The pandemic tested the resiliency of the global supply chain across nearly every industry. This stress test forced companies and industries to evaluate their supply chain risk and operations to mitigate the possibility of continued disruptions. None more so than the healthcare industry, which faced shortages of PPE and critical equipment at the early onset of the pandemic. Vamstar is a global procurement and sourcing platform for the healthcare industry that automates the manual processes needed in order for buyers and suppliers to transact. The platform also provides real-time visibility into the healthcare supply chain for healthcare institutions to minimize the risk of future shortages. Digitizing the procurement process introduces transparency and efficiencies allowing buyers truly achieve value-based healthcare and unlocking new sales opportunities for suppliers with both parties now able to transact confidently. By leveraging machine learning and natural language processing, Vamstar is able to connect the correct parties to the most relevant opportunities, eliminating the arduous manual procurement process. London TechWatch caught up with Vamstar CEO and Cofounder Praful Mehta to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $11.4M, and much, much more…
Funded in London
Codat Raises $100M to Empower Financial Institutions and Fintech Innovators to Deliver Better Capabilities and Customer Experience by Integrating Small Business Data Seamlessly
Open Banking has represented a monumental shift that is going to define the future of fintech. It allows banking institutions to provide better customer service and support to their customers and improve retention by embedding themselves into a customer’s banking workflows. For third parties like developers, it enables them to penetrate the walled garden that legacy banking institutions have historically enjoyed, allowing them to incorporate data to create innovative solutions across the financial spectrum whether it be for accounting, lending, or other use cases. The possibilities are endless. Most of the attention in the open finance paradigm has been focused on consumer and retail banking solutions. Codat is focused on the needs of small business and small business data, enabling fintech companies and banking institutions to develop specific solutions to serve their SMBS customers through its networked data APIs. The platform can connect with and integrate data from the most popular financial, SaaS, accounting, and commerce platforms like Netsuite, Quickbooks, Xero, Paypal, Stripe Shopify, Clover, WooCommerce, and Sage to name a few, making it a truly universal platform. As established banking providers and neobanks are all looking to expand their banking ecosystems and extend their reach horizontally, Codat represents the solution to do so without having to worry about individualized integrations and custom buildouts, especially considering that small businesses on average use 75 apps and these apps rarely communicate with one another natively. Codat’s interoperability capabilities drive its 200+ customers like Brex, Plaid, and Pie to offer more capabilities to customers and an improved, seamless experience through a growing number of integrations. London TechWatch caught up with Codat CEO and Cofounder Peter Lord to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $170M, and much, much more…
Glisser Raises $4.9M for its Hybrid Events Platform That’s Both Customizable and Scalable
73% of event planners believe hybrid events will continue to be more common in the feature even as we return to in-person activity. However, 88% still valued the face-to-face aspect of in-person conferences and meetings. 50% believe that all events will have a virtual aspect in the future. Glisser is a hybrid virtual and in-person events platform that’s focused on driving audience engagement. While most platforms have focused on broadcast capabilities for their virtual users, Glisser offers a host of features like live two-way sharing, voting, and gamification elements that are able to be customizable for specific use cases. For in-person attendees, Glisser is integrated with popular CRMs so that event organizers can track, measure, and understand the activity of their live audiences in the same way that they would for a virtual user. The core platform is embeddable onto any website, can be branded, and has handled events at scale with up to 450K simultaneous users. In aggregate, Glisser has handled over 5K events comprising 2.5M attendees. London TechWatch caught up with Glisser CEO Michael Piddock to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $5.9M, and much, much more…
Bluezone Insurance Raises £1.5M to Make Life Insurance More Accessible for Those With Chronic Conditions
Once an individual has been diagnosed with a chronic condition, obtaining life insurance becomes more difficult due to underwriting guidelines. Those that have the least severe ailments and have their diseases under control may be able to secure overage but it comes at an additional cost. Bluezone Insurance is a specialist insurance company that is built to provide coverage to those with chronic conditions. The company, founded in 2020, is building a Diabetes-specific ilife insurance product with plans to also launch coverage for those with heart diseases. Behind the scenes, the company has built a sophisticated risk management underwriting engine that uses AI/ML to sort through medical data to make insurance products more accessible by offering cheaper options. Bluezone is also focused on providing its insured customers with incentivized management and adherence programs for their conditions to essentially de-risk them. The company is currently accepting applicants to its waitlist and promises to provide same-day coverage through a digital onboarding process. AlleyWatch caught up with Bluezone Insurance Founder Karan Mehta to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, recent round of funding, and much, much more…
Rensair $7M for its Commercial Hospital Grade Air Purifier That’s Bringing People Back to the Office Safely
Calls for employees to return to the office have been a source of anxiety according to a recent survey of 1000 UK workers conducted by Slack. One of the reasons cited is concern about indoor transmission within the office space. Most commercial spaces do not have the proper ventilation required to fully mitigate COVID transmission and these spaces will require significant upgrades that are not only expensive but also require a significant amount of time before they can be deployed. Rensair has built a portable, hospital-grade air purifier for commercial settings that removes particles from the air including pollen, allergens, mold, viruses, and bacteria. The unit, which can be wheeled to wherever it’s needed most, uses a combination of UVC and industry-leading HEPA technology to destroy 99.97% of airborne bacteria and viruses. A single unit cleans 560 cubic metres in an hour. Rensair is being used in care homes, schools and universities, hospital and healthcare settings, and offices. The filters and UVC light need to be replaced only once a year, making the units practically maintenance-free. Rensairs are available for purchase or can be rented for as low £89/mo with delivery in less than a week. London TechWatch caught up with Rensair Cofounder and CEO Christian Hendriksen to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, recent round of funding, and much, much more…
Symmetrical.ai Raises $18.5M for its Global Payroll Platform That’s Disrupting the Industry with APIs
While the pandemic initially was rooted in isolation, the rapid adoption of technology to support remote workforces led to the increasing availability of an unprecedented global talent pool. While accessing this new pool has brought benefits to employers, managing payroll and other HR functions has now become more complex. Symmetrical.ai has built a global payroll platform that handles the end-to-end payroll process for employers and employees with automation and sophistication. The company is focused on seamless integration through its modular-based system that uses APIs to connect with existing technology stacks. Designed to meet the needs of a modern workforce, Symmetrical handles onboarding, employee management, on-demand payments as employees earn, gig workers, temporary workers, as well as standard employees. The company has navigated the compliance landscape across the countries it operates in to ensure clients are protected against ever-changing laws and Symmetrical can serve as the employer of record on behalf of clients. London TechWatch caught up with Symmetrical.ai Cofounder and CEO Piotr Smolen to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, his vision to bring payroll into a function that requires only two API calls, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $26.4M, and much, much more
Monspire Raises £600K For its Cash Flow Management and Lending Platform for Small Businesses
Cash flow is the best indicator of a company’s financial health and optimizing cash flow can be the difference between keeping the lights on and having to shut down. As global macroeconomic conditions worsen and businesses are scaling back, managing cash flow becomes even more critical. Monspire is a cash flow management platform for small businesses that also provided integrated lending options for working capital needs that leverages AI to understand when and where a business will need additional funding. The platform leverages open banking so that businesses can get a full understanding of their business’s cash flow in real-time, while also getting accurate forecasting. For any periods of gaps, Monspire steps in and plugs the hole with its lending solutions. While finances are critical for any business, many business owners just don’t have the time to dedicate to managing finances while juggling all other facets of operations. Monspire, short for Money Inspired, makes it seamless by proving a singular view of a company’s financial health. London TechWatch caught up with Monspire Cofounder Simon Draper to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, recent round of funding, and much, much more…
Bundlr Network Raises $5.2M for its Decentrazlized Platform That Makes Data Storage on Web3 Seamless
Arweave is a permanent hard drive built on the blockchain that can serve as a permaweb archive. Anything you want to be stored across a decentralized network can be verified cryptographically with its own currency token incentivizing host nodes and miners. While the possibility of storage amount is infinite, transactions can be slow as the protocol scales and user interest increases. Bundlr Network is a decentralized multichain platform that speeds up data storage on Web3 on Arweave. Users pay a one-time fee with any major token, receive unlimited storage, and can upload data from any major blockchain while having instant access to the data. The company reports that upload and read speeds are 3000x faster than using Arweave on its own. Bundlr Network is currently views NFT marketplaces as its target customer but the solution is versatile enough to handle anyone with decentralized data storage needs. London TechWatch caught up with Bundlr Network Founder and CEO Josh Benaron to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, recent round of funding, and much, much more…
Fitr Raises £900K to Enable Fitness Coaches to Centralize All Facets of Their Businesses
The pandemic has changed the future of workouts and fitness as we raced to replace in-person activity with virtual substitutes. The convenience of working out at home or on the go with app-based options as well as on-demand virtual training sessions is here to stay. In fact, 70% of the people who used online programs during the pandemic plan to continue according to McKinsey. Fitness professionals have adapted to this new reality as well. Fitr is a SaaS platform for fitness professionals to build online businesses and presences. The platform enables coaches to build all aspects of their programming for their clients in addition to handling the administrative functions like scheduling and payment processing, centralizing everything for both clients and coaches who no longer have to go to several disparate platforms. Fitr offers two tiers for coaches based on the size of the businesses and takes a fee for each transaction processed on the platform. Since its launch, the platform has facilitated over £3m in transactions. London TechWatch caught up with Fitr Founder and CEO Leon Cassidy to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, recent round of funding, and much, much more…
Fidel API Raises Another $65M for its Payment Data Infrastructure Platform
Companies like Klarna, Venmo, and Afterpay all have made modernized the payment landscape by providing consumer convenience. However, in the backend they have built massive troves of consumer purchase data that they are able to package, serving as a valuable lifeline for merchants that enables them to promote sales promotions, target, segment, and more. The ability to collect and democratize purchase information instantly at the point of purchase unlocks a world of new opportunities and this is exactly what Fidel API focuses on. At its core, it’s a payment data infrastructure that layers on top of existing payment stacks with APIs that allow developers to build timely and contextual experiences in real-time for an expanding collection of use cases. Some applications of the company’s platform include powering digital receipts, loyalty and rewards programs, insurance claims, expense management, and also personal financial management apps. With the advent of open banking and consumers granting permissions to their transactions opens us a world where consumers are willing to give up their once highly coveted data in order to receive both functional and hedonistic benefits. Fidel API’s core technology is being used across the globe, servicing millions of cardholders and hundreds of thousands of merchants. London TechWatch caught up with Fidel API VP of Strategy Patrick Nealon to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $86M, and much, much more…