News
Modulr, a FinTech firm which provides bank accounts for business payments, has raised a new round of funding which was led by Blenheim Chalcot. The company has now raised a total of £10.5m.
The startup, which was founded in London in 2016, has just opened a new office in Edinburgh and plans on increasing its staff to over 100 people across its offices.
According to Modulr it has processed £4.2bn in business payments over the last two years and its transaction volumes have been growing by an average of 11% month-on-month.
To read more, click here.
Medopad, a UK HealthTech firm, has acquired Sherbit, a Silicon Valley startup leveraging AI to improve chronic disease patient care.
Medopad focuses on providing technology that connects patients and medical practitioners and allows patient's data to be analysed to improve the detection of any medical conditions.
The company is already working with various hospitals in London such as Royal Free London, Guy’s and St Thomas’, Bart’s, and Chelsea & Westminster. It is also developing projects in countries including Germany, China and Singapore.
The acquisition of Sherbit will enable Medopad to expand to the US.
To read more, click here.
Wagestream, a UK FinTech startup that enables employees to get their salaries early, has just received backing from Amazon’s and Microsoft’s billionaire founders.
The company raised a total of £4.5m from investors including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
Their aim is to eliminate the "payday poverty cycle" by providing an app that allows a participating company's employees to access their wages early and charges them a flat fee of only £1.75. The total amount is then deducted from the employee's next pay cheque.
Wagestream has launched a pilot with 25 businesses, including the gym chain David Lloyd.
To read more, click here.
MyLife Digital, a privacy tech and data analytics company, has raised £5.7m in funding. Investments included £3m from BGF and £2.7m in venture debt from Barclays.
The Bath-based startup provides Saas to assist organisations with managing transparency around the personal data of their users.
MyLife Digital will use the funds to roll out their personal data management platform internationally and increase their turnover to £120m in the next three years.
To read more, click here.
Marketers are starting to focus on the opportunities for in-car commerce as sales in the US of connected vehicles are forecast to grow to 12.7 million a year - or 76% of new cars - by 2024.
Some of the world's biggest automakers, such as General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Volkswagen, have developed connected-car systems that have varying capabilities, from on-demand music streaming to automatic payments at petrol stations.
The next development could be a digital dashboard that allows drivers to purchase goods, thereby making better use of being stuck in traffic or on long commutes. This could be linked into popular brands, from Starbucks to McDonalds.
To read more, click here.
Tommy Hilfiger, the luxury retail band, has developed a new line of clothing that is embedded with smart Bluetooth chips that link to an app and game created by the brand, which allows wearers to earn rewards points as they visit different locations, in a concept not too dissimilar to Pokemon Go.
The retailers sees the launch of the XPLORE app and line of clothing as a chance to create more brand ambassadors, via its own customers, and grow the brand's marketing power.
To read more, click here.
Salary Finance, a London, UK-based fintech financial wellbeing platform for employees, has secured $20m in Series B funding. The round was led by founding investor Blenheim Chalcot and multinational financial services company Legal & General.
Founded in 2015 and led by CEO Asesh Sarkar, Salary Finance provides a SaaS-based platform that allows employers to offer a benefit that allows employees to move from debt to savings. All savings deposits and loan repayments are taken by salary deduction, which creates a way for employees to manage their personal finances.
The funds will be used to launch and scale Salary Finance in the US, as well as to continue to support its growth in the UK.
To read more, click here.
Bulb Energy, a renewable energy supplier, has raised £60m in a round that has valued the company at £351m.
Considering that the company was incorporated four years ago and was valued at £50m in September 2017, this is a substantial level of growth.
It is interesting to draw comparisons with Deliveroo, the UK's best known unicorn startup. Deliveroo was valued at £47m in February 2015 and this increased to £313m in November 2015. It received a $1bn valuation roughly two years later, in September 2017. If Bulb was to follow the same pattern of growth it could reach unicorn status within the next two years.
To read more, click here.
Zippin, a San Francisco-based startup, has launched a small pop-up that is expected to grow into a full-sized, AI-enabled store by mid-September, to compete with Amazon's cashier-less Go store in Seattle.
The system operate in a similar way to Amazon with sophisticated cameras to track customer movements. However, it also employs shelf sensors to ensure that the system accurately records the items that customers select.
To read more, click here.
BP, the British multinational oil and gas company, has bought tech firm Chargemaster, the UK’s biggest car charging company, for £130m.
BP plans to use the technology to install super-fast chargers across its network of 1,200 petrol stations in the UK and on streets in a bid to keep up with growing demand for renewable energy. The firm’s estimates predict that the number of electric vehicles on British roads will accelerate to 12m by 2040. They will prioritise rapid chargers, which can give a car enough power in 10 minutes to run for 100 miles.
This acquisition forms part of BP's pledge to spend £383m a year on low-carbon businesses.
To read more, click here.