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Author: Anamaria Iuga

Autone raises €1.7M to help retail & CPG businesses make better operational decisions

by Anamaria Iuga
This post is by Anamaria Iuga from Seedcamp

Retail and consumer goods businesses have to make thousands of complex operational decisions every day: how much of an item do you need to reorder, which flagship store’s stock do you need to replenish, how does the quantity of an item on the market impact pricing. These decisions impact retailer’s sustainability goals, customer satisfaction, and ultimately its bottom line. Yet, professionals in this industry still rely on spreadsheets and legacy systems to make these important decisions, both of which are no longer fit for purpose.

Long-time employees in the S&OP and supply chain industry, Adil Bouhdadi and Harry Cheslaw have lived and breathed this issue. Fed-up with the status quo, they developed an in-house solution to ease the pain of legacy operational decision-making.

We are excited to back them as they build Autone, a modular data platform that senses the current state of a business, predicts what is likely to happen and why, and then allows retailers to take action on reorders, replenishment, pricing, and buying analytics. Aiming to become the decision OS for retailers and driven by their motto ‘Process over Product,’ the Autone team focuses on the processes to achieve a result, with the technology being a medium to facilitate this.

Co-founder Adil Bouhdadi emphasizes: “12 months ago, Autone really was just an idea. Slack transformed business communication and Figma democratized product design, but what about Retail? We combined technology with our business expertise to bring a better user experience and enable operational decisions at scale.”

(Read more...)

Salesroom brings smart video to sales meetings with $8M in funding

by Anamaria Iuga
This post is by Anamaria Iuga from Seedcamp

Disrupted by the pandemic, the business world had to adapt and integrate various digital tools into their operations in record time. While the transition to a virtual and remote modus operandi has unlocked a new level of business productivity across multiple industries, it also led to significant challenges, particularly for sales professionals. 

Historically in-person meetings with customers were a cornerstone of many sales cycles, helping sellers build rapport, navigate challenging conversations, and quickly get to the core of customer issues. To be successful in the new hybrid and remote business world, salespeople need the best tools to fulfill their potential and close deals.

That’s why we are excited to back Salesroom, an intelligent video conferencing platform that facilitates exceptional virtual meetings between buyers and sellers. Salesroom enables salespeople to create deeper connections with their customers and prospects and accelerate the sales cycle, through personalized meeting experience, video highlights, instant AI-driven insights about buyer engagement, and built-in meeting plans and agendas.

Founded by Roy Solomon, founder of Applause, a leading App Quality platform acquired by Vista Equity, and Daria Danilina, Sales Executive at Dropbox and HSBC, Salesroom is the only video conferencing solution built from the ground up to help salespeople break through. The platform offers bespoke capabilities beyond generic conferencing products, including real-time transcription, personalized guidance, and speaker prompts. 

“Modern salespeople have increasingly relied on virtual tools to more effectively build trust and sell to their buyers, an evolution that was accelerated by the pandemic. What (Read more...)

Rerun raises $3.2m to help AI teams succeed with products in the physical world

by Anamaria Iuga
This post is by Anamaria Iuga from Seedcamp

While AI and computer vision research has progressed faster than anyone could have imagined over the past decade, the deployment of products in fields like autonomous vehicles, robotics, agriculture, manufacturing, augmented reality, and medical imaging has taken much longer than expected. 

Companies like Scale.ai, Weights & Biases, and Hugging Face and projects like Tensorflow and Pytorch have made it easy to train and deploy powerful AI (Deep Learning) models over the last years. However, to make these models work in products for the physical world, you need tools to visualize how all algorithms behave. Behemoths like Apple, Meta, and Tesla can afford to invest large sums in proprietary visualization infrastructure, but smaller companies lack the resources to build their own.

That’s why we are excited to back Rerun, a Swedish startup that is creating a more modern version of those expensive tools for the rest of the industry to enable everyone to bring great AI products to the physical world. Rerun aims to do for the computer vision industry what gaming engines, such as Unity, did for the gaming industry.

Founded earlier this year by Emil Ernerfeldt (CTO), Nikolaus West (CEO), and Moritz Schiebold (COO), computer vision veterans and former team mates at 3D body-scanning startup Volumental, Rerun is an open source toolbox that helps developers build powerful visualizations of their computer vision software in the physical world. 

It makes complex software understandable by visualizing it over space and time in a way that is intuitive for humans. (Read more...)

Rayon builds the next generation collaborative space design software with $2m funding

by Anamaria Iuga
This post is by Anamaria Iuga from Seedcamp

The collaborative nature of modern design, especially for the built environment, requires professionals from different disciplines to work together seamlessly. However, the professionals who design and run our built environment still wrestle with software from the pre-internet era. 

Existing tools are not only expensive, heavy and overly complex, but because they mainly work with proprietary files saved offline on your local desktop computer, they represent a barrier to teamwork. 

This is why we are excited to back Rayon, a Paris-based company that provides online design software, enabling users anywhere to draw, share and work together on floor plans directly in their browser. Founded in October 2021 by Bastien Dolla and Stanislas Chaillou, Rayon’s team brings together deep experience in browser-based technologies, Artificial Intelligence, Real Estate, and Architecture. 

Rayon’s mission is to create tools that support the way that space design increasingly functions: in teams, at a fast pace, and in constant dialogue with other disciplines and expertise. Its software is deployed across diverse use-cases (commercial real estate, housing, interior space planning, furniture manufacturing, asset management, etc.), demonstrating that user-friendly, collaborative and fast space design tools are a dire need for a broad crowd of individuals across the design, manufacturing construction and real estate industries.

By speeding up the design phase, gathering teams around a single source of truth, and replacing time-consuming cross-platform workflows, Rayon’s current users have experienced working up to three times faster than previously.

Bastien Dolla, co-founder at Rayon says:

“There are more than 30 millions (Read more...)

Granular Energy launches the world’s first market for hour-by-hour energy certificates with €2m in funding

by Anamaria Iuga
This post is by Anamaria Iuga from Seedcamp

To reflect the ‘real world’ availability of renewable energy and truly decarbonize the energy supply, there is a growing trend to commit to 24/7 carbon-free energy (CFE). Every kilowatt-hour of electricity consumption is met with carbon-free electricity sources, at every hour and at every location, verified by hourly energy certificates, which can increase transparency in clean energy and carbon accounting claims and incentivise the deployment of both renewable energy and energy storage assets.  

Initiatives such as the UN’s ‘24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact’ and EnergyTag (founded by Granular Energy co-founder Toby Ferenczi), as standards bodies for hourly certificates, are raising awareness around hourly energy tracking, the benefits it provides to large energy stakeholders and the measurable impact it has on decarbonizing the grid. 

This is why we are excited to back Granular’s mission to dramatically accelerate the transition to 24/7 carbon-free energy. Founded by expert industry professionals, with backgrounds in energy and financial markets, Granular Energy provides the software tools needed by corporate and utility buyers to manage hourly energy certificate portfolios, as well as a trading platform to create a fully liquid marketplace. It tackles the $4tn global electricity market, by disrupting clean energy certificates, alone worth $12bn today and set to grow to $100bn by 2030.

To deliver on its mission, Granular Energy has recently launched the world’s first market for hourly energy certificates in partnership with the European power market operator NordPool and supported by Elexon. The first phase of the market launch includes twelve large utilities, (Read more...)

Hiphops raises $650K to automate release management for modern tech teams

by Anamaria Iuga
This post is by Anamaria Iuga from Seedcamp

Code release management continues to be a huge pain point in software development. Even though the code often takes only a few days to write, cumbersome processes delay the ‘go live’ for months, particularly in regulated industries such as banking.

Tom Manterfield, co-founder and CEO of Hiphops, encountered this problem throughout his career in banking and digital transformation, where he repeatedly ran into this huge bottleneck remaining in the software development process. He says, “Despite the massive improvements and efficiencies in coding we’ve seen over the past few years, once code is finished there’s still a painful amount of effort required before it’s in the customers hands.” 

He adds, “Hiphops is founded on the belief that there’s no need to make a choice between speed and control; the two enhance each other. If your controls are automated, intelligent and get out of the way of your developers, they’re an invaluable tool in producing good quality tech at lightning speed.” This is why we are excited to back his and Hiphops’ mission to enable the world’s tech teams to deliver code faster and with more control than ever before.

Manterfield explains: “Hiphops saves engineering teams time and money by automating away the manual effort that exists between code complete and code delivered, starting with ML change analysis, automated labelling and automated approvals. All tech teams have experienced the frustration of having finished the code but not the job ”

The team behind the cloud native, low-code SaaS platform (Read more...)

Outverse raises £1m to empower the next generation of community builders

by Anamaria Iuga
This post is by Anamaria Iuga from Seedcamp

People’s desire to connect, collaborate, and create online, boomed during the pandemic and led to the rise of a new generation of tools for community builders. Yet people aren’t satisfied with current platforms and personalization – one of the features communities and builders value most — is often missing.

This is why we are excited to back Outverse, a next-generation community platform, on a mission to unlock new creative possibilities for how communities build, connect and collaborate online.

The startup founded by our very own investment team alumnus, Kyran Schmidt, and Tab Travel early employees Ollie Steadman and Jeylani Jeylani gives communities and groups the building blocks to create their own spaces online.

Far more customisable than existing community platforms, Outverse empowers communities to set up more personalized spaces, including beautifully designed forums and live video spaces. The platform also lets users add advanced functional blocks, which enable real-time collaboration, content embedding and more.

To foster meaningful conversations, Outverse’s forums are designed to avoid the noise and notification fatigue that’s so rife on other platforms that are more focused on live chat. The startup aims to be the solution of choice for forward-thinking communities looking to foster really high-quality discussion and interaction.

Kyran Schmidt, cofounder says: “We think it’s a generational moment for community tools. We’re aiming for Outverse to become the rails powering the online communities which are built over the next decade. By giving people the building blocks to customise their spaces, we’re unlocking new (Read more...)

Cyscale raises €3m to help companies understand their cybersecurity risks in context

by Anamaria Iuga
This post is by Anamaria Iuga from Seedcamp

Cloud technologies enable companies to scale rapidly and efficiently. Alongside these benefits also comes an increased vulnerability and exposure to cybersecurity threats.  For every company adopting a cloud-native tech stack, protecting their applications and data in the cloud, and also understanding their cybersecurity risks in context is essential, in today’s world more than ever. 

This is why we are excited to back Cyscale and their mission to protect the applications and data of companies that choose cloud technology and help them become more competitive through digitization.

Founded by Manuela Țicudean, Ovidiu Cical, and Andrei Milaș, the Romanian-based startup develops protection software solutions for information stored in the cloud. Cyscale’s flagship product Security Knowledge Graph™ provides in-depth contextual analysis for cloud assets, reducing false positives, and prioritizing high-risk items. It uncovers risks or misconfigurations and allows security teams to prioritize the remediation of high-risk issues. Cyscale has also built a powerful compliance module that helps security leaders track gaps between the policies they’ve defined and their technical implementations in the cloud. 

Manuela Țicudean, Co-Founder and COO of Cyscale, explains, “The cybersecurity industry needs to shift toward understanding cyber risk in context. Only then will we be able to fight the increasingly sophisticated and advanced threats targeting our organizations and our lives.”

“Most cloud security tools analyze cloud infrastructures by running through sets of configuration best practices and verifying them against each cloud resource,” she continues. “This approach can be useful, but the problem is the rate of false (Read more...)

Fullview doubles down on redesigning customer support with $7.5 million seed round

by Anamaria Iuga
This post is by Anamaria Iuga from Seedcamp

The ubiquity of B2B software solutions has rightly increased customers’ expectations of their vendors. In the absence of modern and dedicated tools to deliver fast, scalable support – without losing the human and personal touch needed for a positive customer experience – many SaaS companies struggle to stand out from the crowd and retain and expand their customer base. 

This is why we are excited to participate in Fullview’s seed round, six months after we invested in their pre-seed. Fullview’s mission is to enable every company to easily deliver faster and more personalized customer support, while bridging the data and knowledge gap between product teams and support teams to improve their products at lighting speed.

To deliver on the mission, the Copenhagen-based startup founded by Daniel Bakh and Dorin Tarau, is building an API that plugs into existing web applications and allows customer support agents to instantly see their user’s screen and initiate in-app video calls and multiplayer screen control. 

“When customers experience problems in a product and need guidance, they expect fluid, personalized support — not long wait times and constant back-and-forth communication. SaaS companies struggle to deliver customer support that is personalized, fast and scalable at the same time,” says CEO & Co-Founder Daniel Bakh. 

In addition to improving the customer experience, Fullview’s solution also increases the productivity of engineering and product teams. Developers can watch recordings of user sessions to also get an instant overview of technical bugs and automatically create bug reports to quickly (Read more...)

Manara raises $3M to train female engineers across MENA and diversify talent in global tech companies

by Anamaria Iuga
This post is by Anamaria Iuga from Seedcamp

The European startup ecosystem needs access to world-class tech talent, remote and onsite, to sustain its exponential growth. In light of remote-working opportunities and increased efforts to hire diverse candidates, tech companies are actively looking to the MENA region for talent. But the hiring process is not always easy, as companies are still relatively unfamiliar with the region. And even if they make that effort, most of the talent pool isn’t equipped with how to work at these companies. 

We are excited to back Manara’s mission to build a community committed to diversifying the global tech sector while uplifting the economies of the Middle East and North Africa. The San Francisco-based social impact startup bridges the gap between tech companies and top talent. 

Manara enables cohort-based learning for software engineers and computer scientists and connects them to permanent, meaningful remote, and onsite jobs with world-class employers – including Google, Facebook, Amazon, Zalando, Relational.Ai, Repl.it and more. 

Founders Iliana Montauk and Laila Abudahi have ample tech experiences and strong ties in the Arab region, which uniquely positions them to help software engineers, particularly women, land their dream jobs at global companies and accelerate the MENA region’s progress in becoming a globally-recognized tech talent hub.

“I grew up in Palestine and realized quickly that to become a world-class engineer I needed to work on highly scaled products with experienced teams,” says Laila Abudahi, co-founder and CTO. “After I reached my dream through lots of trial and error, I wanted to make (Read more...)