September is the serious month. The kids are back at school, there are twice as many cars on the road, twice as many passengers on the commuter train and twice as much B2B news to report.

Personal finance site Wallethub released its Corporate Tax Rate Report yesterday.

Key observations about US corporations include:

• The overall tax rate that S&P 100 companies pay, around 20 percent, is about one percentage point higher than it paid in 2019.
• S&P 100 companies pay roughly 44 percent lower rates on U.S. taxes than international taxes.
• Most tech companies, including Oracle Corp., Adobe Inc. and Microsoft Corp., are still paying more than 3 percent lower rates abroad, continuing the trend from 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.
• Nine S&P 100 companies are actually paying a negative overall tax rate and are therefore due a discrete net tax benefit: Wells Fargo & Co, Salesforce.com Inc., AbbVie Inc., Duke Energy Corp., Adobe Inc., Broadcom Inc., International Business Machines Corp., Medtronic Inc, General Electric Co.
• Among the remaining companies that owe taxes, NVIDIA Corporation, NextEra Energy Inc., Bank of America Corp., Pfizer Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc. pay the lowest rates.
• The average S&P 100 company pays a 44 percent lower tax rate than the top 1 percent of consumers.

Full report: https://wallethub.com/edu/t/corporate-tax-rates/28330

Event and experience marketing agency George P. Johnson has acquired a significant minority stake in its long-term partner, the full-service creative video agency NOMOBO. The agencies have collaborated for more than five years, creating streaming and content experiences for clients like Salesforce, Dodge, Nissan, IBM, Workday and Rodan + Fields.

The agency has promoted Caleb Bush to Executive Vice President of its European operations. GPJ has European offices in the UK, Norway, Germany, France and Belgium.

“I could not be more bullish on the opportunities we have in Europe and am confident that Caleb’s guidance and hands-on support will assist us all in realizing our goals. Being forward thinking and predicting how to best serve our clients and consumers has always been our north star at GPJ, which is how we were able to pivot and seamlessly execute more than 700 digital events in 2020,” said Chris Meyer, CEO of GPJ. “We couldn’t be more delighted to expand Caleb’s role, and deepen our partnership with NOMOBO to create beautifully engaging broadcast experiences that generate ROI.”

Press release: https://www.gpj.com/news-insights/2021/09/experiential-agency-gpj-announces-major-investment-in-its-european-operations-and-personnel/

The folks at Plannuh have made an important observation: The marketing profession changed more in the last 18 months than it had in the previous 18 years.

The rapid evolution of the marketing profession drove the thinking behind the second edition of the second edition of “The Next CMO – A Guide to Operational Marketing Excellence” released yesterday. The book acts a guide to creating marketing plans, executing against strategies, optimizing budget, and measuring true business value. Peter Mahoney, Scott Todaro and Dan Faulkner contributed insights to the book.

More information: https://info.plannuh.com/the-next-cmo-a-guide-to-operational-marketing-excellence-v2

California-based Pyxis One, a provider of an all-in-one, codeless AI platform, closed $17M in Series B funding earlier this week. The tech startup plans to use this round of capital for investments in product development and to expand to new markets.

“Every enterprise is either already re-architecting themselves to adopt AI or are dependent on one or more AI-driven platforms,” said Atul Gupta, Partner at Premji Invest. “Pyxis One stands out by helping consumer-first enterprises adopt AI for their marketing and business growth without having to disrupt the business at all.”

Pyxis One enables enterprises to scale accurate data-driven marketing.

“Modern businesses are looking to use advanced elements of artificial intelligence and machine learning to deliver targeted and effective marketing,” said Sriram Viswanathan, Founding Managing Partner at Celesta Capital. “These capabilities are important for enterprises looking to benefit from next generation marketing technologies. Pyxis One’s platform delivers on this promise, and we are delighted to back this team to realize this potential.”

More information: https://pyxis-one.com/

There is a new Canadian not-for-profit technology accelerator. Intrinsic Venture Capital, and TusStar, one of China’s largest networks of incubators, have announced the launch of the TusStar-Intrinsic Global Accelerator. The incubator will act as an exchange accelerator program for Canadian companies looking to expand into the Chinese market and for Chinese companies looking to expand into the North American markets. The Global Accelerator program will be headquartered in Calgary.

“Intrinsic Innovations was launched as a way to facilitate global connections,” said Andrew Sanden, co-founder of Intrinsic Innovations and Intrinsic Venture Capital. “The COVID-19 pandemic drove home the importance of having trusted connections off-shore for establishing a cross-border business. This relationship with TusStar is all about creating and fostering those important cross-border connections to create a pathway for businesses from Canada to enter the Chinese market in a more seamless manner, and vice-versa for Chinese companies interested in coming to North America via Canada.”

Press release: https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2021/09/14/2296741/0/en/Intrinsic-Innovations-announces-TusStar-Intrinsic-Global-Accelerator-program-designed-to-aid-Canadian-and-Chinese-tech-companies-do-business-in-either-market.html

GaN Systems has signed a comprehensive capacity agreement with BMW Group. The company will provide GaN Systems’ automotive-grade GaN power transistors to the automotive company. GaN power semiconductors, are a key ingredient to achieve the small size, lightweight, and high efficiency required in the next generation of high-performance electric vehicles.  Under the terms of the agreement, GaN Systems will provide capacity for multiple applications in series production. The guaranteed volumes by GaN Systems are a key building block for reliability in the supply chain for automotive players like BMW.

“Electric vehicles represent the future of transportation, and we are delighted to continue to support BMW with our design and production capacity,” stated Jim Witham, CEO of GaN Systems. “This multi-$100M agreement demonstrates BMW’s commitment to innovation and sustainability.”

Press release: https://gansystems.com/newsroom/capacity-agreement-bmw/

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Kate Baggott is a former Managing Editor of B2BNN. Her technology and business journalism has appeared in the Technology Review, the Globe and Mail, Canada Computes, the Vancouver Sun and the Bay Street Bull. She is the author of the short story collections Love from Planet Wine Cooler and Dry Stories. Find links to recent articles by following her on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-baggott-9a0306/

• B2B News for Thursday, September 16: GaN Systems Signs BMW deal, Corporate Tax Rate Report, GPJ Acquisition & More – September 16, 2021
• B2B News for Tuesday, September 14, 2021: Intuit Acquires Mail Chimp & Call Centre Empathy – September 14, 2021
• B2B News for Thursday, September 9 2021: TMP & Accenture Acquisitions, SAP Award, SEO Importance – September 9, 2021