• early stage for industrial tech, health, pure software plays, AI-video, AI-documentation etc
• cross border moves
• LP predictions for next year

 

 

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Interesting deals

Nordics

🇸🇪 ​Mingla​, developing a white label social network tool sold to event organisers, raised $300k from local angel investors.

🇫🇮 ​Liquid Sun​, manufacturing technology used to produce fossil free hydrocarbons for aviation, raised $4.3 million seedwith Voima Ventures and Failup Ventures.

🇸🇪 ​PocketLaw​, providing legal services on top of a SAAS platform, raised a $5 million series A extension round with Atomico and local angel investors.

• initial series A was also led by Atomico in a ​10 million​ deal closed in 2022.

🇩🇰 ​Glx Analytix​, developing a diagnostics and monitoring platform for neurodegenerative, autoimmune, cardiovascular, and psychiatric diseases, raised a seed round led by DigitalDx Ventures, joined by EIFO, Labcorp Venture and ADDF. 

🇳🇴 ​Rubus​, developing a collaboration platform connecting property developers, contractors, suppliers and home buyers in multi-housing projects, raised $2 million from Construct Ventures and Kistefos.

• they also announced the acquisition of Germany-based bau digital for an undisclosed amount.
• 1,800 paying customers and $1 million in sales as of 2023, per the Norwegian official books. 

🇳🇴 ​ScoutDI​, developing an autonomous drone providing a complete visual inspection for enclosed and poorly lit environments, raised $3 million from local investors including Sparebank, Equinor, DNV and Devico Ventures.

• ​pretty cool use case​ for a vertical yet scalable biz.

🇸🇪 ​360Player​, doing an all-in-one platform that streamlines the ecosystem for sports clubs, raised $14 million in a growth round financed by US-based growth investors Five Elms Capital.

• first institutional round - the Swedes founded the company in 2013 and now handle business for some 700 paying customers across Europe.
• the second deal for Five Elms in Europe this month, both ​in Sweden​.

🇸🇪 ​Sitoo​, selling cloud PoS and an all-in-one commerce platform SAAS, raised $29 million in a growth round with Verdane.

 

Germany

🇩🇪 ​Hyper Heat​, developing a process heat solution for the full industrial temperature range based on renewable electricity, raised $3.8 million seed led by Amadeus APEX Technology Fund, joined by Finindus, Possible Ventures, E44 Ventures, and Breakthrough Energy.

🇩🇪 ​Akhetonics​, producers of world's first all-optical XPU - a general-purpose photonic RISC processor for high-performance computing, raised $6.5 million seed in a deal led by Matterwave Ventures, joined by Runa Capital, Interface Capital and angel investors.

🇨🇭 ​Kyan Health​, provider of an enterprise-focused end-to-end, evidence-based mental wellbeing and health platform, raised $12.7 million series A led by Swisscom Ventures, joined by GreyMatter Capital, naturalX Health Ventures, Founderful, Joyance Partners.

 

France

🇫🇷 ​Mago​, developing an AI-native tool for video production workflows, raised $1.6 million in pre-seed funding led by Atlantic Labs. 

🇫🇷 ​Argil​, developing a platform allowing users to create hyper-realistic avatars, trained from uploaded videos, to produce multilingual, ready-to-post videos in minutes, raised a $4.3 million seed round led by EQT Ventures, joined by Seedcamp, Axeleo Capital, Kima Ventures and Station F.

• deal closed earlier this summer, just before the startup joined YC in San Francisco.

🇫🇷 ​Biolevate​, developing a SAAS platform used for AI-assisted documentation writing for the process of drug discovery and development, raised a $6.5 million seed round led by EQT Ventures, with participation from bpifrance and angel investors.

🇫🇷 ​Pathway​, developing a Live AI infrastructure framework, raised $10 million seed in a deal led by TQ Ventures, joined by Kadmos, Inovo, Market One Capital, Id4 and angel investors.

• Live AI refers to a framework with access to infrastructure components of real-time and reactive data features helping AI system operators with realtime analysis of fast-moving data.
• done by a strong Polish tech team, which says will use the money to relocate on the West Coast in the US. 

🇫🇷 ​Raidium​, working on a vertical native LLM foundation model focused on medical radiology, raised a $17 million seed round co-led by NewFund and Kurma Partners.

 

The UK

🇬🇧 ​Volter​, operating an end-to-end solution for commercial and industrial property owners, helping them deploy, manage, and optimise solar portfolios on top of their rooftops, raised $3.2 million pre-seed in a deal led by Transition VC and Seedcamp.

• founded by an ex-Index Ventures analyst and an ex-McKinsey guy a year ago.

🇬🇧 ​Lupa Pets​, developing a SAAS tool for pet service providers and B2C mobile app platform, closed a $4 million seeddeal with investors led by Firstminute Capital, joined by Exor and 2100 Ventures.

🇬🇧 ​OpenTrade​, operator of a platform for real world asset-backed stablecoin yield products, raised in a $4 million seed extension round led by AlbionVC, joined by existing investors including a16z and CMCC Global.

• initial seed was resumed at 3.2 million earlier in the spring.
• stablecoin market is where is at in crypto finance - over $175bn currently in circulation, and transaction volumes of $11.1tn which now are comparable to that of Visa and MasterCard.
  • see also ​Bleap​ - pre-seeded this month for building biz on top of a stablecoins debit card.
• to date, OpenTrade processed $100m in total transaction volumes for clients handling over 100,000 end users.

🇬🇧 ​Molyon​, manufacturer of a next gen, lithium-sulfur energy storage battery, raised a $4.6 million seed funding led by IQ Capital and Plural, with participation from Cambridge Enterprise, Parkwalk Advisors, and angel investors.

🇬🇧 ​PocDoc​, developing a smart wearable used to provide cardio health biomarkers, raised a $6.5 million seed extensionwith KHP Ventures, Molten Ventures, MMC Ventures and Simplyhealth Ventures.

• second seed extension since the company was started in Cambridge in 2017.
• they built a smart home test kit available online or in pharmacies, able to use a fingerprick of blood in order to provide in less than 10 minutes an accurate assessment of fully quantified lipid results, heart age, and 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as access to follow-on treatment.
• the Brits went to market by partnering with the NHS, as the results are connected to a local doctor in the British health system.

🇬🇧 ​SatVu​, developing a satellite constellation used to track thermal data for defence monitoring, energy efficiency and carbon footprints purposes, raised a $13 million funding round led by Molten Ventures and Adara Ventures, joined by Lockheed Martin and Seraphim.

 

 

Netherlands

🇳🇱 ​Norbr​, developer of the next-generation payment orchestration layer for e-commerce companies providing merchants with a no-code solution, raised $3.3 million in a seed round led by Alstin Capital from Germany, joined by Portfolion Ventures from Hungary.

🇳🇱 ​Pyramid Analytics​, developing an AI tool for business analytics, raised $50 million from BlackRock.

• Blackrock has been quite active down the value chain in the European VC market this year - other notable deals include 🇷🇴 ​FintechOS​, 🇪🇸 ​Tuio​, 🇬🇧 ​PPRO​ or 🇩🇪 ​Enviria​ - ​portfolio​

🇳🇱 ​Cradle​, helping biologists design improved proteins in record time using powerful prediction algorithms and AI design suggestions, raised a $73 million series B led by IVP, joined by Index Ventures and Kindred Capital.

• Cradle had one of the more notable A deals in Europe in last year's ​H2​ - 24M led by Index.
• since then, they signed up some 20 new customers, including Novo or J&J.
• product is using AI in order to engineer and produce better proteins - faster and cheaper - as an alternative to traditional chemical factories. 

 

Other geo

🇪🇸 ​CyberTIX​, offering cybersecurity training through platforms that simulate real scenarios and situations, raised $1 million pre-seed with Easo Ventures and Itzarri EPSV.

🇮🇹 ​Volta​, developing an ecommerce SAAS tool that digitizes the B2B ordering process for small & medium wholesalers and distributors, raised $6.5 million in a pre-seed deal led by Emblem, joined by Exor, Eden Ventures, Pareto and a bunch of venture scouts.

🇱🇺 ​Emma​, developing a no-code multi-cloud management platform, raised $17 million in Series A funding led by Smartfin, joined by RTP Global.

🇧🇬 ​Ampeco​, operating an all-in-one EV charging management SAAS platform for large-scale enterprises, raised $26 million in a Series B funding led by Revaia, joined by Cavalry Ventures, BMW iVentures, and Launchhub.

• $13 million in Series A led by BMW raised in winter 2023
• 2X-ed since then w/ 160 clients across 60 markets, 120,000 charging stations
• EV charging market is consolidating from fragmented, local operations to sophisticated, multi-market businesses that require enterprise-grade software solutions

 

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

🇸🇪 ​Konrad Bergström​ joined Wellstreet as a general partner - he is a local founder at Zound Studios and X-Shore.

🇸🇪 ​Rebecka Löthman Rydå​ joined Norrsken Accelerator as general partner, after having spent less than three years with Inventure in Sweden.

🇸🇪 Monterro hired three people in Denmark as it opened a Copenhagen office - ​Kim Sneum Madsen​ (ex-Umbraco), ​Lasse Diamant​ (ex-EY) and ​Christoffer Pasieczny​ (ex-Contour Design)

🇩🇪 ​Petter Made​ (ex-SumUp) and ​Quinten Selhorst​ (ex-felyx) joined as partners at Ewor, a $3 million fund building an YC-like program out of Germany. 

🇪🇸 ​Alfonso Córdova​ joined Seaya as Investment Director, after spending four years doing M&A for BlueBull in Madrid.

 

 

Fresh Powder

🇬🇧 LeapFrog Investments raised ​$1.02 billion​ for a fourth fund to be spent on healthcare and financial services companies in global growth markets.

🇬🇧 Apse Capital raised ​€350 million​ for a continuation fund established to acquire three portfolio companies – TerraQuest, Kallidus and Ultima Business Solutions.

🇫🇷 Starquest ​announced​ a global fund dedicated to adaptation to natural disasters.

 

Also notable

🇸🇪 Creandum led a ​$26 million​ series A raised by Appcharge, an Israeli-based software startup developing DTC web stores for the games industry (think App Store or Google Play alts).

🇬🇧 Anthemis contributed to a ​$17 million​ series A raised by a neo-bank in Japan.

🇩🇰 Novo paid ​$340 million​ for acquiring a Norwegian company doing fish genetics.

🇩🇪 Black Forest Labs, developing genAI models for images and videos, is rumoured to be in the middle of a pre-emptive series A raise of ​$200 million​ in a deal led by a16z.

• pre-seeded by GC in the winter, then raised seed in a $31 million deal led by the same a16z during the summer.

🇬🇧 Index Ventures co-led a ​$50 million​ seed funding round closed by Dev Agents, an American pre-product startup working on building an operating system for AI agents and founded by techies formerly involved with building the Android OS and Stripe.

🇯🇵 Softbank is in talks for fully financing a secondary deal ​$1.5 billion​ worth of shares in OpenAI.

🇺🇸 ​Sriram Krishnan​ of a16z is said to leave the firm from its London office in order to join Trump's new government for a role with the Department of Government Efficiency - DOGE.

• he​ moved from the US and set up a16z's London office in 2023, where he also ran a crypto accelerator - he had been looking for a career move since the beginning of the year, and had a16z re-locate Anthony Albanese for taking over the British ops earlier this fall.
• in the would-be new role, he would likely work with his boss, Marc Andreessen, whose name is also mentioned among those playing a role in Trump's administration, alongside Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
• other VC names in the DOGE mix include ​Joe Lonsdale​ (Palantir/8VC) and ​Antonio Gracias​ (Valor Equity)

🇺🇸 ​Michael Gilroy​ of Coatue and ​Gokul Rajaram​, ex-DoorDash and prolific angel (​Euro portfolio​) are in talks for raising a ​$500 million​ fund to be kicked off next year.

🇨🇳 HongShan, nee Sequoia Capital, has reportedly invested only ​10-20%​ of its two later-stage funds, both sized at $3.6 billion, and closed two years ago.

• the VC is also said to have between 20 and 35% invested out of its two earlier stage stage funds, which are $480 million and $1.3 billion, respectively.
• the Chinese have opened an office in London earlier this year as they are increasingly looking to expand investments horizons in Europe - ​Euro portfolio​

 

Xtra

LP predictions for Venture Capital ​in 2025​:

• More DPI, which will restart the ecosystem -> more LP commitments and funding to startups will follow
• Smaller funds and “boutique venture” will emerge as a major force
• 2025 is poised to be one of the most dynamic and interesting vintage years due to the AI super cycle
• VC funds investing in frontier tech will drive returns
• Diverse founders will present an undertapped opportunity
• LPs will look for true differentiation in order to drive outsized returns - LPs with large enough portfolios see the increasing overlaps between fund managers often driven by hype. 
• Agentic AI will dramatically change the VC job
• Hobbyist and vanity funds are on their way out
• Second tier Series A and B venture firms will die out
• 2025 will be one of the best VC vintages in many years

 

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