Wellness, payment management and cybersecurity skills are on the menu in this week’s MaddyMoney

Immersive Labs closes $75M in Series C funding

Immersive Labs, which empowers organisations to improve their cybersecurity skills and tools, has closed over $75M in series C funding. The round was led by new investors Insight Partners, Menlo Ventures and Citi Ventures alongside existing investor Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

The investment will be used to boost the delivery of a progressive new Cyber Workforce Optimisation platform. The platform will use data insights to understand where skills are required, as well as delivering role specific training. It will also enable board-level metrics and benchmarking.

Immersive Labs currently boasts organisations such as HSBC, Vodafone and the NHS as customers. Growing at a yearly rate of over 100%, it has recently been named in several industry and business awards as an innovation leader.

Circulor raises $14M in Series A funding

Circulor, the leading provider of supply chain traceability and dynamic CO2 tracking, has raised $14M in Series A funding. The round was led by The Westly Group, alongside Salesforce Ventures, BHP Ventures, Sky Ocean Ventures, Future Positive Capital and 24Haymarket.

Circulor will use the investment to drive ongoing innovation and expand its presence in North America and Asia. Existing customers include global businesses such as Volvo Cars, Polestar, BHP, and LG Energy Solutions.

CEO of Circulor, Douglas Johnson-Poensgen, said, “We are on a mission to make the world’s most complex industrial supply chains more transparent, and help prevent the exploitation of people and our planet.”

Fresha raises $100M to fuel growth and expansion in Europe

Fresha, a beauty and wellness platform has gained $100M in Series C investment.

Fresha allows consumers to discover, book and pay for beauty and wellness appointments with local businesses through its marketplace. Salons, spas and barbershops can use Fresha’s subscription-free software to manage their operations.

The round was led by General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm, alongside founder of Huda Beauty, Huda Kattan of HB Investments, Michael Zeisser of FMZ Ventures and Jonathan Green of Lugard Road Capital. Existing global investors also took part, projecting the total amount of fundraising to $132M.

Fresha will use the investment to broaden its global community of salons and spas, scale product development, deepen marketplace bookings and pursue strategic M&A.

AI and insights platform Aura Vision bags investment from Wayra

Aura Vision, which enables retailers to drive in-store conversion using their existing security cameras, has successfully secured investment from Wayra.

Aura Vision’s all-in-one Aura Processing Unit (APU) connects security cameras to Aura Vision’s AI and Insight Platform.

The Wayra investment will allow Aura Vision to trial in O2 stores, secure O2 clients and create a multi-million pound deal pipeline in the process.

Klarna rival Hokodo raises £8.8M

Hokodo has raised £8.8M in Series A to support its mission of revolutionise B2B payments.

The UK startup helps B2B merchants sell more by offering better payment terms to their business customers. Its “Trade Credit as a Service” platform strives to remove the hassle and risk associated with offering payment terms online, and enables B2B merchants to instantly offer credit terms at checkout, even on a customer’s first purchase.

Thanks to the Series A fundraise led by Mosaic Ventures, with participation from Notion Capital, prominent Angels and our seed investors Anthemis, Hokodo will scale its team and extend its platform to support more merchants in more countries, and provide easy access to online credit terms to the millions of cash flow-constrained businesses.

Lofti raises £1M for its property management platform

Lofti, a cloud-based property management platform, has raised £1M funding in a Seed round from Taiwanese family office fund WoodJC.

The company provides cloud-based document management and communication platform to improve transparency and interactions between landlords and tenants. All contracts, conversations, and maintenance are logged and viewable for future reference.

With the new funding, Lofti aims to create a community-driven platform for landlords, homeowners and tenants to collaborate on improving and maintaining their properties.

Fintech TreasurySpring secures £7M

TreasurySpring has raised £7M in Series A investment co-led by MMC Ventures and Anthemis Group, with participation from existing investors including ETFS Capital.

The London-based fintech company operates the world’s first fixed-term fund platform that enables all holders of large cash balances to minimise risk and maximise returns, providing simple, digital access to a diverse menu of proprietary cash investments.

The financing round will support the growth of the team, with a particular focus on sales and marketing. In addition to continued investment in the platform’s core technology and operations, funds will also be deployed to accelerate expansion across sectors and geographies, as well as number of exciting new product and marketing initiatives.

Dishpatch raises £10M to deliver London’s food scene across the UK

Dishpatch has raised £10M in a seed round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and LocalGlob.

Founded in 2020, Dishpatch allows food lovers across the UK to enjoy the best of London’s independent restaurants. Since launching, it has partnered with 25 restaurants, serving over 75,000 meals nationwide.

The investment will allow Dishpatch to continue to democratise access to London’s food scene which customers across the UK can explore, while bringing restaurants a scalable source of revenue.

Gresham House Ventures invests €5M into e-commerce platform Scurri

Gresham House Ventures, a growth equity investor specialising in digitally driven businesses in the consumer, healthcare and services sectors, has invested €5M into Scurri.

Based in Wexford, Ireland, Scurri is a cloud-based software provider which connects e-commerce ordering, shipping, and delivery. By enabling e-commerce merchants to connect with over 700 carrier services, Scurri provides greater choice and control over the delivery process.

The investment is part of a €9M fundraising round that will support the creation of more than 100 jobs over the next two years. The investment will allow Scurri to expand operations in the UK, while investing in marketing, sales and product development.

Investment director at Gresham House Ventures, Thomas Makey, said, “Scurri has seen consistent strong growth in recent years, offering online retailers levels of functionality previously only available to the largest players. Led by a high-calibre management team, Scurri’s market-leading delivery management platform is well positioned in a structurally growing space, and we look forward to supporting the business in its next stage.”

Hertility Health lands £4.2M in seed funding for accessible diagnostics in women’s health

Hertility Health, a new women’s health startup revolutionising the world of hormone and reproductive health, has closed a £4.2M seed funding round led by LocalGlobe, Venrex, and some key angel investors including former CEO of Bupa, Evelyn Bourke, and CEO of Nested and the unicorn company GoCardless, Matt Robinson.

The funds will help Hertility Health expand its current product offering of fertility and hormone testing, menopause, miscarriage, postnatal care, polycyctic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and endometriosis testing, as well as aid the expansion of its current clinical trials that aim to reduce the diagnosis time for some of the most common reproductive conditions.

The cash injection will also work towards establishing Hertility Health as the leading scientific and clinical educational health hub for women.

Ophelos raises £1.6M to reimagine the debt collection industry

Ophelos, a startup reimagining the debt collection industry to improve financial health for consumers and businesses, has raised £1.6M in pre-seed investment round.

The round was co-led by Connect Ventures and Fly Ventures and will allow Ophelos to continue building its customer-centric debt management platform, whilst growing the engineering and customer operations teams.

By using AI and behavioural science to optimise and digitise customer communications, offer more affordable debt repayment plans and achieve more accurate vulnerability detection, the company improves financial health for both consumers and businesses, with customers more likely to engage and businesses more likely to recoup overdue debts.

In International news, B2B payment disruptor Upflow raises £10.6M in Series A round

Paris-based Upflow has raised £10.6M to revolutionise how B2B companies get paid. The company provides a SaaS solution that enables companies to modernise their entire cash-cycle and collect customer payments. 

The funding round includes participation from 9yards Capital and existing investor eFounders. Several angel investors also participated, including N26 cofounder Maximilian Tayenthal; Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, SVP of delivery at Uber; and Raffael Johnen, cofounder and CEO at auxmoney.

Upflow integrates with finance tools such as QuickBooks, Xero, Netsuite, and Chargebee. The company also partners with payment gateways like Stripe and GoCardless to provide business teams with a central hub to better manage communication with customers and payments.