News
FLOWDESK, THE FRENCH DIGITAL ASSET FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY PROVIDER, RAISES $30 MILLION
Flowdesk announced that it has raised $30 million from leading investors such as Eurazeo, Aglaé Ventures, ISAI, Speedinvest, Fabric.vc, Ledger, and Coinbase, and 20 well-known business angels, including Alexandre Prot (Qonto), Nicolas Julia (Sorare), Pascal Gauthier (Ledger) and Sébastien Borget (The Sandbox).
A trading infrastructure made in France
Active in the cryptocurrency sector for several years, the four co-founders of Flowdesk, Guilhem Chaumont, Paul Bugnot, François Cluzeau and Balthazar Giraux have been working in this sector since 2017 after careers in banking, algorithmic trading, engineering and entrepreneurship. During their respective experiences, they were marked by the siloing and fracturing of marketplaces and the technological barrier to properly handle the liquidity of crypto-asset projects. In 2020 they chose to develop an infrastructure that would allow them to interconnect and trade on these exchanges, while guaranteeing the redundancy and scalability needed to support the growing number of crypto projects.
An innovative product: Market-Making-as-a-Service (MMaaS)
Flowdesk is thus the originator of a trading infrastructure that allows interconnection with more than 60 cryptocurrency exchange platforms. A technology that its teams use on behalf of Flowdesk as well as for their clients and which allows them to offer four types of services:
Asset management
Brokerage
Custody
Market-making
Market-making is Flowdesk’s flagship service and its most differentiating product. It addresses the needs of the majority of the 10,000 cryptocurrency issuers with significant liquidity issues. By making its technology and traders available to these players, Flowdesk allows them to manage their cryptocurrency token liquidity themselves with their own funds. The service is called Market-Making-as-a-Service in reference to digital models based on simply providing technology to customers who commit their own resources.
A decisive fund-raising to change scale
Although Flowdesk’s team consisted only of its four co-founders at the beginning of 2021, the company now employs 35 people and plans to recruit to reach 100 employees before the end of 2022. A change of scale for which fundraising was necessary. Flowdesk is indeed facing an extremely strong demand in market-making and after having opened offices in Singapore in March 2022, is now targeting the United States to deploy sales and trading teams as well as legal compliance specialists, a particularly strategic topic for the company and its constantly changing regulatory market.
For Guilhem Chaumont, co-founder and CEO of Flowdesk: “This fundraising is a key step that will allow us to accelerate at all levels to meet the growing demand in Europe, Asia and North America. It will also give us the means to develop our technological infrastructure to meet the new needs that will emerge in market making. Our vision is that within 10 years a large proportion of assets will be tokenized using blockchain technology, which will require a rethinking of financial services with a more scalable and counterparty agnostic approach. We will have to scale up quickly to integrate this new financial situation. ”
For Thomas Turelier, Vice President at Eurazeo: “An increasing number of companies are issuing tokens and are thus confronted with the complexity of managing a liquid asset in different markets. Most of these companies do not, however, see themselves as financial market professionals: they are technology providers, game developers... A financial infrastructure such as the one proposed by Flowdesk is therefore crucial to allow all these web3 players to develop with the least possible friction while trusting a regulated player aligned with its customers in terms of financial interests. ”
For Cyril Guenoun, Partner at Aglaé Ventures: “We were convinced by Flowdesk’s positioning as a technology provider for cryptocurrency issuers. This emerging and fast-growing market needs scalable tools to ensure secure and sustainable development. The team has proven the robustness of its solution as well as a business model adapted to its customers. With an already international presence and strong speed of execution, Flowdesk has the means to drive the growth of financial services for cryptocurrencies. ”
Innovating to empower customers
Another ambition of this fundraising is to continue to invest in innovation with the aim of developing a complete platform for Flowdesk’s clients, allowing them to carry out the simplest to the most complex trading operations themselves. A model that will contribute to Flowdesk’s position as a leader in Market-Making-as-a-Service.
About Flowdesk
Founded in 2020 by Guilhem Chaumont, Paul Bugnot, François Cluzeau and Balthazar Giraux, Flowdesk is a digital asset service provider registered in France with the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF). Flowdesk is the originator of a trading infrastructure that allows interconnection with more than 60 cryptocurrency exchange platforms. The company offers four types of services: asset management, brokerage, custody and market-making. The company has offices in Paris and Singapore.
PR Contacts
flowdesk@wachsman.com
DEVO ANNOUNCES $100 MILLION FUNDING ROUND
Cloud-Native Logging and Security Analytics Leader Boosts Valuation to $2 Billion.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass—June 2, 2022—Devo Technology, the cloud-native logging and security analytics company, today announced $100 million in Series F funding at a valuation of $2 billion. Eurazeo—a leading global investment firm with over $30 billion in assets under management—led the round, and all other existing investors—Insight Partners, Georgian, TCV, General Atlantic, Bessemer Venture Partners, Kibo Ventures—also participated. Additionally, ISAI Cap Venture provided a strategic investment in the round. The round brings the total capital raised to more than $500 million. The new funding will fuel growth in new regions and verticals, accelerate Devo’s delivery of the “autonomous SOC” and fund potential new M&A expansion.
The funding round comes on the heels of Devo’s acquisition of Kognos, the AI-powered threat hunting pioneer, which marked a key step in delivering what Devo calls the autonomous SOC— complete visibility, automation, analytics, and open access to community expertise and content.
“Security teams are facing more threats than ever—regardless of industry or geography—and that challenge is compounded by the difficulty of hiring and retaining talent, a lack of visibility into the full attack surface, and the speed and scale necessary to keep up with not just growing threats, but the growth of their organizations,” said Marc van Zadelhoff, CEO of Devo. “This round of funding allows us to deliver on the autonomous SOC through continued innovation of our technology, expand to more regions to serve more customers, and consider more M&A opportunities. We're thrilled to have instilled such confidence in our investors that they continue to support our innovation and the value we deliver to customers.”
Devo will continue to drive expansion in new verticals and geographies, particularly the public sector and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. In February, Devo announced it was designated as Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program’s (FedRAMP) “In-Process” and expects to reach full authorization in the fall of 2022. Devo has also seen substantial growth in the APAC region, including adding energy provider Powerco as a customer and deploying an in-region AWS environment for customers and partners.
“Devo has proven to be a disruptive force in the security analytics market and we believe in its vision to fundamentally change the way organizations secure their data,” said Guillaume d'Audiffret, Managing Director at Eurazeo, who joins the Devo Board. “It is setting a pace for innovation that will enable its customers to meet the ever-growing challenges facing security teams and we look forward to continuing our work together with Devo and fellow investors to further develop its market leadership.”
The round comes as Devo closes out an impressive fiscal year of aggressive growth, including:
Nearly 100% annual revenue growth;
Nearly 100% customer growth for the year, including Sonos, AT&T, and Unisys;
Achieving FedRAMP “In-Process” status, and adding public sector customers including Ivy Tech Community College and Oklahoma University;
Surpassing 500 employees across North America, Europe, and APAC, including 91 new hires so far in 2022;
Acquisition of Kognos, an AI-powered security automation innovator;
Launch of Devo Exchange, a community-based application marketplace for Devo customers and partners.
The funding announcement coincides with the launch of a newly established <team of security researchers and data scientists> to form Devo SciSec, led by Chief Technology Officer, Gunter Ollmann.
About Devo
Devo is the only cloud-native logging and security analytics platform that releases the full potential of your data to empower bold, confident action. With unrivaled scale to collect all of your data without compromise, speed to give you immediate access and answers, and clarity to focus on the signals that matter most, Devo is your ally in protecting your organization today and tomorrow. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with operations in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, Devo is backed by Insight Partners, Georgian, TCV, General Atlantic, Bessemer Venture Partners, Kibo Ventures, ISAI Cap Venture and Eurazeo. Learn more at www.devo.com.
Devo PR Contact
Shannon Todesca
shannon.todesca@devo.com
+1 (781) 797-0898
VADE LANDS $30 MILLION IN NEW FUNDING ROUND
Latest investment from Tikehau Ace Capital, Bpifrance and Auriga Partners will propel a new chapter of company growth.
San Francisco, Calif. May 31 – Vade, an international pioneer in threat detection and response that already monitors one billion email messages worldwide, has announced that it has raised €28 million (~$30 million) from Tikehau Ace Capital, the French government, through French Tech Souveraineté, which is part of France 2030, led by the General Secretariat for Investment and operated by Bpifrance, and Auriga Partners. The company intends to proceed with a new, more substantial round of financing in the coming months.
"We invested in Vade because we believe that Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) need to have technology that can easily and effectively neutralize the latest threats," said Francois Lavaste, Executive Director at Tikehau Ace Capital. "We welcome the sustained pace at which Vade continues to grow and have full confidence in Georges Lotigier and his team. We are confident in their ability to meet and exceed their clients' expectations.”
The latest round of funding will further accelerate Vade’s international expansion and provide additional investment to enhance its already industry leading cybersecurity products for Internet Service Providers (ISPs), MSPs and small and medium businesses. The company also plans to put increased emphasis on developing MSSP-tailored solutions with simple, rapid installation and high efficiency.
“Demand for our products, especially in the MSP market, has been overwhelming. This latest round of funding will help us quickly onboard more channel partners in key markets like North America and Europe,” said Maya Gershon, Chief Revenue Officer at Vade.
Between remote work prompted by COVID and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the new investment arrives in the midst of increased stakes for business communications that need to stay secure both internally and externally. In fact, a report by Market Research Future (MRFR) projects that the email security market will be worth $6.8 billion by 2025.
Vade has become a global cybersecurity SaaS leader, recognized by G2 as a leader in email security and cloud email security. The company has experienced over 100% growth in its flagship product, Vade for M365, an email security product that is purpose built for MSPs. The company has also grown to almost 200 employees and anticipates growing its staffing by another 80 employees by the end of this calendar year.
“Vade has experienced tremendous growth and with remote work becoming commonplace, even after the pandemic, cybersecurity is at the top of most companies’ priority list,” said Georges Lotigier, CEO of Vade. “We have built a highly profitable company in a competitive market, largely due to our constant innovation and anticipating the unexpected. This latest funding round will help us realize our ambitious plans to significantly grow in markets like North America and Asia.”
"The fight against cyber threats is a strong strategic challenge that Vade has mastered. This operation must now allow to accelerate the protection of companies and citizens, increasingly targeted in the current context. This is why Bpifrance supports this operation", adds Emmanuel Audouard from Bpifrance.
"We were attracted by the extreme quality of the team, which has been able to implement a strategy over the past few years that has enabled it to deploy a highly effective business model combining strong growth and profitability. We are convinced that Vade has all the fundamentals to become a world-class player," said Jacques Chatain, CEO at Auriga Partners.
About Vade
Vade is a global cybersecurity company specializing in the development of threat detection and response technology with artificial intelligence. Vade’s products and solutions protect consumers, businesses, and organizations from email-borne cyberattacks, including malware/ransomware, spear phishing/business email compromise, and phishing. Founded in 2009, Vade protects more than 1 billion corporate and consumer mailboxes and serves the ISP, SMB, and MSP markets with award-winning products and solutions that help increase cybersecurity and maximize IT efficiency.
To learn more, please visit www.vadesecure.com or LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/vade-secure/.
Media Contact
Merritt Group for Vade :
Ashley Long long@merrittgrp.com
Bpifrance :
Nathalie Police - Nathalie.police@bpifrance.fr - + 33 1 41 79 95 26
France 2030 et le SGPI :
Marion Dos Reis Silva : presse.sgpi@pm.gouv.fr +33 1 42 75 64 58
Tikehau Ace Capital:
Audrey Hood – ahood@tikehau-ace.capital – +33 1 73 313 010
Image 7 : Florence Coupry fcoupry@image7.fr / Juliette Mouraret jmouraret@image7.fr – +33 1 53 70 74 70 / Charlotte Le Barbier clebarbier@image7.fr – +33 6 78 37 27 6
JAVELO JOINS FORCES WITH SYMPA AND RECRUITEE TO LEAD THE WAY IN PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
The acquisition of Javelo further strengthens PSG’s HR tech platform already constituted of Sympa and Recruitee. The platform offers leading products in the three key HR software pillars: Recruitment, Core HR and Performance Management
Javelo, a leader in the performance management and employee engagement space based in Paris, announces that it has received growth investment from PSG Equity (“PSG”). PSG is a growth equity firm partnering with software and technology-enabled services companies to help accelerate their growth and build scale across Europe and the U.S. Javelo will join forces with PSG-backed Sympa and Recruitee to deliver tools for HR leaders at the forefront of digitizing their teams.
Headquartered in Paris, Javelo, which was founded by Anne-Sophie Vasseur, David Guillermain, Guillaume Berthault and Gautier Machelon, has developed a robust performance management platform to help businesses develop a strong feedback culture. Javelo has since become an innovator in the European performance management space, offering a wide spectrum of tools from evaluation and appraisal to employee engagement, 360-degree feedback, objective tracking, and employee surveys. Today, Javelo has three offices and counts companies such as Transavia, Protectas, Domino’s Pizza, and Manpower among its customers.
Together, Javelo, Sympa, and Recruitee will aim to provide a portfolio of leading software tools for HR teams in small, medium-sized and larger businesses across strategic HR, people management, employee engagement, recruitment, and performance management. With over 6,000 customers collectively across Europe, the UK, and the U.S., and with over 400 employees, each business aspires to develop solutions for innovative HR leaders. Notable brands such as Red Bull Media House, Breitling, BMW, and TNT have engaged Javelo, Sympa, and Recruitee to help them to acquire high quality talent, safeguard employee data, and empower teams to make better strategic decisions.
Anne-Sophie Vasseur, CEO and co-founder of Javelo, commented: “Javelo joining forces with Sympa and Recruitee marks the beginning of an exciting chapter. We believe that PSG’s investment validates the potential of our platform and our team in the market. Additionally, it is our view that the collaboration with Sympa and Recruitee augments our existing geographic reach and product focus, and will allow us to continue delivering top results for our customers through cutting-edge HR tools.”
Edward Hughes, Managing Director of PSG, stated: “Congratulations to the team at Javelo for the product and team they have built. There continues to be tremendous opportunity in the HR software vertical, and we are excited to support Javelo, Sympa, and Recruitee on their journey.”
About Javelo
With offices in Paris, Marseille, and Barcelona, Javelo is a SaaS platform for HR performance management. Javelo supports innovative HR leaders in digitizing appraisal practices, which often make HR management unwieldy and do little to inspire people. The company provides a simple, intuitive platform that aims to help HR departments optimise the evaluation process and involve everyone in more collaborative management milestones that power performance and foster engagement. javelo.io
About Sympa
Headquartered in Finland, Sympa is one of the fast-growing HR vendors in Europe and a leader in the Nordics. With recognized brands such as BMW, Dustin, and Byggmax among its customers, Sympa’s digital solution aims to let HR leaders optimise every step of the employment journey through more streamlined HR processes, nurturing and development paths, and data-driven strategic decision-making. sympa.com
About Recruitee
Headquartered in Amsterdam, Recruitee is a cloud-based ATS solutions provider. The company’s digital software is built for teams to hire better, together. Their solutions cover job board integrations, talent sourcing, applicant tracking, pipeline automation, scheduling automation, and advanced hiring analytics. Since its inception in 2015, Recruitee has grown to service more than 5,000 customers from over 75 countries, a majority of which are from the company’s core markets of Benelux, DACH, the UK and the U.S. www.recruitee.com
About PSG
PSG is a growth equity firm that partners with software and technology-enabled services companies to help them navigate transformational growth, capitalize on strategic opportunities and build strong teams. Having backed more than 100 companies and facilitated over 400 add-on acquisitions, PSG brings extensive investment experience, deep expertise in software and technology and a firm commitment to collaborating with management teams. Founded in 2014, PSG operates out of offices in Boston, Kansas City, London, Paris, Madrid and Tel-Aviv. To learn more about PSG, visit www.psgequity.com.
Press Contact Javelo : Paul Baratte & Gauthier Chatelain - contact@javelo.io
Press Contact Sympa : Jennifer Bailey - jennifer.bailey@sympa.com
Press Contact Recruitee : Anne Smink - anne.smink@recruitee.com
Press Contact PSG : Prosek Partners - Ryan Smith - rsmith@prosek.com - +44 785 475 0943
FINNT, FINANCIAL APPLICATION FOR FAMILIES AROUND THE WORLD, RAISES A $3.5M SEED ROUND
Finnt, which offers global joint and savings accounts built on digital assets and blockchain, announced a $3.5M Seed round from Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, ISAI, Uphonest Capital, Protocol Labs and others.
ARIANEE'S RAISES €20M SERIES A, LED BY TIGER GLOBAL
Arianee, the leading web3 solutions platform for brands, today announced that it has raised its €20M Series A funding round led by Tiger Global. BPI, ISAI, Cygni Labs and Noia Capital, Arianee's existing investors, have renewed their support by participating in this second round. They are joined by Commerce Venture and Motier Ventures.
Web3 is a unique opportunity for companies and individuals to regain control over their digital presence, especially their data. It’s the time for businesses to free themselves from the dependency on big platforms and lead new usage and innovation.
Since 2018, Arianee’s ambition has been to disrupt CRM by leveraging web3 technologies. Its mission is to provide businesses with simple solutions to build direct-to-consumer relationships, respectful of user data, and independent from big tech platforms.
Arianee is an end to end web3 solution built to create, distribute and interact with NFTs. The platform and products enable brands to tokenize, distribute and leverage value through NFTs.
The range of technological solutions developed by Arianee has enabled the startup to become a globally recognized reference. Arianee's platform, built on its open source protocol, is used in a wide range of industries and by major brands such as Printemps, Breitling, Groupe Casino, Vacheron Constantin, Paris Fashion Week, Panerai and IWC. Its SaaS platform allows brands to create enriched NFTs packed with exclusive and unique features (Airdrop claim, CRM, time-stamping, transparency, AR, metaverse deployment, etc) and distribute them to all kinds of audiences, crypto native or not, with seamless consumer journeys, from physical to digital redeem, from claim to drop, free to auction. Its architecture has been built to fit the integration needs of enterprises’ information systems and its end user interface solutions are designed to be fully embedded within each brand's user journeys with white label and SDK options.
Since 2000, the retail and distribution sectors have undergone unprecedented changes with new practices emerging. The digitization of customer relations, the circular economy, transparency, traceability and responsible consumption have become key issues for today’s consumers.
The emergence of new distribution channels has reinforced this strong trend: besides the traditional physical and digital channels used by brands to establish and maintain the relationships with their customers, new immersive channels in the metaverse are now added. Web3 is considered one of the biggest opportunities for brands since the creation of the Internet. With Arianee's solutions, they can build their token and wallet real estate and create paths for their communities to move seamlessly from one world to another, from physical to digital to immersive.
The company, whose staff has tripled since its last funding round in March 2021, currently has more than 50 clients and partners (including IBM and the metaverse The Sandbox) in Europe and North America. With this new round of financing, Arianee is looking to accelerate its international presence by growing its New York office, recruiting new talent and continuing the development of its products and services.
Pierre-Nicolas Hurstel, CEO & co-founder of Arianee adds: "We are thrilled to welcome one of the most influential global investors to our journey and to see our historical partners continue to back us. The structure of the investment in both equity & $ARIA20 token shows how a diverse global range of investors, from BPI to Tiger Global, is willing to invest on open source and SaaS web3 solutions. Web3 is eating the world and we believe brands can leverage this revolution to regain control of their digital presence. We also want to build for each and every user and not just for a minority. This requires robust and seamless tools and interfaces allowing communities to move from one world to another, from physical to digital to immersive."
Griffin Schroder, Tiger Global said: "As a web3 pioneer, Arianee has developed innovative solutions that are reinventing customer relationship management. We are excited to support Arianee's development and believe they are well positioned to become a leading global web3 solution for brands.”
LABELIUM ACQUIRES AN AMERICAN FIRM FOR OVER 100 MILLION EUROS
The group has just acquired 1000heads, a digital marketing company focused on social networks. This is Labelium's most important external growth operation. Founded in 2001, the group had quickly built its growth on search engines, especially Google.
To deep dive in this operation, here is an article (in French) written by Les Echos.
BEAMY RAISES US$9 MILLION TO GOVERN THE EXPLOSION OF SAAS IN COMPANIES
Beamy, a European pioneer in SaaS management for large companies, has raised more than 9 million dollars in Series A funding. This funding round was led by the ISAI, Aglaé Venturesand Evolem funds, as well as business angels Nicolas Hernandez (360 Learning) and Erwan Keraudy (CybelAngel). The solution has already attracted notable customers including LVMH, Decathlon, Orange, Engie and BNP Paribas to provide a framework for governing the decentralisation and implementation of their SaaS tools across their businesses.
Becoming aware of the explosion of SaaS in business is vital.
Beamy, a scale-up featured in “Future 40” of STATION F, offers companies a unique solution that can detect and control the explosion of SaaS applications used in a decentralised way. The platform thus helps CIOs and other IT leaders to control this parallel IT/digitalisation and strengthen their employees' technological autonomy while preserving corporate governance.
The days of cumbersome and complex software suites being solely implemented and managed by IT departments are over. For years, SaaS has been exploding uncontrollably in large companies, creating underground digitalization.
In companies with more than 1,000 employees, there are on average several hundred different SaaS solutions in use, representing several million dollars in annual costs. According to a recent study by KPMG, the SaaS budget of companies is set to increase by 90% in the next 10 years, covering several thousand different solutions. A new IT paradigm is emerging.
However, this massive adoption of SaaS is largely outside of the IT department’s control, which leads to a considerable underestimation of the real volume of SaaS applications already used by the business lines. Consequently, these companies become highly vulnerable to the risks of cyber attacks: each uncontrolled SaaS application represents a potential security breach. Finally, SaaS budgets, representing an ever-increasing share of corporate IT, are largely under-optimized. Many SaaS solutions cover the same uses and are thus redundant, while others are underused or even completely unused.
“In general, when we meet a CIO of a large company, they estimate that their organization uses 30 to 40 SaaS tools. However, when we begin working together, our technology detects several hundred active SaaS solutions, often revealing more than 75% of shadow IT,” explains Beamy CEO and co-founder Andréa Jacquemin.
The need to build a framework of technological autonomy for all professionals
There is a change in the way large enterprises procure, implement, use and manage SaaS software applications. It's more than just an IT phenomenon - the explosion of SaaS has introduced a real change in business organisation:
“The top down vision of IT is over. We are witnessing a true decentralization of technological ownership and empowerment of business units, which are selecting and implementing their own solution,” explains Andrea Jacquemin.
Accepting this trend means allowing employees who consider technology to be vital to the completion of their activities, to be engaged and become the primary actors in their IT landscapes.
“The decentralisation framework must be compatible with the technological autonomy granted. This is a story of balance. If we put too many constraints on employees’ ability to choose their applications and implement lengthy processes, they will still use the applications but won’t go through the proper channels with IT in the implementation,” explained Andrea Jacquemin. “Without a solid structure of decentralisation, the risks will be considerably increased and the budgets won’t be optimised. In any situation, you have to find the proper balance in terms of autonomy that works for your workforce, but keeping the status quo on this subject is the worst solution.”
For this, Beamy has developed powerful scoring algorithms capable of detecting all of the SaaS applications actually implemented in the company. Beamy is then able to follow the evolution of each application over time, provide employees with a catalog of all applications implemented in the company, define an autonomy matrix according to the potential risks of future applications, and navigate an app store of more than 50,000 applications on the market.
Beamy thus guarantees a global approach to SaaS governance necessary to support large companies in the long term to structure their IT decentralisation and establishing synergy between all stakeholders (CEOs, CIOs/other IT leaders, and business teams).
Beamy wants to accelerate its international expansion
With an impressive end to 2021, this fundraising will allow the company to accelerate its international development (Beamy already being present in France and the United Kingdom on the international market), to create global leadership, and to strengthen customer relations by supporting them in their long-term governance efforts. “We are convinced that SaaS issues are major issues for large companies, whether French or international. With this fundraising from major investors including Agaé Ventures and Isai, both of whom are recognized for offering cutting edge expertise in the tech sector, we are setting out to conquer the international market,” explains Andrea Jacquemin.
To do this, Beamy plans to focus its investments on two major areas: recruitment, with plans to hire 40 more team members in the next twelve months, and product development, with the strengthening of detection technology and decentralisation workflows to further streamline collaboration between IT and business lines in the implementation and management of new SaaS solutions.
“As investors, we are familiar with the SaaS model and the benefits that users and business departments can derive from it. For large companies, mastering this deployment, which is often in the ‘shadows’, represents a real challenge,” said Jean-David Chambordeon, CEO of ISAI. “The vision of Beamy’s founders to identify, rationalize, unify, and allow the security of this B2B SaaS stack within organizations quickly convinced us. The excellent customer feedback we have been able to collect shows that Beamy is in the process of becoming the reference platform in this field.”
“Beamy provides an exhaustive view of SaaS tools and provides a governance platform with a real return on investment,” said Léa Verdillon of Aglaé Ventures. “The great feedback we’ve heard from customers convinced us that Andréa and Edouard formed the right team to develop Beamy. The international ambition that drives them is in perfect harmony with the fast-growing market, particularly in the United States, which is one of our areas of investment.”
Press contact
beamy@lagencerp.com
Lucille Lavigne – 06 98 62 07 92
Mélina Dahmane – 06 58 94 47 82
ISAI EXPANSION AND KEENSIGHT CAPITAL SELL THEIR STAKE IN THEODO
ISAI Expansion, the ISAI platform’s Tech Growth and Growth Buyout fund and Keensight Capital, one of the leading private equity managers dedicated to pan-European growth buyout investments, announced today their successful exit from M33, the holding company of the Theodo Group ("the Group"). Theodo's two founding directors, Benoît Charles-Lavauzelle and Fabrice Bernhard, will be increasing their stake in the Group.
Launched in 2009, the Theodo Group and its 10 specialized enterprises support their clients in their digital transformation using the best technologies and a methodology inspired by lean and agile. Combining speed with high quality, the Group supports large international groups such as Total, Carrefour and BNP Paribas, as well as prestigious, fast-growing enterprises such as Qonto, Cajoo, Made.com and sunday.
Through the active support of its shareholders, the Group has achieved considerable success in recent years, marked by substantial growth, international expansion, team development and the creation of new expertise through internal projects and external growth.
Since the investment of Keensight Capital and ISAI Expansion in March 2018, the Group's turnover has grown by an average of 30% per year, reaching €64 million in 2021.
In recent years, the Group has developed new expertise with the launch of subsidiaries specialized in Cloud solutions. This includes Padok in 2018, and in 2021, eHealth with Hokla and in Serverless with Aleios. These enterprises complement the Group’s expertise in: web development through Theodo, Theodo UK and Theodo US; mobile through BAM; data and AI through Sicara; and fintech through Sipios.
The Group now benefits from a strong service offering across 10 verticals based in Paris, London, and New York, as well as in Morocco where the Group acquired in 2019 Nimble Ways, a digital solutions and artificial intelligence consulting company. Spanning across three continents, the Group has also expanded locally with the opening of two new offices in Lyon and Nantes in 2021.
Benoît Charles-Lavauzelle and Fabrice Bernhard, Founders and Managing Directors of the Group, said: "We have been fortunate in recent years to have worked with such exceptional partners as Keensight Capital and ISAI. Their involvement and experience have allowed us to achieve our ambitious objectives in terms of growth, expansion in France and abroad, strengthening our team and attracting talent."
Philippe Crochet, Managing Partner at Keensight Capital, added: "We are delighted to have been able to support Benoît and Fabrice at an important stage in their Group's development. Thanks to a differentiated service offering with cutting edge technology, an ability to attract new highly qualified talent and – above all – thanks to its two visionary leaders, the Theodo Group is a success and has a very bright future. The Keensight Capital team is proud to have contributed its expertise in the tech sector and its experience in profitable growth strategies."
Pierre Martini, Managing Partner at ISAI and Head of the Expansion Funds, concluded: "We are very proud of how far we have come working with Benoît and Fabrice. The Group has succeeded in maintaining its DNA and unique values, while simultaneously scaling up considerably. It has continued to attract the talent that will enable it to continue its exceptional growth trajectory in an ever more dynamic market.
About the Theodo Group
The Theodo Group is a consulting and implementation firm in digital technologies. With over 500 employees in Paris, Nantes, Lyon, London, New York and Casablanca, the Theodo Group supports large groups such as BNP Paribas, Carrefour and LVMH, as well as established enterprises such as Qonto, Cajoo and MADE.com.
Founded in 2009 by Benoît Charles-Lavauzelle and Fabrice Bernhard, the Theodo Group today brings together 10 enterprises that all work on creating digital solutions for businesses: Theodo, Theodo UK and Theodo US, Nimble Ways in Morocco for web development, BAM for mobile, Sicara for Big Data and AI, Sipios for fintech, Padok for DevOps, Hokla for health tech and Aleios for Serverless. In 2021, the Theodo Group achieved €64 million in revenue, 50 times more than in 2012.
https://www.m33.tech/ https://www.theodo.fr
Press contacts:
Theodo Group Agathe Lélu – agathel@theodo.fr - + 336 84 15 35 58
Sources Chloé Rossignol – chloe@sources.agency - +336 23 08 11 90
HOUSINGANYWHERE ACQUIRES MAJORITY STAKE IN STUDAPART AND CONSOLIDATES EUROPEAN LEADERSHIP
HousingAnywhere acquired a majority stake in Studapart, the number one French student accommodation platform
The 5th acquisition in 2 years demonstrates HousingAnywhere’s commitment to creating a more transparent and sustainable rental ecosystem across Europe
Studapart will accelerate its pathway to continued growth with its founders and entire team committed to the combined business
The combined European business expects to match 100,000 tenants with vacant rental properties in 2022, entirely online
HousingAnywhere acquires a majority share in Studapart and forges ahead as Europe's largest end-to-end rental accommodation marketplace. Together with its organic growth, this acquisition demonstrates HousingAnywhere’s commitment to driving the residential rental market to achieve its Triple A (Availability, Affordability, Accessibility) rating by creating the most technologically advanced marketplace. After acquiring market leaders in Germany, Italy, Iceland, the Netherlands, and now France, this 5th acquisition in 2 years consolidates HousingAnywhere’s #1 position in Europe by size and impact.
“Studapart is the #1 rental marketplace in France, a market known to be fragmented and culturally bound with language barriers and complex regulations,” says Djordy Seelmann, CEO of HousingAnywhere. “Studapart is technologically far ahead of its French competitors and has excellent traction in the student room segment with significant scope for growth, both in France and internationally. We are excited to acquire a majority stake in Studapart and welcome its team as our long-term partners. Our shared purpose, culture, matching vision and ambition will expand our positive footprint in Europe’s rental accommodation market.”
HousingAnywhere projects 2022 to be a record-breaking year
The combined European business expects to match 100,000 tenants with vacant rental properties, recording €500 million in rent transactions and €25 million in revenues. The group expects to welcome 30 million unique visitors to its websites, who can choose amongst 200,000 properties available for rent. In addition, HousingAnywhere welcomes Studapart’s founders and its team of 45 experts, with a plan to bring the total combined team size to 300 by the end of 2022.
Studapart’s team will remain based in Paris, France and continue its current focus on the French market while collaborating with HousingAnywhere to introduce their innovative product portfolio on a European scale, including their white-label platform for universities and a rent guarantee.
“Our historical markets are growing rapidly, and our ambition is to extend our innovative business model throughout Europe,” says Alexandre Ducoeur, co-founder and CEO of Studapart. “HousingAnywhere was by far the best partner to join the forces and accelerate our growth. Our combined business holds undisputed European #1 position in this increasingly competitive market and will allow us to move forward with further innovation to create the best rental experience for our customers."
About Studapart
In 2014, Studapart was founded by Alexandre Ducoeur and Amaury Roland with a mission to redesign rent experience. Today, Studapart is the #1 student rental marketplace in France, with 5 million unique visitors per year and 107,000+ properties available for rent with an average rental period of 9 to 12 months. With innovative products and services such as a rent guarantee and white-label platform for universities, Studapart recently joined HousingAnywhere and became a part of the European number one mid-to-longer term residential rental platform. The Paris-based innovative start-up currently employs 45 people.
About HousingAnywhere
HousingAnywhere is Europe's largest rental accommodation marketplace. After acquiring a majority stake in Studapart, the combined business now represents 20 million+ yearly unique visitors, 160,000+ properties available for rent and 65,000+ tenants finding their new homes in Europe, based on 2021 performance. Young professionals and students looking to rent a home are matched with accommodation providers, ranging from private real estate owners to large-scale property managers. Through its advanced platform, tenants book for longer stays and typically rent accommodation for 3 to 12 months. The Rotterdam-based technology scale-up currently employs 185 people.
Press inquiries
Yoony Kim - Head of Public Policy and Communications
press@housinganywhere.com
SILVR, THE FRENCH REVENUE BASED FINANCING COMPANY, COMPLETES A €18 MILLION FUNDRAISING OPERATION
Silvr announces a Series A fund raising operation of 130 million euros (including 18 million euros in equity and 112 million euros in debt) led by XAnge, Otium, Bpifrance, Eurazeo, ISAI and business angels : Alexandre Prot and Steve Anavi (co-founders of Qonto), Raphaël Vullierme (co-founder of Luko), Louis Chatriot (co-founder of Alma) and Pierre Dutaret (co-founder of Libeo)
By completing the largest fundraising operation in the Revenue Based Financing (RBF) sector in Continental Europe, Silvr becomes the European Operating System for financing digital companies and is recruiting 100 employees in 2022 to support its growth and develop its financing platform
After financing more than 100 companies in just one year after its launch, the company announces the upcoming creation of its own debt fund as well as strategic partnerships with banking players in 2022
A success story for the French Revenue Based Financing specialist
A French fintech company created by two serial entrepreneurs Nima Karimi and Grégory Tappero, Silvr, which gives companies access to a new form of financing, has accomplished a genuine exploit. After starting in 2020 by financing a dozen companies in equity for a million euros, then raising seed capital of €3 million at the beginning of 2021, the startup has recruited around twenty employees and financed more than 100 companies, including the most attractive French gems such as Pixpay, Cuure, Poiscaille, Lovys or Partoo.
Silvr has imported into Europe Revenue Based Financing, the "next big thing" in the fintech sector, an innovative financing model that enables companies to finance their growth while preserving their capital.
"As an entrepreneur for the past decade, I have been faced several times with the complexity of financing my startups. Banks are reluctant to grant bank loans to digital companies that do not have assets to provide as collateral.The complex and time-consuming journey of raising equity funds concerns only a handful of companies. I founded Silvr to democratise RBF in Europe, promote fairer access to capital and allow tens of thousands of entrepreneurs who create tomorrow’s services to unlock their growth potential", says Nima Karimi, CEO and co-founder of Silvr.
A single mission: to provide those who create tomorrow's businesses with the means to succeed
By creating the most founder-friendly financing solution possible, Silvr's mission is to help entrepreneurs succeed. It is essential for them to be able to access funds easily to accelerate the growth of their business, without having to pay onerous counterparties. Silvr has developed a platform that allows it to adapt to all digital business models: SaaS, subscription model, e-commerce, mobile apps, etc.
Financing offers are calculated using a model developed by the startup to assess the performance of companies and their growth potential by analysing thousands of complex data (single visitors, turnover, average basket, return on ad spent of paid media campaigns, attrition rates, etc.) as well as industry-specific data. This system allows the fintech company to forecast the company's future revenues and provide the necessary financing within 24 hours.
Focus on clients financed by Silvr:
On average, companies financed by Silvr saw 64% growth two months after granting their financing
99% of customers financed by Silvr refinance with Silvr
29% of Silvr financing is granted to companies created by women
35% of companies financed are also supported by venture capital investors
"We are proud to announce this new fundraise, which is a great sign of confidence in the Silvr model. This reinforces our vision and ambition: to contribute to the growth of the digital economy in Europe thanks to our unique financing platform. We will be able to significantly accelerate our development thanks to the recruitment of around a hundred employees, set the first milestones in the creation of our own debt fund and develop technological partnerships with banks," says Nima Karimi.
About Silvr
Silvr is reinventing financing for digital companies. As the European leader in Revenue Based Financing, Silvr has developed an Operating System that allows digital companies (SaaS, e-commerce, etc.) to access a portion of their future revenue in less than 24 hours. Silvr financing is based on Silvr Analytics, a proprietary technology platform that connects to software used by digital companies (CMS, PSP, billing software, advertising, etc.) and their professional bank accounts (via open banking) in order to assess their past performance and predict their future revenue. Based in Paris, Silvr is supported by XAnge, Otium Capital, Bpifrance, ISAI, Eurazeo and has financed more than 100 European companies to date.
More information about Silvr: Silvr.co, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter
Press contact
Jihane Teretal
06 08 27 68 85
silvr@jt-conseil.com
THREEKIT RAISES $35M SERIES B ROUND TO FUEL VISUAL COMMERCE
Today Threekit is proud to announce its $35 million Series B funding round led by Leaders Fund, with participation from strategic investors ServiceNow and ISAI Cap Venture (Capgemini and ISAI joint fund) and existing investors Salesforce and Shasta Ventures. This capital will help the company to accelerate investments in their product platform, eCommerce integrations, global sales organization and partner network.
Powering Better Online Experiences
The simple fact is, traditional product photography can’t keep pace with the demands of today’s online shopper. We all want more dynamic digital product experiences when making purchase decisions, and the next frontier to enable this experience is 3D, augmented reality and virtual photography. With Threekit, shoppers can customize, zoom-in, rotate, add-parts, and more for eCommerce, sales, and service.
And best of all, the merchants that provide shoppers with this experience will win big. Threekit has already driven over $1 billion in sales for both B2C and B2B customers this year. This investment further powers their tremendous opportunity to grow in step with our customers.
Helping brands differentiate and break down silos
Having a digital version of the product is also proven to lead to breakthrough productivity gains for Threekit customers. Brands can prototype without actually making a physical products. They can email out millions of personalized products based on individual preferences, and put one product into multiple scenes without doing photoshoots.
“There’s a massive shift happening in the world of commerce. Shoppers are demanding more engaging and interactive digital product experiences when making decisions—be it in the form of 3D Visual Configuration or AR—and the brands and manufacturers who provide this experience will capture customer loyalty, increased sales and market leadership. This offering has moved very quickly from a nice to have to a must-have.” David Stein, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Leaders Fund and founder of Rypple (acquired by Salesforce).
They are also excited to have ISAI Cap Venture (Capgemini and ISAI joint fund) as part of their fundraise.
“Threekit’s groundbreaking technology and platform, which can create digital assets before producing them, addresses well the needs of organizations today for end-to-end immersive experiences and more sustainable supply chains,” said Charlton Monsanto, Immersive Experiences Offer Leader at Capgemini. “We are thrilled to be not only a long-term business partner to Threekit, but also an investor to support their growth.”
The promise of visual commerce for NFTs and the Metaverse
Visual commerce is changing the way shoppers experience products digitally and will have a profound impact on NFTs and the Metaverse. Threekit enables brands to create thousands or millions of unique 1 of 1 product creations that can be minted and sold to fans and collectors as NFTs. As virtual products grow, they will increasingly be used for visual identities across virtual worlds.
The Metaverse is a persistent virtual world and shopping will be driven by 3D and Augmented Reality. The brands that work with Threekit will be able to represent their entire portfolio and to allow Metaverse participants to truly engage with their products.
The team wants to offer a final thank you to the top-tier entrepreneurs who have invested in their growth, including Godard Abel (Founder of G2, Steelbrick, BigMachines), Carsten Thoma (Hybris Founder), Ray Grady (former GM of Salesforce Commerce Cloud), and Steve Young (Hall of Fame quarterback).
Threekit’s team is taking a little time to reflect and celebrate this step in their growth as a company. But they’ll be back at it tomorrow, working to deliver the best visual commerce platform for today’s market and beyond.
COPADO DEVOPS RAISES $140M IN SERIES C FINANCING
It’s official — Copado has raised a record-breaking $140 million in Series C funding after three consecutive years of triple-digit growth.
The native DevOps platform for Salesforce and SaaS clouds is nearing $1.2 billion in valuation thanks to financing efforts led by Insight Partners and a handful of other key investors:
SoftBank Vision Fund 2
Declaration Partners
DG Ventures
Salesforce Ventures
ISAI Cap Venture
Lead Edge Capital
Perpetual Investors
IBM Ventures
How Will Copado Use the New Funding?
They can’t wait to leverage the latest round of funding to help the most powerful brands on the planet kickstart innovation and drive digital transformation.
First and foremost, they’ll expand the end-to-end DevOps solution and AI-enabled test automation (Copado Robotic Testing) across the multi-cloud space. In addition, they’ll use the proceeds to fuel international growth in the Asia-Pacific region to capture the $18 billion DevOps market.
2021 in Review: A Year of Expansion and Collaboration
Since the $96 million Series B funding announcement in February 2021, Copado has:
Acquired two technology companies: New Context (Multi-Cloud DevSecOps) and Qentinel (Robotic Software Testing).
Added Campbell’s, Splunk, Standard Bank and TalkTalk Group to the roster of 1,100+ enterprise customers.
Grew global employee base to 500+ team members across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
More than doubled annual recurring revenue and tripled the number of new seven-figure client engagements.
Collaborated with IBM and Veeva on industry-specific DevOps solutions for Salesforce customers.
Commissioned Forrester Consulting to study the Total Economic Impact of Copado.
Released Summer 21 platform — the first and only true multi-cloud DevOps platform for enterprise SaaS and low-code development.
Published 2021 State of Salesforce DevOps report: They surveyed global 230+ Salesforce customers that leverage DevOps across their software lifecycle.
Partnered with CloudFulcrum to launch Copado as a Service.
What’s Next for Copado?
More funding. More growth. Same mission — to power the next generation of cross-cloud digital transformation. The platform empowers global enterprises to accelerate their multi-cloud development lifecycle without the fear of failed deployments or buggy software.
With this round of financing behind us, the team of DevOps experts are laser-focused on helping the customers achieve:
20x shorter lead times
10x faster recovery times
4x reduction in change fail rate
307% in Salesforce and SaaS ROI
$4.5 million in net value
“Today, the customers are asking us to replicate their Salesforce success on other SaaS platforms. This customer-driven innovation is fueling the growth and multi-cloud expansion strategy. We are excited to find ourselves only at the beginning of this extraordinary jtheney.”
Philipp Rackwitz, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of Copado
Meet the Founders
In 2013, two release engineers managing hundreds of Salesforce deployments across a multitude of different orgs, sandboxes and even countries built the first end-to-end native DevOps platform for Salesforce. Today, Copado is approaching 500 international employees located in 11 different countries. Watch their story.
FLOWDESK OBTAINS THE DASP REGISTRATION
Flowdesk, one of the major liquidity providers and trading technologies developers, is the first crypto market-maker to obtain the DASP registration from the AMF (under registration number E2021-019). Mandatory for the expansion of Flowdesk’s activities, notably to continue their work to propose innovative trading technologies, the registration is a quality guarantee for institutional investors looking to get a regulated exposure to the digital asset markets.
Flowdesk, first crypto liquidity provider to obtain the DASP registration
Flowdesk is the first french company proposing market-making services and a specialized trading desk on digital assets to obtain the DASP registration (N°E2021-019) to legally conduct their activities. Introduced in 2019 by the PACTE law, the DASP status requires respecting strict guidelines regarding AML (Anti Money Laundering) and CFT (Combating the Financing of Terrorist). Since its inception, Flowdesk is committed to these guidelines and has applied them diligently to their operations.
“Since the beginning of Flowdesk, our priority has been to develop our activities while keeping the regulators’ recommendation in sight. With the support of our technical and legal advisors, as well as our Compliance division led by Anne-Sophie Cissey, we were able to quickly file our registration’s request and obtain the authorization to pursue the development of our activities”. Paul Bugnot, COO of Flowdesk.
Flowdesk is registered for the following activities:
- Digital assets custody
- Purchase/sale of digital assets for legal tender
- Exchange of digital assets for other digital assets
Flowdesk, the one-stop-shop for digital asset markets
Started in April 2020, Flowdesk was founded by four French entrepreneurs in the hope to promote French technical excellence to develop specialized trading services on the digital asset markets and bridge the gap between traditional and digital finance. After a successful first round of funding with business angels and the French VC ISAI, Flowdesk has deployed a complete trading infrastructure that connects to all major exchange platforms (examples: Paymium, Binance etc…) to offer global access to the digital asset liquidity, as well as brokerage services to its clients.
Flowdesk's market-making technology helps crypto projects and exchanges platforms to improve their liquidity and market structure by providing an all-in-one solution covering all markets (exchanges, hedging, and brokerage services). Additionally, Flowdesk develops specialized tools to securely access the crypto-asset markets, designed for traditional finance professionals, notably investment funds seeking to integrate crypto into their strategies with a plug-and-play solution. As of today, Flowdesk is leveraging its financial infrastructure to efficiently execute more than 100,000 orders per day.
Answering the increasing demand from institutional investors.
A strict legal framework is necessary to enable traditional finance actors to start looking towards digital asset markets. In parallel with its activities, Flowdesk is additionally working with the regulatory authorities to provide regulatory watch and education, in the hope to prepare for the next regulatory evolutions.
Anne-Sophie Cissey, Compliance Officer of Flowdesk, adds: “the regulatory framework is constantly evolving, and we are convinced that this is going in the right direction, but we should anticipate these changes. It’s a sine qua non condition for the institutional investors to start looking into the digital asset markets and its promises.”
About Flowdesk
Founded in April 2020, Flowdesk is one of the major market-makers and digital asset liquidity providers in Europe, and the first to be regulated in France. Developing a complete trading infrastructure using the latest cloud technologies and developing proprietary tools, Flowdesk proposes market-making, best execution and brokerage services in the best conditions by accessing the global crypto liquidity. Only one year after its creation, the company already counts 15 collaborators, and continues its expansion by proposing specialized and regulated services to answer institutional investors’ needs.
Contact
press@flowdesk.co
ZELROS RAISES $11M IN SERIES A FUNDING TO BRING AI-POWERED RESPONSIBLE INSURANCE DISTRIBUTION TO NORTH AMERICA
French insurtech startup paves a path to automation and innovation for insurers
MONTREAL, Canada and PARIS, France - February 24, 2021- Zelros, the industry’s first AI-driven platform dedicated to advancing insurance distribution, today announced the successful close of an $11 Million Series A financing round, bringing the company’s total funding to date to $16.5M. Silicon Valley-based BGV led the round with new participation from ISAI Cap Venture and Plug and Play. Historical investors HI INOV, 42CAP and astorya.vc also participated in the round.
The Zelros AI business platform offers insurers, bancassurers, and policyholders a more efficient, fluid, and personalized way to distribute and receive products and services. The platform continuously learns, adapts, and improves its capabilities in real-time, offering insurance advisors and agents a streamlined and semi-automated experience from product/service needs discovery and sales to underwriting. It also allows insurance providers to offer policyholders fully automated, advisor-free subscriptions options. This enables incumbent industry leaders to compete with both fast-growth, technology-first insurance startups and tech behemoths heavily investing in insurtech. The company will use the funding to scale operations across Europe and expand into North America, strengthening its leadership position in the insurtech space.
“Digital transformation is fundamentally changing how businesses operate, and with insurtech funding reaching an all-time high of $7.1 billion in 2020, the insurance industry is no exception,” said Christophe Bourguignat, co-founder and CEO, Zelros. “At Zelros, we focus one hundred percent of our attention on developing AI-driven technology to improve and advance the insurance industry. We’re passionate about helping insurance players transform into technology-first companies, and the support of BGV, Capgemini, and all of our investors will empower us to accomplish our mission.”
Following a $5.5 Million seed round of fundraising in 2018, Zelros has experienced two consecutive years of triple-digit revenue growth, expanded its operations across three countries, and grown its team by over 350 percent to 50 employees. In 2020 alone, Zelros software reviewed over 20 million policyholder-specific situations and issued over two million personalized recommendations. The company currently works with 15 of the leading insurance providers in Europe, including BPCE, AXA, Crédit Agricole, MAIF, La Banque Postale, AssurOne, +Simple, across property and casualty (P&C) and life insurance business lines. Zelros also works closely with insurance regulators to promote usage of fair and transparent AI, and has published its own open standard for ethical, enterprise-grade AI to pave the way in this field. Zelros’ co-founder and COO, Damien Philippon, will relocate and launch the company’s Montreal-based North American headquarters in Q3 2021. The company plans to hire five full-time employees at its North American location by the end of the year.
“Zelros is using AI to improve traditional insurance-industry standards and deliver immediate business value and ROI improvements for its customers. Their solution is helping insurance professionals to be more efficient and integrates smoothly into existing workflows while providing transparency on the final recommendation. This is exactly what we look for in the Enterprise 4.0 startups we invest in,” said Eric Buatois, general partner, BGV. “At BGV, our expertise lies in sourcing the best startups in hubs outside of the valley and helping them scale up globally. We’re thrilled to work together with Zelros to build their business in Europe, North America, and beyond.”
“The COVID pandemic and the digital revolution have forced insurers across the globe to rethink how they sell; even those who rely on agents and brokers to make the sale recognize the power of technology to enhance the productivity and effectiveness of the people who represent their brand. Zelros brings a powerful AI-based capability to the insurance sales process. Its machine learning engine identifies upsell and cross-sell opportunities at the point of customer interaction empowering agents to recommend the right insurance product to the right customer at the right time,” said Seth Rachlin, global head of property and casualty insurance for Capgemini
In 2020, Zelros landed on the INSURTECH 100 annual list of 100 of the world’s most innovative insurtech companies, was named one of 20 French startups to watch by Sifted, and was named to FirstMark Capital’s 2020 Data & AI Landscape annual report. For more information on Zelros visit: zelros.com.
About Zelros
Zelros develops the first AI software dedicated to the insurance distribution of tomorrow. It enables insurance players to offer a fluid and personalized experience from intelligent lead management through need analysis and advice to automated underwriting. Zelros solutions are used daily by advisors, agents, and managers of insurers such as BPCE, AXA, Crédit Agricole, MAIF, La Banque Postale, AssurOne and +Simple.
Contact information
Courtney Richard
zelros@bamtheagency.com
OPAL, THE DIGITAL WELLBEING APP RAISES $4.3M IN A SEED ROUND
Opal is your go-to app for Digital Wellbeing. Join thousands of people saving time daily, experiencing more productivity, better sleep, lower stress, and better focus each day. Our app uses a science-backed approach to disconnect distractions from your phone, set intentions, schedule time off, and focus on what matters to you.
We're happy to share that we've raised $4.3M in a seed round led by Nicolas Wittenborn at Adjacent (Speechify, Reflectly, Revenuecat, Photoroom), including Speeinvest, Harry Stebbings, Steve Schlafman, Alex Zubillaga, Kevin Carter (Snap, Pinterest, GroupMe), ISAI, Thibaud Elziere (eFounders, Front, Mention), Jean-Charles Samuelian (Alan), Alban Denoyel (Sketchfab), Secocha, and others to make digital wellbeing more accessible to everyone, through more balanced screen-time and mindful activities.
Over the last 6 months, we've been testing our iOS app in beta with busy people all over the world and have helped them save an average of 2 hours per day on social media, news, and other distracting apps. We've also helped them develop a healthier and more conscious relationship with their phone. If you'd like in on the action (or the lack thereof), download the app from https://opal.so
Why Opal?
In 2020, the average US adult spent 13 hours daily on screens in Q1 2020, or 83% of waking hours (assuming 8 hours of sleep), and "doomscrolling" was officially added.
Phones can make us happy, but lately we spend more waking hours on screens than not and that's not healthy. Social apps and other big companies constantly build their products to be as addictive and as distracting as possible and self-control alone is not enough to fight that.
Spending time on these apps can lead to a lot of good things, but we spend more time on them than we'd like and we also unintentionally open them all the time. Scrolling mindlessly for hours has become the new normal and we've settled for too long.
Read our manifesto for more.
How Opal Works
Opal is on a mission to rewire our screens for mindfulness and keep you in control of how much time you spend on them.
Unlike screen time metrics and other apps, we don't make you feel bad or guilty about your screen time but make you happy about the time that you do choose to spend on a screen.
We do this using a couple different methods:
identify and block distractions
set intentions when you do want to use distracting apps
use apps on timers and set gentle reminders
completely lock yourself out of distracting apps for a set time when you really need to focus or be with loved ones
set schedules throughout the day to keep distractions away or even at night so you actually sleep instead of being on your phone
learn about our screen time, identify patterns of behavior and our different emotional states
receive personalized nudges that will help us find balance each day
receive support from friends
Opal is the only thing keeping me focused on deep work days — Zach
See more tweets from people who love us here.
Screen time affects all of our lives. Opal is the perfect app for people looking to reduce their daily screen time, but also for people who want increased focus, less stress, and better sleep. Using proprietary technology, Opal can disconnect distractions on your phone and help you stay on track.
You can start Opal for short sessions of 5, 10, 60 minutes, or throughout the entire day in the background. You can also schedule focus sessions throughout the week where apps will automatically be blocked. For example during your Sleep, Work, Morning, Study schedules. Opal will fit with your schedule and adapt to your life.
BENEFITS
Save up to 4 hours each day
Reduce stress
Improve productivity at work
Unplug with family and friends
Better Sleep and Mornings
Improve focus when you need it most
100% Guilt-Free and Private
FEATURES
Disconnect distracting apps on your phone, for short sessions of 5, 10, 60 minutes or throughout the day in the background.
Set a timer and write your intention before using apps.
Focus timer that blocks distracting apps without any way to bypass.
Schedule focus time daily where apps will automatically start blocking. For example during your Sleep, Work, Morning, Study schedules.
Check your progress with “Time Saved”. Every time Opal blocks a distracting app we calculate time you saved. "Blocked distractions'" will let you know each time Opal prevents a distracting app from connecting.
CREATE A PERSONALIZED APP LIST
You can add or remove Apps and Websites that qualify as distracting directly from Opal settings in the app. You can find settings by tapping on the settings icon.
We all need different things, you can enable 100+ apps to Opal, including most popular:
Facebook
Instagram
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube
Netflix
And 100s of others including News, Adult, Gambling categories.
UNIQUE TECHNOLOGY
We use Apple's local VPN technology in order to monitor and disconnect apps you use. Installation is easy and takes a few seconds on your iPhone.
PRIVACY COMES FIRST
Unlike most apps, Opal works entirely on your phone and personal browsing data never leaves your device. You can read our privacy policy in depth here.
OUR CHALLENGES AHEAD
The mission is huge: we want to define digital mindfulness, helping millions develop a healthier and more balanced relationship with screens.
If you're not afraid to take on a trillion dollars industry based on stealing attention, in order to push the conversation further and make technology about people's happiness, join us! We're hiring in engineering, design, product, and other roles.
Who Are We?
We're a small, fully remote team across 4 continents working together on Slack and Loom to make this happen. Say hello 👋🏼
Kenneth Schlenker, Founder & CEO
Matt Davenport, Lead iOS Engineer
George King, Senior iOS Engineer
Amrith Shanbhag, Community Lead
Anton Balitskyi, Lead Designer
Bernard Bontemps, Growth Associate
Joanna Tasmin, Product & Growth Intern
Randy Perecman, Product & Software Engineer Intern
Christine Launay, Executive Assistant
Images & Creative Assets
We’ve created a folder with all the brand assets and screenshots for your convenience.
You can download it here.
Contact Information
For more information or press inquires, please contact:
Kenneth Schlenker, CEO
IK, ISAI AND LSA’S MANAGEMENT ENTER EXCLUSIVE DISCUSSIONS WITH BLACKFIN
IK Investment Partners (“IK”) is pleased to announce that the IK Small Cap II Fund has entered exclusive discussions to acquire a majority stake in LSA (“LSA” or “the Company”) from BlackFin Capital Partners (“Blackfin”). ISAI will be joining IK by acquiring a minority stake, alongside LSA’s CEO, Bertrand Liber and management. Financial terms of the transaction are not disclosed.
Founded in 1970, LSA is a leading online insurance brokerage platform providing Property & Casualty (P&C) cover for individuals and small businesses in France. The Company specialises in automotive insurance products for non-standard risks, leveraging the prominence of its main brand Assurpeople.com and its fully digital customer experience. LSA covers the whole value chain of insurance products, including acquisition, subscription, contract and claim management through its proprietary IT platform.
Over recent years, LSA has diversified its offering, notably towards animal health insurance with the brand Fidanimo, and more recently by launching Airbag, a wholesale broker specialised in decennial civil liability insurance products for construction professionals. LSA is led by Bertrand Liber, who joined the Company in 2008 and became CEO in 2015. The Company currently employs 135 people based in its headquarters in Rueil-Malmaison and manages over 180,000 contracts in close partnership with leading insurance companies operating in France.
The transaction represents the 15th investment from IK’s €550 million Small Cap II Fund, raised in 2018.
Bertrand Liber, CEO of LSA said: “LSA team and I are delighted to be partnering with IK, a leading private equity firm in Europe. The team brings impressive credentials in the insurance brokerage sector and has significant experience in helping companies like LSA scale up and grow while ISAI will be the perfect partner to leverage our tech-positioning. I sincerely would like to thank everyone at BlackFin for their help over the last five years in supporting the change of scale and the diversification strategy.”
Arnaud Bosc, Partner at IK and advisor to the IK Small Cap II Fund said:
“We have been impressed by LSA’s remarkable track record of growth and the quality of the management team. Having carved a profitable segment of non- standard automotive risks, the Company stands to benefit by applying its digital model to other underserved segments of the market. We look forward to working with Bertrand to develop a platform for further growth.”
Christophe Poupinel, Partner at ISAI said: “LSA perfectly matches the investment strategy of our fund ISAI Expansion: an InsurTech with a dynamic growth, a recognised expertise and a strong focus on digital. We are delighted to work with IK and look forward to supporting the business in its next chapter of growth.”
Bruno Rostain, Partner at BlackFin said: “We have had a fantastic journey with LSA over the last five years and sincerely enjoyed working with Bertrand. Now is the right time for a new partner to come on board and we wish LSA every success in working with IK.”
About IK Investment Partners
IK Investment Partners (“IK”) is a Pan-European private equity firm focused on investments in the Benelux, DACH, France, Nordics and the UK. Since 1989, IK has raised more than €13 billion of capital and invested in over 140 European companies. IK supports companies with strong underlying potential, partnering with management teams and investors to create robust, well-positioned businesses with excellent long-term prospects. For more information, visit www.ikinvest.com
About ISAI
Launched in 2010, ISAI Gestion is the French Tech entrepreneurs’ fund gathering more than 300 entrepreneurs across the world. ISAI, authorized by French regulator AMF, can fund and support high potential companies at early stages (venture capital, €150k to €3M initial tickets with ability for follow-on rounds) or at more mature stages (growth equity/LBO, €5M to €30M investments). Follow ISAI at www.isai.vc
About Blackfin
BlackFin is a sector-focused private equity manager, specialized in Financial Services across Europe. The firm’s investment strategy focuses on asset-light businesses in the financial services sector such as payments, independent financial advisors, wealth and asset management, insurance and credit brokerage, business process outsourcing or administration, capital markets and financial technology. BlackFin Capital Partners is a fully independent firm, founded in 2009 by four partners with a demonstrated track record as managers and entrepreneurs in the financial industry. The operational DNA of the firm stems from this experience. Altogether the team consists of 30 experienced professionals operating out of three offices in Paris, Brussels and Frankfurt. BlackFin manages in excess of €1.8bn, across three sector-focused buyout funds, and a VC fund dedicated to Fintech investments.
About LSA
Established in 1970, LSA Courtage is a leading online insurance brokerage platform specializing in P&C products in France for individuals and small corporates, which are distributed under its own brands or under white label. The company’s 135 employees work in support of the largest insurers in the French market with extensive underwriting and management capacities. LSA distinguishes itself by its particularly strong position in underserviced areas of the market as well as its use of new technologies in insurance distribution and management. For more information visit www.lsa- courtage.com
KOYEB RAISED €1.4M FIRST ROUND TO SUPPORT YOUR SERVERLESS JOURNEY
Original blog post
Koyeb simplifies serverless application deployment and data-processing with a unified experience for containers, functions, and ready-to-use integrations. Koyeb is designed for the cloud-native world with native continuous deployment and GitHub integration, all combined with the ability to use the Cloud and API providers of your choice.
We've seen massive interest in the Koyeb technology from engineers and companies wanting to spend less time operating complex infrastructures and streamline the development of new features.
At a time where data is everywhere, Koyeb provides strong primitives for data-processing and realtime event-driven processing capabilities to build reactive, data-driven, applications.
We're happy to provide 1000 hours of compute, 1TB of storage, and 5TB of bandwidth per month for free until the end of the year! Get your account now!
More Than Money: Experience
We started one year ago as a team of three cloud veterans. When we started fundraising, we knew exactly what we were looking for with this pre-seed round: angel investors and entrepreneurs with proven experience in the Cloud Computing industry and an international vision to help us grow and expand Koyeb.
This investment will be used to structure our core team and support our growing community. The Koyeb platform is completely developed by our in-house engineering teams to offer unique and innovative features.
This €1.4M investment will allow us to build a strong foundation in the upcoming year to address our business users' needs. We are building a first-class engineering team to support developers and companies relying on Koyeb for high-performance production usage. Want to build the cloud? Join us now!
The Lineup
We selected entrepreneurs, CTOs, and angel investors with substantial experience in the cloud industry to join Koyeb. This round was led by Juliette Mopin from ISAI, the fund backed by more than 250 tech entrepreneurs, and is primarily composed of successful angel investors:
Zachary Smith, Co-Founder of Packet and Managing Director Bare Metal, Equinix
Justin Ziegler, CEO of SaaS Partners, Co-Founder and former CTO of Priceminister
Alexis Lê-Quôc, Co-Founder and CTO of Datadog
Xavier Niel, through Kima Ventures, Entrepreneur and majority stakeholder in Iliad (Free, Scaleway)
Sébastien Lucas, Co-Founder of Oxalide
Hank Vigil, through AceCap, Former Senior Vice President Strategy Microsoft
Marc Jalabert, Former General Manager Microsoft
Amirhossein Malekzadeh, Co-Founder and former CEO of Logmatic.io
Philippe Besnard, Managing Partner Fast-Up Partners and Co-Founder of Quantum Advertising
Eric Ouisse, Co-Founder and CTO of Ziwo
Dominique Vidal, Partner at Index Ventures and former Managing Director of Yahoo Europe
Fabrice Bernhard, Co-Founder and CTO of Theodo
Plug and Play Ventures, the ultimate innovation platform.
We're proud to be surrounded by successful entrepreneurs and a leading Venture Capital fund.
Applications are now hybrid multi-cloud by default. I'm excited by Koyeb and the focus that the founding team has on making it easier, faster and more secure for the next wave of developers to develop, deploy and lifecycle applications across infrastructures.
Zachary Smith, Co-Founder of Packet and Managing Director Bare Metal, Equinix
Over the past years, cloud development got more and more complicated. Many agree it has become a new branch of computer science that requires highly trained and highly experienced engineers. Koyeb makes cloud development simple again. Koyeb removes the pain of managing servers, VMs, or even containers. Thanks to Koyeb, developers can focus on business logic, assembling pieces of code, and seamlessly deploying them. Koyeb deals with the infrastructure and moreover the scaling and high availability of the infrastructure.
Justin Ziegler, CEO of SaaS Partners
The last decade has seen the emergence of an incredible amount of new cloud technologies with increased fragmentation of the tech stack. Koyeb brings simplicity to developers when the Cloud environment is becoming inherently more complex.
Alexis Lê-Quôc, Co-Founder and CTO of Datadog
Looking Forward
After spending the 2010s decade building Cloud Service Providers, we spent the last year researching and building in the multi-cloud and serverless space. We started with the vision that multi-cloud would shape the next decade. One year later, we're strong believers that this is where the Cloud Industry is heading. Cloud Service and API providers all have different specialties to solve a variety of needs. Multi-cloud is not an end. It's a tool that allows developers and companies to work more efficiently by leveraging better features and the most cutting-edge technologies on the market.
On the other side, serverless is a huge cloud computing trend, which we believe will become the primary technology to deploy new applications. It completely abstracts complex virtual machine and container production architectures thanks to native, highly-available, and scalable deployments. Serverless reduces operational complexity and increases development speed by orders of magnitude.
Koyeb fits at the intersection of these two spaces, serverless and multi-cloud, providing users the right platform and indispensable tools to navigate these major industrial trends.
All the features of the Koyeb Cloud Platform are currently available for free in preview. Request your free account now!
ISAI CAP VENTURE PARTICIPATES TO COPADO'S $26M SERIES B LED BY INSIGHT PARTNERS
Copado Raises $26 Million to Accelerate the Delivery of Digital Transformation in the New Unpredictable World
Demand for digital agility and visibility during uncertain times fuels the hyper growth of native Salesforce DevOps platform backed by international investment leaders
Chicago – June 18, 2020 – Copado, a leading native DevOps platform for Salesforce, today announced $26 million in series B funding, bringing the total raised to $47 million. The oversubscribed round was led by existing investor Insight Partners who led Copado’s Series A round, with participation from existing investor Salesforce Ventures and new partners, Lead Edge Capital, ISAI Cap Venture (Capgemini and ISAI joint fund), and Perpetual Investors. Copado will use the new funding to expand global distribution and accelerate product innovation, including its new DevOps analytics platform, DevOps 360.
The impact of COVID-19, distributed virtual workforces and an unpredictable economy are forcing companies to adopt DevOps platforms to digitally transform their businesses. These seismic events have redefined executive expectations on the speed, quality and visibility their technology investments must deliver to enable rapid business pivots and effectively disrupt markets.
Copado continues down a path of exponential growth and has expanded operations globally with programs to train more than 10,000 DevOps professionals by the end of 2020. Last year, Copado more than doubled its revenue and tripled its global headcount. More than 500 customers, including Amgen, Conga, Cox Communications, KUKA, Linde, Orange S.A.,The Coca-Cola Company and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, trust Copado to help deliver digital transformation projects on time with the highest levels of trust and quality.
“Using DevOps to deliver high-quality software releases with speed and trust is more critical than ever as companies adjust to a COVID world,” said Nikitas Koutoupes, Managing Director at Insight Partners and Copado board member. “Remote work and digital customer engagement are the new normal. DevOps helps delivery teams increase release velocity and quality to support new digital strategies. By bringing those tools to Salesforce -- the #1 customer relationship platform -- Copado is fast becoming a must-have technology for any company looking to meet the demands of accelerated digital transformation. We are thrilled to continue our partnership with the Copado team as they scale to deliver the in-demand tools and training for the fourth industrial revolution.”
“We are thrilled to strengthen our relationship with Copado and look forward to helping accelerate its growth,” said Terence Goudriaan, Head of the Digital Customer Experience practice in Europe at Capgemini. “Copado’s ability to provide a consistent development and deployment process and being the single source of truth for delivery, combined with Capgemini’s expertise in managing complex digital transformation programs is a strong assurance for client success.”
Copado is redefining how to measure success on the Salesforce platform with its data-driven approach to delivering faster, higher quality releases and improving trust across customer transformation projects. As Salesforce continues to lead the market in digital transformation, the technical sophistication and the size of the delivery teams continues to grow exponentially resulting in the need for a more disciplined delivery process based on DevOps best practices. Organizations that implement DevOps best practices have been shown to deploy more often, fail less often and recover faster.
“We are building a foundation for growth based on real customer pain points that we can successfully solve for nearly any Salesforce implementation,” said Ted Elliott, Chief Executive Officer for Copado. “It is a critical time for businesses in every industry. They need the native tools, the right staff, the intelligent analytics and the key performance metrics to optimize their digital transformation projects. Copado offers the complete package to successfully implement a digital go-to-market strategy for any company.”
Additional Resources
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/copado-solutions-s.l/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CopadoSolutions
Copado blog: https://www.copado.com/learning/blog/
About Insight Partners
Insight Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software ScaleUp companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Founded in 1995, Insight Partners has invested in more than 400 companies worldwide and has raised through a series of funds more than $30 billion in capital commitments. Insight’s mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with practical, hands-on software expertise to foster long-term success. Across its people and its portfolio, Insight encourages a culture around a belief that ScaleUp companies and growth create opportunity for all. For more information on Insight and all its investments, visit www.insightpartners.com or follow us on Twitter @insightpartners.
About Copado
Founded in 2013, Copado is a leading DevOps platform for Salesforce. For enterprises wanting to accelerate their Salesforce deployments, Copado simplifies the release process, increases developer productivity and maximizes return on investment. The platform is comprised of Agile Planning, Release Management and Compliance & Testing. Backed by Insight Venture Partners and Salesforce Ventures, Copado counts more than 250 enterprises as customers, including Fair Trade, MassMutual, Shell and Vlocity. With more than 50 million transactions per month, Copado has received the top rating of 100 percent positive feedback on Salesforce AppExchange. More information can be found at: https://www.copado.com/
FIRST CLOSING AT €90M FOR THE ISAI VENTURE III FUND.
10 years after launching its first fund (Blablacar, Evaneos, Stickyads...), ISAI announces the launch of its new early stage VC vehicle to support and fund French Tech entrepreneurs.
Paris, May 6th 2020. ISAI announces a €90M first closing of its third fund that will focus on the post-seed stage. This intermediary closing of ISAI VENTURE III, which took place during lockdown, confirmed investors' interest for the entrepreneur-backed VC model as well as for ISAI's investment strategy.
ISAI was able to rely on its historical investors, mainly the community of Tech entrepreneurs as well as institutional investors such as BPIFrance, Arkea, Quadrille or Idinvest.
This new fund is focused, as were the preceding funds, on digital startups (SaaS, marketplace, AI...). The team will remain, as it always has, very vigilant towards the capital efficiency of business models. This is one of the crucial factors that should enable ISAI's portfolio to cope well with the current crisis. It is also a key alignment factor between entrepreneurs and investors. ISAI VENTURE III, whose maximum size has been set at €120M, will invest as lead investor in around 20 businesses with tickets ranging from €1M to €3M, with the ability to undertake follow-on rounds. A separate pocket will be dedicated to seed funding, with 150k€ tickets deployed in a "Super Angel" manner. This fund is the sixth fund raised by ISAI, that currently has around €500M under management.
Jean-David Chamboredon, Managing Partner and co-founder of ISAI, explains: "We are of course proud of what we have accomplished during the past 10 years and we want to continue to contribute to the emergence of the biggest French Tech successes. The loyalty and involvement of our investors during these uncertain times is absolutely remarkable. I want to warmly thank those who have trusted us for a long time, and the few that joined our investor base during this closing."
"Crises are periods of profound change, during which great talents, innovative and disruptive project initiators, reveal themselves" emphasises Thierry Vandewalle, entrepreneur-investor that became General Partner. "Look at Stripe, Slack, Whatsapp, AirBnB, Github... all were created during the subprime crisis!"
True to its motto "festina lente" (Hasten slowly), ISAI will continue to act as the "sparring partners" of talented founders to enable them to progressively realise their ambitions.
"You don't necessarily need a lot of money to develop a product, test a market and validate a business model. We strongly believe that creativity is greater under constraint. However, once the models have been validated, our role is to help our portfolio companies to accomplish the finest fundraisings with the best french or international players" highlights Christophe Raynaud, co-founder and General Partner.
With a team mainly based in Paris and a New York branch, ISAI will reinforce its transatlantic approach in the years to come.
"For many digital start-ups, the reference market is the US. It's very important that we invest in US start-ups founded by French citizens in addition to supporting French start-ups in their North American expansion" underscores Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet, co-founder of ISAI and largest individual investor of this new fund.
About ISAI:
Launched in 2010, ISAI is « the » French Tech entrepreneurs’ fund gathering more than 300 entrepreneurs across the world. Roughly 250 successful entrepreneurs, who have invested in ISAI, and more than 50 startup cofounders supported by ISAI share the collective ambition to write great entrepreneurial stories. ISAI invests in differentiated projects founded by ambitious teams that it rigorously selects and actively supports.
ISAI Gestion, authorized by French regulator AMF, can fund and support high potential companies at early stages (venture capital, €150k to €3M initial tickets with ability for follow-on rounds) or at more mature stages (growth equity/LBO, €5M to €30M investments). Follow ISAI at www.isai.vc and on twitter @isai_fr.
Contact(s)
Kablé Communication –
Nolwenn Salaün : nolwenn.salaun@kable-communication.com - 06.68.41.54.32