PR Newswire – KAFOODLE ACQUIRED BY 365 RETAIL MARKETS AFTER 3 YEAR NEXUS HOLD

10/04/2023

London, UK – 365 Retail Markets, the global leader in unattended retail technology, today announced its acquisition of Kafoodle (a Nexus portfolio company since February 2020) which is a UK based food technology company that specializes in menu and kitchen management, nutritional data, and allergy compliance.

Adding Kafoodle’s technology into 365’s portfolio will complement the company’s existing offerings and enhance its ability to provide comprehensive solutions to its clients. The acquisition also expands 365 Retail Markets’ reach in the United Kingdom and European markets, where Kafoodle has established a strong presence.

Kafoodle’s unique software simplifies recipe and menu management, nutritional data tracking, and allergen regulation compliance for food service operators (FSO). The acquisition will empower 365 customers to easily create menus that cater to the needs of specific demographics, such as those with dietary restrictions or allergies.

365 Retail Markets looks forward to working with the Kafoodle team to continue to innovate and improve the foodservice industry.

Source: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/365-retail-markets-expands-product-offering-in-uk-with-kafoodle-acquisition-301801003.html

NEW INVESTEE – TEAMED (DIGITAL 2022): INTERNATIONAL EMPLOYMENT PLATFORM SOLUTION APPEARS ON SKY NEWS BUSINESS / JOINS SCALE-UP FUND AS 18th ADDITION

13/12/2022 

Teamed, a UK-based start-up focused on ‘work from home’, raised £2.5M in Seed funding.

The round was led by Blackfinch, Nexus Investments and 1818 Venture Capital.

The company intends to use the funds to accelerate the development of global operations, advance its technology, and fund a recruitment drive for senior roles.

Led by CEO Antony Vallee, Teamed equalises employment opportunities offering global employees, regardless of their location, access to exciting careers, as well as the security and protection of a contract of employment they deserve. The technology also enables employers to access the best talent anywhere in the world without worrying about compliance, legal issues, human resources, and payroll and without needing to set up costly subsidiaries. 

Antony Vallee, founder of Teamed, appeared on Sky News following the successful completion of the £2.5m funding round.

Teamed is the latest addition to the Scale-Up Fund (as of December 2022) and manages all payroll, compliance and tax for overseas workers, significantly reducing barriers to overseas employment – providing a solution for both employers and employees.

Find a link to the recording here.

NEW INVESTEE – VR-ENABLED SOFTSKILLS SOLUTION BODYSWAPS (ED TECH 2022) JOINS FUND & IS FEATURED ON BBC NEWS – “THE FUTURE OF JOB INTERVIEWS”

31/10/2022

Bodyswaps’ CEO Christophe Mallet, sat down with Elizabeth Hotson for the BBC News’ ‘Business Daily’.

Christophe discussed how metaverse-related technologies and AI+VR-powered learning specifically can provide invaluable interview training to inexperienced candidates, in a safe and flexible environment. The end goal, he says, is to help level the playing field in the job interview market for candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The full show can be found here.

HARDMAN – PODCAST SPECIALLESSONS FROM EDTECH INVESTING” FEATURES FUND MANAGING DIRECTOR MATTHEW O’KANE

23/08/2022

LESSONS FROM EDTECH INVESTING WITH MATTHEW O’KANE OF NEXUS INVESTMENT VENTURES

Edtech is far from uncommon in EIS investing, but is still a little away from the mainstream. Matthew O’Kane from Nexus Investment Ventures discusses his experiences from investing in the area.

They talk about the sector a little and why the target customers may not be who we think they are. However, the bulk of the discussion is a dive into the eight-year journey with Boclips, a market place for providing licensed video clips for educational purposes. They dig into some of the bumps along the way, particularly what happened when a founder left and how the company and Nexus coped with that.

Matthew contrasts this, ultimately successful investment, with a recent failure to draw out several lessons that can be taken from the difference between the two companies.

Find the link to the recording here: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/cd096166-6145-45b6-86b2-c9910d75bd00

UK TECH NEWS – TRAINING PLATFORM FUNDAMENTAL VR (HEALTH 2019) RAISES £16M LEAD BY UK & EUROPEAN PRIVATE EQUITY

11/08/2022

London, UK: London-based virtual reality (VR) startup FundamentalVR has secured $20m (£16.3m) in funding for its immersive medical training tech.

Founded in 2012, FundamentalVR has developed a medical simulation platform that combines VR and haptic feedback to give training surgeons a way to practice procedures.

FundamentalVR claims its tech can accurately mimic the sights, sounds, and physical touch of real surgery.

As well as further developments to its tech platform, FundamentalVR will use the new funding to expand its business geographically, with a focus on the US.

“Our platform can conduct a walkthrough of a procedure through to a full operation, facilitating surgical skills transfer,” said co-founder and chief executive Richard Vincent.

“Our immersive environments transform surgical skills acquisition in a scalable, low-cost, multiuser way. We are excited to scale our vision of creating a medical education environment unhindered by borders.”

The investment was led by EQT Life Sciences, a health tech-focused investment firm established in 2022 by the private equity company EQT Partners. Previous investor Downing Ventures also participated in the Series B round.

“With increasingly complex surgical procedures, it is important to provide medical professionals with new methods for surgical skills transfer and continued training and education while managing both the cost and time burden associated with these activities,” said Drew Burdon, partner at EQT Life Sciences.

“HapticVRTM is a differentiated approach which has already been adopted by a number of high-quality customers, in a short period of time, demonstrating the value that this system can add today”.

As part of the investment deal, Burdon has joined the board of directors for FundamentalVR.

The Series B round has brought the total funding raised by the company to $30m (£24.5m), following a £4.3m Series A round led by Downing Ventures in October 2019.

FundamentalVR has also partnered with notable medical institutions, including the Mayo Clinic and Sana Kliniken.

Source: https://www.uktech.news/vr/fundamentalvr-funding-series-b-20220811

Private Equity Wire – Fund Follows On In Significant Growth Funding Round in Edutainment Platform BBC Maestro (Ed Tech 2020) Led by BGF

01/08/2022

London, UK: BBC Maestro, an online education platform providing access to expert masterclasses with the likes of David Walliams, Marco Pierre White and Mark Ronson, has completed a multi-million-pound funding round to facilitate market growth.

The substantial investment was led by growth capital investor BGF which has invested £3 billion in over 450 fast-growth businesses in the UK and Ireland since 2011. Existing investor Downing Ventures also contributed.
 
The funding raised will be used to further enhance the platform and deliver additional content production, as well as increase the team in key areas and expand into new territories.
 
BBC Maestro offers a variety of celebrity-taught online courses from some of the greatest experts in their field. The platform was launched in 2020 with courses ranging from 3-star cooking at home with Marco Pierre White, to writing children’s books with David Walliams and Julia Donaldson, and learning the Toolkit for Business Success with Peter Jones. There’s a course in music production from seven-times Grammy and Oscar-winning Producer, Mark Ronson, song writing lessons from Gary Barlow who breaks down the tips, tricks and techniques behind his 14 number ones and 50 million albums sold. 

Source: https://www.privateequitywire.co.uk/2022/08/01/316455/bgf-leads-significant-growth-funding-round-bbc-maestro

Press Release – Video Platform BoClips (Ed Tech – Pre-Fund 2014) Majority Exit to U.S Private Equity After 6-8 Years Nexus Hold

09/06/2022

Boclips is thrilled to share that they have started a new chapter with Achieve Partners. Like Boclips, Achieve is committed to transforming education with technology and rich media content. Achieve has partnered with Boclips to help them accelerate their mission and captivate every kind of learner with videos and podcasts.

“Video-based learning experiences have become table stakes in today’s post pandemic hybrid learning environments, but courseware providers and educators often still find themselves navigating a maze of materials in order to find the clips that best suit their needs,” said David Bainbridge, Founder and CEO of Boclips. “Our work is about leveraging AI to curate the highest-quality videos and podcasts from a massive library of relevant content to help deliver the right resource at the right time.”

Achieve will help Boclips continue and expand this work.

Of Boclips, Achieve Partners Managing Director Troy Williams said, “Despite the enormous popularity of videos and podcasts in the classroom, too many educators and content providers still have no consistent way to access content that is high-quality, copyright cleared and aligned with pedagogical goals. Boclips’ unique approach and platform bring much-needed structure, security, and relevance to make sense of a seemingly endless universe of video and audio content — and, in turn, help to improve academic outcomes for students.”

Read the full press release here.

About Achieve Partners

Achieve Partners is engineering the future of learning and earning by investing in cutting edge technologies and novel business models to bolster skill development and secure the future of work for millions of Americans. By harnessing digital transformation, Achieve helps teachers, administrators, and schools improve student learning and outcomes.
www.achievepartners.com

About Boclips

Since 2014, Boclips has worked with publishers and education providers worldwide to enrich learning with the world’s best educational videos and podcasts. Boclips is the industry’s trusted destination for rich media that are vetted for quality, sourced from leading creators, and curated specifically for education.
www.boclips.com

What does this mean for BoClips’ clients?

Boclips client experiences won’t be impacted by the partnership with Achieve. The partnership will, however, enable Boclips to grow our rich media solutions, make education more engaging for learners, and better serve their clients.

US – Consumer insights platform OnePulse has secured £2m in funding led by Nexus Investments and Blackfinch.

OnePulse Secures £2million Funding for Global Expansion

Real-time Consumer Insights Platform To Grow in central Europe, Russia, Africa, Asia and South America

AUSTIN, TEXAS: 5th May, 2021: OnePulse – the consumer insights platform that turns market research into engaging, real-time conversations between businesses and consumers – has secured £2 million of new funding to fuel further global expansion.

OnePulse, which has head offices in Austin, Texas and London, England, will be expanding its clients’ access to consumers into multiple new markets thanks to investment led by Blackfinch and followed by Nexus Investments. They were advised by PWC throughout the process via the PwC Raise | Ventures programme.

The expansion will enable OnePulse’s rapidly growing international client base – including Coca-Cola, TikTok, Marks & Spencer, Channel 4, Zenith, SC Johnson, Boohoo – to interact in real time with consumers in all key markets.

OnePulse’s intuitive, self-service client platform enables clients to perform bite-sized surveys of up to three questions (“Pulses”) at a time, and to receive instant responses from targeted audiences. For consumers, OnePulse provides a gamified app to give their opinions on news, products, and interests for which they are rewarded with micro-payments. Clients can send targeted follow-up Pulses which allow them to be both agile and thorough in their interactions with consumers. Its innovative subscription models, from pay-as-you-go to unlimited use, makes insight available to people in all departments and to businesses of all sizes.

Currently clients can Pulse consumers in the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, China, India, Australia, Canada, and Kenya, soon to be followed by Russia, Mexico, Brazil, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, and Ireland. Additional markets in Africa, Asia and South America will follow.

Mike Billingsley, Group CEO, OnePulse, said: “OnePulse is continuing to redefine the concept of market research with our fun, rewarding mobile app that can be used as part of people’s daily lives.

“There are few things as powerful as insight in the room at all times and with OnePulse, businesses no longer have to rely on gut feelings or out-of-date assumptions to make daily decisions with confidence. And with our global expansion, they can literally have their finger on the global pulse any time, any place, any where.”

Dr Reuben Wilcock, Head of Ventures, Blackfinch, said: “We are delighted to invest in OnePulse, a truly disruptive business, already expanding across several different markets. Mike and his team are now well placed to reach their goals for growth, allowing more brands than ever before to connect to consumers for near-instant market feedback.”

Matthew O’Kane, Managing Director of specialist early-stage Venture Capital investor Nexus Investments, said: “OnePulse traverses two of the four quadrants of Nexus’s investment focus and expertise: Data and Digital. We are big believers in the power and value of “community-generated” data and insights, and very excited to both announce the 14th new member of our Nexus Scale-Up Fund portfolio, and to partner with OnePulse on its next stage of growth, as it develops its activities and communities beyond those currently in the UK, US and Africa, to literally and globally “scale up”.

In addition to the global expansion, OnePulse will continue evolving both the app and client platform to integrate further AI capabilities and enhance the user experience for both clients and communities.

The PwC team advising on the deal was Glen Waters, Antonia Burridge, James Heath and Tom Hudson.

-ENDS-

About OnePulse

OnePulse offers organisations the ability to instantly communicate with a targeted audience of consumers to gain key business and marketing insight in a matter of hours. By facilitating a conversation with consumers on their terms via an engaging mobile app, OnePulse attracts genuine insight from people going about their daily lives. Founded in 2014, OnePulse now boasts a client list of 300+ brands and agencies worldwide.

Cyance Announces New Funding Round From existing Investors

By Jenny Linder

London, UK — Cyance, the leading provider of global, third-party intent data, today announced it has secured a new round of additional funding from existing investors — including Blackfinch Ventures and Nexus Investments — in the amount of £860,000. The funding follows a period of significant growth for the start-up company with revenues increasing by 18% and customer value rising by 30% in the past year, in spite of the pandemic.

The company will leverage the funding to continue to grow its internal team, which has already doubled in size over the last 12 months. It will also be used to accelerate the company’s enterprise customer acquisition strategy as it exploits its key strength in the European market. Further investment into the continuous innovation of both Cyance intent data and ABM platform will be a key focus as the business seeks to build increasing value from its ABX approach for global organisations.

With over 55,000 publisher partnerships across Europe, Cyance delivers the most extensive reach for European geographies. Its sophisticated technology uses localised, natural language search to accurately track and identify customer intent. This has been proven to lead to greater conversion and sales efficiency for global sales and marketing teams. Cyance is the only provider to combine fully GDPR-compliant European third-party intent data with a powerful account-based marketing (ABM) solution.

Reuben Wilcock, Head of Ventures at Blackfinch Ventures, commented: “Cyance has transformed account-based marketing by developing and integrating a sophisticated SaaS solution with global, third-party intent data which addresses the needs of the European market. They have demonstrated solid growth from global B2B brands in the last 12 months, despite the challenging times we find ourselves in. We’re excited to continue supporting Cyance as it helps some of the world’s leading companies to transform their demand generation and account-based marketing programs and achieve more efficient ROI.”

Matthew O’Kane, Managing Director of specialist early-stage Venture Capital investor Nexus Investments also commented: “Cyance traverses two of the four areas of Nexus’ investment focus and expertise: Data and Digital. Having been the fourth portfolio investment from our EIS Scale-Up Fund back in early 2019, we are very excited to announce this follow-on investment, which follows two years of promising expansion. We’re also pleased to partner with Cyance and its Management Team on this next stage of growth, as it scales further into and beyond its existing UK and European market expertise.”

Cyance CEO, Bulent Osman, said: “The fact that we’ve seen such solid commercial and financial performance over the past 12 months, despite the tough market conditions, demonstrates the appetite for accurate and localised intent data and the enormous potential within this market. And as businesses start to look beyond the pandemic and the economic recovery gathers pace, we expect demand to increase further. Taking on this new investment allows us to strengthen our team and further invest in our product. We’re now perfectly placed to take advantage of these new opportunities and cement our position as the leading ABM platform with unique intent data for European buyers.”