Digital+ Partners sends £29m to Seven Senders

Seven Senders, the parcel shipping delivery platform, has closed a Series C funding round of $40m (£29m). As with previous funding rounds, the lead investor was Digital+ Partners alongside European VC BTOV. Customers include e-commerce brands such as ASOS, Shop Apotheke, Lillydoo, Mister Spex, Juniqe, Flaconi, Westwing, Best Secret, foodspring, Limango and Thomann.

Seven Senders recently opened new country offices in Amsterdam, Vienna and Madrid. In February Seven Senders launched a parcel solution specifially aimed at UK retailers ensuring seamless deliver post Brexit. 

Family office Arete invests £10m in Tactus Group

North West-based multi-family investment office Arete, has has led an £11.3m investment round into consumer technology product development specialists Tactus Group, investing £10m itself.  

Warrington-based Tactus provides multi-branded IT hardware to global retailers and the public sector. The investment from Arete enabled Tactus to complete a recent acquisition of PC gaming specialist CCL computers, which sees the group become a £125m turnover business.

Guinness orders £2.9m investment in takeaway app LOKE

Guinness Asset Management has led a £2.85m funding round for LOKE, the white-label food takeaway and delivery platform, whose hospitality customers include Baskin Robbins, City Pub Group, Australian Venue Co, Ya Kun Kaya Toast, Shake Shack and Greene King. LOKE’s mobile app claims to increase average order value, frequency of transactions and reduce labour costs.

Maven invests £2.5m in big data analytics firm Cardinality 

Maven Capital Partners has invested £2.5m in Cardinality, a software and service provider which helps companies analyse big data at scale. Cardinality’s customers include Vodafone, Telefonica, Etisalat and Zain. 

Nory raises £1.5m for AI-driven restaurant automation

Dublin-based Nory has raised a pre-seed round of $2m (£1.45m) to help restaurants manage the full-suite of operations from staffing and stock management and promotional campaigns. The pre-seed round is led by Cavalry Ventures and Playfair Capital, with additional participation from Enterprise Ireland and angel investors from Europe and the US. 

Thirdfort identifies £1.5m in third funding round

LoveFilm and Zoopla co-founder Alex Chesterman has doubled down on his backing of an anti-money laundering start-up, investing in the business for a third time. The billionaire entrepreneur, who now runs online car dealer Cazoo, has repeatedly backed Thirdfort, which helps lawyers verify the identities of their clients. The London-based company has raised £1.5m in a new round of funding.

Quiet Capital raves about dance music tech platform TheCLUB.tv

London-based TheCLUB.tv, a new augmented reality virtual streaming platform for DJs and music artists, has raised $600,000 (£436,000) from Silicon Valley venture capital fund Quiet Capital. TheCLUB.tv offers a way for DJs and electronic dance music (EDM) artists to showcase music to fans by staging immersive virtual events.

Loyalize racks up £250,000 pre-seed round

Loyalize, a white-label engagement platform which combines payment and loyalty into a single transaction, has raised £250,000 in pre-seed funding as it ramps up platform development.

SFC Capital led the round, along with top-up contributions from new and existing angels, which will enable the company to build its platform with its focus on open banking and payments. 

Loyalize is planning another seed round later this year.

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Deals of the week April 6 to April 9 – GrowthBusiness roundup