Charles William Place

Barings LLC is a SEC-registered investment advisor headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Founded in 1940, the firm is direct subsidiary of MM Asset Management Holding LLC and their ultimate parent is Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. (MassMutual). MassMutual?s affiliated companies include financial services companies that provide investment management services and individual protection insurance to clients worldwide. Barings provides a broad range of investment advisory and management services to institutional clients, registered investment companies, and other pooled investment vehicles.

Bausch & Lomb, Inc. develops, manufactures, and markets eye health products. It offers over-the-counter supplements, eye care products, ophthalmic pharmaceuticals, contact lenses, lens care, ophthalmic surgical devices, and instruments. The company was founded by John Jacob Bausch and Henry Lomb in 1853 and is headquartered in Rochester, NY.

Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Credit Suisse Securities USA) is the broker/dealer division of Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, an investment banking company headquartered in New York City. The firm was founded in 1998 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Credit Suisse (USA), Inc., ultimately owned by Credit Suisse Group AG (SWX: CSGN) in Switzerland. Credit Suisse Securities USA offers a suite of equities, solutions and credit products and services which includes global securities sales, trading and execution, prime brokerage and comprehensive investment research. Their clients include financial institutions, corporations, governments, institutional investors, such as pension funds and hedge funds, and private individuals around the world.

Wedbush Securities, Inc. is a full-service investment bank and brokerage firm headquartered in Los Angeles, California. The firm was founded in 1955 as Wedbush Morgan Securities, Inc. They are a subsidiary of Wedbush Financial Services LLC, which is owned by Wedbush, Inc. Wedbush Securities provides a wide range of securities brokerage, wealth management, and investment banking services to private and institutional clients. Their research focuses on providing coverage of small and mid-sized companies in the following industries: (1) consumer products and services (2) technology (3) entertainment and media (4) life sciences and (5) industrial growth and clean technology.

Avondale Partners LLC is an independent broker/dealer headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee with additional offices across the US. The firm was founded by Robert Shepherd and Philip Krebs in 2001. Avondale Partners provides financial advisory services as well as equity and fixed income underwriting and private placement services to public and private companies throughout the US, Canada and Europe. They focus on middle-market companies in the healthcare sector.

XL TechGroup, Inc. invests in the biotech, ecotech and medtech sectors. It also develops and commercializes proprietary insecticide and parasiticide products including non-toxic, pesticides, and anti-parasitic compounds for use in agriculture, horticulture, functional foods, healthcare, and veterinary applications. The firm involves in commercializing new technologies to grow and harvest oil from algae, an alternative to petroleum oil. The company was founded in 1993 and is located in Melbourne, FL.

Part of Stiftelsen Det Norske Veritas, PV Evolution Labs LLC is the leading reliability and performance testing lab for downstream solar project developers, financiers, and asset owners around the world. The company is based in Berkeley, CA. PV Evolution Labs provides a suite of technical services for mitigating risk, optimizing financing and improving system performance throughout the project lifecycle. The company's flagship product qualification program has replaced assumptions about PV module performance with quantifiable metrics, and connected manufacturers with a network of 400+ downstream partners. PV Evolution Labs is the leading independent lab for the downstream solar and energy storage market and a member of the Kiwa Group. PV Evolution Labs was founded in 2010 by Jenya Meydbray, Rajeev Singh. Jenya Meydbray has been the CEO since 2010.

Lua Technologies, Inc. provides mobile workforce services. The firm empowers mobile workforces by giving access to the people and information needed to get the job done from the field or the office. It also enables users to access various departments and custom groups, simplify real-time conversations with messaging and conference calling, and pinpoint who has read the messages, and receive confirmation. The company was founded by Michael Keoni DeFranco, Eli Bronner, and Jason Krigsfeld in February 2010 and is headquartered in New York, NY.

Socure, Inc. provides online identity verification application. It develops ways to mitigate identity fraud risks for businesses. The firm's Social Biometrics technology applies artificial intelligence and machine-learning techniques with online/offline data intelligence from email, phone, address, IP, social media and the broader Internet to authenticate identities in real-time. The company was founded by Johnny Ayers and Sunil Madhu in 2012 and is headquartered in New York, NY.

Empower Benefits, Inc. provides a software platform for companies to connect their employees with voluntary benefits, discount and reward programs. It offers supplemental health benefits and auto insurance quotes. The company was founded by Zach Malone and Neil Vaswani in 2006 and is headquartered in Naples, FL.

Jefferies LLC is a global investment bank and institutional securities firm headquartered in New York City. The firm was founded in 1962 and is a subsidiary of Jefferies Group LLC, ultimately held by Jefferies Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE: JEF). Jefferies provides corporate clients with research and execution services in equity, fixed income, and foreign exchange markets, as well as a full range of investment banking services such as underwriting, mergers and acquisitions, restructuring and recapitalization, and other advisory services, with all businesses operating in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

McKinsey & Co., Inc. provides management consulting services. It specializes in design, marketing and sales, analytics, operations, transformation and restructuring, risk, strategy and corporate finance, and sustainability and resource productivity. The company was founded by James O. McKinsey in 1926 and is headquartered in New York, NY.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC (GS&Co.) is a securities brokerage firm headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1927, the firm is a subsidiary of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS). GS&Co. provides services to help hedge funds manage risk, monitor portfolios, maintain liquidity and build their businesses. They offer clients access to global equity and derivatives markets, as well as foreign exchange, commodities, European Lefts, rates and credit across the Americas, Europe and Asia. The firm proactively monitors capital markets, searching for pockets of liquidity and news that may require changes to those strategies. Integration with the Goldman Sachs network gives clients access to the firm's sectored block trades and their insights into price discovery. Their electronic trading program provides clients with tools to manage their trades from pre-trade analytics to post-trade analysis.

Abundance Ventures LLC (Abundance Ventures) is a venture capital subsidiary of Abundance Partners LLC founded by Vladimir Efros in 2003. The firm is headquartered in New York.

The Computer Store, Inc. provides network integration services. The firm offers hardware and software computer services. Its products include ink and toner cartridges. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Peabody, MA.