London Brief #36: Adele in VR
Tom of All Digital Banks and Business as Usual. Read more in today’s issue.
People
Adele, the ‘Hello’ superstar singer, has invested in AIM-listed EVR Holdings. EVR is known mostly for its MelodyVR app and has recently signed five music license agreements for content distribution in the UK, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Belgium and Switzerland. The deals include all three majors (Warner, Universal and Sony), so they can stream virtually all the music.
Tom Foster-Carter, the co-founder of Curve (the money hub in one card), is leaving it to join Monzo (a digital bank) as its COO. Foster-Carter has previously worked in Osper and Tandem, so we just wonder which FinTech startup will hire him next.
In the News
If Tom is indeed looking for the future career development, Glint might offer a promising career path. They want to make a card, an account and a global currency based on gold (how innovative!). Moreover, they have just received £3.1 million backing from respected individual investors including: Haruko Fukuda, former CEO of the World Gold Council and NED of Investec Bank; Oliver Bolitho, former Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management Asia; Hugh Sloane, co-founder of asset manager Sloane Robinson; and Lord Flight Of Worcester, formerly of Guinness Flight Global Asset Management.
Tandem bank, the same that Mr Foster-Carter has been working with for three months, has just bought Harrods Bank. Together with the 120-year-old bank, Tandem receives £80 million from Harrods’ Qatari owners. This is really good news after the Chinese owners of another department store, House of Fraser, backed off on the £29 million deal with Tandem in December last year, which made Tandem unable to fulfil banking license requirements.
Jinn, a one-hour delivery service, is certain to love London. After rolling back its activities outside of our beloved city, they claim to be profitable. We made 90% of its orders anyway, so it will take some time until the service re-launches in other places.
Business as Usual
- Cornerstone, men’s shaving products’ supplier, received £3.5m from Calculus Capital.
- DeepCrawl, a search marketing analytics and insights platform, has closed a £1.75m Series A led by Beringea.
- Railsbank, an open API for banking and compliance, has raised a £1.2m seed led by Firestartr.
- MUTE International, electric scooters sharing scheme, has raised £810,790 on Crowdcube.
- Bubble, a babysitting marketplace app, has received £500,000 in seed funding from Angel Investors including Andrew Black (Betfair), Graham Hobson (Photobox) and Stephen Morana (Zoopla).
- Cera, a marketplace for home caregivers, has received another £500,000 in funding; the new investor is Auriens, a property developer focused on elderly clients.
- StreetDots, a platform for street traders, has received a £500,000 top-up from its existing investor — B.O.H Pte, a Singapore-based private fund.
- PlanSnap, an app that helps users make social plans with their friends, has raised £375,580 on Crowdcube, a crowdfunding platform. Read up on our Brief Interview with PlanSnap’s Louise Doherty .
Number of the Day
£80m — this is what you get if you agree to buy Harrods Bank.
Idea
London Brief is a weekly selection of essential information about startups, technology and the business scene in London. Got news? Give us a shout at londonbrief@netguru.co.
Radek Zaleski
On behalf of the London Brief Team
