Blackstone leads £575m Series C for Mollie

Mollie, the payment service provider, has closed an $800m (£575m) Series C funding round, taking the total amount raised by the company to over $940m. The round was led by funds managed by Blackstone Growth, Blackstone’s growth equity investing business, and included EQT Growth, General Atlantic, HMI Capital and Alkeon Capital. TCV, which led the Series B investment in September 2020, also participated in the round. The funding will fuel Mollie’s international expansion, team scaling and continued investment in product and engineering.

DMG Ventures puts £15m into Kortext e-learning platform

Kortext, the university digital teaching and learning platform, has raised £15m from dmg ventures to develop its platform. Paul Zwillenberg, CEO of DMGT, will join the Kortext board. The move to blended learning and more remote-first, distance university learning, because of the pandemic, has increased demand for Kortext by 300 per cent in one year. The platform hosts 2m e-textbooks from over 4,000 publishers and provides every student with their own personal study space, connecting them to their course, their peers, and their lecturers.

IoTecha charged up with £7m BP investment

bp ventures has invested $7m (£5m) in electric vehicle (EV) charging firm, IoTecha, leading a $13.2m investment round. IoTecha siphons electricity from homes and buildings, as well as the electricity grid, to help charge electric vehicles. It also enables unused power to be sold back to the grid. BP has committed to providing 70,000 electric charging points worldwide by 2030.

Oxwash cleans up with £5m seed round

Oxwash, an environmentally friendly laundry start-up, has raised £2m in an expanded seed round bringing the total raised to £5.2m. Future Positive joined the round alongside Pentland Group – owner of the Ellesse and Canterbury sportswear brands – and Sir Richard Branson’s children, Holly and Sam. Oxwash, which collects laundry on electric cargo bikes, counts Marriott Hotel Group among its clients.

Clustermarket discovers £3m from new investors

Clustermarket has raised $3.5m (£2.5m) from private investor 24Haymarket and Forward Partners, an early stage investor focused on applied AI, marketplaces and e-commerce. Clustermarket is a combined lab management software and lab equipment marketplace that lists over 70,000 scientific instruments on its platform. It is used by over 60,000 scientists at universities including MIT, Oxford and Cambridge. Existing investors such as industry heavyweights Jonathan Milner and Bruce Barclay also participated in the round.

Kiteline flies with £370,000 funding

Kiteline, the employee health coaching start-up, has closed £370,000 in funding to meet the demand for support for those in the workplace coping with chronic conditions, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and, most recently, long Covid. SFC Capital led the found with VC Antler and angel investors participating.

Further reading

Deals of the week June 14 to June 18 – a GrowthBusiness roundup