Akamai’s cloud infrastructure contributes to improving the satisfaction of users of the CookieRun game around the world

SEOUL, South Korea, April 4, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Akamai Technologies, Inc., the cybersecurity and cloud company that powers and protects businesses online, announced today that Devsisters Inc., the developer of the globally popular CookieRun series, has adopted Akamai Cloud to strengthen its global game services infrastructure.

The adoption of Akamai Cloud is a decision by Devsisters to ensure stable service operations amid its rapid global market expansion. Devsisters is adding new items, stages, and features; improving its system; and hosting events for its games CookieRun: Kingdom and CookieRun: OvenBreak to improve user satisfaction while increasing the influx of new users. Thanks to these efforts, Devsisters’ CookieRun series is rapidly expanding its user base around the world.

Key features

• Global performance improvements: Compared with conventional public clouds, Akamai Cloud features a more distributed edge and a wider range of points of presence, which enable the infrastructure to automatically scale up and down to deliver the same game experience to users around the world, even when traffic is concentrated in certain regions.
• Cost optimization: When there are periods of peak user traffic, the system automatically allocates more server resources. In off-peak periods, it scales them back, preventing unnecessary operational costs.
• Scalability: During new game launches, large-scale updates, or other events when hundreds of thousands to millions of users connect simultaneously, the system detects traffic surges in real time and automatically allocates the necessary resources, minimizing server downtime and service delays.

Devsisters expects that the adoption of Akamai Cloud will enable the swift deployment and scaling of new game launches, large-scale updates, and events so that users around the world can enjoy the same game experience anytime, anywhere.

“In mobile gaming, latency is a critical factor in determining the quality of service that users experience,” said KJ Lee, Regional Vice President and Managing Director of Akamai Korea. “With Akamai Cloud, a global gaming company like Devsisters can grow their global user base in a stable manner by providing services that are closer to users wherever they access the game in the world,” he added.

About Akamai
Akamai is the cybersecurity and cloud computing company that powers and protects business online. Our market-leading security solutions, superior threat intelligence, and global operations team provide defense-in-depth to safeguard critical data and applications at every touchpoint. Akamai’s full-stack cloud computing solutions deliver superior performance and affordability on the world’s most distributed platform. Global enterprises trust Akamai to provide the industry-leading reliability, scale, and expertise they need to grow their business with confidence. Learn more at akamai.com and akamai.com/blog, or follow Akamai Technologies on X and LinkedIn.

About Devsisters
Founded in 2007, Devsisters is a Korea-based game developer and creator of the popular CookieRun series with more than 200 million users worldwide. The company provides entertainment to users while building a unique universe centered around captivating characters and storytelling through various games across different platforms and genres, including CookieRun: OvenBreak and CookieRun: Kingdom. The company is also increasing its brand awareness through various IP-based businesses and is quickly becoming a global game company through continuous growth.

CONTACT: Akamai PR, akamaiPR@akamai.com

Regional Synergy for Shared Success
Mainland China Challenge Now Open for Applications

SHANGHAI, April 4, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — At L’Oréal China’s 2024/2025 Annual Results Press Meeting, 2025 L’Oréal BIG BANG Beauty Tech Innovation Program (“BIG BANG”) was unveiled, centered around the theme of “Elevate the Innovation Game For the Future”. The program, which has now broadened its reach throughout North Asia, continues to encourage startups and SMEs to accelerate their innovative efforts, aiming to catalyze significant advancements in beauty technology solutions and reshape the future of beauty.

Vincent Boinay, President of L’Oréal North Asia and CEO of L’Oréal China, emphasized: “We are enhancing and unlocking the full potential of China’s open innovation ecosystem. BIG BANG, a pioneering platform born in China, exemplifies this vision—harnessing innovation to transform our industry.”

As the first beauty tech open innovation challenge in North Asia, BIG BANG was launched in China in 2020 and has since been expanded to include five markets across the North Asia region. By 2024, the program, had engaged over 2,200 startups and SMEs over the past five years, incubating over 60 market-ready projects. In the 2025 Mainland China challenge that opens today, BIG BANG continues to collaborate with the Oriental Beauty Valley, Business France, and Shanghai Meicifang Investment Co., Ltd (L’Oréal China first regional market venture capital company) with the aim of empowering tech startups and SMEs to harness the transformative power of beauty tech.

BIG BANG 2025 Upgraded: Defining the Future of Beauty

Beauty is one of the most consumer-facing industries, and BIG BANG has been driving beauty technology innovation in digitalization, operations, and R&I to help consumers move towards a better life and sustainable future. To further accelerate to sustainable consumption in beauty, BIG BANG has added the “Sustainability” as the fourth independent track for the first time this year, hoping to lead the future of sustainable beauty with innovative and upgraded beauty technology solutions.

Building on its success in Mainland China, BIG BANG has been expanded to cover all five markets of L’Oréal North Asia, unlocking powerful regional synergies in beauty tech. This year, the competition introduces groundbreaking innovations to its format by moving beyond traditional localized evaluating mechanisms, taking regional collaboration to new heights. First, through the new “Sustainability” track, BIG BANG will showcase breakthrough solutions from beauty pioneers across China, Japan, and South Korea, leveraging the synergistic power of North Asia’s beauty ecosystem. Meanwhile, the “Phygital Consumers Experience” track will bring together innovators from Mainland China and Hong Kong SAR for the first time, jointly unleashing the beauty tech potential of the Greater Bay Area. Additionally, Hong Kong SAR has deepened its tie-up with Business France to establish a dedicated French track, creating a gateway for more French enterprises to enter the Chinese market.

After five years of continuous refinement and deep insights into industry trends, technological advancements, and market demands, BIG BANG has defined its strategic priorities. 2025 BIG BANG will sharpen its evaluation focus across four tracks, with AI integration as the core enabler:

• Phygital Consumers Experience: AI-driven content creation and consumer engagement.
• Future Science: Breakthroughs in AI-powered biotech, longevity science, and other fields.
• Operation 4.0: AI-optimized production safety and intelligent supply chain operations for higher efficiency in order fulfillment.
• Sustainability: Localized environmentally responsible business models enhanced by AI for beauty sustainability.

BIG BANGER Community Forum: Empowering Entrepreneurs and Expanding the Open

Innovation Ecosystem

Beyond the competition itself, BIG BANG remains committed to empowering startup entrepreneurs, jointly advancing beauty technology, and fostering an open innovation ecosystem that connects the entire industry value chain.

At today’s “‘Elevate the Innovation Game For the Future’ BIG BANGER Community Forum”, representatives from past BIG BANG participants, the L’Oréal China BIG BANG team and ecosystem partners, including the Oriental Beauty Valley, Business France, government agencies, and VC/PE firms, gathered under one roof. Guided by the concept of “Elevate the Innovation Game For the Future”, they engaged in discussions on key industry opportunities and trends, including sustainable beauty, the rise of China’s biotech sector, and a 2030 outlook for the beauty landscape.

Laurence Ma, Deputy CEO of L’Oréal China, shared her leadership insights based on personal experience: “Expertise is our foundation, especially in beauty tech, we must play to our strengths. Stay resilient, optimistic, and authentic to build a brighter future with like-minded partners.”

As the driving force behind this ecosystem, Zhenzhen Lan, President of Public Affairs of L’Oréal North Asia and China, highlighted the significance of open innovation and win-win collaboration: “BIG BANG is not a solo performance, but a symphony of beauty innovators. Together with our partners, L’Oréal aims to stay ahead of emerging trends and make decisive moves, channeling the potential of beauty tech into a thriving destination for high-quality living.'”

For the first time, media partners were invited to join the BIG BANGER Community Forum, reflecting the Big Bang’s commitment to expanding the ecosystem backed by a growing number of partners.

L’Oréal BIG BANG 2025 – Mainland China Competition Now Opens for Applications, calling all startups with groundbreaking technologies to co-create the future of beauty with innovations.

Four Challenge Topics:

• Phygital Consumers Experience: Fueling the future of content creation
• Future Science: New ingredients or solutions, sensors or technologies, diagnostics tools or in-vitro models, and sustainable manufacturing processes
• Operation 4.0: Innovative and safe production, package design simulation, enhanced operations with RAG, robotic technology in factory and fulfillment center
• Sustainability: Business models, products, brands with innovative technology to solve sustainability challenges in beauty industry

Four Key Selection Criteria: Solution Innovativeness (25%), Technology Frontier (25%), Scalability in L’Oréal (25%) and Business Impact (25%)

Timeline:

• As from today – 31 May: Online application
• 1 June – 31 July: Shortlist and mentor
• 15 August – 15 September: Grand Finale
• November onward: Pilot, incubation project and award ceremony

Winning Perks: Media exposure + co-created project testing and implementation.

For registration and more information, please click the link: https://bigbang.lorealchina.com/

About L’Oréal BIG BANG Beauty Tech Innovation Program:

L’Oréal BIG BANG Beauty Tech Innovation Program (BIG BANG) is the first regional initiative focused on driving open innovation, inspiration and co-creation of innovative beauty products and experiences. The program discovers, supports and nurtures promising start-ups and companies with innovative technology that can be scaled regionally and globally.

About L’Oréal Group

For 116 years, L’Oréal, the world’s leading beauty player, has devoted itself to one thing only: fulfilling the beauty aspirations of consumers around the world. Our purpose, to create the beauty that moves the world, defines our approach to beauty as essential, inclusive, ethical, generous and committed to social and environmental sustainability. With our broad portfolio of 37 international brands and ambitious sustainability commitments in our L’Oréal for the Future programme, we offer each and every person around the world the best in terms of quality, efficacy, safety, sincerity and responsibility, while celebrating beauty in its infinite plurality. 

With more than 90,000 committed employees, a balanced geographical footprint and sales across all distribution networks (e-commerce, mass market, department stores, pharmacies, perfumeries, hair salons, branded and travel retail), in 2024 the Group generated sales amounting to 43.48 billion euros. With 20 research centers across 11 countries around the world and a dedicated Research and Innovation team of over 4,000 scientists and 6,400 Digital talents, L’Oréal is focused on inventing the future of beauty and becoming a Beauty Tech powerhouse.

More information on https://www.loreal.com/en/mediaroom 

About L’Oréal China

L’Oréal, the world’s largest beauty company, entered Chinese mainland in 1997. L’Oréal China is headquartered in Shanghai and has five offices across the country. L’Oréal China currently has 32 brands and one R&I center in China, as well as two factories in Suzhou and Yichang, owning more than 15,000 employees. After 28 years of high-quality, steady and sustainable growth, China has become the second-largest market in the world, the headquarter of the North Asia “Beauty Triangle”, and one of three Beauty Tech Hubs worldwide. L’Oréal founded the Group’s first venture capital firm of regional markets in China, “Shanghai Meicifang Investment Co., Ltd”. L’Oréal Group’s first self-build smart fulfillment center has been officially opened in Suzhou.. As one of the best corporate citizens in China, L’Oréal China has always implemented and kept the “L’Oréal for the Future Sustainable Development Commitment 2030” in mind. China is L’Oréal’s first market to reach 100% renewable energies for its sites, and L’Oréal China actively contributes to the good development of Chinese society through CSR programs.

First Data Protection Vendor to Achieve Database Protection Nutanix Ready Validation for Nutanix Database Service (NDB)

SINGAPORE, April 4, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Cohesity, the leader in AI-powered data security, today announced it is the first data protection provider to achieve Nutanix Database Service (NDB) database protection Nutanix Ready validation. Receiving the Nutanix Ready designation signifies that the solution has undergone a series of Nutanix Ready interoperability validations and unique feature integrations, which can give customers added confidence regarding the compatibility of the solution. NDB is the market leading database lifecycle management platform for building database-as-a-service solutions in hybrid multicloud environments. It enables enterprises to efficiently deploy, clone, manage, and scale databases while ensuring security, performance, and compliance.

Through this validation, Cohesity DataProtect now integrates with NDB’s native time machine capabilities and streamlines protection for PostgresSQL databases on NDB through a single control plane. This seamless integration helps provide large enterprise customers with greater resilience against growing threats.

Cohesity’s 2024 Global Cyber Resilience Report found that 67% of global organizations were the victims of a cyber attack last year, and the threat landscape is only worsening. Together, Cohesity and Nutanix are providing these organizations with new tools to deploy, manage, and protect their critical database operations and enhance their overall cyber resilience strategies.

“Every second of downtime and byte of data lost has an associated dollar and reputational cost. Large enterprises, particularly those in critical sectors like global banking, financial services, and the Fortune 500, are under nearly constant threat and need solutions that can keep their data safe, reduce or eliminate downtime, and recover critical services quickly,” said Vasu Murthy, Chief Product Officer, Cohesity. “Nutanix and Cohesity are trusted by so many organizations because of our speed, scalability, simplicity, and security. With this integration, we’re working closely together to help them safeguard their most critical operations.”

Facing proliferating attacks, global organizations are looking for comprehensive solutions which help them with cyber resilience while complying with data protection strategies to keep their business more resilient, like the 3-2-1 backup rule. As a Nutanix Ready partner, Cohesity offers joint customers modern protection for their AHV environment with simple backup and rapid recovery across sites and integrated cybersecurity and protection against ransomware attacks.

By combining Cohesity DataProtect with NDB’s native time machine capabilities, customers now have seamless protection from everyday application and user-related errors and disasters like a complete site failure or malicious attack. Additional benefits include:

• Enhanced security and multilayered cyber resilience and ransomware protection: Objects are safeguarded from being overwritten and are protected against deletion for a specified amount of time. With no single point of failure, the solution is highly resilient and fault-tolerate and uses AES-256 and FIPS-compliant encryption of data in flight and at rest to give customers additional peace of mind their data is protected
• Unmatched efficiency and cost savings: Advanced deduplication and compression optimizes storage efficiency and reduces data footprints.
• Improved speed and simplicity: Scale-out architecture and unlimited scalability improves backup and restore times to meet growing business needs. Customers are also able to streamline operations using Cohesity’s single-pane-of-glass to manage and define their backup strategy

“Global financial services institutions and Fortune 2000 enterprises are looking for solutions that help them improve their database infrastructure’s performance, security, and regulatory compliance,” said Ashish Mohindroo, Nutanix Database Service General Manager and SVP. “By partnering with Cohesity, we’re giving those customers even more comprehensive features to streamline their infrastructure and protect their data, enhancing their overall cyber resilience strategy.” 

About Cohesity
Cohesity is the leader in AI-powered data security. Over 13,600 enterprise customers, including over 85 of the Fortune 100 and nearly 70% of the Global 500, rely on Cohesity to strengthen their resilience while providing Gen AI insights into their vast amounts of data. Formed from the combination of Cohesity with Veritas’ enterprise data protection business, the company’s solutions secure and protect data on-premises, in the cloud, and at the edge. Backed by NVIDIA, IBM, HPE, Cisco, AWS, Google Cloud, and others, Cohesity is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, with offices around the globe. To learn more, follow Cohesity on LinkedIn, X, and Facebook.

Expands Global Reach with Official Amazon Launches Across Europe, the Middle East, and Australia

Flagship Products – Heartleaf Pore Control Cleansing Oil, Heartleaf Toner, and Niacinamide 10 + TXA 4 Serum – Top Their Amazon Categories

SEOUL, South Korea, April 4, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — The Founders, Inc., a global brand-building company, announced that its skincare brand Anua has officially launched on Amazon in Europe, the Middle East, and Australia, marking a significant step in its global expansion and reinforcing its position as a leading player in the fast-growing K-beauty market.

After achieving strong performance and growing brand recognition on Amazon US and Japan, Anua is building on that momentum with recent launches in the UK (January), Dubai (February), and now Germany and Australia. In addition to its success online, Anua is also available in leading brick-and-mortar retailers such as Ulta Beauty (US) and Boots (UK), further expanding its presence across key global markets. Through these official Amazon launches, Anua also aims to provide authentic products directly to customers, minimize confusion caused by unauthorized listings, and foster stronger trust in global markets.

Since entering these new markets, Anua’s signature products—Heartleaf Pore Control Cleansing Oil, Heartleaf 77 Soothing Toner, and Niacinamide 10 + TXA 4 Serum—have quickly climbed to the top of their respective categories, receiving an enthusiastic response from global consumers. In the UAE, the Cleansing Oil, Rice Enzyme Cleansing Powder and TXA Serum have claimed the top spot in their categories. The success of Ramadan and Spring Sale campaigns has further fueled Anua’s momentum, with additional products poised to become category bestsellers across the region.

A spokesperson from Anua commented, “This expansion marks a major milestone in our mission to become the number one global skincare brand representing K-beauty,” and added, “We’re committed to introducing new product lines, launching engaging promotions, and connecting with more customers worldwide through innovative products and thoughtful service.”

Since its launch in 2019, Anua has seen rapid growth—achieving over 200% year-on-year growth—and solidifying its place on the global skincare stage. The brand officially entered the US market in 2022, and in July 2023, saw a 537% sales increase during Amazon Prime Day. On Black Friday, Anua saw an 800% surge in daily sales, further establishing itself as a K-beauty frontrunner.

Brand Overview
Global Beauty Brand Anua
Founded in 2019, Anua is a skincare brand that carefully selects the most effective naturally derived and dermatological ingredients, offering a diverse range of products tailored to various skin concerns. Bestsellers include the Heartleaf 77 Soothing Toner, Heartleaf Pore Control Cleansing Oil, and Heartleaf 77 Clear Pad. The brand has seen impressive growth across major global platforms such as Amazon and eBay Japan, solidifying its status as one of K-beauty’s leading skincare brands.