Intelligence
Aiforia, the Finnish artificial intelligence start-up, has engaged Swedbank as its lead advisor to explore different financing options, including an IPO on Nasdaq Helsinki First North.
PayPo, a Poland-based, deferred-payment solutions provider, will look to raise a €10m to €20m Series B round in the final quarter of the year.
Atom Bank, a UK-based online lender is on the verge of finalising a capital raise priced at 60 pence per share, marking down its valuation to about half of the rate at which it raised capital in 2019.
Vestack, a French technology company specialising in the off-site design and construction of buildings using organic material, is planning to raise at least €10m in a Series A next year.
Investors
The Blackstone Group is targeting $4bn for its fourth Tactical Opportunities fund, which mostly invests in assets that usually fall outside the scope of other Blackstone funds. Read more.
PAI Partners, the pan-European private equity firm, announced the final close of its inaugural PAI Mid-Market Fund with a total of circa €920m of commitments. Read more.
AM Ventures launches a €100m venture capital fund dedicated to industrial 3D printing. Read more.
Triton raised €815m for its second small to midcap private equity fund. Read more.
Reports
The double edged sword of success: Understanding Naspers and their Tencent investment
Decoding the no-code / low-code startup universe and its players
Startup Of The Week
Product
Raycast develops a productivity tool that allows users to perform specific actions within the tools used daily within a single and unified interface without leaving your Desktop.
Only available on Mac for now (another good reason to switch to macOS…), Raycast is a command line interface similar to the Spotlight search in which you can control your favourite tools like Slack, Jira, Notion, Github, G Suite, Zoom, Calendar, Spotify using pre-scripted actions.
For instance, it allows you to do the following:
Jira: Stay on top of your issues without a browser tab. Create, search and modify issues using Raycast (saving lots of clicks and time)
Zoom: Create and join calls without opening calendar app or Zoom app
Github: Deal with issues, pull requests, notifications and workflows in a keyboard-driven way
G-Suite: Search files across drives and create new documents, forms, presentations, and spreadsheets
Location
London, UK and Remote
Raised
Raised $3m of Seed funding
Investors
Accel, Chapter One Ventures, Y-Combinator, Angels
Revenue Model
None - the product is currently in beta, but it’s likely to be a subscription model
Funding Rounds
Dach
Bitpanda, the Vienna-based cryptocurrency and digital assets trading company, raised a $170m Series B led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures. DST Global also contributed to the new round. Bitpanda describes itself as a ‘neobroker’ for the trading of digital assets but also traditional assets like precious metals. Read more.
Rebike Mobility, the Munich-based e-bike reseller that operates ebike-abo.de and rebike.de platforms, raised a €10m Series B. BayBG led the round with existing investors Vorwerk Ventures and STS Ventures taking part. Read more.
SumUp, the Berlin-based provider of a mobile point-of-sale device intended to perform card transactions in the most simple, secure and cost-effective way, received €750m of debt financing in the form of a loan from Bain Capital Credit, Crestline Investors, Oaktree Capital Management, Temasek Holdings and The Goldman Sachs Group. Read more.
France
Payfit, the Paris-based developer of payroll software designed to automate payroll and HR management tasks, raised a €90m Series D led by Eurazeo and Bpifrance. Frst Capital, Accel, Xavier Niel, Pierre Entremont, Romain Cottard and three other investors also participated in the round. Read more.
Golem.ai, the Paris-based developer of an autonomous natural language interpretation tool intended to design a tailor-made management interface for business teams, raised a $6m round led by OneRagtime and Maif Avenir. Read more.
UK & Ireland
Zego, the London-based InsurTech that offers flexible motorbike insurance for gig economy workers but has since expanded with a range of tech-enabled commercial motor insurance products, raised a $150m Series C led by DST Global along with other new backers including General Catalyst. It is currently valued at $1.1bn. Read more.
Genesis Global Technology, the London-based capital markets software, raised a $45m Series B led by Accel. GV, Salesforce Ventures, Illuminate Financial and Tribeca Venture Partners also contributed to the latest financing round. Additionally, it counts backing from Genesis’ existing clients including Citi, ING, London Clearing House and XP Investments. Read more.
Cognism, the London-based developer of a sales improvement platform designed to scale lead prospecting and enrich data, raised $12.5m in funding led by existing investors AXA Venture Partners, Investiere, VentureFounders, and joined by new investor Swisscom Ventures. Read more.
HelloSelf, the London-based provider of online therapy and life coaching services intended to minimize the effects of stress, raised a c.$8m Series A from Omers Ventures. Read more.
Legl, the London-based B2B SaaS for law firms providing tools to streamline core business processes such as customer onboarding, due diligence and payments, raised a $7m Series A led by Octopus Ventures. Read more.
Oxehealth, the Oxford-based provider of a vision-based patient monitoring and management platform helping clinicians to deliver care in inpatient and residential care settings, raised a $14m round from undisclosed investors. Read more.
FocalPoint, the Cambridge-based provider of next gen position software for electronic devices, raised a $8m Series B from Draper Esprit. Read more.
Capdesk, the London-based developer of an equity management platform helping companies manage cap tables, shareholders registers and employee shares, raised a $7m Series A led by Fidelity Strategic Ventures, with participation from Middlegame Ventures. Read more.
Nordics
Epidemic Sound, the Stockholm-based developer of a royalty-free music library to provide cutting edge production music for films, TV and YouTube content, raised $450m in funding from Blackstone Group and EQT Growth. The equity round values Epidemic Sound at $1.4bn. Read more.
Proper, the Copenhagen-based platform that helps property owners and their tenants manage their property, raised a $4.5m Seed round led by Founders, including participation from PreSeed Ventures, Prehype and others. Read more.
Others
Lightyear, the Helmond-based (Netherlands) solar-charged electric car developer raised $48m (€40.2m) in the latest funding round, which was led by Zero Point Holding BV, an investment vehicle of a Swiss family. Read more.
STOKR, the Luxembourg-based provider of proprietary technology to ventures that tokenise their distributable future profits, raised a $4.6m Seed round from Utopia Genesis Foundation, G1 Ventures and Borderless Capital. Read more.
TaxDown, the Madrid-based startup providing a tool easing the income tax return filing process, raised a c.$3m Seed round led by FJ Labs and with participation from angel investors. Read more.
Vaultspeed, the Leuven-based company offering a SaaS specialised in data warehouse automation, raised a $4.2m Series A from Fortino Capital Partners. Read more.
State of the Cloud 2021
Bessemer explores the cloud economy milestones, what's driving cloud valuations, and the frameworks to help founders accelerate go-to-market momentum.
Thought Of The Week
The concept of drones may well date back to 1849, when Austria attacked Venice using unmanned balloons stuffed with explosives. Austrian forces, who were besieging Venice at the time, launched around 200 of these incendiary balloons over the city.
But the origin of military drones is usually dated to the development of uncrewed, remote-controlled aircraft for use as targets by anti-aircraft gunners after the first world war. The first truly successful example was the de Havilland DH82B Queen Bee, which entered service in Britain in 1935 and seems to have been the inspiration for calling such aircraft “drones” (after stingless male bees).
The last 10 years or so have seen a huge explosion in drone innovation and commercial interest. While prior to this, drones were primarily used for military purposes or hobbyists, beginning in the early-2010s, a host of new uses were proposed for drones, including their wider use in the film industry. The drone is becoming a camera platform in its own right — and before long, drones will become part of any filmmakers’ toolbelt.
The technological advantage drone cameras offer to anyone using them for film work is greatly magnified by their cost-effectiveness. Giant cranes, helicopters, and the like were necessary to get a similar perspective in the past. These would often cost upwards of $25,000. But drones are only a few thousand dollars to purchase and easy to fly.
One great example is the video, titled “Right Up Our Alley,” which was hailed as an instant classic by many viewers - an expertly piloted and impressively directed video that was shot at the Bryant-Lake Bowl in Minneapolis.
Drone technology has truly come a long way - enjoy!