Wake up and smell the coffee – coffee pod maker CRU Kafe raises £1.25m
Organic and eco-friendly coffee company CRU Kafe has raised £1.25m in investment, with the funds to be used to continue its international growth, to launch new products and to build the management team.
We are proud to have led this round alongside other notable investors including luxury and fashion entrepreneur, and co-founder of Net-a-Porter, Carmen Busquets.
“We were attracted to CRU because they provide the perfect blend of founder market fit in a growing market and with a fantastic quality product,” Carlos Eduardo Espinal, Partner at Seedcamp, commented. He added, “Consumers are increasingly seeking out high quality, ethically sourced products when it comes to food and beverages and CRU Kafe’s unwavering focus on producing the best tasting, ethically sourced, organic coffee is clearly resonating with their customers, as evidenced by their strong early revenue growth,”
Coffee consumption around the globe is undergoing a dramatic change, with consumers turning their back on instant coffee and instead drinking – and spending – record amounts on pod coffee and Cru’s sales reflect this; current volumes are at 500,000 capsules per month and CRU is exporting to international territories including Hong Kong, the Middle East, North America and the rest of Europe.
On the raise, CRU Kafe co-founder and CEO Colin Pyle commented, “At this stage of our business the names behind the cheques are so important in the future success of our business, and we are so fortunate to have such amazing experience on tap to guide our growth. Our foundation is in a great position and now it’s time to start adding weight in the form of new customers, products and territories.”
CRU will look to diversify its product range with money raised in this round. It already offers customers bean and ground coffee and is close to launching a fully compostable pod.
Compatible with all Nespresso machines, CRU is on track to be a real market leader and we are excited to see the brand develop with such a strong team at the helm.
Visit the CRU Kafe website to order your organic, ethically sourced capsules
We are thrilled to announce our investment in Weengs – the UK startup that collects, packs and ships items from small businesses and online sellers – investing in their £2.2M seed round alongside Cherry Ventures and LocalGlobe. The capital raised will help Weengs expand beyond London and extend their reach to take on other major cities both in the UK and abroad.
Weengs takes care of the most laborious and time-consuming aspect of selling goods online and offers a packaging and shipping service via a smartphone app. Small businesses, online sellers and individuals simply take a photo of the items they want to send, add the destination address, and request a pickup.
Then, within as little as an hour, one of Weeng’s “Angels” will collect the item and take it to the their warehouse where the item is professionally packaged in a custom-built box.
Finally, the package is shipped via one of Weeng’s shipping partners, which include Royal Mail, DHL and DPD. It costs £5 per pick up plus shipping rates.
“Small retailers and online sellers struggle to fulfil their online orders when it comes to packaging and shipping with a carrier, ” said Weengs co-founder Greg Zontanos. “They have no resources or experience to offer the shipping services their big competitors offer which usually results in delayed deliveries or damages due to poor packing. We offer high-scale logistics to them at an affordable price, ” he added.
At Seedcamp, we always look to back companies with strong founder-market fit and we were incredibly impressed by Alex and Greg who have worked together on previous ventures. Focusing on the first mile of delivery, the most frustrating and time-consuming part of the process for small businesses and individuals, their business model incorporates a pick up and packaging fee as well as a margin in discounted rates from partner delivery companies through bulk purchasing that, with scale, shows great potential and points towards strong unit economics.
What’s more, the team has created a fantastic, high quality product experience in a relatively short space of time and with limited resources. Operating originally out of their north London flat, they know how to hustle and we’re excited to see how, with smart capital, they’ll be able to scale and launch into new territories.
With market trends pointing towards an increase in small sellers and online marketplaces and boutique stores, such as those listed on Trouva, Weengs provides the perfect solution to a growing customer base.
Applications for pre-seed investment from Seedcamp are currently open. Apply here
Clause & Libryo receive investment as we bolster our legal tech portfolio alongside partners Nextlaw Labs
Earlier this year we announced our partnership with Nextlaw Labs, the innovative legal tech venture development platform launched by global law firm Dentons, to find, invest in and support early-stage legal tech startups.
We are delighted to announce our investments in Clause and Libryo who will receive investment, life-long training, and mentorship from the Seedcamp team and Nextlaw Labs as a result of this global callout for startups using new technologies and processes to transform the legal sector.
Libryo – with a founding team from South Africa – is a SaaS platform built to overcome regulatory complexity. Libryo provides an intuitive dashboard which lists all legal obligations per the needs of its customers, enabling any person, working in any organization to understand the legal obligations in any situation.
Clause is a startup that is building an infrastructure for the next generation of automated and data-integrated contracts for enterprise. Through Clause’s platform, contracts are capable of being managed and updated in real-time through integration with the Internet of Things, analytics services and web-service APIs.
“We’re delighted to back both Libryo and Clause alongside our partners at Nextlaw Labs,” said Tom Wilson, investment manager at Seedcamp. “We’ve been on the lookout for disruption in the legal tech space and for companies to bring the sector into the 21st century and believe both Libryo and Clause have massive potential to be real market leaders.”
Over 80 startups across five continents applied for the program and underwent a thorough selection process consisting of a panel of judges from Nextlaw Labs, Dentons and Seedcamp.
“The quality of the startups that applied and the selection of two outstanding companies, Libryo and Clause, are a testament to the fantastic relationship between Nextlaw Labs and Seedcamp,” said Dan Jansen, chief executive of Nextlaw Labs. “This was a successful call out that resulted from Nextlaw Labs and Seedcamp’s unique and complementary assets coming together for the shared initiative of accelerating the development of a legal tech ecosystem. We see great partnerships like this as an important step in achieving our vision to reinvent the business of law.”
Both Libryo and Clause will benefit from Seedcamp’s life-long platform of learning and support as well as access to its unparalleled network of advisors. This will be enhanced with mentorship from lawyers at the world’s largest law firm, Dentons. The chosen companies will gain in-house training and expert guidance on how to build their business, develop their brand and raise capital to help them scale.
“Both Libryo and Clause have unprecedented applications in the legal industry which can be unlocked within Dentons as a global testing ground,” said John Fernandez, global chair of Nextlaw Labs, “Libryo harmonizes legal compliance, SaaS functionality and sustainability governance in ways that allow lawyers in any sector to navigate regulatory hurdles with greater finesse; and the API and IoT integrated document automation capabilities of Clause will revolutionize the way law firms and businesses handle contractual relationships.”
Peter Flynn, co-founder and CEO at Libryo commented, “We are delighted to receive the validation and business boost that comes from receiving co-investment from Seedcamp and Nextlaw Labs. The network has already been invaluable to us, with access to some of the top thinkers in the startup world at the moment – not just theorists but guys who’ve actually done the stuff. We expect great things from this partnership.”
Peter Hunn, co-founder and CEO at Clause, commented “We are building the future of legal contracting with data. For such an innovative product we needed value add at an early stage. With the right combination of mentorship, network, and expertise, Seedcamp and Nextlaw Labs are the perfect partners to help make our vision of data-driven contracts a reality.”
About Nextlaw Labs
Nextlaw Labs is a business accelerator focused on investing in, developing and deploying new technologies to transform the practice of law. It is an autonomous, wholly owned subsidiary of global law firm Dentons with physical and virtual locations in technology centers worldwide. Through complementary and strategic partnerships with leading technology companies, startups, other business accelerators and established legal vendors, Nextlaw Labs will invest in promising companies and develop a suite of new technologies that fundamentally change the practice of law, improving client service and enhancing client solutions. www.nextlawlabs.com
About Dentons
Dentons is the world’s first polycentric global law firm. A top 20 firm on the Acritas 2016 Global Elite Brand Index, the Firm is committed to challenging the status quo in delivering consistent and uncompromising quality and value in new and inventive ways. Driven to provide clients a competitive edge, and connected to the communities where its clients want to do business, Dentons knows that understanding local cultures is crucial to successfully completing a deal, resolving a dispute or solving a business challenge. Now the world’s largest law firm, Dentons’ global team builds agile, tailored solutions to meet the local, national and global needs of private and public clients of any size in more than 125 locations serving 50-plus countries. www.dentons.com
Twice a year, the Seedcamp team brings the best startups looking to expand into the US and heads out on tour.
Over two weeks we head to New York, Boston, San Francisco and Silicon Valley, to meet with leading investors, successful founders, and key ecosystem players, so our own startups get the very best exposure and insight into what it takes to expand to America. We wanted to give you all a look at the teams on our US Trip, which officially started on Monday in New York!
Joining them on the East Coast are Seedcamp partners Carlos Espinal and Reshma Sohoni, alongside Dave Haynes and Sia Houchangnia from the Seedcamp investment team. After a few days in New York the Seedcamp crew headed to Boston, and they will continue on in San Francisco from October 17th, where Reshma and Sia are due to be joined by Tom Wilson.
Want to connect with us on the trip? Get in touch here.
Joining us on the US Trip we have teams from Sweden, Germany, Austria, Spain, and the UK. Take a look at them all below!
Cardlife (London) – Subscription management platform giving businesses control of their online SaaS in one.
Findify (Stockholm) – Intelligent search solution for e-commerce using data science and machine learning to increase revenue by 20%.
Gamewheel (Berlin) – Advertising platform that makes it fast and simple for brands to gamify their mobile marketing.
reinfer (London) – API powered by artificial intelligence that provides structured, human-like meaning of unstructured data.
Splittable (London) – Household management platform for millennial householders.
Thingthing (Barcelona) – AI-powered keyboard acting as a transversal UI across any app.
Yodel (Vienna) – Intelligent business phone solution that integrates with teams and workflows via Slack, HipChat, and more.
Applications for pre-seed investment from Seedcamp are open until 13th November. Apply to join the first round fund, here.
In this episode, Seedcamp partner, Carlos, is joined by Amy Nauiokas, founder and president of Anthemis Group. Founded in 2010, Anthemis is a leading digital financial services venture capital and strategic advisory firm, focused on reinventing financial services for the 21st century.
Amy’s journey is a fascinating one; from studying and working in Cameroon, assisting the US Peace Corps, to moving to Wall Street and serving as Senior Managing Director at Cantor Fitzgerald before moving to Barclays Capital and later becoming CEO of Barclays Stockbrokers.
Carlos and Amy discuss leadership during periods of crisis, with Amy heading Cantor during the tragic events of September 11.
Amy speaks about her founding of Anthemis Group with Sean Park and Nadeem Shaikh, and praises the virtue of self-awareness. She discusses Anthemis’ philosophy and its reputation for ‘inventing categories’, with early investments in the InsurTech (ClimateCorp), Consumer and Retail Banking (Simple), Wealth Management (Betterment) and Blockchain spaces. She goes on to reflect with Carlos on the importance of passion as a guiding force, alluding to her founding of media production company Archer Gray and her philanthropic ventures at Bubble.
Learn more about the value of thinking differently, marrying strategy and execution, and the importance of passion as a guiding force
If the above player doesn’t work for you, you can also listen directly from our Soundcloud page.
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Fund 1 ranks in top quartile as “tsunami” of exits and money raised by Seedcamp companies in 2016 contributes to our most successful year
As the pioneers of early-stage investment in Europe and the first fund of its kind when we launched in 2007, we want to break the taboo on publication of early-stage investor returns by revealing details of our performance for the first time, as 2016 is set to become our most successful year.
Seedcamp companies have raised and exited for more than $250m in the first nine months of 2016 alone. Thanks to 8 successful exits in its Fund 1, we’ve returned cash of almost twice the capital raised to our limited partners. One of the standout exits of the year was the multi-million dollar sale of Stupeflix, the video editing software start-up to GoPro, the Nasdaq-listed camcorder technology company.
We’re very proud that our achievements this year put us in the top quartile of funds started in 2007, with an internal rate of return of 14.3%, according to data from Cambridge Associates.
Seedcamp was started in 2007 with 22 original investments. From the original portfolio there have now been 8 successful exits, 6 shut-downs, and eight businesses that continue to grow profitably. It is important to note that this data is as of 9 years for the 2007 vintage. We expect there will be further solid returns from the 8 remaining companies. We envision potentially reaching a 8x-10x return on money invested.
In another significant milestone, companies in which we have invested have since gone on to raise $500 million in further funding.
In 2016 alone, we’ve backed a total of 26 innovative new businesses which have set out to disrupt some of the fastest growing sectors including; insurtech, healthtech, legaltech, proptech and fintech.
Founding Partner, Reshma Sohoni said: “People often think tech businesses just become an overnight success but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Things can, however, happen in a ‘moment’ and that’s definitely what we’re experiencing right now. The moment where nine years of investing leads to a tsunami of maturation and therefore large growth rounds and exits.”
“We’re starting to see the real success of some of our investments come to fruition. This year alone we’ve had four significant exits and achieved an incredible acceleration in the amount our companies have gone on to raise, hitting the half a billion dollar mark. We returned 60 times our original investment on Stupefix, acquired by GoPro earlier this year, and have now fully returned our first fund. We are well and truly established as the leading first round fund in Europe and our results are launching us into the US too. Seedcamp is now the only European fund invested in US deals for groundbreaking new companies including viz.ai and the waveVR.”
Carlos Espinal, partner, added: “Aside from backing the best founders, we are constantly looking at growing sectors to identify future investment opportunities. The fact we’ve now returned our investment from our first fund puts us in a strong position to continue to be the most proactive early-stage fund in Europe and attracting the best talent to Seedcamp. If you look back through the investments Seedcamp has made over the last nine years, you can see how the state of startups and funding in Europe is changing and for the better.”
Seedcamp has backed over 230 startups since launch in 2007 and continues to enjoy an unrivalled network that provides businesses backed by the fund with access to industry leaders, world-class advisors and investors to help them scale.
Seedcamp continues to be one of the most active investors in fintech with portfolio companies in this space achieving phenomenal results and raising significant rounds. These include:
Seedcamp-backed companies also continue to achieve successful exits, with four in 2016 alone.
The four 2016 exits were:
Read more in the press: FT , Business Insider, Tech.eu
Applications for the next round of pre-seed investment are now open. Apply here before 13th November
A big thank you to everyone who attended our Seedcamp Operator & Investor Days last week. An impressive 14 teams presented to a packed out room of industry leaders, trusted advisors and investors over the course of two days.
A big thank you to everyone who attended our Seedcamp Operator & Investor Days last week. An impressive 14 teams presented to a packed out room of industry leaders, trusted advisors and investors over the course of two days.
We were inundated with positive feedback from attendees about the quality of teams presenting. Our focus on short presentations to allow more time for meaningful one-on-ones, networking and problem solving enables attendees to really dig into the companies and see how big businesses will be built. We are thrilled so many people share in our belief that these companies are on to achieve great things.
Our sector agnostic approach continues to uncover leading talent across a wide range of sectors with teams spanning: AI, LegalTech, PropTech, SaaS, FoodTech, Food & Beverage, Logistics, Communications, Marketplace, Hospitality and HealthTech.
We’re always on the lookout for companies disrupting emerging sectors and backing technical founders working with new enabling technologies from deep learning to computer vision. It’s a very exciting time to be an early stage investor in Europe and we are so proud of all of the teams for their fantastic work.
Attendees were fuelled by delicious, organic coffee from our friends at CRU Kafe before celebrating a job well done over drinks at the Silicon Roundabout.
Teams presenting included:
ActionBar: The search box powered by NLP & Machine Learning, allowing users to search for functionality inside web apps
Availo: The future of work defined by building the most accessible and scalable marketplace of trusted freelance talent
CRU Kafe: The makers of amazing, ethically-sourced, organic coffee in Nespresso compatible capsules
Juro: Smart automation for legal contracts
KareInn: The care timeline that brings residential carers and the people they care for together to provide more intelligent care
Reposit: The platform that provides an affordable alternative to the standard tenancy deposit in the private rental sector
NextChef: The smart recipe cloud helping restaurant owners manage their kitchens more efficiently
ThirdEye Labs: Uses computer vision to help businesses automate the analysis of video data
Thriva: The smart, finger-prick blood test you take at home to understand what’s really going on inside your body
Trail: The smart checklist for operations management
Vinterior: Curated online marketplace to discover, buy and source distinctive furniture from independent vendors
Viz.ai: Deep learning algorithims on medical imaging to assist in diagnosis and clinician support
Weengs; High scale logistics for the little guys. Weengs collects, packs and ships items and products from small businesses or individuals
YodelTalk: The business phone solution that integrates with teams and workflows
A big thank you to our sponsors – Orrick and Sillicon Valley Bank – and of course to Google Campus for the fantastic hospitality.
Applications for our next round of pre-seed funding are now open. Apply here and please do share with any entrepreneurs or startups you think would benefit from Seedcamp’s lifelong platform or learning, network and capital.
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