STARTUPS
The startup grid
It’s been another interesting month in financials for startups, disruptors and unicorns across sectors. Giacomo Lee presents a summary of six startups founded in the past five years that have already raised their game in 2021, ranging from insurtech insurrectionists to crypto-art capitalists.
SpringCloud
Founded:
2017
Funding to date:
$10m
Mission:
Making autonomous shuttles a reality. SpringCloud, a Daegu, South Korea-headquartered provider of autonomous driving mobility services, secured Series A funding of ₩2.9bn ($2.6m) in March. SpringCloud intends to use the funds to expand autonomous driving service infrastructure, data and manpower – an easy fit perhaps for Korea’s advanced smart urban sprawl.
TrueLayer
Founded:
2016
Funding to date:
$141.8m
Mission:
Bringing secure, reliable access to open banking. The London, UK startup recently celebrated Series D funding to the tune of $70m thanks to backing from Addition, Anthemis Group, Connect Ventures and more. TrueLayer has partnered with fellow fintechs like Revolut and ANNA Money in the past, and is looking to expand across Europe and Australia with its newfound money.
OpenSea
Founded:
2017
Funding to date:
$27.2m
Mission:
Building new economies powered by true digital ownership. You may have heard about NFTs (non-fungible tokens) a lot lately, and OpenSea have done well out of the buzz with a successful Series A funding round in March. The potential of NFTs has drummed up huge interest in the fledgling market, with OpenSea claiming that transactions on its marketplace have grown 100 times in the past six months. Over $100m worth of NFTs have been trading hands weekly, although that bubble may eventually burst.
Zego
Founded:
2016
Funding to date:
$200m
Mission:
Provide vehicle cover that creates possibilities. London-based Zego claims to be the first UK insurtech to reach unicorn status, showing that insurance disruption will soon become as big a thing as fintech. The company uses multiple data sources to offer motor insurance to fleets of business vehicles and self-employed drivers. It has previously partnered with delivery companies such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo to provide flexible pay-as-you-go policies to their gig economy workers.
Clubhouse
Founded:
2020
Funding to date:
$110m
Mission:
Offering an audio alternative to the social-and-video brigade. If NFTs are on trend right now, then so are audio-based social networks. The undisputed champion so far is Clubhouse, the US-based chat app which only launched last year and has already inspired clones from Facebook, LinkedIn and more. Its future in a post-pandemic world remains uncertain as people return to live events.
Zilch
Founded:
2018
Funding to date:
$119.8m
Mission:
Pay for goods over time, anywhere. Most buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) companies sell their services to retailers who then have to integrate the tech before they can offer instalment payments to customers (who may not be able to actually pay for their goods in full.) Zilch’s solution, though, works anywhere that Mastercard is accepted, without the need for integration thanks to open banking use and continuous soft credit checks. These checks determine customers’ affordability level – if they can’t pay, then nothing is exchanged.
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