• late stage fintech push
• expensive series As
• $1b+ valuations and exits
• American deals

 

 

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Deals

Nordics

🇸🇪 ​Nordic Forestry Automation​, developing next-gen forest harvesting systems, raised a seed round led by Navigare Ventures.

🇸🇪 ​OurGreenCar​, operating an on-demand pool of electric cars, raised capital funding from local angel investors.

🇱🇹 Torus, developing a SAAS intelligence platform for banks and fintechs to boost their profits on card transactions, raised seed with Goose Valley Ventures from Sweden.

• 10 customers and an $1 million ARR.

🇫🇮 ​MailMoo​, developing a SAAS tool helping e-commerce companies create tailored video content, raised $300k pre-seed with Innovestor and Monttu Ventures.

🇸🇪 ​Clira​, developing a procurement and marketplace B2B platform, raised $2 million with local angel investors.

🇱🇹 ​Nexos​, developing an API SAAS with access to multiple AI models, raised $8 million seed in a deal led by Index Ventures, joined by Creandum, Dig Ventures, and angel investors.

• launched last summer by the founders of Nord VPN as an orchestration platform with access to over 200 AI models through a single, secure and flexible interface
• pre-product deal led by Index's partner ​Hannah Seal​.

🇩🇰 ​Capra Robotics​, producing autonomous mobile robots operating across numerous environments and platforms, secured a $11.8 million seed deal led by Supernova Invest and Promus Ventures, joined by Summiteer and EIFO.

 

UK

🇬🇧 ​Juno​, developing a loan packaging AI agent, raised a $1 million pre-seed round led by Fuel Ventures. 

🇬🇧 ​Origen​, developing a limestone-based direct air capture technology, raised $13 million in Series A funding led by Barclays, joined by Shell Ventures, Exascale Fund, Elemental Impact, and Hatch.

• ICYMI, Exascale is a fund co founded by Chris Anderson of TED's fame (besides ​Ocean Zero​), based in London and doing pre-seed to Series A climate deals - team includes a ​French​ and two Swedes ​1​, ​2​, per Linkedin.

🇬🇧 ​NatureMetrics​, selling biodiversity data analytics, raised a $25 million Series B round with Just Climate, EDF, Monaco ReOcean Fund, 2150, BNP Paribas, Ananda Impact Ventures and Swen Blue Ocean.

• 600 clients operating in more than 110 countries

🇬🇧 ​LemFi​, operating a consumer payment service, raised $53 million series B led by Highland Europe, joined by Left Lane Capital, Palm Drive Capital, Y Combinator and Endeavor Catalyst.

• started in 2020 out of Canada and doing remittance services for communities in Africa, then went to YC in 2021, raised $33 million series A in August 2023 (Left Lane led) and now series B since they moved to London last year.
• they handle about $1 billion in monthly payments in two main markets (Africa and Asia), up to 2 billion they have done for the entire 2023. 
• Asia is one explanation of last year's growth, now doing some +30% mom.

🇬🇧 ​Synthesia​, developer of an AI video creation platform used to generate videos from text, closed a $180 million Series D funding round led by NEA, joined by World Innovation Lab, Atlassian Ventures, PSP Growth, GV and MMC Ventures.

• $2.1 billion valuation - the Brits have raised $330 million to date
• 60,000 business customers (10k more than in 2022) onboarding 1 million users on the platform
• Atlassian's second deal in Europe within a few months - they have also contributed to the $30M series B raised by ​Raycast​.

 

DACH

🇩🇪 ​Mansio​, developing a truck freight transport planning tool, raised a pre-seed funding round with STS Ventures and MobilityFund.

🇩🇪 ​Circunomics​, operator of an end-to-end marketplace for trading and recycling batteries, raised $8.3 million with GET Fund and Schaeffler Invest.

🇩🇪 ​Nelly​, doing SAAS that lets medical practices onboard new patients digitally, raised $52 million in Series B round led by Cathay Innovation, joined by Notion Capital, b2venture, Lakestar, Motive Ventures, and Arc Investors.

• 1200 customers across DACH.
• raised $13 million series A led by Lakestar in the summer of 2023.

🇨🇭 ​Sygnum​, provider of regulated digital asset banking services, raised $58 million in a deal led by Fulgur Ventures.

• post-money valuation of over $1 billion
• based in Zurich and Singapore, profitably handling business for 2000 institutional clients across 70 countries.

🇦🇹 ​smaXtec​, doing veterinary SAAS for disease detection for dairy cows, raised a growth round with KKR and Highland Europe.

• seller of AI-enabled veterinary actionable insights via a sensor placed in the cow's belly
• deal led by ​Marta Szczerba​, who leads KKR's growth practice in Europe.
• three transactions in the past three months for Highland Europe - see also below.

 

France

🇫🇷 ​Hyperline​, developing a subscription management tool used as a billing platform for B2B SAAS businesses, raised $10 million in a seed extension round led by Index Ventures, joined by Adelie vc and existing investors.

• ex-Spendesk team pre-seeded by Index with 4 million in the summer of 2023, now handling 250M in processed payments, 150+ active customers
• deal led by Index's ​Julia Andre​.

🇫🇷 ​Maki​, operating an AI platform for recruiting, raised a $27 million Series A funding round led by Blossom Capital, with participation from DST Global, Frst, GFC and Picus Capital.

• 300% growth reported for 2024.

🇫🇷 ​Robeauté​, manufacturer of a 1.8mm micro-robot used to diagnose and manage brain disease, raised $28 million in a series A funding round led by Plural, Cherry Ventures and Kindred Ventures, joined by LocalGlobe, Think Healthand Brainlab.

• the product is used in animal studies as a biopsy tool - money will help get to human trials in 2026 and set up US operations ahead of FDA approval and full go-to-market.

🇫🇷 ​Shippeo​, doing supply chain visibility SAAS, raised $30 million in a post series D deal led by Woven Capital, joined by Battery Ventures, Partech, NGP Capital, Bpifrance, LFX VP, Shift4Good.

• fast growth in Asia - customer base increased by 53% YoY and shipments tracked by 64% in 2023 - explaining the Japanese investors in the captable, such as Woven Cap and Yamaha.
• Woven Capital is Toyota's growth fund - last year also led a series B with a ​German startup​ developing a SAAS that predicts failures for auto manufacturers.

🇫🇷 ​Loft Orbital​, operating space infrastructure on a lease basis, raised a $178 million Series C round co-led by Tikehau Capital, Temasek and Bpifrance.

• operated out of the US, where it moved in 2017 upon kickoff
• business model is buying standard satellites from vendors like Airbus and LeoStella in order to outfit them with payloads from customers such as NASA, Microsoft, Anduril, and BAE Systems, saving them the hassle of purchasing, operating, and managing their own hardware and ground segment network.
• sold 30 satellites to date, five of which launched into space over 25 customer missions - this has generated some $500 million in takings. 
• also worth knowing - Blackrock led its $140 million series B back in 2021.

 

Benelux

🇧🇪 ​Squire​, developing an AI-enabled post-consultation report generator for doctors, was pre-seeded by Entourage.

🇳🇱 ​Open cx​, developing a next-gen CRM using AI, raised $1.52 million pre-seed with Y Combinator, Spacetime, Pioneer Fund and angel investors.

• founded by an ex-Mollie engineer, went to YC last winter and launched at the end of last.
• product looks ​solid​.

🇧🇪 ​TrustUp​, operating a home contractors platform, in order to connect homeowners with verified quality home improvement, raised $5.2 million seed with Rise PropTech Fund, Brick & Mortar Ventures, Noshaq and InvestSud.

🇳🇱 ​Klearly​, developing a mobile payments app for SMEs, raised $6.3 million seed in a round led by Global PayTech Ventures, alongside Antler and Shapers.

• 4000 merchants on the platform, transaction volume +500% yoy.
• Global PayTech Ventures is the investment company operated by Javier Perez, the former Mastercard Europe president.

🇳🇱 ​Metafuels​, producer of alt synthetic jet aviation fuel, raised a $9 million seed extension round led by Celsius Industries, joined by RockCreek, Fortescue, Verve Ventures, Energy Impact Partners and Contrarian Ventures.

• initial seed was closed at 8 million in December 2023. 

🇳🇱 ​Workwize​, operating a home office procurement service for companies, raised $13 million in Series A funding led by Klass Capital, joined by investors including Peak Capital and Graduate Entrepreneur Fund.

 

Spain

🇪🇸 ​Orga AI​, developing an AI-enabled avatar for video calls, raised $350k from angel investors in Spain.

🇪🇸 ​Genesy​, developing AI agents for B2B sales, raised $5.2 million in a seed funding round led by Samaipata, joined by KFund and Itnig.

• based in Barcelona, pre-seeded a year ago by KFund - they say they handle business for 150 customers

 

Investors

On the move

🇸🇪 ​Anna Hammer​ joined Andra AP-fonden as a CIO, moving on from a similar role at Länsförsäkringar Liv, where she spent 12 years.

🇩🇪 ​Laura Weritz​ joined Point Nine Capital as a Director of Platform.

🇬🇧 ​Jeremy Darroch​, former CEO of Sky, joined KKR as an executive advisor to the firm's European PE practice out of the London office.

🇬🇧 ​Sergio D'Angelo​ was promoted to head of the European healthcare team by Advent International in London.

🇫🇷 ​Florian Denis​ and ​Clément Vanden Driessche​ were both made partners at Elaia, after having spent five and two years respectively in the Paris office.

🇺🇸 ​Kevin Egan​ joined IVP as a venture partner in the San Francisco office, after leading the enterprise sales efforts for Atlassian for three years.

🇺🇸 ​Tengbo Li​ was promoted to GP by ICONIQ Growth after having spent ten years in the San Francisco office.

🇺🇸 ​Mark Fiorentino​ jumped ship to Bain Capital, after six years as a partner with Index Ventures in the San Francisco office.

 

Powder

🇫🇷 Ardian raised ​$30 billion​ for its ninth private equity secondaries fund, dubbed to be world's largest.

🇺🇸 Ares closed a sixth European direct lending fund at ​€17.1 billion​.

🇺🇸 Insight Partners closed at ​$12.5 billion​ its 13th flagship fund (short of target) and second opportunities fund.

🇳🇱 Keen Venture Partners kicked off the fundraising of a ​€125 million​ fund focused on European defense startups

 

Also notable

🇸🇪 Creandum led a ​$8 million​ seed round raised by Boardy, a Miami-based startup building a professional networking product driven by AI voice technology.

🇬🇧 Stride VC co-led a ​$18 million​ series A done by an American startup building a fully automated IVF lab.

• Stride's Fred Destin, who also was one of the seed investors in the company, will join the board.

🇬🇧 Left Lane Capital, Molten Ventures, and L Catterton exited from Freetrade, a UK-based financial stockbroker acquired for ​$200 million​ by IG Group.

🇬🇧 Peak Capital, Lightspeed (Faction) and RockawayX exited from Helio, a British developer of a Solana-based payment infrastructure solution, acquired by US-based Moonpay for ​$175 million​.

• they've handled $1.5 billion in transactions and integrate with the likes of Discord and Shopify via Solana Pay.
• also worth knowing - Moonpay is an American crypto payment operator handling 20M+ users as it powers apps, wallets, and marketplaces. It also raised a whopping $555 million in a single 2021 round from top investors including NEA, Tiger, Coatue, Thrive and Blossom Capital.

🇳🇴 Investinor, Kistefos and a bunch of other investors in Norway exited from Spinchip, a developer of an in-vitro diagnostics platform for quick diagnostic tests, acquired by bioMérieux from France for ​$144 million​.

• the Norwegians founded the company in 2012 and have raised some $35 million for it.
• they developed a pretty cool tech dubbed 'Nespresso-machine for blood tests', producing results comparable to state-of-the-art laboratory diagnostic machines within minutes and near the patient. 

🇬🇧 Seedcamp co-invested in a ​$8 million​ seed round raised by an Israeli startup doing an AI-powered platform enabling clothing brands and retailers to create realistic fashion photos using virtual models.

🇺🇸 Battery Ventures offloaded its equity in the Irish startup Learnosity to Leeds Equity Partners for ​an undisclosed amount​, six years after it bought a major package for $18 million.

🇩🇰 Underground Ventures led a seed deal in a ​Swiss startup​ building a robot for geothermal drilling - ​the Danish fund​specialises in investing in geothermal energy technology platforms.

🇸🇪 Aonic paid ​$10 million​ for a 14% stake in a gaming platform operator from Turkey.

• Aonic is a Stockholm-based investment holding acquiring gaming operations, run by Paul Schempp of Active Ownership Capital and funded by Metric Capital Partners.

 

Non European deals

• Accel led a ​series A extension​ raised by an Indian startup developing an electric aircraft to be used as flying taxis.
• a16z led a ​series A​ raised by Slingshot AI, an US startup building a Gen AI foundation model for psychology. 
• a16z led, joined by Lightspeed VP and Menlo Ventures, a ​$47 million​ series A raised by Eve, an US startup doing an end-to-end workflow at the intersection of AI and law.
• a16z, Thrive Capital and Benchmark invested in a ​$105 million​ deal at $2.5 billion valuation led by Anysphere, developer of the AI-driven Cursor code editor (founded by a Swedish 25 years old).
• Sequoia Capital and Paradigm co-led a ​$150 million​ investment​ in the Solana crypto wallet startup Phantom at a $3 billion valuation.
• Sequoia Capital to follow up with ​$300 million​ at $3 billion on Harvey, an AI law startup from US, post series Series C in July, when it did $100M at $1.5B led by GV - the 2024 ARR is reportedly $50M+.
• Amazon paid ​$150 million​ for fully acquiring an Indian BNPL startup, which raised, from Ribbit Capital and Peak XV nee Sequioa India among others.
• Walmart sold its robotics division for ​$200 million​.

 

 

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