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| Hey, Insider! Want to be featured in next week’s newsletter? Answer our weekly question: How long has your startup been in operation? Share your response here. Nicolas
p/mobilitynerd | |
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Odyssey, a Boulder, Colorado-based software startup for distributed energy in emerging markets, announced a $15M Series A led by Union Square Ventures. The startup intends to use the funds to expand to new markets in Latin America and Asia. More: - Odyssey focuses on operations, project lifecycle: planning, financing, procurement, and operations through its tools for distributed energy.
- The startup claims 2,000 companies in its platform, processing $1.3B across development finance institutions, donors, international banks, and infrastructure funds.
- The company launched its Procure product in Nigeria, South Africa, and East Africa.
- Other distributed energy platforms with fresh funding include Banyan Infrastructure's recent $25M Series B, and I Squared Capital's investment in RPower
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| 2 | | Servicely, an artificial intelligence automation software startup, announced it secured $3M from SaaS-focused venture fund EVP. The company is seeking to automate processes in the IT, HR, and facilities management sectors. More: - The startup estimates an annual total addressable market revenue of $44B for IT service management.
- Servicely was founded in 2020 by Dion Williams and Ben O'Loghlin, who had worked at Keystone Management Solutions.
- "In my previous businesses, I saw first-hand the frustrations faced by mid-enterprise organizations looking to implement a service management solution," said Williams.
- The founders see their startup as a viable alternative to ServiceNow for the 500-10,000 person organization.
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| 3 | | The U.K. government is set to meet with representatives from fintech company Revolut over its banking license application. The company is likely to receive an answer within the next two weeks if it convinces regulators its finances are stable. More: - If Revolut is granted a full banking license, it will enable it to offer deposits and mortgages, making the fintech company more competitive with traditional financial institutions.
- According to industry experts, reports that the company misrepresented numbers in its earnings report could hurt its chances of being granted a license.
- Revoluts auditor DBO stated that the company had misrepresented 75% of its 2021 revenue, leading to a resignation from Revolute's CFO Mikko Salovaara.
- Founded in the U.K. in 2015, Revolut has previously reached a valuation of $33B, becoming Britain's most valuable startup in 2021.
- The company has over 6000 employees and over $400M in revenue as of 2022.
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| 4 | | FlowX.ai, a startup that helps organizations automate digitalization processes, raised a $35M Series A. The round constitutes the largest Series A in Romanian tech history. More: - FlowX focuses on integrating various software onto a single platform, focusing on clients such as BNP Paribas, OTP, Banca Transilvania, and Alpha Bank.
- The round was led by recurring investors from its $9M Seed round, PortfoLion, SeedBlink, and DayOne Capital.
- The company has 50 employees across the U.S. and European Union.
- FlowX generated $1.55M in revenue in 2022, 735% more than the previous year.
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| 5 | | Patient21 raised a $108M funding round to expand its hybrid healthcare solution beyond Germany. Pitango was the lead investor in this Series C round. More: - Patient21 is a patient healthcare startup that provides telemedicine and physical healthcare services, mostly focusing on dental care.
- The company says it has over 300,000 patient visits each year.
- Patient21 aims to use this funding round to launch in multiple European markets within 12 months.
- In addition to Pitango, PICO Venture Partners, Bertelsmann Investments, Artian, Target Global, and Piton Capital participated in the funding.
- Since its inception in 2019, the Berlin-based company has raised over $170M in funding.
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| 6 | | Wealth management firm Elkstone has closed a $108M fund to invest in early-stage Irish startups. Its portfolio companies have raised over $600M in follow-up rounds. More: - Elkstone has already deployed 10% of this fund across six investments:
- Bluedrop Medical,
- MEG,
- Inclusio,
- Allsorter,
- Danalto, and
- Output Sports.
- Its previous investments include two unicorns and other companies such as:
- Flipdish,
- LetsGetChecked,
- Manna,
- Soapbox Labs, and
- Protex AI.
- Elkstone aims to deploy the funds completely by the end of 2026.
- The fund, officially named the Elkstone Ireland Venture Fund, has over 250 Limited Partners.
- The company claims that its portfolio startups have created over 1000 jobs.
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| 7 | | Community Corner Last week, we asked our startups community, "What are the most common reasons startups fail?" Here are some highlighted responses we received: - Diraj Perkash Goel (p/growthbydesign), Managing Partner at GetFresh Ventures, answered, "I've seen startups; 1. Invest heavily into product and spend years developing before putting their product in front of users, where they lose sight of who their actual buyer is vs user. 2. Invest heavily into branding and marketing without clearly understanding who their buyers are, what is critical enough for them to engage on the solution and where they hang out, so they narrow their focus on lead gen. 3. Invest heavily into headcount assuming bring top talent from larger names will somehow solve their problems, instead of hiring doers who can hit the ground and do the heavy lifting you need done in engaging the buyer and babysitting their users to fully adopt their solution. 4. Invest heavily into anything else instead of customers, and what they need to understand about the economics their buyers are navigating, or the problems they are facing, or the critical problems they need solve for, or figuring out how they make money while solving the problem."
- Wayne Fenton (p/wayne-fenton), SW Architect at Upwork Inc, answered, "I've been in two startups that failed because we had a small number of large customers accounting for 50% of our revenue. In the first case the big customer merged with another company and the other company got ownership of all the IT contracts, and they cancelled our contract without even thinking about it. We ended up selling ourselves in a fire sale. In the second case, we couldn't get funding or have an IPO, and again, we ended up selling ourselves in a fire sale. In both cases, our revenue was ~$50 million / year, but we didn't have enough / varied customers. Of course the first experience is exactly the reason why the second experience happened. A startup that is reliant on a single huge customer is in a very precarious situation…"
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INSIDE STARTUPS LEADERBOARD (7 DAYS) |
 | Sr. Analyst | | Nicolas S. is a Sr. Analyst at Inside, covering transportation and startup trends. He is an avid map maker and data nerd. Nicolas has worked in the shared-scooter space, as well as advised e-bike and moped startups. Follow him at @MobilityNerd. __________
Arbër Musliu is an Inside writer who also has experience in entrepreneurship. He has experience covering Consumer Tech, Venture Capital, NFTs, Crypto, etc. Arbër holds a Bachelor's degree in Business from XAMK University in Finland. When he is not reading(and writing) business news, he chooses to watch sports or anime...and then read news about sports or anime. | | This newsletter was edited by Vibha Chapparike | |
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