London Brief #38 — Politics, means of transportation, business as usual. Plus Debbie Wosskow, twice. Read more in this issue…
People
Home Secretary Amber Rudd has accused technology experts of “patronising” and “sneering” at politicians who try to regulate their industry. She also said that the industry had helped criminals. Michael Beckerman, the chief executive of Internet Association, stood his ground trying to explain how encryption brings security to all users.
Uber’s new global chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, has met with the TfL chief, Mike Brown, following the decision to ban the service in London.
Debbie Wosskow, the founder and CEO of Love Home Swap, a home exchange service, shared her startup advice with the Wired.
In the news
Mike Brown may not like Uber but he is not a Luddite. According to Sky News, the Transport for London (TfL) plans to make £322m by collecting Tube users’ location data and potentially selling it to third parties.
Forget the Tube and jump on the bus! The famous Brexit Bus is now advertising Monese and the possibility to send €350m with no fees at all. Clever, but maybe not so funny for another FinTech. Startup bank Tandem, funded by Ricky Knox and Matt Cooper, says that the Brexit vote made it “significantly” harder to raise money.
Sir James Dyson has announced plans to build an electric car that will be “radically different” from the current models and might go on sale in 2020. The inventor has declared £2.5bn investment in the project. Coincidentally, Aston Martin has shown Project Neptune which envisions a small luxurious submarine.
Shoreditch has been named the most expensive tech district in the world. Finally, we beat Silicon Valley! Oh, wait…
Zinc, “the VC for good” by Saul Klein, is launching its first mission in London: Women and Girls’ Emotional and Mental Health. Congratulations to the selected founders!
Reports and Rankings
- The Wired has compiled The hottest startups in London list.
- GP Bullhound’s Titans of Tech shows that 22 of 57 European unicorns are based in the UK.
Business as usual
- Onfido, an identity and document verification startup, has raised $30m in a series C round of funding led by Crane Ventures Partners, with participation from the existing investors, including Salesforce Ventures. Microsoft Ventures also joined the company’s roster of investors for the first time.
- PremFina, a software platform dedicated to insurance brokers, has raised $36m (£27m) from investors including Rakuten Capital and Draper Esprit.
- Property Innovation Labs (Pi Labs), an accelerator-turned-early-stage VC fund that invests in property tech startups ‘pre-Series A’, has closed a second fund of $10m, from which it plans to make a total of 35 investments.
- Blow LTD, an on-demand beauty services provider, has received £7.5m investment from Debenhams.
- Seedrs, a crowdfunding platform, has just raised £6m crowdfunding campaign via its own platform.
- Hoop, the family app that “helps parents discover and book what’s on for their kids” secured £2.4m in a round led by BGF Ventures.
- Tantalum Corporation, a company providing connected car services cloud platform, has raised £2.5m from Disruptive Capital Investments.
- Fluidly, an intelligent platform for SMEs cashflow management, has closed a £2m seed round led by Octopus Ventures.
- Blend Media, a 360-degree video and virtual reality (VR) company has secured £1.5m from Hambro Perks and I2BF Global Ventures along with the existing investors.
- Serial entrepreneur Debbie Wosskow has raised £1.85m in Series A funding to boost the expansion of AllBright, a platform for female founders.
- Picfair, a marketplace for image licensing, has raised £1.5m in a funding round led by the Claverley Group.
- Libryo, a legal platform, has raised $1m (£748,000) in Seed funding led by early-stage investor Seedcamp through Nextlaw Labs.
Number of the day
£2.5bn — this is how much Sir Dyson will spend to make an electric car from a vacuum cleaner.
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.
Piotr Wrzosinski
On behalf of the London Brief Team
