Portfolio News & Press
By Andrew Thompson, VP Engineering at Yoyo Wallet:
On April 10th, 2017 my team and I at Yoyo Wallet launched the Caffè Nero App across the UK and Ireland enabling a digital payment and loyalty experience for millions of Caffè Nero's customers.
Gojimo, an app that helps U.K. high school students prepare for exams, has been acquired by Telegraph Media Group, the publisher of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph newspapers
One of the Firestartr family, Dataloop.io, has recently re-branded and became Outlyer. You can hear the founder David Gildeh's story and reasoning behind the transformation in his blog.
Sage has announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Compass. Based in San Francisco Compass provides dashboards with automated management reports and benchmarks for small and medium sized online businesses.
Every woman’s experience of motherhood is different, but as founder Melinda Niccidiscovered, too often women are given bland, disengaged, blanket advice.
In the wake of what they consider to be “successful beta tests” in the Fall of 2016, Adbrain — a worldwide provider of “intelligent cross-device technology solutions” — has some exciting news to share.
Dataloop.IO -- whose product is already in use with customers such as Moz.com, BBC Worldwide and Criteo -- will use the funds to ramp up product development, sales and marketing. The company is also opening a new headquarters in San Francisco to attract talent and build on its sales momentum in the U.S.
The Baby2Body online platform offers advice and inspiration around a woman’s unique concerns during pregnancy and new motherhood – regarding her psychological wellbeing, nutrition, fitness, and beauty. The evidence-based content is timely, relevant and actionable to ensure the right information is delivered across multiple channels at the right time in a direct, unbiased and personalised format.
Baby2Body, the first company to address maternal wellbeing in the UK, has closed a $850,000 round as part of its early-stage funding.
Baby2Body provides innovative, digital platforms to guide and inspire new and nearly mums to make healthier lifestyle choices. It provides a curated content of fitness, nutrition, wellbeing and beauty throughout pregnancy and for three years as a new mum.
Since launching in early 2015, Baby2Body has already accumulated 120,000+ unique users, growing by 1,000 new users per day.
The investment round was led by Firestartr, with participation from Downing Ventures, the London Co-Investment Fund, and a collection of angel investors. Baby2Body will use the funding to invest in its digital presence with the launch of a new app and a premium content experience that is more interactive and personalised to each user.
Cronofy, the U.K. startup that offers a calendar API to help businesses and their customers synchronise calendars, has raised a $1.6m seed round led by Firestartr alongside Amsterdam-based venture capital firm henQ.
“We’re the plumbing that connects apps and services with peoples calendars,” explains Cronofy founder Adam Bird. “Our customers are SaaS providers”.
Cronofy customers include flight search engine Skyscanner, Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) providers and health professionals booking platform Zesty.
Richard Muirhead, Firestartr co-founder and chairman, says “Synchronising schedules has become critical for many millions more people, driven by smart phones, the gig economy and crazy calendars. Software developers crave easy ways to embed great functionality into their apps and websites, so we really like Cronofy’s developer-driven route to market.”
Gojimo, the exam preparation app, has closed a round of $1.8m funding from investors Robin and Saul Klein (LoveFilm co-founder), Deborah Quazzo (GSV Advisors), the London Co-Investment Fund, CrowdBnk and Firestartr.
Founded in 2013, Gojimo has been previously backed by London VC Index Ventures and JamJar Investments. It has raised a total of over $3m.
“The two most popular ways to revise are still physical textbooks and past papers. We change that by delivering an extensive library of high quality assessment material to their mobile phone for free.” says George Burgess, who founded the startup after dropping out of Stanford.
More than 300,000 students have used the app in May alone (exam time in the UK) - 20% of all GCSE and A level students. The app contains more than 180,000 quiz questions for exams such as GCSE, A levels and the International Baccalaureate.
Congratulations to Yoyo Wallet for winning yet another award as Mobile Technology Solution of the Year!
The Retail Systems Awards recognizes technology excellence and innovation within the retail industry.
Big Data For Humans, the leading European data science-as-a-service provider for the retail and travel sector, has secured a $1.2 million seed funding round led by EC1 Capital with further investment from Firestartr, Scottish Investment Bank and a group of four Angel investors.
Big Data For Humans is an alumni of Techstars, the world’s leading tech incubator, and in 2014 received investment from their US-based funds. Today, it has secured UK clients from large supermarkets to niche travel companies.
“Big Data For Humans is revolutionizing the way businesses leverage their data science. We're at the forefront of the next wave of marketing software, enabling marketing and commercial executives to use data science-as-a-service without the cost of expensive teams and infrastructure." - Peter Ellen, CEO at Big Data For Humans
In April 2015 Peak began a collaboration with Cambridge University's department of Psychiatry, resulting this month is the launch of the Cambridge University & Peak Advanced Training Plan - a memory game, available within Peak's iOS app, designed to train visual episodic memory while promoting learning. Researchers found that the memory game could improve a patient's episodic memory, helping in an area where drugs have failed.
