Startup Monday: Latest tech trends & news happening in the global startup ecosystem (Issue 145- November 10)
Welcome to Startup Monday, my weekly newsletter that recaps the week in the global startup ecosystem. To have this newsletter emailed to you, you can sign up here.
Top startup news to follow this week:
1. Emerge raises £56m to invest in AI-heavy education and future of work startups
The firm plans to invest cheques of between £500k-2m into companies building in everything from language learning to talent sourcing
The fund was oversubscribed, general partner Nic Newman tells Sifted (it had targeted £50m), and tops the 10-year-old firm’s first fund of £16m in 2019. Newman says about 70–80% of its existing LPs reupped for the second fund. LPs include KfW Capital, Laerdal Invest, Jacobs Foundation and Southern New Hampshire University. The firm started raising in January 2023 and closed in July this year.
Emerge will invest pre-seed and seed cheques of between £500k-2m, taking a 15% stake in startups and reserving about 25% of the fund for follow-on investments.
‘Almost deeptech’ founders
AI has increasingly been working its way into education, with startups building everything from language learning apps to AI copilot helpers for workers. And though it isn’t a novel technology in the edtech space (companies like language learning app Duolingo have been using AI for many years), Newman sees a shift in the new set of startups: 10 years ago, founders were “probably an ex-teacher or an ex-head of [learning and development] with an ok technical cofounder,” Newman tells Sifted. “Now, with the role of AI and large language models, you’ve got a completely different type of founder who’s really tech-savvy, almost deeptech. They’re machine learning graduates, they’re [physicists], they’re mathematicians, they have a completely different understanding of building products, building for scalability, building rapidly.”
Newman says Emerge has seen edtech and future of work companies with “growth rates that we’ve never seen” before — with some startups going from zero to £5m in annual recurring revenue in a year.
Emerge is eyeing startups in areas like talent assessment and selection, career navigation, language learning, educator tools and co-pilots, talent sourcing, self improvement and workforce development.
It employs a team of six, as well as 110 venture partners- to help source deals, do due diligence on companies and support startups. The venture partners include co-founders and CEOs of edtechs Udemy, Coursera, Kahoot and Springboard, as well chief learning officers and chief human resources officers from IBM and McDonalds, he says. Many of the venture partners are also invested as LPs in Emerge’s new fund, and they write angel cheques into investments they like, says Newman.
Some 70% of the fund will be invested in Europe and the UK (30% will be invested globally), Newman says. “Within Europe there are three centres for the future of work and learning innovation: number one is London, number two is Berlin and number three is Amsterdam,” as well as the Nordics, he says. But “we’re most excited about the French and German ecosystem.”
The new fund has already written a cheque into Colossyan, an AI video platform for workplace learning that lets users create videos from text with AI avatars.
‘Edtech’ is out, ‘human potential’ is in
Last year, Newman says the team at Emerge was analysing about 700 companies using AI in education and future of work; this year, he says they’ve identified about 20k.
That massive jump is due to a couple of big trends, Newman says: “There’s a whole host of founders who would have been doing fintech or proptech two or three years ago, because they saw the huge upside there, and are now jumping into the category of future of work and learning, because they can see it becoming more deeptech, they can see much more scalability,” he says.
“People have also realised that, of all the categories out there, [educational publisher companies like the] Pearson’s, the McGraw Hill’s, the incumbent providers, are at risk of significant disruption through better innovation, and many of those larger companies are struggling to really move fast enough to use AI properly. I think entrepreneurs sense that.”
Emerge’s portfolio includes London-based AI recruitment tool Popp AI, German play-based children’s learning platform Edurino and British higher education recruitment startup Unibuddy.
2. Glint Solar grabs $8M to help accelerate solar energy adoption across Europe
Solar energy is booming, which is good news for Glint Solar . The Norwegian software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup has built a platform that’s helping energy giants and large solar developers such as E.ON, Recurrent Energy, and Statkraft reduce the time it takes to plan and pre-design solar installations, accelerating the transition to renewables.
Glint’s software pulls in data from multiple sources to help speed up solar project assessments. The platform features adaptable layout designs and yield estimates, along with country-specific geographic information system (GIS) data and topographic analysis to make it easer for solar developers to evaluate potential sites. Cloud-based collaboration features allow teams to access essential project data. The platform can also be used as a project presentation aid by serving up 3D-rendered project layouts “in seconds.”
Its main regions for customers currently are France, Germany, the Nordics, and the U.K. but with the new funding, the March 2020-launched SaaS will be expanding its sales teams to target customers in “the rest of Europe,” including Italy and Spain, Olderheim says.
One notable change since Glint Solar launched is that it’s narrowed the service proposition to support the planning of land-based solar installations — dropping an earlier dual product focus that had included floating-solar installations, too.
Olderheim said the software can still be used for planning floating solar. But he noted there’s more demand for ground-based installations. “It’s a bigger market,” he said, explaining why they’ve opted to streamline their sales approach.
Glint Solar also isn’t focused on roof-mounted solar installations. Some of its customers are using its software to help plan solar arrays on “big rooftops” as well, per Olderheim. But, again, the reason it’s not focusing effort there is because it’s going after the largest demand chunk.
3. Venture capital firm HATCo to buy Summa Health for $485 million
The deal will allow Summa Health to eliminate $850M in existing debt.
Akron, Ohio-based Summa Health has entered a definitive agreement to be purchased by venture capital firm General Catalyst Health Assurance Transformation (HATCo) for $485 million.
HATCo was founded in 2023 by General Catalyst, a private venture capital firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The definitive agreement, announced Thursday, outlines a significant investment in the health system, Summa Health said. The purchase price of $485 million, when added to Summa Health’s current cash, will eliminate its $850 million debt.
The remaining cash, after closing adjustments, will fund a new, separately governed community foundation that will support focused investment to benefit community health in the Greater Akron region, the health system said.
HATCo has committed $350 million in capital funding within the first five years for routine purposes, and investment in technologies. Additionally, HATCo has committed $200 million for strategic and transformative investments that will drive innovation over the first seven years.
The transaction is subject to regulatory review and approval. Summa Health and HATCo are submitting applications related to the proposed transaction to the Ohio Attorney General, the Ohio Department of Insurance, the Federal Trade Commission and other applicable authorities in compliance with regulatory review processes.
Summa Health and HATCo said they have been working to shape a comprehensive plan that includes maximizing resources and improving workflow. The organizations have begun to collaborate on a transformation plan, which includes the creation of working groups with representation across Summa Health.
Employees, providers and the leadership team of Summa Health will transition to the new entity. Maintaining and growing Summa Health’s workforce is critical to pursuing this transformative work, the companies said.
Summa Health has more than 1,300 licensed beds in the following clinical settings: Summa Akron Campus, Summa Barberton Campus and Summa Health Wadsworth-Rittman Medical Center.
“As part of HATCo, Summa Health will be better positioned to build upon our existing strengths and capabilities while also benefiting from new opportunities and technology. Our goals are to expand access to care and improve the experience for our patients, providers and staff,” said Dr. Cliff Deveny, Summa Health president and CEO.
“We view this long-term investment as a critical milestone — not only to build on Summa Health’s existing strengths, but also to create a blueprint for the future of healthcare delivery,” said Hemant Taneja, CEO of General Catalyst, and founder and executive chairman of HATCo.
4. Perplexity raising new funds at $9 bln valuation, source says
California-based Perplexity is set to raise $500 million in the new funding round led by venture capital firm Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), which also holds a board seat in the startup, the source said.
The meteoric success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT has attracted investors to AI startups as businesses are racing to adopt the technology. Building large language models (LLMs) also requires billions in funding.
Since the release of ChatGPT, publishers have been raising the alarm on chatbots that can comb the internet to find information and create paragraph summaries for the users.
Media conglomerate News Corp-owned (NWSA.O), opens new tab publishers , claiming that the startup engages in a “massive amount of illegal copying” of their copyrighted work. sued Perplexity in October
New York Times (NYT.N), opens new tab also sent Perplexity last month, demanding it stop using the newspaper’s content for generative AI purposes. a “cease and desist” notice
Perplexity, which provides information by searching the internet, is also backed by (AMZN.O), opens new tab founder Jeff Bezos and chip designer Nvidia .(NVDA.O), opens new tab
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the funding being finalized by Perplexity.
5. Zhipu, one of China’s ‘AI Tigers’, raises US$210 million for venture capital fund
The Z Fund says it aims to take advantage of its parent’s leading position in China’s AI sector to discover promising early-stage start-ups
, one of China’s top generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) start-ups, has announced the initial closing of its venture capital vehicle, which aims to invest in related start-ups to strengthen the company’s ecosystem, borrowing a page from ChatGPT owner OpenAI.
They include the Beijing municipal government’s investment unit Shijingshan District Modern Innovation Industry Development Fund, and Fuzuo Capital, which is affiliated with Hangzhou Industrial Investment Group, the investment vehicle of eastern Zhejiang province’s capital city.
Private equity fund Yanbei Capital, and Guangdong Aofei Data Tech, a cloud computing infrastructure provider based in southern Guangdong province, are also among the limited partners.
Zhipu is building up its investment arsenal as competition heats up in China’s crowded GenAI market, which has seen the launch of more than a hundred large language models (LLMs) — the technology underpinning products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
6. Paris-based ZE Energy secured €54 million to offer environmentally responsible solutions
The investment brings new stakeholders to ZE Energy, including Amundi’s Core+ infrastructure funds and Demeter’s Climate Infrastructure Fund, a notable player in energy transition financing. Existing shareholder Sorégies also contributed to the round, alongside Marguerite, HTGF, and ZE WAY INVEST.
According to Matthieu Poisson, CEO of Amundi Transition Énergétique, this partnership marks a commitment to supporting the infrastructure for sustainable energy solutions: “We are very optimistic about the development of infrastructure solutions combining solar energy production and storage (BESS), allowing us to play a key role in the decarbonization of the electricity system.” Poisson added, “We are delighted to partner with the founders, existing shareholders, and management team of ZE Energy, a team that has proven its potential through its achievements since inception. We look forward to supporting them in this European growth and expansion plan.”
Driving the renewable energy transition
Founded in 2019, ZE Energy has quickly established itself as a leader in renewable energy with a focus on hybrid solar power plants that integrate photovoltaic systems with energy storage, tailored specifically for continental Europe. ZE Energy manages all aspects of its projects, from development and financing to construction and operation. It sells green energy directly to consumers or through tenders, aiming to offer stable, reliable energy solutions.
Strategic growth with fresh capital
ZE Energy intends to utilize the newly raised funds to support its expansion across Europe over the next two years. With a current project portfolio exceeding 1 GW in solar capacity and over 400 MW in battery storage, the company plans to grow its operational and construction-ready portfolio to 900 MW of solar power and 600 MWh of storage by 2026.
ZE Energy’s recent funding round underscores the growing investor interest in sustainable energy solutions that integrate renewable energy production with advanced storage technologies. By supporting solar production and storage in Europe, ZE Energy aims to offer resilient, environmentally responsible solutions that serve both producers and consumers while fostering energy stability across the continent.
7. DeepRoute raises $100M in push to beat Tesla’s FSD in China
DeepRoute.ai , a Shenzhen-based autonomous driving technology startup, raised $100 million from Great Wall Motor . The startup aims to get its into as many vehicles in China before Tesla takes off next year, according to a automated driving systems . Reuters report
DeepRoute did not publicly disclose the name of its automaker backer, but reports in the Chinese media, including a press release , point to Great Wall Motor. The automaker is one of China’s biggest, with new vehicle sales hitting in the first 10 months of this year. GWM’s presence in Europe is also increasingly growing, as it works with BMW to produce the next . Mini EV hatchback
A spokesperson for DeepRoute told TechCrunch the startup will use the money to develop end-to-end visual-language-action models, which can directly interpret visual and language inputs to make driving decisions without separate steps needed for perception, planning, and control. DeepRoute also plans to use the funds to explore the possibilities for a future robotaxi business globally and to collaborate with more automakers.
That last goal seems to be top of mind for the startup, particularly as the Tesla’s driver assistance system, called Full Self-Driving (FSD), is gearing up to launch in China and Europe in the first quarter of 2025. China lifted certain in April, clearing a path for the automaker to roll out FSD, which isn’t actually fully self-driving but does perform some automated driving tasks in cities and on highways. restrictions on Tesla vehicles
DeepRoute is now racing to get its own ADAS into around 200,000 cars in China by the end of 2025, CEO Maxwell Zhou told Reuters. That’s a 10x increase from the 20,000 vehicles its tech is deployed in today.
8. MealMe, the startup integrating food ordering tech into apps, picks up $8M
MealMe, a unified API that embeds food and retail ordering into consumer apps and websites, announced on Thursday that it secured . The newly raised capital brings the total amount raised to $16 million. $8 million in Series A funding
Since its launch in 2019, MealMe has undergone several changes. Initially, it was a consumer app designed to help people find the best deals on delivery from restaurants and grocery stores. It then evolved to allow consumers to order food directly through the MealMe app.
The company has now completely transitioned to a B2B model, offering its API for other businesses to integrate ordering technology into their applications and websites. When a company integrates MealMe’s API, it gets access to real-time product pricing and availability, and it enables customers to order their products from local stores.
MealMe says that its API provides inventory data on more than 1 billion products from more than 1.2 million grocery stores, restaurants, and retailers across the U.S. and Canada. It currently serves more than 100 customers, including Fantuan Delivery, Favor Delivery, Tripadvisor, and others.
Matthew Bouchner, MealMe co-founder and president, told TechCrunch, “We built the API for ourselves with the consumer app to add ordering from stores into our app, and then realized that, OK, well, we can continue growing our app, or we can pivot to B2B and be the infrastructure layer for anybody that needs the ability to pull menus and inventory and send orders into stores.”
Bouchner added that the company made the pivot after seeing the growing trend of embedded commerce, which essentially involves integrating e-commerce features into existing platforms. This allows businesses to offer their products directly to customers through platforms they already use.
9. Paris-based Axeleo Capital secures €125 million for its new Green Tech Industry fund
Axeleo Capital , an independent French venture capital firm, has announced the first closing of its new €125 million Green Tech Industry I fund. The fund is backed by three major investors: the Révolution Environnementale et Solidaire fund, Bpifrance, and the Fonds National de Venture Industriel (FNVI).
Founded in 2017 and with nearly €300 million in assets under management, AXC is taking a new step forward by positioning itself to become one of the major players in Europe in the financing of industrial innovation and is pursuing its VC strategy of developing thematic funds.
A new strategy supported by a multidisciplinary team
Today, financing the first facilities of industrial and innovative start-ups lacks resources and specialised players capable of addressing their unique industrial and commercial risks.
Guillaume has over 20 years of experience in tech and Greentech as an investment banker and investor. Marc spent more than 16 years in the automotive industry with the Stellantis group, in roles spanning production, strategy, and international management.
With the operational involvement of Mathieu Viallard, co-founder of Axeleo Capital, the GTI I team was recently joined by Sandra Dubos as Investment Director. With a degree in biochemistry, Sandra has over 15 years of experience in tech, including six years in venture capital, particularly in deep tech, chemistry, and healthcare.
A European ambition for the Greentech industry
With a final target of €250 million, GTI I aims to make 15 to 20 investments in Europe, with lead tickets ranging from €3 million to €10 million across sectors such as energy (new renewable energies, storage, etc.), chemicals and materials (biomaterials, plastics recycling, etc.), agriculture and food (bio-based fertilisers and pesticides, etc.), and mobility (electric motors, decarbonisation of air and sea transport, etc.).
10. The Hague-based 4impact Capital closes €68 million fund II to drive digital innovation and sustainability
4impact Capital , a Dutch-based venture capital firm, has announced the close of its second fund, raising €68 million . This SFDR fund is focused on early-stage digital and sustainability startups in North-Western Europe, supporting companies with scalable solutions for global challenges alongside strong financial returns.
Since the launch of its first fund in 2019, 4impact Capital has pursued a vision of catalyzing sustainable change by merging technological advancement with measurable, positive impact. The firm’s team draws from diverse backgrounds, including Goldman Sachs, Mubadala, and Citi, and is bolstered by seven venture partners across Europe and the U.S. Fund II has already backed six ventures, among them Coolgradient, Deftpower, and Carbonfuture, with each addressing critical issues like energy efficiency, grid optimization through EV batteries, and high-quality carbon removal solutions.
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