Tech startups weekly: Early-stage fund for British startups, 3D hologram video streaming and more

Numerous European startups have raised funding and have hit the tech headlines for the launch of their products and services during this week. Among these are a next-generation VR tech startup, a Canadian investment firm that is focused on the early-stage British startups and much more.

European tech startups weekly

As a part of our weekly roundup, here we have listed some of the European tech startups that have hit the headlines this week.

Employee engagement platform

Swedish employee engagement platform Winningtemp has raised €15.1M funding in a Series B round led by London’s Frog Capital and Stockholm-based Bonnier Ventures. This investment follows the €3.5M funding it secured back in 2019 by Norrsken Foundation. And, it will be used for the expansion of its platform.

Winningtemp was founded in 2014 by Mathias Hansson Fredlund and Pierre Lindmark in Gothenburg. Its employee engagement platform incorporates over 600 international scientific studies into an AI system and makes recommendations and predictions based on employee behaviour. Its intention is to minimise workplace stress and increase productivity.

Fund for British startups

Clearbanc, a Canadian e-commerce investor is launching in the UK. The investor has pledged £500M (nearly €550M) that will be pumped into British SMEs in the coming year. Clearbanc uses Artificial Intelligence to make unbiased investment decisions and claims to offer startups an alternative to VC in the form of non-dilutive revenue-sharing agreements. And, it adds that the funding will be transferred in two days.

Launched in 2015 by Canadian Dragons’ Den star Michele Romanow and her partner Andrew D’Souza, Clearbanc touts that it has funded 8x more female founders than the average that persists in the industry. Already, it has invested £30M (nearly €33M) in British startups during its beta testing in the UK.

No-code platform for sales demos

Israeli startup Walnut has secured $2.5M (nearly €2.1M) seed funding led by NFX and a slew of other investors and entrepreneurs including Joe Montana and Micheal Ma, partners at Liquid2, Kenny Stone, Plangrid co-founder, Matt Wyndowe, partner at Graph Ventures, Immad Akhund, former partner at YCombinator PT and current Mercury CEO, and Alon Gamzu, RoundForest CEO.

In addition to the investment, Walnut that was founded in January this year, launched its platform for inside sales teams that lets them create sales demos sans any code. It is dubbed “Wix for sales teams”, it collected investment from Wix’s CEO Avishay Abrahami.

Fund for early-stage startups

Kibo Ventures, an early-stage fund has announced the closure of Fund III with a target of €100M that will be used to invest in pre-A and Series A funding rounds. Currently, the company has offices in Barcelona, Madrid and Lisbon.

Established in 2012, the Iberian firm Kibo Ventures will bring its assets under management to over €220M once this third funding round is closed. Besides this, the Fund III has brought 20 new entrepreneurs and founders on board as investors.

First provider of crypto services in the Netherlands

Amsterdam-based AMDAX has been registered by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) as the first provider of crypto services in the Netherlands. This enables AMDAX to process crypto transactions and store crypto currencies. As a result of the DNB registration, AMDAX takes a major step towards a more mature crypto domain.

It supports business as well as private investors with a portfolio – starting with investments of
2.5 Bitcoin – the trade of crypto currencies, secure storage, and insured custody. AMDAX intends to contribute to the adoption and acceptance of crypto with the DNB registration. Founded by Valentino Cremona, AMDAX offers services that are tailored as per the unique circumstances of each client.

Next-generation VR tech

Condense Reality, a VR startup that develops technology to transform the way viewers watch live entertainment and sports has bagged over £800k (nearly €880k) funding that includes £200k (nearly €220k) investment from UK-based most active seed-stage investor SFC Capital. With this investment, Condense Reality will increase its R&D capabilities and commercialise its technology over the next 12 months.

This startup has developed a system for streaming hologram-style 3D volumetric video of both normal television broadcast and live events and has the potential to bring entertainment and sport to life outside the confinement of a studio.

Stock photo from Brian A Jackson/Shutterstock