News
PatientsLikeMe, the world’s largest integrated community, health management, and real-world data platform, today announced it has raised $26 million in financing led by Alta Partners, Hambrecht Ducera Growth Ventures, Optum Ventures and PBM Capital, with participation from Jeff Leerink and Symphony Ventures, an investment partnership established by Rory McIlroy and his team. The funds will be used to expand on PatientsLikeMe’s support and empowerment of people managing significant health conditions.
Through PatientsLikeMe, a growing community of more than 830,000 people with over 2,900 conditions share personal stories and information about their health, symptoms, and treatments, with a goal to improve the lives of all patients through knowledge derived from shared real-world experiences and outcomes.
"Understanding and sharing experiences has never been more important than right now – in the middle of a global pandemic, in which people are isolated, stressed, and fearful of risks to their health and quality of life," said Jeff Leerink, CEO of SVB Leerink. "Communities can connect, learn, and heal on PatientsLikeMe. Through connection, patients can take ownership of their health, together."
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Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm with $16.5 billion in assets under management, has poured millions into an edtech startup that sells virtual STEM lab simulations to institutions.
Copenhagen-based Labster, which sells virtual science laboratory simulations to schools, announced today that it has raised $60 million in a Series C round led by the prominent Silicon Valley firm, including participation from existing investors GGV Capital, Owl Ventures and Balderton Capital. Labster has now raised $100 million in total known venture capital to date.
Like many edtech companies, Labster has found itself centered and validated as the pandemic underscores the need for remote work. In April, Labster signed a contract to bring its services to the entire California Community College network, which includes more than 2.1 million students. Months later, the startup brought on $9 million in equity funding to bring GGV’s Jenny Lee onto the board and expand its Asia operations.
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Top Hat, a Toronto, Canada-based active learning courseware platform for higher education, raised $130M USD in Series E funding.
Existing investor Georgian is providing the new round of funding.
The company intends to use the funds to continue tom expand across the $10B North American higher ed courseware industry and to fast track partnership and acquisition activities with traditional publishers to create engaging and effective course experiences.
Top Hat CEO Mike Silagadze, who co-founded the company in his dorm room at the University of Waterloo and grew to 400+ employees, will hand over day-to-day leadership to incoming CEO Joe Rohrlich.
The company is a tech-first higher education teaching platform combining interactive textbooks, lecture slides, quizzes, and assignments, supporting student learning before, during, and after class.
Millions of students at 750 leading North American colleges and universities use Top Hat to teach and engage with students before, during, and after class, in both in-person and online education.
Major online retailers such as Amazon could be forced to pay additional tax in order to help the UK recover from the financial strain of the COVID pandemic.
According to the Sunday Times, HM Treasury officials invited tech firms and retailers to discuss the potential Online Sales Tax.
The summon comes days after it was revealed that Amazon’s profits skyrocketed by 51% to almost £20 billion in 2020. Despite its massive success, fueled partly by brick and mortar stores shutting their doors due to lockdown restrictions, Sky reports that the online retailer had a tax turnover ratio of 0.37%.
In response, an Amazon spokesperson told IT Pro that the company had “invested more than £23 billion in jobs and infrastructure in the UK since 2010”.
“Last year we created 10,000 new jobs and last week we announced 1,000 new apprenticeships. This continued investment helped contribute to a total tax contribution of £1.1 billion during 2019 – £293 million in direct taxes and £854 million in indirect taxes,” the spokesperson added.
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Today, London and Amsterdam based early-stage fintech VC Finch Capital announced the first close of its €150M (nearly £132M) fund, Europe III, which will invest in European technology companies shaping the future of finance by using technology such as artificial intelligence (AI).
With the new larger European fund, Finch Capital will invest EUR 2-10M at Series A and B stages, acquiring significant minority stakes in scale up companies with EUR 2-5M in revenues: a segment currently underserved by the European VC and Growth market that is facing a funding gap. As with its previous funds, Finch plans to back 15-20 European startups, targeting liquidity 3-5 years post investment, over the fund’s three year initial investment lifespan.
Radboud Vlaar, MD Finch Capital, said: “We have always been bullish on investing in Financial Technology. Moving forward, we are doubling down on Financial software, especially those companies that leverage AI to this end. We have seen the industry mature, giving rise now to a rich but fragmented landscape of robust businesses with EUR 2-5 million in revenues. These are the companies we are focused on working with now. With the right support and management they have great risk/return outcomes and they are ready to build leading positions and consolidate the European market.”
Europe III saw a near 90% follow on investment from previous funds. Since its inception in 2013, the firm has made a total of 40 investments across Europe and Asia and its assets now total $400M (nearly £290.5M).
Finch’s Fund II invested in both SE Asian and European startups. Both Fund I (EUR40M (nearly £35M), 2014 Vintage) and Fund II (EUR110M (nearly £97M), 2017 Vintage) are generating top quartile returns. The current portfolio includes a range of successful companies spanning Fintech, Regtech and Insurtech, and includes Trussle, Fourthline, Goodlord (which acquired Vouch), Grab, Hiber, BUX, Twisto, and Zopa; exits include Salviol and Cermati, with two exits in process.
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London-based FourthRev is a new edtech startup, which bridges the gap between universities and businesses to address the gap in digital skills. The company just announced £2.3M in a round led by Reach Capital along with existing investors Emerge Education and Dunce Capital and angel investors including US education executive Craig Pines and Charlie Songhurst, former Head of Corporate Strategy at Microsoft.
Reach Capital is a US-based education specialist VC whose portfolio includes educational trailblazers Handshake, Class Dojo and Outschool. This investment round comes after the pre-seed fundraising round of £450K in February 2020 by the company founders Jack Hylands and Omar de Silva.
Plans for rapid expansion
Headquartered in London, FourthRev intends to use the investment for rapid expansion. Currently, the company is in discussion with nearly 20 organisations and plans to double the number of higher education partners they work with in the coming months. Furthermore, the company is in discussion with 20 more organisations as it plans to double the number of higher education partners in the next 12-18 months.
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Monzo, the UK-based challenger bank that allows customers to access a range of products and services, is expected to raise a £50 million extension in Series G round from existing shareholders and a new San Francisco-based VC firm Octahedron Capital.
The new funding will take the amount raised by the digital bank during the pandemic to £175 million. It’s worth mentioning that the investment round will be carried out with the same financial terms as the rest of the rounds.
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Digital triage platform eConsult Health has closed a £7m funding round led by Gresham House Ventures and institutional investor Calculus Capital alongside existing shareholders. A spin-out of GP-led Hurley Group, eConsult Health is one of the most widely used triage services in the NHS and is currently used by over 3,200 NHS GP practices.
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Vamstar, a London-based B2B healthcare marketplace powered by AI, has secured $1.7 million (approx £1.2 million) seed funding led by btov with participation from Antler and Begin Capital.
The funding will be used to build the supplier and buyer related use-cases to accelerate growth. Also, the company is planning to expand team globally from the UK, Germany, India, and the United States by the end of 2021 with new roles — sales and marketing, product development, and data analysis.
Reinventing healthcare procurement
Founded by Praful Mehta, Richard Freeman, and Vishesh Duggar in 2020, Vamstar is reinventing healthcare procurement by using data science to connect billions of data points across the supply chain.
The platform is used for businesses and organisations connecting suppliers, such as pharmaceutical, medical device, and digital technology companies, with public and private buyers, such as hospitals, health insurances, or Group Purchasing Organisations (GPOs).
Combating supply chain stability
The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the notion of supply chain stability in the global economy. In the healthcare industry, this has led to equipment shortages in hospitals and issues with medical transportation. To combat this, Vamstar has created the world’s first AI-powered B2B healthcare marketplace.
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Founded by Oscar Health veteran Harry Ritter, M.D., in 2018, Alma aims to improve access to high-quality, affordable mental health care.
Typically, mental health providers do not accept insurance, and an average session can cost between $150 and $500, he told Crunchbase News.
Alma’s platform enables providers to accept insurance. It also provides a member directory, client-matching service, scheduling and billing functions, as well as education, training and a community for support, he said. In addition, Alma works with the insurance companies on behalf of the providers, which reduces session costs down to an average of $18.
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