News
The UK Government has commenced a review into the nation's fintech industry, viewed as a key lynchpin in the country's economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. The independent Fintech Strategic Review, led by Ron Kalifa OBE, former CEO of Worldpay, will "establish priority areas for industry, policy makers, and regulators to explore in order to support the ongoing success of the UK fintech sector".
The UK fintech industry is estimated to be worth around £7 billion to the economy and employs around 60,000 people nationwide.
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Healthtech is a hefty sector, spanning digital health, femtech, pharma, AI-assisted diagnostics, drug discovery and plenty more. It makes money too, and a lot of it. In 2019, global healthtech investment totalled a staggering $7.4bn, with some of Europe’s healthtech companies landing big funding rounds.
Last year’s biggest European healthtech deal came from London-based unicorn Babylon Health which raised $550m, while this year Stockholm-based digital health startup Kry raised $155m and Paris-based health insurance provider Alan raised $54m.
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BigCommerce, which provides e-commerce services to merchants, has filed to go public. The Austin, Texas, based e-commerce company raised over $200 million while private. The company’s IPO filing lists a $100 million placeholder figure for its IPO raise.
The company is going from strength to strength based on performance in 2019 compared to 2018, and Q1 2020 in contrast to Q1 2019:
- In 2019, BigCommerce’s revenue grew to $112.1 million, a gain of around 22% from its 2018 result of $91.9 million.
- In Q1 2020, BigCommerce’s revenue grew to $33.2 million, up around 30% from its Q1 2019 result of $25.6 million.
If the company’s revenue growth acceleration continues in the most recent period — bearing in mind that e-commerce as a segment has proven attractive to many businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic — BigCommerce’s will have timed the IPO very well.
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Thrasio, the largest acquirer of Amazon businesses and one of the top 25 sellers on Amazon, today announced that it has raised $260 million in a Series C financing led by Advent International, one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors.
The latest round was raised at a $1 billion pre-money valuation, making Thrasio the fastest US company ever to reach profitable unicorn status. Thrasio acquires category-leading Amazon third-party private label businesses, and then seamlessly onboards, optimizes, and operates those brands.
The company drives blistering rates of organic growth through best-in-class marketing, product development, operations, and supply chain management.
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London-based VC Nauta Capital has announced its fifth fund with a first close at €120 million.
Nauta Tech Invest V is expected to exceed the firm’s previous fund, which landed at €155 million in 2016, and which would bring assets under management over half a billion euros. Operating from its three hubs in London, Barcelona and Munich, the firm plans to invest in companies mainly based in the UK, Spain and Germany, though is open to other continental European countries as well. The main rule is that the B2B software startup is capital-efficient.
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Hyundai Mobis (KRX:012330), the Seoul, South Korea-based company devoted to securing future car technologies by developing proprietary technologies and investing directly in global leaders, is investing a total of $20m in two US tech funds in Silicon Valley.
Until now, Hyundai Mobis has been investing KRW 1 trillion each year as R&D expenditures, and concentrating on securing proprietary technologies with the Technical Center of Korea and four global R&D centers playing the central role. The company developed the radar sensor, which used to depend entirely on imports, with its own technology in 2018, and independently secured the camera systems for commercial vehicles and the in-cabin sensing technology. Additionally, Hyundai Mobis has been engaging in direct investments in leading companies at home and abroad. Back in 2018, the company invested in StradVision (Korea), a deep-learning-based camera sensor maker. Last year, it invested $50 million in Velodyne, a global leader in lidar technology, and directly invested in the joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv.
Following its development of independent technologies and investments in leading companies,
Hyundai Mobis invested in global startups, diversifying its investment strategies. The company is planning to foster global startups, which have strengths in future mobility technologies and leverage various collaboration opportunities as part of its mid-to-long-term R&D strategies.
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The Hut Group, parent of online beauty brands such as Lookfantastic, Illamasqua and Glossy Box as well as online fashion retailer Coggles, has reignited speculation that it is eyeing up a £5bn IPO.
According to The Sunday Times, the fast growing Manchester-based group has been holding meetings with a series of high profile investors, such as Schroders, T Rowe Price and Fidelity, which the report says is a prelude to a float. The highly acquisitive group has been well placed to benefit from the COVID-19 lockdown which forced consumers to shop online and led to a boom in beauty and wellness shopping. Earlier this month it reported that its sales had exceeded £1bn in the year to 31 December 2019. EBITDA for the year hit £111m.
Over the past decade founder Matthew Moulding has grown the group through a series of acquisitions and through white labelling its technology to other beauty brands, through its THG Ingenuity division. Last week it signed deals with Elemis, PZ Cussons Beauty, Burt’s Bees, Nuxe, By Terry and Revolution Beauty to power their direct to consumer strategies. The £100m partnerships add to names such as Nestlé and Procter & Gamble in the THG Ingenuity portfolio.
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Amazon’s investment in London-headquartered food delivery start-up Deliveroo is looking increasingly likely to be approved by the U.K. competition regulator. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced on Wednesday that it has “provisionally cleared” an Amazon investment that would give it a 16% stake in the company.
A number of European countries were hoping to impose taxes on digital companies above a certain revenue threshold, which would hit mainly U.S. tech firms given their size.
The United States has shocked Europe by pulling out of negotiations over an international digital tax and threatened to retaliate if the region moves ahead with plans on its own. A number of European countries were hoping to impose taxes on digital companies above a certain revenue threshold, which would hit mainly U.S. tech firms given their size.
However, according to the Financial Times, in a letter to France, Italy, Spain and the U.K., the U.S. said international talks had reached an impasse and there wasn’t even room for an interim deal. The move effectively ends any chance of a deal soon.
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Walmart and Shopify have announced that they are partnering to bring 1,200 sellers onto Walmart.com's third-party marketplace by the end of this year. The focus of the program is "U.S.-based small and medium businesses whose assortment complements ours," Walmart Marketplace Vice President Jeff Clementz said in a company blog post.
Activating the Walmart e-commerce channel through Shopify allows sellers to sync their assortments with Walmart.com to easily track orders, inventory and fulfillment within Shopify, and manage product information on Walmart.com, according to a Shopify press release.
Shopify sellers won't pay fees to list their products on Walmart.com but will pay "referral fees" when they make a sale, Shopify said.
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