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March 3 · Issue #41 · View online
Steve's In The Know: Everything I published recently, commentary you won't find elsewhere, write-ups of events I attended or spoke at, and industry rumours.
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Trying to close a nice European scoop, and looking through the 46 VC contacts I have, weighted by helpfulness, and none can provide me with the second sourcing I need. https://t.co/2zFFxOAmBg
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3:22 PM - 1 Mar 2018
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I like to say, âI only write when Iâm rightâ â so letâs hope Iâm not wrong. This week, with the help of my TechCrunch colleague Ingrid Lunden (whom BI rightly once described as â a veritable scoop machineâ), I unearthed what appears to be Europeâs next unicorn (that is, a privately owned tech company that is valued by investors at $1 billion or more).
According to multiple sources, UiPath, a Romania/U.S. startup that builds âsoftware robotsâ for enterprises to automate legacy and back-office functions, has raised a Series B round of funding of $100 million or more, catapulting it to a valuation of over $1 billion. The companyâs last funding round reportedly valued it at $109 million, so thatâs a nearly tenfold increase. We also believe Silicon Valley investor Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byers may be in on the round â the firm seems to be showing an increasing interest in European startups â along with other household name VCs. Thatâs likely also very good news for UIPathâs seed investors who include Earlybird, Credo Ventures (the backer of my now defunct startup) and Seedcamp. Expect official confirmation in the next few days. Talking of Seedcamp, with UIPathâs new valuation, the London seed investorâs fund III is starting to look pretty decent (remember, it recently flogged fund I and II to Draper Esprit, including its remaining stake in TransferWise). Hereâs a screen grab from Seedcampâs own fundraising deck listing the new unicorn alongside the rather noisy Revolut, insurtech company Wefox, and digital mortgage broker Trussle.
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Seedcamp's fundraising deck from late 2017
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This week also saw me break a fistful of other venture capital news, including personnel changes at BGF Ventures that sees three partners â yes, three! â depart, including Wendy Tan White, who only joined BGF Ventures in late June after leaving Entrepreneur First where she was a General Partner. She tells me sheâs exploring raising a new âdeep techâ and AI focused fund of her own, while Harry Briggs and Rory Stirling, who have also left BGF, plan to remain in venture too. Fun fact: Wendy Tan White is believed to previously have begun raising her own fund before ultimately deciding to join EF. Still reeling from being out-scooped by Business Insider last month with news of Ophelia Brownâs new VC fund Blossom Capital (and despite beating them by 14 minutes to the BGF story), I decided to write a follow up piece after uncovering further details. According to my sources, while Blossom Capital is targeting early stage tech startups, its remit is Series A not seed, a departure from Brownâs work at LocalGlobe. The new firm wants to plug what it deems a âSeries A gapâ, with investments of $5 million-plus. The thinking is that in Europe promising and high quality founders often get funded by great angel investors and at seed but sometimes struggle at Series A due to a shortage of capital at that stage. â[Theyâre] trying to push the European ecosystem forward, itâs about true high conviction investing,â is how one source frames it. Other VC news Iâve recently covered includes a report on Kindred Capital, an ÂŁ80 million seed VC firm in London that is giving founders it backs a share of fund profits (nice work if you can get it!), and serial entrepreneur Rodolfo Rosiniâs move over to the âdark sideâ.
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I really enjoyed this thought-provoking piece by Kai-Fu Lee, founder and CEO of Sinovation Ventures, published in MIT Technology Review. Lee gives a good summary of the battle between the U.S. and China regards an AI arms race (tl;dr: itâs the data, stupid, of which China has a lot more). It also echoes an argument I first made in ITK: #1 that we may be living through AIâs honeymoon period whereby the technology is augmenting existing jobs, with a ton of upside, before eventually displacing them on a scale we have never seen before.
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UiPath raising around $120M at $1B+ valuation for its âsoftware robotsâ for internal business tasks
SCOOP:Â TechCrunch has learned that UiPath, a startup that builds âsoftware robotsâ for enterprises to automate legacy and back-office functions, has raised a Series B round of funding that sources tell us is around $120 million â a round that will catapult it to a valuation of over $1 billion.
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BGF Ventures leads ticket search engine TickXâs ÂŁ3M Series A
FUNDING: TickX, a U.K., Manchester-based startup that has developed a search engine and discovery platform for events and other âattractionsâ tickets, has raised ÂŁ3 million in Series A funding.
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Rodolfo Rosini enters VC, joins AI and machine learning accelerator Zeroth.ai as Partner
VENTURE:Â Rodolfo Rosini, a genuine serial entrepreneur and well-liked and well-connected figure in the U.K. startup scene, is giving up startup life to move over to the âdark sideâ and become a VC. Read More
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Kindred Capital, an ÂŁ80M seed VC firm in London, is giving founders it backs a share of fund profits
VENTURE: Kindred Capital, a London-based VC firm that has actually been up and running since 2015, is announcing that it has closed its first seed fund of ÂŁ80 million, money it has already been deploying in around 20 tech startups throughout Europe over the last two years. Read More
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More details of Blossom Capital emerge, a new fund co-founded by ex-Index VC Ophelia Brown
SCOOP: It was well-known that ex-Index VC Ophelia Brown was âdoing a fund of her ownâ after she departed Robin and Saul Kleinâs LocalGlobe in April. But now details have emergedâŚ
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BGF Ventures in flux as three partners are departing
SCOOP: Changes are afoot at BGF Ventures, the London-based early-stage venture fund of BGF, as three partners are departing, TechCrunch has learned.
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Triple, the marketplace for local travel experiences, acquires competitor Local Guddy
ACQUISITION: Triple, the Stockholm-headquartered marketplace for local travel experiences, has acquired competitor Local Guddy for an undisclosed sum. The deal sees Local Guddy founder Emre SemercioÄlu become part of the Triple team as Head of Market Growth, while I understand it was part cash, part stock. Read More
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Tinyclues, the AI-driven campaign marketing solution, scores $18M Series B
FUNDING:Â Tinyclues, the French startup that offers an intelligent campaign marketing solution that uses AI to help push the right products to the right customers, has closed $18 million in Series B investment.
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ParkBee closes âŹ5M funding to open up private car parks to public bookings
FUNDING: ParkBee, a Netherlands-founded startup that lets private car parks monetize underutilized spaces by making them bookable to the public, has picked up âŹ5 million in new funding Read More
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Raisin, the European savings deposit marketplace backed by PayPal, gets dedicated UK launch
LAUNCH:Â Raisin, the Paypal-backed savings deposit marketplace that lets you shop for a better interest rate across Europe, has launched a dedicated U.K. site, meaning that savers can now access deposit accounts in Sterling.
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Anyfin bags âŹ4.8M Series A to let you refinance your existing loans by taking a photo
FUNDING: Anyfin, a startup based in Sweden that easily enables you to refinance your existing loans, including by taking a photo, has picked up âŹ4.8 million in Series A investment.
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StatusToday scores nearly $4M to grow its AI-powered âemployee insightsâ service
FUNDING:Â StatusToday, a London startup that is building out AI tech that it claims can help companies better understand their employees and in turn improve productivity, is disclosing $3.91 million in seed investment.
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Tandem launches a credit card that offers cashback and no fees when spending abroad
LAUNCH:Â Tandem, the U.K. challenger bank that recently acquired the banking arm of the famous Harrods department store partly in order to get its banking license back on track, has launched its first banking product: a credit card that offers cashback on every purchase and no exchange fees when spending abroad.
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Homie raises $4M to help Londonâs âGeneration Rentâ find their next property
FUNDING:Â Another nascent proptech startup targeting âGeneration Rentâ is London-based Homie, which might best be described as a concierge-style service that promises to save Londonerâs time, hassle and money when going in search of their next rental property.
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Online estate agency Home Made raises ÂŁ850K seed at ÂŁ4.3M post-money valuation
FUNDING:Â Home Made, which is focused exclusively on London lettings for properties in the ÂŁ500,000-plus range, has raised ÂŁ850,000 in seed funding.
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CommonSense Robotics raises $20M for robotics tech for online grocery fulfilment
FUNDING:Â CommonSense Robotics, an Israel-based startup developing AI and robotics tech to help online grocery retailers speed up fulfilment and delivery, has raised $20 million in Series A funding.
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Monzo given go-ahead to âpassportâ banking licence to Republic of Ireland
REGULATION:Â Monzo, one of a number of âchallengerâ banks in the U.K. aiming to re-invent the current account, has announced the first step in its plans for international expansion with news that it has regulatory approval to operate in the Republic of Ireland.
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Starlingâs marketplace banking rollout adds pensions, savings, travel insurance and mortgages
LAUNCH:Â Following the required regulatory approval, the Starling Marketplace is adding a number of financial services integrations, spanning pensions, savings, travel insurance and mortgage brokerage.
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Zervant raises âŹ6M for its invoicing software for small businesses
FUNDING: Finnish fintech startup Zervant, which provides online invoicing software for small business and entrepreneurs across Europe, has raised âŹ6 million in funding.
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Online mortgage advisor Burrow pivots to B2B, cites unit economics issue
SCOOP:Â Burrow, the U.K. startup founded by ex-VC Pradeep Raman and backed by Passion Capital, is shutting down its online mortgage brokerage service, TechCrunch has learned.
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Itâs been fun watching the continued rivalry between and progress being made by upstart banks Monzo and Starling (letâs just say, the two challenger banks have history, a story I hope to write one day). In a now familiar âanything you do, we can do tooâ, Starling and Monzo appear to be on a path to feature parity. Starling has rolled out a feature called â Settle Upâ that lets you easily split bills or collect money from friends and resembles Monzo.me. Likewise, Monzo announced integration with roundup savings app Moneybox, which Starling already has, and, like its rival, is â passporting to Irelandâ to begin the process of expanding to Europe. It also begun testing its marketplace banking proposition, while Starling has added new partners to its marketplace.
Bonus: Did you know that the two banking startupsâ offices are in almost touching distance, at least until Monzo moves to its new swanky HQ? âYou can look out of the window and literally see Monzo working next door (the buildings are across a narrow road so the windows face each other)â a Starling employee tells me. You couldnât make it up!
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Want to continue the conversation? Just hit reply to this email â I answer every single ITK email I receive.
Please forward this newsletter to friends and colleagues who might also enjoy it. More subscribers and better open rates makes me happy. Till next time, Steve
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With this weekâs red weather alert in the U.K., have you considered switching to a greener energy supplier? I recently joined energy upstart Bulb as a customer and took advantage of a pretty generous referral scheme. If you want to do the same, use my link https://bulb.co.uk/refer/sephen3785 and weâll both get ÂŁ50 credit when you switch to Bulb as well as potentially saving ÂŁ on your monthly energy bill depending on your current tarrif! Note: Iâm not endorsing Bulb or affiliated in any way with the company. Iâm just using the same referral scheme as any other customer is free to do. I may link to other referral offers in future ITKs if this works out to be mutually beneficial and popular.
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