Andjaro joins the Balderton portfolio this month. The company's solution addresses a high priority HR and operational challenge for large organisations: the ability to streamline the management of the workforce, while making it easier for staff to move between locations within the same company. The company has already powered more than 50,000 staff movements and saved its clients an estimated €7million in costs that would potentially have been spent on temporary or contract workforces.
Read more about the announcement on Balderton's site, and catch the news in Les Echos, Les Echos Capital Finance, Le Monde Informatique and in FrenchWeb.FR, which includes an on-camera interview with Andjaro co-founder and CEO Quentin Guilluy.
In other portfolio news this month
Labster made public the exciting news that they have partnered with Pearson, the world's leading learning company, to deliver a gamified learning systems to millions of US high school students.
Citymapper's CEO Azmat Yusef was profiled this week in the Bloomberg article 'The guy making public transit smarter.'
ProdigyFinance has given out $500m in student loans in the last ten years and this month launched their Impact Report 2018, which looked at the real-life impact of those ten years of financing postgraduate student degrees all over the world.
HIYA is right at the center of the solution to the scourge of 'robo calls,' and was featured on CBS News this past week in the United States.
The FT featured Kobalt in the article 'Kobalt to spend $150m to expand music label for emerging artists.' The BBC also covered Kobalt in the article 'How bands are escaping the music industry snake pit,' and the company made the FT's Drivers of Change shortlist, which recognises companies that demonstrate bold business risk taking.
Revolut launched a disposable credit card that is destroyed and automatically regenerated within seconds after every transaction. The company also launched direct debits in Europe. "Fintech startup Revolut is slowly making traditional bank accounts irrelevant," said Techcrunch.
Tictail used International Women's Day as the moment to feature the female-run brands that can only be found on Tictail.
TechCityUK announced new additions to its Future Fifty, featuring fast growing late-stage UK companies, including portfolio company Memrise. The list of Future Fifty companies already includes our own Carwow, Roli, LoveCrafts and Thread.
Balderton: news
It's been such a busy time lately that it should come as no surprise that we are expanding our investment team. This month we officially welcome Cayetana Hurtado, Isabel Bescos and Diane Albouy. We're really looking forward to the contribution they will make to helping uncover future entrepreneurial superstars, as well as the support they will provide to our existing portfolio members. Read more about their impressive professional and educational backgrounds, and please welcome them to Balderton!
Balderton: in the news
James authored an opinion piece in The Sunday Telegraph 'UK must protect citizens and innovation to avoid a 'techlash'.'
Lars provided advice for students looking to land their first tech job out of university: 'Calling all students, a tool to source your dream tech job.'
Suranga authored a piece in Journal du Net this month 'Du rêve à la maturation: les différents stades d'évolution des technologies.'
All the Balderton Partners were at Station F in Paris for an informal 'Ask Me Anything' session for startups this past week, followed by a private cocktail event.
Rob sat down with Seedcamp to record a podcast on what he's learned as a VC since joining Balderton in 2009.
Jerome spoke to BStartup on what entrepreneurs should look for selecting a venture firm.
Rob and Alice hosted a marketing event for portfolio marketing leads, with expert speakers talking on how to build a loyal and loved brand, and the structure of modern marketing organisations.
Rob and Colin hosted an event with portfolio company Carwow in Munich to connect investors and entrepreneurs together.
Suranga was quoted in The Telegraph this month in an article on how the Silicon Roundabout area of London has matured and grown: “Of my 100-strong graduating class,” says Suranga Chandratillake, who left Cambridge with a degree in computer science 20 years ago, “the biggest employer was the City ... Last year the biggest employer was Entrepreneur First.”
Bernard sat down with VMWare's COO Sanjay Poonen to rally 1,100 salespeople at the company's Annual Sales Kickoff event.
Balderton: events
Here are upcoming events where you can catch the Balderton team:
Apr 13 - Lars is keynoting the MultipleX: London Business School PE/VC Event.
Apr 26 - Bernard is speaking at the Kreos Capital Annual Growth Financing event on the impact of innovation.
May 2 - Suranga is participating in the Fearless Future course, a programme organised by DiversityVC and Fearless Futures to engage leaders in understanding, and challenge, the root causes of inequality and encourage diversity.
May 23 - Bernard is participating in Bloomberg Live's Sooner Than You Think event at Station F in Paris.
May 24/26 - Bernard, Nicolas and Caye will be at Vivatech in Paris. Bernard will also be the guest of Emmanuel Macron at the Tech for Good Summit, which is gathering technology leaders to exchange views and produce recommendations on how technology and AI can be a positive and inclusive force for society.
June 6/7 - Rob and Suranga will be be at NOAH Berlin.
June 14 - Bernard, Suranga and Daniel will be at Founders Forum in London.
Balderton's Career Portal
A good story is always worth retelling. So in that spirit, we don't want you to miss the Balderton Portfolio Career Portal — an aggregation of hundreds of open positions at Balderton's portfolio companies. Candidates can apply on the portal, or send us a CV so we can match them with a position.
And finally...
The 'beast from the east' is a distance memory now, but it certainly made for a different sort of work day at Balderton — so we wanted to share this photo of our front door in London. Welcome to Spring!
