Electric car charging spinout drives away with £50m
An electric vehicle battery spinout from the University of Cambridge has raised £50m for technology that once brought to market could cut car charging time to less than five minutes. Vietnamese-based Masan High-Tech Materials led the Series B round.
Nyobolt’s technology, using battery research developed by Dame Prof Clare Philomena Grey, also improves power and durability by tenfold, it claims.
Career credentials verifier paid £7m
HR start-up Veremark has raised €8.2m (£7m) in a funding round led by US VC firm Stage 2 Capital with participation from Samaipata and existing investors.
Veremark’s solution allows businesses to run background checks on potential hires and verify their career credentials quickly. For candidates, it keeps all information and documents such as a driving licence in what it calls a “career passport” for quicker applications.
Freelancing platform for Gen Z closes £3.6m
London-based Passionfruit closed a seed round of $4.3m (£3.6m) to create a freelancing platform for Gen Z. Firstminute Capital and Playfair co-led the round, with participation from FJ Labs and Portfolio Ventures, Atomico, scout networks and angels.
Freelancers on the platform are given briefs tailored to their skills, transparency on annual earnings and mentorship. Around a third are interviewed by Passionfruit before given assignments.
Atlantic Money app transfers £2.5m
Money transfer app Atlantic Money has secured an additional $3m (£2.5m) in seed funding, led by Amplo and backed by Nordstar. This is in addition to $4.5m (£3.8m) in initial seed funding from investors including Index Ventures and Ribbit & Kleiner Perkins.
Atlantic Money allows money transfer of up to £1m but instead of an exchange rate and paying more the more you send, converts at the live exchange rate with a fixed £3 fee.
Letting platform brings home £750,000
Rental start-up lettingaproperty.com has raised £750,000 from the MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund and Mercia’s EIS funds.
The Henley-in-Arden-based rental platform offers landlords a suite of services including finding tenants, digital referencing, tenancy creation, rent protection and home emergency cover. It claims its landlords save on average 50 per cent compared to the cost of using a high street lettings agency.
Drone radar start-up spots £500,000
Drone radar start-up Cambridge Sensoriis has won grants worth £500,000 over two years from the UK Research and Innovation’s future flight programme.
The start-up has developed radar technology for drones that allows them to navigate high-risk, low altitude environments – essential for power line inspection, rail track surveillance and military logistics.
More Deals of the Week
Deals of the Week July 11 to July 15 – a Growth Business round-up
Deals of the Week July 4 to July 8 – a Growth Business round-up
