Founders Factory

🌎 What did the climate sector look like in 2024? 2024 is on track to be the warmest year on record, with average temperatures expected to exceed 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels for the first time. At the same time, we saw one of the most active years in terms of climate innovation and investment, with some of society’s best scientists and engineers solving some of our most pressing challenges. ✨ Updates from Founders Factory We launched a number of new programmes focused at building solutions around climate and decarbonisation. ➡️ Our new Mining Tech Accelerator, backed by Rio Tinto, saw us make our first six investments to disrupt the mining industry—from increasing metal recovery to treating mining waste, to improving remote discovery ➡️ Our new Nature Tech Accelerator, in partnership with the Government of Western Australia, sought to back startups building resilience around nature, biodiversity, agriculture, and more ➡️ We launched a new Proptech Venture Studio, in partnership with Vonovia (Europe’s largest housing group), to drive the future of urban living (including developing climate-neutral housing). We’re already supporting the build of WALLROUND, a German-based startup helping retrofit and decarbonise private housing. ➡️ We launched our next cohort of Blue Action Accelerator - watch this space for an announcement on our latest investments… ➡️ G-Force (our climate seed investment programme) started investments from its second fund—backing the likes of Ki Hydrogen, Tattva, Good Agriculture, HERlab, and Brightly this year Our Climate portfolio continued to see fundraising success ⭐️ Notpla raised a $25M Series A, as they continued to disrupt the world of plastic packaging through their seaweed-based packaging alternatives ⭐️ DRIFT Energy Ltd closed their $6.2M seed round, as they look to launch a new class of renewable energy (wind-powered vessels that generate green hydrogen) ⭐️ Brineworks raised $2.2M in seed funding for their ocean-based carbon capture technology  ⭐️ Furbnow, the home retrofitting and decarbonisation platform, raised a $1.2M pre-seed ⭐️ GridShare, our first Fastweb Venture Studio business, successfully crowdfunded $900K to fund construction of their first crowd-owned solar farm Olivia Brooks | George Northcott | Louis Warner | Marian Gazdik | Jack Kennedy | Claire Mongeau | Rupert Hayward | Melissa Halpern | Jeff Stoike | Andrea Guzzoni | Conny Reh | Maximilian Glintschert | Simon Lovick | Laura Moross | Katie Morgan-Jones | Marie-Louise Hayward #climatetech #climate #sustainability #startups 

It was a rousing evening of (mostly) friendly competition at the Founders Factory x Snowflake Women in Fintech Pub Quiz last week! Tanmaiyii Rao and I hosted an excellent crew of fintech founders, investors, operators, and builders who really knew their stuff! Big thanks to everyone that came along to face the nerdiest trivia questions ever - from "How much funding did Monzo close in 2024?" to "What does AML stand for?" Stay tuned for more #WomeninTech events in the new year! #WomeninFintech #WomenEntrepreneurs #WomeninVC

⚒️ What have we been working on in our Venture Studio this year? Our Venture Studio generates concepts, validates them through our venture design process, and hires entrepreneurs-in-residence to build them into venture-backable businesses with the support of our Studio team and corporate partners. To date, we’ve spun out over 100 businesses - with notable successes including Tembo (who just raised their £14M Series B), Acre, and Byway. In 2024, we saw the launch of our new Proptech Venture Studio, with Vonovia. Our Italy Venture Studios—with Fastweb and Mediobanca—were up and running this year, spinning out our first two ventures (see below). We also wrapped up our Mission Studio collaboration with Nesta, which has seen us spin out 9 ventures over the past three years (including Furbnow & martee ai). We built and spun out eight new businesses this year. These are: ⭐️ Trustestate—an end-to-end platform for probate administration and management ⭐️ GridShare—crowdinvesting platform to democratise access to newly-constructed solar farms ⭐️ Ogma—first AI-powered tool for speech and language therapists ⭐️ CoVent—event sponsorship marketplace & AI matching tool   ⭐️ Mealia—meal planning & shopping co-pilot ⭐️ Regeno—data management tool to finance the transition to regenerative farming ⭐️ Equis—tech-enabled buyout platform for SMEs ⭐️ Nila—global healthcare management for non-resident Indians to provide remote care We’ve continued working closely with our Studio partners to explore new concepts: 💸 With Aviva—the intersection of AI and insurance, and how agents could transform the whole insurance value chain ⚡️ With Fastweb—a range of concepts from next-gen home/contents insurance, to AI-powered financial savings agents 🔵 With Pico Group—the future of social media and communications, powered by generative AI 🏡 With Vonovia—transforming urban living, from mass-scale decarbonisation (WALLROUND) to transforming rent payments 💶 With Mediobanca—financial products for the super wealthy Are you building in any of these spaces, or interested in finding out more? Get in touch: https://lnkd.in/eWbxan4s Claire Morris | Sahil Sachdev | Jacob George | Ed Harding | Kyling Saw | Jack Howell | Alberto W. Mucci | Giulio Brugnaro | Vittoria Anastasia Valentini | Maddalena Z. | Alex Daish | Daniel Schossev Roden | Conny Reh | Maximilian Glintschert | Sara Foster | Raluca Ciobancan #venturestudio #venturedesign #venturebuilding

Great to see Tembo and Perlego recognised in Sifted's inaugural list of the 250 Fastest Growing Startups in Europe. Tembo 🏡 ⭐️ Mortgage & savings platform for first-time homebuyers ⭐️ Built by Richard Dana, Eddie Ross, and Geoff Wright in our Venture Studio ⭐️ Recently closed £14M Series B 📚 Perlego ⭐️ E-subscription platform & learning tools for academic textbooks ⭐️ Founded by Gauthier Van Malderen, backed in our Edtech Accelerator ⭐️ Closed $20M in funding earlier this year Check out the full list below 👇

⛏️ The process for excavating precious materials is costly, volatile, and often environmentally damaging. So what if we could produce the same materials, without having to rely on traditional mining processes? A slew of startups are operating at the forefront of material science, a ‘modern day alchemy’ if you will, to develop critical materials synthetically through AI, quantum computing, and other advanced technologies. FF investor Jack Kennedy dives into the prospects in this space for startups, and where problems remain to be solved. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/eU_mFmUi Are you a founder building in this space? We’re welcoming applications for our next Rio Tinto Mining Tech Accelerator (applications open until January 17th). Find out more & apply here: https://lnkd.in/egDDyVby Olivia Brooks | George Northcott | henry lane fox | Damian Routley | David Hickson | Lee Bernasconi | Simon Lovick | Tamryn Barker | Charlotta Kemp | Rohan Silva | Pekka Santasalo | Dan Walker | Simon Trott | Les Delaforce | Sarah Clancy | Nicholas Gurieff | Tomas Mach #miningtech #materialscience #startups

💸 What did 2024 look like in fintech? Some of fintech’s ‘legacy’ giants, the likes of Klarna, Monzo Bank, and Revolut, started limbering up for long-touted IPOs, while others like Stripe and Robinhood looked to consolidate and acquire to solidify their current positions. Meanwhile, Founders Factory’s global fintech portfolio continued to see growth and success… A number of companies celebrated fundraising success… ⭐️ Tembo secured $17.7M in Series B funding, to become the go-to platform for first-time homebuyers ⭐️ Xapien raised a $10M Series A as they built out their LLM for due diligence automation ⭐️ StructureFlow raised a $6M Series A, creating an accessible data visualisation tool for complex transactions ⭐️ Eleos - Plug & Play Embedded Life Insurance raised a $4M seed ⭐️ Unwritten raised a $3.5M seed round, as they support investors in quantifying climate risk ⭐️ HealthKey raised a $1.4M pre-seed to build out API-powered digital health payment platform for SMEs It wasn’t just fundraising that gave our portfolio reasons to be cheerful 📍 Scan.com were placed #11 in Deloitte’s Fast 50, of the UK’s fastest growing companies, after they were named in the FT1000 earlier this year 📍 Tembo announced their acquisition of Nude, the lifetime ISA provider and savings platform, as they built out their proposition for first-time homebuyers 📍 Acre announced a partnership with Nationwide, allowing brokers to secure one-click decision-in-principle mortgage applications 📍 We2Sure | Building Better Together announced their partnership with Marsh, to tackle the growing problem of carbon credit fraud Other Founders Factory fintech updates ✨ We continued our long standing partnership with Aviva to invest in the most promising fintech, insurtech, proptech, and regtech businesses. This year: ➡️ We spun out two startups from our Aviva Venture Studio—Trustestate (end-to-end platform for streamlining probate administration) and Nila (healthcare management for non-resident Indians (NRIs) to provide remote care for loved ones) ➡️ We made ambitious investments across insurtech (Eleos), consumer finance (Mongo App), and proptech (conveyd) 🇮🇹 2024 also saw our first year of MB Speedup, our joint venture with Italian investment bank Mediobanca. We made our first investments - DataSpark (AGI platform for enterprise) and AutoConnexa (next-gen motor insurance technology) Interested in our fintech offering? ➡️ For founders: https://lnkd.in/d4Ydxggy  ➡️ For potential partners: https://lnkd.in/dCS-WffU Olly Betts | Claire Mongeau | Elena Vittone | Andrea Guzzoni | Giulio Brugnaro | Jacob George | Kyling Saw | Jack Howell | Suzanne Lawson | Ben Luckett | Ant Barker | Paul Welsh | Rish Sareen | Anthony Jacob | David Tejs Jørring | Richard Dana | Simon Lovick #fintech #insurtech #proptech #fintechin2024

🏡 In just over four years, Tembo has become a go-to resource for first-time homebuyers. Their digital savings and mortgage platform helps buyers maximise affordability and how much they can borrow. Built by Richard Dana, Geoff Wright, and Eddie Ross in our Aviva Venture Studio, their team has grown to 85 people since 2020. They’ve helped 4000 people buy their first homes just in the last year, while 35,000 people are saving for their first purchase through the help of their savings app and award-winning Lifetime ISA. Today, Tembo has announced they’ve closed £14M in Series B funding, led by Goodwater alongside existing investors including Aviva, Ascension Ventures, Love Ventures, and McPike Family Office. Read about their raise in UKTN (via Oscar Hornstein) here: https://lnkd.in/eeSMvHAx henry lane fox | George Northcott | Brent Hoberman | Damian Routley | David Hickson | Lee Bernasconi | Claire Morris | Emma-Jane Willan | Olly Betts | Sahil Sachdev | Laura Moross | Suzanne Lawson | Paul Welsh | Ant Barker | Ben Luckett #fintech #proptech #seriesB #funding

⛵️ “Sailing vessels date back thousands of years—and we’re really not reinventing the wheel.” Behind DRIFT Energy Ltd lies a centuries-old concept, re-engineered. Vessels that, rather than being powered by the wind, harness it and use it to generate green hydrogen. In our latest article, founder Ben Medland tells the powerful story behind DRIFT, and how they’re fusing hardware and software to create a new class of renewable energy. He shares: ⭐️ The surprising inspiration for DRIFT ⭐️ Details of the ‘Goldilocks algorithm’ at the heart of the business ⭐️ How they’re helping remote, developing countries in the energy transition ⭐️ His advice for pitching climate hardware to investors Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/eKJDTavi George Northcott | Olivia Brooks | Rupert Hayward | Jeff Stoike | Melissa Halpern | Simon Lovick | Lee Bernasconi | Laura Moross | Marie-Louise Hayward | Katie Morgan-Jones | Neal Pawson CEng MRINA | Mike Mackay | Andrew Physick | Amanda Çetin #climatetech #oceantech #founderprofile #startups

💡 Using AI to recommend impactful interventions for chronic diseases Congratulations to Chiron Health AI, and founders Carron Manning, Davide Crescenzi, and Karen L. for their recent pre-seed round. Learn more about Chiron and their raise below 👇 David Hickson | Olivia Brooks | Elena Vittone | Claire Mongeau | Edoardo Gentili | Jack Kennedy | Laura Moross | Simon Lovick #funding #preseed #healthtech

⚡ Mehr Innovation für energieeffiziente Gebäude – wir unterstützen WALLROUND. ✅ Mit unserem PropTech Venture Studio haben wir in das Start-Up #WALLROUND investiert. Das Berliner Start-Up hat sich auf innovative Lösungen im Bereich der energetischen Sanierung für Gebäude mit einer schlechten Energieeffizienzklasse spezialisiert. Im Rahmen der neuen strategischen Partnerschaft wollen wir Hindernisse wie veraltete Prozesse, fehlende Digitalisierung oder mangelhafte Ressourcen im Gebäudesektor überwinden. Dafür liefern wir Kapital und Expertise. 💡 Unser PropTech Venture Studio haben wir im Mai gemeinsam mit der Founders Factory gegründet. Gemeinsam wollen wir die Skalierung und Verfügbarkeit von erschwinglichem, klimaneutralem Wohnraum unterstützen. WALLROUND ist das erste Unternehmen, in das wir dabei investiert haben. #vonovia #innovation #proptech