Deepstash look to deepen workforce after £2.7m investment

Deepstash, the startup that uses a social media feed to bring people new ideas, announced a €3m (£2.7m) seed round led by Connect Ventures, alongside GapMinder VC, Cultivate Capital.

The funding will be used to make a number of hires in Deepstash’s engineering, growth and marketing departments, increasing its workforce from 16 to 20 over the next few months, which will enable the next iteration of Deepstash that includes more social media features.

Lending business drafts in investors with £16m round

Updraft, a part lending, part credit report, and part financial planning app designed to tackle escalating consumer borrowing, has secured £16m in funding from Quilam Capital and the UK Government’s Future Fund alongside a group of high-net-worth investors.

The funding will help its members avoid unnecessary credit card and overdraft charges.

Investors have spoken, raising £5m for speech-to-text platform

Trint, an A.I.-powered speech-to-text platform for content creation, has raised £5m from investors including £2m from Edge Investments.

Edge’s investment and network will support Trint plans to triple its workforce to 150 employees by July of 2021. It will also help the company expand its product development including the creation of a new market category called StoryTech.

Ziglu end crowdfund with over £6m

Ziglu, the personal money app, has closed its Seedrs crowdfunding campaign after raising more than £6m from over 1250 investors.

The investment will go to fund its technology and product development teams, international expansion and meet the growing demand for the app.

NOVELTEA raise £1.4m fund pot

NOVELTEA, the alcoholic tea company, has received £1.4m in backing from North East Venture Fund (NEVF), the government’s Future Fund and CrowdCube.

The funding will allow founders Vincent Efferoth and Lukas Passia to target new overseas markets, expand their product range and create 20 new jobs at the company’s base in Newcastle.

Dorm may prove influential after £741,000 backing

Dorm, an education platform for influencers, entrepreneurs and creators in the passion economy, has raised $1m (£741,000), after being backed by Plug & Play Ventures, Playfair Capital, and RLC Ventures.

The funds have helped the product launch which happened on the 2nd of December.

Playfair Capital have been helping entrepreneurs build technology businesses since 2013. It has backed the founders of more than 60 companies including CryptoFacilities (acq. Kraken), Mapillary (acq. Facebook), Ravelin, Stripe, Thought Machine and Trouva.

Rockwater Hove gets local and investor backing totaling £3.7m

Rockwater Hove, a community driven hospitality venue on Hove’s seafront, has raised £3.7m from IW Capital and local residents.

The funds will be used to refurbish the space and create a roof terrace as well as expanding “Rockwater Life” a lifestyle and hospitality offering.

IW Capital focuses on originating, structuring, managing and leading tax-efficient investment through EIS investments and providing debt funding to SMEs.

Homeppl welcomes investor support with £1.43m round

Homeppl, the tenant referencing platform that assesses the UK’s 15 million tenants’ risk level, has raised $2m (£1.43m) with support from Ascension Ventures, Fair By Design, and JLR Star and is a Barclays Techstars company.

The funds will support Homeppl increasing growth with more staff in R&D, operations, and sales.

BBI backs BPEC and Newable

Newable Ventures and Bristol Private Equity Club (BPEC) have secured £10m in new funding from British Business Investments to fund early stage businesses across the UK.

The commitment from British Business Investments’ Regional Angels Programme will be invested by Newable Ventures, in partnership with BPEC, to deliver around £25m of new funding.

The funding will be split between Newable’s Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) fund, which supports a diversified UK-wide portfolio of knowledge intensive businesses, and separate fund to back businesses across the South West.

FinTech company pockets £15m Seris B

Pockit, an inclusive FinTech company that focuses on customers who are excluded and underserved by high street banks, has secured a £15m Series B funding round that includes a £500,000 crowdfund hosted on Crowdcube.

The money raised in this round will be matched by the Future Fund, the funding scheme designed by the UK government and delivered by the British Business Bank.

Contingent announce £1.7m in seed funding deal

Contingent, the AI powered supplier risk and resilience platform, announced a $2.3m (£1.7m) Seed funding round led by Connect Ventures with participation from Seedcamp, Concentric and Angel Invest Ventures.

The funding will be used to accelerate product development and will also be used to make a number of strategic hires, with plans to double headcount within the next 12-months.

Connect Ventures is a thesis-led venture capital firm based in London and investing across Europe. It leads seed investments and has backed over 50 startups from a range of industries across both B2B and consumer software.

Primer primed and ready for international development after £14m Series A

Primer, the low-code payments infrastructure and online checkout API, today announces a £14m Series A funding round led by Accel and supported by existing investors Balderton, SpeedInvest and Seedcamp and were joined in the round by RTP Global. The investment brings Primer’s total funding to £17.8m.

Primer will use the funds to expand business development efforts internationally and to scale its remote-first product and engineering organisation. 

Accel is a global venture capital firm that has backed companies like Arista, Atlassian, Braintree, Celonis, CrowdStrike, Deliveroo, Dropbox, Etsy, Facebook. In 2019, the total amount of funds managed by Accel reached $3bn (£2.2bn).

Living Map plot course for roll-out with £8500,000 investment

Living Map, the digital map and data platform, has completed an £850,000 funding round led by existing investors Committed Capital and Mercia Asset Management.

The funding will allow the Bath-based company to further enhance its technology and support the continued roll-out of its new service to guide passengers transferring between flights at airports.

Further reading

Deals of the Week, November 20 to 27 – Growth Business roundup