News
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13th June 2022
Epoch Biodesign (formerly Mellizyme) a company that we invested into in 2021, has officially come out of stealth mode and just announced their $11M seed round led by Chris Sacca’s Lower Carbon Capital. We are incredibly excited by their mission to develop enzymes that transform plastic waste into everyday chemicals - both their technical progress and commercial engagement has been extremely rapid.
9th May 2022
Congratuations to portfolio company Trouva on the annoucement of their exit to MADE.COM. Avonmore had a successful partial exit from this business several years ago, having partially funded the business in their initial pre-seed round back in 2013, but this represents the divestment of our remaining stake.
27th April 2022
Congratulations to portfolio company OneDay (previously Dorm) on the annoucement of their £2.5M funding round, led by Brighteye Ventures, a leading European Edtech fund. Their aim is to provide a platform for aspiring entrepreneurs and Avonmore invested in their pre-seed round back in 2020.
15th February 2022
Portfolio company and Cambridge university spin-out Xampla has annouced a £1M partnership with Britvic to develop a new technology which can protect vitamins within fortified drinks from sunlight. The company, which has developed a revolutionary pea-protein based alternative to single use plastic flims, has also recently trialled an industry-first, edible stock cube wrapper with Gusto.
1st February 2022
Congratulations to portfolio company Koala on the announcement of their partnership with KAYAK which will see the launch of KAYAK Flex and KAYAK Comprehensive, powered by Koala. These are two full digitised travel products integrated directly into the KAYAK platform, with KAYAK Flex that pays-out refunds instantly without the need of complex forms or reasons for cancellations
3rd December 2021
We are delighted that portfolio company Vinehealth, a digital health startup that offers personalized support for cancer patients while also making it easier to gather patient-reported outcome (PRO) data, has just announced its $5.5M seed round, led by Talis Capital. We have been hugely impressed with the progress VineHealth has made since our initial investment in 2019 and have commited significant further capital into this round.
2nd November 2021
Huge congratulations to portfolio company Permuative on the announcement of their $75M Series C funding lead by Softbank. We made a small investment into the company in their first funding round in 2013 and are naturally delighted for both founder Joe Root and the rest of the team!
20th July 2021
We’re delighted to announce our participation in the $3M funding round for Worldr, led by IQ Capital. Worldr has developed both a platform and a Microsoft Teams ‘wrapper’ with data self-sovereignty at its core; necessary for many organizations to comply with regulations where they are handling sensitive information on a daily basis. They have a wait-list of 200 companies/600,000 employees and Worldr’s founders, Max and Dima, have already pulled together an awesome team to support them. Excited for the journey with this one!
19th May 2021
We are pleased to announce the sale of portfolio company Roadmap Systems to Huber+Suhner. We initially invested in Roadmap in 2018 alongside several other members of Cambridge Angels and this is an ideal exit for both the Roadmap team and the technology. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
5th May 2021
We are pleased to announce Avonmore’s investment into Macclesfield-based Aerocloud Systems seed round of £1.7M, led by Playfair Capital. The company’s cloud-based solution uses predictive AI, with up to 97% accuracy, to help airports better plan their gates and runway utilisation, increasing their operational capacity and, therefore, their profitability. Aerocloud Systems has already sold their solution to several US based airport operators and this funding allows them to scale up and expand sales coverage into the UK and European markets.
17th April 2021
Avonmore is delighted to have participated in the small pre-seed funding round of ConcR, a graduate of the KQ Labs accelerator, alongside some other members of Cambridge Angels and R42 Group. The ConcR proprietary framework allows a greater breadth of data to be integrated into software models to predict both how and why a cancer therapy will behave.
16th April 2021
Congratulations to portfolio company CareLineLive, a leading UK provider of cloud-based home-care management software, on the announcement of their latest funding round of £1.2M. The company has shown strong growth over the last year and this funding, led by Haatch Ventures, comes fast off the announcement of their £175,000 Innovate UK grant to enable their expansion into remote monitoring.
18th February 2021
Portfolio company VineHeath have just annouced that they have secured a £1m Innovate UK Grant to improve cancer patient self-management and data collection across four NHS Trusts. Vinehealth will be delivering their innovative cancer companion app to four NHS trusts within a randomised controlled trial, thus generating robust evidence of the platform’s clinical and cost-effectiveness in improving patient self-management and data collection. A huge win and massive congratulations to the whole team.
8th January 2021
Congratulations to portfolio company Xampla who have just closed a £6.2m seed finance round to accelerate the roll-out of its next generation plastic replacement. This follows Avonmore’s initial investment into the £2m pre-seed round announced in April last year and we have also invested in the current round. This round was lead by Horizons Ventures, the private investment arm of Mr Li Ka-shing and a leading backer of several unicorn companies including Impossible Foods and Spotify. We are delighted to be supporting Xampla in the next stage of its extremely exciting growth story!
2nd December 2020
Delighted to have taken part in the £1M initial funding round for Dorm, who’s founders are creating an education platform for influencers, entrepreneurs and creators in the passion economy, an industry that reportedly stood at $38bn (£28.5bn approx) in 2019. Simon Blakey has joined the board as an observer.
30th November 2020
Congratulations to portfolio company Virtual IT on its latest acquisition of JSPC Computer Services, a multi-million £ turnover Managed Service Provider (MSP) focussed primarily on the educational market. The combined businesses will mean that Virtual IT now turns looks after around 14,000 computer users, primarily in the SE of England and employs 115 people.
23rd November 2020
2020 investment, Xampla, has just announced that it has become the very first UK university spin-out to be accredited B Corp status. B Corps are for–profit businesses which commit to create a material positive impact on society and the environment through their operations and certification is administered by Standards Analysts at the non-profit B Lab.
Xampla is a spin-out from Cambridge University, based on the ground breaking work of Professor Tuomas Knowles. The company is on a mission to replace the everyday single-use plastics you see around us, like sachets and flexible packaging films (as well as the less obvious, such as microplastics within liquids and lotions) with a natural alternative.
21st November 2020
It’s just been announced that portfolio company Chattermill has been ranked as the 16th fastest growing business by Deloitte in their UK Technology Fast 50, with a growth rate of over 2,201%. The ranking is based on revenue growth over the last four years, from 2016 to 2019. Congratulations to the whole team!
6th November 2020
Huge congratulations to Rayna Patel, Georgina Kirby and the Vinehealth team for being awarded the highest-rated cancer app by ORCHA globally. They've received an outstanding 93%, rated more than 10% higher than any other holistic cancer app by the world’s leading independent health and care app evaluation organisation. Another great achievement as they build better treatment and management for cancer patients and the future of digital therapeutics.
6th September 2020
Huge congratulations to the team at portfolio company Trouva for being selected for the prestigious Sunday Times #TechTrack100 2020, ranking the UK’s fastest growing tech companies. A great achievement and particularly relevant this year as the whole Trouva team came together to support their cross-border community of independent retailers to continue to trade during the COVID-19 pandemic.
31st July 2020
We are delighted to announce Avonmore’s exit from Specle through a MBO. From our initial investment 11 years ago into just a ‘man with a business plan’, Specle has grown to become the UK market leader in print and digital advertising delivery portals. It has been a fascinating journey and we wish the management team all the best for the future.
13th July 2020
Congratulations to the VineHealth team on the news that Macmillan Cancer Support are now recommending the Vinehalth app to support all patients going through cancer. An important step in embracing digital health tools and particularly when it comes from such a trusted organisation.
9th July 2020
Congratulations to portfolio company Permutive on the announcement of their £15M Series B financing. Another strong success story from the Entrepreneur First talent accelerator.
7th July 2020
We are delighted to announce Avonmore’s latest investment into Paris-based Koala Insurance. This is our second Insurtech deal (the first being Reposit) and our first start-up investment in France. Focussing on the travel insurance space, Koala tracks all journeys in real-time, instantly informing passengers as disruption occurs and issues cash compensation on the spot, whatever the cause of the delay might be. This is part of a €1.6M seed-round led by London based incubator and fund Insurtech Gateway alongside Playfair Capital, Techstars Ventures, and private investors.
26th June 2020
Huge congratulations to Playfair Capital, the £25M UK seed-stage fund advised by Avonmore partner Simon Blakey, on winning the “Hottest Seed Fund” category at the Europas Tech Startup Awards. They are a fantastic team to work with and it is a very well deserved award.
22nd June 2020
Great to see that portfolio company Trouva, is ranked Number 1 in the #Startups100 index which ranks the UK's best high-growth businesses. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Trouva has become the main/only route that its retail partners across Europe have been able to generate revenue.
14th May 2020
We are delighted to announce that Avonmore has formed part of a syndicate into the £1.5M seed round for Edinburgh-based Continuum Industries, alongside Credo Ventures, Techstart Ventures and Playfair Capital. The company provides a cutting edge software solution that significantly reduces both the planning time and build costs of large linear infrastructure projects and is already seeing a growing pipeline of signed customers across different infrastructure verticals in Europe.
29th April 2020
Avonmore has just made a new seed investment alongside Amadeus Capital Partners into Cambridge University spin-out, Xampla (further details here). Xampla is developing a plant-protein based product to replace environmentally damaging synthetic microplastics that are currently added to everyday items, such as home and personal car products. A great team tackling an huge and important problem and we are delighted to be supporting the company.
24th April 2020
Congratulations to the great team at portfolio company VineHeath who, alongside a world-leading NHS cancer centre, has won the NHSX’s Techforce challenge - aiming to scale digital innovations that have the highest potential to support the Covid virus effort. A huge achievement.
17th March 2020
Avonmore’s really pleased to see that Georgina Kirby, co-founder of portfolio company VineHealth, has been recognised in the Forbes 30 under 30 list for 2020. VineHealth’s mobile app is now being used by a increasing number of cancer patients to track, manage and understand their care.
24th February 2020
Huge congratulations to portfolio company Chattermill on the raise of their $8M Series A. The company has come a very long way since our initial seed funding of the company in 2016 on an MRR <£5k. Mikhail and Dmitry the founders are fantastic to work with and we’ve been impressed by the importance they've put on company culture, meaning almost zero employee churn. Customers include the likes of Zappos (owned by Amazon), Hello Fresh and Uber.
19th February 2020
Avonmore’s Simon Blakey has just published a short article on the Playfair Capital blog on why founders should be aware of the differences in the financing models between VC funds and Angels and how this can drive their behaviour (here).
14th January 2020
Avonmore’s Simon Blakey has just published a short article on the Playfair Capital blog on some of the learnings he has had from 20 years of angel investing (here).