London Brief #39

Royal family, mental health, GPs in London on demand and business as usual. Read more in this issue…

Piotr Wrzosinski

Published in

London Brief

2 min readOct 19, 2017

People

Prince William, Princess Kate and Prince Harry are all supporting a new startup for digital innovation in mental health. Their Royal Foundation will invest £2 million in the campaign led by Heads Together charity.

Dan Warne, Deliveroo’s UK Executive Manager became a non-executive director and key stakeholder at healthcare app Qure. Qure, based in Clapham, is providing doctor-on-demand service in central and south-east London.

If you cannot hire any of the Deliveroo managers just yet, you can learn few hints shared by Hussejn Kanji (Hoxton Ventures), an early investor in the company.

In the news

Atom, a digital bank founded by former Metro Bank chairman Anthony Thomson and former First Direct CEO Mark Mullen, says it is the fastest growing of the challenger banks, attracting over £900 million in deposits since July 2016 when it first launched its savings accounts.

TfL vs Uber saga continues. Via, the taxi app from Israel backed by Mercedes-Benz is ready for launch in London, but… they cannot get their license since April.

Gousto, a fresh food delivery startup, has developed an Alexa app that helps users to cook meals from the recipes that come with each Gousto box of ingredients.

Verv, a smart home solution that promises to cut your energy bill is now raising money on Crowdcube.

L’Oreal and Founders Factory have announced the three startups to receive additional backing: Sampler (digital targeting for product sampling), Riviter (AI-based visual search engine), and Alegra (digital platforms for content and e-commerce)

Coworking space Rainmaking Loft is shutting down in London after US rival WeWork moved into the same International Building at the St Katherine’s Dock.

Last but not least, the TechCity UK’s Scaleup 3.0 is open for applications.

Reports and Rankings

Business Insider’s The 100 coolest people in UK tech.

Business as usual

SalaryFinance, a financial wellbeing employee benefits platform, has raised £40m in a round led by Legal & General and Blenheim Chalcot.
BrickVest, the real estate investment platform, has raised £5m from Berlin Hyp.
miPic, a startup which operates a photo marketplace, has raised £1.3m seed funding from Sage.
Laundryheap, a laundry service after three years bootstrapping, has closed £2 million in “super-angel” funding led by Simon Smith and QVentures.

Number of the day

£70 — the price for 20 minutes consultation by the GP at your home, no queues, via Qure.

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.