The early stage players raising funding this week include EstateGuru, Taimer, Iiwari, Ambler etc. We also feature a Q&A with Paula Blazquez Solano of InnoCells (Banco Sabadell) and Bernadette Wijnings of Blanco Services.
Meet the first set of startups and investors who will be on stage at the 12th FinTech Forum, on 19th Nov. 2020 in Frankfurt:
(Click on the hyperlinked names to read our Q&A with the respective founders and investors)
KlickOwn: blockchain-enabled platform offering a superior real estate investing experience for everyone
CommneX: a digital brokering platform for credit- and deposits from municipalities and municipal enterprises
Finteum: a platform for interbank intraday lending, enabling treasurers to borrow and lend for hours at a time
We are pleased to confirm the following investors and financial institutions who will be sharing investment trends and opportunities in specific areas.
Astrid Freier: Partner, DACH, Vidici Ventures
Paula Blazquez Solano: Head of Investments at InnoCells (Banco Sabadell)
Manuel Silva Martinez: Partner, Head of Investments, Santander InnoVentures
Daniel Andemeskel: Head of Innovation at Universal Investment
If you are in the midst of a funding round, feel free to reach out to us via LinkedIn: Frank Schwab or Samarth Shekhar
Call for startups: apply to pitch at the 12th FinTech Forum, 19th Nov. 2020 in Frankfurt – email contact (at) fintechforum.de or reach out via LinkedIn. Investors & corporates: register here directly http://ftf12.eventbrite.com
7 Minute Pitch Template Essentials
In the past 7 years we at FinTech Forum have evaluated over 3,500 pitches and given a lot of feedback. More than 350 FinTech startups have presented their business models in 7 minutes each.
From this we developed a template. We recommend that all founders cover at least the following eight themes in their presentation.
http://www.fintechforum.de/7-minute-pitch-template-essentials/
7 Questions with Paula Blazquez Solano of InnoCells (Banco Sabadell)
1. Please tell us a bit about yourself, both at work and leisure.
My name is Paula Blazquez, I lead the Corporate Investment Vehicle of Banco Sabadell, the 4thlargest private bank in Spain. At InnoCells, we invest in Fintech related startups across the globe, from seed to series A (tickets between $500k up to $3M). I have worked in venture capital most of my career, having worked for a listed Venture Debt fund based out of Palo Alto, California and later on in a venture fund based in Madrid with a focus on Latam, Spain and India prior to joining InnoCells. I am a proud advisor, investor and Board Member in several Fintech startups.
Paula Blazquez Solano is among the investors who will be on stage sharing insights and investment trends in European FinTech at the 12th FinTech Forum, 19th Nov. 2020 in Frankfurt: https://ftf12.eventbrite.com
7 Questions with Bernadette Wijnings of Blanco Services
1. Please tell us a bit about yourself, both at work and leisure.
My name is Bernadette Wijnings and I am co-founder of Blanco Services. My background is in strategy consulting, but I’m an entrepreneur at heart, having started multiple companies. At Blanco I am responsible for finance & investors, HR & culture and strategic projects (read: everything that is either difficult or important and needs a deep dive). I’m super proud of the team that I built. In a bit less than 5 years, we have grown Blanco together to a company with over 125 clients in The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. And it’s just the start :). I live in Amsterdam, am the proud mother of 5 kids, I love cooking, eating, good wines, magazines, books, art house movies, documentaries, yoga, walking, cities and beaches. And of course building companies.
Swiss Fintech Accelerator F10 Welcomes new Zurich Head
F10 announced the appointment of Gerrit Sindermann as new Head F10 Zurich.
Gerrit will join F10 FinTech Incubator & Accelerator mid of June 2020 to lead the mission of guiding Startups in transforming their ideas into successful companies while stimulating worldwide collaboration with international finance organizations.
Gerrit replaces Thomas Landis who was heading F10 the past years and is now the new CDO at Andermatt Swiss Alps.
In his role Gerrit will be responsible for the overall development of F10 Zurich, its programs as well as the service portfolio.
https://fintechnews.ch/fintech/f10-head-gerrit-sindermann/36616/
Tallinn-based EstateGuru nabs €880K on Seedrs for its loan marketplace
Today Estonian fintech startup EstateGuru, a platform for short-term property-backed loans, has closed a €880K funding round on investment platform Seedrs. This funding is part of the company’s €5 million Series A round, and far exceeded their original €350K investment target for the round.
Founded in 2013, EstateGuru is a pan-European marketplace that facilitates property-backed loans for SMEs and carefully selected investment opportunities for its global investor base.
By connecting different service providers, SMEs and investors into one single marketplace, it can offer a seamless, cross-border and digital service for borrowers and investors.
Taimer Raises $1M in Funding
Taimer, a Jyväskylä, Finland-based startup providing innovative CRM and business management solutions, closed a $1M USD in its pre-seed funding round.
The round was led by international venture capitalist Trind VC (Nordics) as the lead investor, TAO Ventures (Australia), and FiBAN (Finnish Business Angels Network), with participation from several other investing groups and angel investors from the UK, US and Finland. In addition, funding was also provided by Business Finland that supports innovative companies in Finland to go global.
http://www.finsmes.com/2020/06/taimer-raises-1m-in-funding.html
Finnish startup Iiwari raises €1.5 million for ultra-wide band indoor positioning technology
Iiwari, a Finnish startup marketing new indoor positioning technology, has raised a €1.5 million seed round from Nordic deep tech VC, Voima Ventures, as well as some angel investors from the UK and US.
The company’s product is based on ultra-wide band (UWB) research conducted by the team at VTT Technical Research Center of Finland.
Founded in 2018 and based in Kajaani, Iiwari purchased the key licenses from VTT to commercialise the technology and become its global operator.
“Iiwari is going to market with a state-of-the-art, reliable, UWB indoor positioning system and great platform partners,” says founder and CEO Ville Kolehmainen.
https://tech.eu/brief/iiwari-seed/
Ambler Raises €6M in Funding
Ambler, a French provider of a platform to handle inter-hospital patient transfers, raised €6M in funding.
Backers included Bpifrance (via the Digital Venture division), Idinvest Partners, Partech and Kima Ventures.
The company intends to use the funds to continue to develop its platform and expand its presence in France.
Led by Mehdi Ben Abroug, co-founder and CEO, Ambler centralizes and organizes medical transport for, using hospital vehicles to save budget. The solution, which is reportedly used by over 200 public and private hospitals and 500 transport companies, organizes the supply of ambulance companies, light medical vehicles and taxis to respond to demand from health institutions and individuals.
http://www.finsmes.com/2020/06/ambler-raises-e6m-in-funding.html
Berlin-based Vara raises €6.5 million for AI breast cancer screening software that reduces doctor workload
Vara, a Berlin-based startup that’s developed breast cancer screening software, has raised a €6.5 million Series A round led by OMERS Ventures. Merantix, Think.Health, Soleria Capital, and Silicon Valley-based Plug and Play also participated.
Bryony Marshall of OMERS Ventures will join the board.
The machine learning software helps radiologists detect cancer in mammograms by filtering out the healthy cases from their worklist, allowing them to focus on the ambiguous cases that require urgent attention.
https://tech.eu/brief/vara-series-a/
Dublin cybersecurity firm Edgescan raises €10.5m
With investment from BGF, Edgescan plans to accelerate its international expansion and new product development.
On Sunday (7 June), Irish cybersecurity start-up Edgescan announced that it has received a €10.5m investment from State-backed venture capital firm BGF and former senior IBM executive Bernie Waldron.
BGF is backed by the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, AIB, Bank of Ireland and Ulster Bank. With this investment, BGF will acquire a minority stake in Dublin-based Edgescan.
Over the past 17 months, BGF has backed four Irish start-ups, with a combined investment of just over €30m. Edgescan was founded by Eoin Keary and Rahim Jina in 2011.
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/start-ups/bgf-invests-edgescan-cybersecurity-funding
Base Genomics Raises $11M in Seed Funding
Base Genomics, an Oxford, England, UK-based epigenetics company, closed a seed funding round of $11m USD (£9m GBP).
The round was led by Oxford Sciences Innovation with participation from investors with industry expertise in genomics and oncology.
The company intends to use the funds to progress development of its TAPS technology, initially focusing on developing a blood test for early-stage cancer and minimal residual disease.
Led by founder and CEO Oliver Waterhouse and CTO Vincent Smith, Base Genomics is an epigenetics company based on TAPS (TET-assisted pyridine borane sequencing), a new invention to sequence DNA methylation developed at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Branch at the University of Oxford.
http://www.finsmes.com/2020/06/base-genomics-raises-11m-in-seed-funding.html
Berlin-based Bryter, a no-coding toolbox, secures €14.1 million to expand in the US
Today German automation startup Bryter, who has built a no-coding platform for enterprises, has raised €14.1 million. The funds will be used to accelerate its international expansion, particularly in the US, and help enable international adoption across their growing global customer base.
Bryter, founded in 2018, is a leading no-code platform enabling experts to automate decision-making. Basically, it supports a range of organizations, like consulting firms, banks, corporates, and public administration across the globe, to digitalise and scale their services, without needing programming skills.
Cutover Raises $17M in Series A Funding
Cutover, a London, UK-based cloud-enabled work orchestration and observability platform, enabling organizations to innovate at pace with operational resilience, raised $17M in Series A funding round.
Backers included Barclays and Index Ventures.
The company intends to use the funds to increase development capability while supporting the expansion into new verticals.
Led by Ky Nichol, Chief Executive Officer, Cutover provides a work orchestration and observability platform that gives organizational visibility into dynamic flows of work.
http://www.finsmes.com/2020/06/cutover-raises-17m-in-series-a-funding-2.html
We are proud to partner with Money20/20 Europe- now taking place from 22nd – 24th September 2020, still at the Rai, Amsterdam (rescheduled from the original date of 16th – 18th June 2020). Join us using discount code MP20FOR: https://europe.money2020.com
Meet us at:
Swiss FinTech Fair, Zürich, 8 Sep. 2020 https://www.swissfintechfair.com
EY Startup Academy, Frankfurt, 15 Sep. 2020
https://start-up-initiative.ey.com/en/academy/program
Money2020 Europe, Amsterdam, 22-24 Sep. 2020 https://europe.money2020.com
South Summit, Madrid, 6-8 Oct. 2020
https://www.southsummit.co/en/home
FinTech Junction, Tel Aviv, 21-22 Oct. 2020
https://www.fintechjunction.com/annual/
Digital Insurance Agenda, Amsterdam, 28-29 Oct. 2020 https://next.digitalinsuranceagenda.com/dia-amsterdam-2020/want-to-attend/
MoneyConf / WebSummit, Lisbon, 2-5 Nov. 2020 https://websummit.com/moneyconf
12th FinTech Forum, Frankfurt, 19th Nov. 2020 http://www.fintechforum.de/events/
Meet Our Partners:
Heussen https://www.heussen-law.de | Money2020 Europe https://europe.money2020.com | InsurTech Insights https://insurtechinsights.com | Finovate Europe https://informaconnect.com/finovateeurope/ | FN FinTech 40 https://www.fnlondon.com