, institutions, and retirement plan members worldwide. At the end of 2024, we had more than 37,000 employees, over 109,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving over 36 million customers. We trade as 'MFC' on the Toronto, New York, and the Philippine stock exchanges, and under '945' in Hong Kong. Not all offerings are available in all jurisdictions. For additional information, please visit About Maven Maven is the world's largest virtual clinic for women and families on a mission to make healthcare work for all of us. Maven's award-winning digital programs provide clinical, emotional, and financial support all in one platform, spanning fertility & family building, maternity & newborn care, parenting & pediatrics, and menopause & midlife. More than 2,000 employers and health plans trust Maven's end-to-end platform to improve clinical outcomes, reduce healthcare costs, and provide equity in benefits programs. Recognized for innovation and industry leadership, Maven has been named to the Time 100 Most Influential Companies, CNBC Disruptor 50, Fast Company Most Innovative Companies, and FORTUNE Best Places to Work. Founded in 2014 by CEO Kate Ryder, Maven has raised more than $425 million in funding from top healthcare and technology investors including General Catalyst, Sequoia, Dragoneer Investment Group, Oak HC/FT, StepStone Group, Icon Ventures, and Lux Capital. To learn more about Maven, visit us at Maven is a registered trademark of Maven Clinic Co. All rights reserved. Maven Media Contact: Katy Geguchadze [email protected] _______________________ 1 Maven Clinic, Meet Maven, 2024 2 Available only to Group Benefits Members whose employers sign up to offer this support. 3 McKinsey Health Institute, 2024 4 McKinsey Health Institute, 2024 5 Menopause Foundation of Canada 6 OurCare. Primary Care Needs, 2024 SOURCE Manulife Financial Corporation
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Palantir Investors Unfazed by Sky-High Valuation as Stock Surges
(Bloomberg) -- Palantir Technologies Inc.'s breakneck rally shows no sign of letting up as investors remain captivated by its artificial intelligence promise despite one of the most expensive valuations among US stocks. Where the Wild Children's Museums Are Billionaire Steve Cohen Wants NY to Expand Taxpayer-Backed Ferry The Global Struggle to Build Safer Cars At London's New Design Museum, Visitors Get Hands-On Access LA City Council Passes Budget That Trims Police, Fire Spending Shares of the data-analysis software company closed at a record for a third consecutive day Tuesday, pushing their gain for the year to 76%. While that's good enough for second-best on the S&P 500 Index, it has Palantir trading at a staggering 205 times projected earnings over the next 12 months, a hefty premium to the broader market's multiple of 22 times. 'You're starting to see almost like a Tesla effect where valuations don't really matter because there are these true believers in the company,' said Paul Marino, chief revenue officer at Themes ETFs. Those investors see 'opportunities with everything that's going on in the world today, whether that be on the defense side, whether that be on the transaction side, data side or AI side.' Palantir's cult-like momentum rally — which follows a 340% gain in 2024 and a rise of 167% in 2023 — stands in sharp contrast to a lukewarm reception from Wall Street analysts. The stock has only eight buy equivalent ratings and is dominated by 16 holds, with five sells, making it one of the lowest rated S&P 500 stocks, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. But bullish investors say the Street is overlooking a company poised to benefit from the current geopolitical and macroeconomic backdrop. Palantir works with the US military, which has doubled its use of the Maven AI system, and intelligence agencies. It recently added NATO as a customer and is partnering with Fannie Mae to launch an AI-powered crime detection unit. It's also building out its commercial and international clients, both large potential growth areas. Palantir's rebound from April has been underscored by a broader market pivot as investors navigate Trump's on-again, off-again tariff rhetoric and search for companies offering relative safety, including those that can show solid future growth. Palantir forecasts sales will rise to $3.9 billion for the calendar year 2025, a 36% increase from the previous year, and will continue to grow. This year's free cash flow is forecast to top $1.5 billion, a more than 30% increase on the year. 'The market is having capital flow back into areas of the market that they believe could have idiosyncratic growth,' said David Wagner, portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors LLC. 'And Palantir fits that bill if you could stomach the valuation.' The recovery in technology stocks has shifted toward software and away from hardware, also giving Palantir a boost. It has also become a beneficiary of Elon Musk's DOGE effort to cut federal spending; the company has continued to land US government contracts during the Trump administration. In another comparison to Tesla, the stock has likely gotten a lift from the retail crowd. In the last week, it was the third most active behind Tesla and Nvidia Corp., according to data from Interactive Brokers. Palantir has stayed in the third-place spot for much of the year, according to Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers. Of course, stocks that have rapid rallies like Palantir can get hit hard on the downside — it shed more than 40% from a February peak through the early April nadir, mirroring some of the selling seen in other big technology shares. In addition to middle-of-the-road ratings, Wall Street analysts think the current rally has gotten ahead of itself. The average price target of about $103 implies more than 20% downside from where shares currently trade. Palantir also has an increasingly high bar to clear to keep the stock grinding higher — anything short of outperformance could weigh on shares, as was seen in the brief selloff following last quarter's earnings report. 'They have to deliver' to keep momentum going forward, said Ted Mortonson, managing director at Robert W Baird & Co. 'They cannot have any hiccups.' Tech Chart of the Day Nvidia Corp. rallied on Tuesday to reclaim the title of the world's largest company after surpassing Microsoft Corp. The semiconductor giant, the Windows software maker and Apple Inc. have been locked in battle in recent months, vying for the title of the most valuable firm by market cap. Top Tech Stories CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. shares fell after the cybersecurity company projected revenue for the current quarter that trailed estimates. Joshua Kushner's Thrive Capital and investment firm Capital Group have in recent months visited China to learn about its AI industry, joining a growing number of US investors rekindling interest in the country after DeepSeek's advances stunned Silicon Valley. Manus unveiled a text-to-video generation feature, entering a competitive segment populated by rivals from OpenAI to China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. Broadcom Inc. began shipping a new version of its data center switch chips that can boost the efficiency of AI accelerators, aiming to take a bigger role in the booming market for artificial intelligence computing. Earnings Due Wednesday Earnings Premarket: Sprinklr Earnings Postmarket: MongoDB Descartes Systems Verint --With assistance from Subrat Patnaik. YouTube Is Swallowing TV Whole, and It's Coming for the Sitcom Millions of Americans Are Obsessed With This Japanese Barbecue Sauce Is Elon Musk's Political Capital Spent? Trump Considers Deporting Migrants to Rwanda After the UK Decides Not To Mark Zuckerberg Loves MAGA Now. Will MAGA Ever Love Him Back? ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Edmonton Journal
4 days ago
- Sport
- Edmonton Journal
'The Oilers time has come': NHL's elder statesmen both pick Edmonton to win
Article content This in from Don 'Grapes' Cherry, 91, and Stan 'The Maven' Fischler, 93, the two elder statesmen of National Hockey League commentary, their predictions that the Edmonton Oilers will win the Stanley Cup in 2025 over the Florida Panthers. Article content 'I'm still sticking with Edmonton,' Don Cherry said this weekend on his Grapevine podcast. 'Skinner is playing just as good (as Bobrvosky). Whether he'll do it in the Finals, we'll see.' Article content If Florida tries to injure Skinner by accidentally mashing into Skinner, Oilers pest Corey Perry will respond in kind, Cherry said. 'That's his style.' As for Fischler, the long-time Hockey News columnist and New York hockey writer, has been on social media with his prediction that the Oilers will win in five. 'The Maven cannot imagine a more fascinating, hard-to-predict, well-balanced Final coming up between the defending champs, Florida Pantherfs and Edmonton Oilers; truly the best in the NHL. This looms as a fantastic playoff. Lots to like on both sides; especially good-guy-good-coaches…. This is obvious but what the heck, a Maven redundancy; the series will hinge on whether Florida Panthers (coach) Paul Maurice can produce an anti-McDavid machine in time for Wednesday. Stopping or not stopping Connor will decide the series. If not, then it might be up to Brad Marchand. Article content Fischler continued: 'I'm as impressed with Edmonton Oilers' KrisKnoblauch as I am with Florida Panthers PaulMaurice. I'm picking Edmonton in 5 because the Oilers time has come. And the Cats don't have McDavid. Still, it could go 7 and I'd just love that as would many fans. Really sorry about Hyman!' And: 'I'm itchy for the Final to start; very excited; more even than last year. I'm sticking with the Edmonton Oilers in 5 because of — McD, Leon, Stu, plus and plus MOTIVATION (WIN IT FOR ZACH). BUT The Maven overflows with respect for the Florida Panthers. (Should be a best of 9 series!)' My take 1. I've never found Fischler or Cherry to be major boosters of the Edmonton Oilers, which makes sense given both are somewhat neutral commentators, with Fischler's focus the New York-area teams and Cherry all about the Boston Bruins and the Toronto Maple Leafs. I'm glad then that both of them see enough in the Oilers to pick them over a fantastic two-way team like the 2025 Florida Panthers. 2. Florida is a beast of a team. It's likely better than it was last year. It's got a Core 12 of players as good as any team, and it's surrounded them with aggressive, hitting role players. But I think the Oilers mobile defence corps will be the difference in this series, as well as the better health this Final of players like Leon Draisaitl, Darnell Nurse and Evander Kane, who were all seriously banged up last year. Latest National Stories
Forbes
26-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The Military Is Doing New Things With AI
It's probably no surprise to people who understand the ramifications of new AI tools that Uncle Sam is quickly working to integrate these into military operations. But what does this look like on the ground? A few days ago, I wrote about a presentation by Colonel Tucker Hamilton about what warfighters need in terms of technology, and where we discussed the landmark of an AI running a military drone for the first time. I especially liked his phrase 'battleground of things.' Today there's more from an interview that I did with Sean Batir, CTO of Maven, a company that's helping the military to deploy new approaches to artificial intelligence. During the interview, Batir broke down some of the principles that experts are using in innovating in these ways. One is the enhancement of accuracy: 'Essentially, many of our models now are able to actually meet or exceed human detection, classification and (standards for) performance,' he said. Another has to do with interconnectedness and systems integration. 'No system, kinetic or non-kinetic, is an island,' he said. 'In other words, different types of systems are typically horizontally integrated, and not always so vertically integrated. So interoperability of interfaces to share data, models, targets and detections - that has improved, because now we're actually having more stable and standardized methods to pass that data between different types of modern systems and infrastructure.' The third is something you might call 'location visibility.' From Batir: 'We're increasing the speed of being able to locate these types of dynamic and moving objects on the battlefield. … I think what we're observing right now is that as AI capabilities are going to be integrated into various military flows, these types of triggers are actually getting integrated into how imagery and video are exploited. And essentially, if you have to think about military operations, the reality of it is like, if you can't see it, you can't perform an operation. And so we're noticing that the adversaries are now able to also discern an object from a non object, which is also accelerating their ability to, what we would term it as, execute the speed of conflict.' Later, Batir talked about that cultural change, of going from a place like MIT, into the Pentagon, where a vastly different culture holds sway. Still, he suggested, some things carry over. 'That critical thinking that you learn in undergrad, I think, is so translatable,' he said. I asked Batir what it's like to be in meetings at the Pentagon, what his drive is like, what his day looks like. He said phones are not allowed in meetings, to promote attentiveness. '(The fact that) you're forced to be super-present probably has its advantages, given the fact that if you're making, you know, national-level decisions, you want everyone to be fully present and (feel) like they are with you at all times,' he said. Here's a through line from the interview to something that I've been hearing about a lot, and that I think just makes intuitive sense when it comes to technology. In a way, it goes back to that term: 'battleground of things' or more generally, 'IaaS?' In a smart system, connecting elements is key. 'The idea is that our data and our detections are fed into other platforms,' Batir said, describing Maven solutions. 'Those other platforms are not always our own agencies. They belong to those other groups that you just mentioned. The idea is that through our program, we're actually able to build a sort of a tapestry of connected sensors from all those branches of both the armed forces and the intelligence agencies that participate in this, into a unified AI network. And so normally, a lot of the systems are Balkanized because of their history, of how they've evolved. And so our goal, right, is that we're kind of basically bringing those together.' When asked whether the firm focuses on computer vision or LLMs, Batir said Maven does both, in a sort of 'multi-model' approach. As for risk: On one hand, Batir pointed out, it's not always beneficial to wait for perfection. 'Our philosophy is that perfection is the enemy of progress,' he said. 'And so, as long as we can ensure that the risks are very upfront, that we are clear about metrics, we don't want to prevent people from being able to use a capability that's available, because it's not 100%.' However, there are other standards for mission-critical systems. 'In terms of real-world situations where lives are at stake, there is an entire risk acceptance framework,' Batir added. 'That's when people outside of maybe the pure technology space come in. We have things called, you know, disclosure officers. We have legal review. There is still a very critical manual process, especially when you're talking about potential loss of life. And so there is a process that exists to bring in that element of careful adjudication.' I thought all of this illuminates what's going on in DoD right now, as we take part in the fruits of AI. Watch the video for questions from the audience about Ukraine and other concerns.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Palantir (PLTR) Lands $1.3B Pentagon Win as AI Goes to War
Palantir Technologies (PLTR, Financials) just scored a major defense expansion. The Pentagon raised its contract ceiling for Palantir's Maven Smart System to $1.3 billion through 2029, up from $480 million, marking a $795 million vote of confidence in AI-led battlefield operations. Project Maven, launched in 2017, is the military's frontline AI tool for scanning satellite and drone footage to flag and track threats. Since taking over its geospatial functions in 2022, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has pushed the system into wider use. Adoption has exploded. More than 20,000 active users now rely on Maven four times the number from March. NGA also signed a new $28 million contract to expand access further. The speed is what's turning heads. One unit recently slashed its sensor-to-target time from hours to minutes. Army leadership now wants Maven to help troops make 1,000 battlefield calls in a single hour identifying, verifying, or dismissing threats in real time. William Blair analysts say adoption has blown past forecasts, and NGA Director Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth called Maven the Pentagon's marquee targeting program. The system is built on a tight-knit collaboration between Palantir, combatant commands, and about a dozen subcontractors a digital team sport, as Whitworth put it. Investors betting on AI in defense now have a front-row view of what scaled battlefield automation could look like and Palantir's role in insider trades for PLTR. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
