A record 219 companies went public through this fundraising vehicle that uses a reverse merger with an existing private business to create a publicly-listed entity. This accounted for more than $73 billion dollars of investment, providing private equity startups a new outlet to raise capital and provide shareholder liquidity.
Business
How High Can Bitcoin Go? A $1 Million 10-Year Price Target (Or $1 per dSAT) Actually Looks Reasonable
I know many will laugh at me. And maybe they’re right. But I’m not writing this to convince the naysayers. This is for the growing community of people (including Michael Saylor, Paul Tudor Jones, Stanley Druckenmiller, Bill Miller….) who have seen the crypto light. And I’ve been laughed at before for making seemingly outlandish predictions and been proven right.
10 Predictions for the Tech Industry in 2021
Chris Cunningham of C2 Ventures offers some predictions for what 2021 will bring to tech, covering AR, privacy, insurtech, and much, much more…
eXate Raises £2.3M for its All-In-One Enterprise Data Management Platform
Data volumes are growing exponentially and expected to hit 175 zettabytes by 2025. For businesses managing this unprecedented growth, ensuring compliance with regulatory initiatives like GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act has become a challenge. eXate is the data management solution that enables enterprises to have a single application to manage data visibility and privacy across the data landscape. Companies can now readily capture the value of the data that they possess and share the data internally without getting bogged down by privacy concerns, resulting in significant value creation, cost savings, and efficiency. London TechWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Peter Lancos to learn more about pain point that eXate addresses, the burgeoning data privacy space, and the company’s recent funding round from investors that include Outward VC, ING Ventures, and Triple Point Ventures.
Farm’s Takeaway App Showcases London’s Local Culinary Talent
The pandemic has devastated the food industry and smaller, independent food-service businesses have felt the brunt of the pain. Farm, the new app, celebrates London’s local food scene and talent. Committed to supporting independent food businesses, the takeaway-only app does not charge any delivery or service fees, which ensures that vendors on the platform are able to keep all the margins. Consumers can order food from a variety of sources including the local farmers market, street vendors, artisan chefs, and more but the app does not include restaurants or chains. London TechWatch caught up with Mehmet Salih to learn more about Farm’s platform, the impact it has had on food businesses and professionals, and future plans.
Cledara Pulls in Another $3.4M to Centralize SaaS Spend and Management
Software may be eating the world but software spend may be eating your runway.
The average employee uses eight SaaS applications; companies with 50 or less employees have a total of 40 applications while larger companies with 1000+ employees have over 200 different subscriptions on average. Cledara is the SaaS purchasing and management platform that centralizes a company’s cloud software subscriptions, providing transparency into spend and usage. The pandemic has created a frenzied acceleration for digital transformation and the associated software needed and this trend has fueled massive growth for Cledara; the company has grown 20x in 2020 alone.
London TechWatch caught up with Cofounder and CEO Cristina Vila to learn more about the company’s platform, expansion plans, and latest round of funding from Nauta Capital and Anthemis.
Where We Are Investing Now: Microbiome
Scientific exploration of the microbiome represents the opening of one of the greatest new areas of science in decades, perhaps centuries. It has the potential to rival Einstein’s impact on physics or the double helix on understanding biology. While young, this area shows historic potential across a dizzying expanse of health and human experience.
Deary Gives You a Daily Dose of Nostalgia by Turning Your Messages into Memories
Deary is the first app that uses AI to discover emotional sentiment in your chat-messages and transform them into a story. Deary brings people closer together by unlocking the human value in chat-messages and presents users with ‘Message Cards’ that contain a day’s worth of messages. London TechWatch chatted with Cofounder and CEO Federico Allegro to understand how navigating his long-distance relationship inspired the creation of Deary, the company’s experience building in London, and future plans.
How Can E-Commerce Merchants Cut Through the Hype to Find Reliable SaaS Providers?
Over the last few years, the number of startups and solution providers in the technology space has been growing to handle everything from social media marketing and customer experience personalization to fraud prevention and shipping management. A market crowded with service providers can be good for e-commerce merchants, because it’s easier than ever to find solutions that work with your business model. But technology isn’t the only factor to consider. To make sure you’re picking vendors and partners who will stand the test of time and help you compete in a rapidly accelerating field, it’s also wise to consider each option’s funding structure, experience, and data resources.
Alphagreen Raises £1.1M to be the One-Stop Marketplace for CBD in Europe
The demand for CBD products across the globe has been steadily increasing and in Europe, consumers are projected to spend approximately €13.6B on CBD products by 2025. The e-commerce CBD marketplace, Alphagreen, makes it easy for consumers to discover and purchase high-quality CBD products while providing emerging CBD brands the tools to scale and launch products in new markets. London TechWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Alexej Pikovsky to learn more about how Alphagreen’s plans to become more than just a CBD marketplace by becoming the go-to intelligence platform for CBD products, the company’s impressive traction, and recent funding round from investors that include Enexis AB, West Creek, and Igor and Oleg Tikhturov.