Simple Feast announced their $12M Series A to fight climate change with plant-based food

In August, we welcomed Simple Feast to the Balderton family. Simple Feast was founded in 2015 by repeat entrepreneurs Jakob Jønck and Thomas Ambus and Balderton led their $12m Series A raise.

The company delivers sustainably produced food in weekly boxes, with three prepared plant-based and 100% organic meals ready to serve in 10 minutes. All meals are delivered in sustainable, bio-degradable packaging free of any plastic.

Simple Feast's mission is huge, and it's global: to address the climate change imperative by encouraging a new generation of consumers to switch to a plant-based diet.

Daniel, who led the investment from Balderton, said: “What we eat does not only affect our own health, but also the health of the planet. With a global transition towards plant-based food, we believe Simple Feast is uniquely positioned to change the way we eat and create awareness about the impact of our food choices.”

Read more about Simple Feast on their site, in Techcrunch and in Børsen. Also read Daniel's thinking behind the investment.

While the service is currently only in the Nordics, you can sign up to get alerted when it launches in your area.

Balderton welcomes Cleo

The Shoreditch-based Cleo team

Cleo, a digital assistant designed to help millennials look after money, announced their $10m Series A investment

Cleo is a digital assistant that helps people manage their finances, and is on a mission to become the global interface for money. Predominantly millennials, Cleo’s users talk to her in Facebook Messenger, where she creates a daily relationship between them and their money.

Rob, who led the investment in Cleo, said “In the future, people may not use a traditional bank account as their primary financial interface. Cleo has managed to strike the perfect balance between education and entertainment, bringing a unique personality that keeps users coming back. We believe that Cleo has the team and product to become the leading global player in the coming years.”

You can read about Cleo in Forbes and in Techcrunch. Also catch Rob's Medium post 'Why Balderton invested in Cleo.'

Build with Balderton

Way back before we broke for the summer, we launched Build with Balderton. This month, we added the third article in the Rob's Internationalisation Playbook. All three parts in the series (so far) are listed below:

Part 1: When should your European startup expand into International markets?
Part 2: Where should your company expand internationally?
New — Part 3: By the numbers: a look at 94 tech companies in the US and Europe, to see when and where they expanded internationally.

Also, a pragmatic look at what a new CEO needs to think about when firing someone for the first time. Nobody starts a company to fire someone, but the reality is that it is rare to run a company for any real length of time without having to do it. This article offers advice on how to think about this difficult task.

A catch up on Portfolio news this month

Labster announced their partnership with Google and Arizona State University to create more than 30 virtual labs on Google's Daydream platform, enabling students to do their lab work in VR without having to walk, drive, or fly to a campus laboratory.

The Hut Group unveiled their plans for a 280,000 sq ft campus at Manchester Airport, designed to house 2,000 staff focused on video production and photography for The Hut Group's online channels.

Phil Chambers of Peakon was highlighted in the Forbes article 'How to recognise human capital in your family business.'

Sketchfab announced they passed the 3 million models online milestone as they continue to enforce their position as the largest platform to publish and find 3D models.

Insurance Age spoke to Zego's CEO Harry Franks on how the sharing economy is challenging insurance. Zego also announced flexible van courier insurance and was featured in the Evening Standard in 'Entrepreneurs: Meet the innovators changing insurance with deals for the gig economy.'

Recorded Future was recognised as the industry leader in threat intelligence.

Erez Galonska of Infarm told his story of growing without farming to CleanTechnica.

Finally, Carwow announced that their YouTube channel, at 1 million subscribers, now rivals Top Gear!

The Balderton Partnership heads to Copenhagen

Following on from Paris and Berlin earlier this year, in September the whole Partnership team headed to Copenhagen. And for good reason.

Since our inception, Balderton has invested over $200m in companies in the Nordics, and $50m of that in Danish startups. Balderton will continue to invest in the most promising tech businesses in Denmark, at a level that could reach $100m in the next few years.

Børsen covered Balderton's level of investment in Denmark, as well as how returning Silicon Valley veterans are impacting tech in Europe.

You can read Lars' thoughts on why Denmark has gone from pioneer to powerhouse in European tech here.

Bernard, Lars, Daniel and Suranga joined the stage at TechBBQ with Simple Feast CEO Jakob Jønck. Guided by Founders House Zenia Francker, the group answered questions from a packed TechBBQ house on how Balderton selects Danish startups, what makes Danish startups special, and where we're looking for the 'next big thing.'

Then, after conducting the regular Monday Partner meeting at Labster's offices in Copenhagen, Balderton hosted a private evening event for Danish business leaders and our Danish startups in the city's beautiful Thorvaldsen's Museum.

At this Symposium, the group talked about our 'momentum' as an investor in the Nordics, and what the future of the tech ecosystem in Europe will look like.

You can see a few photos from the event here on our site.

Balderton in the news

James wrote a piece in The Telegraph in August 'What the Premier League can teach us about our productivity crisis.' He was also featured in a UKTN article covering the best advice for first-time entrepreneurs.

Caye wrote on her Medium why she's 'A hopeless romantic .. and a hopeful VC.' She also covered the subtle art of (not) understanding DNVBs (Digitally Native Vertical Brands).

Rob wrote on his Medium about how many people you should bring to pitch a VC. The latest part in his Internationalisation Playbook was also published on Venturebeat — 'How European and US startups go global — a look at the numbers.'

Balderton: events

Calling all European Silicon Valley 'veterans'!

Last week, we ran a very special event at Balderton's HQ for those who used to work in Silicon Valley tech and now live and work in Europe.

Please tweet / share this link: https://goo.gl/B4Zrc2

We want to encourage those who have moved, or those who are thinking of moving to Europe to connect with us. Balderton is committed to being here to help network and connect people to our fabulous portfolio of startups all over Europe.

Lars covered the topic of returning from Silicon Valley this past week too — The Telegraph published an opinion piece: 'Why Silicon Valley veterans are booking one-way tickets to Europe.'

Catch the Balderton team at the following events

Sept 25th - Caye will be at France Digitale in Paris

Oct 1st - Caye will be at HEC Alumni Ventures Pitching night at BaldertonHQ

Oct 3rd - Lars will be giving the Keynote at Business Link, Greater Copenhagen, organised by Vaeksthus Copenhagen.

Oct 3rd-5th - Caye and James will be at South Summit in Madrid, with James on stage on Oct 4th.

Oct 4th - Tim will be speaking at Goldman Sachs Annual EMEA Executive Directors event

Oct 11th - Daniel will be at the JP Morgan European Tech Stars Conference

Oct 12th - Suranga will be attending the Cambridge Scale-Up Billion Pound Challenge

Oct 18th - Rob will be co-hosting an Open Banking Debate with GoCardless at BaldertonHQ. Let us know if you'd like to attend.

Nov 20th - Kiana will be appearing in an online event 'How to benefit from the international flow of talent.' Register here.

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