Soteria Biotherapeutics Launches with $42 Million Series A Financing Led by Roche Venture Fund and 5AM Ventures

M Ventures

SAN FRANCISCO, May 17, 2021: Soteria Biotherapeutics, Inc. (“Soteria”), a privately-held, immuno-oncology company focused on developing a next generation of switchable bispecific T-cell engagers to treat patients with solid tumor cancers, today announced a $42 million Series A financing led by Roche Venture Fund and 5AM Ventures with participation from other leading investors, including M Ventures, Novartis Venture Fund and Alexandria Venture Investments.

Soteria’s T-LITETM T-cell engagers are selectively switched on through oral administration of a small-molecule activator to modulate potent T-cell activity by controlling the timing, duration, and level of bispecific complex formation. This switchable activity enables precise on/off control over the timing and magnitude of T-cell redirection and cytotoxic activity. Unlike conventional T-cell engagers which lack a control switch and therefore are associated with significant side effects, Soteria’s T-LITE therapies are being designed to allow physicians to modulate T-cell activity to maximize efficacy while minimizing side effects.

“Soteria’s technology has the potential to revolutionize the T-cell engager field with its proprietary approach designed to control and target potent biologic immune activators to attack tumors,” said Nisha Marathe, investment director at Roche Venture Fund. “Specifically, we believe the T-LITE technology is highly differentiated, where the potent activity of a T-cell engager can be selectively switched on by small-molecule activators to direct tumor cytotoxicity and reduce cytokine release syndrome, ultimately resulting in a therapy with potentially greater safety and efficacy.”

“These funds will support the advancement of our technology and allow us to build a pipeline of T-LITE development candidates with potential in well validated cancer targets,” said Kristine Ball, chief executive officer of Soteria. “We appreciate the confidence and vision this syndicate of premier investors has shown in our opportunity to disrupt the T-cell engager field and our potential to create differentiated, potent therapies against solid tumors.”

Company Founders and Leadership
Soteria’s team of founders, management and board members brings together accomplished leaders from academia and the biopharma industry with successful track records discovering and developing therapeutics at companies such as Abgenix, Ascendis Pharma, AstraZeneca/Medimmune, Exelixis, Genentech/Roche, KAI (acquired by Amgen), Labrys (acquired by TEVA), Merck Research Laboratories, Novartis, Relypsa (acquired by Vifor) and Sunesis:

Kristine Ball, Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Board
Zachary Hill, PhD, Co-Founder and SVP, Chief Scientific Officer, and Member of the Board
Mohammad Tabrizi, PhD, VP Preclinical Development
Alex Martinko, PhD, Co-Founder and Senior Director of Protein Science
Jim Wells, PhD, Academic Co-founder, Chair of Scientific Advisory Board, and Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at UC San Francisco
Steven P. James, Board Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Pionyr Immunotherapeutics
David Allison, PhD, Member of the Board and Partner at 5AM Ventures
Keno Gutierrez, PhD, Member of the Board and Vice President at M Ventures
Nisha Marathe, PhD, Member of the Board and Investment Director at Roche Venture Fund
David Morris, MD, Member of the Board and Operating Partner at Novartis Venture Fund
Momo Wu, PhD, Member of the Board and Portfolio Investment Manager at Emerson Collective

About Soteria Biotherapeutics Inc.
Soteria is developing a next generation of switchable bispecific T-cell engagers to treat cancer patients with solid tumors. Soteria’s highly innovative T-LITETM platform provides small molecule-dependent activation of bispecific antibody therapies, enabling safer and more efficacious treatments through pulsatile activity, reduced side effects and higher dosing. Soteria was founded in 2018 with technology licensed from UC San Francisco and is based in San Francisco, California. For additional information, visit www.soteriabiotherapeutics.com

Contacts:
Sylvia Wheeler
swheeler@wheelhouselsa.com
info@soteriabiotx.com

Alex Santos
asantos@wheelhouselsa.com

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Pliant Raises $10M in Series A Funding

New Stack Ventures

Today, Pliant announced that it has secured $10 million in Series-A financing led by Osage Venture Partners, with participation from Madrona Venture Group and existing investors New Stack Ventures, Gutbrain Ventures, VT Technology Ventures, Timothy McSweeney, BrightCap Ventures, Newfund Capital, Azure Capital Partners, and Leading Edge Ventures. As part of this financing, Osage Venture Partners Managing Partner Robert Adelson has joined the Pliant Board of Directors.

The new funding will be used to invest in Pliant’s go-to-market operations spanning sales, marketing, alliances, and customer success, as well as development initiatives in support of the company’s product roadmap.

 

“The Pliant IT Automation and Orchestration Platform delivers highly differentiated solutions in an exciting and rapidly growing space,” said Robert Adelson, Managing Partner of Osage Venture Partners.

“We are very impressed by the company’s proven ability to deliver meaningful value to leading brands in such a short period of time.”

 

“I’m thrilled and honored to be a part of the Osage Venture Partners family,” said Vess Bakalov, Founder and CEO of Pliant.

“We have built a strong business with a small, dedicated, and driven team. In the last year alone, we have made incredible progress in product development, new customer acquisition, and customer success. This investment will help us staff up to accelerate a new phase of rapid growth.”

 

Congratulations to Pliant!

Seaya Ventures leads a €3 million investment in Aquí tu Reforma

Seayaventures
Barcelona, March 17, 2021 – Aquí tu Reforma, Spain’s first technology-based home improvement franchise company, has completed a €3 million financing round led by venture capital fund Seaya Ventures and with the participation of existing investors such as Encomenda Capital, among others. Seaya’s investment portfolio includes 29 disruptive technology companies that have become leaders in their respective industries, including Cabify and Glovo, the first two unicorns in Spain.

The objective of the round is to consolidate Aquí tu Reforma’s leadership in Spain and to continue developing its own disruptive technology, launch new technology-based products and services and internationalise the company, reaching other countries in Europe and Latin America. The renovation sector in Spain is forecast to grow by 13% in 2021 and is expected to generate more than €60 billion. This industry will be essential for the economic reactivation and achieving the 2030 agenda to decarbonise the European economy.

Aquí tu Reforma is committed to the sector’s digitalisation and sustainability, with the implementation of a circular economy plan that optimises resources and systems, improving waste management and minimising the impact on the environment.

The company is led by its founders Francisco Morán, CEO, and Enric Aparici, managing director, and started its activity in 2019 with the mission to digitise the sector. Francisco Morán explains that “we have been very clear from the outset that we wanted value added partners and Seaya is the perfect ally”.

Antonio Giménez de Córdoba, Seaya Ventures partner, valued Aquí tu Reforma’s “commitment to the renovation sector’s digitalisation and its potential to improve the sustainability of homes and cities. At Seaya, we are very clear that we want to invest in companies that have a positive impact on society.”

Aquí tu Reforma has a network of 106 franchises in 46 Spanish cities and a team of more than 500 people in franchises and 30 people in the head office. The company plans to double its workforce by the end of the year. “We are reinforcing the technology and marketing teams and all areas related to customer service, both in terms of management with our franchises and for end customers,” says Morán. The company’s immediate projects include the launch of ATR Market, an exclusive procurement platform for franchises, and new technological tools, such as an app and augmented reality technology.

About Aquí tu Reforma

Aquí tu Reforma is the leading brand of home renovation franchises, whose main objective is to improve well-being in sustainable cities, with people at the centre and technology as the backbone. The network has 106 franchises, located in the main cities of Spain. The company offers renovation financing through its AQUÍ Credit platform. The company, which started its activity in 2019, was founded by Francisco Morán and Enric Aparici. More information at www.aquitureforma.com

About Seaya Ventures

Based in Madrid, Seaya Ventures has been backing the best entrepreneurs and teams in Europe and Latin America since 2013. Seaya focuses on helping founders scale their businesses and enable them to become global leaders. More information at www.seayaventures.com

 

Orange strengthens its venture capital activity in digital innovation by creating a new entity – Orange Ventures with an allocation of 350 million euros

Orange Ventures enters top 10 corporate venture capital funds in Europe.

Orange today announces that its venture capital arm, Orange Ventures has become a separate legal entity with an increased allocation of 350 million euros, empowering it to be more agile and competitive in seeking out and supporting the best start-up talent worldwide. Orange Ventures invests in high-growth sectors, in areas traditional to Orange expertise such as connectivity, cybersecurity, the digital enterprise, and innovative financial services, as well as new territories that the group is exploring, like e-health.

With offices in Paris and Dakar, Orange Ventures supports start-ups at all stages of maturity, from seed stage start-ups in Africa and the Middle East, to more mature companies in Europe and the United States, with investment tickets up to 20 million euros per financing round.

For Orange, the purpose of Orange Ventures is to promote the emergence of future technological champions who support the transition to an increasingly digital and responsible world, at the service of all, by sharing their innovation capabilities with its 256 million customers worldwide. To achieve this, Orange Ventures differentiates by proposing a highly structured process for exploring and creating flexible and optional synergies between Orange and start-ups.

Orange Ventures aims to achieve the financial performance of the best venture capital investment companies, and will make its investment decisions autonomously. The Orange Ventures team, made up of twenty people, has thus been strengthened with established experts from the venture capital industry, and will also take over the management of the portfolio of the Orange Digital Ventures initiative launched in 2015.

Jérôme Berger, President and Managing Partner of Orange Ventures declares: “our wish is to constitute an organisation which combines the best of both worlds: Orange’s business expertise as well as the agility of decision-making and the quality of the financial monitoring of the best investment funds. We closely support each start-up post-investment in order to contribute to its development and facilitate its direct and structured access to the Orange ecosystem whenever it is relevant.”

About Orange Ventures
With a 350 million euros allocation, Orange Ventures is dedicated to investments in innovative startups in areas of strategic interest of Orange (Networks & IT, Digital Enterprise, Cybersecurity, and Fintech) and beyond (Consumer platforms, E -gaming, Edtech, Health etc). Orange Ventures also deploys initiatives dedicated to the Africa and Middle East region. Supported by the Orange group, and made up of a team of 20 people, Orange Ventures offers startups in which it invests access to the Group’s expertise and the possibility of setting up synergies with its many business units and its 256 million customers in 26 countries. For more information, visit ventures.orange.com or follow us on Twitter @Orange_DV.

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Fight against climat change: Fermentalg and SUEZ create a joint venture to accelerate the industrialization and commercialization of solutions for capturing and valorizing CO2 in bioproducts

Suez Ventures

Strengthened by their feedback following a five-year partnership, and to address the growing climate emergency, SUEZ and FERMENTALG, a key French player and expert in the research and bio industrial exploitation of micro-algae, have signed a memorandum of understanding for the creation in the first half of 2021 of a joint venture, equally owned, which will develop algae photobioreactors capable of capturing CO2 by biomimicry. In addition, this major innovation will enable the development of circular loops, notably by producing products that can be used in the fields of biocontrol, nutrition and animal health.

Initiated in 2015 as part of the Paris Agreement, the partnership between FERMENTALG and SUEZ has allowed for the development of unique and promising solutions in response to the environmental challenges of the 21st century:

  • Carbon sink, to capture and process CO2 emissions in an industrial environment using a new generation algae photobioreactor;
  • The Combin’Air air purifier, including innovative solutions such as an algae photobioreactor designed to reduce fine particles (PM10, PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NOx) to combat the toxic impacts of atmospheric pollution on public health.

The new algal photobioreactor developed by the joint venture will build on these first technological advances deployed in both industrial and urban environments over the past five years. The solutions improve the selection of microalgae strains, new lighting technologies and the identification of high value-added bioproducts validating the environmental and economic benefits of the model. According to the applications, these bioproducts will contribute to the preservation of soils and biodiversity as well as to human and animal health.

Philippe Lavielle, FERMENTALG CEO, commented: “By creating this new growth division with SUEZ Group, FERMENTALG today reaffirms its environmental and societal commitment. By leveraging our unique global expertise in technology to serve sustainable development, our joint venture will now be positioned as one of the leading players in air quality and the fight against climate change. In the first year, we plan to open up our capital to other financial partners to accelerate the global rollout of our solutions.”

Diane Galbe, Senior Executive Vice President Group in charge of the global Business Unit, Smart & Environmental Solutions and Head of Strategy, added: “This joint venture with Fermentalg is fully in line with our Group’s strategy by providing solutions for the capture and recovery of CO2 in bioproducts. This new nature-based solutions will have a positive impact on climate, health and biodiversity while fully meeting the challenges of the circular economy. Five years after the Paris agreement aimed at containing global warming to 1.5° by the end of the century, SUEZ is once again translating its reinforced commitments to preserve our planet into concrete solutions to build a sustainable world, starting now.

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Keen – EclecticIQ Raises €20M in Series C Funding

Keen

December 1, 2020 — EclecticIQ, a global threat intelligence, hunting and response technology provider, has raised €20 million ($24 million) in Series C financing, led by Ace Management, Europe’s leading cyber growth investor.

Other contributors to the funding round include Capricorn Digital Growth Fund and Quest for Growth, Invest-NL, Arches Capital and existing investors INKEF Capital, KEEN Venture Partners and KPN ventures. This brings the company’s total funding raised to €47 million over a four-year period, making it among the best funded global cybersecurity scale-ups based in Europe.

Funding will go towards deepening the company’s commitment to government, large enterprises and service providers, expanding its portfolio and increasing the company’s global footprint. With this investment EclecticIQ will accelerate its strategy to transform from a leading threat intelligence platform vendor into an innovative cybersecurity leader across the globe.

As cyber threats continue to evolve rapidly, intelligence-led cybersecurity has become the norm. EclecticIQ’s growing customer base relies on its threat intelligence platform as the single source of truth for cyber threats and incidents. The financing will drive further innovation of the platform with new use cases, enabling governments, large enterprises and service providers to effectively manage threat intelligence, create situational awareness and adopt an intelligence-led cybersecurity approach.

Having mastered threat intelligence technology, the company sees adjacent opportunities in operationalizing threat intelligence, as this is a problem that has not been solved in the market yet. With the recent acquisition of PolyLogyx’s end-point technology, the company is well positioned to develop new solutions that re-imagine how organizations detect, hunt and respond to sophisticated threats.

To accelerate growth, EclecticIQ will use the funding to expand its commercial teams in Europe and the United States, and establish a presence in the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. Leveraging its experience with governments, and some of the most targeted enterprises globally, the company will expand its focus to new segments and strengthen its global partner ecosystem.

François Lavaste, Partner at Ace Management who will join EclecticIQ’s board of directors, said: ”We are convinced that Ace Management’s new investment will help the company to improve and accelerate its solutions that enable the world’s biggest governments and commercial enterprises to identify and protect against the most intense cyber threats.

Joep Gommers, EclecticIQ’s co-founder and chief executive officer said, “It is exciting to bring in a high-caliber cyber investor like Ace Management, which shares our vision of threat intelligence at the core of cybersecurity, and sees the opportunity to transform the industry by solving massive challenges faced in threat detection, hunting and response. This financial investment will enable EclecticIQ to drive the industry forward and support our clients more effectively facing an ever-evolving threat landscape.

EclecticIQ has seen impressive growth over the years:

  • Growth: In 2019, the company grew its revenue by 84 percent by successfully expanding the company’s market segments from government to larger financial organizations, telecoms and big tech companies.
  • Product: EclecticIQ is continuing to push the envelope, with a new intelligence ingestion engine introduced to the EclecticIQ Platform, improving robustness and scalability of the company’s core threat intelligence technology.
  • Industry alliances: The company is a sponsor member of OASIS, EclecticIQ joined the Open Cybersecurity Alliance (OCA), along with some of the biggest names in cybersecurity.
  • Leadership: The company further strengthened its leadership team, adding Wytse Bouma (ex Rockstart) as CFO, and Ciaran Bradley (ex Adaptive Mobile, Kemp) as CTO.
  • Board: Three new members have been appointed to its board: Ben Verwaayen (KEEN Venture Partners, previously CEO of BT Group PLC Alcatel-Lucent, President of KPN Telecom and Vice-Chairman of Lucent Technologies), François Lavaste (Partner, Ace Management) and Katrin Geyskens (Partner, Capricorn Partners). The Board is chaired by Sam van der Feltz (ex Unilever, TNS & EMI).

Bryan, Garnier & Co acted sole financial advisor and sole placement agent for EclecticIQ.

To learn more about the funding and what the company is doing with the investment read the blog post by Joep Gommers here.

About EclecticIQ
EclecticIQ is a global threat intelligence, hunting and response technology provider. Its clients are some of the most targeted organizations, globally. To build tomorrow’s defenses today, these organizations have to understand the threats against them – and align their efforts and investments to mitigate their risks. EclecticIQ helps governments, large enterprises and service providers effectively manage threat intelligence, create situational awareness and adopt an intelligence-led cybersecurity approach. The company extended its focus towards hunting and response with the acquisition of Polylogyx’s end-point technology in 2020. Founded in 2014, EclecticIQ operates globally with offices across Europe, North America, and via certified value-add partners. More information

Japan’s Mitsui Sumitomo to invest $350 million in insurance startup Hippo

Horizons Ventures

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Japan’s MS&AD Insurance Group, will invest $350 million in U.S. home insurance technology company Hippo Enterprises to fund its next stage of growth, the companies said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

Mitsui bought a convertible note in Hippo that will turn into an equity stake the next time it raises new funds, Hippo Chief Executive Officer Assaf Wand told Reuters in an interview.

MS&AD’s venture arm was part of Hippo’s Series E funding round that was announced in July, and the new investment – which is accompanied by a plan to sign a reinsurance agreement with Mitsui Sumitomo – builds on that partnership.

Hippo was valued at $1.5 billion in July, although Wand noted this figure was now outdated because of market developments and the growth of the business. He declined to disclose an updated valuation.

“We have been very thoughtful on the people that we’ve bought into the capital structure and how can they help us build the biggest franchise,” said Wand.

Insurance technology startups such as Hippo have been growing rapidly in the pandemic as more consumers seek quotes and policies remotely.

Investors have funneled billions of dollars into the public offerings for Lemonade Inc, Root Inc and SelectQuote Inc this year, at significantly higher valuations than traditional insurance companies.

Asked if Hippo could become a publicly traded company in 2021, raise new funds from private investors or seek a sale, Wand said the company was evaluating all these options.

The Mitsui Sumitomo investment will allow Hippo to continue growing its product range and expand in new U.S. markets. Hippo aims to be able to offer services to about 95% of the U.S. population in the next year, Wand said.

Hippo’s other investors include Comcast Ventures, and technology-focused investment firms Dragoneer and BOND.

(Reporting by David French in New York; Editing by Rashmi Aich)

Avassa closes 60MSEK in a funding round co-led by Industrifonden

Industriefonden

November 18, 2020

Avassa Raises €5.8M to Develop its Platform for Managing Massively
Distributed Edge Clouds

STOCKHOLM, November 18, 2020 — Avassa, a pioneer in the management of distributed edge clouds, today announced it has secured €5.8M in a funding round co-led by Fairpoint Capital and Industrifonden. The funds will go toward accelerating the development of its Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) for managing massively distributed edge clouds for container applications.

Avassa’s founding team has a string of successful ventures building software for automating and orchestrating distributed systems between them. The most recent company, Tail-f Systems, was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2014.

Distributed Cloud – the next generation of computing – builds on the advantages created by cloud computing while extending the range and use cases to specific and distributed locations.

Running applications across vast numbers of edge locations brings many advantages over centralized cloud environments. Done right, the edge cloud approach provides increased autonomy, resiliency and data privacy paired with blazing fast local execution. Additionally, regulations and local requirements demand applications and data to stay within well-defined administrative boundaries of enterprises.

Avassa’s management platform for distributed clouds enables infrastructure and operations teams to deploy, monitor and observe container applications across massively distributed locations where the location truly matters.

“We are uniquely well-positioned to take on the challenges that lie ahead as the industry moves toward a truly distributed cloud computing paradigm, which also includes edge computing. The key characteristics of this new paradigm are that location plays an important role, and that applications are placed in the locations they are needed. With our background in building and shipping large distributed systems for automation and orchestration we have the skills and experience to solve the most pressing issues surrounding these industry developments,” says Carl Moberg, co-founder and CTO at Avassa.

“This investment is testament to the opportunity at hand and the team we have lined up. It will allow us to quickly ramp up our engineering capabilities to accelerate the development of our industry-changing solution,” says Fredrik Lundberg, co-founder and CEO at Avassa.

The funding round is co-led by Fairpoint Capital and Industrifonden.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with the Avassa team together with Industrifonden”, says Ulf Lewander, Investment Director at Fairpoint Capital. “The Avassa team has repeatedly proven they have the right skills for building large-scale, distributed software systems for orchestration and management of networks and software applications. This is an opportunity that fits very well with our investment focus, and we firmly believe there is a huge market opportunity for Avassa.”

“Industrifonden is proud to join the Avassa team on their mission to open the edge cloud computing opportunity to many more players through their unique Platform-as-a-Service offering. The team’s stellar track record and innovative software solution, combined with the massive market trend toward the edge makes us confident that the future for Avassa will be exciting,” says Hadar Cars, Investment Director at Industrifonden.

About Avassa Systems
Avassa is a privately held company that solves the management challenges of massively distributed edge cloud environments so that infrastructure and operations teams can deploy, monitor and observe container applications at scale. Avassa Systems AB was founded in 2020 and is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. www.avassa.com

About Fairpoint Capital
Fairpoint Capital is a B2B technology investment fund. We leverage on more than two decades of technology venture capital investments. Our investment focus is unique technologies and business models that are highly scalable. Preferably the products address global markets with strong growth drivers. Investments are focused towards the Nordic region. www.fairpoint.se

About Industrifonden
Industrifonden is a Nordic venture capital investor based in Stockholm. Industrifonden invests in breakthrough technologies and science-based innovation – the Industry of Tomorrow. The portfolio includes companies like Funnel, inRiver, Nextory, Oncopeptides and Calliditas. www.industrifonden.com

Press Contact
Carl Moberg
+46 70 6212908
press@avassa.io

Construction material startup Betolar raised €2M

Voima Ventures

Next generation construction material startup Betolar paves the carbon neutral way for the cement and concrete industries. Betolar is a material technology company specialised in geopolymer-based, low carbon construction materials for the construction industry. The company closed a €2M funding round led by Voima Ventures, and joined by Taaleri Investments Ltd and Valve Ventures.

Kannonkoski, Finland. Increasing CO2 levels are affecting nature, lives and economies with growing urgency. One of the biggest single contributors to these numbers is the use of cement as a construction material. In fact, cement produces more CO2 emission than the aviation industry (1,2). For decades the construction industry has not been able to answer the urgent need to decrease the CO2 emissions. Now, Betolar is changing that.

Betolar is transforming the construction industry by aiming to eliminate cement with their geopolymer technology while turning industrial side streams into value. They are offering a scalable AI empowered alternative construction material production with up to 80% less carbon emissions compared to using traditional cement. Betolar can also reduce the need for virgin raw materials by replacing aggregates with industrial side streams.

Betolar has developed new types of different binders, where by-products from the metal, mining and energy industries can be used. The company is selling solutions in three key application areas: concrete products, ready-mixed concrete, and soil stabilization. These solutions consist of the company’s license-based recipe and material technology and additives needed in the production. The company has extensive knowledge in material physics and advanced analytics knowhow which brings the team strong competitive advantage in the construction industry.

Betolar has developed and piloted its solutions with various industrial partners in Finland, Sweden and Estonia, with the longer-term aim to expand into Asia, where consumption and construction is considerably higher. For example in India alone cement consumption is s two times that of Europe’s (3).

“There has been a strong pull for low carbon construction materials in Asia and we are currently preparing our entry to multiple markets.”, says the CEO of Betolar, Matti Löppönen.

Betolar raised a €2M funding round from deep tech fund Voima Ventures as the lead investor, joined by Taaleri and Valve Ventures. With the new funding, Betolar is looking to  start the commercialization of the product to global markets.

Betolar’s technology is truly challenging the carbon footprint and quality expectations we have for the construction industry and in particular the cement or concrete being used today. Climate change is a pressing matter, and together with Betolar’s industrial partners we are looking forward to being part of making the carbon friendly and new circular economy based construction industry a reality. The global potential is huge, not only for Betolar but for the whole industry and circular ecosystem.”, says Inka Mero, Managing Partner of Voima Ventures.

When Betolar succeeds they will achieve both excellent financial profit and significant environmental improvements through decreased CO2 emissions and raw material use. Thus, it excellently meets Taaleri Impact’s investment criteria. We are happy to be involved in this round.”, says Pekka Samuelsson, Investment Director of Taaleri Impact Investments.

About Betolar

Betolar is a construction material startup turning various industrial side streams into environmentally friendly and low carbon construction materials. These materials have a carbon footprint that is up to 80 per cent smaller than conventional cement-based concrete. At the same time, Betolar enables industrial waste stream producers a way to turn their waste into value and thus accelerate the transition towards sustainable construction and a circular economy.
www.betolar.com

About Voima Ventures

Voima Ventures is a €40M deep tech fund that invests purely in startups with deep tech and scientific backgrounds. Voima Ventures’ mission is to solve major global problems by combining science, entrepreneurship, and capital. Industry domains include bio and new materials, medical technologies and life sciences, imaging and optics, IoT and electronics, robotics, software & ICT and AI. In addition, Voima Ventures is managing a portfolio of VTT Ventures with 20 prominent deep tech companies including Solar Foods, Paptic, and Dispelix. Cornerstone investors are VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and European Investment Fund (EIF), backed by Finnish private and institutional investors.

References

1. Huang, Lizhen, et al. “Carbon emission of global construction sector.” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 81 (2018): 1906-1916. Available from: <URL:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364032117309413>

2. Air Transport Action Group (2020). Key Facts & Figures. Available from: <URL:https://www.atag.org/facts-figures.html>

3. The European Cement Association (2020). Key Facts & Figures. Available from: <URL:https://cembureau.eu/about-our-industry/key-facts-figures/>

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Middle East & Africa Seed Challenge

To support the visionary entrepreneurs of Africa’s booming tech ecosystem at earlier stages, we launched a special initiative addressing Seed companies in Cameroon, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Morocco, Senegal, Tunisia in June 2020.

 

Today, we are very proud to announce the 7 Seed stage startups joining Orange Ventures community.

7Keema in Egypt: an e-health platform that enhances the accessibility and quality of nursing services

Chari.ma in Morocco: a market place for local businesses selling everyday goods

Dabchy in Tunisia: the first peer-to-peer secondhand fashion marketplace in Tunisia

Moja Ride in Côte d’Ivoire: a platform for transport operators that helps commuters access, book and pay for all available modes of transportation from a single mobile application

Waspito in Cameroon: an e-health platform that connects the African healthcare ecosystem via an application for telehealth services distribution

Back Office For Business (BOB) in Jordan: a comprehensive online sale and ordering solution to businesses, merchants and any online shop

SudPay in Senegal: a fintech proposing payment solutions for ticketing and local taxes

“Congratulations to the seven winners of the challenge, whom I am very happy to welcome to our community as we launch our new Seed activity” says Jérôme Berger, Chief Executive Officer, Orange Ventures. “Their diversity in terms of countries of origin, as well sectors of activity (consumer, e-health, B2B, fintech) proves the abundance of promising high quality projects on the continent”.

€670,000 will be invested as a result of this highly competitive selection process, subject to the usual conditions precedent.

Applications for Seed funding are now open here on permanent basis for tech driven seed stage startups operating in one of the 18 countries Orange operates in MEA region.

 

Stay tuned for more news on this subject. Follow us on Twitter or sign up to our Newsletter
Read the challenge results press release here in French and in English

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