London Brief #42: Arrested Prince, Lost Gold Bar, VR Games Instead of Work and Business as usual.
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People
Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud has been arrested in an anti-corruption drive. The billionaire, via his Kingdom Holding Company, has stakes in multiple high-tech and media companies including Twitter, eBay, Lyft, and News Corp. The prince’s more visible properties in London are the Savoy Hotel and Canary Wharf.
Nicola Robinson, Senior Strategic Marketing Manager at the Royal Mint, has lost (and quickly recovered) a 1kg gold bar during the London Blockchain Summit. The Royal Mint is now testing a blockchain coin RMG using a technology provided by BitGo to track the ownership of the gold.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has announced a new programme of 20 investment days for London startups over four years. Each event will have a specific niche and will be run by the UK Business Angels Association (UKBAA).
Herman Narula, the co-founder and CEO of Improbable Worlds Limited, a startup building the infrastructure for massive virtual worlds to be developed (SpatialOS), shared his dystopian vision of the future at Wired Live, where “gaming could be an antidote to a world where jobs have been automated”.
In the news
Brain drain! Silicon Valley is stealing our AI talents, according to the Guardian. Or they are buying our AI companies — Bloomberg covers rumours that Sequoia Capital will back Graphcore with a $50m investment.
Some people are moving to London, though. Globality, an American startup that connects SMEs with large corporations, has received $35m investment and is going to open a European HQ here.
Reports and Rankings
Business as usual
- TransferWise has raised $280m in a round led by Old Mutual Global Investors and IVP.
- Kano, an educational hardware startup, has raised $28m (£21m) in a Series B round led by Thames Trust and Breyer Capital.
- Snatch, an augmented reality app, has raised £4.4m seed funding led by Initial Capital.
- CommuterClub, a startup that offers loans for annual tickets, has raised £2.3m in a round led by Wadhawan Global Capital.
- Sunlight, a learning and development platform for employees, has closed a £500,000 seed round from Speedinvest, Seedcamp, and Annection.
- ContentCal, social media content calendar planning tool, has raised a further £470,000 from private investors.
Number of the day
£564,028: This is the total funding available for 20 investment days planned by the City Hall.
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
