Audoo raises another £7.2m funding round
Sir Paul McCartney is among a group of investors behind a £7.2m funding round for music start-up Audoo. The former Beatle joined existing investors family office Edinv and Tileyard London, alongside Abba’s Bjorn Ulvaeus, in financing the company. Audoo enables collection agencies to monitor music being played in shops and hospitality to correctly apportion royalties. It has raised £14m in Series B funding so far. At present, collection agencies just guesstimate monies owing to musicians.
Kitt gets kitted out with £6.1m Series A
Managed office platform Kitt has raised £6.1m in Series A funding, taking the total raised by the business to £11.85m. Hoxton Ventures led the round with backing from Octopus Group CEO Simon Rogerson and Jonathan Wasserstrum, founder of SquareFoot. Kitt delivers a bespoke office for any business, from finding and designing the interior to handling legal agreements and managing all suppliers in one solution. Clients include Mars, Oatly and PZ Cussons Beauty.
Subdial clocks £4m investment
Subdial, a platform for trading pre-owned luxury watches, has raised £4m from VC Active Partners alongside existing angel investors. Subdial hopes to introduce more transparency into the second-hand luxury watch market, where high-street sellers often putting outrageous mark-ups on watches over their true market price. McKinsey estimates that the second-hand luxury watch market, which had $18bn of sales in 2019, could top $30bn by 2025.
Fuzey books £3.4m in seed funding
Fuzey, a platform which centralises communications, payments, marketing and calendars, has raised €4m (£3.4m) in a seed round. Nordic venture capital firm byFounders led the round with participation from Flash Ventures (which led the start-up’s pre-seed round), Global Founders Capital, Ascension and angel investors. Fuzey’s all-in-one digital toolkit enables service-based SMEs, such as plumbers, electricians, and mechanics, to improve their customer service and increase efficiency by managing appointments, streamline payments, and promote themselves on social media.
Edukoya gets schooled with £2.6m pre-seed round
Edukoya, a London-based Africa-focused fee online learning platform, has raised $3.5m (£2.6m) in a pre-seed round led by Target Global with strategic participation from angel investors. Only having launched this month, Edukoya is currently operating in beta with a focus on Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.
Vert gets green light with £2m funding raised
Vert Technologies, which makes energy-efficient components for refrigerators and heat pumps, has raised £1.9m in total through investors. Existing investors Par Equity, Equity Gap, US investor Aero-Den and Scottish Enterprise invested £775,000 between them, while Scottish Enterprise awarded a separate £650,000 grant and the Government’s business department made a separate £490,000 award.
Champo lathers up with £900,000 pre-Series A
Champo, a natural hair care brand, has raised $1.2m (£900,000) from angel investors to expand its retail offer, develop new products and rollout internationally. PwC Raise I Ventures advices on the fundraise. The global hair care market is tipped to grow from $75bn in 2020 to $113bn by 2028.
Parkwalk takes a walk with new EIS fund
Parkwalk, the university spinout VC investor, has launched its second Knowledge Intensive EIS fund. Its first KI EIS Fund raised over £20m last year. Parkwalk is the largest EIS fundraiser in Britain, having raised £65m in 2020/21 through the scheme. Recently it exited Yasa when the electric motor engine manufacturer was sold to Mercedes – one of the largest EIS exits in recent years.
More Deals of the Week
Deals of the week Dec 6 to Dec 10 – a GrowthBusiness roundup
