• travel SAAS getting hot - early stage *and* late stage investment deals
• 20vc building a French culture
• fresh powder and end of the year promotions
• Europeans behind American unicorns *and* VC funds.

 

 

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Interesting deals

Early stage

Nordics

🇳🇴 ​Lybe Scientific​, developing a diagnostic platform for aquaculture, raised pre-seed funding with Startuplab and Gnist Capital.

🇸🇪 ​Ambidex​, developing a SAAS tool that balances the grid by providing industrial refrigeration systems as a flexible resource, raised seed money from Chalmers Ventures.

🇸🇪 ​Rebaba​, developing energy storage systems from repurposed EV batteries, raised $500k from Rockstart and local angel investors.

🇩🇰 ​Kin AI​, developing a personal AI assistant, raised $3 million seed in a deal co-led by cyber fund and Seier Capital.

• positioned as an AI companion that could provide genuine empathetic support while respecting user privacy.
• yet to make money, they'll use the funding to build business in the US

🇸🇪 ​Corsmed​, developing an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) simulation platform used for education, training and research, raised $3.5 million in a deal co-led by Luminar Ventures and Big Pi Ventures.

🇸🇪 ​Lightbringer​, developing a digital AI-powered platform for patent documentation, raised $4.4 million seed with Luminar Ventures, Alliance VC and Zenith Ventures.

🇳🇴 ​T-robotics​, working on a robot-agnostic framework that uses natural language and pre-trained AI models for industrial robots, raised $5.4 million seed in a deal co-led by Emergent Ventures and Engine Ventures, with additional participation from Berkeley Skydeck and Raisewell.

🇸🇪 ​Voyado​, selling data-driven SAAS for retail and ecommerce, added $7 million in a capital raise with H&M.

• deal is part of a larger partnership for integrating the startup's software suite across the Swedish retail ops.
• deal follows another raising event from earlier this summer - other shareholders include Verdane and eEquity.

 

DACH

🇩🇪 ​Scripe​, developing an automated tool that turns unstructured voice and text inputs into high-impact personalized social posts, raised a pre-seed round with local angel investors.

🇩🇪 ​Synthavo​, developing a spare parts platform for machine manufacturers, raised $4.3 million seed with Samaipata and Senavo.

🇩🇪 ​vialytics​, doing SAAS for intelligent road management systems, raised $8.5 million in a series A extension led by Acton Capital, joined by EnBW New Ventures, Statkraft Ventures, Scania Growth Capital.

• 500 municipalities as customers, from seven countries
• initial series A was closed at 10 million in the winter of 2023.

🇩🇪 ​Vaeridion​, manufacturing electric aircrafts able to transport nine passengers plus crew up to 500 kilometers, raised $15 million series A led by World Fund, joined by Project A Ventures, Vsquared, Andreas Kupke, Schwarz Holding, and InnovationQuarter.

 

The UK

🇬🇧 ​Composo​, developing a tool that makes it easy to find the best prompts, models, temperatures & RAG settings for GenAI apps, raised $2 million pre-seed with Twin Path Ventures, JVH Ventures, Ewor and angel investors.

🇬🇧 ​Loadar​, developing SAAS for freight procurement and management, raised $4 million in a seed round led byFrontline Ventures, joined by Techstart Ventures.

🇬🇧 ​Neverless​, building a cryptocurrency trading platform with access to automated hedge-fund strategies for retail investors, raised $6.7 million seed with Lakestar, Connect Ventures, and Nordstar.

• in stealth since 2022, when it was founded by an ex-Revolut crew
• now live, with a cash to crypto app, operable in the EU as an investment firm under MiFID.

🇬🇧 ​Mindgard​, developing an enterprise platform used to automate security testing, detection, and remediation of their AI models, raised $8 million series A led by 406 Ventures, joined by Atlantic Bridge, Willowtree Investments, IQ Capital, and Lakestar.

• the Brits were seeded with 3 million last summer by Lakestar and IQ Capital, in a deal to which Nvidia contributed too. 

🇬🇧 ​Engineered Arts​, manufacturing lifelike humanoid robots for entertainment, education, and business applications, raised $10 million series A led by Helium-3 Ventures, joined by Belvoir Investments, ThirtySeven Holdings, and Figueira Capital.

• for noobs, Helium-3 Ventures is a VC fund co-founded by Matthew Bellamy, frontman of the English rock band Muse - he will join the board as an observer.
• the Brits have been around for twenty years, deployed over 200 robots worldwide and developed six distinct humanoid robotic models, with the ​Ameca​ one having gained some popularity. 

🇬🇧 ​Kurrent​, developing an event-native data platform that feeds real-time critical data with historical context in order to improve data analytics, microservices, and AI outcomes, raised a $12 million series A funding led by Crane Ventures, joined by Creandum.

• money will be used for GTM, as the company has moved its HQ to San Francisco.

 

France

🇫🇷 ​Little John​, building a suite of AI agents for independent insurance brokers in France, raised $1.2 million pre-seedwith Febe Ventures, Vessoa Private Equity and Leocare.

🇫🇷 ​Alvie​, developing products based on sensors and an AI platform to assist farmers in adjusting pesticide doses, raised $1.3 million seed with Tilia Impact Ventures, Better Angels Ventures, Leia Capital, Climate Club, and BeAngles.

🇫🇷 ​Command AI​, developing AI-powered capabilities for command and control of defense operations, raised $9 millionin a seed round led by Eurazeo, joined by Frst, and Expeditions Fund.

• pre-seeded with 3 million last year by Frst, Kima, Tiny and a bunch of VCs.

 

Other geo

🇪🇸 ​Mogu​, developing an integrated payment SAAS for travel companies, raised $2.3 million seed with 4Founders Capital, Athos Capital and Bynd Venture Capital in Spain.

🇵🇹 ​Meight​, developing an AI-enabled platform helping truck drivers with efficient fleet management, raised $3.6 million seed led by Cusp Capital.

🇳🇱 ​Excess Materials Exchange​, operating a B2B marketplace on which companies can exchange their excess materials, raised $5 million seed with Saudi Arabia's Wa'ed Ventures.

🇭🇷 ​Orqa​, developer of drone-tech products for the first-person-view drones market, raised $6.2 million seed in a deal led by Lightspeed, joined by Radius Capital, Decisive Point and Day One Capital.

• Croatian crew based in Osijek, HQ-ed in Dublin for sales reason
• they develop all parts of the FPV (first-person view) and Remote Reality (RR) technology stack including antennas, radio controllers, headsets and low latency video signal transport systems.
• first-person view is a method used to control the drone from the driver or pilot's viewpoint.

🇹🇷 ​Agave Games​, mobile games publishing studio, raised $18 million Series A funding co-led by Felix Capital andBalderton Capital, with E2VC participating.

• Balderton also led the seed round, closed at $7 million in 2022.

🇮🇪 ​Nuitée​, developing a SAAS payment platform positioned as Stripe for travel, raised a $48 million Series A led by Accel and joined by multiple high profile angel investors.

• 10X growth since 2022, expecting the same rate from customers including OTAs, airlines and tour operators, as well as banks, super apps, automotive companies, and telecoms.
• it's a first money-in deal, the Irish have bootstrapped since 2017 - led by Accel's partner ​Ben Fletcher​.

 

Later stage

🇩🇰 ​Keepit​, developing infrastructure for SAAS data protection, raised a $50 million equity round with One Peak and EIFO.

• One Peak had first invested in the company via a 30 million deal closed back ​in 2020​ - as of today, the Danes handle business for some 10k customers. 

🇬🇧 ​BVNK​, selling stablecoin payments infrastructure rails, raised $50 million series B led by Haun Ventures, joined by Coinbase, Scribble Ventures, DRW VC, Avenir and Tiger Global.

• follows a $40 million series A led by Tiger back in 2022
• since then it says it handled $10 billion in annualised payment volumes, 2X yoy. 
• money will be used to expand in the US
• also worth knowing, Haun Ventures is a VC fund from US launched by ex-Andreessen Horowitz alumni ​Katie Haun​ and mostly doing crypto deals.

🇫🇮 ​Iceye​, with a business managing radar (SAR) satellite operations, raised $65 million in debt and equity with Solidium Oy, BlackRock, Seraphim, Plio Limited and Christo Georgiev.

• the equity side is a series E extension closed at $93 million earlier this year.

🇩🇪 ​1Komma5°​, operating a funding marketplace platform for home service installations, raised $160 million series Cwith CalSTRS, G2 VP, Norrsken VC, 2150, Eurazeo, eCAPITAL, b2venture and Hamilton Lane. 

🇫🇮 ​Hostaway​, doing SAAS helping vacation rental operators manage listings across third-party sites, raised $365 millionin a growth deal led by General Atlantic joined by PSG Equity.

• $925 million post-money valuation
• 10X growth since 2022

 

Please note that this is just a selection of interesting venture transactions, all deals (many more!) are available ​here​. 

 

 

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Investors

On the move

🇳🇴 Pinecone Ventures hired Swedish ​Jesper Vendel​ for running a newly opened office in Stockholm.

🇨🇭 Lakestar promoted ​Georgia Watson​ and ​Enrico Mellis​ to partner positions, after both have spent two years with company, the former in London and the latter in Berlin.

🇬🇧 ​Pascal Keutgens​ was also promoted to head of direct PE in Europe for CPP Investments, after spending 5 years in the London office.

🇬🇧 ​Matt Miller​ of Sequoia made ​official​ leaving the London office in order to start his own fund, focused on Europe.

• it's been an open secret across investors circles in London for a while now.
• Matt's been in the spotlight last year as he tried to remove former Sequoia partner Mike Moritz from the board of Klarna
• he is an American who's been with the fund since 2012 and moved to London to set up a local office in 2021, alongside Luciana Lixandru, who was recruited from Accel late 2020.
• Luciana remains Sequoia's only partner with feet on the European ground.

🇫🇷 ​Julien Codorniou​ will join 20vc as GP transitioning from a partner role at Felix Capital, which he joined in 2021, post a partnership job with Facebook in London.

• Julien​ is the third French hired by 20vc this year, joining ​Alex​ poached from Eurazeo and ​Paul​ from DST Global - they work alongside a Norwegian (Harry Stebbings) and a Brit (Kieran Hill). Should make for an interesting company culture.

 

Powder

🇫🇷 Antin Infrastructure Partners raised ​€10.2 billion​ for a fifth infrastructure fund.

🇫🇷 Sofinnova Venture Partners is raising ​$550 million​ for a seventh fund.

🇮🇹 XGEN Venture announced closing ​€180 million​ in commitments for a debut fund to be deployed within the European life sciences investment landscape.

🇳🇴 Momentum Partners announced a first close at ​$35 million​ for a third fund to be deployed on climate and environmental startups from across the Nordic countries.

🇬🇧 Energy Revolution Ventures closed an ​$18 million​ fund to invest in seed and Series A deals done by breakthrough deeptech startups.

🇩🇪 Robin Capital announced a €13 million second close for a VC fund launched by German angel investor ​Robin Haak​. 

 

Also notable

🇺🇸 Accel raised a new growth fund with ​$1.35 billion​ in commitments, nearly a quarter less than the $1.75 billion it raised for its last growth fund in 2021.

🇸🇪 ​Aonic​, an investment holding acquiring gaming development studios, sold a minority stake to Metric Capital Partners and Active Ownership for a total ​€152 million​.

🇨🇭 SoftwareOne of Switzerland acquired its rival from Norway Crayon in a ​$1.4 billion​ cash and stock deal.

• combined entity would produce about $1.8 billion, around 70% of which would be related to business with Microsoft.
• both companies are listed on their respective local public markets

🇫🇮 Oura extended its series D to $200 million at a $5.2 billion valuation and says sales are more than doubling this year.

• reminder, initial series D was kicked off last month by a broad partnership, including equity money, with Dexcom, an American manufacturer of glucose monitoring systems for diabetes management.

🇧🇬 Bulgarian ​Villi Iltchev​ announced raising $160 million for a San Francisco-based early stage fund focused on pre-seed and seed deals - he'd been an MD at Two Sigma Ventures prior to.

🇷🇴 Romanian ​Oana Olteanu​ announced leaving her partner position after having spent four years with SignalFire in San Francisco.

🇺🇸 ​Nicole Quinn​ and ​Alex Taussig​ are stepping down from the partners positions with Lightspeed Venture Partners, and will resume their existing board seats obligations moving forward. 

• Nicole's been with the company since 2015, focused on consumer, health and fintech, and Alex since 2016, also having done consumer deals. 

🇺🇸 ​Bilal Zuberi​ is leaving his GP position at Lux Capital after eleven years with the company, as he will raise a new fund. 

🇺🇸 Bessemer's ServiceTitan Series A investment memo had a ​5% probability​ of a home run scenario at a $1.2 billion exit.

• ServiceTitan went public at a $9 billion valuation, 7.5X that estimate, last week.
• delta comes from a lower estimated ARPU while the TAM analysis was off because the company had expanded into adjacent markets. 

🇺🇸 Databricks raised a ​$10 billion​ series J at a $62 billion valuation in one of the largest private rounds ever.

• first time I see a J round. :-)
• the transaction is not a capital raise but a non-dilutive liquidity event acting as an IPO proxy particularly aimed at early employees cashing out generational wealth money.
• contributors to the round include all the big boys - Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, Insight Partners, Lightspeed, Founders Fund, Coatue, DST, and Iconiq, alongside the usual late stage mutual funds.
• it's notably a private market deal - to put the size of the round into context, there have been only 8 companies in US history that raised more money in their IPO round.
• deal is a bet on next years' growth of the American IPO market, correlated to the optimism about Trump's success to revive the American economy, which is struggling with huge piles of debt. 
• current run rate is 60% yoy growth, topping $3 billion in yearly revenue
• ​fun fact​ - Databricks is led by Swedish-Iranian ​Ali Ghodsi​, who co-founded the company with two Romanians (​1​, ​2​), a ​Chinese,​ an ​Iranian​, and two Americans (1, ​2​).

🇺🇸 Benchmark led a $32 million Series A raised by an ​Israeli real-time GenAI research lab​ at a $500 million valuation - Sequoia and Zeev Ventures also joined.

🇺🇸 Perplexity raised $500 million in a deal led by IVP, at a ​$9 billion​ valuation, 3X since last raise as recent as June.

• Perplexity makes money through subscriptions and says its annualised revenues - a projection of full-year revenues based on extrapolating the most recent month’s sales - have grown from $5 million in January to $35 million in August.

🇺🇸 Anysphere, the developer of AI-powered coding assistant Cursor, raised ​$100 million​ Series B led by Thrive Capital at $2.6 billion post-money, which is 6X the $60M series A valuation closed four months ago.

🇺🇸 A list of 49 US AI startups that have raised $100 million or more ​in 2024​.

 

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