Every month just gets crazier in this simulation we call life, and April was certainly no exception.
Crypto, public and private markets are all seemingly mergin (meming) into one, as Dogecoin is currently nestled between FedEx and Snap at an ~$82bn Market Cap.
But is all hope lost? Probably not, and some interesting startups were backed across Europe over the last few weeks.
Let’s start with my pick of the week:
PortalOne -
This is one of the whackier rounds I’ve seen this year, and I love it. The team behind PortalOne are pioneering a new genre of entertainment they call ‘hybrid games’. These experiences combine mobile playability with livestreamed content hosted in the companies studio. Players can compete and participate to win prizes, with celebrity guests promising to make surprise appearances (Justin Bieber featured in their launch trailer).
I haven’t seen live gameplay or claim to have any insider knowledge, but the general feel is quite ‘Trivia HQ’ on steroids. Excited to see where this goes. Oh and Atari (of childhood memory fame) participated in the round alongside Founders Fund and others. One to watch for sure.
Sweep -
Changing gears a little here, Sweep has built a software platform to reduce carbon emissions across businesses and their value chains. The company claims to offer all the tools necessary for organisations to Measure, Reduce and Contribute to lowering their carbon emissions across the board.
An interesting proposition made sweeter by the founding team - Rachel Delacour and Nicolas Raspal were the co-founders of BIME Analytics, which was acquired by Zendesk in 2015 for $45m. One of the two rounds this weeks edition done by European ‘newcomers’ New Wave.
Description: GlobeDX has dubbed itself the “Coinbase for derivatives,” building a cryptocurrency-derivative exchange that supports high-frequency trading. The platform allows crypto holders to trade global markets with bitcoin and grants users the same access to data leveraged by institutional investors.
Investors: Y-Combinator, Pantera Capital, CMT Digital Ventures and others.
Description: Keyless is a deeptech, cybersecurity company building the world's first privacy-preserving biometric authentication and personal identity management platform.
Investors: P101, gumi Cryptos Capital, Primo Ventures and Inventures.
Description: Sundayapp is building the fastest, simplest, and cheapest way in the world to pay in restaurants, according to their website. TechCrunch has more here.
Investors: New Wave, Global Founders Capital and Coatue.
Description: Fintecture creates a series of APIs that integrate with banks, creating the missing direct link between merchants and their customers, providing for a simpler, safer, and cost-efficient mechanism. Tech.eu has more here.
Investors:Target Global, Samaipata and Société Générale
Description: Software to reduce carbon emissions in your business and value chain. Sweep offers users the ability to visualize each location of a company’s business by brand, location, product or division and see how those different granular operations contribute to a company’s overall carbon footprint. TechCrunch has more here.
Description: Potions relies on browser databases rather than cookies to “store, analyze, enrich and activate local navigation data” . The startup enables client companies to respect the privacy of Internet users while offering them a personalized experience - useful with the upcoming changes to 3rd party cookies.
Investors: BpiFrance, Crédit Agricole and SIDE Capital.
Description: PortalOne is a gaming startup delivering live game experiences with stunning visuals and next level interactivity. TechCrunch has more here.
Investors: Founders Fund, Atari, Coatue, Seedcamp, Signia Venture Partners, Talis Capital and others.
Description: Hive stores and ships products for small and medium-sized online merchants next-day. Service, software, and operations helps D2C companies manage their brand from sourcing to final delivery.
Investors: Earlybird Venture Capital, Picus Capital, Amplifier Ventures and others.
Description: Carbo Culture removes atmospheric carbon and turns it into a functional material called biocarbon through its own patented technology that exposes woody waste to an ultra-high temperature for an instant.
Investors: True Ventures, Lifeline Ventures, Cherry Ventures, David Helgason and others.
