News
Kindred Capital, a new venture capital firm, has raised £80m, making it one of Europe’s largest ever seed funds.
The company, which opened in 2015, is pioneering an “equitable venture” fund, sharing its profits with its start-ups’ founders, a model it says is unique in Europe.
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Jaywing, a data-science agency, has announced it will be acquiring digital agency, Frank Digital.
The two agencies had previously worked together for Campos Coffee and both agencies will bring additional expertise to each other’s clients.
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Peakon, a people analytics firm that launched in 2016, has managed to raise $22m in a round led by Balderton Capital, with support from existing backers EQT Ventures, IDInvest and Sunstone.
The company currently has a presence in London and Copenhagen with its headquarters in the UK. It will use the funding to expand globally into the US, Germany and Asia Pacific.
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Lombard Risk, a UK-based tech firm, has been acquired by Vermeg, a European banking and insurance software provider based in Amsterdam.
The acquisition will allow Vermeg to reach a turnover of €100m and increase its global reach with new access to Lombard Risk's markets in the UK, North America and Asia-Pacific.
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Vesta, a new online marketplace for property rentals, has managed to raise £2.1m in Seed funding at first close.
The company, which only launched this month, provides an online marketplace for buying, selling and fractionally investing in residential investment property.
The funding will allow Vesta to improve its core product offering and to roll-out across the UK.
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Microsoft has opened a $20 million venue in London to help the UK remain the home of technology innovation in Europe.
The Reactor, in Shoreditch, will be used to “nurture and develop start-up talent in the UK” by giving new businesses access to Microsoft partners, customers and products, UK Chief Executive Cindy Rose said.
As well as offering free office space to start-up and scale-up companies, the UK Reactor will host regular events such as hackathons, talks, meetups and more for up to 120 people.
It is Microsoft’s first such space in Europe, after similar hubs were opened in New York, Redmond and San Francisco. Further Reactors are planned for elsewhere in Europe and Sydney, Australia.
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3Radical, the team behind Voco which is an engagement platform for brands and consumers, has managed to raise £3m from UK tech investors including fund manager David Newton and Christopher McCann.
The company is going to put the funding towards further growth and expansion in existing and new markets as well as increasing their management team. 3Radical originally launched in South East Asia in 2014. In 2015 they expanded their reach to include the UK and Australia. Looking forwards the team would like to break into the US market.
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Moneysupermarket's share price dropped by 24 per cent this morning after their 2018 announcement that the company's earning growth would be flat.
This was compounded by the fact that the company had a four per cent increase in revenue in 2017 and is expecting a one-off "transitional costs" of between £6m and £9m during 2018 as well as investing £5m in its product engineering team.
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Homie, a PropTech startup that has built a home search platform for renters, has attracted an additional $4m in Seed funding. The round was led by Connect Ventures and drew participation from Seedcamp, Venture Friends and The Family.
Their goal is to reduce the time people spend searching for a new place to rent in London by providing a platform that makes London’s rental market faster, more transparent and easier to navigate.
The funding will allow Homie to further develop its tech platform as well as its team.
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StatusToday, a London-based AI startup , has raised $3.91m in a round led by LocalGlobe with participation from Notion Capital and Firstminute Capital.
The startup is building an AI solution that monitors how employees are working to identify risks and breaches and highlight where improvements can be made.
StatusToday will use the funding to grow its staff and attract more businesses to use the software, 200 companies currently use the service.
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