Year: 2021

If the world is to reach NetZero, and avoid climate disaster it needs to make every product sustainable and that means every purchase. But to do that you need a lot more transparency, so that means more data on suppliers to improve sourcing and benchmarking companies. While companies are often doing their best, the problem with issues like CO2 emissions lies in the supply chain.

Danish startup Responsibly, reckons it has the answers in providing retailers, builders, and others with a supply network a scorecard against this supply chain of providers. Thus, a company can check if any level of its supply chain is involved in deforestation, water pollution, as well as human rights violations or gender pay gap issues.

It’s now raised a $2 million pre-seed investment round led by Flash Ventures. Also participating is Pirate Impact (the family-office of Fabian & Ferry Heilemann) and Michael Wax, Founder and CEO of Planetly Benedikt Franke.

The startup will now soft-launch the first version of its platform which will look at the supplier data of more than 10,000 suppliers for pilot customers.

Responsibly’s co-Founder and CEO Thomas Buch Andersson said: “If we can make it as easy for purchasers to evaluate how their suppliers compare on a planetary agenda, as it is to compare them on price, then we think we can unlock the huge force for change that’s sitting in the world’s procurement departments.”

Being developed with Google’s Startup Advisor: Sustainable Development Goals Program, Responsibly

Johann Nordhus Westarp, Founding Partner at Flash Ventures said: “The timing is perfect, and companies will fundamentally change the way they procure in the next couple of years. Price- or value-driven procurement will give way to impact-driven procurement. Companies are acting somewhat blindly today, treading-water to solve the ‘problem of the day’. Responsibly helps them finally get visibility into their procurement footprints and make forward-thinking decisions for all the right reasons.”

According to CDP, some 40% of global GHG emissions are driven or influenced companies through their purchases and the products they sell. Meanwhile, Gartner found that 23% of supply chain leaders expect to have a digital ecosystem by 2025, up from only 1% today.

Speaking to me over a call Buch Andersson said: “The space for responsible sourcing has really evolved quite a lot over the past 20 years. We are building a layer on top of all of the different data providers to essentially allow the procurement team to flexibly read any information, interpret it and then use it for sourcing decision making.”

Responsibly competes with EcoVadis and Integrity Next.

Itamar Jobani was a software developer working for a medical company and “hated that time of the month” when he had to use the company’s chosen reimbursement tool.

“It was full of friction and as part of the company’s wellness team, I felt an urge to take care of the employee experience and find a better tool,” Jobani told TechCrunch. “I looked for something, but didn’t find it, so I tried to build it myself.”

What resulted was PayEm, an Israeli company he founded with Omer Rimoch in 2019 to be a spend and procurement platform for high-growth and multinational organizations. Today, it announced $27 million in funding that includes $7 million in seed funding, led by Pitango First and NFX, with participation by LocalGlobe and Fresh Fund, as well as $20 million in Series A funding led by Glilot+.

The company’s technology automates the reimbursement, procurement, accounts payable and credit card workflows to manage all of the requests and invoices, while also creating bills and sending payments to over 200 territories in 130 currencies.

It gives company finance teams a real-time look at what items employees are asking for funds to buy, and what is actually being spent. For example, teams can submit a request and go through an approval flow that can be customized with purchasing codes tied to a description of the transaction. At the same time, all transactions are continuously reconciled versus having to spend hours at the end of the month going through paperwork.

“Organizations are running in a more democratized way with teams buying things on behalf of the organization,” Jobani said. “We built a platform to cater to those needs, so it’s like a disbursement platform instead of a finance team always being in charge.”

The global B2B payments market is valued at $120 trillion annually and is expected to reach $200 trillion by 2028, according to payment industry newsletter Nilson Report. PayEm is among many B2B payments startups attracting venture capital — for example, last month, Nium announced a $200 million in Series D funding at a $1 billion valuation. Paystand raised $50 million in Series C funding to make B2B payments cashless, while Dwolla raised $21 million for its API that allows companies to build and facilitate fast payments.

Meanwhile, PayEm itself saw accelerated growth in the second quarter of 2021, including increasing its transaction volume by four times over the previous quarter and generating millions of dollars in revenue. It now boasts a list of hundreds of customers like Fiverr, JFrog and Next Insurance. It also launched new features like the ability to create corporate cards.

The company, which also has an office in New York, has 40 employees currently, and the new funds will enable the company to triple its headcount, focusing on hiring in the United States, and to bring additional features and payment capabilities to market.

“Each person can have a budget and a time frame for making the purchase, while accounting still feels in control,” Jobani added. “Everyone now has the full context and the right budget line item.”

Vic.ai, a startup that has built an AI-based platform it claims can ‘automate’ enterprise accounting, has raised a $50M Series B round led by ICONIQ Growth, with participation from existing investors GGV Capital, Cowboy Ventures and Costanoa Ventures, bringing total capital raised to $63 million.

The company’s customers include HSB (Sweden’s largest real-estate management company), Intercom Inc. and HireQuest Inc., as well as accounting firms KPMG, PwC, BDO, and Armanino LLP. Vic.ai says its platform has processed more than 535 million invoices with 95 percent accuracy.

Vic.ai says it can do this by learning from historical data and existing processes to deliver more automation in accounting processes thus saving time, reducing errors and duplicates.

Alexander Hagerup, CEO of Vic.ai (launched in 2017) said: “It’s 2021, and it’s high time for finance and accounting teams to embrace AI technology. Accounting work is tedious and repetitive, but it no longer needs to be. Our AI platform delivers both autonomy and intelligence for finance and accounting teams.”

Will Griffith, founding partner at ICONIQ Growth said Vic.ai team “demonstrates the same passion, product focus and customer-first mentality that we see in other exceptional founders.”

It’s an age-old tech industry story: company comes up with a tool to solve its own problem, then realizes the tool is actually worth more than the existing company. Something similar happened to Linearity. Its 17-year-old founder, Vladimir Danila, came up with the Vectornator tool to make vector design easier in 2017. It’s now used by Apple, Disney, Wacom and Microsoft. Disney uses Vectornator to create artwork for hotels in Disneyland, in fact.

The vector-focused platform has now raised a $20 million funding round led by EQT Ventures together with 468 Capital. It’s been joined by Angels including Bradley Horowitz (VP Product, Google), Jonathan Rochelle (Co-Founder Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, Google Slides, Google Drive), Charles Songhurst (Ex. Corporate Strategy, Microsoft) and Lutz Finger (Group Product Manager, Google). 
 
The company says the funding will be used to double down on its mobile-first product, Vectornator, adding AI-powered automation and collaboration features, and new products and expand in the USA and Europe as well as Asia. 
 
Vladimir Danila, CEO and founder at Linearity said: “When I first got into design aged 10 over a decade ago, I found the tools hard to use and intimidating. I immediately wanted to create my own suite of tools to solve that issue as vectors become more relevant than pixels and are also superior in every aspect except for photography. Vectornator is all about customer experience, simplicity and not overcomplicating the software. I’m thrilled to be working alongside Ted and the team to glean knowledge and market understanding and help to grow our platform.”

Ted Persson, Partner at EQT Ventures commented: “For me, there were two clear sides to joining forces with the Linearity team. Vladimir is a very clear-cut founder who has built an outstanding product. Design tools are some of the hardest tools to build, but Vladimir and his team have shown that anything is possible.”

Investor interest in design tools has exploded since the success of Canva, which is now valued at $15 billion.

The world of professional coaching has grown over the years as coaches realised they could easily counsel people remotely and clients realized digital coaching was far more efficient. But, equally, a problem arose in how to sift the wheat from the chaff. At the same time corporates realised that their own staff could benefit – but faced the same sifting problem. In a classic Internet play, CoachHub came along three years ago and applied AI to a marketplace to do the sifting. All well and good, but with training and personal development going almost completely digital due to the pandemic, the market has exploded.

Berlin-based CoachHub has now raised $80m in a Series “B2” funding, increasing its total Series B capital to $110m. Investors Draper Esprit, RTP Global, HV Capital, Signals Venture Capital, Partech, and Speedinvest all participated bringing the total funds raised to $130m, since 2019.

Last year it raised a $30 million Series B round, also led by Draper Esprit, alongside existing investors HV Capital, Partech, Speedinvest, signals Venture Capital, and RTP Global.

The startup competes with other aggregators such as AceUp out of Boston, which has raised $2.3M.
 
The three year old startup says it has tripled its employees, and added new clients including Fujitsu, Electrolux, Babbel, ViacomCBS and KPMG.
 
Co-founder and Chief Sales Director Yannis Niebelschütz said in a statement: “This latest round of funding will allow us to meet the ever-growing demand for digital solutions for training and personal development, which has been triggered by the pandemic.”
 
Christoph Hornung, investment director at Draper Esprit said: “It’s no longer just about the pandemic. What we are increasingly seeing with digital-first, highly enriched platforms such as CoachHub are more dynamic and – crucially – more accessible tools to transform companies through training and education.”
 
CoachHub says it uses AI to match individuals with 2,500 business and well-being coaches in 70 countries across six continents. Coaching sessions are available in 60+ languages.

Meet Trustshare, a London-based startup that is working on escrow infrastructure for online classified, B2B marketplaces, trade directories and more. It’s a white-label platform that can be integrated with online marketplaces in just a few lines of code.

If you’ve ever tried to sell something expensive on the web, you know that it’s hard to know for sure that you’re not getting scammed. For instance, that person that is trying to buy your old phone from you — should you send the phone first or ask the buyer to send the money first?

If a marketplace relies on Trustshare for payments, buyers first have to checkout and leave money into a dedicated transaction-based account. Trustshare can also handle identity verification steps, such as KYC and AML checks (Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering). The seller can check the status of the funds. Once the buyer has received the product, they can release funds to the seller.

Behind the scenes, Trustshare generates a dedicated IBAN per transaction. Customers can deposit money using bank transfers or cards. In the U.K. and Europe, Trustshare takes advantage of open banking regulation so that users can connect to their bank account from the checkout flow.

If you don’t want to tweak your site’s code, you can also use Trustshare for offline sales and transactions that happen over email or messaging apps. The company lets you generate QR codes or payment links to initiate a payment.

The startup has raised an angel round from several business angels, such as Cazoo and Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman and Carwow founder James Hind. After that, Trustshare raised a $3.2 million seed round (£2.3 million) led by Nauta Capital.

Many companies could leverage Trustshare to launch their own marketplace as escrow payment is one of the biggest pain points. For instance, you can imagine luxury brands launching their own marketplaces of handbags and watches, new car marketplaces focused on one type of cars in particular, etc.

“Our 5 lines of code branded escrow checkout is taking many marketplaces, brands that consumers know and trust, transactional. Really, this is just the start. Our borderless escrow infrastructure is incredibly powerful, and we plan to launch new products including instant pay-throughs, baskets and projects to make payments as quick and easy as sending an email,” co-founder and CEO Nick Fulton said in a statement.

Trustshare is built on top of existing payment infrastructure. That’s why it supports 180 countries and 30 currencies already. The company’s initial clients include Watchcollecting, Bookabuilder and U.K. trade body FENSA’s Deposit Protection service.

UK startup Oviva, which sells a digital support offering, including for Type 2 diabetes treatment, dispensing personalized diet and lifestyle advice via apps to allow more people to be able to access support, has closed $80 million in Series C funding — bringing its total raised to date to $115M.

The raise, which Oviva says will be used to scale up after a “fantastic year” of growth for the health tech business, is co-led by Sofina and Temasek, alongside existing investors AlbionVC, Earlybird, Eight Roads Ventures, F-Prime Capital, MTIP, plus several angels.

Underpinning that growth is the fact wealthy Western nations continue to see rising rates of obesity and other health conditions like Type 2 diabetes (which can be linked to poor diet and lack of exercise). While more attention is generally being paid to the notion of preventative — rather than reactive — healthcare, to manage the rising costs of service delivery.

Lifestyle management to help control weight and linked health conditions (like diabetes) is where Oviva comes in: It’s built a blended support offering that combines personalized care (provided by healthcare professionals) with digital tools for patients that help them do things like track what they’re eating, access support and chart their progress towards individual health goals.

It can point to 23 peer-reviewed publications to back up its approach — saying key results show an average of 6.8% weight loss at 6 months for those living with obesity; while, in its specialist programs, it says 53% of patients achieve remission of their type 2 diabetes at 12 months.

Oviva typically sells its digitally delivered support programs direct to health insurance companies (or publicly funded health services) — who then provide (or refer) the service to their customers/patients. Its programs are currently available in the UK, Germany, Switzerland and France — but expanding access is one of the goals for the Series C.

“We will expand to European markets where the health system reimburses the diet and lifestyle change we offer, especially those with specific pathways for digital reimbursement,” Oviva tells TechCrunch. “Encouragingly, more healthcare systems have been opening up specific routes for such digital reimbursement, e.g., Germany for DiGAs or Belgium just in the last months.”

So far, the startup has treated 200,000 people but the addressable market is clearly huge — not least as European populations age — with Oviva suggesting more than 300 million people live with “health challenges” that are either triggered by poor diet or can be optimised through personalised dietary changes. Moreover, it suggests, only “a small fraction” is currently being offered digital care.

To date, Oviva has built up 5,000+ partnerships with health systems, insurers and doctors as it looks to push for further scale by making its technology more accessible to a wider range of people. In the past year it says it’s “more than doubled” both people treated and revenue earned.

Its goal is for the Series C funding is to reach “millions” of people across Europe who need support because they’re suffering from poor health linked to diet and lifestyle.

As part of the scale up plan it will also be growing its team to 800 by the end of 2022, it adds.

On digital vs face-to-face care — setting aside the potential cost savings associated with digital delivery — it says studies show the “most striking outcome benefits” are around uptake and completion rates, noting: “We have consistently shown uptake rates above 70% and high completion rates of around 80%, even in groups considered harder to reach such as working age populations or minority ethnic groups. This compares to uptake and completion rates of less than 50% for most face-to-face services.”

Asked about competition, Oviva names Liva Healthcare and Second Nature as its closest competitors in the region.

“WW (formally Weight Watchers) also competes with a digital solution in some markets where they can access reimbursement,” it adds. “There are many others that try to access this group with new methods, but are not reimbursed or are wellness solutions. Noom competes as a solution for self-paying consumers in Europe, as many other apps. But, in our view, that is a separate market from the reimbursed medical one.”

As well as using the Series C funding to bolster its presence in existing markets and target and scale into new ones, Oviva says it may look to further grow the business via M&A opportunities.

“In expanding to new countries, we are open to both building new organisations from the ground up or acquiring existing businesses with a strong medical network where we see that our technology can be leveraged for better patient care and value creation,” it told us on that.

Amsterdam-based startup VanMoof has raised a $128 million Series C funding round. The company designs and sells electric bikes that are quite popular in some markets. It now wants to become the world’s leading e-bike brand by iterating at a faster pace.

Asia-based private equity firm Hillhouse Investment is leading the round, with Gillian Tans, the former CEO of Booking.com, also participating. Some existing investors also put some more money on the table, such as Norwest Venture Partners, Felix Capital, Balderton Capital and TriplePoint Capital.

Today’s Series C represents a big jump compared to the company’s Series B. Last year, VanMoof raised a $40 million Series B. Overall, if you add it all up, the startup has raised $182 million in total.

If you’re not familiar with VanMoof’s e-bikes, TechCrunch reviewed both the most recent S3 and X3 models. On paper, they are identical. The VanMoof X3 features a smaller frame and smaller wheels.

What makes VanMoof different from your average e-bike manufacturer is that the company tries to control everything from the supply chain to the customer experience. VanMoof e-bikes are premium e-bikes that are primarily designed for city rides. The most recent models currently cost $2,298 or €2,198.

They feature an electric motor paired with an electronic gear shifting system. It has four gears and you don’t have to change gears yourself. All you have to do is jump on the bike and start pedaling.

Recognizable by their iconic triangular-shaped futuristic-looking frames, the S3 and X3 also come with hydraulic brakes, integrated lights and some smart features. There’s an integrated motion detector combined with an alarm, a GPS chip and cellular connectivity.

If you declare your bike as stolen, the GPS and cellular chips go live and you can track your bike in the VanMoof app. The company’s bikes are now also compatible with Apple’s Find My app.

Instead of relying exclusively on off-the-shelf parts, the company works with a small set of suppliers to manufacture custom components. This way, it can cut out as many middleperson as possible to bring costs down. It’s also a good competitive advantage.

Growing a company like VanMoof is a capital-intensive business. The company has opened retail stores and service hubs in 50 different cities around the world. While the company started in Europe, the U.S. is now the fastest growth market for VanMoof.

With today’s funding round, the startup plans to double-down on its current strategy. You can expect updated bikes with refined designs and more custom parts. You can expect more stores and service hubs around the world. And you can probably expect more online sales as well.

“It will help us get 10 million people on our bikes in the next five years,” co-founder and CEO Taco Carlier said in a statement. So far, there are 150,000 people using VanMoof bikes.

Today’s investment shouldn’t come as a surprise. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated plans to transform European cities — and prioritize bikes over cars. Last year, TechCrunch’s Natasha Lomas and I wrote a comprehensive overview of key policy developments in four major cities — Paris, Barcelona, London and Milan. VanMoof is now benefiting from these policy shifts.

After a 17-hour marathon through nearly 200 startup pitches, the Equity team was fired up to get back on Twitter and chat through some early trends and favorites from the first day of Y Combinator’s demo party. We’ll be back on the air tomorrow, so make sure you’re following the show on Twitter so you don’t miss out.

What did Natasha and Alex chat about? The following:

• First Impressions: We started by going through top-line numbers, geographic breakdown, and how the accelerator is doing when it comes to the representation of diverse founders. The last bit had a tiny bit of progress, but diversity continues to be an issue in YC’s batches – even as cohort size grows. We also chatted about what startups pitching can work on: like better mics, which are cheap and good.
• Our early favorites: Metaphor, Lumify, Alex’s favorite duo Indian real estate plays, Akudo, Reframe, and Playhouse.
• And some hmmm moments, including our thoughts on Writesonic, which Natasha has a potentially paranoid theory on.

TechCrunch has extensive coverage of the day on the site, so there’s lots to dig into if you are in the mood. More tomorrow!

After a 17-hour marathon through nearly 200 startup pitches, the Equity team was fired up to get back on Twitter and chat through some early trends and favorites from the first day of Y Combinator’s demo party. We’ll be back on the air tomorrow, so make sure you’re following the show on Twitter so you don’t miss out.

What did Natasha and Alex chat about? The following:

• First Impressions: We started by going through top-line numbers, geographic breakdown, and how the accelerator is doing when it comes to the representation of diverse founders. The last bit had a tiny bit of progress, but diversity continues to be an issue in YC’s batches – even as cohort size grows. We also chatted about what startups pitching can work on: like better mics, which are cheap and good.
• Our early favorites: Metaphor, Lumify, Alex’s favorite duo Indian real estate plays, Akudo, Reframe, and Playhouse.
• And some hmmm moments, including our thoughts on Writesonic, which Natasha has a potentially paranoid theory on.

TechCrunch has extensive coverage of the day on the site, so there’s lots to dig into if you are in the mood. More tomorrow!