Notable Transactions
• London-based flexible energy software platform Axle has raised $9m in a seed funding round led by Accel
• Cambridge-based drug discovery startup Healx has announced a $47m Series C funding round as its trial neurofibromatosis treatment receives regulatory approval, the round being led by R42 Group and Atomico
• Laundryheap, the world’s largest on-demand laundry and dry-cleaning platform, acquired Latin America (LATAM) market leader GetLavado and is the companies fifth acquisition since 2022
• Women’s health app Flo has become the latest UK tech unicorn, securing a $200m Series C round at a valuation north of $1bn in a round which was headed up by General Atlantic
• Checkly, the leading provider of synthetic monitoring powered by Monitoring as Code (MaC) and Playwright – has raised a $20 million Series B funding round led by Balderton Capital
• Managed co-ownership provider for premium vacation homes, MYNE, has raised a €40M Series A funding round in equity and debt financing led by Limestone Capital AG
• Bowmark Capital has invested in software provider Turnkey IPS alongside the portco's founding Wood family
• Maxburg Capital Partners has invested in German software service provider Slashwhy, the sixth platform investment from its latest fund, Maxburg Capital Fund IV
• Mixed reality gaming start-up MixRift has secured $1.6M in Pre-Seed investment from leading investors, including Outsized Ventures, Underline Ventures, and SOSV
• Riverlane, which is building technology that helps quantum computers make fewer errors, has raised $75m in a Series C round, led by Planet First Partners, to improve the performance of its product
• London-based marketing campaign management software startup Userled has raised £4m in a pre-seed funding round led by LocalGlobe
• Pollen Street Capital has acquired Etops Group in an add-on transaction for its new European wealth and asset management software group, which was announced in Q4 2023
• EQT has acquired Swiss cybersecurity and data protection platform Acronis
• Impactpool, a global leading AI-enabled career platform, announced it has raised €3.6 million in Series A funding, led by Mediahuis and Fort Knox
• Corten Capital has acquired a majority stake in supply chain and manufacturing software provider Roima Intelligence from Intera Partners
• Nanoparticle synthesis and deposition tools provider VSParticle has raised a €6.5 million A2 extension round led by NordicNinja and previous investor Plural
• Portuguese EV charge point operator Powerdot has raised €165 million in green financing from ABN Amro, BNP Paribas, ING, MUFG Bank, Santander, and Société Générale to scale its ultra-fast power charging points
• Swedish grid startup Flower has raised a 290m SEK (€25m) Series A, Northzone led the round
• Rose Street Partners, a long term-oriented investor in UK private companies, has acquired Fuelsoft, a software provider for the fuel distribution industry, marking the firm’s inaugural investment
• EQT is to acquire a majority stake in AMCS, a provider of cloud-based and AI-enabled planning, performance, safety and sustainability-focused software for waste management, recycling and other resource-intensive industries
• DRIFT Energy is working towards producing vessels that harvest and transport green hydrogen while at sea, and has has secured £5m from Octopus Ventures and Blue Action Accelerator
• BeyondMath, a Cambridge-based AI company, has announced it has secured $8.5m in seed funding, the round was led by UP.Partners, with participation from Insight Partners and InMotion Ventures
• Main Capital Partners has acquired a majority stake in Whitevision, a Dutch provider of intelligent document processing software
• Pollen Street Capital has agreed to acquire European SaaS provider Keylane Group from Waterland Private Equity. The transaction is expected to be completed by autumn 2024
• Fresha, a marketplace platform for beauty and wellness, has secured a $31m venture debt facility from J.P. Morgan. To date, it has raised over $185m in venture capital funding, including a $150m Series C round in 2021 led by General Atlantic
• A trio of former Monzo employees have raised £2.8m in a seed round led by LocalGlobe for Gradient Labs, an AI customer service startup that supports companies working in “complex and higher-risk environments”
• Reliant AI, a provider of gen AI-powered data analytics software, came out of stealth with $11.3 million in Seed funding co-led by Tola Capital and Inovia Capital
• Thomson Reuters has acquired UK AI startup Safe Sign Technologies, which develops large language models (LLMs) for the legal sector
• Sunswap, a clean tech startup aiming to decarbonise the cold chain by manufacturing a refrigeration system that breaks free from what it calls “legacy” technology, has secured £17.3m led by BGF
• The Riverside Company has agreed to invest in GFOS Group, a German software provider for workforce management, access control and manufacturing execution systems
• Thryve, a Berlin-based B2B health data integration and analytics company, has successfully closed a €4 million Series A funding round from Belgian Capricorn Partners
• Denmark-based cybersecurity startup Uniqkey has successfully raised €5.35 million in a new investment round led by Swedish venture capital firm BackingMinds
• Phoenix Equity Partners has made an undisclosed investment in Cybanetix, a cybersecurity specialist based in the UK
Latest Funds
• Balderton Capital, one of Europe’s leading technology venture capital firms, announced its €563 million Early Stage Fund IX and €627 million Growth Fund II, to back Europe’s most ambitious entrepreneurs from seed stage through IPO
• The European Investment Fund has signed a €50 million participation in Danish VC Nine Realms’ latest fund, focusing on supporting early-stage technology-enabled SMEs in the supply chain sector
• Munich-headquartered UVC Partners has held the final close of its fourth fund at its hard-cap of €250m
• Swiss early stage VC Redalpine has closed its seventh fund of $200m, its largest early stage fund to date — and has opened a new office in London
Industry News
• The government has scrapped £1.3bn of funding for AI and compute projects pledged by the Conservatives as Labour reassesses the budget left by Rishi Sunak’s administration
• There is a huge concern by tech founders, start-ups and industry leaders about the decision to pull AI funding and some believe it could seriously affect the country’s standing as a technology leader
• Dozens of semiconductor startups working on AI efficiency and advanced healthcare have joined a government-backed incubator to turn their research into businesses.The ChipStart programme, which launched in October 2023 with £1.3m in funding, aims to nurture new chip designers
• Federated Hermes private equity head Peter Gale steps down, the long-standing chief investment officer and head of private equity at Federated Hermes is handing over the reins to Brooks Harrington, previously deputy CIO and head of US investment
• Deliveroo has reported its first-ever net profit since launching more than a decade ago following cost reductions and a push into grocery and retail deliveries
• Workplace management software company Monday.com is expanding its footprint in London with a new 80,000 sq ft office. The new lease in London’s Fitzrovia district contains the company’s largest research and development operation outside of its headquarters in Tel Aviv
• Investment in the UK’s fintech sector has nearly tripled in the first half of 2024, despite a global decline. Several major deals, including a $4bn buyout of financial software company IRIS Software Group and a $999m VC round by the small business-focused marketplace platform Abound
• Private equity investment in Europe’s cleantech sector is likely to set a new record thanks to several mega-deals in the first half of the year
• The UK government announced it has supported 98 AI projects with a share of £32 million, benefiting over 200 businesses and research organisations
• Earlybird Digital East — the VC firm known for making one of European tech’s most successful bets, by leading Romanian unicorn UiPath’s $1.6m seed round in 2015 is spinning out of the Earlybird brand, as the fund will rebrand over the next few months
• Earlybird has also announced an organisational restructure into Earlybird and Earlybird Health which will be managed by independent partnerships
• Three of the five cofounders behind French AI startup H Company have left just three months after raising a $220m seed round and before the company has publicly released a product
• Klarna has said that it could halve its workforce to around 2,000 employees by leveraging AI technology. The Swedish tech giant said its AI assistant was now carrying out the work of 700 employees
Current mandates:
Growth Equity Associate – London
Technology Investment Banking Associate – London
Venture Capital Principal - London
Sources:
https://www.uktech.news/, https://www.fnlondon.com/, https://sifted.eu/, https://tech.eu/, https://realdeals.eu.com/, https://pitchbook.com/, https://www.eu-startups.com/, https://www.privateequitywire.co.uk/
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