Recent Funding
Auto Added by WPeMatico
Russia’s BestDoctor attracts international investors for its $4.5M round
The private medical insurance market is expanding year on year by over 5%, and that includes in Russia, where the insurance market — which grew by 4% in 2019 — has reached a value of almost $22 billion.
So it’s not that surprising that Russian insurtech startup BestDoctor has now closed its third round of financing for $4.5 million. Lead investors AddVenture, based out of Moscow, and Target Global, based out of Berlin, were joined by the London-based LVL1 fund, which had previously invested in the company.
BestDoctor is an online medical insurance platform offering private medical insurance for companies and their employees. As well as insurance, its also delivers 24/7 health support and medical consultations via its mobile app. Users also can get access to recommendations on preventive care and online support from BestDoctor physicians. The idea is that users save up to 23% on their annual medical expenses, and up to 95% of users renew the contract after a year.
Its clients largely consist of Russian corporates, including Voximplant, Faberlic, Ivideon, Prisma Labs and Rambler Group, which add up to more than 30,000 people. It also collaborates with 11,000 clinics across Russia.
Mark Sanevich, BestDoctor’s CEO and co-founder, says the need for online medical services was amplified during the pandemic: “Our business received a strong boost. Now we are going to focus on establishing a comprehensive platform on the basis of medical insurance.”
Target Global managing partner Mikhail Lobanov said: “BestDoctor is a rare example of a company that combines medicine and high-tech, while directly connecting employers with medical clinics. High-tech private medical insurance with the ability to consult a doctor 24/7 ensures transparency of all expenses.”
AddVenture managing partner Maxim Medvedev said: “By summer 2019, BestDoctor had a good head start: it had large enterprise clients, the company figured out the market’s problems and needs and dozens of product ideas were tested.”
BestDoctor plans to spend the newly raised funds on developing its software and also plans to expand its sales activity, concentrating on new product segments.
Powered by WPeMatico
Eco-friendly laundry goods subscription service smol raises £8M from Balderton
Smol is a startup that delivers to people’s homes eco-friendly laundry capsules and dishwasher tablets on subscription through letterboxes, which undercut the price of the leading brands. It has now raised £8 million in a Series A funding round led by Balderton Capital, with participation from JamJar Investments. The funding will see smol push into new product categories, expand further into new markets and expand its team. Before this round smol had been funded by seed money from private investors.
Created by former Unilever employees Paula Quazi and Nick Green in 2018, it has also launched its own-brand, animal-fat-free, vegan fabric conditioner and a 100% plastic-free, child-lock packaging for its laundry and dishwashing products, as well as fabric conditioner made from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic, which as recyclable. Smol also offers a returns scheme for refill and reuse.
P&G and Unilever currently dominate the market, while smol hopes to become “the Dollar Shave Club” of laundry.
Paula Quazi, co-founder of smol, said in a statement: “Having seen how the industry has barely innovated in over a hundred years we launched smol to take the hassle out of washing for families whose laundry needs have been ignored for decades.”
Suranga Chandratillake, partner at Balderton Capital said: “When people think of technology disruption, it is normal to think of digital products and internet tools. However, technology has the power to make life better for us in the most unexpected ways and we believe Paula, Nick and their amazing team have tapped into just such an opportunity at smol.”
Powered by WPeMatico
Plum raises $10M for its ‘smart’ money management app
Plum, the London and Athens-based fintech that offers a “smart” money management app to help you improve your “financial resilience,” has raised a further $10 million in funding as it gears up for European expansion.
The new round is led by Japan’s Global Brain and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which has participated in previous Plum funding rounds.
In addition, the company has received further funding from early backer VentureFriends, matched by the U.K. taxpayer via the U.K. government’s Future Fund scheme. Plum has raised $19.3 million in total since being founded by Victor Trokoudes (an early TransferWise employee) and Alex Michael in 2016.
Launched in the U.K. the following year, Plum is one of a number of fintech startups that is vying to become a user’s financial hub or control centre, in a way that goes far beyond the first generation of personal finance manager apps and bank account aggregators.
You link the app to your bank account and gain access to a range of functionality, including savings, investments and analysis of your utility bills to help you make better purchasing decisions. Like similar apps, Plum’s “artificial intelligence” also deems what you can afford to save by analysing your bank transactions. It then puts money away each month in the form of round-ups and/or regular savings.
You can open an ISA investment account and invest based on themes, such as only in “ethical companies” or technology. Another related feature is “Splitter,” which, as the name suggests, lets you split your automatic savings between Plum savings pots and investments, selecting the percentage amounts to go into each pot, from 0-100%.
In a call with Trokoudes, he talked me through a few recent Plum updates that he says bring it much closer to fulfilling its financial control centre mission and being a candidate to replace your individual banking apps.
Crucially, you can now link all of your accounts to Plum, whereas previously Plum only let you access a single linked bank account. This gives you “full visibility” of your saving, spending and investments all in a single app.
On the roadmap is also the ability to make payments via Open Banking — and Trokoudes doesn’t rule out a Plum card in the future as a complementary feature with additional benefits, not a core offering, unlike numerous competitors.
More immediately, Plum is launching interest for savers who use Plum to set money aside but don’t want to invest any or all of it. Paid users are being offered an interest rate of 0.6% for instant access savings and 0.75% for 95 days’ notice. Plum users on its free tier can earn 0.35% interest.
Trokoudes explained that there’s also the option to split a percentage of the money put aside automatically, allocating deposits between the new interest-bearing account and Plum-powered investments.
Meanwhile, armed with fresh capital, Plum plans to launch in Spain and France by the end of 2020. The company claims 1 million registered users in the U.K., and now employs more than 60 people split across London, U.K. and Athens, Greece. Trokoudes tells me it will scale up further to 80 employees by the end of 2020 and is aiming for 5 million users across Europe by the end of 2021.
Adds Naoki Kamimaeda, partner and Europe office representative at Global Brain Corporation: “More users have started using fintech apps and personal financial management apps across the globe, to be more efficient and be better off. Among these fintech apps, Plum has a very unique position and very bold ambition to be a partner of individuals to save more money and manage their financial life in an easier and more effective manner.”
Powered by WPeMatico
Gett raises $100M more to double down on its B2B on-demand ride business
A number of on-demand ride hailing companies are feeling the strain from reduced business, with many consumers still reluctant to travel, and especially to travel in surroundings that might increase the risk of spreading or catching the novel coronavirus. But today, one of the startups in the space is announcing a significant round of funding to continue growing in its target sector of corporate travel, underscoring where there may still be some existing and growing opportunities.
Gett, the London and Israel-based company that competes with the likes of Uber and many others to provide private car rides on-demand, has raised $100 million. Gett’s CEO and founder Dave Waiser told TechCrunch that the funding is all primary equity capital, and the company says it plans to use it to continue investing in its B2B business, which has been growing — not shrinking or staying flat — in the midst of the global health pandemic.
“The way people move around in cities is changing dramatically as a result of COVID-19 and businesses are seeking to optimise costs and to put in place efficient and safe ground travel solutions for their employees,” said Waiser, in a statement. “Our mobility software is helping businesses thrive by empowering people to be their best on the go. Being fully funded and reaching a key milestone in our profitability journey is an important step for the company. The proceeds will help us grow our unique corporate SaaS platform internationally, while we consider an IPO in the future, to further accelerate our expansion.”
The company turned operationally profitable in December 2019 and had said it planned to go public in 2020, but it sounds like that timeline, if it happens, has now been pushed back to 2021. Gett says it has met its “original financial targets that were set pre-COVID-19.” It also reached profitability in each of its core markets in June, and is on target now to be cash flow positive in 2021, ahead of a “potential” IPO.
“It’s a luxury, enabling flexibility for the company to go public when it’s best, rather than from the cash needs reasoning as many (money-losing) companies have to do nowadays,” Waiser said in an interview.
Gett is not disclosing the names of any of its investors in this round except to note that it’s a mix of new and existing backers, nor is it disclosing its valuation.
Waiser said the reason for that is that the round is still being expanded after getting oversubscribed, so it plans to announce a list of investors (and valuation?) after the expansion closes.
For some context, though, Gett has now raised $750 million, with investors including VW, Access and its founder Len Blavatnik, Kreos, MCI and more, and its last valuation was $1.5 billion, pegged to a $200 million fundraise in May 2019.
Gett started operations years ago serving both consumers and corporate users going head-to-head with the Ubers of the world for app-based, on-demand rides, but it had always differentiated its positioning by working with (in London) the “black cabs” and in NYC “yellow cabs” — that is, the established infrastructure of ride-hailing.
In recent years, it has honed its focus specifically on business accounts. No surprise, when you think about it, considering the capital intensiveness, competitiveness and subsequent poor unit economics of scaling a consumer-focused ridesharing business (a confluence of factors we’ve seen played out at Uber, Lyft, Grab and many others).
Gett’s turn to B2B has seen it pick up some 15,000 corporate customers, including one-third of the Fortune 500.
What has been interesting too is the approach Gett has taken to scale: Today, it provides rides in some 1,500 cities, but a large part of that footprint is served not directly by Gett. One of its key partners is Lyft — the result of a deal Gett inked with the company in November 2019 after Gett shut down its Juno operations in New York City. And it’s been expanding that list to include other third-party partnerships in the mix.
Partnerships may not yield margins as strong as those Gett has with direct operations. Gett still is the direct link between drivers and riders in its key markets, which include cities like London and Moscow. (It’s not disclosing what percentage of its business today is direct versus via third-party businesses.)
But on the other hand, Gett has been building its business by providing a plethora of analytics and invoicing services around the actual ride, and what it makes by securing corporate accounts on the back of that software becomes a revenue stream to offset the decline in margins from partnerships. Gett claims that its services ultimately undercut by about 25% other ground transportation options for corporates.
While a lot of consumers may have curtailed their Uber rides in recent months, the business market has seen a turn to ensuring that the travel that its users are taking is well-controlled when it has to be done, specifically to meet specific safety standards. That has been the sweet spot for Gett, with its very specific B2B approach.
“The completion of the fundraising during the pandemic is a clear expression of confidence by our shareholders and new investors in Gett’s vision to focus on the corporate market and its plan to expand globally, as well as in the Company’s strong operational and financial performance,” said Amos Genish, Gett chairman, in a statement.
Powered by WPeMatico
Former SoundCloud founders launch e-bike subscription service, backed by BlueYard
You’ve heard of e-bike and e-scooter rental startups spreading across cities. But today three veterans of the startup world will launch what appears to be a brand new take on the “e-revolution” sweeping cities in the wake of the global pandemic: subscription e-bikes, or, if you will, “EaaS” or “E-bikes-as-a-Service.” The previous founders of SoundCloud and Jimdo will today launch Dance, a new subscription e-bike service, backed by a stellar lineup of European investors.
The invite-only program kicks-off first in Berlin, with an all-inclusive service package of a €59-a-month “introductory price” and its own design of e-bike. The founders’ goal is to emphasize the community aspects of the rental service, just as they did with SoundCloud.
Dance is co-founded by SoundCloud founders Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss and Alexander Ljung, together with the co-founder of Jimdo, Christian Springub. While Quidenus-Wahlforss and Ljung are best known for co-founding SoundCloud more than 10 years ago as CTO and CEO, respectively, Quidenus-Wahlforss is taking the CEO role this time, while Ljung will be chairman. Ljung remains chairman of SoundCloud in the meantime.
The main institutional backer is Berlin-based VC BlueYard Capital, together with entrepreneurs and investors such as Ilkka Paananen (founder & CEO Supercell), Jeannette zu Fürstenberg (La Famiglia), Kevin P. Ryan (founder & CEO, AlleyCorp), Neil Parikh (founder & CSO Casper), Bjarke Ingels (founder & CEO BIG Architects) and several others.
Here’s how it will work: Users will download an app and register for the service. A fully assembled e-bike is delivered to a subscriber within 24 hours. If the bike needs maintenance or gets stolen, the user alerts Dance via the app and the bike is replaced “immediately.” That’s more or less it. Here’s the current design of the bike:
Image Credits: Dance
However, a specially designed Dance e-bike will look closer to this rendering at launch:
Image Credits: Dance
Quidenus-Wahlforss, co-founder and CEO of Dance said: “Dance means having a state-of-the-art e-bike always and only available to you, but without the hassle of buying and owning it… Dance is the perfect solution for those who are looking for a healthy, environmentally friendly, time-saving and joyful form of mobility.”
“We are convinced that Dance provides the missing piece of the puzzle at the right time to accelerate a broad and lasting movement from individual car ownership to daily use of e-bikes,” he added.
The startup notes that 45% of Germans are interested in owning an e-bike, while the European market is projected to double by 2025, according to some estimates.
This could be a disruptive moment in the e-bike space. E-bikes are generally considered the fastest and most efficient means of individual urban transport on routes up to 10 kilometres, but the pandemic has put new emphasis on their utility.
But with an average purchasing price of €2,300, e-bikes can be expensive and have a higher probability of being stolen, leaving many consumers out of the market.
At the same time, more than 930 kilometres of new cycling infrastructure have been implemented in Europe since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has shifted populations away from “risky” public transport.
Ljung commented: “You save time and you save the environment. You exercise, but you don’t sweat. And besides that, riding an e-bike is simply joyful. Music was one of the first industries to experience the shift from ownership to subscription. At SoundCloud we helped usher in this transformation… Now we want to transfer this experience to the mobility space and start a movement that will ultimately make our cities more livable.”
Springub added: “We have carefully analyzed the mobility market in the past years and we are deeply concerned that despite the new options out there and the clear necessities set by climate protection, car ownership continues to be high, along with all its negative implications such as congestion and pollution.”
Powered by WPeMatico
Activ Surgical raises $15 million to advance autonomous and collaborative robotic surgery
Boston-based startup Activ Surgical has raised a $15 million round of venture funding led by ARTIS Ventures, and including participation from LRVHealth, DNS Capital, GreatPoint Ventures, Tao Capital Partners and Rising Tide VC. The round will help Activ continue to develop and expand availability of its software platform, which it launched to market in May.
Activ Surgical’s ActivEdge platform uses data collected from surgical implements outfitted with sensors created by the company to collect real-time data during the actual surgical process. That data is then used to inform the development of machine learning and AI-based visualizations that can provide guidance to surgeons and surgical systems to help them reduce the occurrence of potential errors, and ultimately improve outcomes for patients.
The company’s primary aim is to bring technological innovation to the sphere of surgical vision, which still relies primarily on methods like using fluorescent dyes that date back more than 70 years. Activ wants to use computer vision to provide real-time visual insight into things that surgeons wouldn’t be able to see on their own — and ultimately to use those insights to power the next generation of both collaborative surgical robots and eventually even fully autonomous robotic surgical procedures.
ActivSight is the company’s first product in its ActivEdge platform offering, and is a small, connected imaging coddle that can be attached to existing laparoscopic and arthroscopic surgical instruments. The company is currently tracking toward getting their hardware cleared by the FDA for use by Q4 this year, and are working with eight hospital partners for pilot projects in the U.S.
The company has raised a total of $32 million in funding to date.
Powered by WPeMatico
Openpath’s security system for physical access gets a $36 million boost
Openpath, the developer of software-based security systems for office access, has raised $36 million in new financing as businesses try to find ways to make employees feel more comfortable about coming back to work.
The round was led by Greycroft, which had been following the company’s progress for years, and included participation from strategic investors like Okta Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of Lincoln Property Companies, Allegion Ventures and Sentre, and included follow-on from existing investors.
For the greater Los Angeles-based Openpath, the new funding offers a chance to boost its sales and marketing efforts and develop new security-focused products for companies and property managers trying to woo tenants back to the shared office space during a global pandemic.
“Openpath is clearly one of the most innovative companies in PropTech. Their solution has been rapidly accepted by the market and it’s clear to me they will be the leading access security platform for the built world, ” said Mark Terbeek, a partner at Greycroft, in a statement. “We have followed this team closely since their launch and preempted their fundraise plans, along with a host of important strategic investors, to lead this new round of capital. We are thrilled to be an investor as they execute on their ambitious road map and bring critical new solutions to a marketplace suddenly impacted by COVID-19.”
According to Openpath, Greycroft made it clear that they wanted to pre-empt any fundraising process the company would have attempted later in the year, so the firm and the company began to work on a round over the past quarter — even as the COVID-19 epidemic was spreading in the U.S.
Openpath also noted that the strategic partners involved in the round had worked with the company for at least a year, leading to a relatively smooth investment process.
What’s attractive to the investors — and to potential customers — is likely the company’s deep integration with Okta for digital identification and the use of the mobile-based credential and permission-based software that gets rid of the need for key cards or physical identifiers. Both Hines and Lincoln Property Company use the service to give landlords and tenants control over who can access properties.
The new funding offers Openpath a chance to boost its sales and marketing efforts and develop new security-focused products for companies and property managers trying to woo tenants back to the shared office space during a global pandemic.
The argument from Openpath’s chief executive Alex Kazerani is that as more workers push for flexible work schedules that incorporate an office and remote work, companies will need more controls over access.
“Our technology offers instant mobile credentials, virtual guest passes, remote unlock capabilities, and accommodate [sic] schedule management to comply with social distancing,” he wrote in an email. “Being able to manage the security of your building and employees while you are remote is crucial.”
Powered by WPeMatico
New lo-fi, text-based social app Lex, for queer women, raises $1.5 million
Lex, a new social app for women, trans, genderqueer and non-binary people offering the ability to post personal ads, has today announced the close of a $1.5 million seed funding round.
Investors in the round include Corigin Ventures, X-Factor Ventures and Tusk Ventures, as well as angels Michelle Kennedy (Peanut), Andy Dunn (Bonobos) Amanda Bradford (The League), Rei Wang (The Grand), Bumble Fund, Elisabeth Hartley, Tavi Gevinson, Nisha Dua, A.G. Breitenstein, Albert Lee, Alice Cheng, Justin Stefano, Piera Gelardi, Philippe von Borries, Debbie Millman and Roxane Gay. Female Founders Fund led the round.
Short for Lexicon, Lex was founded by Kell Rakowski, who originally rose to some prominence after starting an Instagram account called Herstory that curated cool lesbian content from the 1800s to the 90s, including the Personals Ads found in the backs of lesbian erotica magazines from the 80s.
“[The personal ads] were just so hot, and so cool,” said Rakowski. “They were really witty and the women were super direct, and were able to express themselves in a really clear and inspiring way.”
Rakowski had an idea: What if the queer personal ad came back? She asked her Herstory followers if they’d want to post their own personals and the premise quickly took off, with hundreds of personal ads flooding in over the two-day period each month when submissions were open.
The popularity of the format led to yet another idea. Rakowski decided to set up a dating/social app that was focused on these text-based personal ads for women, trans, genderqueer and non-binary people.
Lex, which launched on the App Store in November 2019, is an MVP that does just that.
Users can set up their own profile and post personals, as well as browse the feed of other personals and like the ones that pique their interest. While the personals themselves can be rather graphic, the app is not. There are currently no pictures on Lex, with the caveat that users can link out to their Instagram account if they so choose.
Rather, users can browse through the text-based personals and like them, or message the author of the personal to start up a conversation.
Moreover, unlike traditional dating apps, there is no mutuality required to start a private conversation. In other words, people don’t have to be “matched” to chat. Just like the personal ads of yesteryear, the author sends out a call for responses and the responses flow in.
It’s still early days for the app, but Rakowski has plans to set up the ability to post pictures to profiles (which would not be included in the feed, but would be clickable should the text intrigue you), as well as adding group chat to the app for folks looking to build community.
Lex also has plans to eventually introduce a freemium subscription model to the app, giving users extended functionality for a monthly price. For now, however, the focus is on growth and building out the app.
With the new funding, Lex is looking to hire underrepresented talent in tech for product and engineering positions. The team, comprised of five people, is currently 80% cis women and 20% cis men, with 80% identifying as LGBTQ. Three of the five team members are people of color.
Lex is being aggressive about this hiring sprint, posting its open positions on the app and on Instagram.
“I’ve gotten so many incredible queer tech talent applying for positions at Lex,” said Rakowski. “It’s so inspiring and also emotional. People are writing the most beautiful emails about how much they like Lex. Hiring is 100% our main focus.”
Powered by WPeMatico
Qumulo scores $125M Series E on $1.2B valuation as storage biz accelerates
Qumulo, a Seattle storage startup helping companies store vast amounts of data, announced a $125 million Series E investment today on a $1.2 billion valuation.
BlackRock led the round with help from Highland Capital Partners, Madrona Venture Group, Kleiner Perkins and new investor Amity Ventures. The company reports it has now raised $351 million.
CEO Bill Richter says the valuation is more than 2x its most recent round, a $93 million Series D in 2018. While the valuation puts his company in the unicorn club, he says that it’s more important than simple bragging rights. “It puts us in the category of raising at a billion-plus dollar level during a very complicated environment in the world. Actually, that’s probably the more meaningful news,” he told TechCrunch.
It typically hasn’t been easy raising money during the pandemic, but Richter reports the company started getting inbound interest in March just before things started shutting down nationally. What’s more, as the company’s quarter closed at the end of April, they had grown almost 100% year over year, and beaten their pre-COVID revenue estimate. He says they saw that as a signal to take additional investment.
“When you’re putting up nearly 100% year over year growth in an environment like this, I think it really draws a lot of attention in a positive way,” he said. And that attention came in the form of a huge round that closed this week.
What’s driving that growth is that the amount of unstructured data, which plays to the company’s storage strength, is accelerating during the pandemic as companies move more of their activities online. He says that when you combine that with a shift to the public cloud, he believes that Qumulo is well positioned.
Today the company has 400 customers and more than 300 employees, with plans to add another 100 before year’s end. As he adds those employees, he says that part of the company’s core principles includes building a diverse workforce. “We took the time as an organization to write out a detailed set of hiring practices that are designed to root out bias in the process,” he said.
One of the keys to that is looking at a broad set of candidates, not just the ones you’ve known from previous jobs. “The reason for that is that when you force people to go through hiring practices, you open up the position to a broader, more diverse set of candidates and you stop the cycle of continuously creating what I call ‘club memberships’, where if you were a member of the club before you’re a member in the future,” he says.
The company has been around since 2012 and spent the first couple of years conducting market research before building its first product. In 2014 it released a storage appliance, but over time it has shifted more toward hybrid solutions.
Powered by WPeMatico
Crisp, the platform for demand forecasting the food supply chain, gets $12 million in funding
Crisp, a demand forecasting platform for the food industry, has today announced the close of a $12 million Series A funding round led by FirstMark Capital, with participation from Spring Capital and Swell Partners.
Crisp launched out of beta in January of this year with a product that aimed to give food suppliers and distributors a clearer picture of customer demand at retailers. Before Crisp, these organizations usually had several data scientists compiling data from various sources into an unintelligible spreadsheet, making it difficult to see general demand outlooks, and nearly impossible to spot anomalies.
Not only does this lead to losses in revenue, but it also contributes to a terrible amount of food waste.
Crisp looks to solve this by giving these suppliers and distributors a visualization of their data instantly and in real time. The company has built integrations with a large number of ERP software, ingesting historical data from food brands and combining them with a wide range of other signals around demand drivers, such as seasonality, holidays, price sensitivity, past marketing campaigns, changes in the competitive landscape and weather that might affect the sale or shipment of ingredients or the product itself.
The end goal is to consolidate data across the industry, from brands to distributors to grocery stores, so that each individual link in the food chain can do a better job of matching their supply with their demand on an individual basis.
Since launching out of beta, Crisp has expanded beyond food brands and suppliers into retail and distributor space. The company has also expanded beyond produce and dairy into verticals like beverages, bakery, CPG, flowers, meat and poultry. The startup says its seen an 80% increase in the number of customers using the platform since January.
Obviously, the coronavirus pandemic brings its own unique challenges and opportunities to Crisp’s business. On the one hand, grocery store shopping is booming and the supply chain behind it is certainly in need of better data science and demand forecasting as user behavior shifts rapidly. On the other hand, user behavior is shifting rapidly.
With state by state, and sometimes county by county, lockdowns and shifts in the restrictions imposed on small businesses, Crisp has had to manually track what’s going on around the country in order to provide clear insights to its customers.
“This period we’re in has increased that willingness to share data and increased collaboration between everybody in the supply chain,” said founder and CEO Are Traasdahl. “We’ve seen a big shift there. Earlier, everyone assumed that everyone else was able to deliver, but now this ability to have a full, top-down visibility across a whole depth of companies, not just the companies next to you in your trading relationships, but being able to unify data and have more insights from multiple steps away from yourself, and get that data in real time been accelerated.”
Crisp currently has 33 employees (with plans to hire on the back of the funding), which is 33% women and 15% people of color. Half of Crisp’s management team are women.
Powered by WPeMatico