Covid crisis contingency continued with £50m loan

MarketFinance, a fintech business lender, has secured £50m from Israeli asset managers, Viola Credit, to lend through the CBILS initiative. MarketFinance is now able to offer a combination of business loans, invoice finance and revolving credit facilities through a single application.

MarketFinance, under the CBILS, provides term loans from £50,001 to £150,000 and revolving credit facilities from £50,001 to £5m to UK SMEs.

Since 2011, MarketFinance has advanced over £3 billion to companies across a range of sizes and sectors, providing working capital and finance to help businesses pay staff, launch new products or services and accelerating growth.

Mollie provided with £82.2m in backing

Mollie, a European payment service provider, closed its €90m (£82.2m) Series B funding round, led by TCV, taking the total amount raised by the company to €115m (£105.9m).

Mollie will use the funding to accelerate international expansion and invest in product development and engineering.

TCV provides capital to growth-stage private and public companies in the technology industry, it has invested over $13 billion in technology companies including Airbnb, AxiomSL, ExactTarget, Expedia, Facebook, LinkedIn, Netflix, Payoneer, and Spotify.

ThoughtRiver signs off on £7.5m Series A funding round

ThoughtRiver, an automated contract review company, raised $10m (£7.5m) in a Series A funding round led by Octopus Ventures and supported by existing investors Crane, Local Globe, Entrée Capital, Syndicate Room, and angel investor Duncan Painter.

ThoughtRiver’s will use the investment to grow its US market share, scale its sales and marketing efforts, and roll out integrations with major technology partners.

Octopus Ventures invest in tech companies, typically from £1m for Seed to £10m for Series B and can follow investments up to £25m.

Dawn of new £310m European software fund

Dawn Capital, a European venture capital firm dedicated to B2B software, closed its Dawn IV fund at $400m (£309.8m).

Dawn IV will invest in Series A and B rounds in European B2B software startups and continuing to fund the best-performing companies through growth rounds with follow-on funds to successful exits. The fund will focus on Data & Analytics, Security, Fintech and Future of Work.

Bullhorn recruit a number of investors for their next growth phase

Bullhorn, the cloud computing company that helps recruiting organisations transform their businesses,  announced that Stone Point Capital will become the lead investor in their next phase of growth. Insight Partners and Genstar Capital will also remain investors in the business.

Genstar Capital is a private equity firm based in San Francisco, which currently manages approximately $19bn in assets and targets investments in financial services, healthcare, industrial, and software industries.

Stone Point Capital, a financial services-focused private equity firm, has raised and managed eight private equity funds and targets investments in the global financial services industry and related sectors.

Insight Partners, a venture capital and private equity firm, invests in high-growth technology and software ScaleUp companies. It has invested in more than 400 companies worldwide and raised more than $30 billion in capital commitments.

App looking for everyone to chip in with promising signs for funding round

Chip, the automatic saving app, will launch a funding round with 25,000 people already registering their interest in investing on Crowdcube. The company aims to raise a total of £10m.

As part of this round, Chip is also participating in the Future Fund, a government initiative, that will match equity funding raised.

This investment will be used to accelerate Chip’s growth, build on the revenue models, and expanding their development team.

Acquisitions roundup- Awin, Newco, Importaco S.A

Awin, a global affiliate network, has acquired the Australian affiliate marketing network Commission Factory. This follows on from Awin’s partnership with Commission Factory in 2017 and its equity stake in 2019. The move will mean Awin can offer its clients increased access to Australian, New Zealand and South East Asian markets.

Celsus Group Limited, which includes Medical Staffing and Locum Staffing, has been acquired by Newco, after receiving advice from Gateley Legal and backing from Sullivan Street Partners.

Besana Group, a snack marketing company, has sold 51% of its shares to international food and beverage company, Importaco S.A.

AegiQ secures £1.4m line of funding from Innovate UK

AegiQ, the UK quantum photonics start-up, gained £1.4m in funding from Innovate UK to develop secure communications for fibre-optic and satellite-based applications. AegiQ is currently raising its seed round of investment.

The Innovate UK funding will also enable AegiQ to invest in further R&D and production of its technology.

AegiQ is a spin-out of the University of Sheffield and part of the UK government’s £70m funding initiative to secure the UK’s position as a world leader in quantum technology.

Deals of the Week, August 28 to September 4 – Growth Business roundup