🕶️ Raising Capital Will Require Even More Patience

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Six bullets of updates

1.  🇬🇧 Robinhood's third attempt to enter the UK market faces stiff competition from homegrown rivals like Freetrade and Trade Republic.

2. 🇻🇳 🇺🇸 Cross-border VC fund, Ethos Fund, closes $12M inaugural round to bridge US and Vietnam startup communities, focusing on 'third culture founders'.

3. 🔧 PlanGrid founders return with TigerEye, a tool that simulates business changes, securing $35M from investors like Y Combinator.

4. 📉 Even amid a fintech funding drought, European payments startups hit a record high with 31 exits in the sector last year.

5. 🔙 Despite losing 80% of its operating capital after its major investor FTX collapsed, Backpack bounced back, trading over $27.5 billion in total volume during its beta phase.

6. 🏠 #Legohouses AUAR secures £2.6m to build affordable houses using robots in 'microfactories', aiming to construct 75,000 homes by 2030.

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Series B? You might need some patience

Raising capital for European startups has become a more challenging task across the market, with later-stage startups experiencing a significant increase in the time taken to close funding rounds. According to new data from Carta, the median time for closing a Series B round after Series A has grown by 85% compared to H1 2022. The same trend has been seen at the start of the investment ladder where pre-seed startups now take 511 days on average to raise their seed round—an increase of almost half.

Despite these delays, the amount Series B companies are raising is rising, with startups securing an average of a record-high £35m, and the median round size has also increased by 6%. See more!

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Break Free From Average

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These companies just raised money

1. 📻 India's Pocket FM scores $103M for global expansion, riding high on its coin-based pay-as-you-go model with $150M ARR.

2.  🔬 UK biotech Curve Therapeutics raises £40.5m to fast track its cancer drug discovery platform, aiming to unlock 85% of 'undruggable' cancer targets.

3. 💍 Indian smart ring startup Ultrahuman pulls in $35M to fuel its quest to topple market leader, Oura, targeting over 100 global markets.

4. 🛥️ Swedish startup Candela raises €24.5M to fuel its high-speed electric boat tech, cutting 80% of emissions.

5. 💻 Edge AI processor maker Innatera nets €15M Series A funding, aiming to power 1bn devices by 2030.

6.  🏥 Embedded health startup The Carevoice raises $10M in Series B, despite a funding slowdown in health tech startups.

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Montauk Climate's Commitment to Climate Innovation

Casper co-founder Philip Krim, alongside Evan Caron and Sharo Atmeh, has launched Montauk Climate, a dedicated climate tech incubator. The initiative aims to create new businesses and support existing ones that drive sustainable solutions in the climate space. Montauk Climate's approach diverges from traditional hardware-centric climate tech firms, focusing instead on energy, software, and infrastructure solutions to complement them. The incubator is already exploring business opportunities in data center energy use, weather data aggregation, electrification incentives, and climate risk insurance.

Montauk Climate's launch highlights the sector's potential for innovation and growth, especially considering the IMF's forecast that low-carbon investments need to rise to $5 trillion by 2030.

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