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London-based vegan meal delivery startup allplants has recently secured a £38 million Series B funding round led by Draper Esprit, backers of Revolut, Cazoo and Trustpilot. The round is the biggest ever Series B raise by a D2C plant-based food company in Europe and follows record-breaking crowdfund and Series A rounds.
Other new investors in the round include purpose driven CPG fund The Craftory, Silicon Valley-based TriplePoint Capital, plus international England footballers Chris Smalling and Kieran Gibbs, and Cassandra Stavrou MBE, who founded the UK’s leading independent snack company PROPER Snacks.
Existing investors Felix Capital, the venture fund behind Oatly, Deliveroo and Peloton, and Octopus Ventures, early backers of Cazoo, Zoopla and Depop, also participated.
As per the company press release, allplants’ continued growth is the result of serving the rapidly growing ‘plant-curious’, or flexitarian, consumer market already worth an annual £100 billion in developed markets and £10 billion in the UK alone. Founded by Jonathan Petrides and his brother Alex, the company’s revenues have more than doubled every year since launching in 2017. Each night, an allplants dinner is now consumed every second.
allplants will use the latest investment to increase its plant-based kitchen in Walthamstow, North London, to six times its current size, enabling it to meet an exploding direct-to-consumer UK market. It will also build scalable capacity for rapid distribution into other channels.
In addition, the funding round will enable a significant expansion of allplants’ team to bring in talent across the entire stack of the business, from additional culinary-school-trained chefs through to operations, innovation, marketing, and technology.
The recent raise will also allow allplants to innovate to new levels, creating an even wider selection of meals to meet all tastes and preferences among a growing customer base and developing a broader range of product categories.
allplants’ plant-based meals are delivered across the entirety of Great Britain. The model combines convenience with delicious, healthy food and enables environmentally aware customers to easily reduce their impact on the world through small, delightful adjustments to their eating habits.
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From Birmingham garage to £700M in stock market debut, 29-year-old Gymshark founder in talks for IPO
British sportswear brand Gymshark that had its humble beginning in a modest Birmingham garage nine years ago is in talks with banks and investors over a potential IPO. The company is reportedly about to cash in more than £700 million. And interestingly, the startup’s founder has not even turned 30.
It comes right a year after the brand just became the second British company since 2001 to achieve a valuation of over £1 billion without any prior investment after Francis sold a 21% stake in the company to the US private equity firm General Atlantic in August 2020.
He and his private equity backers are in preliminary talks with institutional investors and investment banks about a flotation, as was reported by Sky New this week.
While juggling university with a £5 an hour job at Pizza Hut, Francis started the company with school buddy Lewis Morgan from his parents’ house while he was all of 19. Originating from his own frustrations with finding gym clothes, all the ideas for the designs of the gym wear were sketched right from his bedroom.
Together with co-founder Lewis, the duo started attending body building exhibitions to help raise their profile. Using social media influencers, they teamed up with YouTube body builders Nikki Blackketter and Lex Griffin to increase exposure and this worked in their favour. In 2013, Francis exhibited the company’s products at the BodyPower fitness trade show in Birmingham and there has been no looking back since then. After the trade show ended, a tracksuit went viral on Facebook, generating a whopping £30,000 in sales within 30 minutes.
The business is now based in Solihull and employs over 550 people. As the company pitches to investors as part of a major London stock market listing, Francis – the biggest shareholder of Gymshark – could land with a fortune worth as much as £700million.
A spokesman for Gymshark said: “We regularly speak to financial institutions to ensure we are connected to the business world and we continue to learn. Any recent conversations we have had have been about introducing these organisations to Gymshark and our journey so far.”
“We are working with Ben and the team to build Gymshark into the global leader we know it can be,” the spokesman for General Atlantic added.
Fuelled by influencer marketing and burgeoning consumer demand for fitness apparel and athleisure, the startup now has a social media following of more than 15 million with Francis alone having 300,000 Instagram fans.
It now operates in more than 180 countries with an audience of over 16 million on social media. The brand opened its first US distribution centre in California this July, which will be followed by two East Coast centres later in the year. The business now plans to take on Australia with a new distribution centre this year as well.
Based out of Birmingham, Aceleron is a pioneer in sustainable battery technology. Now, the company has secured £2.5 million as it continues to expand its global sales. The funding came from existing investors BGF, the MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund, which is managed by Mercia and part of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund, and Mercia’s EIS funds. With this, the total funds raised by the company account for £5.4 million.
Aceleron will use the investment to build relationships with automotive manufacturers and other major corporates. Also, it will continue to enhance its products. Currently, the company employs around 25 staff and is all set to double its revenue this year.
Amrit Chandan, CEO, said: “I am pleased to have secured further support for our mission of making batteries maintainable to help carefully preserve and nurture our scarce resources. The world is waking up to the importance of this mission, with an increased awareness that we are borrowing the resources of our children and thus have a duty of care. With the support of this funding, Aceleron will be the foundation of circularity in the battery world whilst positively impacting people around the world.”
Sandy Reid of Mercia added: “Given the focus on clean technology, there is a huge potential market for Aceleron’s products. Sales are increasing year on year and it is already attracting interest from major energy companies and manufacturers. The funding will enable it to continue to enhance its products and collect performance data to further build its credibility in the market.”
Tom Horton, investor at BGF added: ”We’re thrilled to be supporting Aceleron with additional investment to expand its global sales programme and continue the roll out of new products. Aceleron is a hugely exciting business and is well aligned with BGF’s commitment to backing more companies in the field of clean growth. We have already invested over £200 million and backed more than 20 companies in the sector and remain focused on making a meaningful contribution to those businesses that are helping to mitigate or reverse the effects of human activity on the environment.”
Grant Peggie, Director at the British Business Bank, said: “This latest deal shows how the MEIF can support businesses over the course of their growth journey, providing further funding rounds to support product development, expansion and job creation. We would encourage other Midlands’ businesses seeking to reduce their carbon footprint to consider the finance available through MEIF.”
Andy Street, the Mayor of the West Midlands, said: “We want the West Midlands to become the global leader in state-of-the-art battery technology and research, and it is companies like Aceleron that are going to help make that happen. When I visited the firm earlier this year I was blown away by their drive and innovation, as well as their commitment to their home here in our region.
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With a mission to banish financial instability, London-based fintech startup Plum has announced a first close of new funding that will supercharge the company’s expansion and bolster its growth as Europe’s ultimate money management app.
The first close of $14 million is part of an anticipated $24 million Series A. The round is led by a consortium of noted investors, including new partners dmg ventures and Ventura Capital, who have previously invested in scaleups such as Cazoo and Farewill (dmg) and Railsbank (Ventura). The new investors are joined in this round by previous Plum backers Global Brain, VentureFriends and 500 Startups.
The platform is welcoming support from several notable names from the fintech space as part of this round. Francesco Simoneschi, CEO & co-founder of Truelayer, Charles Delingpole, founder and CEO of ComplyAdvantage, and Hugh Strange, VP of Product at Nubank are backing Plum as angel investors, bringing with them a wealth of experience from across the sector.
Aimed at reducing financial instability, the startup was founded in 2016. The platform acts like a brain by automating the parts of personal finance that people find difficult or don’t have time for.
The new funding comes after a period of steep growth, as savers and investors across Europe look to fintechs to help them grow their wealth in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company has seen connected customer numbers double in the past year, with more than 1million people across Europe now saving and investing with Plum. It has saved more than $1 billion for customers since its inception and was recently ranked the most popular choice during the pandemic out of 10 investment apps.
The company is planning to give customers a chance to share in its success too, with a new crowdfunding round opening on Crowdcube later in October. It has seen record-breaking interest in the campaign so far, with more than 20,000 people registering interest in the round in the first 12 hours of the campaign launching.
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London-based Fika, a platform that seeks to promote ‘mental fitness’ has raised £1.2 million in funding to develop its model as a proactive mental wellness tool for businesses and their employees. The funding was led by Rising Stars, with a syndicate of ten UK and US-based angel investors, including Biogen board member Brian Posner and NCFE CEO David Gallagher, who will both join Fika’s board.
The employee assistance programme (EAP) marketplace is crowded, and growing awareness of mental health has led to the creation of several mental health and wellbeing platforms. Fika, however, takes a different approach.
Traditional EAP programmes focus on recovery. In practice, employees will use them only after suffering an adverse event. The consequences of this are enormous. Co-founder Nick Bennett told UKTN it meant that many people did not get the help they need. “The EAP systems are in place for then they’ve hit the bottom, and you only get, on average, 8-10% usage,” he said. The consequence is that poor mental health has a huge business cost. Instead, Fika’s mission is to give ‘mental fitness’ the same level of awareness as ‘physical fitness’.
An image search can quickly reveal the difference, says Bennett, “if you search physical health, you see people in the park smiling, happy faces. But if you put in mental health,” he explained, “you get outlines of skills, or images with words like ‘depression.’”
Fika aims to promote mental fitness as a positive and proactive activity for everybody.
Fika offers a training platform, based around mental fitness, that can integrate with a company’s existing training programme. So, right from staff induction, staff are taught how to look after their mental health in the same way they are taught and encouraged to look after their physical health.
Gareth Fryer, Fika’s other co-founder, points out the considerable discrepancy between physical and mental health in the workplace. “For decades, we’ve trained people how to lift boxes. Why aren’t we training people how to manage their mental loads?”
The concept is simple. Instead of waiting for a problem to manifest, employees can be taught how to monitor and maintain their mental health. Whether it’s a graduate suffering from imposter syndrome in their first days, or a seasoned employee at risk of burnout from years of pressure and deadlines.
Fika has onboarded over seventy new clients this year, including retailer DFS, who are working with them to research to positive impact it is having. DFS are in the process of implementing Fika into its organisation, using the daily training to improve mental resilience among its staff and, where necessary, creating individualised pathways to help staff. The trail has been highly successful, with a high take up by staff and positive early impacts.
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London-based fintech 9fin is a provider of data, news and predictive analytics for debt capital markets. The fintech just announced that it has grabbed £8 million funding in a Series A round to fuel its US expansion.
The investment round was led by Redalpine along with existing investor Fly Ventures. Also, angel investors Paul Forster, Co-Founder of Indeed, and Alan Morgan, Co-Founder of MMC Ventures participated in the round along with Ilavska Vuillermoz Capital and a number of high-net-worth individuals. With this, the total investment raised by 9fin accounts for over £10 million.
9fin will use the proceeds of this round to expand into the US market and is opening an office in New York following strong client demand. Initial hiring in New York will focus on content, analytics and business operations. 9fin is also hiring across its sales, marketing, product and engineering teams. It expects to double its current team of 30 before the end of 2021.
Steven Hunter, Co-Founder and CEO of 9fin, commented, ”We’re delighted to have the backing of new and existing investors in this round. The Redalpine team has a very strong track record of FinTech investments. We’re excited to welcome Aleksandra to our board, lending her capital markets and operational expertise to our team. In the last year we’ve used our analytics to predict multi-billion dollar deals, saved analysts hours of manual data extraction and allowed funds to spot lucrative trading opportunities.”
Aleksandra Laska, Partner at Redalpine, added “We are delighted to back Steven and Huss, they’re an incredibly driven team who have the ambition, network, and know-how to turn 9fin into a massive business. They have deep industry expertise in debt capital markets and have experienced the pain of poor-quality information first hand. Faster, better-quality data has huge value within this space. Whether that’s predictive analytics to spot new business opportunities or freeing up an analyst team’s time through automating the manual collection of data.”
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9fin, a London, UK-based provider of data, news and predictive analytics for debt capital markets, raised £8M in Series A funding.
The round was led by Redalpine, alongside previous investors Fly Ventures and angel investors Paul Forster, Co-Founder of Indeed, Alan Morgan, Co-Founder of MMC Ventures, Ilavska Vuillermoz Capital and a number of high net worth individuals.
The company, which has to date secured over £10M in funding, including the support from Seedcamp and AI Seed Fund, intends to use the funds to accelerate its expansion into the US, with the opening of a New York office following increased demand from existing customers in Europe.
Co-founded by Steven Hunter and Hussam El-Sheikh, 9fin provides intelligence for the debt capital markets community. Its tech platform uses machine learning and computer vision to extract and standardise debt capital markets data in real time to allow customers to save time, spot trading opportunities and increase their share of the $65bn of debt capital markets fees earned by advisors each year.
Product offerings include: News alerts, Financials, Covenants, Comparables, Deal predictions, ESG, and Search.
9fin serves nine of the top 10 investment banks, funds managing over €52bn of high yield assets under management and award-winning advisory and law firm franchises.
Initial hiring in New York will focus on content, analytics and business operations. 9fin is also hiring across its sales, marketing, product and engineering teams. It expects to double its current team of 30 people before the end of the year.
As per a report, there are over 31.5 million cars registered in the UK, in 2018. The insurance industry also paid out over £13.4 billion in claims back in 2017, which goes to show how crucial vehicle insurance is. Helping companies save money, the London-based insurtech Humn offers real-time data-driven fleet insurance. The startup has now secured £10.1M funding in its series A funding round.
This latest funding round for Humn was led by notable names such as BXR Group and Shell Ventures. Additionally, Hambro Perks Leaders Fund and Woodside Holdings also participated in the round. In a conversation with UKTN, the company’s CEO Mark Musson reveals that the fresh funds will be utilised to boost their teams by hiring people across commercial functions, sales, marketing and customer success.
“We are investing in our underwriting and compliance teams as well. As always, we are adding the brightest minds we can find in our engineering and data science departments,” Musson notes. Furthermore, he tells us that the company will be building out its European operations and adding core country teams in the Netherlands and Germany, initially with a phased entry in Spain and France.
Amory Poulden, Venture Principal at Shell Ventures, investor and Board Director Humn comments, “In a sector dominated by opaque and siloed offerings, Humn is rapidly establishing itself as the transparent, fair and flexible option for the modern fleet. Since our initial investment, we have been continually impressed with the whole team’s clarity of vision and speed of execution. We are excited to deepen our commitment to helping Humn become the market leader for commercial fleet insurance.”
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Femtech refers to technologies specifically focused on women’s health, covering a broad range of areas from hormonal disorders and period pain to birth control, pelvic health, and sexual wellness. Femtech seeks to address women’s health issues through new product development.
Regardless of how it is perceived, femtechs are getting popular in VC portfolios, which is good progress. Recently, FemTech Lab was opened in London to encourage more innovative companies to establish their presence in this industry. Having said that, here are 10 UK-based femtech startups that were founded by female entrepreneurs.
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As per reports, the overnight stay market on a global scale is estimated to be worth $1.2 trillion as the travel industry’s recovery is accelerating post the pandemic. Despite this growth, looking for the perfect stay can feel like a lottery with over 15 million homes online to choose from. Adding to this, the customer reviews are often misleading or untruthful.
London-based Plum Guide, an online platform for high-end vacation homes and homestay experiences, offers highly curated travel experiences.
In a recent development, Plum Guide has secured $9 million (nearly £6.6 million) in a funding round led by Beringea, the transatlantic venture capital firm. Also, existing investors Talis Capital, Hearst Ventures and Latitude took part in the investment round. Plum Guide will use the investment to accelerate its rapid climb towards boasting the definitive list of the world’s best vacation homes, As of now, the company has properties in over 500 destinations across 29 countries.
Plum Guide also offers its community of hosts, guests and fans a chance to participate in this round via a crowdfunding campaign with Crowdcube. It invites those who have a passion for travel and who expect perfection from their homestays to join world-class institutional investors excited by Plum Guide’s distinctive vision; to create a world-class trust mark for travel.
This latest funding round signals the anticipated travel boom in 2022 and beyond, amongst global travellers who prefer hotels in favour of alternative and more personal accommodation.
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