B2venture

🚨 ❤️ Today SumUp has announced an important milestone, raising an impressive €590 million from Bain Capital, BlackRock, ourselves at btov Partners, and a host of other great investors. With 10 years of rapid growth around the globe and 4 million small businesses as customers, the company has long since attained unicorn status, demonstrating what a European company can achieve when its founders think big and execute relentlessly.

Congratulations to Marc-Alexander Christ and the rest of the dedicated SumUp team – it is a true privilege being your partner since the very beginning.

We are beyond the moon to be celebrating this important step with you and doubling down too. We welcome all new investors on board and are looking forward to continuing the journey, as SumUp remakes what a financial company can become through new ideas, new technologies, and a global vision.

Read more here from TechCrunch's Ingrid Lunden ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eua-YBBu

SumUp raises $624M at $8.5B valuation, with its payments and business tech now used by 4M SMBs – TechCrunch A decade ago, SumUp was one of the army of fintechs that made names for themselves with dongles that turned basic smartphones into card payment terminals. Today, the London-based company has expanded into a wider range of business services that are used by some 4 million small and medium businesses....

🚨🚨 Very pleased to announce our latest addition to the btov family, TextCortex, a Berlin-based startup offering a pioneering AI-based writing companion for content-makers and copywriters. We are joined together with other established early-stage investors Speedinvest and Entrepreneur First, as well as prominent business angels Amar Shah (co-founder of AI company Wayve) and Holger Hengstler.

The company is developing specialized algorithms that create authentic, high-quality, and natural sounding writing for content creation and copy marketing cases, such as blog posts, descriptions, emails and a host of other content needs.

With simple, human-based instructions such as a single headline or a few bullet points as instructive guidance, the company’s tool creates authentic-sounding paragraphs and articles in the matter of a single click. It’s really cool and a great example of a European startup building an alternative to other AI platforms like OpenAI’s GPT-3 language model.

Read more here ➡️
https://textcortex.com/post/democratizing-written-communication-textcortex-raises-1-2-million-pre-seed-to-advance-proprietary-nlg-capabilities-and-launch-chrome-extension

📎📎 There’s also a Chrome extension

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/textcortex-ai-writing-ass/hahkojdegblcccihngmgndhdfheheofe

Congrats to Dominik Lambersy, Ceyhun Derinbogaz and the entire team on their Pre-Seed round!

����Jobs Alert: We are looking for a passionate Finance Manager to support operations in our new Zurich office. Join one of Europe’s most experienced and trusted Venture Capital firms on their growth journey.

For more information please click here -->

https://join.com/companies/btov/3900081-finance-manager-btov-partners-in-zurich-m-f-d

We are very happy to announce that Jan-Hendrik Buerk has been named partner at btov Partners!

Over the last five years, Jan-Hendrik laid the foundation for an outstanding portfolio in the eHealth sector by managing investments in startups such as Happify Health, Heartbeat Medical, Kiroku, Urban Sports Club and Vantis. In supply chain tech, he invested in companies such as Procuros and Vamstar, as well as the social commerce startup Picker .

Jan-Hendrik has been with btov since 2016 and at 28 is the youngest partner ever appointed at our firm.

Congrats Jan-Hendrik on your promotion, and we are all looking forward to the great things you will continue to do at btov!

https://btov.vc/jan-hendrik-burk-is-named-partner-at-btov-partners/

Jan-Hendrik Bürk is named partner at btov Partners - BTOV Jan-Hendrik Bürk, originally from Hamburg, has been with btov since 2016 and is now joining the circle of partners. Bürk is the youngest partner ever appointed at btov. He has been instrumental in driving investments in the eHealth sector and developing it into a core area within btov. Next to hea...

We are proud to announce the final closing of our new Digital Technologies fund at $135M. It’s btov's second fund that focuses entirely on early-stage European startups in digital technologies. It will invest in topics such as AI, B2B SaaS, digital health, fintech, logistics, and marketplaces.

The fund works very closely with btov’s Private Investor Network of experienced entrepreneurs. Over 70 of the network members invested personally in the new fund and will work closely with the fund team to identify the most promising startups and support portfolio companies.

The new fund has already been actively investing for about a year. Its first investments include Decentriq, gitti conscious beauty, Heartbeat Medical, LatticeFlow, Vamstar, ecolytiq - Every transaction has an impact, Vantis, finway, Remi.so and Procuros.

Thank you to all our startup teams, our returning and new LPs, our many network partner and supporters, and btov's entire team. We are really looking forward to our further collaboration in supporting the best European digital tech startups!

https://btov.vc/btov-partners-closes-new-135m-fund-for-early-stage-investments-in-european-digital-technology-startups/

btov Partners Closes New $135M Fund for Early-Stage Investments in European Digital Technology Startups - BTOV St.Gallen/Berlin, 16 September 2021 — Venture capital firm btov Partners announces the final closing of its new digital technologies early-stage fund with a volume of $135M. It’s the second fund that focuses entirely on digital technologies, and the ninth for btov Partners in total. Investments ...

We are thrilled to announce that our portfolio company Ledgy has raised a $10M Series A funding round, led by Sequoia Capital. Sequoia partner Luciana Lixandru is joining Ledgy’s board.

Also participating are Xavier Niel, Harry Stebbings, Visionaries Club, UI Path's Daniel Dines, Front's Mathilde Collin, as well as existing investors Myke Näf, Paul Sevinç, btov Partners, Creathor Ventures and VI Partners.

Congrats to Ledgy founders Yoko Spirig, Ben-Elias Brandt and Timo Horstschaefer and the entire Ledgy team!

Ledgy has built the first platform for company ownership that can be used in any jurisdiction. The list of customers who have chosen Ledgy speaks for itself and includes unicorns such as Raisin, Kry, Bitpanda and Pleo. Ledgy's MRR has increased by a factor of 10x over the last 12 months, and the company will use the new funds for further rapid expansion in Europe and beyond.

btov is a heavy user of Ledgy as well for all our fund management needs. If you want to check out Ledgy as a startup or VC fund, learn more here: https://ledgy.com/

https://sequoia.medium.com/ledgy-is-europes-answer-to-seamless-cap-table-management-15de31f858e8

Ledgy Is Europe’s Answer to Seamless Cap Table Management By Luciana Lixandru and Zoe Hewitt on behalf of Team Sequoia

The first half of 2021 was an outstanding time for the startup economy, and btov Partners is no exception. Read in our latest newsletter why these were record-breaking six months.

There are also news about our latest investment in Aleph Farms, large follow-on rounds at PriceHubble and Tiko plus details about our engagement at Cleantech for Europe.

Read it here: https://go.btov.vc/webmail/866962/717842520/8f200e460004171e16ed559dc01327ee34d523d04e6cadd124bec85030dc93a9

If you would like to receive our newsletter every month right in your inbox, please subscribe here: https://go.btov.vc/newsletter

In this month's btov newsletter, we take a closer look at remote work and the cultural changes it requires -- in the context of our latest investment in culture building platform Remi.so.

There are also great news about new funding rounds at Quanta Dialysis Technologies, Electrochaea, Urban Sports Club and mymoria GmbH, plus many exciting developments at our portfolio companies, including neon's 5M CHF crowdfunding campaign that took less than 60 minutes to complete.

Read it here: https://go.btov.vc/webmail/866962/710092680/3d6a8c7e23324d5beea0357f6026671321294c0d123b6b9ea917ac112808bc2a

If you would like to receive our newsletter every month right in your inbox, please subscribe here: https://go.btov.vc/newsletter

Our portfolio company Innatera Nanosystems has appointed a new VP Marketing & Business Development. Marco Jacobs will support the team from now on with more than 25 years of commercial and engineering experience in the semiconductor industry.

After the EUR 5m funding round back in December, this is again great news from the Dutch company - more information is available in the official press release: https://www.innatera.com/2021/05/25/innatera-appoints-marco-jacobs-vp-marketing-and-business-development/

We are happy to announce our first investment in France! Together with Supernova Invest, GO CAPITAL and BPI, the btov Industrial Technologies Fund has participated in a EUR 5.5m financing round for the deeptech startup DessIA!

Founded in Paris in 2017, DessIA develops and commercializes a software solution based on Explainable AI that introduces the concept of Robotic Engineering Automation ("REA") to drastically speed up engineering processes. The funding will enable DessIA to strengthen its sales team, accelerate the development of its bot platform in the spirit of no-code, and continue the development of new bot families. A key goal is to expand sales activities to other European markets, with Germany as the first country on the list.

Our colleagues Julian Riebartsch and Robert Gallenberger go into detail on why we have invested in the startup in their blogpost:
https://medium.com/brains-to-ventures/robotic-engineering-automation-by-dessia-ea0dd2a3546f

Congratulations to founders Steven Masfaraud and Pierre-emmanuel Dumouchel and the whole team. We are very happy to accompany DessIA in its next chapter.

Find out more about DessIA's highly innovative approach in the official press release
https://bit.ly/3o6HXsu (German)
https://bit.ly/3fc7f4E (English)

With the current pandemic underway, most companies now have an economic incentive (and moral imperative) to put processes in place that enable a smooth transition to remote operations. In his latest blog post, our investment manager Benjamin Dobbrick looks for answers to the question of whether the current remote work wave is just a fad or whether the pandemic has accelerated an already existing trend and will lead us to find, try or use alternative ways to work.

https://medium.com/brains-to-ventures/remote-work-is-it-here-to-stay-8bc82038eacf

Remote Work: Is it here to stay? Much has happened since my last blog post covering the Future of Work in February 2020. The term “Future of Work” was meant to give a…

In this month's newsletter, we take a look at three exciting startups that we have welcomed into our portfolio this month. Yet our investments in , , and together with Helvetia Venture Fund in Baufi24 are not the only news we have announced.

We are excited about the successful financing rounds at BUX and SEVEN SENDERS as well as further great news from neptune.ai and Beekeeper, as well as other entrepreneurs!

Read the latest issue here:
https://mailchi.mp/btov/btov-newsletter-april-2021

And if you'd like to receive next month's newsletter in your inbox, feel free to sign up here: http://eepurl.com/duC5Gr

We are very pleased to announce the joint investment of the Helvetia Venture Fund and btov's Private Investor Network in the digital construction financing company Baufi24.

The Hamburg-based fintech has received EUR 6.7m in a Series A and will use the fresh capital to expand their market position as one of the leading digital real estate financiers. Baufi24 will focus on further development of its technology and the expansion of its branch network across Germany.

Michael Wieser, Managing Partner of Helvetia Venture Fund, explains: "We believe in the experienced team at Baufi24 and see great potential for the digitalisation of real estate financing. Especially since pandemic times, online offers in the area of finance are in even greater demand."

Read more in the official press release here:
https://www.baufi24.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/baufi24-series-a-finanzierungsrunde/

Congratulations to Tomas Peeters and the rest of the team and welcome to the btov portfolio!

6,7 Mio. EUR für Immobilienfinanzierer Baufi24 in Series A Baufi24, das digitale Baufinanzierungsunternehmen, schließt seine Series A-Finanzierungsrunde mit 6,7 Mio. Euro Wachstumskapital. Zu den Investoren zählen BtoV und der Helvetia Venture Fund. Das Hamburger Fintech wird das frische Kapital zum Ausbau der Marktposition als einer der führenden digita...

We are thrilled to share that our portfolio company BUX, the Amsterdam-based neo-broker, has completed a USD 80m follow-financing round.

The capital increase is led by technology investor Prosus Ventures and Chinese internet company Tencent. In addition, other new investors such as ABN AMRO Ventures, Citius, Optiver and Endeit Capital as well as existing investors HV Capital and Velocity Capital Fintech Ventures are participating in the financing round.

The company intends to use the fresh money to further drive the growth of the investment app BUX Zero in other European countries. By the end of 2022, they want to be represented in all major European countries.

Congratulations to the whole team!

Read more here:
https://cutt.ly/NvJZc64

Or here:
https://cutt.ly/svJZjK5

Bux, a European Robinhood, raises $80M to expand its neo-broker platform – TechCrunch A new wave of apps have democratized the concept of investing, bringing the concept of trading stocks and currencies to a wider pool of users who can use these platforms to make incremental, or much larger, bets in the hopes of growing their money at a time when interest rates are low. In the lates....

It’s launch day for our portfolio company DouxMatok! They’ve officially launched super delicious Incredo® Spreads that are so much better-for-you made with their patented, sugar reduction solution Incredo Sugar by DouxMatok.

The spreads contain approximately 50% less sugar than other leading spread products, they are Gluten Free, contain no palm oil and are non-GMO . The Incredo spreads come in two delicious flavors – Hazelnut Cocoa and Dark Cocoa Salted Caramel – and contain 30% of your daily recommended fiber intake with just two tablespoons of the spread.

To help celebrate the launch please enter shop.incredosugar.com



SEVEN SENDERS, the Berlin-based delivery platform for parcel shipping has closed a Series C funding round of EUR 32m. The round is led by Digital+ Partners, with previous investor btov Partners also participating.

This raise comes fresh off Seven Senders reporting EUR 100m in annual revenue, a figure that doubles the previous years’ financials. The new capital is expected to be used towards the further technical expansion of the product offering as well as international expansion.

Congratulations to Johannes Plehn, PhD, Thomas Hagemann and the rest of the team!

Read more here:
https://tech.eu/brief/berlin-based-parcel-delivery-platform-seven-senders-raises-e32-million-in-series-c-round/

Berlin-based parcel delivery platform Seven Senders raises €32 million in Series C round - Tech.eu Seven Senders, the Berlin-based delivery platform for parcel shipping has closed a Series C funding round to the tune of €32 million. Led by Digital+ Partners, btov also participated in the round. The new capital is expected to be used towards the further technical expansion of the product offerin...

We are very happy to announce that our portfolio company neptune.ai has been included in CB Insight's annual list "AI 100: The Artificial Intelligence Startups Redefining Industries".

The team of Piotr Niedzwiedz, Jakub Czakon, Paulina Prachnio and Piotr Łusakowski is only one of six AI companies in continental Europe to be included in this prestigious list.

Congratulations to the entire team! If you want to find out more about neptune.ai and their new product generation, which has just been launched, please visit their website here: https://neptune.ai/

https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/artificial-intelligence-top-startups/

AI 100: The Artificial Intelligence Startups Redefining Industries - CB Insights Research Discover the top 100 private AI companies, from early-stage vendors to billion-dollar unicorns, impacting major industries like healthcare, energy, education, and more.

LiveEO, an Earth Observation asset monitoring startup based in Berlin, has closed an investment round co-led by btov Partners and Helen Ventures, and with DvH Ventures, and Motu Ventures as well as deep tech investor Andreas Kupke and one of the most renowned investors from the Silicon Valley tech ecosystem participating.

Read the official press release here:https://btov.vc/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/210406-LiveEO-Press-release_EN.pdf

LiveEO analyzes satellite imagery with artificial intelligence to monitor infrastructure grids such as railways, electricity grids or pipelines and enables the operators of these assets to save operational expenses and improve performance.

Congratulations to co-founders Daniel Seidel and Sven Przywarra and the rest of the team and welcome to the btov Portfolio!

In addition to the announcement, our colleagues Dr. Elisabeth Schrey and Victor Szabo from the btov Industrial Tech Fund wrote an article explaining why we have invested in the earth observation asset monitoring startup based in Berlin. Read the article here: https://medium.com/brains-to-ventures/delivering-answers-from-above-infrastructure-analysis-with-satellite-data-51d7f76595fe

Delivering Answers from Above: Infrastructure Analysis with Satellite Data Why we invested in LiveEO

Over the course of btov’s 20 years working in the startup industry we have observed — and sometimes learned the hard way — the impact that a team’s values can have on the success of a startup.

Using several examples, our CEO and partner Florian Schweitzer shows how important it is to nuture entrepreneurial success early on, with clear ESG goals.

Read the blogpost here:
https://medium.com/brains-to-ventures/seeding-entrepreneurial-success-with-clear-esg-goals-7dc5f71c5dfb

Furthermore, we are excited to openly share our vision, mission and values. These can be found here:
https://btov.vc/our-vision-mission-and-values/

Florian also explains in his article why now is the right time to articulate them so clearly.

Seeding entrepreneurial success with clear ESG goals Founders often think their business is not mature enough to investigate sustainability and ESG aspects. What we have seen at btov is the…

In the latest issue of our newsletter, we take a look back at the past quarter and celebrate a number of successes and milestones. We review the exciting and spectacular START Summit 2021, welcome finway as a btov portfolio company and have interesting news from Volocopter GmbH, Ava Women, EFFECT Photonics, Flytrex and many more entrepreneurs.

We also welcome Gerrit as a new partner, keep the dialogue going in our blogposts on GNSS and Cybersecurity, as well as sustainability and ESG goals, and look ahead to our upcoming events, such as the btov Investor Bootcamp. All this and more in our btov newsletter on time, space, trust and quality.

https://mailchi.mp/2e8a4c5cb7fb/btov-newsletter-on-time-space-trust-and-quality-03-2021

btov Newsletter on time, space, trust and quality | March 2021

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) have clearly become part of our daily lives whether it is through the use of navigation and localization systems or the synchronization of time on your connected devices.

Following up our previous post on our investment in Regulus Cyber and the rise of spoofing and jamming attacks, Sven Eppert and Charles Tissot from our Managed Partner Funds wrote a blogpost to shed light on the rather fragmented GNSS-related ecosystem, the myriad of use cases this technology enables, and the associated cyber risks that create new opportunities for protection.

Read it here: https://medium.com/brains-to-ventures/the-rising-need-of-cybersecurity-in-the-gnss-related-ecosystem-2adb9aa56840

The rising need of cybersecurity in the GNSS-related ecosystem Providing opportunities for established and new players

After announcing our investment in finway yesterday and thus adding the Munich-based startup to our portfolio, Luca Martinelli and Anna Bosch from the Digital Tech Fund explain in our latest blog post why we invested in the fintech.

finway is on a mission to improve how small and medium-sized enterprises manage their spend-related tasks. Read more about it here: https://medium.com/brains-to-ventures/not-just-another-expense-management-tool-ad8c04a63a51

Not just another expense management tool - why we invested in finway

Munich-based startup finway (https://finway.de) has raised EUR 2.1m in its seed round from btov Partners and 10x Group. The fresh capital will be used for the expansion of product development and customer support. Congratulations to Csaba Krümmer, Jennifer Dussileck, Philipp Rieger and the rest of the team and welcome to the btov portfolio!

finway offers expense management for small and medium-sized businesses. The platform is designed to enable closer collaboration between finance and business departments. The FinTech positions itself as software for financial accounting plus credit card service.

Read more here: https://www.startbase.com/news/finway-sammelt-ueber-zwei-millionen-euro-ein/

Finway raises over two million euros | Startbase Exclusive: The start-up from Munich was able to successfully conclude a seed financing round with 2.1 million euros. Among others, the venture capitalist btov Partners is involved.

We are very pleased to announce today that Gerrit Jurilj will be appointed as a partner with immediate effect.

Gerrit has been with btov since 2015 and has, most recently as a Principal, contributed significantly to the qualitative and quantitative growth of the btov network and has been involved in more than 50 transactions.

Together with Dr. Jörg Dörnemann, he will continue to develop the btov Private Investor Network ( ), Europe's strongest network of entrepreneurial private investors, and significantly expand the network's investment activities.

We consider ourselves lucky to be able to appoint such a great colleague as Gerrit to the partnership. "His promotion is - after several other, internal partner promotions - another nice testament to the career opportunities that btov's growth offers."

Read more on our website: https://btov.vc/btov-appoints-gerrit-jurilj-as-partner/

Our portfolio company Happify Health has raised another USD 73m to advance and expand the company’s healthcare platform, focused on digital therapeutics and patient care delivery. The round was led by Deerfield Management and included participation from Omega Capital Partners, ION Crossover Partners and several existing investors, including Mangrove Capital Partners, TripleTree Capital Partners and btov Partners.

Congratulations to the team - it's a great pleasure to work with you and observe your progress from the side line!

Read more here:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210317005114/en/4939827/Happify-Health-Raises-73M-to-Advance-and-Expand-Digital-Health-Platform

Happify Health Raises $73M to Advance and Expand Digital Health Platform Happify Health, a global software-enabled healthcare platform to improve mental and physical health, today announced a $73 million capital raise throu

London-based Fintech company SumUp has announced it had borrowed USD 895m from backers led by Goldman Sachs, and also backed by Temasek Holdings, Bain Capital Credit, Crestline Investors, Inc. and funds run by Oaktree Capital Management, L.P.

The provider of mobile point-of-sale terminals for small businesses will use the financing to invest in acquisitions and new products as it continues its global expansion.

Read more here: https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/16/sumup-which-helps-businesses-take-card-payments-raises-895m-to-double-down-on-growth/

SumUp raises $895M in debt to double down on its B2C payments business – TechCrunch SumUp, a London-based startup that helps businesses power revenues through card payments — by way of physical readers, online payments, invoices and other services — is itself powering up in a big way. Today it announced financing totalling €750 million (around $895 million at todayR…