Plant-based foodtech beefs up after £61m funding round

Swiss foodtech startup Planted, known for its clean-label biostructured meat, successfully closed its Series B financing round of CHF 70m (£61m).

The round was led by L Catterton, the largest global consumer-focused private equity firm. Planted will use the funds to launch its new whole-cut line of products including its chicken breast, further its international expansion and increase production capacity.

L Catterton is joined by existing investors such as Vorwerk Ventures, Gullspång Re:food, Movendo, Be8 Ventures, ACE, ETH Zürich Foundation, Yann Sommer, as well as new investor Tengelmann Ventures.

Investors prove their loyalty by supporting all-digital platform with €55o,ooo

A Lithuanian all-digital customer loyalty platform has raised €550,000 (£477,000) in a follow-up investment round, aiming to make customer acquisition and retention easy and affordable.

After successfully growing its revenue three times over the past year in the Baltic states, Boomio will use this new funding to improve their product and expand to the German market.

The current round of investment was led by Lighthouse Ventures and a syndicate of four European angel investors. Last year, Boomio received an investment of €215,000 (£186,000) from 2 LitBAN investors and 2 VC funds – 70V and Startup Wise Guys.

Boomio addresses this issue by centralising all available saving methods (coupons, cards, discounts) and providing an easy way to use their web platform and app, where setting up a loyalty system will take a few hours rather than weeks or months.

Britain’s sole AgTech bank reap the seeds they’ve sown with £25m Tier 2 capital funding

Oxbury Bank – the UK’s first and only AgTech bank – has secured £25m in Tier 2 capital funding, with the investment made by British Business Investments, a wholly-owned commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank.

The new funding will support Oxbury’s forecast growth in lending across the British farm and food sector, as farmers look for more flexible finance to support their sector as they address the challenges of on-going security of the UK’s food supply and also the transition to long-term sustainable supply.

This Tier 2 Capital facility from British Business Investments will enable Oxbury Bank to support additional lending of £250m to small and medium British businesses across the remainder of 2022 and through 2023.

The new funding follows on from a further £20m in new Core Tier 1 equity raised in July from new and existing investors, with total capital raised and secured by Oxbury Bank having now reached £93m.

Justhome hits a home run with €3.3m raise

Justhome, the next generation home financing start-up, has raised €3.3m (£2.8m) in a pre-seed funding round led by Target Global.

APX, the Berlin-based early-stage fund backed by Europe’s leading digital publisher Axel Springer, and Porsche, also participated in the round, alongside a number of industry-leading angel investors.

Launched this year to simplify what can be a confusing and intimidating homebuying process, Justhome is building a digital service to help more people afford a home against a challenging economic backdrop.

The funding will be used to further build out Justhome’s digital home financing platform and develop its own financing solutions.

£1m investment supercharges graphene technology SME’s batteries

Bristol-based Anaphite, which is developing new technology to improve batteries for electric vehicles, has raised just under £1m from Wealth Club clients under the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS).

The funding was part of Anaphite’s latest £4.1m funding institutional round, with Wealth Club taking 20 per cent of the raise. Blue Wire Capital, OION, Zero Carbon Capital, Silicon Roundabout Ventures and Deeptech Labs, who are highly regarded as an accelerator for deep tech companies, have also invested.

Healthtech attracts €7m to pioneer patient-centric neurorehabilitation

Neurofenix, a healthtech start-up with roots in the UK, has picked up a capital investment of €7m (£6m) to build out its product line and kickstart clinical trials in the US. The start-up is taking a pioneering patient-centric approach to recovery and at-home therapy that is proving to be more engaging and supportive.

Neurofenix is on a mission to improve rehabilitation for neurological patients – those who have suffered traumas like stroke, and brain and spinal cord injury. It’s thought that over 75 per cent of stroke, traumatic brain and spinal cord injury patients face long-term disabilities because of insufficient neurorehabilitation and a shortage of occupational therapists.

The Series A round was led by AlbionVC, with additional participation by HTH, InHealth Ventures and existing investors.

This €7m investment comes in addition to an undisclosed amount of seed funding.

More Deals of the Week

Deals of the Week August 22 to August 26 – a Growth Business round-up