Rare fungal disease biotech F2G raises £46.7M
With offices in the UK and in Austria, F2G, a company developing novel therapies for life-threatening systemic fungal infections was backed by Cowen Healthcare Investments, Novo Holdings, Morningside Ventures, Brace Pharma Capital and Advent Life Sciences. This new investment will enable F2G to fund its late-stage clinical programs for Olorofim, its novel antifungal agent and organisational scale-up in preparation for commercialisation.
F2G focuses on the research, discovery and development of novel therapies to treat life-threatening invasive fungal infections. F2G has discovered and developed a completely new class of antifungal agents called orotomides that target dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH), a key enzyme in the de novo pyrimidine biosynthesis pathway.
Easy mortgage provider Habito raised £35M Series C
Founded by Daniel Hegarty in 2015, digital mortgage company Habito has been backed by Augmentum Fintech, SBI Group, mojo.capital, Ribbit Capital, Atomico and Mosaic Ventures.
Habito aims to transform the UK’s £1.3T mortgage market with its proprietary sourcing technology, innovative mortgage products and groundbreaking home buying services. This new round of funding will be used to further accelerate Habito’s rapid growth.
Real-time payments platform Vitesse raised £6.6M Series A
In this new round, cross-border fintech firm Vitesse was backed by Octopus Ventures, with participation from existing shareholders including Hoxton Ventures and other angel investors.
With cross-border B2B exports expected to increase from $18T to $21T by 2023, Vitesse intends to build a market-leading global domestic settlement and liquidity management system to hold funds and execute cross-border payments.
Proptech startup Mashroom raises £4M
Created in 2018 in London, proptech startup Mashroom delivers end-to-end automated lettings and property management service and has been backed by the BBB’s Future Fund.
The startup manages the entire rental lifecycle from property advertising, arranging viewings, credit history checks, maintenance, to end of tenancy, as well as handling potential disputes between landlords and tenants. The new funding will support the company in its efforts to accelerate its growth and further enhance the platform.
Sheffield-based EV startup Mina.energy raises an undisclosed seed funding
Electric Vehicle (EV) tech start-up Mina.energy was backed by non-profit NorthInvest, valuing the business at £2M. Private angel investors from a range of backgrounds including Energy, EV Charging and Vehicle Lease sectors contributed to the round led by NorthInvest Angel Investor Gary Shuckford and supported by equity finance advisor, Mick Morris at Compellor.
Created in 2019, Mina’s EV charging software makes managing electric fleet vehicles simple, and the company is already supporting a number of EV fleets across the UK.
Drinking habits expert One Year No Beer raises a further £1.75M
Platform One Year No Beer was backed by over 500 investors bringing the total raised so far to £3M. Investors include Mark Cowan, Ex-Director at Facebook, Joe De Sena, CEO and founder of Spartan and Death Race, and Alain Renaud, previously global head of mergers and acquisitions at HSBC.
The funding will help the startup strengthen its technology infrastructure, scale its support system which eases behavioural changes through the power of community and connection.
HR specialist Omnipresent closed £1.5M seed funding
Backed by Playfair Capital and Episode 1, Omnipresent received this new investment within six weeks with other participation from other investors including Entrepreneur First, Truesight Ventures, Charlie Songhurst, Andrew Goodman, Akash Gupta, Srin Madipalli and Ian Hogarth.
Omnipresent will use this funding to enter new markets by the end of 2020 in order to meet the soaring demand from companies wanting to employ their inter-jurisdictional remote workers in a legally compliant and cost-effective manner.
Freelance hiring platform Twine receives £1.2M
Created in 2013, Twine, a platform that helps companies hire quality freelancers from a network of over 350,000, was backed by GC Angels, Greater Manchester Combined Authority and private business angels from across the north of England.
Based in Manchester and founded by Stuart Logan, a graduate from the University of Manchester, Twine curates the best freelancers for a job to provide companies with high quality and consistent talent. Twine will use the investment to build on this growth by expanding its development, sales and marketing teams.
Movie industry fintech FilmChain receives £853K seed investment from HearstLab and other investors
HearstLab, an investor in women-led startups, announced its seed investment in London-based financial technology (fintech) company FilmChain. Serving the global film and television industry, FilmChain collects revenues and pays production stakeholders in a transparent and automatic manner, leveraging a private Ethereum blockchain ledger to maintain transaction information.
Further extending its leadership in providing financial transparency, FilmChain recently launched dynamic customizable performance reports for producers, sales agents and investors – an industry first for film collection management.
Online art marketplace Artfinder raised over £830K
In its current crowdfunding campaign, Artfinder was backed by a total of 1,320 investors in four weeks - including Spotify, Zoopla, Wellington Partners, Oxford Capital, Cambridge Angels, and other private investors in the UK, the US and Switzerland.
Investors will receive equity in the business, which has now reached a valuation of £10M. The business crowdfunding campaign remains open until the end of September. Created in 2010, Artfinder became the art world’s first B Corp in 2019, solidifying its commitment to its values to support artists and make art affordable and accessible.
Social care manager Log my Care raised £600K
Founded by Sam Hussain, Log my Care, an app that manages social care delivery was backed by RYSE Asset Management. With the funding, the healthtech startup plans to build more tools to digitalise and streamline social care, as well as expanding its user base to reach thousands of care services.
Log my Care provides a cloud-based care planning software platform that enables care homes to take all their admin and planning online. The app is in use across hundreds of care services by thousands of carers, who in total have recorded nearly 30M care logs.
Manchester-based The Insights People raised £500K
Each year, The Insights People surveys 200K children and parents, providing clients with insights into kids’ attitudes, behaviours, and consumption. The global leader in kids, parents and family market intelligence was backed by DSW Angels, the business angel network focused on UK regional scale-ups.
With the funds, the company plans to accelerate its growth globally by entering Brazil, Mexico and Canada, and to create around eight new jobs in Manchester in the coming months.
Edtech BibliU raised an additional £500K Series A funding
Founded in 2014 by David Sherwood, BibliU was backed by Angel Investment Network (AIN) and will use the funds to hire new people to support demand from universities.
BibliU is a digital education platform that provides students with digital access to their textbooks and libraries across all their devices. The company has digitized content from more than 2,000 publishers such as Pearson, McGraw-Hill, Oxford University Press. The content is licensed directly to universities, who can then provide access to students and include the costs in their existing tuition fees.
Derby-based startup Transaction Technologies raises £200K to launch games payment platform
Transaction Technologies, which has developed a new payment system for the games industry has been backed by MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund, managed by Mercia and part of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF). The new platform will target the multi-billion-dollar market for in-game downloads. PlayerLands, as it is known, allows players to buy virtual goods within games and is one of the few systems that will accept payments in real money rather than cryptocurrencies.
Transaction Technologies provides a secure payment system that makes it easy to buy and sell virtual products online and for developers to set up their own stores, market their goods and manage their businesses.
