Business Wave "need to know" #1
What happened last week that you need to know?
Hi sharkies,
welcome to “Monday need to know”, November 6th edition.
Find out in 5 minutes what happened last week in the world!
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Let’s get going!
Startup news and funding
AI company Aleph Alpha raiseds $500m
German AI company Aleph Alpha has raised $500m in Europe’s third largest AI round ever. Aleph Alpha builds large language models (LLMs) similar to OpenAI’s GPT-4, but designed for enterprises rather than consumers.
The funding will bolster Aleph Alpha’s research capacity, and accelerate its development and commercialisation of generative AI for applications in healthcare, finance, law, government and security. It’s hoped the funding will help Aleph Alpha scale to compete with international competitors in the US and China.
Read more about it HERE
€4.1 million to overcome the talent supply shortage for the green energy transition
Smalt, a talent development and services platform for the green trades sector, has raised €4.1 million in pre-seed financing to accelerate Europe’s green energy transition through the untapped potential of immigrant workers.
The company’s platform upskills talent with specialized training and certification programs in clean energy, and transforms service fulfillment with smart dispatching, AI-driven workflow guidance, and dedicated customer analytics.
“Smalt is purpose-built to bridge the gap between talent shortage and demand surplus. Our training platform will be the source of economic opportunity for tens of thousands of workers,” said Khurram Masood, one of the Co-Founders of Smalt.
Read more about it HERE
FERO raises €2.8 million to tackle the huge annual revenue merchants lose at checkout
FERO, a startup on a mission to transform online checkout and deposit journeys, announced the successful closure of a €2.8 million seed round from Coatue, Volta Ventures, and Antler. This capital will enable FERO to expand and enhance its unique online payment solution to tackle the $5T of annual revenue merchants lose at the point of checkout.
What is the problem that FERO is trying to solve?
Data shows that the majority of online shoppers that reach the checkout stage fail to complete their purchases. Today’s ‘one size fits all’ approach to the checkout experience and payment journey is a significant barrier to purchase conversion.
As a payments data scientist, I was shocked when I started to uncover the level of abandonment during the checkout and payment journey. Today, upwards of 45% of customers place items in their shopping cart, but never finalise their purchase due to payment related issues. This translates to over $5.2 trillion of lost revenue per year,” said Craig Savage, Co-Founder and CEO, FERO Payment Science. “We founded FERO to help retailers deliver a more seamless and customised shopping experience to their customers.
Read more about it HERE
Notable news
Revolut has a new UK CEO
Revolut has hired Italian entrepreneur Francesca Carlesi to take over from James Radford as the CEO of Revolut NewCo, the entity intended to house its long-awaited UK banking licence.
Carlesi, the former cofounder and CEO of mortgage lender fintech Molo, will step into the role in December after spending almost seven years leading her own fintech company in London.
So, Revolt decided to hire a CEO who had her own fintech company…it seems to us a good fit for their culture and product. Will Francesca Carlesi be able to achieve long- standing dream for Revolut…UK banking license?
Read more about it HERE
Klarna sets wheels in motion for eventual IPO
Swedish fintech firm Klarna is launching a U.K. holding company, seen as a significant step towards its much-anticipated initial public offering (IPO). The move was revealed on Monday and forms part of a broader legal restructuring within the company.
The 'buy now, pay later' service provider's last valuation stood at $6.7 billion, marking a substantial decrease from its peak of $46 billion during the pandemic-induced ecommerce surge. Despite this drop, which saw the firm's valuation fall by 85%, Klarna has managed to raise over $4 billion in funding to date.
Read more about it HERE
BlackRock and Monzo partnership
In the first two days after UK neobank Monzo announced it was partnering with the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, 200,000 customers joined the waiting list to invest for as little as £1.
BlackRock’s cut of Monzo’s 0.59% investment fee is 0.14%, which means this exercise isn’t necessarily about potential profits. But by teaming up with the UK’s largest neobank by customers, it’s accessing the fast-growing market of younger, digital-savvy retail investors who want to put their money to work for the first time.
Just for the record, Monzo is the UK’s largest neobanks in terms of customers, and this partnership will enable it to “fight” more effectively with Revolut.
Read more about it HERE
Biofuel is not dead?
The global economy remains reliant on fossil fuels. EU data shows that 70% of the gross available energy sources on the continent are fossil fuels; and while that share is decreasing year-on-year, more needs to be done to shift to more sustainable products.
Biofuels have long offered a potential solution to this problem. Derived from more naturally abundant and renewable resources, they produce significantly less CO2 compared to mineral petrol or diesel.
But can biofuel really be the solution? After all, it’s not 100% clean energy source…
Read more about it HERE