News
The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically increased the need for remote healthcare solutions as healthcare service providers have been forced to adopt new, modern solutions at an accelerated pace.
Meet Medixine, a telehealth provider that has built an all-in-one digital platform for virtual care to support healthcare professionals focusing better on the patients.
Recently, the Espoo-based company raised €2.9 million (approx £2.4 million) in funding led by a crowdfunding campaign organized by Springvest.
The Finnish company will use the funding to expand its operations in the UK and Central Europe. Further, it plans to develop new products within the Medixine Suite.
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Of late, people are increasingly investing both time and money into more thoughtfully curating their home environments. The COVID-19 pandemic-imposed lockdowns have further accelerated this trend. At the same time, the rise of social media has turned private spaces public, thereby making people consider utilities as fashion purchases. Eventually, consumers are gravitating towards brands that offer stylish, sustainable, and comfortable home products.
Piglet is a British direct-to-consumer homeware brand behind a range of high-quality and low-maintenance linen products and other soft home goods. Recently, the company raised $8.5 million (nearly £6 million) in a round led by Active Partners, a London-based consumer-focused investment firm.
The fresh funds are Piglet’s first outside capital. They will be used to internationally scale the business, expand the brand’s product offering, and build the team of Piglet in the UK, Europe and North America. In addition, the Piglet team aims to nearly double its size by 2022, with the company hiring in the UK, US, Germany, and France.
Besides this, Stuart Grant, co-founder and chairman of leading British apparel brand Mint Velvet with extensive experience and expertise in the apparel, lifestyle and homeware sectors, will join Piglet as Chairperson.
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Razorsecure, a cybersecurity software provider for the rail industry, has secured more than £2 million from the existing investors including, Enterprise M3 Growth Fund; Mainport Innovation Fund II, Wentworth Limited; and Breed Reply.
To date, the company has raised £6 million in funding. The funding will be used to accelerate the company’s growth and scale its products.
Founded by Alex Cowan in 2015, RazorSecure provides a suite of products and services to protect rail companies from cyber-attack.
The company’s technology is powered by machine learning and designed to protect rolling stock, signalling, and infrastructure systems. RazorSecure’s solution detects how a system operates and identifies deviations as a possible threat.
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Half of UK businesses expect to reduce the size of their office space, with a third looking to cut it down by 30%, according to a new report.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) surveyed 258 C-Suite executives and over senior employees of the UK's largest companies and their proposed cuts roughly equated to nine million square feet of space.The finding indicates an appetite for 'hybrid work' models in the UK, where employees mix remote and in-office shifts, with around 71% of the respondents planning to increase investment in technology to enable more agile work models over the next two years.
As such, only 10% of those surveyed agreed that the level of employees working in the office will match that of pre-pandemic levels, despite taking into account the speed of the vaccine roll out. The consensus from the survey among the senior executives is that staff will continue working remotely for two or three days a week.
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TempoCap, a pan-European technology investor, has announced that its portfolio company Depop is to be acquired by Etsy. Inc for $1.6 billion (approx £1.14 billion).
According to the VC, the transaction marks a watershed moment for the European scaleup ecosystem, as the largest venture-backed acquisition of a private technology company in the UK since 2019.
Founded in 2011 by Simon Beckerman, Depop is a community-powered marketplace app, where users buy and sell unique fashion. At present, the platform is home to 21 million+ stylists, designers, artists, collectors, vintage sellers, and more.
Around 90% of Depop’s active users are under the age of 26, claims the company. As a part of the acquisition, TempoCap expects an 11x cash-on-cash return in 3.5 years at closing.
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Half of UK businesses expect to reduce the size of their office space, with a third looking to cut it down by 30%, according to a new report.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) surveyed 258 C-Suite executives and over senior employees of the UK's largest companies and their proposed cuts roughly equated to nine million square feet of space.The finding indicates an appetite for 'hybrid work' models in the UK, where employees mix remote and in-office shifts, with around 71% of the respondents planning to increase investment in technology to enable more agile work models over the next two years.
As such, only 10% of those surveyed agreed that the level of employees working in the office will match that of pre-pandemic levels, despite taking into account the speed of the vaccine roll out. The consensus from the survey among the senior executives is that staff will continue working remotely for two or three days a week.
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Based out of London, Penfold is a digital pension platform managed fully on your mobile phone. Recently, the company has secured £6 million in funding, £3 million of which was from a crowdfunding campaign. The funding round was led by Bridford Investments Limited.
Other investors including Force Over Mass Capital, Elkstone Capital, and several angel investors, including Alan Morgan of MMC Ventures and other senior figures in the finance industry, also participated. With this funding round, Penfold has raised £9 million.
The capital will be used to fund further growth for the business – expanding the team and activating an out-of-home marketing campaign.
Founded by Pete Hykin, Stuart Robinson, and Chris Eastwood in 2019, Penfold is a digital alternative to traditional pension companies, allowing users to set up, manage and track their pensions easily online and via the app.
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Ada Health is a global health company that simplifies healthcare journeys and helps people take care of themselves. Recently, the Berlin-based firm has secured $90 million (approx £63.3 million) funding in Series B round led by Leaps by Bayer, the impact investment arm of Bayer AG.
Other investors including Samsung Catalyst Fund, Vitruvian Partners, Inteligo Bank, F4, and Mutschler Ventures, also participated.
The investment will be used to advance Ada’s popular health assessment technology and to grow its position in the United States. Besides funding, Bayer and Ada Health are in discussions about entering into a longer-term strategic partnership to support the company’s healthcare businesses.
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Paysend, a London, UK-based payments fintech company, raised $125m in Series B funding.
The round was led by One Peak, with participation from Infravia Growth Capital, Hermes GPE Innovation Fund, and existing long-term investors including Silicon Valley based Plug and Play.
The company intends to use the funds to accelerate growth of the platform.
Led by CEO Ronnie Millar, Paysend is an integrated global payment ecosystem enabling consumers and businesses to pay and send money online anywhere, anyhow in any currency. The company has its own global network of banks, international and local payment systems, and has partnerships with the major international card networks Visa, Mastercard and China Union Pay as a principal member and certified processor. Paysend recently opened its US and Canada operations and secured a partnership with Alipay in order to grow its global presence.
The company supports connections between 12 billion cards globally across Mastercard, Visa, China UnionPay and local card schemes and provides over 40 payment methods for online SMEs. Paysend operates in over 60 countries worldwide and has attracted more than 3.7 million consumers and over 17,000 businesses to its platform.
PointGrab, a London UK-based company which specializes in the creation of smart sensors for businesses to maintain social distancing in post-COVID offices, raised £3.4M in funding.
The round was led by EMV Capital.
The company intends to use the funds to accelerate the rollout of its platform.
Led by Doron Shachar, CEO, PointGrab is a machine learning and computer vision PropTech company that provides smart sensing solutions to the building automation and facilities management industry. PointGrab provides a Smart Sensing Platform, which helps to track staff to keep them COVID-safe, to new and existing customers, distancing alerts, cleaning capabilities and smart analytics will help workplaces reopen.
Other investors in the company included ABB Ventures, Signify, and various family offices.