News
During the COVID-19 pandemic, over the past year, remote workforces have accelerated digital transformation for companies of all sizes.
Founded in 2014 by Jonathan Anguelov, and Olivier Pailhès, Aircall, a French startup helps businesses meet objectives by integrating its cloud-based solution into leading software such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Slack, and Intercom and allows businesses to streamline workflows, providing more efficiency for their teams with better visibility, data and insights into their customers’ needs. Today, the company announced that it has picked up $120 million (nearly £86 million) in Series D funding.
The investment round was led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management along with most of Aircall’s current investors including DTCP, eFounders, Draper Esprit, Adams Street Partners, NextWorld Capital, and Gaia Capital Partners. This round takes the valuation of the company to over $1 billion.
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With the global EV infrastructure market all set to exceed 55 million chargers in buildings by 2030, charging infrastructure needs to adapt to handle new hardware and increased power demand. With the optimise the EV charging process, US-based IoTecha uses Internet of Things (IoT) technology to connect electric vehicle (EV) charge points with the electricity grid, homes, and buildings.
Now, the company has hit the tech headlines as it bagged $7 million (nearly £5 million) funding, which takes the total Series B investment raised by the company to $13.2 million (nearly £9.5 million).
The investment round was led by London-based bp ventures, which invests in private, high-growth, game-changing technology companies, accelerating innovation across the entire energy spectrum. This investment in IoTecha is aligned with bp’s aim to provide over 70,000 public EV charging points worldwide by 2030.
IoTecha will use this investment to scale its operations through bp’s electrification network. Together, bp and IoTecha will work to accelerate mainstream adoption of EVs and support the transition to more sustainable mobility. The collaboration will be strengthened by the appointment of Shaun Healey, bp ventures Principal to IoTecha’s Board of Directors.
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Kiteline (formerly known as Liminal Health) is a London-based startup that provides personalised content and virtual health coaching to employees affected by chronic conditions.
The UK healthtech company has secured £370K funding led by SFC Capital. Others including global VC Antler and a group of carefully selected angel investors also participated.
The funding will be used to accelerate its smart coach matching service and content offering, which will include on-demand wellbeing learning modules and condition-specific resources.
Founded by Candice Hampson and Christine Beardsell in 2020, the company was created in direct response to their own personal and professional experiences.
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GoStudent is a Vienna-based edtech scaleup offering a digital learning platform for online education and the future of tutoring. In a recent development, the company picked up €205 million (nearly £175 million) in an oversubscribed Series C funding round led by investor DST Global along with participation from new investors SoftBank Vision Fund 2 Tencent, and Dragoneer and existing investors Coatue, Left Lane Capital and London-based DN Capital.
The investment will primarily be used to drive its global expansion further. With a presence in 18 countries, GoStudent will continue to strengthen its position as the market leader for K12 online tutoring in Europe. Over the past months, the company expanded its team to over 500 employees and opened 12 offices, including new locations in Athens, Istanbul and Amsterdam. Besides Europe, GoStudent will also be expanding overseas and plans to launch in Mexico and Canada this summer. The scaleup will also invest in branding, product development and consider strategic acquisitions.
Felix Ohswald, Co-Founder and CEO, GoStudent, said: “At the heart of GoStudent is our mission to build the No. 1 Global Digital School. The new investment and the resulting opportunities for continued international growth bring us one step closer to fulfilling our mission.”
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Bristol-based Ecologi is a subscription service that helps individuals and businesses lower their impact on the climate. Now, the company has picked up £4 million investment led by General Catalyst to become the ‘Spotify of Sustainability’.
Notably, General Catalyst has backed companies of significant scale such as Airbnb, Stripe, Monzo and Deliveroo. Also, the company bagged a smaller investment from Entrée Capital.
Ecologi will use the investment to scale up the teams to enhance the platform, grow the climate projects procurement and reporting team, and expand the marketing and partnership teams. It eyes to have a team of 40-60 people over the next 12 months.
The investment will also allow the company to buy larger quantities of certified carbon offsets and tree purchases upfront, thereby letting them plan better, get access to some projects that would not be possible otherwise and sometimes access better prices.
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French insurtech Akur8 is revolutionising insurance pricing with transparent AI. In a recent development, the company secured $30 million (nearly £21.4 million) in a Series B funding round from BlackFin Capital Partners and MTech Capital.
The investment round was closed less than two years after the P&C and health insurance pricing SaaS solution provider first commercialised its platform. It follows the Series A funding round raised by the company 15 months back from the same investors.
Notably, Akur8 operates in the UK and has offices in London. With this investment, it will focus on growing its presence in the country. Samuel Falmagne, co-founder and CEO of Akur8 said, “The fundraise will definitely contribute to the growth of our UK operations. We have a number of new hires in the pipeline to join our UK office and serve the UK market locally. It is a strategic market for us, especially sophisticated as far as insurance pricing is concerned with many regulatory changes under way that could impact insurance carriers’ pricing strategies, such as the price walking ban. We already have a number of clients in the UK and plan to expand our client base significantly.”
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Circulor, a London, UK-based provider of supply chain traceability and dynamic CO2 tracking solutions, raised $14m in Series A funding.
The Westly Group led the round with participation from Salesforce Ventures, BHP Ventures, Future Positive Capital, 24Haymarket and Sky Ocean Ventures. Existing investors in the company include Boeing HorizonX, Volvo Cars Technology Fund, Jaguar Land Rover’s CVC arm, InMotion Ventures, SYSTEMIQ, Plug and Play and TotalEnergies Ventures. Steve Westly, Founder and Managing Partner of The Westly Group, will join the Circulor board.
The company intends to use the funds to drive ongoing innovation and extend its presence in North America and Asia.
Led by Douglas Johnson-Poensgen, CEO, Circulor enables businesses to fully analyse, track and manage their supply chains to support responsible sourcing and improve sustainability. It does this by providing an enterprise software platform, which creates a reliable chain of custody of materials and attaches sustainability and other ESG data to that flow of materials. The technology assigns a digital identity to commodities and tracks the supply chain data and embedded carbon at each stage of production, recycling and end-of-life.
The company serves Volvo Cars, Polestar, BHP, and LG Energy Solutions.
Electric Gamebox, a UK-based gaming platform company, raised $25M in Series A2 funding.
The round was led by Philian, with participation from Brookfield Asset Management, Index Ventures, and ActivumSG.
The company intends to use the funds to accelerate expansion in the US and UK including 100 new locations over the next two years and 1,000+ locations by 2026.
Co-founded by CEO Will Dean and CFO David Spindler, Electric Gamebox delivers hyper-immersive games in interactive digital smart rooms, or ‘Gamebox’ gaming pods. The Gameboxes – which can host two to six players at a time – feature a range of technologies including projection mapping, touch screens, 3D motion tracking and surround sound without the need for headsets. Originating in Central London in October 2019, the company now has locations in Essex and Manchester in the UK, and Dallas.
Brookfield will leverage its real estate portfolio to bring Electric Gamebox to its retail locations. Over the next year, Electric Gamebox will be opening locations at Oakbrook Center, Chicago; The Woodlands Mall, Houston; Fashion Place, Salt Lake City; Victoria Gardens, LA/San Bernardino; and Ballston Quarter, Arlington. Electric Gamebox concessions are also coming to San Antonio, in partnership with Santikos Movie Theaters.
Electric Gamebox currently has six games, designed by its in-house game studio with plans to release additional games in 2021. New games will be released monthly.
American tech giant Honeywell is upping its bet on redefining the future of quantum computing by combining its own three-year-old group with British startup Cambridge Quantum Computing. Now, the company is pledging to invest up to $300 million (nearly £212 million) in the new venture. This investment round will reportedly be closed later this year.
The combined company will be pitted against the likes of major quantum computing players including IBM, Google, and Microsoft. Honeywell predicts the quantum computing market to be worth $1 trillion. Notably, IBM is already an investor in Cambridge Quantum Computing, a global player in this space.
Furthermore, Honeywell’s ion-based quantum computing hardware has already reached a quantum volume of 512. This is the highest ever volume measured on a commercial quantum computer to date.
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The round was led by Brighteye Ventures and Mustard Seed Maze and joined by business angels including Cédric Sellin, Josef Bovet (SumUp, ex Tiller), and Bruno Sola (Business).
The funding will be deployed towards accelerating the company’s growth in France and Europe, notably with the launch of its first London location scheduled for January 2022.
The company is also planning to increase students per location from 60 to 200 and double down its workforce to 10.
Founded in 2019 by Marie Taquet, IconoClass offers a four-month course in the area of business development. The course is based on intensive practical learning with partner companies including, Doctolib, Deliveroo, Spendesk, and SumUp.
Furthermore, the company assures students a permanent job contract with one of its many partner companies at the end of the course.
“By creating IconoClass, I wanted to offer an excellent education to as many people as possible, regardless of educational background and financial means. We’re proud of our pioneering role in intensively training valued and well-paid professions such as business development. This funding will allow us to speed up our strike force at a time when student precariousness is becoming an economic and social emergency that must be resolved efficiently,” said Marie Taquet, Founder and CEO of IconoClass.
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