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A healthtech startup B-Secur from Belfast represents the next generation of internal biometrics. In a recent development, the company has announced that it has completed a total raise of £8.8 million in 2021. The latest round was led by US-based First Capital Ventures and The Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital Growth Fund NI, thereby increasing its investment level to £2.2 million with other existing investors also participating in the round.
The funding will be used to cement the company’s traction in the wearable space whilst accelerating entry into the medical device market. The company, which has offices within Belfast’s Innovation Centre, Catalyst, employs over 45 scientists and engineers and will look to hire additional staff in Belfast and the US.
“The world-class team at B-Secur has demonstrated that their patented and FDA cleared technology delivers insights and value to wellness and medical devices alike. Kernel Capital are pleased to continue our strong support of the company as it accelerates its growth.” said Siggi Saevarsson, Partner, Kernel Capital.
“We are delighted with the investment by First Capital Ventures and by the continued support from Kernel Capital and our other investors and we look forward to a transformational 2022 when our technology will be embedded across both consumer and medical devices.” said Alan Foreman, CEO, B-Secur.
B-Secur has developed the world’s first software technique that uses an individual’s unique heartbeat pattern, known as electrocardiogram (ECG) in everyday technologies to securely identify, and provide health and wellness insights at the same time. Medical grade ECG recording traditionally happens in the hospital environment using expensive equipment, but B-Secur are embedding this into latest smartwatches, cars and even clothing and are already selling to some of the world’s largest technology companies.
Last year, B-Secur was granted FDA clearance for its technology and has since signed its first contract with a US-based medical device manufacturer.
London-based Lindus Health works with the mission to enable the next generation of healthcare. Now, the company has announced that it has announced a $5 million (nearly £3.7 million) in a seed funding round.
The investment round was led by leading technology and healthcare investors including Firstminute Capital, Presight Capital, Seedcamp, Hambro Perks, Amino Collective, Calm/Storm Ventures. Angel investors include Mehdi Ghissassi (Deepmind), Alex Zhavoronkov (Insilico Medicine), Marc Warner (Faculty AI), James Dacombe (CoMind), Henry de Zoete (Look After My Bills), and Vishal Gulati (healthtech.vc).
The proceeds of this round will be used to scale the Lindus Health team. They are building the world’s first full stack clinical trial platform, to conduct faster, safer clinical trials, improving health outcomes for everyone.
Commenting Meri Beckwith (co-founder) said: “Traditional clinical research companies are dinosaurs. Taking part in a COVID vaccine trial was like stepping into a time machine. This was one of the best funded trials in history but research was done on pen and paper and participants had to go into hospital at the height of the pandemic to fill out forms. We founded Lindus Health to make it easier for patients to participate in research, and accelerate the development of new treatments.”
Commenting Michael Young (co-founder) said: “During my time in government I heard time and time again that the way clinical trials are conducted is broken. This means that patients are missing out on lifesaving treatments. To fix this requires a totally new business model for clinical trials. So we founded Lindus Health to do just that and to enable the next generation of healthcare companies.
Commenting, Lindus Health advisor, Tamsin Berry (Population Health Partners and formerly Director of the UK Office for Life Sciences) said: “The cost of conducting clinical trials has ballooned over the last decade. This stifles innovation and means fewer new treatments for patients. Lindus Health is tackling the root causes of this, reimagining how trials are conducted from first principles. This has the capacity to revolutionise drug development.”
Lindus Health was founded in March 2021 by Michael Young and Meri Beckwith. Michael and Meri both saw the huge problems healthcare companies had conducting clinical research, and trials with endemic delays and astronomical costs. Lindus Health is focused on working with start-ups and growth companies to deliver trials better, faster, and cheaper. They do this using an innovative business model, centralising delivery to allow efficiency gains, while leveraging technology to bring research into the 21st century.
London-based JUMO is a fintech company that builds next-generation financial services for emerging market entrepreneurs. Today, the company has announced a successful raise of $120 million (nearly £89 million) funding from new and existing investors.
The investment round was led by Fidelity Management & Research Company, LLC, and represents their first investment in emerging markets fintech. JUMO will use the fresh funds to support the scaling of its platform’s capacity, enabling the company to evolve its services and increase the number of financial products on offer to SMEs, and provide long-term lending options for merchants and bigger businesses. Also, the funds will support JUMO’s international expansion in new markets such as Nigeria and Cameroon. JUMO is set to grow its annual lending volume to $40 billion in 2022 with its launch in the new markets.
With the latest funding round, the total investment secured by JUMO accounts for $200 million (nearly £150 million). Prior investment rounds included Leapfrog, Goldman Sachs, Finnfund, Proparco, Vostok Emerging Finance and Brook Asset Management.
Andrew Watkins-Ball, JUMO Founder and CEO, said: “It’s exciting to be part of the wave of US capital being invested in payments and fintech on the continent – there are some great businesses being built and we are proud to play a role supporting capital providers to reach customers with great products. We are really grateful for the vote of confidence from our new investors and will continue to work hard to improve our products for our partners and customers.”
“JUMO’s lending platform is highly attractive in its ability to scale across markets and drive financial inclusion by creating access to credit for consumers and small businesses,” said Melissa McSherry, Global Head of Risk and Identity Services at Visa. “We are excited about our investment in JUMO and are looking forward to accelerating adoption of JUMO’s platform across markets and delivering on Visa’s mission of helping Individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive.”
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JD Sports must sell Footasylum after the competitions watchdog found serious concerns that competition would be reduced following an in-depth investigation, but JD has asserted the decision "defies logic".
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said JD Sports is “by far and away” the closest alternative for shoppers at Footasylum and ordered JD Sports to sell it.
It follows a second investigation by the agency after JD Sports appealed against a previous ruling, saying investigators failed to take into account online sales through Nike and Adidas in the UK.
But the CMA said it expects JD Sports’ £90 million takeover of Footasylum would continue reducing competition even after taking into account the growth in online shopping.
According to the watchdog, 50% of online shoppers surveyed said they would go to JD Sports if they were unable to shop at Footasylum for clothing.
A further 43% said they would the make the switch if they could no longer buy footwear from Footasylum.
The CMA said these figures were substantially higher than for any other retailer and that another survey of in-store shoppers showed similar results.
Investigators added that they believed Footasylum would remain in robust health even if no longer owned by JD Sports, which bought the brand in April 2019, despite the pandemic and increased competition from other brands.
They pointed out that total revenues for last year were £232 million with underlying pre-tax profits of £29.3 million – up from £25.5 million a year earlier.
The CMA added: “Requiring JD Sports to sell Footasylum is the only way to address its competition concerns and protect consumers.
“It will oversee the sale and approve the purchaser, in order to ensure that Footasylum will be run as a fully independent competitor.”
Kip Meek, chair of the CMA inquiry group, said: “The UK boasts a thriving sports fashion market and today’s decision reflects our commitment to keeping it that way.
“We strongly believe shoppers could suffer if Footasylum stopped having to compete with JD Sports. It is likely they would pay more for less choice, worse service and lower quality.
“The pandemic may have altered the way we shop but innovative businesses, driven by healthy competition, will rise to the challenge and successfully cater to changing tastes and habits."
In a statement JD Sports pointed out that the CMA had acknowledged in its investigation that the biggest competition JD Sports faced was from direct to consumer sales by the sports giants, such as Nike and Adidas, stocked by JD. It pointed out that Footasylum's market share was less than 5%.
Given this was the case, JD said there was no incentive for it to raise prices or lessen its offer to consumers.
"This is the first time ever that the CMA (including its predecessors) has decided to block or remedy a deal between competitors where it found that there will be no 'substantial lessening of competition' in relation to the acquiring business.
"Prior to this, in every other case under the UK merger regime between competitors, including its first review of this merger with Footasylum, the CMA has justified its intervention on the basis that the merger eliminated important rivalry for both the acquiring and the target business.
"Given the critical areas in which the CMA agrees with JD and the fundamental change in its conclusion between the two inquiries, the decision to prohibit the acquisition defies logic."
The CMA was ordered to carry out a second inquiry into JD's acquisition of Footasylum after the sports giant won an appeal pointing out that its first inquiry contained "irrational errors".
JD's key argument was that the CMA misunderstood market dynamics and did not take digital competition, such as Nike and Adidas's online stores and international rivals such as Foot Locker, into consideration when defining competitors.
The company described the outcome of the second investigation as "extreme and unprecedented", given the small market share that Footasylum held and said it would no longer be able to invest in Footasylum to improve its business, as it had intended.
Peter Cowgill, Executive Chairman of JD Sports, commented: "The CMA rightly concludes that, following the acquisition of Footasylum, JD would have no incentive to raise prices or worsen its offer as its most important competitors are the DTC operations of the international brands themselves.
"However, the CMA has then somehow concluded that the competitive threat from DTC does not extend to Footasylum and that JD would have an incentive to worsen the offer in Footasylum to the detriment of both consumers and suppliers. We would suggest that the CMA is in a minority of one in reaching this conclusion.
"Overall, the CMA's decision today continues to be inexplicable to anyone who understands what difference the pandemic has made to UK retail and how competition and the supply chain in our markets actually work. It is deeply troubling at a time when the UK high street has been seriously damaged already and is vulnerable to further closures."
Nimbla, the fintech business insurance startup from London, has announced a £5.1 million funding round led by Silicon Valley venture fund Fin VC with participation from Barclays Bank.
The funding comes as Nimbla seeks to scale its operations with increased demand from embedded credit risk solutions through its API with banks and alternative lending platforms.
Founded in 2016, the Nimbla platform has given businesses the confidence to trade with a peace of mind using invoice insurance with quotes provided within seconds. Their proprietary digital automated credit risk platform is able to process requests immediately and provide real time quotes. Nimbla has processed over 67m invoices worth £2.5b. During the pandemic, volumes of invoices tripled as economic uncertainty and supply chain concerns increased and Nimbla continued writing new business.
Flemming Bengtsen, CEO at Nimbla commented: “We have been growing steadily over the past few years, ramping up our technology and team to better understand businesses, the nature of B2B debt and to make faster decisions to serve our growing customer base. 2020 was a seminal year for Nimbla, at a time of global crisis, we were there for businesses enabling them to trade with a peace of mind and giving them confidence to carry on. This funding round will enable us to expand our platform, grow the team as we enable a confident and trusted trading environment for businesses across the UK and beyond”.
Nimbla has worked directly with businesses and brokers to provide invoice insurance cover and more recently has launched a new API for Banks, fintech lenders and B2B platforms to enable more business to access the service. Nimbla partnered with Barclays Bank in 2020 to give their one million small business customers the ability to take out insurance against individual invoices, rather than the whole book.
“We have built a powerful and robust credit risk model, automated large parts of the process and have now launched a new API to enable others to embed seamless credit risk solutions into their platforms” added Flemming Bengtsen.
On investing in funding round Henry Cashin, Head of EMEA at Fin VC, commented: “Nimbla is giving businesses the confidence to trade again. They have a proven credit risk model and its tech is being adopted by top tier banks and a host of lending platforms. We believe this will scale their reach and help more businesses benefit long term”.
Looking ahead, Flemming Bengtsen commented: “UK companies have added £1.9tn debt in 2020 to their balance sheets, taking the total amount outstanding to over £6.6tn. This number was inflated by the various government loan schemes. Over half of them are carrying ‘toxic debts’ which carries enormous risk for their trade creditors, there is a huge opportunity and responsibility for Nimbla to give companies a peace of mind and insure their invoices against insolvencies”.
London-based Closed Loop Medicine is one of the UK’s leading pioneers in digital/therapeutic medicine. The company just announced that it has closed £13 million in a new Series A investment round that came from a slew of top UK and European VC investors.
The oversubscribed funding round was led by Ananda Impact Ventures and BGF, joined by a strong syndicate of investors including LifeArc, Longwall, Meltwind, IQ Capital, Downing Ventures and Cambridge Angels. With this round, the total investment raised by the company accounts for over £22 million.
The proceeds from the round has been raised to finance its personalised drug plus digital therapy (DTx) combination products that are being developed to enhance outcomes for patients and clinicians via precision dosing. Furthermore, the investment will fund further platform and product development. Also, the financing will accelerate the development, registration and commercialisation of its platform and precision dosing products.
Hakim Yadi, CEO and co-founder at Closed Loop Medicine, said: ‘‘This financing enables Closed Loop Medicine to take the next step towards creating a new standard for the future of care for patients with long term conditions. Until now, precision medicine has only been applied to a handful of medical conditions. However, the ability to combine ‘Software as a Medical Device’, as a DTx, delivering behavioural therapy integrated with drug therapy, as a single prescription, is ushering in a new chapter in tailored medicine and care.”
Lennart Hergel, Ananda Impact Ventures, commented “Closed Loop Medicine’s models of care will generate significant impact for individuals, who would have otherwise received standardised treatment, through better outcomes and addition to quality of life. At a systemic impact level, this approach promises to radically and impactfully change the capacity and performance of healthcare systems for the whole population’s benefit.”
Tim Rea, investor at BGF, commented: “We have backed Closed Loop Medicine since February 2020 and are delighted to be supporting the next stage of the company’s growth journey. The team have pioneered a revolutionary approach to combining drug and digital therapies to offer more personalised care pathways for patients and clinicians. We look forward to continuing to work with the management team, as they respond to the growing market need for new digital models of healthcare.”
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Supply chain cyber breaches often result in personal data such as payment details, addresses and medical records being accessed by unauthorised third parties. Major supply chain cyber security breaches in 2021 at Accellion, Solarwinds and Microsoft have put the challenge of defending against supply chain breaches at the top of the agenda for every large organisation globally.
The Risk Ledger platform is a first-of-a-kind global network of connected organisations, all working together to defend as one against cyber attacks. This game-changing approach makes the platform ideal for almost any organisation trying to identify, measure and mitigate supply chain risks regardless of industry.
Headquartered in London, Risk Ledger is a cybersecurity company that manages cyber security risks in supply chains. Now, the company has bagged £2.1 million in a seed funding round. The investment round was led by Finnish VC Lifeline Ventures with participation from Seedcamp, firstminute Capital, Episode 1 and Village Global.
The proceeds of this round will help Risk Ledger grow its team and operations to fully capitalise on the heightened focus on supply chain security driven by all the new regulations and high-profile breaches.
Haydn Brooks, founder and CEO at Risk Ledger commented: “The past 18 months have been a period of rapid growth in the company. We grew our client base and our user numbers have sky-rocketed despite the significant economic disruption caused by the pandemic. We have expanded the product into non-cyber security factors, including ESG and financial supply chain risks. Testament to the wider scope of the platform, we are now engaging procurement leaders in companies as well as their information security counterparts.”
Petteri Koponen, founding partner at Lifeline Ventures said: “We wanted to be part of Risk Ledger’s growth journey because they have the right product at the right time. With supply chain breaches becoming mainstream and regulators globally mandating better management of the risks, the Risk Ledger platform is in a fantastic position to become the industry agnostic tool of choice and penetrate the market extensively. The potential for the platform to proliferate virally is also unique. Capturing 30% of the UK water market in just over a year shows this possibility which is exciting for us.”
Founded by Haydn Brooks, Risk Ledger is a rising star of the UK’s growing cyber security industry that has won several competitions run by the UK Government’s National Cyber Security Centre and many others. Also, the company is a member of the UK Government backed LORCA programme (London Office of Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement).
Risk Ledger’s client base includes a wide range of organisations including NHS Test & Trace, BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, City of London Police, Schroders Personal Wealth and ASOS among others. Recently, the Risk Ledger platform was able to help the NHS Test & Trace team identify complex vulnerabilities in multiple interdependent suppliers that provide key reagents to the organisation.
UK health tech company that offers same-day prescription medicine delivery in London and next day delivery throughout the UK, Pharmacierge has announced it has raised £1.25 million from a number of leading clinicians and angel investors.
Investors include Alex Chesterman OBE, founder of Cazoo and Zoopla and Simon Franks, who co-founded Lovefilm. In a show of confidence from the medical profession, many practitioner users have also invested in the round, including two past presidents of the Independent Doctors Federation, and clinicians practicing variously at the Schoen Clinic, One Welbeck, Hormone Health, Physicians Clinic, Cromwell, Wellington, Lister and King Edward VII Hospitals.
Pharmacierge co-founder Robert Ungar said: “The healthcare industry faces a number of challenges, not least due to the widespread disruption from Covid-19. Cumbersome and paper-based processes need to be replaced by streamlined apps that are quick and easy, both for the clinician and the patient. A fast and reliable delivery service for prescription medication is therefore a requirement for private clinicians who put patient-centered care at the heart of their practice.”
Founded in London in 2015, the med tech startup operates its own dispensary and supplies all common medicines. Due to the variety of Consultants it supports, its formulary contains more than double the range of medicines listed by an average NHS trust. The technology solves all the clinical management problems: combining seamless dispensing with courier delivery, and updating doctors and patients as to their prescriptions’ progress.
With the money raised, Pharmacierge will now look to expand its footprint throughout the UK and internationally, as well as growing its network of clinicians.
Private medical practices currently spend up to two hours a day on prescription-related admin tasks, totaling more than 50 working days per year across their practice. The Pharmacierge e-prescription app, mPrescribe, can cut admin by up to 15 minutes per prescription with integrated same day or next day delivery. This saves time for clinicians, their administrative staff and ultimately their patients.
mPrescribe, the platform’s iPhone and Android enabled app, is the first of its kind in the UK; a portable e-prescription pad that allows clinicians to prescribe medication on the go. Its seamless infrastructure is built on proprietary full-stack technology, combining Electronic Prescription (EPS) and dispensary management (ERP) systems, with multiple APIs to handle the compliance and complexity of this tightly regulated industry.
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On a mission to empower hundreds of millions of consumers and businesses globally to take action by measuring, reducing and compensating for their impact, carbon footprint tracking expert Cogo has kicked off a $20 million Series A funding round just weeks ahead of the COP26 UN climate summit.
The team behind the platform, based in Wellington, London, Melbourne and New York is now expanding rapidly as what the company calls the ‘conscious consumerism’ movement grows. The impact-led fintech has announced partnerships with several of the world’s 50 largest banks ahead of the raise, including NatWest (UK), CommBank (Australia) and Santander (Spain). The tracker’s API will shortly go live to 8,000,000 NatWest customers, after launching earlier this month with CommBank Australia. Meanwhile it’s app (powered by open-banking and available in the UK) has had over 100,000 downloads.
The startup plans to open up the round to its API customers and app users in a move that, according to Ben Gleisner, CEO and founder of Cogo, will place the power of ownership in the hands of those who are creating value for the company. “Already, over 300 of our shareholders are staff, customers or users, and we believe that further decentralising our ownership model is simply the right thing to do. Too many tech company ownership models are benefiting only a few; and we want to be a platform owned by, and built for, the people,” he says.
The round has garnered major interest from global impact and fintech funds and a number of Cogo’s corporate customers, and there is significant follow-on demand from their existing shareholder base.
Gleisner comments: “The investment round was not something we had planned so early, but we simply can’t keep up with the opportunities arriving in our inboxes. With this in mind we are raising funds to help grow our company; decentralise its ownership and, ultimately, scale our impact. Businesses and consumers are looking for greater transparency around their carbon footprint and we’re moving as fast as we can to make Cogo the go-to solution for the world’s largest enterprises.”
In August, Cogo announced a first-of-its kind collaboration with Experian (Australia), the world’s leading global information services company.
“It’s one thing for large businesses to embark on a sustainability journey. It’s quite another for them to invite customers or subscribers to take that journey with them. Now, using Cogo, that second step is easy and will enable us to harness the power of millions of consumers worldwide to make a powerful collective difference,” explains Gleisner.
Cogo’s applications and APIs help consumers and businesses to understand, reduce and offset their carbon footprints, and align their spending with their environmental and social values.
For NatWest, Cogo enables customers to see the CO2 emissions associated with their daily spending, as well as tips on going greener and resources for doing so. Insights from the NatWest pilot showed the average user saved approximately 11 kg of CO2 emissions per month by committing to behavioural changes that used less carbon – such as composting, reducing meat consumption, or switching utilities providers. If this behaviour was replicated across NatWest’s 8 million customers who use the mobile app, it would save more than 1 billion kg of CO2 emissions per year, equivalent to planting 17 million trees.
Gleisner says the Series A funding will be used to invest in the scalability of its product, and launch into the North American, European and Asian markets. Due to early interest, the round is expected to close in early December. “There’s never been a more important time to impact the world’s carbon footprint by enabling repeatable, purposeful exchanges between the two biggest global contributors to over-consumption: businesses and consumers. That’s where real change starts,” concludes Gleisner.
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London-based ad-free, digital community and networking app and platform for professionals, Guild has raised $2.7million in seed funding from existing angel investors, as it seeks to establish itself as an alternative to Linkedin and to those using WhatsApp for business purposes.
Creating a platform and ecosystem for professional communities and networking that is as easy to use as WhatsApp or LinkedIn but without the ads that result in privacy problems, the startup was initially launched as a safer business alternative to WhatsApp. It went live in beta in 2019, and then opened to the public in early 2020. Guild was created by entrepreneur Ashley Friedlein, who also founded Econsultancy, sold to Centaur Media plc in 2012, and is an investor in a number of technology and B2B media businesses.
Since then, it has evolved to become both a platform for businesses to run GDPR-compliant communities and groups, and an alternative to Linkedin for individuals. Guild is designed mobile-first as a native messaging app but also has a web version. The $2.7 million seed investment comes from Guild’s existing angel investors including B2B media and tech entrepreneurs Tim Weller (Founder, Incisive Media), Ben Heald (Founder, Sift), Victoria Mellor (Co-founder, Melcrum), Alex Martinez (Co-founder, Procurement Leaders).
Guild’s growth has accelerated due to the increased importance of digital collaboration and networking during the pandemic, both across organisations and for individuals – up 500% since the start of 2020. The investment will be used for continued product development, including integrations and payments, and to invest in marketing to grow the user base, as Guild moves towards a Series A funding round in 2022.
As a community platform for businesses, the startup replicates ease-of-use of consumer messaging apps but with GDPR compliance and greater admin, customer service and data control. Guild customers include The Marketing Society, CIPD, PRCA, PPA, The Lawyer, Management Today, Cambridge University Judge Business School, Econsultancy, Deloitte and the National Education Union.
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