In this episode of United Kingdom Tech - Weekly Deals Roundup: India Tech saw 22 companies including Plastic Energy, Zilch, Ometria etc raised over $539.4 million from investors such as LetterOne, M&G Axens among others.
Welcome to United Kingdom Tech Weekly Deals Roundup, a weekly podcast by Tracxn for key startup deals in the United Kingdom from last week.
In this edition, we will cover funding rounds of Plastic Energy, Zilch, Ometria, and more. In exits, we will cover the acquisition of CurrentBody by eComplete among others.
Starting with our deep dive into funding rounds, tech companies in the United Kingdom raised around $480.7 million of funding across 22 funding rounds during this week.
In a major funding event London-based FinTech startup, Zilch raised $110 million in a Series C funding round and joined the Unicorn club at the valuation of $2 billion. The funding round was led by Ventura Capital, Gauss Ventures. Zilch offers an online lending platform for purchase financing. Zilch enables users to purchase online and offline products or services on partnered brands and allows them to make payments on an installment basis. Zilch also offers a virtual credit card for making purchases.
In another major funding round London-based Environment Tech startup, Plastic Energy raised $167.7 million in a Series A funding round from LetterOne, M&G, and Axens. Plastic Energy is a waste plastic to fuel production company. Plastic Energy recycles end-of-life plastic waste into synthetic hydrocarbon fuels, oils, and food-grade plastic materials. Plastic Energy has developed a patented technology called thermal anaerobic conversion in which waste plastic is heated in the absence of oxygen to form saturated hydrocarbon vapor which is distilled to produce naphtha and diesel. Plastic Energy claims that the technology can produce 850-litres of oil from 1-tonne of plastic materials. Founded in 2017, Plastic Energy has raised $167.7 million till date.
Cambridge-based Life Sciences startup, bit.bio raised $103 million in a Series B funding round led by Resilience, Puhua Capital, Charles River Laboratories, Metaplanet, and Tencent with participation from Foresite Capital, and Arch Venture Partners. bit.bio has developed a platform for synthetic and stem cell therapies. bit.bio’s product includes human-induced skeletal myocytes and human-induced glutamic neurons used in research, drug discovery, and cell therapy. The opti-ox technology helps in the reprogramming of stem cells by activating specific transcription factors within the cells. Founded in 2016 by Stanford University alumni and University of Cambridge alumni, bit.bio has raised $144.5 million till date.
Another London Based eCommerce startup, Ometria raised $40 million in a Series C funding round led by InfraVia Capital Partners, and Columbia Lake Partners with participation from Sonae IM, Summit Action, and Adjuvo. Ometria is an eCommerce intelligence solution for online retailers. Ometria offers an analytics engine to keep track of customers and products, customizable dashboards covering KPI tracking, customer lifetime value, detailed product, and category insights, and funnel analysis of the customer journey across multiple channels. Ometria offers a subscription-based pricing model. Founded in 2013 by University of Cambridge alumni, Ometria has raised $75 million till date.
Stevenage-based Life Sciences startup, Gyroscope raised $40 million in a Series C funding round led by Sanofi. Gyroscope has developed gene therapies for eye diseases. Gyroscope focuses on a retinal disease, age-related macular degeneration. Gyroscope’s lead product, GT005, is a novel retinal gene therapy aiming at delivering a targeted, one-off treatment for the progressive visual impairment caused by dry AMD in patients by locally modulating complement activity. Founded in 2016, Gyroscope has raised $255 million till date.
A fourth London-based, Enterprise Infrastructure startup, Blink raised $20 million in a Series A funding round led by Next47 with participation from Techstars, and Partech Partners. Blink is a cloud-based platform for empowering and protecting frontline workers such as essential nurses, bus drivers, construction workers, and supply chain operators. Users can search messages, emails, files, application data, and calendars all in one place. Blink offers digitized tools to protect and equip frontline workers through a single platform. Founded in 2014, Blink has raised $30.7 million till date.
This was all from the funding updates, moving on to the exits. United Kingdom Tech observed 5 exits during the week of 14 Nov 2021.
Cheadle Hulme-based Beauty Tech CurrentBody was acquired by eComplete for $67.5 million. CurrentBody is an online retailer of electronic appliances for beauty care.CurrentBody mostly covers electrical muscle stimulation devices that have capabilities like slimming, facial toning, detoxing, and more. CurrentBody's products include devices like hand-held lasers, light-based devices, radio frequency and sonic rotating cleansing brushes, and more. Founded in 2009, CurrentBody has raised $20.1 million till date from NVM Private Equity, Business Growth Fund, and Mercia.
London-based computer vision Startup, ThirdEye was acquired by Standard. ThirdEye provides an AI-enabled visual inspection tool for retail stores. ThirdEye's solutions include concealment detector, social distance detector, checkout theft detector, and scan-as-you-go theft. ThirdEye works on both iOS and Android devices. Founded in 2016, ThirdEye has raised $2.6 million till date from Plug and Play Tech Center, True Global, and Octopus Ventures.
Another London-based business intelligence Startup Cube19 was acquired by Bullhorn. Cube19 provides a visual analytics solution that accelerates business performance and drives fact-based decision-making by turning complex data into simple pictures. Cube19 provides analytics to recruiters and sales teams which results in users at all levels of business taking real-time actions to improve the likelihood they will meet their financial targets. Founded in 2011, Cube19 has raised $1.8 million to date from ADG, and BOOST&Co.
A third London-based interactive video platform, WIREWAX was acquired by Vimeo. WIREWAX is a cloud-based software tool to create shoppable and interactive videos. WIREWAX allows users to add intuitive tracking tags to people and objects in videos. WIREWAX also enables users to add information, links, images, and dynamic applications. Founded in 2009, WIREWAX has raised $5.4 million till date from Passion Capital, Plug and Play Tech Center, JOBI CAPITAL, Stefan Glaenzer, Douglas Crisman, Robert Dighero, and others.
This was all for today, we will be back next Monday with more updates. You can subscribe to our podcast on Google Podcasts to stay updated. If you have any feedback, please reachout to us at podcast@tracxn.com. Thank you for tuning in today, see you next week.