Pioneering payment tech. Smart health-tech. And our next cohort of early-stage innovators.

Hi all,

Since our last update, we have been navigating the knock-on effects of the recent SVB crisis and its impact on investors and startups. While it's been a challenging few weeks, we're seeing businesses on both sides of the ecosystem come together to regroup and recover from the initial shock. Although there is still uncertainty around how the situation will develop and its potential impact on investor confidence, we're optimistic that this is a temporary setback in the market's recovery. 

Closer to home, we're glad to report that momentum continues at Forward and in our portfolio. Deals are still being done and funding secured. In this month's edition of the Forward Thinking bulletin, you'll find two mini-profiles on companies within our portfolio that have recently raised great rounds.  

We're looking forward to kicking off our next acceleration programme, Funding Lab, in April. We received a record number of applications and have now selected a very high-quality cohort of exciting, early-stage businesses. Learn more about the programme and the cohort below.

Thanks as always for subscribing.

?? Latest follow-on rounds.

APEXX Global raises $25M Series B. 

APEXX's platform empowers merchants to connect via a simple API to the world's payment ecosystem, increasing conversion at lower cost and powering digital payments. Established in 2015 by Rodney Bain, Peter Keenan and Toreson Lloyd, the team has grown to 41 people working across 3 countries, serving clients that include ASOS, Avon, Xe, eShopworld and Air Seychelles.

 Earlier this month, the company raised $25m from existing and new investors, closing its Series B round. The funds will be used to develop APEXX’s products and technology and to expand its presence in North America.

APEXX raised the proceeds from investors across Europe, including MMC Ventures, who has backed the company since 2017, alongside Alliance Ventures and Forward Partners who increased their investments after participating in the previous round. MMC Ventures’ Chairman and Co-Founder Alan Morgan will also take a seat on APEXX’s board.

→ Read more about the round here

PocDoc raises ￡2.5M Seed extension round. 

PocDoc is an app-based digital health platform that allows anyone with a smartphone and the PocDoc lateral flow tests to test themselves at home for major diseases and monitor their overall health, reducing the barriers and costs to identifying and treating major global health issues. 

In October last year, the team secured the UKCA mark for their digital cholesterol test and early this month announced their ￡2.5M extension to their Seed round, adding Simplyhealth Ventures to their investors.

→ Read more about the round in Health Tech World here.

?? Meet our next Funding Lab cohort. 

Funding Lab is our flagship founder's programme. It equips early-stage founders with the tools and knowledge they need to prepare for a raise - from growth story to deck to negotiation tactics, along with highly valuable mentoring from our investors. 

This March, we're excited to announce the next cohort of 13 high-potential businesses, selected from almost 400 applications. The programme is well thought of in the ecosystem, receives great feedback (a CSAT score of 4.9/5 from our last cohort) and opens new, high-quality deal flow opportunities for Forward's investment team. 

→ Learn more about the programme

→ Meet the next cohort 

?? In case you missed it.

A quick overview of our latest news and press coverage.

• OutThink was recognised by Gartner as a Representative Provider for security behaviour and culture programs in their Innovation Insight on Security Behavior and Culture Program Capabilities Report.

• Ably launched real-time capabilities to frontend and web app developers via new Vercel and Netlify integrations, which now provide real-time functionality, including live collaboration. Read more here. 

• Childcare provisions in the Spring Budget look promising for our portfolio company Koru Kids which operates a childcare services marketplace. Read more in their recent summary here. 

Forward Thinking is our monthly bulletin for Forward investors and interested parties. To receive this email straight to your inbox every month, subscribe here.