News
The UK's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) today launched its Digital Markets Unit (DMU) watchdog, which aims to regulate large online platforms like Google and Facebook, and create rules governing their conduct with users and advertisers.
First announced last November, the DMU is based in the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which already regulates the activities of the tech sector, particularly with respect to mergers and acquisitions. DCMS described the body as part of a "pro-competition" regulatory regime, and has been tasked with improving competition, giving customers "more choice and control" over their data, and intervening in unfair practices.
The DMU has already started operations while it waits to be granted statutory powers by law. Or, put plainly, it's toothless until Parliament says otherwise.
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Helsinki-based, Airbnb rival, Bob W has recently announced to have raised a total of €10 million in seed funding. Last year around June 2020, the tech-driven hospitality company raised around €4 million in its first round of seed funding and now has closed €6 million more.
The recent investment was led by byFounders VC and private equity firm Finnish Industry Investment (Tesi). The raise also saw participation from Kaamos, Superangel, United Angels, and NREP via its 2150 investment wing.
As per the company press release, the funding will expand to multiple new markets across Europe, including the UK, to further develop an autonomous hospitality platform and grow the team.
Niko Karstikko, CEO and co-founder, also informed UKTN that Bob W will launch the first property in the UK around Q1-2022, after securing its first apartments in London.
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Proptech company Cubic Lease secures early stage funding to digitise the property and letting process.
The global pandemic has accelerated the need for paperless, contactless application processes. The ‘new normal’ has changed the face of business administration and digitised forms are set to replace paper based customer onboarding.
Enter Cubic Lease, the early stage mobile app that automates letting and property purchases by verifying photo ID, AML, soft credit checks, and Open Banking API’s that assess affordability and proof of funds.
Cubic Lease was co-founded in October 2019 by financial services and property professional James Owusu, an alumni of the annual Cornerstone scale-up programme which is hailed as the first black and diverse accelerator in Europe. After participating in the 9-week programme, James successfully won first prize at the closing demo day competition, paving the way for investment from the Cornerstone angel syndicate.
Cubic Lease continued their fundraising efforts by securing investment from SFC Capital, one of the most active seed investment funds in the UK. Their investments include Onfido, Jack & Bry and ETIQ AI.
The £545k round includes, amongst other funders, angel investors Richard Harley and Samantha Tubb, Founder and investor respectively of ScholarPack, an education management software business based in Lincoln.
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Otrium raises £87M from London VCs Index Ventures, BOND and the early investor in Alibaba
Otrium, an online fashion outlet marketplace with hundreds of designer stores all in one place has recently raised $120 million (approx £87 million) in a Series C funding co-led by London VCs — BOND and Index Ventures. Eight Road Ventures, also a London-based global venture capital fund, participated in the round, which is also an early investor in e-commerce tech giant Alibaba.
This funding comes ten months after it raised $26 million (approx £18 million) from Eight Roads Ventures, Index Ventures, and Hans Veldhuizen. Post the latest funding round, the company values at roughly £653 million.
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London-based Manual has closed a series A round totalling $30 million.
Existing investors Felix Capital and Cherry Ventures took part, as well as new additions Sonoma Brands and Waldencast.
According to a National Pharmacy Association study nine in ten men would rather endure an illness or health problem rather than visit a doctor. Manual is on a mission to change this staggering statistic. The platform offers access to advice, free medical support, diagnostic tools, blood tests, and a range of treatments.
With a team of 30 members, over the past 12 months, Manual has quadrupled its revenue and expanded beyond UK borders, now operating in Brazil as well.
“We’ve been encouraged to see men of all ages increasingly turning to Manual to solve multiple health problems, with almost half of our customers seeking help for more than one issue,” comments Manual founder and CEO George Pallis.
“There is still much work to be done to remove the taboo when it comes to men looking after their wellbeing and talking openly about health concerns. But we’re starting to see a shift happen amongst consumers. Men of all ages are coming to Manual for help, showing the importance of an authentic brand, built on passion and community. Manual is challenging modern masculinity and we’re excited to continue to support them as they address this issue globally,” adds co-founder and partner at Felix Capital Antoine Nussenbaum.
Manchester-based global delivery experience pioneer Sorted powers dynamic checkouts, delivery management and delivery tracking around the world. The company has now announced $15 million (nearly £11 million) in growth capital. Of this, $7 million (nearly £5 million) was led by Chrysalis Investments, an existing investor.
The growth capital will be used to support product development, growth in the team, global expansion and acquisition of several leading brands including Asda, musicMagpie, and XPO Logistics. The capital comes at a time when the SaaS tech delivery disruptor plans to further support the retail industry’s digital transformation, which accelerated due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Richard Watts, Fund Manager at Chrysalis Investments, said: “We are delighted to provide Sorted with additional capital which will enable them to execute their ambition growth strategy. The recent pandemic has accelerated channel shift and Sorted are well placed to benefit from this trend, evidenced recently by some very exciting enterprise customer wins.”
Mike Fletcher, Chairman of Sorted and Managing Partner at Arete Capital Partners LLP, added: “As consumer demand for rich customer delivery experiences soars, Sorted is having a huge impact on the retail industry. As it continues to support retailers to better serve their customers, the company’s incredible growth so far is a journey that I’m proud to be a part of,” says Fletcher.
David Grimes, founder & CEO of Sorted commented: “This investment comes at exactly the right stage of our journey, following a year which has seen more retail opportunities and challenges than any other in the history of e-commerce. Digital transformation has been driven at incredible speed, and I’m proud of how our team at Sorted has stepped forward to support an industry undergoing such tremendous change. This significant investment will continue our work in enabling brands to pivot and offer customers a five-star customer experience regardless of challenges in the retail landscape. We’re thrilled to see our investors back our goal to shake up the delivery and logistics sector, with our sights now set on expanding the same service and quality across the global stage.”
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News Corp clinched a deal to acquire Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s books and media segment for $349 million in cash, planning to combine the publisher with its HarperCollins Publishers subsidiary.
The Rupert Murdoch-controlled company said it expects the deal to close in the second quarter of calendar 2021, subject to to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.
The deal will add more horsepower to the business of HarperCollins, the second-largest consumer book publisher in the world after Bertelsmann’s Penguin Random House — and comes after Bertelsmann inked a pact with ViacomCBS to acquire Simon & Schuster for $2.17 billion.
The HMH Books & Media backlist of more than 7,000 titles include “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and other titles by J.R.R. Tolkien; “1984” and “Animal Farm” by George Orwell; and “All the King’s Men” by Robert Penn Warren. HarperCollins currently has rights to Tolkien’s works in the British Commonwealth.
The announcement comes just four days after News Corp said it will buy Investor’s Business Daily, the stock-analysis and investment research publication, for $275 million.
“There is a resurgence in reading and listening to books, and we believe the brilliant HMH Books & Media backlist and first-rate frontlist have an enduring and increasing value,” News Corp CEO Robert Thomson said in a statement. “The HarperCollins collection will be bolstered for children and young adults, and authors around the world will have a larger platform for their creativity and ingenuity. It is crucial to expand in an era in which emerging monopolies threaten the creative marketplace, so we welcome J.R.R. Tolkien, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and many, many other distinguished writers to HarperCollins.”
In calendar year 2020, HMH Books & Media reported net sales of $191.7 million — over 60% of which were were generated by its backlist — and adjusted earnings of $26.6 million. For the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2020, HarperCollins revenue grew 23% from the year-earlier period, to $102 million, with adjusted earnings up 65% to $41 million.
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British unicorn Cazoo that makes buying and selling cars online as easy as other products is all set to make its stock market debut in New York. The company will float at $7 billion (nearly £5 billion) and has agreed to go public in New York through a merger with AJAX I Acquisition Corp, a blank-check acquisition company led by billionaire US investor Dan Och.
To be listed in NYSE in Q3
The combined company will be called Cazoo, provided the deal will meet the approval of AJAX and Cazoo shareholders. It will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange sometime in the third quarter of 2021.
As the special-purpose acquisition company Ajax I will raise around $1.6 billion in proceeds for the company, including $805 million in a cash trust from the SPAC and another $800 million from Ajax’s sponsors, Cazoo said in a statement on Monday. London-based Cazoo will be listed in New York after the deal closes, and Och plans to join the company’s board.
Further, the transaction was led by the AJAX sponsors and D1 Capital Partners and joined by new and existing investors including Altimeter, funds & accounts managed by BlackRock, Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley) and Fidelity Management and Research Company LLC, Marcho Partners, Mubadala Capital, Pelham Capital, Senator Investment Group and Spruce House Partnership.
Alex Chesterman OBE, Founder & CEO of Cazoo, commented: “This announcement is another major milestone in our continued drive to transform the way people buy cars across Europe. We have created the most comprehensive and fully integrated offering in the largest retail sector which currently has very low digital penetration. This deal will provide us with almost $1 billion of further funds to fuel our growth and I am delighted to be partnering with Dan and his team at AJAX to rapidly expand and deliver the best car buying experience to consumers across Europe.”
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Digital identity services — used as a key link between organizations to verify that you are who you say you are online and individuals logging into those services — have come into their own in this past year. Now, one of the companies providing digital identity products is announcing a large round of funding, underscoring both the market size and its ambitions to be a central player in that space.
Jumio, which has built a platform that provides a variety of digital identity tools and technology — using biometrics, machine learning, computer vision, big data, and more to run checks on ID documents, log-ins, to help prevent suspicious financial activity, identity theft and more — has closed a $150 million round of funding. The Palo Alto-based company says it will use the funds to build more tools on its platform, and to double down on customer growth after a big year.
Currently, Jumio’s primary business is B2B: it provides tools to enterprise customers like HSBC to manage digital identity verification. Some of the areas where it will be investing include expanding its AI capabilities to do more anti-money laundering work, and to look at building a B2C product, using the data, tools and network of customers that it has to help individuals better manage their identities online.
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Insuretech startup Counterpart, has raised $10 million in funding led by Valor Equity Partners. Also participating was Susa Ventures and Felicis Ventures. Counterpart works in the ‘management liability’ insurance market. Counterpart will also partner with Markel Specialty, a specialty insurance division of Markel Corporation, to offer its management liability insurance products.
Insuretech startups like Oscar, Lemonade, and Root have made incursions into personal insurance. What has been less prevalent, says Counterpart, is startups tackling the $300bn corporate insurance market.
Counterpart is competing with Next Insurance which has raised $631M, and which also provides small business liability insurance, as well as the big insurance carriers, from AIG to Berkshire Hathaway.
Counterpart is used by some wholesale brokers in the United States to allow small to medium businesses get insurance coverage, because it digitizes much of the process, from application submission, coverage selection, binding, claims management, and loss prevention. Counterpart says this market has become less attractive to insurance carriers because of the increasing claims costs and severity, and their lack of digitization of the process.
Tanner Hackett, founder, and CEO, said in a statement: “The $1.2tn insurance industry is going through a digital revolution.. We saw an outsized opportunity with management liability, a critical insurance line in which we have unique expertise.”
Valor Equity Partners partner and Counterpart board member Jon Shulkin said: “Counterpart’s platform goes beyond the scope of a traditional insurer, layering in insights, tools, and services to help business stakeholders navigate this extremely challenging operating environment.”
Valor was an early backer of Tesla, SpaceX, Addepar, and GoPuff. Susa has previously backed Robinhood, PolicyGenius, and Newfront Insurance. Felicis has funded Hippo, Plaid, and Credit Karma.