#HTSBupdate 03/2024
We have selected the 40 startups to pitch the first U.S. edition of HIGHTECH VENTURE DAYS on May 7/8 in Washington, D.C.?Find them here?and get your ticket at?www.htvd.us.
AI and Electronics for Medicine?is an academic-industrial forum for exchange and translation |?11th – 13th September 2024 in the CRTD Dresden See more:?https://www.ai-and-electronics-for-medicine.de/
Robot Valley invites you to a new expo-format, the?Robotics-Days at OTWorld. This unique platform is designed to showcase the most advanced robotics and automation technologies and solutions specifically for the burgeoning healthcare and assistive technology market. With a focus on innovation and connectivity, Robotics-Days offers an unparalleled opportunity to showcase your products to a global audience of the industry's most influential figures and potential partners. See more:?https://robotvalley.eu/robotics-days/
V E N T U R E N E W S
Enpal secures € 1.1 billion in refinancing commitments for German residential solar and heat pump securitizations Enpal, Germany’s ?leading system integrator in the field of renewable energies and “greentech unicorn,” has partnered with Barclays Europe, Bank of America and Credit Agricole CIB, three leading global investment banks, as well as the Canadian pension investment manager Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), to accelerate the rollout of its integrated financing product for residential solar and heat pump customers.
Enpal has secured total senior refinancing commitments of more than € 1 billion from Barclays Europe, Bank of America and Credit Agricole CIB in two separate ABS warehousing facilities, as well as total mezzanine debt commitments of € 118 million from CPP Investments. These off-balance sheet facilities will provide more than 35,000 German residential customers with an integrated financing solution for new photovoltaic (PV) systems and other renewable energy products including energy storage, electric vehicle charging systems and heat pumps, all of which are connected, managed, and optimized on Enpal’s proprietary energy management platform. ?
Co-led by Sweden-based Segulah Medical Acceleration, Italy-based XGEN Venture, and Germany-based TechVision Fund, as well as other investors, the funding round will support the enrollment of the PROTEMBO investigational device exemption (IDE) trial (NCT05873816).?
Sunfire, a Dresden, Germany-based electrolyzer manufacturer, secured more than EUR 500m in funding.
The funding included:
Leading carbon accounting startup?Greenly?has announced a €48 million Series B funding round led by Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, two years after a successful €21 million Series A. This latest fundraising effort establishes Greenly as a global leader in a market poised for massive adoption, spurred by new regulations like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the recent US requirement for public companies to report their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
In addition to Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, this funding round welcomes new investors such as BGV (Benhamou Global Ventures), Move Capital, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HSBC, while existing partners like XAnge and Energy Impact Partners reaffirm their resolute support for Greenly. Brian Halligan, Co-Founder and Chairperson of HubSpot, also participated in the round, contributing his extensive experience to further Greenly’s mission.
ENVIRIA, Germany’s leading commercial and industrial (C&I) decentralized energy solutions provider, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement on an equity investment of over €185 million from BlackRock, through its Global Renewable Power IV (GRP IV) fund. The additional capital will support the expansion of the already existing 500 C&I solar projects across Germany as part of the company’s growth plan.
Cure51, a Paris, France-based techbio company, raised €15M in Seed funding. The round was led by Sofinnova Partners, with participation from Hitachi Ventures GmbH, Life Extension Ventures, Xavier Niel, and Olivier Pomel.
Innatera, a Rijswijk, The Netherlands-based provider of ultra-low power neuromorphic processors, raised €15M in Series A funding.
Backers included Invest-NL Deep Tech Fund, the EIC Fund, MIG Capital, Matterwave Ventures, and Delft Enterprises.
e-peas, a Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium-based company which specializes in ultra-low power management for energy harvesting, raised €17.5M in funding.
The round was led by Otium Capital, with participation from new investors Nomainvest and EIC Fund, as well as existing investors KBC Focus Fund, The Faktory, Wallonie Entreprendre, Noshaq-Leansquare, and Start.Invest.
Argá Medtech, a Lausanne, Switzerland-based company providing a cardiac ablation system for treating cardiac arrhythmias, raised €54M in Series B funding.
The round was led by existing investors Advent Life Sciences and Earlybird Health, as well as new investor Gilde Healthcare and an undisclosed investor.
EFFECT Photonics, a leading developer of highly integrated optical solutions, today announced it has secured $38 million Series D funding, led by Innovation Industries?Strategic Partners Fund, backed by Dutch pension funds PMT and PME, along with co-investor Invest-NL Deep Tech Fund and participation from other existing investors.
Care enablement healtech platform?Anima, announced its oversubscribed $12 million Series A, led by?Molten Ventures.
Clinics and healthcare professionals face severe financial constraints, inefficiencies, and burnout.
The CareVoice, a Luxembourg-based embedded health enabler for insurers, raised nearly $10M in Series B funding.
The round was led by Apis Insurtech Fund I.
Heyflow, a Hamburg, Germany-based no-code software to build, design and integrate clickflows, raised $16M in Series A funding.
The round was led by Singular.
The company intends to use the funds to accelerate product development and expand its customer base into new markets.
Threedy, a Darmstadt, Germany-based spatial computing technology company, raised $10M in Series A funding.
Backers included LBBW Venture Capital, Trumpf Venture, Futury Capital, and EquityPitcher Ventures.
Cemvision, a Stockholm, Sweden-based climate tech company, raised €10M in funding.
The round saw participation from Polar Structure and BackingMinds, and Zacua Ventures.
Mews, an Amsterdam, The Netherlands-based hospitality cloud provider, is raising $110m in funding.
The round is led by existing investor Kinnevik, alongside Revaia, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Notion Capital and new investor LGVP.
The new funding, which values the company at $1.2bn, will see the company prioritize its global expansion, research and development, and acquisitions.
Phagenesis, a Manchester, UK-based company which has developed a neurostimulation system to treat swallowing dysfunction, has closed a $42M Series D financing.
The round was led by EQT Life Sciences and Sectoral Asset Management with participation from with new investors British Patient Capital, Northern Gritstone and Aphelion.
The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and development efforts. With the recent approval of Phagenyx? by the FDA in the United States, the investment is primarily intended to support commercialization in the United States and deepen penetration in Europe. It will also support clinical trials, regulatory activities, as well as research and development of pipeline products.
Tubulis, a Munich, Germany-based oncology company, closed an upsized €128m ($138.8m) Series B2 financing.
The round was co-led by EQT Life Sciences and Nextech Invest Ltd, on behalf of one or more funds managed by it, with participation from new US-based funds, Frazier Life Sciences and Deep Track Capital as well as all existing investors, including Andera Partners, BioMedPartners, Fund+, Bayern Kapital (with ScaleUp-Fonds Bayern), Evotec, coparion, Seventure Partners, OCCIDENT and High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF). In conjunction with the financing, Christoph Broja, Managing Director at EQT Life Sciences and Kanishka Pothula, Managing Partner at Nextech Invest will join Tubulis’ Supervisory Board.
Hamburg-based Novocarbo bags €25 million to catalyse Europe’s net zero infrastructure German startup?Novocarbo?has secured €25 million in growth funding to establish a pan-European infrastructure network of its net-zero solution. The investment made by SWEN Capital Partners (SWEN CP) marks one of the largest CDR-investments in Europe within the last year. With the new financing through the SWEN Impact Fund for Transition 2 fund, Novocarbo will further expand its network of Carbon Removal Parks in Europe.
Curve Therapeutics, a Southampton, UK-based private biotechnology company, raised $40.5M in Series A funding.
The round was led by Pfizer Ventures with participation from Columbus Venture Partners and British Patient Capital, which joined founding investor Advent Life Sciences and co-lead from the seed round, Epidarex Capital.
By offering exclusive introductory offers through its app, NeoTaste provides customers with new culinary experiences while allowing restaurants to expand their customer base.
Polar Signals, a Berlin, Germany-based leader in AI-Driven Performance Optimizations, secured an additional $6.8m in funding, bringing its total capital raised to $10.8m.
The round was led by Spark Capital, with contributions from GV, Lightspeed, Haystack, Lorimer, and an esteemed group of angel investors including Guillermo Rauch, Julius Volz, Monica Sarbu, Jimmy Zelinskie, Nikhil Benesch, and Erik Bernhardsson.
Polar Signals Cloud is an always-on, zero-instrumentation continuous profiling product that helps improve performance, understand incidents, and lower infrastructure costs.
Relation Therapeutics, a London, UK-based biotechnology company leveraging computational and experimental approaches to drug discovery, raised $35M in Seed funding.
The round, which brought the total amount to $60M, was led by DCVC and NVentures, with participation from initial seed lead Magnetic Ventures, existing investors Khosla Ventures, and Abcam founder Jonathan Milner, and new investors ARK Invest and Deerfield Management Company.
Watttron?secures €12 million in funding to develop technological capabilities and market expansion
Temperature control systems company?Watttron?announced it has successfully raised €12 million in SERIES B funding to develop the technological capabilities of its packaging solutions and expand into the American and Asian markets.
The round was led by the?Circular Innovation Fund?(CIF) - a global venture capital fund focused on circular innovation and jointly managed by European-based?Demeter?and North American-based?Cycle Capital?- and the?European Circular Bioeconomy Fund?(ECBF).?
Asgard Therapeutics, a Lund, Sweden-based biotech company developing?in vivo?direct cell reprogramming for cancer immunotherapy, raised €30M in Series A funding.
The round was led by RV Invest and Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., with participation from existing investors Novo Holdings, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and Industrifonden.
领英推荐
Candela, a leading maker of electric vessels, announced it has closed the largest funding round in the company’s history, to expand production of its game-changing electric ferries. A key partner in the €25 million round is the leading global boat maker Groupe Beneteau.?Other backers in the round include longtime investors EQT Ventures, Ocean Zero LLC, and Kan Dela AB. The new investment brings total funding since Candela’s inception to over €70 million.
Mission Therapeutics, a Cambridge, UK-based clinical-stage biotech company developing therapeutics that enhance mitophagy to promote cell/organ health, raised ￡25.2M in funding.
The round was led by existing investors Pfizer Venture Investments, Sofinnova Partners, Roche Venture Fund, SR One, IP Group, and Rosetta Capital.
The company intends to use the funds to accelerate development of its lead drug candidates, MTX325 and MTX652, through clinical trials.
Adaptive ML, a Paris, France- and New York-based startup enabling companies to perpetually improve their generative AI models based on users’ interactions, raised $20m in seed funding.
The round was led by?Index Ventures with participation from?ICONIQ Capital,?Motier Ventures,?Databricks Ventures,?IRIS,?HuggingFund by Factorial, and other angel investors.
Simera Sense, a Leuven, Belgium-based company providing end-to-end optical solutions for the small satellite Earth observation industry, raised €13.5M in Growth funding.
Backers included NewSpace Capital and Knife Capital.
BotGuard Oü, an Estonia-founded cybersecurity software company has secured a €12 million Series A funding round.?The company helps web hosting providers control traffic and protect their infrastructure from malicious threats.
Nearly half of all internet traffic comes from bots, exposing website owners to threats such as data theft, scams, and DDoS attacks. Good bots exist everywhere: every payment system, CMS, or social tool uses ‘good bots’.?
Greenlyte Carbon Technologies, an Essen, Germany-based direct air capture startup, raised €10.5M in Pre-Series A funding.
The round saw participation from Earlybird Venture Capital, Green Generation Fund, and Carbon Removal Partners, Board member Dr. Udo Jung, as well as Partech.
SUBLIME Energy, a mission-driven deeptech startup specializing in biogas liquefaction technologies, has successfully secured €11.5 million in financing to accelerate the implementation of its innovative technology directly on farms. Led by The Révolution Environnementale et Solidaire managed by Crédit Mutuel Impact, the funding round will also enable the company to recruit new staff, launch a demonstration project to produce green fuel by 2025 and create a ground-breaking network to collect biogas.
M & A
The amount of the deal was not disclosed.
With this acquisition, Accenture Song will further expand its commerce services for clients globally.
The acquisition of Mindcurv?previously announced?on February 28, 2024, adds over 700 people to Accenture Song, bringing expertise in in composability skills, data, and AI capabilities.
I N V E S T O R N E W S
World Fund, one of Europe’s leading climate tech VC, has closed a?€300 million?first fund. Notable backing comes from major investors including EIF, KfW Capital, Wachstumsfonds, BPI France, PwC Germany, NRWbank and Ignitis Group. A number of pension funds also joined the fund, including the UK Environment Agency Pension Fund, Wiltshire Pension Fund, and Croatia’s Erste Plavi. World Fund’s first investor Ecosia, Europe’s largest independent search engine, also committed capital.
Closing at this amount means that World Fund has raised the largest ever first-time fund in European climate VC history. This capital will enable the World Fund team to make 25-30 substantial investments into European startups, those building technologies with the potential to decarbonise entire industries.
Frontline Ventures, a London, UK, Dublin, Ireland, and San Francisco, CA- venture capital firm focusing on B2B software companies, raised $200m across two funds.?
Frontline Growth and Frontline Seed will propel the transatlantic expansion of B2B software companies, fostering innovation in both North America and Europe.
OTB Ventures?announced that it has closed a €170 million significantly oversubscribed fund, to build and scale Europe’s most promising early-stage deeptech startups. Fund 2 will be backed by the European Investment Fund (EIF), Isomer Capital, NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), Foundation for Polish Science, TDJ Venture, Snowflake co-Founder Marcin Zukowski and OnDean, the family office of the Founders of Relativity.
Agricultural small and medium-sized businesses are being given a boost today under a plan by?HeavyFinance,?a marketplace that connects investors with European farmers. The company is raising €50 million for a private credit fund to help advance agriculture's decarbonisation in Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal.
The fund will provide mid-term debt capital for small and medium-sized agricultural companies to support their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint through greener practices.?
Team8, a fund known for its role in the digital transformation across various sectors, has announced the closing of funds amounting to $500m.
This latest funding round propels its total assets under management to a landmark figure well beyond $1bn. Since its inception in 2014, Team8 has redefined the venture capital model with a hands-on approach that closely aligns with the operational and strategic needs of the companies it builds and invests in. This method has garnered strong support from an elite group of limited partners (LPs), corporate backers, and leading figures in some of the world’s foremost companies.
Early-stage investment fund?Plural?announced today a new €400 million fund to back the most ambitious founders on a mission to change the world through technology.?
Plural was launched in June 2022 with the aim of giving serious founders in Europe investors the experience to match their ambition.?
Only 8 percent of European VCs have built a company before, yet investors will better serve founders building hard companies with first-hand experience.
Plural’s investor team of Carina Namih, Ian Hogarth, Khaled Helioui, Sten Tamkivi and Taavet Hinrikus have decades of company-building experience having spearheaded globally significant tech companies including Wise, Skype, Songkick, Teleport, Bigpoint, and HelixNano.?
Corran Capital, an Edinburgh, Scotland, UK-based clean energy private equity firm, raised ￡80M for Corran II, its second fund.
Investors in Corran II include US fund Lexington Partners, Strathclyde Pension Fund’s Direct Impact Fund and SSE plc.
Led by Gary Le Sueur, founding partner, Corran Capital is a specialist private equity firm which backs entrepreneurs from across the clean energy and environmental sectors.?
I N T E R E S T I N G R E A D S
Deal announcements have been on the up recently — but it is it a false start?
Experts expect further IPOs in Germany after Douglas Following the IPO of perfumery chain Douglas, experts expect more companies to take the plunge this year. "The signs for a thawing of the market for IPOs in Germany are good," Martin Steinbach, Partner at the auditing and consulting firm EY, told the German Press Agency. "Provided the markets remain stable and continue to develop positively, we see potential for ten to twelve IPOs of German companies."
The EPO’s Patent Index 2023, published today, shows that innovation remained robust, with companies and inventors filing a record number of European patent applications last year.
Companies and inventors filed 199 275 patent applications at the EPO last year, an increase of 2.9% on the previous year and the highest number to date, according to the latest Patent Index 2023?published today. This follows growth of 2.6% in 2022 and 4.7% in 2021.
Some believe the clouds are beginning to part: last week,?investors told Sifted?that the growth stage scene across Europe is starting to look more promising again. But?new data from equity management platform Carta?has revealed that while the amount that Series B companies are raising is on the up, it’s taking much longer for these deals to get done than it has in the past.?
Things to know about the Research Data Act Better data protection, easier access and better discoverability of data for research: the requirements for the new Research Data Act (FDG) were identified in a stakeholder consultation and many other discussion formats. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has now published a key points paper on the subject. Our FAQ answers the most important questions about the law.
The United States has taken a pioneering role at the United Nations with its proposal for the first-ever resolution focused on AI.
According to?Associated Press, this initiative aims to guarantee that AI technology is developed and utilized in a manner that is safe, secure, and trustworthy. Furthermore, it seeks to ensure that all nations, particularly those in the developing world, can equally access and benefit from AI advancements.
The draft resolution tabled at the General Assembly underscores the importance of narrowing the digital divide and ensuring inclusive participation in AI discussions. It highlights the necessity for a global consensus on the development of AI systems that are both safe and beneficial, amidst their rapid advancement and deployment across various sectors. Recognizing the evolving nature of AI governance, the resolution calls for continued dialogue on potential regulatory frameworks.
Amadeus Capital Partners?has been investing in technology-enabled products and services for nearly three decades. Founded by?Anne Glover?and Hermann Hauser in 1997, Amadeus has backed more than 190 companies and raised over $1 billion for investment to date.
When we had a chance to?sit down with Anne?on the sidelines of the recent Tech Tour Growth 50 Europe event in Paris, we jumped on the opportunity to get her take on the state of the European deep tech entrepreneurship and investment ecosystem(s).
Top-down funding schemes are still not enough for LPs to overcome their ethical concerns
Orrick?publishes report on the state of European venture capital deal flow.
Spain to set up a new body tasked with pumping €20bn into deeptech Spanish government seeks to speed up disbursement of funds for tech startups
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