A couple who turned over £55million during the pandemic could be about to become one of the richest households in Britain.

Upmarket outdoor pizza oven company Ooni was founded just under a decade ago by husband and wife duo Kristian Tapaninaho and Darina Garland.

Ooni’s business model is simple, it sells pizza ovens and accessories to the public for upwards of £299.

But the company has had a stellar year, with households turning to home entertainment to get them through Britain’s three lockdowns.

So much so that its sales have multiplied fivefold in 12 months, from £13million to an eye-watering £55illion across Europe and America.

Kristian Tapaninaho and Darina Garland were running an education company in 2012 when they stumbled upon the idea to help families create their own restaurant-quality pizzas at home.

Now, it’s emerged the couple are planning to sell a stake in the business in a deal that could propel them into the ranks of Britain’s wealthiest people.

Ooni, based in Scotland, is in talks to hire investment banks to advise on the sale of a minority stake in the company, according to Sky News sources.

One City source suggested the company is aiming for a valuation worth hundreds of millions of pounds as part of that sales process.

According to the broadcaster, private equity giants with a track record of investing in consumer goods brands are likely to be among the potential bidders for a stake.

Kristian Tapaninaho and Darina Garland were running an education company in 2012 when they stumbled upon the idea to help families create their own restaurant-quality pizzas at home.

Kristian founded the idea. Speaking on their website, the founders explain: “He [Kristian] was really getting into making pizza but he was frustrated— ‘my pizzas are good, but they’re not great.’

“The pizzas Kristian was able to make at home lacked that restaurant-quality taste that comes from a very high heat. His domestic oven simply wasn’t cutting it.”

Kristian went on the hunt for a wood-fired pizza oven to use in his backyard, but all the products he found were either too expensive or too big.

After a series of sketches, many prototypes and ongoing backyard testing, he created the world’s first ever portable wood-fired pizza oven a decade ago.

Read more:
Couple set to hit jackpot after making £55million from pizza ovens during Covid

Whisk, the world’s smartest food platform acquired by Samsung NEXT earlier this year, has announced the launch of a set of multi-platform apps, featuring a new, connected recipe box and collaborative shopping lists.

Whisk’s founder, Nick Holzherr, is a former Apprentice finalist and Whisk itself got rejected by Lord Sugar but was this year acquired by Samsung NEXT for £170,000 and is achieving great success.

Available now on the iOS and Android app stores, web, Chrome extension, Bixby, Alexa, & Google voice assistant, Whisk empowers users with a faster way to plan and shop for meals by turning saved recipes into collaborative, smarter shopping lists. All lists are instantly shoppable across 32 integrated online grocery retailers across the world, or users can take an optimized list to buy in-store.

The average grocery store shopping trip takes 41 minutes – that’s a staggering 50 hours per year spent in the grocery store. The $11 trillion global grocery market is going through many changes as millennials and gen Z are buying in very different ways than their parents. 76% are sharing the grocery shopping responsibility, shopping at an average of 4.4 stores, with 70% of the population predicted to buy groceries online by 2025.

“Over half of the U.S. population still makes shopping lists using pen and paper, yet most people are looking for food inspiration digitally. Hours are spent looking for food content online – seeking new and healthier meals. However, the data shows people generally end up cooking the same 7-9 dishes on repeat. There’s a fundamental disconnect between the online and offline that Whisk can help connect,” said Nick Holzherr, Head of Product, Whisk at Samsung NEXT.

By using Whisk, consumers can connect their recipe discovery to meals on the table by saving, organizing and turning those recipes into shareable shopping lists. From any platform with Whisk, users benefit from integrated nutrition data, serving size adjustments, automatically combined items across recipes, and a shopping list that can be sorted by aisle or recipe.

New features give users the ability to:

• Turn Recipes into Shopping Lists: Turn any recipe into a collaborative shopping list to buy online or in-store. Save recipes from Whisk’s partner publishers, including the Food Network and BBC Good Food, and turn them into shopping lists in one click. Add some or all recipe ingredients to your list and easily uncheck the ingredients you already have.
• Share Shopping Lists: Share recipes and collaborate on shopping lists with anyone via SMS, email or URL, so others can view or edit your list or save and shop your favorite recipes. If your hands are full, use voice assistant apps like Bixby, Alexa or Google Home to simply add items to the shopping list as you take inventory of your pantry or fridge.
• Order Groceries Delivered To Your Door: Transform your shopping list into online grocery orders in seconds. Whisk finds and remembers your preferred store, enabling you to purchase from popular online grocers like Amazon Fresh, Tesco, Asda and Waitrose.
• Take Whisk Anywhere: Use and sync Whisk across any device (mobile,web, Bixby, Alexa, & Google voice assistant, Chrome extension) to save, store and shop for recipes, anytime, from anywhere.
• Make Smarter Food Decisions: Scale recipes to different serving sizes, view nutrition information and health scores, and automatically combine similar items across recipes.

Since 2013, Whisk has been powering half a billion connected food experiences per month across millions of online recipes with many of the world’s leading food publishers, brands, and retailers.

Whisk’s Food Genome is an intelligent deep learning-based natural language processing algorithm that maps the world’s food ingredients, their relationships, their properties (nutrition, perishability, flavour, categories) as well as offering food purchase options. It’s a combination of this deep ontological understanding of food with massive data about user behaviour that drives accurate, smart results from any source, at scale.

Read more:
Startup rejected by Lord Sugar, acquired by Samsung launches to solve supermarket shopping nightmare

Current Health, which offers the leading FDA-cleared, artificial intelligence powered patient management platform has closed a $11.5 million (£9 million) Series A funding round led by MMC Ventures.

Legal & General, the FTSE 100 life insurer and asset manager, is Current Health’s first corporate investor and the largest investor in the round as it continues to invest in the future infrastructure of health and care globally. The capital will be used to scale Current Health’s platform, with the goal of preventing illness for one million patients around the world by 2021. Par Equity and Scottish Investment Bank, the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise, also participated in this round.

Founded in Scotland in 2015 by CEO Christopher McCann and CTO Stewart Whiting, Current Health uses wearable and wireless vital signs monitoring, clinical indicators from an ecosystem of more than 50 integrations and symptoms collected via its patient engagement tools, to continuously track patient health trends. Leveraging proprietary machine learning algorithms, the company’s end-to-end platform analyzes this data to proactively detect illness and alert providers to high-risk patients so they can deliver healthcare earlier.

Today, 13 of the largest healthcare systems in the United States and United Kingdom – including Mount Sinai and Dartford & Gravesham NHS Trust – use Current Health to manage patient care. With the Current Health platform, customers have been able to shorten hospital stays, reduce hospital readmission rates, improve patient satisfaction and deliver better patient outcomes.

“Healthcare is undergoing a paradigm shift from reactive, in-hospital treatment, to proactive, community-based care,” said Bruce Macfarlane, Managing Partner at MMC Ventures. “Today’s healthcare systems must deliver improved patient outcomes while reducing costs. Current Health’s revolutionary solution offers unprecedented insight into patients’ health. Reliable, continuous patient monitoring enables earlier intervention in the event of patient deterioration, better patient experiences and fewer unnecessary hospital readmissions. With its world-class team and platform, Current Health has the right fundamentals to execute on a vast opportunity and become a global category leader in this important market.”

Current Health has secured three FDA 501(k) clearances for its platform and proven the value of its solution in some of the most demanding and respected healthcare systems in the world. In the past 12 months, it has also:

• Grown revenue by more than 300%
• Partnered with two of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies to extend the power of the Current Health platform to thousands of patients
• More than doubled its employee count
• Added key members to its executive team – including COO Richard Lennox and VP of Sales Sean Ginney – to steer the company’s growth

“We’ve spent the last three years quietly and carefully building and testing our platform directly with healthcare providers,” said McCann. “Now, with our platform FDA-cleared and through partnerships with some of the biggest healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies in the world, we plan to scale our solution to better treat millions of lives over the next five years. By helping healthcare providers treat patients preventively and at the earliest point, we can play a key role in enabling sustainable, high-quality and universal healthcare delivery.”

As Current Health embarks on the next stage of its growth, it will open a U.S. headquarters in New York City. The company will continue to expand its team, particularly in the sales, clinical operations and marketing functions.

Speaking about the company, Chris Knight, CEO, Legal & General Retail Retirement, Said: “Current Health is helping change the fundamentals of healthcare by expanding the accessibility and affordability of care through its patient management platform. We strongly believe in its mission and approach and are excited to partner with the company as it continues to scale its solution globally. Our investment in Current Health reinforces our commitment to provide innovative solutions to help improve personal well-being. It demonstrates our commitment to help people live longer, healthier, happier lives.”

Read more:
Current Health closes $11.5 million series A funding round

London-based start-up Gameplan has announced today that it has raised £500,000 to continue to develop its Integrated Workforce Management software platform.

The founders – Tom Nimmo (formerly of Hassle.com) and Duncan Mitchell (TempTribe) – raised the round from a combination of Europe’s best venture capital funds (SeedCamp and Swiss Founders Fund) and leading angel investors including Michael Pennington (Gumtree), Will Neale (Fonix) and Tim Ruffner (Talendo).

The raise follows 18 months of software development and market research with the product already being piloted by selected partners from different industries. Gameplan is building a SaaS solution which aims to help businesses reduce cost and increase revenue by streamlining processes in areas such as assigning work to suppliers, communications, access control, real-time job information, time and attendance, forecasting and analytics.

“Tom and I identified an opportunity to create some real value for operators in places like sports stadiums, attractions, conferencing venues, hotels and caterers. We noticed that in many cases outdated and ineffective platforms are being used and onsite teams are currently resorting to things like spreadsheets and text messaging for almost everything,” says Duncan, CEO of Gameplan.

Gameplan estimates that these businesses are losing millions each year from staff churn, time theft, inaccurate billing, poor time and attendance processes and lack of visibility across key analytics.

The founders have considerable sector-specific experience. Tom grew Hassle’s cleaning offering across Europe before the team sold the company to German-based Helpling.com for €32 million. Duncan, on the other hand, developed TempTribe into a market-leader in tech-enabled hospitality staffing.

Kyran Schmidt, investor at Seedcamp, comments: “Managing frontline personnel, especially in the hospitality, facilities and live events industries, is an increasingly complicated task. As the ‘gig economy’ has become mainstream, many of these workforces are now hybridised – a shifting mix of permanent employees, individual contractors and third party suppliers under one umbrella. But from onboarding workers to managing them real-time, the technology serving such workforces is either backward or non-existent, resulting in wasted resources, poor communication and inefficient organisation. That’s why we were so excited to come across Gameplan, whose tools empower both frontline personnel and those responsible for managing such large-scale workforces.

The ‘future of work’ is a category on many people’s lips right now, and Gameplan is certainly one of the most compelling products we’ve seen in the space yet. As founders Duncan and Tom also bring formidable expertise and a deep understanding of the pain points, having both led and scaled separate businesses in the contingent labour space previously. We couldn’t be more delighted to partner with Gameplan on their mission to empower the workforce of tomorrow.”

The company has already attracted interest from major operations in the US, Australia and Qatar and is currently focused on rolling out to local businesses in the UK.

Read more:
Gameplan raises £500,000 to offer end-to-end solution for workforce & supplier management

Lord Ashcroft has given a £2 million lift to the English sparkling wine business in which he has a controlling stake.

Gusbourne, based in Kent, said that the money, in the form of an unsecured loan, would become repayable at the end of October from additional unspecified funding that would be sought from investors and debt providers.

The Tory peer has a 72.3 per cent stake in the company Gusbourne. The company, which takes its name from the de Goosebourne family who owned the estate in Appledore the 15th century, was established in 2004 by Andrew Weeber, a South African surgeon with a passion for wine. Mr Weeber, 73, spent almost a decade converting the former “turnip patch” into a vineyard, selling control to Lord Ashcroft, 73, in 2013 in a £7 million deal.

Read more:
Lord Ashcroft’s £2m loan adds sparkle to Gusbourne wines

The European digital health company, Liva Healthcare, today announced an investment of eight million euros from three German venture funds: MIG (Munich), Santo Venture Capital (Holzkirchen) and Digital Health Ventures (Berlin).

The investment into the Copenhagen and London-based digital coaching and disease management company will boost Liva Healthcare significantly to scale up with existing clients, expand further geographically and continue its technological innovation. The three new investors acquire a significant minority stake in the transaction. Liva Healthcare is already backed by Danish Maj Invest.

Liva Healthcare’s digital platform is used by a broad range of healthcare organisations across Northern Europe to prevent and manage chronic diseases such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease through lifestyle changes. Among Liva’s most prominent customers since December 2017 are NHS England, which uses the platform to fight the obesity and diabetes epidemics. Also, several health authorities in Scandinavia have selected Liva Healthcare for disease management and patient education across a spectrum of lifestyle conditions.

In addition to working with public and private healthcare providers and payers, Liva Healthcare is also engaged with major global pharma companies. Here, the innovative company is combining personal lifestyle coaching with medications to drive better and more sustainable outcomes.

Kristoffer From, CEO of Liva Healthcare, explained: “This investment is rocket fuel for Liva Healthcare. It enables our ambition of expanding internationally and helping even more patients to prevent and manage their chronic conditions through personal coaching and lifestyle changes. We are looking forward to working with our three new German investors in driving further growth.”

MIG partner, Sören Hein, said: “We have been very impressed by the proven clinical outcomes and efficiency of Liva Healthcare’s platform. The platform is making it possible to scale personal coaching and health professional-centred disease management. Early successes with leading healthcare players show that Liva Healthcare is already in a special league. Clients recognise that Liva Healthcare offers a cost-effective solution with an attractive return-on-investment. We are thrilled to support the company financially in its growth ambitions, not least given the potential to work with major pharmaceutical firms to combine medicine with scalable digital coaching.”

Digital Health Ventures’ managing partner, Guido Hegener, explained the attraction: “The potential for Liva Healthcare is substantial, given the significant and growing population affected by obesity and type 2 diabetes. The company is helping clients reduce costs while at the same time helping patients improve their quality of life. The team behind Liva Healthcare is one of the strongest within digital healthcare we have seen yet. They have a proven track record, including founding and growing the respected and independent health information portal NetDoctor internationally.”

Read more:
Digital health innovator Liva Healthcare secures €8 million investment

Marmite owner Unilever has bought healthy snack brand Graze, which started life a decade ago as a snack box delivery service.

Graze produces nuts, seeds, trail mixes and snack bars, with no artificial ingredients and Unilever said the purchase would accelerate its presence in healthy foods.

The sale price was not given, though sources say it was less than £100m.

The boss of Graze described the deal as ‘transformational’.

Graze products are now available in stores including Sainsbury’s, Boots, WH Smith and Tesco, as well as online and direct to the consumers.

‘Growth journey’

The business was set up in 2008 by seven friends as an internet-based business. In 2009, Anthony Fletcher joined the company

In 2012 Mr Fletcher led a management buyout and became chief executive of the company.

The move, which was backed by US private equity group Carlyle taking a majority stake in the business, saw three of the seven co-founders end their day-to-day involvement in the business but remain as shareholders.

Mr Fletcher said the sale to Unilever “marks a transformational moment in Graze’s growth journey”.

“We look forward to working closely with the team to keep on inventing new healthy snacks, as well as continuing to work to understand the role technology can play in improving the food industry,” he added.

”Makes sense’

Nitin Paranjpe, president of Unilever’s food & refreshment business said: “Accelerating our presence in healthy foods and out of home this is an excellent strategic fit for the Unilever Food & Refreshment business, and a wonderful addition to our stable of purpose driven brands.

Nick Cooper, of global branding agency Landor said: “Unilever has a good track record when it comes to purchasing and then nurturing smaller brands. Its innovation and investment incubators have given it expertise in growing those smaller, more entrepreneurial brands. That’s why this deal makes sense for Graze.

Cooper said in the short term Unilever would “likely leave Graze alone”.

“That’s certainly what it did with Ben & Jerry’s”.

However he added Graze would be able to “tap into” Unilever’s global distribution channels and reach new customers.

Read more:
Snack brand Graze snapped up in £100m deal by Marmite owner Unilever

Distributed, the AI-powered tech talent resourcing platform, has announced it has raised £1.5 million in a seed funding round from Fuel Ventures to bring its total initial funding up to £1.65 million.

The new capital will be used to scale both Distributed’s technology and UK headcount to keep up with growing demand for its Elastic Team platform.

Founded in 2017, Distributed has already gained acclaim for changing the way businesses are working. Using its Elastic Team platform, customers need only provide a brief description of the technical outcome they require. Distributed’s machine learning technology combined with a global network of specialists then deliver the outcome without requiring any talent management by the customer.

With 50 customers onboarded in its first year of business, coupled with revenues in excess of £1 million, Distributed will be using the cash injection to grow its UK team 600% by late 2019 to coincide with the public availability of its platform. Already working with Mastercard, Sytner Group, Heron AI, REISS and RBS, Distributed is quickly establishing itself as the market-breaking product for the way businesses deliver digital work in the UK.

“In a world where tech talent is in increasingly short supply, it’s clear that maintaining the pace of delivery required by modern businesses, via hiring direct or outsourcing, is no longer working. We created Distributed to answer this problem,” comments Callum Adamson, CEO of Distributed. “Using our AI powered global workforce, the best talent is deployed into work that is meaningful to them as individuals, and organisations achieve both their business goals and a better return on their spend.”

Mark Pearson, Founder of Fuel Ventures, comments “The need for software development is accelerating at an unprecedented rate, which we expect to exceed trillions of spend over the coming decade, and Distributed will be positioned front and centre of this growth. We believe the majority of businesses should focus on their own core competencies and use the Distributed platform to create better digital products for their customers.”

“This next evolution of Distributed will allow us to grow our team, our network of partners and speed the innovation of our platform,” continues Adamson. “We’re aiming to raise the benchmark on the delivery of digital work, and we’re executing against a tremendous opportunity here in the UK.  Our ultimate goal is to make great work available to millions of digital specialists worldwide, while simultaneously removing resourcing, HR and talent headaches for businesses large and small.”

Read more:
Distributed raises £1.5m in largest seed funding round from Fuel Ventures

Digital wealth manager Nutmeg has secured £45 million in funding in an investment round led by Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs.

The British start-up will use the funds to invest in its products and features on its investment app, as it looks to expand in the UK and internationally.

Since its launch seven years ago, Nutmeg has raised about £116 million from investors and manages more than £1.5 billion in assets on behalf of more than 64,000 customers.

Nutmeg said it aims to bring affordable financial advice to customers via its investment platform whether they have £500 to invest or £50 million.

Goldman Sachs’s principal strategic investments group led the latest funding round, along with Nutmeg’s existing investor Convoy, a Hong Kong-based financial advisory firm.

Martin Stead, chief executive of Nutmeg, said the new investment marks the company’s transition “from start-up to scale-up” and it plans to launch in Hong Kong this year with Convoy.

“We look forward to Goldman Sachs’ support and to exploring commercial collaboration opportunities that further accelerate our growth plans.

“This funding also enables us to expand internationally, with our plug-and-play business-to-business expansion model, which leverages both our technology and investment capabilities.”

Rana Yared, partner at Goldman Sachs, who will be joining Nutmeg’s board, said Nutmeg is one of the fastest growing wealth managers in the UK and Goldman Sachs was excited to fuel further growth.

Michael Yap, head of venture capital at Convoy, added that with Goldman Sachs’ investment Nutmeg now has an “unmatched set of strategic investors who will support an accelerated growth plan and solidify their position as Europe’s leading digital wealth manager.”

Read more:
Nutmeg secures £45 million in funding led by Goldman Sachs

VITHIT, a mainstream player in the low-calorie drinks market; has launched in Australia. Predicting $4 million sales value in its first 18 months, VITHIT is being distributed across 700 Coles stores in the region.

Already projecting a 38% growth in the UK market for 2018, VITHIT is looking to conquer 50 international markets by 2022; increasing its international markets from 13 to 15 already by breaking into both Australia and the UAE by Q4, 2018.

Building on its impressive launch in the UAE, VITHIT is targeting an equivalent 1 million-unit sales in 2019.  Strengthening its wider international reach, in Belgium, sales revenue is already on target to reach €1.8 million in the first 1.5 years.

VITHIT will be landing across Coles stores in Australia at an RRP of $4. Taking an original supply of 1,000 cases ‘Down Under’, that are manufactured in the UK, Australia will be able to purchase VITHIT’s Lean & Green, Immunitea, Boost and Perform. Australia holds massive opportunity for innovative products of original design; a growing GDP, rising populous and innovations in flavour have truly bolstered the market. Growing at 3.4% CAGR, the Australian soft drinks market size is set to reach USD 5,813 million by 2025.

VITHIT’s decision to penetrate the Australian market makes it the business’ 15^th international market and, is a key step in entering markets across the region with South East Asia on the horizon. Wiping out seasonal sales by moving to the Southern Hemisphere, VITHIT has found itself a market demanding healthy and refreshing juice-based beverages 12 months of the year. The growing market for healthy-alternatives in the region has been a vital influence of the Irish based international drinks manufacturer.

VITHIT Founder, Gary Lavin (pictured above), has moved along with his family to oversee the launch of VITHIT in Australia, where he’ll be situated for the next three months. Gary is currently in talks with manufacturers, as well as other suppliers, in a bid to make Australia as much of a success as its European counterparts.

“We’re ecstatic to have this opportunity to bring VITHIT to the Australian market. Entering a market in the Southern Hemisphere firstly provides consistency to our seasonal sales; with the weather and lifestyle of Australians outlining the VITHIT ideals. Not only this, it gives us an amazing possibility to enter other markets in the region; looking at the UAE and wider towards Asia”, says Gary Lavin, Founder of VITHIT. “In year one, we’re predicting to drive 4% of global sales in Australia. Come year three, we’re expecting to see Australia generating 15% of global sales.  It’s a massive market for us and there’s so much opportunity to capitalise upon”

Read more:
VITHIT Launches in Australia predicting $4 million sales value in first 18 months ‘Down Under’

Gohenry which is enabling a generation of kids and teens to take part in the digital economy and learn about money, has successfully raised £6.2m via Crowdcube.

The funds raised will be invested in products and marketing, as well as expanding gohenry’s operations in the US.

Gohenry’s raise on Crowdcube launched in September with a target of £2m, which it has exceeded by 3x.

Over 3,000 investors have taken part in the raise, which is gohenry’s third on Crowdcube. Gohenry’s previous raises on Crowdcube were in 2016 and 2017, and the total amount gohenry has raised on the platform now stands at over £10m.

This latest raise makes gohenry one of the first companies to take advantage of the newly-raised prospectus threshold – previously regulations permitted companies only to raise up to €5m without issuing a prospectus, but in July this figure rose to €8m.

Alex Zivoder, CEO of gohenry, said: “We’ve raised £6.2m on Crowdcube – triple our target – we’re just blown away by the level of support for gohenry. The funds will help us to expand in the US, and further develop our product experience. Over 350,000 children are actively using gohenry, with more joining every day – managing their finances, learning about money, and getting to grips with the digital economy – these are very exciting times at gohenry!”

Luke Lang, co-founder of Crowdcube, said: “This is the third time gohenry has raised on Crowdcube’s platform as the company continues its impressive growth. Like Monzo and Revolut, gohenry is another brilliant example of a fintech trailblazer that understands the multiple benefits of crowdfunding. Raising on Crowdcube is not simply a great way to raise growth capital, it also expands your community and deepens those relationships, which is of course critically important when you’re building a brand.”

Gohenry is a pocket money management tool that uses a pre-paid card and app to help teach today’s digital generation about money. Parents can set up an account and use the app to set allowances automatically or related to tasks, as well as agree limits and locations where the card can be used.

After that, children (ages 6-18) are able to choose how they spend and save themselves, and the app gives them a record of where their money is going. Gohenry also just launched a Giving feature in partnership with NSPCC in the UK, which allows children to make small donations to charity.

The world of personal finance has moved on significantly with the advent of the digital economy, and cash is paying a smaller part in all or our lives than ever.

Earlier this year a UK finance report revealed that debit cards had overtaken cash transactions for the first time ever in the UK. Young people have been excluded from this digital revolution, and as a result don’t get exposure to the kind of skills that are so fundamental in adult life.

gohenry claims to be the solution to that problem, empowering children to take part in the world of digital and online banking and to learn about money.

gohenry has over half a million active members, made up of over 245,000 parents and 350,000 kids accounts. £70m is paid out in pocket money via the platform to UK children each year. The US market represents fantastic opportunities for growth, with a market 6 times the size of the UK. The business already has over 15,000 active children accounts there, and these funds can now be used to enlarge their existing US operations.

The successful raise comes after fantastic growth in the business, with revenues growing from £2.8m in 2016 to £6.1m in 2017, with 2018 figures expected to be £8.1m. This led to being placed in eighth position in the Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 earlier this year.

Read more:
Gohenry completes £6.2m raise on Crowdcube

Lightfoot, the makers of the first connected car technology to reward better drivers, today announces it has received £3.2m in funding from BGF.

It also welcomes former CEO of Dyson, Martin McCourt, as an investor and non-executive Chairman, and Ned Dorbin of BGF to the board.

Described as the ‘Fitbit for cars’, Lightfoot’s in-car technology enables drivers to monetise their everyday driving with prizes, discounts and rewards in recognition of their smooth driving style.

Lightfoot drivers have access to a range of exclusive discounts on insurance, dining, high-street shopping, and holidays. On top of this, users can enter competitions and leagues to win prizes and weekly cash giveaways, all of which give better driving genuine monetary value. Previous winners have turned their good driving into trips to Paris, Sonos speakers, a year’s supply of pies and even meeting and racing against F1 world champion, Nigel Mansell.

Drivers who want the upper hand can even activate Lightfoot’s real-time, in-cab feedback to help them achieve the ‘Elite Driver’ standard.  This unique functionality uses F1-style live analytics to help drivers stay within their engine’s ‘sweet spot’, typically resulting in a reduction in fuel costs and emissions by as much as 20% and at-fault accidents by as much as 40%.

Launched in 2013 by entrepreneur Mark Roberts, Lightfoot has successfully disrupted the fleet sector by focusing on rewarding good driving rather than the traditional method of penalising bad driving.

With over 20,000 drivers now using Lightfoot across over 150 clients including Virgin Media, Dixons Carphone, Southern Water, Ecotricity, Greencore and Dyno Rod, the company is now bringing the benefits of smoother driving to private motorists in the UK with their consumer launch, with plans to expand the proposition globally already underway.

The BGF investment puts further weight behind Lightfoot’s global aspirations and UK consumer launch. BGF’s funding will be used to drive growth in Lightfoot’s fleet business, its expansion into the consumer market and the continued recruitment of highly-skilled talent across the business.

Having already doubled their headcount in 2018, Lightfoot plans to do the same again by the end of 2019. This summer, the company relocated to a new custom-designed office – Innovation Valley – to accommodate this rapid growth.

Mark Roberts, Lightfoot’s founder and CEO, said: “We’re on a mission to change the way people think about driving. And to make it fun again. We want everyone to enjoy the amazing benefits that smoother driving can have on their wallets and our planet. So far, we’ve created a community of Lightfoot drivers who are earning better deals for better driving – now, we’re excited to grow this with more like-minded motorists who believe good driving deserves rewarding.

“Our growth to date is a great testament to the hard work and commitment of the Lightfoot team. We believe that now is the right time to accelerate our expansion by bringing on board more people and increasing our engineering and sales capacity. We’re delighted to be embarking on this new stage with Martin and with the support and funding from BGF as our new minority partner.”

Ned Dorbin, BGF investor and new Board member of Lightfoot said: “Lightfoot is a vibrant, smart and ambitious business with a first-class management team. After five years of operation, they have established a strong reputation in the market and developed a clear strategy for growth. We’re pleased to be backing another fantastic business in the South West.”

Martin McCourt, new investor, Lightfoot Chairman and former CEO at Dyson said: “Lightfoot has top class technology and engineering capabilities, the brand is fresh and approachable and when you walk into Lightfoot HQ you hit a wall of energy from a noisy bunch who are passionate about the benefits their product offers the planet. The parallels to my past are abundant – proud British engineering, disruptive technology and a team who can deliver… there’s a lot to be excited about!”

BGF is the most active investor for entrepreneurs and growing businesses in the UK. The South West team, based in Bristol, have recently completed investments into Seasalt, Hydrock, Molson and Plantforce.

The investment into Lightfoot was led for BGF by Ned Dorbin, Edwin Davies and James Skade.

Read more:
Lightfoot receives £3.2m BGF investment to expand connected car technology take up

Fluidly, a London-based fintech startup delivering intelligent cashflow management for SMEs, has completed a £5M ($6.5M) Series A funding round.

Fluidly defines a new software category – Intelligent Cashflow. Cashflow management is the single biggest financial pain-point that businesses face, and knowing their future financial position is of critical importance. Fluidly uses machine learning to predict and optimise the future cashflows for SMEs and provides the key to financial decision-making.

Fluidly is a SaaS platform that integrates with both cloud accounting packages and Open Banking APIs.

New-York based Nyca Partners led the round with participation from other investors including Octopus Ventures, Anthemis and tech angels Simon Murdoch and Charlie Songhurst. The new funding will be used to expand the team of engineers and data scientists working to advance the product, and also to build sales and marketing capacity.

Since launching a year ago, Fluidly has grown rapidlyand is now working with nine of the Top 20 UK accounting firms, (including BDO, Mazars, Baldwins and Haysmacintyre, as well as numerous smaller accountants) to reach thousands of SME end users. Fluidly has also formed partnerships with leading cloud accounting software providers, becoming one of the fastest-growing apps on Xero’s marketplace and a Champion-level Sage partner.

Fluidly’s success has been widely recognized as evidenced by its winning of both “Innovation of the Year” and “Forecasting, Planning & Analysis Software of the Year” in industry awards held earlier this year. It is one of 12 fintech businesses participating in the final phase of Nesta’s Open Up Challenge that concludes at the end of 2018. Fluidly is already a previous winner of Stage 1 which rewarded 20 companies with £100,000 in July 2017 who have developed innovative and credible ideas to transform small business banking.

Founder and CEO Caroline Plumb said: “It has been an incredibly exciting year for Fluidly. We have experienced a phenomenal period of growth and this latest investment will enable us to scale the business even further. Cashflow forecasting and management is the key to financial decision-making – we’re on a mission to help millions of business owners sleep better at night by giving them control, certainty and confidence in their financial future.”

Hans Morris, Managing Partner at Nyca said: “We are thrilled to have joined Fluidly on their journey as they grow into a major AI/ ML player in the financial technology industry. Cashflow management for SME’s is an area that is long overdue for the kind of innovation that Fluidly is providing, and we look forward to supporting them as they focus on new product development and expansion of their impressive customer base.”

Will Gibbs, Investment Manager at Octopus Ventures commented: “Cash flow is mission-critical for business, but it’s an area that’s seen little in the way of disruption. Many business owners continue to rely on spreadsheets and guesswork to manage it.

“Fluidly understand that AI can help, allowing businesses to make better forecasts and better financial decisions.

“This is a proven, fast-growth business that we are proud to have supported from an early stage. We are delighted to be working with Fluidly as they continue on their growth trajectory to expand their product, data and engineering teams.”

Read more:
Fluidly raises £5m in funding round

Wahed Invest the UK’s first halal online investment platform, has raised an additional £6m this year from existing investors to expand the reach of its global savings solution.

The online investment platform received the funding from existing investors, Boston based Cue Ball Capital, and BECO Capital, a Middle Eastern Venture Capital fund known for backing a variety of regional start-ups. This brings its total funding to nearly £12m since inception and has raised Wahed Invest’s valuation to over £75m.

Wahed, which first launched in the US in 2017 and expanded to the UK in August 2018, revolutionised the industry with the first-ever halal digital investment platform, allowing savers from all income brackets to invest in a globally diversified portfolio of ethically responsible stocks, Sukuk and gold with as little as £100 minimum investment.

Founder and CEO Junaid Wahedna, commented; “After gaining positive traction in the US and UK, we are excited to be able to carry this momentum into the rest of the world through our international expansion. Wahed aspires to provide a non-lending based savings solution to over 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide and to play a lead role in fostering innovation in the growing Islamic Finance sector.”

Wahed is also in the process of registering for the E-Money License with the FCA. The platform will offer a practical solution to the millions of Muslims who do not wish to deposit their money with traditional banks. Currently, existing Islamic banks still function as lending institutions by using

Shariah compliant lending structures. Wahedna said, “Our survey results show that 84 per cent of respondents do not trust existing Islamic Banks as being truly Islamic. We want to offer a pure investment-based savings solution with no lending components.”

Following a successful launch in the US and UK, Wahed plans on launching in the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) and ASEAN markets, which have a young and rapidly growing demographic of Muslim consumers. According to Accenture, only 1 percent of the $50bn investment in Fintech since 2010 has been in the MENA region.

Amir Farha, Managing Partner at BECO Capital, said; “Junaid and his team at Wahed have continued to execute and build the global coverage of their offering in an extraordinary manner, giving access to a significant market that needs this service. The company is fast outpacing traditional incumbents and driving innovation in a sector that lags behind. We are very bullish on the vision and strategy that Wahed is pursuing globally and look forward to supporting Junaid as he pioneers this industry through technology.”

Read more:
UK’s first halal online investment platform raises £6m to fuel global expansion

Futrli, a fast growing cloud-based business decision making platform, announced a successful £4m Series A funding raise from leading venture capital firms e.ventures, Notion Capital and firstminute Capital to fuel aggressive growth and innovation.

“Futrli was born from my own typical experience as a small business owner. I needed a way to run my business that looked to the future, as making decisions is hard and full of risk when you haven’t got all of the information in one place,” says Hannah Dawson, Futrli’s CEO and Founder.

“At Futrli our sole purpose is to change how small businesses’ teams make decisions so they get it right. This investment will be used to drive further innovation within the platform to continue to revolutionise how small business teams work. We are also expanding our team in our core markets and will be opening in new locations within the next few months, which is hugely exciting,” continued Dawson.

With no external funding to date, Futrli already supports over 40,000 businesses and 1,100 accountants in 130 countries and is on a quest to move the needle on the small business economy, which spans over 130 million small businesses globally.  The four-year-old business led by CEO and Founder Hannah Dawson uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to produce actionable insights that drastically improve decision making and success rates in small businesses.

Read more:
Futrli secures £4m to revolutionise how small businesses make decisions

Fast fashion startup Thread will today close its series B funding round at $22m (£16.7m).

The round was includes backing from Balderton Capital, Beringea and H&M’s investment arm H&M Co:Lab.

The round will also be complemented by a crowdfunding raise on Crowdcube later this year, providing everyday investors access to shares in Thread on the same terms.

Originally born out of Silicon Valley’s premier startup accelerator Y Combinator, the menswear styling and e-commerce app uses a combination of artificial intelligence and a team of stylists to provide personalised style recommendations from over 50 brands, such as Levis, Hugo Boss and Barbour.

Chief executive and co-founder Kieran O’Neill said that the funding will primarily be used to expand its 100-strong team of engineers, data scientists and product staff in London, with the goal of making Thread a household brand.

While there are plans to take the business international eventually in light of the success achieved by others in the industry such as Farfetch and Asos, O’Neill said there is “no concrete timeline” yet.

“London has very much become a global home of fashion tech,” he added. “Those business are all global companies [based] in London, and that’s our plan as well.”

The brand is also launching its first outdoor campaign this month, with advertisements set to be spread across Tube billboards.

Read more:
Menswear styling tech startup Thread raises $22m

Darktrace, the world’s leading AI company for cyber defence, has today announced that it has raised $50 million in Series E funding at a valuation of $1.65 billion.

The investment is led by Vitruvian Partners with participation from existing investors KKR and 1011 Ventures.

Darktrace continues to define the cyber defense market, with the world’s first autonomous response technology. Darktrace Antigena responds within 2 seconds to the earliest signs of threat and its adoption has increased by 30 per cent in the last quarter.

New capabilities include autonomous response for cloud, as well as protection against sophisticated email attack campaigns with the recently launched Antigena v2. Since its last funding, Darktrace has more than doubled its number of deployments and is now finding threats that other tools miss in over 7,000 networks.

The company’s rapidly growing roster of customers includes eight major international airports including London Gatwick Airport and Milan-Bergamo Orio Al Serio International Airport, the world-leading Science Museum Group, as well as a number of global financial institutions such as AIG, AEGON Sony Life Insurance and Ipreo.  

Having ushered in a new era for cyber defense, Darktrace has grown its employee headcount by 60 per cent in the last 12 months, now standing at over 750 employees worldwide.

Seeking to meet the global demand for its technology, the company has accelerated its global operations, opening eight new offices in the last year including locations in Los Angeles, Mexico City and São Paulo as well as tripling the size of its Asian headquarters in Singapore. This latest round of funding will drive further international expansion and development.

Sophie Bower-Straziota, Managing Director at Vitruvian, said: “Darktrace has built a unique combination of world-class AI capabilities, deep cyber domain expertise, and a highly effective business model.

This has rapidly created scale and a leading edge over all competitors. Most excitingly, the sophistication and quality of Darktrace’s AI is evidenced by the rapid success of its autonomous response system, Antigena, the first of its kind in the market. We are delighted to be leading this financing round, as Darktrace represents exactly the type of highly innovative company Vitruvian seeks to invest behind and support.”

Stephen Shanley, Director at KKR, said; “We continue to be impressed by the speed of execution and innovation at Darktrace.  Over the past two years of our partnership,  we have seen Darktrace evolve from a promising startup to a clear leader in the global security market.  We are very happy to be participating in this round and look forward to continuing to support Darktrace moving forward.”

Alex Doll, Founder of 1011 Ventures, added: “Darktrace is on its way to becoming a true security platform – successfully expanding from its pioneering role in network security, into cloud and email, the company has now demonstrated its ability to apply its core AI technology to multiple adjacent market segments.”

“Darktrace continues to enjoy strong growth in new and existing geographies, and is now the most widely used Enterprise AI on the market,” said Darktrace CEO, Nicole Eagan. “The increase in our valuation in just a few months is testament to the fundamental power of our Enterprise Immune System. As we begin to see real-world attacks leveraging offensive AI, Darktrace will be indispensable in keeping defenders one step ahead.”

Read more:
Darktrace raises $50M in new funding round

HeleCloud, an IT consultancy and managed services provider specialising in highly sophisticated Cloud strategy, implementation, migration and operation services, has received a £2m minority investment from BGF to further accelerate its growth strategy.

The funding will support the company’s services portfolio expansion, the establishment of its presence into further European territories, and the development of new Cloud capabilities.

HeleCloud was founded in 2016 and has grown rapidly and currently has more than 50 employees. It has an exceptional reputation and has already worked on projects with global corporations and household names, and references market disruptors such as Viber, the NEX Group, and Zopa.

Dob Todorov, CEO and Chief Cloud Officer at HeleCloud, said: “BGF’s investment will be instrumental in supporting us as we scale up and out, and we’re looking forward to working closely with them as we continue to grow. The world trend is more and more security-conscious organisations in regulated sectors transitioning to the public Cloud. We are proud to offer a robust service capable of meeting the sophisticated needs of these organisations.”

The business was founded by s Paul McCarthy (Chief Corporate Development Officer), Stefan Bumov (deputy CEO), Alex Kolev (CFO), Simon Rendell (NED) and Dob Todorov (CEO).  Cloud-born, the company delivers sophisticated Cloud migration solutions for businesses with stringent security and compliance requirements. Rather than operating on a ‘lift & shift’ model, the business is able to re-architect a company’s entire IT infrastructure into the Cloud.

BGF’s Alex Snodgrass who will join the board of HeleCloud, said: “The ability to re-design complex IT infrastructure to operate on public Cloud platforms in highly secure and regulated environments is rare. HeleCloud has an impressive pipeline of projects and a highly knowledgeable management team. The market for this type of specialist cloud consultancy is growing rapidly and we’re very pleased to be able to support them at this exciting stage in their growth journey.”

Most recently HeleCloud created a secure AWS-based platform for the electronic trading platform NEX Infinity to process multi-million transaction volumes daily across the globe, and has secured multi-million pound contracts with large European Systems Integrators.

As part of the transaction, Duncan McIntyre, former CEO of Morse plc and Chairman of Monitise plc, will become non-executive Chairman of the company. Currently HeleCloud’s non-executive director and investor, McIntyre is a member of BGF’s talent network of board-level executives.

The investment in HeleCloud was led by Alex Snodgrass, Jack Teasdale and Tim Rea who are based in BGF’s Reading office.

BGF is the UK’s most active investor of patient capital which helps businesses to grow. It has made a number of recent investments in the IT sector including Cardiff-based DevOpsGroup and Manchester-headquartered Miss Group. BGF makes long-term investments for a minority, non-controlling stake in the businesses it backs.

Advisors to the transaction were Wilson Partners and Osborne Clarke who acted on behalf of BGF. FieldFisher advised HeleCloud. 

Read more:
British Growth Fund invests £2m in high-growth HeleCloud

Equity crowdfunding platform, Crowdcube has announced the acquisition of business reporting software company Supdate.

Through this new product, Crowdcube funded companies will be more connected with their shareholders than ever.

Founded by Duane Jackson’s own frustration as an angel investor after he sold accounting software company Kashflow for a multi-million pound deal in 2015 and the startups he’d backed didn’t always keep him updated regularly, Supdate offers SaaS for businesses to create and share company news and metrics with shareholder

The idea was that well-designed software could help streamline and to some degree automate these updates, helping investors stay in the loop without a founder using up too much bandwidth writing reports.

This acquisition advances Crowdcube’s strategy of developing an ecosystem of services for entrepreneurs and investors using its platform. This new product will add to the existing suite of post-funding benefits available to businesses on Crowdcube, such as access to Amazon’s Launchpad Programme, to allow them to fully benefit from their crowdfunded raise.

The terms of the acquisition were undisclosed.

Supdate provides businesses with a platform to create, share and monitor company news and updates on performance with its shareholders.

Darren Westlake, Co-founder and CEO of Crowdcube commented: “Crowdcube has funded over 600 companies, averaging 350 investors each and so ensuring businesses can easily connect with their shareholders to keep them updated is really valuable to our investor community. We’ve been fans of Supdate for a long time, and when we recently began talking with Duane in more detail, it quickly became obvious that Supdate would be a natural fit for Crowdcube and our growing Funded Club.”

Duane Jackson, Founder of Supdate added: “Collaborating with a crowdfunding platform is an obvious route to market for Supdate, which is why I why approached the best in town – Crowdcube. Conversations about how we could work together quickly progressed to Crowdcube’s acquisition of Supdate, given their focus on connecting companies with their shareholders. Entrepreneurs are in safe hands with the team at Crowdcube and I’m pleased that Supdate will now be made available to more people through the work they do.”

Crowdcube will give its alumni of over 600 funded businesses access to Supdate, as well as providing ongoing access to Supdate’s existing customer base.

Read more:
Crowdcube acquires business reporting software Supdate in all cash deal

Thirty jobs are to be created through a new £1.5m digital Pharmacy opened in Liverpool, aimed at helping people living with chronic care conditions to manage their medicinal needs through artificial intelligent mobile app ‘Now Patient’.

Liverpool has been highlighted as having some of the most deprived health districts in the UK, and the ‘Now Patient’ app (developed by Now Healthcare Group) was created to enable up to 15 million people living with long-term health conditions such as cancer, diabetes and lung disease, to get free delivery of their repeat NHS prescriptions across Liverpool (and the rest of the UK).

The NHS approved tele-Pharmacy ‘super-hub’ – Now Pharmacy, will be able to dispense around 500,000 prescriptions per month and will be utilising the latest robotic technology to help smooth the distribution process.

It is seen as a life-saver for those are have suffered through recent community Pharmacy cuts and have difficulty accessing their medications.

Lee Dentith, Founder and CEO of Now Healthcare Group said: “The NHS is evolving, and digital innovation is crucial to offering patients quality care and choice. 15 million people in the UK are suffering with chronic conditions, and Now Patient enables them to be empowered to manage their own healthcare needs and to reduce the strain on our country’s overstretched health services. We are the first and only tele-health company in the world to have its own tele-pharmacy, which has been kitted out with the optimum robotic technology to streamline processes and service and fulfil medicines for thousands of NHS patients.”

Sue Weir, CEO of Liverpool based health insurer Medicash said: “Since our investment in Now Healthcare Group last year, we’ve been proud to work alongside them in driving this new technology to market. This new tele-pharmacy is another first for the City of Liverpool, which not only brings new jobs with it, but will also make it easier for tens of thousands of people to get access to the repeat prescriptions they need without having to regularly take time off work to visit their doctor and collect their prescription.”

Liverpool is one of the 20% most deprived health districts in England with life expectancy 10.8* years lower for men and 7.8 years lower for women. People in one area of Liverpool are living on average 11 years less than people living just five miles away. Data from the city’s ward profiles shows residents in both Church ward in Allerton and nearby Childwall have an average life expectancy of 85.3, compared to residents in Kirkdale who have an average life expectancy of 74.3.

Steve Rotherham, Metro Mayor for the Liverpool City region (who officially opened the event) said: “I am keen to tackle the issues of health and equality and I wish all the luck to Now Pharmacy. This super-hub digital Pharmacy, with its innovative technology, is a great idea to help communities and human beings who need access to numerous medications – as it takes away the stress of obtaining repeat prescriptions. I look forward to coming back soon to see how the facility has grown.”

NHS Chronic Care Patients can simply nominate Now Patient as their NHS pharmacy to get free delivery of their repeat prescriptions nationwide. NHG has agreed a contract with the NHS to ensure they deliver the same quality service for the whole of England. The app is free to download (available on iOS and Android). It includes smartphone-based video appointments with NHS trained GPs, medical adherence platforms to help users manage their medicine usage and repeat prescription services offering free medicine delivery.

Last year, the Now Healthcare Group became the UK’s first digital health provider to be assured by the Care Quality Commission to meet all requirements within the new enhanced digital guidelines, with no areas for improvement. Patients commented on the “great service” and stated that the GPs were “professional, knowledgeable, caring and fantastic.”

Read more:
£1.5M digital pharmacy powered by robots & AI to create 30 jobs

One-stop furnishing solution for the residential property sector will create eight new jobs following investment

The Greater Manchester Loan Fund (“GMLF”), managed by Maven Capital Partners (“Maven”), has completed its 32^nd deal investing £500,000 in Manchester-based LOFT Interiors (“LOFT”), a leading supplier in furniture solutions for the broad residential property sector. Funding will be used to support the continued development of LOFT’s operations, product, and team, to facilitate growth opportunities in existing and new markets. With over 80 staff already operating from LOFT’s offices in Manchester and London, the investment is expected to create eight new jobs in the region.

Founded in 2003, LOFT supplies design-led furniture and accessories to the Build to Rent (BTR) and Build to Let (BTL) sectors, student accommodation, and landlords and estate agents, furnishing large scale residential projects, as well as providing individual items, and caters for different price points from budget to premium. Now working with some of the biggest developers and contractors in the property sector, with a strong pipeline of projects with industry leading companies, LOFT is quickly becoming one of the most recognised suppliers of bespoke furniture solutions across the North West.

LOFT’s underlying markets are exhibiting growth. In residential, BTR and BTS have benefitted from a recent £65 million investment from the government, while BTR has been further boosted by the creation of a £2.5 billion Government guarantee scheme, which has been designed to encourage further institutional investment in the sector. The fundamental attractiveness of buy-to-let remains, supported by the introduction of the Government Capital Grant programme, will see an investment of £5bn for the Housing Infrastructure Fund, which will help unlock new homes in areas with the greatest housing demand. 

LOFT’s Co-Founder and Managing Director, Benjamin Hall, has spent 15 years growing the business with his Father, Co-Founder and Director, Robert Hall. Together they have built an effective brand with a strong position in the market, delivering growth through customers across the UK. Benjamin and Robert Hall are supported by a skilled Senior Leadership Team, including Dan Smith, Head of Landlord & Agency, Alec McKenzie, Project Sales Director, Tom Hindley, Head of Operations, Leona Kay, Commercial Director and Debbie Smith, Finance Director.

Gavin Bell, Investment Manager at Maven, said, “We are delighted to support LOFT with this investment. This is an established, dynamic business and Ben and his team are driven and passionate individuals, focused on the exciting future growth opportunities in their markets. We look forward to working with LOFT to assist their ambitious growth plans.

“A significant investment for the Fund, GMLF has now invested over £15 million to support the creation of over 400 jobs in the Greater Manchester area.  We continue to actively encourage local businesses with exciting growth plans to get in touch with the Maven team.”

Benjamin Hall, Managing Director of LOFT said “I am proud to have taken the company from start-up to a turnover of £10 million in 15 years using just a £15,000 student loan as start-up capital. There is a growing demand in our target markets for a design-led approach and we will continue to evaluate the needs of both developers and end users to evolve the products and ensure the growing range meets their requirements. The investment from Maven will allow LOFT to invest in our brands and support the company on its growth trajectory.”

Debbie Smith, Finance Director of LOFT, said “We are delighted to have secured the support and investment from Maven. The investment from Maven will allow LOFT to continue to grow and expand taking advantage of the numerous exciting opportunities in the property sector and allow LOFT to achieve its goals and reach its full potential.”

Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said: “Greater Manchester has always led the way in driving innovation, manufacture and construction – we are the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, after all. We pride ourselves on working with new ambitious and creative new businesses and industries to help them flourish.

“Through the fund and the investment announced today, we are demonstrating Greater Manchester’s ambition and commitment to doing things differently, working with local firms to help them grow and create jobs and opportunities for local people.”

Launched in August 2013 by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), GMLF was established to provide flexible finance solutions to businesses throughout the region to encourage growth while creating and safeguarding jobs. Managed by Maven, the Fund has invested over £15 million in 32 local businesses creating over 400 new jobs. With millions of pounds still available to help fund growth, ambitious Manchester-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are urged to take advantage of the Fund offering finance between £100,000 and £750,000 with the potential for follow-on funding to qualifying companies. The Fund will be open to new investments until 2020.

DTE Business Advisers (Manchester) undertook the financial due-diligence and Pannone Corporate (Manchester) the Legal advice for Maven.

Read more:
The Greater Manchester Loan Fund invests £500,000 in a leading supplier of design-led furniture

The Downing Crowd platform has successfully raised £1.2 million to support a small-scale wind turbine site in Scotland, owned and operated by C&G Renewables Limited.

The turbines have been operational for over three years and have successfully produced 830,000 kWh of renewable electricity during a 12-month period – enough to power approximately 270 UK homes for a whole year.

The £1.2 million raise will support the day-to-day operation of the wind turbines. In return, investors will receive a 5 per cent p.a. fixed interest rate over a term of up to 12-months. The fundraise reached its target of £1.2 million, in just 20 minutes of having opened to the public. The Bond has a loan-to-value of 63 per cent, based on Downing’s valuation of the turbines.

The Downing Crowd platform is part of investment manager Downing LLP, which has funded over 100 energy projects since 2010 totalling c. £500 million, including solar power, onshore wind and biomass energy. The business recently announced strategic investment for the initial phase of a £1.6bn programme – a world-first network of electric vehicle (EV) chargers and batteries across the UK, developed by Pivot Power.

Downing Crowd is also planning to launch a further energy bond where investors could earn 4.5 per cent p.a. interest over a period of up to 16 months, for Populo Energy Ltd, a group that owns and makes loans to renewable energy generation businesses. Please note that terms and rates are subject to change pending approval from Downing’s Investment Committee.

The turbines benefit from government backed subsidies called Feed-in-Tariffs (FiTs), which have been one of the main support mechanisms for renewable electricity projects in the UK. A fixed tariff is paid for each kWh of electricity generated by FiT-qualifying renewable energy projects accredited by OFGEM. The turbines operated by C&G received accreditation in November 2013.

Julia Groves, Head of Downing Crowd and Partner at Downing LLP, commented: “With close to a third of all power produced in the UK being generated by renewable energy, this is clearly an interesting area for investors to get involved in.  Our latest Bond with C&G Renewables is also a great example of how investors can clearly see their money go towards small-scale, local projects, that are making a positive difference to the UK’s energy market.”

Read more:
Downing Crowd raises £1.2m bond for onshore wind project

Startup Funding Club (SFC) has invested in Blue Skies Space Ltd, a pioneering UK company providing access to space science data from low-cost space missions.

Blue Skies Space is taking a private-sector approach to a traditionally government-driven area and will provide a commercial service worldwide. The deal marks the 100th investment made by a fund operated by SFC since the launch of the organisation’s first Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme Fund in 2014.

The round of £570,000 has been co-invested by the SFC Angel Fund and the tech-focused London Co-Investment Fund (LCIF) as well as a group of Angel Investors. LCIF, which is delivered by Funding London was established by the London Economic Action plan Partnership, which contributed £25m to the Fund, and is supported by the Mayor of London. The funding will enable the space technology company to expand its team and start the process of contracting suppliers for its first mission, Twinkle, which will provide data on planets orbiting distant stars and asteroids – among the fastest-growing fields of research world-wide.

The raise was sparked by interest from the European Space Agency (ESA) and UK Space Agency (UKSA) in exploring the commercial potential for astronomy and astrophysics missions. The success of the funding round, which resulted in more than double the initial investment target, has enabled Blue Skies Space Ltd to apply for additional ESA funding.

Joseph Zipfel, Investment Manager at SFC, said: “We are very pleased to achieve this important milestone by investing in such an exciting venture as Blue Skies Space Ltd. In many ways, this investment is a great illustration of the progress we’ve made since we started and we are looking forward to continuing to support great British startups.”

Dr Graham Turnock, CEO of UK Space Agency, said: “The UK Space Agency works with industry to help ensure Britain thrives in the commercial space age, as part of the Government’s Industrial Strategy. Blue Skies Space Ltd has shown that space science missions like Twinkle can attract venture capital, creating new opportunities for researchers and investors alike.”

Marcell Tessenyi, CEO of Blue Skies Space Ltd, said, “It is an exciting time for the commercial ‘NewSpace’ sector, which looks to disrupt and transform the global space industry. Blue Skies Space Ltd will be the first commercial supplier of data from space science missions to researchers around the globe. This fundraising success demonstrates the strength of our business case.”

Maggie Rodriguez-Piza, CEO of Funding London and co-founder of LCIF, said: “The ultimate objective of LCIF is to empower London’s start-ups to grow into the tech giants of the future.  Our investment into ‘Blue Skies Space’ is further proof of London’s innovation led Tech ecosystem. Our investments add value, as London Start-up’s community continues to revolutionise Industries through technology.”

Former Science Minister and Chair of the UK innovation & Science Seed Fund Ian Taylor says: “The Blue Skies Space model has transformative potential for space science research. By combining elements of publicly-funded model for astronomy and astrophysics missions with a ‘NewSpace’ commercial approach, the team are creating fresh opportunities for cutting-edge science. This provides UK scientists with a much-needed innovative satellite research platform which is attracting collaboration from colleagues around the world.”

Read more:
Startup Funding Club invests £570K into Blue Skies Space alongside London Co-Investment Fund 

By Miles, which offers pay-as-you-drive car insurance, has raised £1m in a Seed round.

The funding round was led by JamJar Investments, the venture capital fund of the Innocent drinks founders.

By Miles, which launched in the UK last week, charges car owners a fixed annual fee to cover their cars while parked and then bills them monthly, based on the number of miles that they actually drive.

The product is being aimed at drivers who travel under 7,000 miles a year or 140 miles per week in their cars.

This could also help casual drivers to reduce how much they drive, which would have potential benefits for the environment and for public health.

Existing investors InsurTech Gateway, the insurance-focussed incubator set up by investor Hambro Perks and Lumleys, and InMotion Ventures, Jaguar Land Rover’s venture capital fund, also contributed to the round.

James Blackham, co-founder and CEO of the London-based firm, said he is delighted to receive new backing from JamJar Investments and explained why the company began: “We started By Miles two years ago because we believed drivers like us were being charged way too much to insure cars they rely on but don’t drive that often, so we built a simpler and smarter way of pricing car insurance.

“Following our recent launch, this new round of investment means we can continue to improve the features in our app, making car ownership even easier for people that don’t drive much,” he added.

Annual charges start at £150 a year and driving is billed from 3p a mile. Using this example, someone driving 4,000 miles a year with this policy would pay £270 for a year’s fully comprehensive cover.

Aimed at drivers who cover fewer than 7,000 miles a year – roughly 140 miles a week – customers taking out insurance with By Miles will pay a flat-rate annual fee to insure their cars against theft or damage when parked. They are then charged a variable rate based on how much they actually use the car.

Mileages are measured using a telematics device plugged into a car’s On Board Diagnostics (OBD-II) port, which typically located under a panel below the steering wheel. Drivers can track journey-by-journey mileages and charges using a dedicated smartphone app, and will be billed each month based on how far they’ve driven.

Crucially, drivers will not be charged more depending on how or how fast they drive, and By Miles says they will “never share any of your personal driving data with the police, unless we are obliged to as a direct result of a court order.”

Launched last year as a start-up – albeit one with backing from Jaguar Land Rover – By Miles has now begun selling its policies, which are underwritten by AXA. While a number of insurance companies provide cover for low-mileage drivers, these typically charge by the day or by the hour, or require consumers to predict how much they will use their cars, purchasing additional miles if that limit is exceeded.

Jon Wright, co-founder of JamJar Investments, said: “As soon as we heard about By Miles, we knew we wanted to get involved. Although car insurance is not exactly a purchase everyone looks forward to making, the team at By Miles are changing that: their pricing is smarter, their customer service better, and their app gives you useful driving tools as well as a policy with added benefits. They’re set to shake up the car insurance market.”

Read more:
By Miles pay-as-you-drive car insurance provider raises £1m

Care Sourcer has closed a £8.5m funding round – the largest ever Series A funding round to be received by a digital tech company in Scotland.

The care comparison and matching site raised the funds from two investors, Legal & General and ADV.

The money will be used to roll the company out nationwide throughout the year, as it currently only operates in London, Edinburgh and Gloucester.

The funding will also be used to develop the technology and expand its team of care experts and technologists.

Care Sourcer was founded in Edinburgh in 2016 by Andrew McGinley, CEO and Andrew Parfery, CCO. Anyone, including private individuals, GPs and social workers, can request care for older people on the website and will receive offers from local care providers within 48 hours.

The service costs the care provider a small fee and there is no charge to the person making the request.

Co-founder McGinley explained the purpose of the company: “Right now, too many people are waiting weeks or even months for care – this causes incredible stress for people and their families, and it’s also a huge expense to our health system. People deserve better than this broken status quo and we know that our technology can help.

Legal & General Retirement Retail were the lead investors of the funding round, investing £6m.  ADV, who had previously invested during Care Sourcer’s seed round, followed on with a £2.5m investment.

“We’ve had incredible feedback from people who have already found care through Care Sourcer and with backing from Legal & General and ADV, we’re kicking off our next stage of growth and UK-wide expansion. Our talented team is incredibly motivated to make sure that nobody in the UK has to wait for care when they need it,” McGinley added.

With this investment, Care Sourcer aims to directly tackle the NHS’s ‘bed-blocking’ crisis.  NHS England alone reported over 150,000 Delayed Transfer of Care days in 2017-18, which is the number of days that someone who is medically fit for discharge is still occupying a bed. These delays cost NHS England £3bn annually, or £8m per day, and also force the NHS to cancel operations and increase waiting times in A&E.

Care Sourcer claims that its care matching tech can address nearly half of these delayed discharge cases.

Chris Knight, CEO of Legal & General Retirement Retail, said: “Our investment in Care Sourcer will not only directly improve the lives of many of our customers – both recipients of care, and family and other carers trying to find a care solution for loved ones – but it also contributes to our long term purpose of building a better society.

“By addressing Delayed Transfer of Care, a key issue in the UK’s care provision and a huge cost to the NHS England budget, not only have Care Sourcer devised a strong business concept but it is an innovative solution that brings choice and transparency to the UK care market. We are looking forward to working more with the Care Sourcer team who share our commitment to resolving issues in UK care provision,” he added.

Care Sourcer completed its first external seed investment round in 2017, raising £500,000 from UK venture capital firms Accelerated Digital Venturesand BGF Ventures. It was the first investment in a Scottish company by both investors. Also that year, the company bagged a nationwide Small Business Research Initiative contract worth £100,000 to tackle delayed discharge with NHS England. After a successful trial, NHS England awarded a further £757,000 to Care Sourcer to expand their work with NHS bodies across the country.

Mike Dimelow, CIO at ADV, also commented: “This is an excellent example of the right team, timing and opportunity coming together in a startup. With a fantastic mix of brains targeting an area which is a huge pain point globally, Care Sourcer has big potential to be generation-defining.

“Taking on investment from one of the UK’s largest financial institutions brings into sharp focus the importance of thinking about life post retirement for older adults. We’re excited to see Care Sourcer’s growth accelerate,” he concluded.

Read more:
Care Sourcer lands £8.5m in largest Series A round for Scottish digital tech firm

Messaging app Guild has raised $1.2m (£880,000) in Seed funding. Guild is a messaging app for private professional groups.

Guild is built for any professional group, network or community where its members want to communicate, share, learn from each other, stay in touch, develop and nurture valuable professional relationships – both internal to the company and externally.

The Seed round, closed on SeedLegals, was raised from 28 private investors including the two founders, Ashley Friedlein and Matthew O’Riordan. Ashley and Matthew previously co-founded Econsultancy, which they successfully sold in 2012 to Centaur Media for £24m.

CEO Friedlein explains: “We think it is time professionals had a messaging app that is properly private, GDPR-compliant and designed just for work use. Research suggests there are already over half a billion people using WhatsApp for professional use and that’s the market Guild is going after.”

Guild members have total control of their own data: in leaving a group they can choose to delete their profile and all contributions. There is no directory of Guild members. No public profiles. No listing of guilds (groups). No way to apply to join a group.

You can only be a member of Guild if you are the founder/host of a group or if a host invites you into his/her group. Furthermore, Guild allows users to request a full copy of their data including all contributions, and every member gives explicit consent when accepting an invitation to join a group.

Data from a survey of 500 US/UK professionals this month reveals that 38 per cent of WhatsApp users also use the app for professional purposes although over 75 per cent would like a separate messaging app just for work.

Professor Robin Dunbar, of “Dunbar’s Number” fame has joined the advisory board, and says of Guild: “Over the years, I’ve been approached by many networking-type start-ups, but I have always declined to be involved because they all seemed to be a simple market-places and lack any sense of a social dimension. Guild is in a different league precisely because its focus is small scale and intensely social and pays much closer attention to the way natural human groups are organised.”

Guild goes live this Autumn but you can sign up to receive updates and free access to the product when it launches at https://guild.co

Read more:
Guild raises $1.2m to provide a professional alternative to WhatsApp

Investment contributes to the commercialisation of the world’s most powerful light microscope and the development of further products utilising the company’s platform microsphere lens technology.

LIG Nanowise Ltd, which specialises in developing super-resolution microscope technology and applying revolutionary and patented microsphere lens technologies to industry and academia, has announced the completion of its seed funding round, raising £2.6m.

LIG Nanowise has developed an accessible super-resolution imaging technique for advanced materials, semiconductors, metal alloys, and more. Its specialist technology transforms light microscopes, the most popular form of microscopy in the world, into ultra-high-resolution systems for the first time, through the record-breaking performance of its microsphere lenses.

The company’s  NANOPSIS M microscope, allows for real-time, non-destructive imaging at super-resolution in full colour, democratising super-resolution capabilities in the scientific community, stretching what were thought to be the limits of optical microscopy.

The financing, which was led by Hong Kong based venture capital investor Phoenix Bridge, alongside private investors, will go towards expanding the company’s manufacturing capability and international sales network, helping to deliver its world-leading NANOPSIS M microscope to new prospects across industry and academia.

A proportion of the money will also help to fund continued R&D efforts in multiple sectors, and further develop the organisation’s novel nano-patterning system, reinforcing its position as the industry leader in applied microsphere technologies and a key disruptor in the optics space..

As well as being an accessible super-resolution option, the company’s patented SMAL technology reveals the nanoscopic world in previously unseen ways. With this technique, there is no need for the traditional coating of a sample, which is required when using a common electron or atomic force microscope, this technology enables users to see objects smaller than 200 nm – or the size of a large virus – in high-resolution and full colour.

LIG Nanowise’s technology has the potential to open up new vistas of research for super-materials such as graphene and semiconductors, providing a new, synergistic imaging technique to integrate into existing imaging protocols. Its microsphere lens technology has further far-reaching applications in areas such as industrial nanoprecision laser etching of surfaces, for applications such as bank note security and microelectronics.

Alex Sheppard, general manager of LIG Nanowise, commented: “Since inception, we have made rapid progress in applying our patented, super-resolution microsphere lenses to practical problems facing industry and academia. The support of Phoenix Bridge and our other new investors will allow us to expand our international distribution network, deliver more system orders, and further increase the efficiency of our manufacturing pipeline.

“At our roots we are innovators, and so we will dedicate a proportion of this funding towards pursuing a number of additional applications for the future – we aim to make microsphere lenses a platform technology that can augment a wide spectrum of optical instrumentation, manufacturing equipment, and photonics devices.”

Read more:
LIG Nanowise completes £2.6m seed funding round

TaxScouts combines automation and accountants, bringing personalised online tax preparation to market at a fraction of the normal cost

Read more:
Former TransferWise & MarketInvoice employees raise £300K to launch tax preparation startup

AndCo, London’s new workspace subscription service, has announced it has raised £800,000 in private seed funding.

Founded in 2017 by Sanj Mahal, AndCo is reawakening London’s most unique venues by transforming spaces in independent pubs, cafés and restaurants into co-working spaces during the working week.

Freelancers across the capital are often either left paying over the odds for a desk in a costly co-working space, or are forced to move between small, restrictive spaces throughout the day while outstanding independent venues remain unoccupied and under-utilised.

AndCo is maximising the potential of these incredible spaces by transforming them into dedicated co-working spaces for the freelancing community during working hours. For just £20 per month, AndCo members have unlimited access to over 40 venues across London, with new venues being added every month.

Freelancers can book their AndCo workspace within seconds through a secure booking process, guaranteeing them a dedicated workspace at their venue of choice. Members also have access to secure, high-speed, WIFI in all of AndCo’s partner venues, and access to community features through the brand new AndCo app.

The funding is allowing AndCo to further develop its technology infrastructure and also support the continued rapid growth in venues and members.

On the investment Sanj Mahal, Founder & CEO of AndCo, commented; “We have been delighted by the enthusiasm for AndCo as we launch across London with many incredible venues in the capital. The establishments on our platform are natural spaces for people to come together and create a local collective.

“Working habits have changed: whether you are a freelancer or remote worker, you need space outside of the traditional office. People are often using small, noisy and unsuitable locations to work while there are beautiful, expansive restaurants, cafés and event spaces that lay empty throughout the working day.

“We firmly believe our strategy will reawaken those venues, offering a lifeline to the high street, as well as helping workers find quick, convenient and cost-effective short-term desk space.”

Bill Osborne, Angel Investor, commented; “AndCo is successfully providing low cost, bookable co working spaces that offer a genuine alternative for the growing number of freelancers who find the current co-working offers too expensive but want high quality WIFI and security that AndCo offers. The growth in demand for hot desking makes this an exciting opportunity.”

Read more:
AndCo raises £800,000 funding to turn bars & restaurants into daytime co-working spaces

Oxford-based metamaterials start-up Metaboards has announced an investment of $5 million led by science equity investor, Oxford Sciences Innovation (OSI) with additional funds from investors RT Capital Management Inc and Woodford Investment Management Ltd.

The financing will be used to fund Metaboards’ continued expansion and to bring to market its patented, state-of-the-art wireless charging technology.

Metaboards was founded in 2016 by world leading professors and authors from Oxford University focusing on Metamaterials, currently one of the most dynamic scientific research areas.

Metamaterials are made up of compound materials such as plastics or metals that are arranged in geometric structures and have properties that are not found in nature.

Metaboards enables wireless charging through any non-metal surface without the need for alignment or multiple power inputs, creating more flexible and functional wireless power solutions. In the past wireless charging has been focused on smartphones.

Metaboards’ technology makes it possible to charge tablets, games consoles and controllers, computers and any other non-metal electronic device at the same time and on the same surface. According to a report from Grand View Research, the global wireless charging market is predicted to be worth $22.25 billion by 2022.

“With the global wireless charging market set to surge over the next few years, our investment will help Metaboards bring their technology to market, and accelerate the company’s pace of innovation,” says Will Goodlad, Principal at OSI.

Metaboards CEO Nedko Ivanov states: “This investment will help us to grow the company and extend our capabilities across all wireless power technology platforms to ensure we offer universal capabilities. We already have interest from companies looking into licencing the technology in the next six to 12 months.”

Ivanov joined the company in January 2018 having previously been the CEO of Redux, where he achieved a successful exit for the company in August 2017. Ivanov’s appointment follows the hiring of Pete Hutton as Chairman, who was previously president of product groups at ARM.

Read more:
Metaboards secures $5 million in funding led by Oxford Sciences Innovation

Debut, the London-based early careers mobile app that connects candidates with employers, has announced that its ‘smart data’ technology has attracted a further £5.1m investment from former dragon and recruitment entrepreneur James Caan CBE.

Caan now joins existing investor Paul Forster, co-founder and CEO of the world’s largest job site Indeed.

With the addition of this most recent investment, Debut has now received a total of £7.3m in just two years since inception.

The careers app, which was launched two years ago by recent graduate and Forbes 30 under 30 technology entrepreneur Charlie Taylor, has already attracted over 120K prospective candidates aged 16-24.

Debut’s smart data technology involves millions of data points collated by purpose-built crawlers and its proprietary search algorithm, which enables employers to target and attract candidates with precision.

An example of which is HSBC – after sending one intelligent push notification they made 25 hires in just 3 weeks. EY has already made 300 hires via the app to date.

The app works by allowing candidates to use their smartphones to register and complete a short profile, before being invited to complete a set of psychometric and personality tests.

The smart data technology begins immediately after registration, and candidates start to receive ‘Talent Spots’ – precision-targeted push notifications to their smartphone, which can propel candidates into an interview, without even having to apply for a job.

Charlie Taylor, founder and CEO of Debut, said: “Given the importance of an effective, productive and motivated workforce to the country’s economy, I continue to be amazed by how little innovation the recruitment market has seen in recent years, especially considering the prevalence of smartphone technology over the last decade.

“Already, in just 2.5 years, Debut has collated and analysed more data than any traditional job board would be able to capture in 10 years. The fact that we have started at the entry level, and have such a high level of user adoption and data, we are in a stronger position than any other platform to take on the global recruitment market and stay with candidates at each stage of their entire careers.

“Debut prides itself on delivering an intimate user-experience, which results in more data collation, and a chance for our technology to learn more based on candidates’ and employers’ behaviours and actions, which further enhances that experience – it’s a big loop.

“This latest investment will enable us to expand out of early careers and impact the broader jobs market. I hope that eventually our system will become so incredibly powerful that it will play a part in shaping the national skills agenda to promote improved supply and demand – first here in the UK, and then on a global scale.”

Caan added: “The recruitment industry needs innovation to survive, and Debut entered the market at the right time – smartphone penetration was already well-established, but what made the opportunity so perfect for now, was the cost-effective access to unlimited, or large amounts of mobile data, meaning the mobile-only movement was just starting to gain traction. Debut embraces this audience and helps employers to do the same.

“Debut’s global ambitions are fantastic and full of new opportunities – the US has already seen mobile-only users overtake desktop-users, making it an obvious next stop, with the changing times ahead, Debut is not one to watch – it’s one to download.”

Read more:
James Caan makes £5.1m investment in recruitment app

PayPal has confirmed that it is buying iZettle — the Stockholm-based payments provider commonly referred to as the “Square of Europe” — for $2.2 billion in an all-cash deal.

The deal — which is expected to close in Q3 2018 — will see iZettle’s co-founder and CEO Jacob de Geer stay on to lead iZettle. He will report to PayPal’s COO Bill Ready. Others in iZettle’s exec team will also stay on to run the business, which will become a “center of excellence” for in-store and offline payments in Europe, PayPal said.

The timing of the deal is notable: It comes on the heels of iZettle filing for an IPO earlier this month (just nine days ago, in fact) in its own bid to scale out its business: iZettle had planned to raise $227 million on the Stockholm Nasdaq exchange, which would have valued the company at around $1.1 billion.

PayPal itself has a market cap of around $94 billion and in its last earnings said it had $7.8 billion in cash, cash equivalents and investments — giving it ample funds for this deal.

iZettle is PayPal’s biggest-ever transaction. For some context, in 2015 PayPal acquired money-transfer startup Xoom for $890 million, and when it was still a part of eBay, in 2013, it acquired Braintree and its Venmo business for $800 million.

iZettle has operations in 12 markets, including several in northern Europe and Mexico in Latin America, where PayPal doesn’t have an extensive offline presence, such as Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden. (Its Latin American expansion was made by way of a strategic investment from the Spanish bank Santander.) iZettle is very strong also in the U.K., so will help PayPal strengthen its business in that market at a time when Square has finally emerged as a competitor there.

“Small businesses are the engine of the global economy and we are continuing to expand our platform to help them compete and win online, in-store and via mobile,” said PayPal president and CEO Dan Schulman in a statement. “iZettle and PayPal are a strategic fit, with a shared mission, values and culture—and complementary product offerings and geographies. In today’s digital world, consumers want to be able to buy when, where and how they want. With nearly half a million merchants on their platform, Jacob de Geer and his team add best-in-class capabilities and talent that will expand PayPal’s market opportunity to be a global one-stop solution for omnichannel commerce.”

“Combining our assets and expertise with a global industry leader like PayPal allows us to deliver even more value to small businesses to help them succeed in a world of giants,” de Geer said in a statement. “The combination of iZettle and PayPal will provide tremendous benefits to our merchants who will have access to an even wider range of tools to help them get paid, sell smarter and grow.”

iZettle expects to generate gross revenues of around $165 million in 2018, with approximately $6 billion of total payment volume expected to be processed on its platform, PayPal noted. Its revenues have been growing at a compound annual growth rate of 60 percent between 2015 and 2017.

Read more:
PayPal agrees to buy payments startup iZettle in $2.2B deal

Anydesk, the fastest and most seamless remote desktop offering for today’s workforce, has raised a €6.5 million Series A round.

Lead investor in the round is the EQT Ventures fund (“EQT Ventures”), with participation from angel investors, including Chris Hitchen, and existing investor Andreas Burike.

The funding will be used to continue product innovation and grow the technical and commercial teams. AnyDesk was discovered by AI platform Motherbrain. The platform was developed by leading investment firm EQT and is used by EQT Ventures to discover the most promising companies and guide its investment decisions.

Today, people need to work with their teams and content just as quickly and fluidly when working remotely as they do when in the office. However, anyone who has used legacy remote desktop offerings knows how complicated, tedious and slow they can be. AnyDesk’s founders – Philipp Weiser, Olaf Liebe and Andreas Mähler – recognised this and re-engineered the remote desktop so that anyone, anywhere can get their work done without being distracted by the technology they are using.

The team has created a proprietary video codec (DeskRT) for graphical user interfaces, which transmits 60 frames per second with low latency.

As a result, users experience high quality video and sound, and image transmission that is so fast and fluid that users often forget they are using a different computer. It has also been optimised for low-bandwidth scenarios.

All of AnyDesk’s features have been packed into a tiny 1.9MB file, which transforms any desktop into your desktop in seconds.

AnyDesk has already secured more than 7,000 business customers and has been downloaded by more than 50 million users worldwide.

“The remote desktop experience people are used to can be frustrating – it was designed and optimised for technology available more than a decade ago,” said Philipp Weiser, founder and CEO at AnyDesk. “It takes time to get started and, when you’re finally set up, you may only be able to give a short presentation or help a colleague for 10 minutes while they set up a printer, for example, before you experience issues. You can’t work for hours at a time from any location, on any device, and there’s no point trying to edit video or CAD files –  the performance and image quality aren’t good enough. At AnyDesk, we approached the remote desktop from a software-focused angle, providing people with the experience they’ve come to expect when consuming content. When you view a website or video on your devices, chances are you don’t think about the web browser or media player working in the background. You’re focused on the content. AnyDesk works in the same way, seamlessly running behind-the-scenes so you can be productive, creative and get on with your work. This investment and support from EQT Ventures will enable us to continue to innovate on the product and infrastructure, hire fantastic team members and ensure best-in-class service for our customers.”

“We were blown away by the impressive traction and growth that AnyDesk is showing,” said Axel Bard Bringéus, International Expansion Partner and investment advisor at EQT Ventures. “The team has tremendous talent and has built fantastic proprietary technology that supports today’s multi-device, always on workforce.The EQT Ventures team is looking forward to supportingAnyDesk on the next phase of its journey.”

Read more:
AnyDesk raises €6.5M to reinvent the remote desktop experience

Glownet, a global market leader in cashless payment technology for the live events industry, has secured £2 million funding from venture capital firm Downing Ventures, as it eyes US expansion and further development to its payment technology.

Glownet has developed cashless payment technology which allows a wide range of events and venues to go entirely cashless, including music festivals, nightclubs and sporting events. In addition to enabling cashless payments, the platform can also be used for ticket validation at events and venues, as well as linking with social media and loyalty programs.

First established in 2012, Glownet has already delivered its technology to over 500 events and 2.3 million users in 38 countries worldwide, working with major operators in the live events industry including Sonar, Ultra Music and Live Nation.

Supported by the £2 million funding from Downing Ventures, Glownet will build on its strong core offering by enhancing its POS capabilities, integrating new payment types and making further improvements to the online-offline user journey. Additionally, Glownet aims to bring its unique service model to the USA, where event payment technology adoption is growing fast.

London-based Downing Ventures is one of the UK’s most prolific early stage investors and is part of the wider investment management business Downing LLP, which has over 30 years of experience and in excess of £1 billion funds under management. The Glownet investment opportunity was brought to Downing by corporate finance firm Bosham Capital Advisors.

How does Glownet technology work?

Glownet has developed a revolutionary cashless payment platform, allowing attendees to store ticket information, carry out cashless transactions and capture social media profiles. Significant data can also be gathered through their platform and used to market to attendees and prospective sponsors.

Glownet’s platform can be seamlessly connected to multiple ticketing systems and event management software and its cashless payment technology also connects to all types of ‘digital wallets’ including smartphones and smartwatches.

Commenting on the funding and Glownet’s ongoing development, James Lewis, Investment Director at Downing Ventures, said: “The Glownet team has achieved great things so far and our funding support should allow them to build on this success by furthering enhancing its technology and expanding into new major markets. We are confident that the company is well positioned to capitalise on the large, unpenetrated market in which it operates.”

Glownet Chief Executive Officer Siebe Gerbranda added: “Downing Ventures’ experience in disruptive technology, as well as its established presence and network in our core markets make them our ideal partner for fast, sustainable growth. We believe this is an optimal point in Glownet’s development in which to establish our partnership with Downing Ventures, as we look to drive aggressive expansion in terms of both product and territory coverage.”

Read more:
Downing Ventures commits £2M funding for cashless payment startup Glownet

Revolut, the digital banking alternative, has today raised an additional $250m in funding that will see the London-based fintech increase its valuation 5x in less than a year to $1.7 billion – becoming one of the fastest tech companies in Europe to reach unicorn status.

The new Series C round was led by Hong Kong based DST Global alongside a portfolio of new and existing investors including other blue-ribbon Silicon Valley investors, Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital. The latest cash injection brings the total amount raised by Revolut to $340 million since the company launched three years ago.

The new round of capital and surge in valuation follows incredible growth figures to date, with Revolut now processing $1.8 billion through the platform each month and signing up between 6,000 and 8,000 new customers every day, with nearly 2 million customers in total and an ambitious target of 100 million customers in the next five years.

Boasting over 250,000 daily active users, Revolut has been pushing out product at an impressive rate in their mission to convince people to ditch their traditional banks. In the last few months alone, Revolut has launched features that allow customers to instantly buy and sell cryptocurrencies as well as a savings feature that lets customers round up their daily transactions and save their spare change in a digital Vault.

The new capital will be used to expand Revolut worldwide, starting with the United States, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia in 2018. Revolut also expects to increase their workforce from 350 to around 800 employees by the end of the year, with a focus on attracting world class engineers and designers.

Nik Storonsky, Founder & CEO at Revolut said: “Our focus, since we launched, has been to do everything completely opposite to traditional banks. We build world class tech that puts people back in control of their finances, we speak to our customers like humans and we’re never afraid to challenge old thinking in order to innovate.”

“To have DST Global on board is an incredible endorsement of our business strategy as we begin to expand Revolut around the world. Banking has historically avoided disruptions by technology, but that is all about to change on a big scale.”

Tom Stafford, Managing Partner at DST Global: “Revolut is developing and delivering technology that reduces the complexity and cost of financial
services for consumers and small businesses. We are delighted to support Nik and the Revolut team as they continue to innovate, roll out new services and expand geographically.”

Read more:
Revolut raises $250 million & increases valuation to $1.7 billion

Innovative new funding will support research and development as company looks to reach and inspire a new generation of better drivers

Lightfoot, the connected car technology company that rewards better drivers, today announces that it is the first recipient of a £1 million Innovation Loan from Innovate UK, the government’s innovation agency. Lightfoot will use the loan to develop its technology and driver rewards platform towards a consumer launch later this year.

Often described as ‘the Fitbit for cars’, Lightfoot is a device that helps users maintain a smoother driving style, enabling them to stay within the engine’s efficiency sweet spot. Lightfoot also incentivises drivers by offering them access to an exclusive rewards platform which provides a range of discounts, perks and giveaways via its mobile app.  By warning drivers in real-time when they stray outside of this sweet spot, the device increases fuel efficiency, reduces fuel costs and mitigates environmental impact.

The loan award springs from Innovate UK’s two-year Innovation Loans programme pilot, which enables innovative companies to apply for low interest loans on a competitive basis to scale up their proven new technologies and business models. The programme supports innovation across the UK by broadening the range of financial support available to fast-growing, pioneering businesses, so they can access funding at all stages of their development. A total of up to £50 million is available for business innovation projects and full information on how to apply can be found on the Innovate UK website.

The loan will be used by Lightfoot to further develop its connected car technology before being launched to consumers in Autumn 2018. The consumer launch will see Lightfoot users offered a wider range of functionality. This will include superior intelligence about the car including tax records, service alerts, vehicle valuations, mileage reporting and vehicle health alerts. The company has previously received a three-year grant from Innovate UK, which was extended as part of the UK government’s ongoing efforts to invest in autonomous and connected vehicle technology.

Lightfoot CEO Mark Roberts, (pictured) said, “We’re proud to be the first recipient of an Innovate UK Innovation Loan and it comes at a hugely exciting period of growth and expansion for the company. Lightfoot has already proven to be a huge success in the UK fleet market and this loan will help us launch the consumer proposition, scale the business and enter new countries.

This new loan helps Lightfoot build on grants it has recently won from Innovate UK for R&D projects on car-to-car communication and its potential to be the link between autonomous and manually-driven vehicles. These developments will help to smooth the UK’s transition to self-driving cars. In the meantime, Lightfoot will continue to enable drivers to save money, save lives and save the planet through enabling and rewarding smoother driving.”

Innovate UK’s Executive Chair, Dr Ruth McKernan, said, “Innovate UK is excited to offer its new Innovation Loans as innovations need different types of funding support depending on how close they are to market. Getting the right funding at the right time can be game changing for a business, to scale up its productivity and growth. Patient, flexible loans help innovations that are near to market, where there is less risk involved and we look forward to rolling out this scheme further. It is fantastic that Lightfoot has won one of these first loans. Now, innovative, ambitious businesses across the UK can see Lightfoot’s trailblazing work in Exeter and the opportunities that Innovation Loans offer and follow in its footsteps.”

Lightfoot is already a leading name in the fleet sector where its technology and driver rewards platform has helped fleets reduce fuel consumption, improve accident rates and reduce environmental impact. Insurance companies are also recording substantial reductions in accident rates and claims value among drivers that use Lightfoot.

Lightfoot’s discrete dashboard connects to the vehicle’s engine via its on-board diagnostics (OBD) port, constantly monitoring engine stress, driver input and mechanical input using Formula 1-style analytics. It then provides drivers with feedback based on driver performance, which is visible on the mobile app.

The company will move to new purpose-built premises in Exeter later this year after its workforce recently doubled. Revenues have also doubled in the past twelve months, with 100 percent growth also expected next year.

Read more:
Lightfoot first to secure £1 million loan from Innovate UK

Last night, The Duke of York announced Control Bionics, an Entrepreneur from Australia, as the winner of the inaugural Pitch@Palace Commonwealth.

The event took place as part of the Commonwealth Summit and saw Entrepreneurs from across the Commonwealth come together at St. James’s Palace.

Control Bionics has created the ‘NeuroNode’, the world’s first wearable, wireless, clinical-grade bionic system for controlling smartphones, computers and robotics with the electrical signals inside a muscle – even if it is disabled.

It beta-tested its technology with Professor Stephen Hawking and has already delivered life-changing neuro electrically-controlled communication to many disabled people. Control Bionics competed against 40 other Entrepreneurs from Commonwealth countries, who Pitched their business ideas to an Audience convened by The Duke of York, comprising Commonwealth Heads of State and Government Ministers, CEOs, Influencers, Angels, Mentors, potential Investors and Business Partners.

Peter Ford, (pictured) founder of Control Bionics and winner of Pitch@Palace Commonwealth 1.0, said: “This has been an amazing experience and The Duke of York has constructed an extraordinary machine for Entrepreneurs like us: whether you’re a start-up or a scale up, the competition is guaranteed to help you enormously. We’ve already picked up some incredible contacts from other countries; from Malaysia, from Pakistan, the Middle East and the UK. We’re just working out how to properly reap the benefits of the amazing Pitch@Palace network, but we know this is going to help us for decades!”

Speaking at Pitch@Palace Commonwealth, The Duke of York said: “It is a great honour to be able to bring Entrepreneurs from across the Commonwealth to London for the Commonwealth Summit. It has always been at the centre of my work in Entrepreneurship to build Communities who by collaborating can support building Prosperity and Creating Jobs for our Young People.  You cannot underestimate serendipity, and connections from this evening’s event will make a huge difference.”

In line with the Commonwealth Summit’s theme, ‘Towards A Common Future’, the theme of Pitch@Palace Commonwealth was ‘Human Technology – Benefits for Humanity’, addressing the need to build a healthier and more sustainable future for mankind.  Alongside Control Bionics, the Audience at St. James’s Palace voted Canadian business Orpyx Technologies, Nigerian company DIYlaw and Slimdown360 from Trinidad and Tobago as runners up. Slimdown360 was also named winner in the public vote, The Pitch@Palace Commonweealth People’s Choice Award.

As part of the Pitch@Palace Global network, Pitch@Palace Commonwealth builds connectivity between Commonwealth countries and other key markets.
 Pitch@Palace was founded by HRH The Duke of York in 2014 as a platform to amplify and accelerate the work of Entrepreneurs globally.

Read more:
Australian startup Control Bionics wins Pitch@Palace Commonwealth

Aula, a startup that has worked with students and educators at universities to develop a communication platform for education, today announces the close of its $4.2M Seed funding round.

The funding will be used to invest in building the case for a ‘digital campus’ with existing partner institutions, to find new partner institutions, and to make it easier to build integrations with the Aula platform.

Aula was developed as a response to dissatisfaction with the Learning Management Systems—such as Blackboard and Canvas—being used by universities to make announcements and store files. Inspired by the way in which educators and students use communication tools such as WhatsApp and Slack, Aula replaces emails and learning management systems with a single platform designed to encourage interaction and student engagement.

Aula was founded at the University of Oxford in 2016 by Anders Krohn, Adrian Franklin and Oliver Nicolini, who were driven to build Aula based on their own experiences as students. The team developed the platform by working closely with educators and students, carrying out 230 pilot classes across 30 institutions that ranged from small workshops at MIT to large physics classes at Imperial College London.

According to Anders Krohn, CEO and co-founder of Aula, the digital student experience has the potential to be much better than it is now: “As universities strive towards a greater emphasis on student engagement and participation, digital learning infrastructure is often one of the main stumbling blocks. The platforms currently being used are clunky and end up serving mainly as digital filing cabinets for PDFs and lecture slides. Technology can do so much more than that—with Aula, we’ve created the platform we wished we had: an engaging and interactive digital space for students, staff, and educators.”

The funding follows the release of Aula’s institutional version in September 2017. Dr Gary Pritchard, Dean of the School of Media at Ravensbourne, a creative arts university in London, says: “We’ve seen immediate benefits from moving students to Aula. A survey among students showed that Aula is easy to use and helps them get support and feel part of a digital community of staff and students”. Other early adopter institutions include the Royal College of Art, the University of Nottingham, and the University of Derby.

Anton Waitz, Partner at Project A, said: “One reason we are so excited about the EdTech space is that it brings up extraordinary founders that are intrinsically motivated to build products that have a meaningful impact. Anders and his team are a perfect example, it is one of the most dedicated and passionate teams we have ever met.”

Alex Spiro, Managing Partner, Brighteye Ventures, said: “Higher education has traditionally lagged behind when it comes to implementing new technologies and it continues to be a heavily underserved market. Aula’s success demonstrates that universities are recognising the need to invest in their digital infrastructure in order to provide the best possible experience for students.”

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Oxford student-founded Aula raises $4.2M to transform digital infrastructure in education

Feast It, the first end-to-end booking platform connecting the UK to the ‘hottest’ food & drink scene has secured £680,000 investment.

Propelling the start-up to the forefront of the events industry, Feast It aims to use this increased investment for national expansion and to broaden its supply base beyond food and drink.

In only 12 months, Feast It has already grown 400 per cent and in that time has secured a total of £1million investment.  Championing the nation’s best food & drink suppliers, Feast It provides hassle-free, customisable event catering; providing a ‘better’ way to entertain for any event, from 20 person dinner parties to 40,000 people festivals.

Feast It work with over 300 caterers including Patty & Bun, Hummus Bros, Grind, Hola Guacamole and The Prosecco Van.

Founded by childhood best friends Digby Vollrath and Hugo Campbell – who were recently named as some of Amazon’s ‘Young Entrepreneurs of the Year’ –  Feast It was originally built on a simple idea to bring catering in to the 21st century, hand pick the country’s best suppliers and make them instantly accessible to anyone, all while desperately trying to impress their mums along the way.

Already achieving significant growth and quadrupling revenue since inception, Feast It is looking to broaden its reach even further.

As one of the fastest growing food tech businesses in the UK and offering the largest ‘direct to book’ collection of independent catering suppliers, Feast It is on a mission to help people realise the amazingly diverse and delicious catering options available.

Aiming to serve over 3,000,000 portions of food in 2018 and increase its vendor numbers by 233 per cent in 2018, Feast It is looking to achieve national expansion and at a later date hopes to enter Ireland and venture further internationally.

High profile investors include John Ayton, co-founder of Links of London, Brown’s restaurants founder Jeremy Mogford, Irish investment syndicate Boole, former ARM Holdings CFO and British Land Director Tim Score, David Abramovich founder of cafe and restaurant group Grind, and Caper & Berry Catering founder Tim Brennan.

Digby Vollrath, Co-Founder of Feast It says: “The UK events industry was worth over £42.3bn in 2017, with catering alone valued over £1.5bn. Match this with an ever-increasing appetite for exciting and quality food at any event, it’s not surprising we’ve seen an explosion in consumer demand for the very best suppliers. There are over 7,00 companies offering catering in the UK and with so much choice and noise in the industry, there is a clear need for a platform to make people’s lives easier.  Feast It hand picks the best possible suppliers, big or small, with the simple aim of taking the hassle out of organising events. We’ve done everything from a 20 person dinner party to a 40,000 person festival so far!”

Co-Founder Hugo Campbell adds: ‘From my perspective, the most satisfying part of Feast It has been the feedback we’ve received from event organisers, from those organising their 100th corporate event to first time brides organising small weddings, saying that we’ve allowed them to relax in the build up to the event. Event organising can be hugely stressful, so if we’re helping people on that front, while bringing great food at the same time, job done!”

John Ayton, Founder Links of London: “The UK food and drink scene is more adventurous than we’ve ever seen, with the exciting and diverse food trends found in restaurants, bars and markets being mirrored in what consumers want at their events. Simply put, event planners aren’t as willing as they once were to settle for the same boring old vol-au-vents. It is no surprise that Feast It is growing so quickly.”

Offering the largest direct to book collection of independent catering suppliers Feast It works in collaboration with several well-known partners, including Disney, Amazon and Soho House.

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Feast It Secures £680,000 Investment

The two-time Wimbledon champion has backed the two businesses as part of his strategic relationship with Seedrs, which has seen him invest in over 30 British businesses.

Murray first invested in mortgage lending platform Landbay in 2016 through Seedrs.

The tennis star’s latest investment in Landbay sees him exercise his pre-emptive rights in the lender’s latest equity round.

Landbay recently announced that it was opening its Seedrs funding round to new investors as it looked to raise capital for further investment in its technology platform and distribution capability.

Meanwhile, Investly is a pan-European marketplace for invoice financing, which helps SMEs finance their 30-180 day invoices.

Murray said that he had long been interested in backing companies which offered tech solutions.

“I can really see the value in Investly for small businesses – the early days of a business can be really tough so helping them with cash flow makes sense to me and will hopefully enable more small businesses to succeed.

“I am excited to be maintaining my shareholding in Landbay, as the company’s growth and achievements so far has been extremely impressive.”

John Goodall, co-founder and CEO of Landbay said that seeing Andy Murray exercise his pre-emption rights to back Landbay for a third time was very exciting.

“We have recently surpassed £100m [of] mortgages funded on the platform and have a number of new developments in the pipeline.

“It’s a pleasure to have Andy onboard as a shareholder.”

Siim Maivel, founder and CEO of Investly, added: “The team is thrilled to have Andy Murray invest in our equity crowdfunding campaign.

“Andy has built up an impressive portfolio on Seedrs over the last few of years and we’re delighted he has backed Investly.”

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Andy Murray invests undisclosed amounts into UK fintech companies Investly & Landbay

Cloud accounting platform FreeAgent has agreed to a takeover bid from Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

CEO Ed Molyneux (pictured) and the rest of the board have accepted the offer, which values FreeAgent at approximately $75 million (£53 million).

“As part of a larger organisation we want to accelerate our growth ambitions in the micro-business and accountancy practice space, as well as significantly improve our core product,” Molyneux says.

This agreement comes just over a year after FreeAgent began working with RBS. The two formed a distribution partnership last January in which RBS offered FreeAgent’s accounting software services to its small business clients. The deal will help both parties leverage new opportunities to offer a more integrated banking and accounting experience for small businesses since, as Molyneux notes, “the lines between banking, accounting and tax are becoming increasingly blurred”.

After the deal is closed, FreeAgent will continue to operate business as usual. Molyneux says the company has “no intention of significantly changing the way that it does business with its customers.” FreeAgent shareholders will receive $1.70 (120 pence) per share. This represents an 86% premium to Tuesday’s (27 April 2018) share price and a 43% premium to the IPO price of $1.19 (84 pence).

Founded in 2007, FreeAgent offers cloud accounting services for small businesses, an API for easy integration, and integrations with existing startups such as Basecamp, Stripe, PayPal, and Xpenditure. The company also has an offering for accountants and a fully-integrated payroll system.

It went public in 2016 and last month launched the Customer Sales Report, which allows businesses to see how much income they’ve received from each customer.

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RBS acquires SME could accounting company FreeAgent in £50M deal

SuperCarers, the online care platform, has announced the close of a £3.8m investment round, led by Mobeus Equity Partners with participation from existing investors and Seneca Partners.

This new funding will enable the business to invest in growth, fulfilling its ambition to facilitate over 100,000 hours of care per month within the next 18 months and support clients across the country.

Two million elderly people in the UK alone have a care related need and four million will need daily help by 2029 and yet by 2025 there will be a deficit of 600,000 carers in spite of increasing demand1. Local authorities can’t keep up with the increasing costs or scale of care, leaving many without the critical assistance required to live their lives with dignity.

SuperCarers provides a personal matchmaking service where families can find vetted, reliable and compassionate carers for their loved ones. Matches are made based on personality and interest, as well as care need, location and timing. It then provides easy-to-use technology which makes all aspects of coordinating and monitoring care simple – from booking shifts right through to paying invoices.

Through this use of smart technology, and by working only with the best, experienced care professionals, SuperCarers bypasses the need for an agency middle-man. This results in significant savings for customers. It also enables consistency of care, necessary to form the relationships which enable fantastic care.

The business model also ensures that carers are rewarded fairly for their hard work, receiving 80% of what the customer pays for live-in care. This is in contrast to traditional agencies, which typically pay carers less than 40%2 . We believe that the only way to solve the UK’s deepening carer shortage crisis is to make the industry more attractive to new and existing carers; pay is only one factor but for those in low income brackets it makes a significant difference.

SuperCarers is the brainchild of brothers, Adam and Daniel Pike, who witnessed the inefficiencies of the care system first hand at a young age as their mother struggled to find high-quality care options for their grandmother. After Grandma Pam flooded her home for a second time, their mother was forced to put her into a care home for her final years – something she has regretted ever since. The brothers realized that the existing care system was not designed to give families what they really needed – quality, choice and control, at an affordable price. So they decided to change it.

The brand is backed by the founders of Innocent Smoothie via their JamJar Investment Fund (other investments include Deliveroo, Graze and Babylon Health) and Sir Tom Hughes-Hallett, the former CEO of Marie Curie, now the Chairman of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

SuperCarers’s advisory board is made up of experienced leaders in the sector including: Alan Rosenbach, who was until recently Director of Strategy of the Care Quality Commission (CQC); Paul Burstow, former Minister of State for Community and Social Care; Jan Burns MBE, Chair of the National Dignity Council; and Andrea Pope-Smith, Ex-Director of Adult Social Services at two Councils.

Adam Pike, CEO and Co-Founder of SuperCarers: “The UK’s care system is at breaking point. Carers are trusted to look after the most vulnerable members of our society, but they are demotivated, poorly paid and as a consequence have limited incentive to deliver the best possible care. In turn, those requiring care often receive an overpriced, poor quality service that doesn’t suit their needs, and they have little to no control over the process.

“SuperCarers solves both issues. We believe that by empowering and connecting people in the same community, care can become more personal, reliable and consistent. It is our mission to make finding, monitoring and paying for care easier and giving families the tools they need to find the right match for their loved ones. We also want to make care a more rewarding profession, one that is not only personally rewarding, but financially too.”

Richard Reed, Partner at JamJar Investment: “JamJar is delighted to be an investor in SuperCarers. From our experience at Innocent drinks, we understand how important it is to develop a brand that connects with consumers and wins their loyalty. There is a rapidly growing consumer need for care as the numbers of dependent family members increases every year. Although care should be affordable and delivered to the highest standard by someone who is being fairly rewarded all too often this is not the case. The founders Adam and Daniel genuinely understand the sensitivities and complexities necessary to deliver operational excellence and combine a technically slick back end with a great experience for families, older people and carers.”

Amit Hindocha, Mobeus Equity Partner Investment Director, “Mobeus identified the home care sector as requiring a fundamental redefinition to address the care crisis. There has been little innovation, and a technology solution is the only way to meet rising demand. Due to its excellent reputation and strong technology, we back SuperCarers to meet that need.”

John Davies, Investment Director for Seneca Partners: “Fundamentally, Seneca looks to back companies with a strong Management team, the ability/platform to scale and operating in growing sectors. SuperCarers is a great example of this and we look forward to supporting the team in delivering its ambitious growth strategy”

Read more:
SuperCarers Closes £3.8m Investment on journey to changing care sector for good

The Scottish-based creator of the world’s first portable wood-fired pizza oven, Uuni, has expanded their offering at John Lewis with their Uuni 3 outdoor pizza oven and accessories now stocked at all John Lewis department stores and At Home shops across the UK.

Following a successful online trial of Uuni 3 and accessories at John Lewis, the retailer has now expanded their Uuni stock to include a wide range of products across 48 shops from Aberdeen to Ashford, ahead of summer, making it one of this year’s must-have outdoor living products.

Uuni launched in 2012, setting out to revolutionise the way we cook outdoors. The portability of Uuni 3 makes it a must-have for outdoor cooks and pizza fans and makes the ideal companion for picnics, entertaining friends, heading on holiday and camping trips.

The oven reaches 500°C in just 10 minutes, and can cook an authentic wood-fired pizza in 60 seconds. Uuni ovens offer its users complete flexibility; the Uuni Pro, which is now stocked online at John Lewis, is the first outdoor oven to include a quad-fuelled function, with capabilities to run on wood, charcoal, wood-pellets or gas.

Uuni, a creative, family-run business with a commitment to excellence, innovation, passion and their people, have made outdoor cooking more accessible. Founded by husband and wife team Kristian Tapaninaho and Darina Garland, the first Uuni oven was launched in 2012 and since then, a programme of innovative product development has allowed for the launch of Uuni 3 and the Uuni Pro, the world’s best outdoor multi-fuelled oven.

Finnish-born founder and designer Kristian Tapaninaho, said: “John Lewis is synonymous with quality and style, so to have our products now visible to the eyes of their customers in shops following an initial run online, is just fantastic. We’re always striving to innovate and evolve our products to make exceptional eating experiences more accessible and we’re really pleased to have John Lewis on that journey with us now. We have a great community of Uuni users and we’re looking forward to expanding our community to include John Lewis’ loyal customers too.”

Vicky Angell, outdoor living buyer at John Lewis, said: “We’ve been extremely impressed by the response to Uuni’s products from our customers and therefore didn’t hesitate to explore their product range further and bring it into our shops. We’ve seen a big growth in recent years for new outdoor living technology – our customers looking for the next big thing that they can use to entertain their family and friends, so it made perfect sense for us to introduce the Uuni Pro too. With Uuni’s innovative philosophy, we look forward to seeing what they do next.”

Read more:
Scottish wood-fired oven producer Uuni secures nationwide John Lewis listing

Entrepreneurs Faisal Butt and James Caan are backing a new UK real estate investment company.

QuoinStone Investment Management, which plans to target value-add assets, aims to build a £1bn (€1.1bn) real estate portfolio across the UK.

The company will initially look to invest in multi-let assets, particularly targeting office markets that have become undersupplied due to residential conversions.

QuoinStone IM has already secured its first mandate to manage the £100m-plus Telephone House in Shoreditch and is looking to attract further investment from both domestic and overseas Asian, Middle Eastern and emerging-market investors.

Spire Ventures, an investment management vehicle set up by Butt, has joined with a fellow entrepreneur to back the newly launched company.

QuoinStone is led by founders Tim Struth and Steve Howling.

Struth advised on development and regeneration projects while at Savills before launching his own private property company SB2 Property Ventures.

Howling had a background at Savills and CBRE Investors, before joining Fidelity International.

“Given our broader experience and success with 90 North and a range of other real estate businesses, we are well-positioned to help Tim and Steve achieve their ambition to build a world-class business and invest £1bn of capital in the next few years,” Butt said.

QuoinStone believes that with many investors switching to lower-risk, core and long-income strategies due to doubts over Brexit, there is less competition for property stock in the value-add arena, providing better value for buyers.

Consolidation among larger fund managers has also led to less choice of manager for investors looking for alternative property investment solutions, it said, providing a good opening for a new entrant to the market.

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Ex-Dragon James Caan partners with Faisal Butt to back new real estate venture

Spotify, the world’s biggest music streaming service, has filed paperwork to start trading its shares publicly on the New York Stock Exchange.

The firm said it expects shares to sell at prices that could value the firm at more than $23bn (£16.7bn).

It plans to list shares directly on the NYSE, bypassing the traditional stock offering process.

In a typical public offering, companies issue new shares, with the initial price underwritten by investment banks.

With a direct listing, current Spotify shareholders will take their shares directly to the market.

Spotify said its shares sold for between $37.50 and $125 each in private transactions last year and more than $132 this year. The valuation is based on how many shares it has outstanding.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission filing contains financial details previously shielded from view.

The Swedish company’s 2017 revenue came in at €4.09bn euros ($4.99bn) compared with €2.95bn a year earlier, Spotify said in its filing. But it still experienced more than €1.2bn in losses.

Spotify, which launched in 2008, is the biggest global music streaming company and counts tech giants Apple and Amazon as its main rivals.

It has more about 159 million monthly active users and 71 million paid subscribers. Europe is its top market.

In its filing, the firm says it aims to “unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by these creators.”

The filing says the firm expects to sell $1bn worth in shares, but the figure is a placeholder used to calculate the registration fee. The document does not provide information about when the listing would occur.

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Spotify plans New York public share listing

ParkBee, a tech startup with smart technology to open up private car parks to the public, has announced it closed €5 million in funding to scale its business in the UK.

After successfully growing in Amsterdam, the team is bringing affordable and accessible parking at premium spots to London.

This round of investment is led by German-based Statkraft Ventures with participation of existing investors. Statkraft Ventures is backed by the Statkraft Group, Europe’s largest generator of renewable energy.

With in excess of 60 locations in the Netherlands and over 20 locations opened in the last months in the UK, ParkBee has proven its potential, by using smart technology that enables users to open up the barriers and doors from the RingGo and Parkmobile apps. The €5 million investment will ensure the company scales in London, making it possible for a further wider UK expansion in the near future. This funding round guarantees the UK team will grow from 10 full-time employees to 25 in the coming months, solidifying a successful entry in the UK market by a European company after Brexit.

Parking can be an enormous hassle for anyone driving in London. According to a study published by INRIX, UK drivers spend an average of 44 hours a year searching for parking –in London, the time drivers spend looking for a spot is around 67 hours each year–, costing the UK economy more than £23 billion annually in wasted time, fuel and emissions.

Tom Buchmann, Co-Founder and Managing Director of ParkBee, commented: “‘It’s hard to believe that there are so many unused parking spaces in London, whilst parking in London is such a hassle. In the last two years in the Netherlands, and last months in the UK, we have proven we can open-up these hidden location, that are most of the time behind speed gates or barriers. By partnering with real-estate owners and our integrated solution in the Parkmobile and RingGo app you can now open-up the barrier or speedgate with a click of a button.”

Smart technology

The ParkBee technology is fully compatible to any parking system and provides seamless entry for the consumer. ParkBee installs it’s smart hardware at the location and via their integrated software the location can be opened remotely via the Parkmobile and RingGo apps –in the UK alone, RingGo has 12 million registered users. The real-estate owner keeps control and can still manage the availability and ParkBee will optimise the occupancy of the location.

Stefan Hülsen, Senior Investment Manager at Statkraft Ventures, said: “ParkBee is a fantastic example of a company providing a solution to a problem witnessed in many cities and large towns. While populations in numerous cities are becoming more dense, the infrastructure isn’t necessarily in the right state to deal with an increased demand. By making optimal use of the parking spots that are already available ParkBee opens-up new opportunities to park. ParkBee is a prime example of a company enabling cities to become smarter and fairer, while empowering citizens and businesses to improve and solve a problem.”

More than a million private parking spots

Founded in 2013 in the Netherlands by Jian Jiang and Tom Buchmann ParkBee aims to fix the problem of parking in big cities through technology. The company realised that while a lot of drivers struggled to find a decent parking spot there were plenty of private car parks in great locations, sitting vacant for long periods of time, that were also not accessible for public use, such as private office car parks, apartment buildings, hotel car parks and shopping centres. In London alone, according to a study commissioned by Transport for London*, there are over 1 million private parking spots, with the value of a 20-spot garage hitting easily £50,000 in annual revenue for the owner (based on calculations made by ParkBee).

The list of private property companies ParkBee is already working with include JLL, BT and local councils.

Jont Cole, COO at JLL Professional & Advisory and Alternatives, added: “JLL is engaging with ParkBee to enable landlords to secure additional revenue from under-utilised car parking. This is an exciting type of service that will help transform how people park in cities across the UK.”

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ParkBee closes €5 million funding round to ease the stress of parking in UK cities

Energy tech firm – Open Energy Market – has closed a £3million investment round from Calculus Capital to help further develop its online trading platform for the management of energy contracts.

The platform was built to streamline the complicated and antiquated procurement process and to assist medium-large enterprises with the management of their energy contracts.

The corporate energy market contracts total £20 billion per year, of which 85% are bought using an energy broker, according to Ofgem. However, this market has traditionally suffered from inefficiency and complexity, along with a lack of transparency, that has made the energy procurement process a painful and laborious one for customers.

For business customers with larger scale energy requirements, picking the right buying strategy and shopping for the best deals is typically a confusing and labour intensive process. Lack of transparency can also be a problem when it comes to differentiating the best deals on the market.

The Open Energy Market platform brings a level of automation to energy trading, not only transparently engaging and illustrating competition between suppliers, but also capturing and storing the data that makes reporting, forecasting and portfolio management easier.

The platform has already benefited over 200 businesses, such as Dairy Crest, EasyJet, Southampton FC and London Business School, as well as a host of large councils, hospitals and schools.

Open Energy Market was launched in 2013 by Chris Maclean and Charles Lass. Chris is an energy industry expert who had first-hand experience of the inefficiencies associated with the energy brokering market and Charles is a tech entrepreneur with a history of founding and growing tech businesses such as ControlPoint and ViaPost.

The company works with all major providers and will use the injection of funds to increase their team and to implement significant platform developments, including extensions into other commodities and expansion into the US market.

Founder and Chief Executive of Open Energy Market, Chris Maclean said: “The market was crying out for innovation that could help large businesses better manage the confusing, convoluted and inefficient processes associated with energy procurement. In an age where technology has helped streamline most business operations, it still amazes us how antiquated and manual our industry is.

Our platform uses technical automation to cut through the complex market processes, alleviating many of the pain points that energy buyers face and ensuring their route to market is as efficient and as informative as possible.

This is an exciting time for OEM as this partnership with Calculus will enable us to push our platform out to a wider audience and implement further innovative tools that will continue to re-shape the industry.”

Alexandra Lindsay, Investment Director of Calculus Capital, said: “What the team at Open Energy Market have done is to streamline the broker process, because all the major suppliers are there on a single platform bidding for a company’s business.

“The service is designed to give companies greater transparency of their annual utility costs before they sign a contract.

“Our investment will help them strengthen their sales and software teams, expand their platform to cover additional utility services and make a move into the US market.

“We believe this is an exciting phase in the development of a company with strong growth potential.”

Read more:
London energy tech platform receives £3M investment to help streamline corporate energy contract & procurement market

Lightful, a social media and campaign management tool for charities and social enterprises, has secured £4m in Series A funding.

The company drew investment from backers including Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason and British racing driver Dario Franchitti.

Lightful works by integrating with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to create a single platform for charities to manage their social media content, supporter relationships and campaigns.

Vinay Nair, CEO and co-founder of Lightful, commented: “Charities and social enterprises have some of the best stories to tell, and we are excited that Lightful can help grow the potential of using social media for social good – we certainly need that to happen now more than ever.”

“With claims that social media is destroying society and acting as a purveyor of hate speech, there’s clearly a significant opportunity to bring about change – and we believe the social impact space has a vital role to play. With the fantastic support from our incredible investors, we’re excited to try to make 2018 the year we can finally reclaim social media – for good,” added Nair.

Mason, one the firm’s investors, explained why he decided to back the startup: “Many charities have been hampered by time consuming tasks and budget constraints which inhibit progress. The Lightful concept is easing some of these fundamental issues, and this is exemplified by the sheer number of organisations signing up to the platform. I’m excited to see what the next few months have in store.”

The money will be used to fund additional R&D and Lightful Labs – which is trialing AI, machine learning, bots and voice recognition.

Franchitti went on to note: “Media is changing rapidly, it’s vital that charities learn to connect with their audiences in a way which is simple, yet effective.

“Lightful’s platform caters to this perfectly, offering a really innovative tech solution that could reinvent the dialogue between great causes and the everyday people who support them,” he concluded.

Read more:
Comfortably done: Lightful gets £4m from backers including Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason

E Fundamentals, the London and Edinburgh-based eCommerce analytics and insight business announced it has completed a £2.5m Series A round of financing.

Downing-managed VCTs and Downing Ventures EIS led the investment round with participation from existing E Fundamentals shareholders.

The investment brings E Fundamentals total funding since launch to £5m and will help the company aggressively develop its roadmap of market-leading platforms and tools which help major brand clients like Nestle, General Mills, Kerry Foods and Birds Eye grow their sales and profits in online supermarkets.

The Series A finance builds on an exceptional year for E Fundamentals which saw a rapidly growing roster of clients, key executive appointments and market momentum in the white-hot area of eCommerce performance management. International assignments in Australia, France, Germany, Spain and Italy have created market demand from major brand owners who see eCommerce via all platforms including mobile, social and voice as their no1 critical growth driver.

Downing Investment Director Richard Lewis said: “We are delighted to work with such a committed, professional and focussed management team and are excited to support E Fundamentals as they continue to tackle this real problem facing FMCG brand-owners. We believe the company is perfectly poised to help brands adapt and succeed in the growing and crucial e-commerce sector.”

E Fundamentals CEO John Maltman said: “Every brand owner in the world has their growth plans pinned on eCommerce. We are committed to helping our clients get a tremendous Return on Intelligence by helping them drive their share of online business faster than bricks and mortar sales. All brand owners need deep insights to get the fundamentals of eCommerce right and this Series A round allows us to further perfect our service and quickly expand into new product areas and international territories. We’re delighted to be part of the Downing family; their long-term commitment to growing businesses made them the stand-out investor partner.”

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E Fundamentals secures £2.5 million Series A finance round

Amicable, an app which has developed a unique approach to help couples get divorced without having to pay lawyers, has raised almost £500,000 in funding.

The start-up, which was co-founded by investor and entrepreneur Pip Wilson and divorce expert Kate Daly, has secured backing from various business angels including Richard Stone and Tom Welch from Stone Welch Capital.

amicable’s technology simplifies the steps of divorce for couples and ensures that the divorce stays on track. This reduces the time it takes to divorce by up to 50 per cent. As legal letters and lawyers are not involved, this rapidly accelerates the process.

Through the use of specialist divorce coaches, amicable also supports people on their emotional journey, which aims to help couples reach fair conclusions that are future focused and puts their children first.

The investment will be used to continue developing the platform which has already helped hundreds of couples to divorce amicably since its launch in late 2016 and to expand its customer reach.

Co-founder Pip Wilson said: “Our vision is to change the way the world divorces and to provide a lawyer-free solution that helps customers though the emotional journey of separation and family breakdown.

“We are delighted to have closed our second funding round with an inspiring group of angel investors who understand the social purpose of amicable and who can help us drive the business to the next level.

“With the addition of QVentures’ impressive network we were able to close the round quicker and get back to focusing on the business.

“Having already helped hundreds of couples through their divorce we are excited to be able to expand the business further and to continue to make a difference in fixing the broken divorce model.”

Robert Walsh, managing partner of QVentures, which helped connect amicable with a wide range of angel investors, added: “Amicable was a really exciting proposition for our investors, who were keen to fund an innovative and tech-driven solution for a genuine social problem.

“Family breakdown affects over 200,000 people in the UK every year, and amicable offers a smart and communication-focused way for couples to achieve more positive outcomes.

“The founding team of Pip and Kate were a big part of the group’s decision to invest. Pip is an experienced entrepreneur, who we knew well as she is a QVentures member, and who has a track record of using technology to solve problems.

“On top of this, Kate’s expertise in the divorce and family counselling space meant that the two of them together felt like the perfect team to make amicable a success.”

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Divorce app amicable raises nearly £500,000 to help reduce the cost & stress of parting ways