UK and EU Fundraising News from Newnex

1 Aug 2023

1. Personal training platform Another Round has secured £300k in its latest fundraise, including investment from angels and its community. The latest investment will go towards building a world-class team, advancing Another Round’s product capabilities and R&D.

2. Quench.ai, founded and led by Husayn Kassai, former CEO and co-founder of unicorn AI identity company Onfido, introduces AI learning coach - bringing a new personalized approach to the $1 trillion learning and development industry. Quench leverages conversational AI to help busy professionals discover the most relevant content from the world’s largest indexed educational video content library. Funding comes from ten leading VC firms and prominent angel investors, including over fifty founders.

3. Scaleup Group client eflow Global announced it has secured £7 million in capital, led by Finch Capital and supported by Atempo and ScaleUp Group Partners.

4. inploi, the talent attraction technology scale-up, has raised a £1.35m round to develop its growth team and accelerate the go-to-market (GTM) strategy for their Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering ahead of a planned expansion into the US. Recruitment industry veterans turned angels Chris Nelson and Julia Ross participated in the round, along with Joshua Nott of Schmidt Futures, Ziyaad Aboobaker, a partner at 10x Value Partners, and a number of others.

5. AutogenAI has raised $21 million from leading European investor, Blossom Capital, bringing the power of large language models and generative artificial intelligence to the world of procurement and tender writing. AutogenAI leverages the power of generative AI to help leading companies write bids and tenders for public sector and corporate contracts covering all industry verticals – including consultancy, IT, health, transport, construction and more. 

6. Materials Nexus’ raises £2m seed round led by Ada Ventures with participation from MD One Ventures, and angel investors Andrew MacKay and Jasmin Thomas. The company seeks to amplify net-zero technologies, including renewable energy generation and energy storage, in a way that gives higher performance and sustainability at lower costs.

7. Aftermarket technology specialists, Partful, has received £2.4M in funding to accelerate the development of its ‘exploding’ 3D parts SaaS platform – which is transforming the industry’s approach to a global aftermarket worth $400BN. Led by Par Equity, with participation from US-based Blumberg Capital, it takes the total investment from Par Equity and Blumberg Capital to £6.2M in the last 18 months. 

8. Health tech company Entia has closed a successful £16m Series A financing round. 

The round was led by BGF and Parkwalk plus other existing investors, with the capital earmarked for the UK commercial rollout and US regulatory approval of the company’s flagship innovation, Liberty.

9. QuoIntelligence, a Frankfurt-based cyber intelligence startup, announced on Thursday that it has secured €5M in seed funding from eCAPITAL Entrepreneurial Partners, a DeepTech VC investor with a portfolio comprising European cybersecurity startups like VMRay, Tenzir, and Exein, led the round.

10. ev.energy will expand its reach in North America and Europe, create a pathway to connect millions of vehicles, chargers and drivers to their Virtual Power Plant (VPP) and enable Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) services. The funding round was led by National Grid Partners with support from Aviva Ventures, WEX Venture Capital, InMotion Ventures, the investment arm of JLR, as well as existing investors Energy Impact Partners, Future Energy Ventures and ArcTern Ventures

11. Insurance data intelligence provider, Percayso Inform, today announced a second major investment in its fast-growing business with a £2.7M fundraise led by industry veteran, Neil Utley, and its existing venture capital investor, Praetura Ventures.

12. Iventis has secured investment from the MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund, which is managed by Mercia Ventures and part of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF), and Mercia’s EIS funds. A UK company whose events software platform was used to help plan the Special Olympics in Berlin, has raised £1.5m to enable it to bring its technology to a wider audience and create new jobs.

13. Bulb cofounder’s energy storage startup Field raises £200m The LocalGlobe and Plural-backed startup is building battery storage projects across the UK.

14. Bunq — a Dutch startup that provides banking, savings, payments, card and other services to consumers with a focus on people who might need such services in more than one country across Europe — has raised €100 million in equity funding ($111 million at today’s rates), €44.5 million that just closed today, and a previously undisclosed €55.5 million earlier this year. The investment is being made as an “inside round” from previous backers, specifically Pollen Street Capital, Raymond Kasiman and founder and CEO Ali Niknam. The round is coming in a valuation of €1.65 billion ($1.8 billion today; $1.9 billion in 2021), exactly the same valuation the neobank had in 2021 when it raised $228 million from the same investors.

15. German thermal satellite data startup constellr raised 17 million euros ($18.93) in seed funding. Karista led the round. Participants included Einstein Industries Ventures, FTTF, Lakestar, Vsquared, Amathaon Capital, Natural Ventures, OHB Ventures and EIT Food.

16. Portugal-based Infraspeak, an Intelligent Maintenance Management Platform (IIMP), announced on Tuesday that it has raised €7.5M in a Series A extension round of funding from Bright Pixel. The announcement comes eighteen months after raising €10M in funding in a Series A round in October 2021. Leading the round were Indico Capital Partners and Knight Capital, alongside existing investors Caixa Capital and Innovation Nest. 

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