Startup Monday: Latest tech trends & news happening in the global startup ecosystem (Issue 74- December 17)

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Top startups news to follow this week:

1. The European Innovation Council: over one and a half billion euros for breakthrough technologies

The Commission adopted today the 2023 work program of the European Innovation Council (EIC). It opens funding opportunities worth €1.6 billion in 2023 for scientists and innovators to scale up breakthrough technologies and create new markets. Over half a billion euros is earmarked for next-generation technologies in strategic areas for Europe, including energy storage, quantum, semiconductors, and food security.

The new funding for 2023 reinforces the EIC's increasing track record in supporting high-impact technologies and start-ups. The EIC Impact Report, also published today, highlights that the EIC has already supported 12 ‘unicorn' companies, incentivized over €10 billion in follow-on investments, and leveraged a multiple of over 2.6 times additional investments via the EIC Fund.

This year's work programme includes several novelties and pilot actions to support the New European Innovation Agenda.

Novelties

• A set of eight challenges for start-ups and SMEs to become global leaders in strategic areas of technology, with a budget for grants and investments of €525 million.
• A new scheme to increase the flow of innovative talent into deep tech start-ups through internships of promising researchers.
• Enhanced support to women innovators, linking the EIC Accelerator to companies supported by the Women TechEU initiative.
• Support to test EIC innovations among public and private procurers.
• Further collaborations with the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), through opening up business acceleration services and launching a joint EIC-EIT woman innovators prize.

Read more

2. Amgen to buy Horizon Therapeutics in $26.4B deal

Amgen is spending more than $26 billion to dive deeper into rare disease treatments with a deal for drugmaker Horizon Therapeutics.

The biotech drug developer said Monday that it will pay $116.50 in cash for each share of Horizon, which makes a thyroid eye disease treatment that generated more than $1 billion in its first full year on the market.

The deal offers Amgen another chance to build its portfolio of rare-disease treatments after it closed in October a roughly $3.7 billion acquisition of ChemoCentryx, which focuses on autoimmune disease drugs.

Horizon Therapeutics PLC, based in Dublin, Ireland, develops potential treatments for rare, autoimmune and severe inflammatory diseases. Its best-seller, Tepezza, is only approved in the United States and treats eye bulging and double vision from thyroid eye disease.

U.S. regulators approved Tepezza in early 2020 as the first treatment for thyroid eye disease. The drug’s sales more than doubled last year to $1.67 billion. That’s about half of the company’s total sales of $3.23 billion. Read more

3. Atomico report: European startups on track to raise $85B this year, down from $100B+ in 2021

Startups across Europe are on track to raise $85 billion in funding this year — a drop of $15 billion in 2021 when funding passed $100 billion, according to a new report published today. The figures come from London VC firm Atomico’s annual State of European Tech, which has become a bellwether for the tech industry in the region, and they underscore the pressure bearing down on it as the region grapples with an ongoing war in Ukraine, a sagging economy and specifically tech industry, and a population wobbling to get back on its feet and productive again after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Altogether, the European tech industry has lost about $400 billion in value, Atomico said: It is now valued at $2.7 trillion. And in keeping with those losses, it also notes that tech layoffs in the region will shape up to be about 14,000 for the year — a giant figure, but still only 7% of the total number of layoffs globally, which number about 200,000.

The report encompasses a survey of VCs and founders, as well as research from third-party firms like Dealroom.

The total-raised figure is not entirely a grim message when put into context. Atomico noted that funding for the year actually started out looking like it would exceed 2021 levels. Then in July, activity dropped off a cliff and hasn’t come back.

That’s not a great sign going into 2023, but it also seems to indicate that 2021’s $100 billion raised was also an outlier year. The total funding raised in 2020, for example (a year when all kinds of activity ground to a halt with the start of the pandemic), was just $39 billion.

4. MessageGears, a cloud customer engagement platform, raises $62M

Dan Roy, a former software engineer at Delta, says he witnessed firsthand the challenges companies face when making the shift from an on-premises model to a software-as-a-service business. Accucast, where he served as CTO after leaving Delta, struggled with this as it pitched software and services for email marketing. The solution, he came to believe, was a hybrid approach — one that directly accesses brands’ first-party data instead of relying on cloud data syncs.

Roy founded MessageGears in 2011 with Taylor Jones, a colleague, to productize this solution. The company’s platform uses data where it lives in the format it’s already in to give companies a suite of marketing tools in the cloud.

MessageGears, which just announced that it raised $62 million in a funding round led by Long Ridge Equity Partners, offers features including customer segmentation and marketing message personalization. The platform can orchestrate the delivery of messages across different channels (think email and text), drawing on data stored in existing data warehouses.

According to Barnette, the goal is to improve overall customer engagement by personalizing brand experiences. It’s easier said than done. A recent report released by London Research and BlueVenn found that, globally, only 29% of client-facing companies felt they’d established a seamless experience across their digital properties. A separate poll by Omdia highlighted issues with data visibility; 55% of respondents said that silos prevent a holistic view of their customer experience data.

“While the primary users of MessageGears are marketing teams, marketing operations and data teams are usually heavy champions throughout the procurement process,” Barnette said. “Technical teams can help marketing deliver world-class campaigns without sacrificing data security. They don’t have to worry about syncing or lag time and can empower marketers with the flexibility to build audiences and campaigns using live data.”

5. Athens-based Welcome Pickups takes off with €5.3 million for its tech-based travel platform

Greek startup Welcome Pickups has raised a fresh €5.3 million to fuel global expansion plans. The travel tech team offers a platform that enables users to create personalized and wholesome travel experiences. 

As the travel industry has well and truly bounced back following the pandemic, there are some things that have changed for good. Now, travel companies are increasingly taking tech-based approaches to travel, leveraging technology to create hyper-personalized experiences and trips. Since the pandemic, consumers have developed a taste for more tailored experiences, and now, when planning travel, we are increasingly demanding holistic, personalized experiences that have additional inbuilt value and luxury. 

From the rise of personalization across sectors to the ever-prevalent influence of social media, travel providers now have to stay ahead of the game to give consumers what they want, and cater to new demands and expectations. 

Welcome Pickups, which was founded pre-pandemic in 2015, is one of the travel providers that were able to survive these challenging times and has pioneered the personalized travel experience. Now, it has secured fresh funding to expand. 

6. Hamburg-based Circus raises €11 million to create a new era for food delivery services

German startup Circus has just raised €11 million in a new fundraising round. The team are aiming to tackle surmounting challenges in the food delivery space, making it more sustainable, more convenient, and more affordable. 

Food delivery has been one of the stand-out market areas in Europe’s startup community over recent years. The food delivery bubble grew at an incredibly fast pace during the days of the pandemic, gifting us unicorns like Glovo and Delivery Hero and titans of the industry like Getir and Gorilla. These are all names that are now instantaneously recognizable across Europe and continue to hit the headlines. 

More recently, though, the food delivery space has been hitting the headlines for different reasons – not just because of business success and prowess. Mass layoffs, budget cuts, acquisitions, and so forth have hit the space as the pandemic days fall behind us and the reality of how these businesses operate has come to light. 

There’s a Geman startup on a mission to change the perception though, and it’s just raised new funding to grow. 

7. German Startup OroraTech Raises $16M for Climate Mission 

OroraTech, a Munich-based startup working to monitor thermal data from space extended its Series A funding round with 15 million euros ($15.8 million) from private investors and public sector funding. 

Belgian climate impact fund Edaphon led the round with existing investors Findus Venture, Ananda Impact Ventures, Wachstumsfonds Bayern 2, ConActivity, APEX Ventures, SpaceTec Capital, as well as Ingo Baumann and Clemens Kaiser. The European Space Agency (ESA) and the government of the German state Bavaria provided funding as well. 

We support companies that have the potential to create a positive impact on the environment at a large scale,” says Joost Van Laer, investment manager at Edaphon. “We were impressed by OroraTech’s first commercial Wildfire Intelligence Solution and the team’s great qualities and complementarity, as well as their ambition to continue developing high-impact solutions over the coming years.”

OroraTech has the first uncooled thermal-infrared camera in space, which launched on a Spire satellite in January of this year. This additional funding will expand its climate solutions portfolio and fund the launch of the second thermal-infrared camera in space in May 2023.

The company plans to have a constellation with a 12-hour revisit by 2024 and a 30-minute revisit by 2026. Its current product, Wildfire Intelligence Solution, uses third-party data for wildfire detection and monitoring and the company claims it detects over 100,000 fires daily and protects more than 160 million hectares of forest on six continents.  

8. 5 Things Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About Agriculture

"Betting the farm" isn't just a saying. It's something farmers do every year. When a farmer invests in new technology — be it a new irrigation system or a self-driving tractor — they're often, quite literally, betting on the farm. If the tech doesn't deliver, it could spell financial ruin.

As startups developing agricultural technology proliferate, too many investors and founders are neglecting this key fact. Farming isn't just another "sector," and there's far more at stake than meets the eye.

To be sure, investments in agtech are exciting and needed. To feed a growing population, we need to double global food production by 2050, but we can't double agricultural acres. We need more food (or more high-quality calories and nutrients) per acre. That's where technology comes in.

There's a reason even Bill Gates is buying up farms and bankrolling ag innovation. Agtech helps farmers deliver bigger harvests even as water and land grow more precious and inputs more expensive. Indeed, the value of precision farming is expected to more than double to $14.44 billion by 2027.

But as a scientist and CEO of an agtech company that partners with growers to ensure tech yields practical benefits, I've seen the sometimes jarring disconnect between Silicon Valley norms and the (as yet) inviolable laws of nature. Here are five truths funders and innovators must understand to accelerate innovation and put real-world solutions in farmers' hands.

Read more

9. Massachusetts State launches $50M funds to aid clean energy startups

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center on Wednesday launched the 2030 Fund, a new $50 million investment vehicle.

The fund will provide companies with an average of $500,000 (and up to $1.5 million) in early-stage financing in hopes of attracting additional private capital that will allow the companies to scale up their solutions. MassCEC said the fund's investment of $5 million annually "will support the momentum of early-stage companies by providing cash runway to help achieve key milestones."

The fund's launch "signals to the market that Massachusetts is increasing its commitment [sic] to the commercialization of climate technologies," MassCEC said. Massachusetts-based startups whose products or services are in line with the definitions of "clean energy" or "clean energy research" are eligible, and MassCEC said that applicants must have three of four business functions (headquarters, primary research and development, primary sales and marketing, and primary manufacturing) located in Massachusetts.

"MassCEC invests impactfully and countercyclically in Massachusetts' brightest climate technology innovators. Our investments support climate tech companies as they de-risk their technology, reach early commercial milestones, and attract growth funding," the center said. It added, "MassCEC's strategy is to attract and leverage significant private capital alongside all our investments."

Read more

10. Pacifico Energy lands €20 million and joins forces with Eiffel Investment Group to develop agrivoltaic energy projects in Italy

Munich-based Pacifico Energy joins forces with Eiffel Investment Group to develop photovoltaic plants and battery energy storage systems, helping fuel Europe’s energy transition. 

As the urgency of Europe’s energy transition steps up a notch, startups are increasingly playing a role in making the continent’s energy system greener and more independent. This winter might be only beginning but temperatures have dropped, prices have risen and energy security is a daily part of the conversation. Turning to renewable sources is one way that people can be better cared for, the planet can become healthier and the continent as a whole can function more sustainably. 

Pooling their resources together, Pacifico Energy Partners has now joined forces with Eiffel Investment Group to accelerate the development of renewable energy projects. It includes a collaborative working agreement as well as a €20 million investment. 

Ulf Oesterlin, CEO, Pacifico Energy Partners: “We are very excited about this partnership. This proves that investing into project development in renewable energy is not only ecologically sustainable but also financially attractive. Receiving funding in challenging times underlines that we are working on a key problem of society – the bottleneck of the energy transition is the lack of permitted renewable energy projects, and we contribute to solving this bottleneck.

The details

• Eiffel Investment Group to pump €20 million into the portfolio, via Eiffel Transition Infrastructure which launched in November
• Pacifico will contribute to projects at mid-stage development, until the projects are ready-to-build, at which point the joint venture may sell the assets.

Jannik Hoffmann, Chief Financial Officer at Pacifico: “The partnership with Eiffel allows Pacifico Energy Partners to focus on what we are best at – identifying the best projects and delivering them. We are committed to making a sizable impact towards a clean energy future and are particularly delighted to broaden our cooperation with Eiffel, a financing party which we have already successfully worked with in past transactions.”

Have a great news to share? or Feedback? Email at [email protected] .

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