Depop, the fashion marketplace for Gen Z, announced a $62M Series C round to empower the next generation to transform the fashion industry. The new funding will help them to accelerate expansion in the US and cater to their rapidly growing user base of over 13M users.

"Thanks to Depop, a new generation of creators can now recycle, reuse and repurpose fashion in a way that is both personal and sustainable. It's an exciting example of what we believe will be the core values in fashion in the decade to come."
James Wise, Partner, Balderton Capital

You can read more in TechCrunch.

Zego raises $42M Series B to drive expansion and grow its team

Also in June, Zego announced one of the largest ever rounds for a European insurtech start-up. Zego provides flexible insurance for the gig economy, catering to the fast-growing market of new mobility services.

The investment comes amid an exponential growth period for the company, which has grown 900% over the past 12 months. Read more in TechCrunch.

Zego is currently hiring! Find out how you can join their team and help them grow here.

Infarm raises $100M to scale its urban farming platform

Infarm announced a $100M Series B round earlier this month. Uniquely in the vertical farming space, Infarm’s technology is specifically designed and built to work anywhere in any available space. There is no need for a centralised warehouse or farm, and no need for special infrastructure or set-up.

The funding will be used to drive growth in Europe, the US and beyond, and grow the R&D, operational, and commercial teams. We're particularly excited that Infarm plans to launch in the UK later this year. You can read more in TechCrunch or watch Bloomberg's interview with Infarm CEO, Erez Galonska.

Vestiaire Collective raises €40M

Last week, Vestiaire Collective, the global community for luxury and premium pre-owned fashion, announced €40 million of financing.

This will help them to develop innovative tech and data-driven solutions for the fashion ecosystem, supporting brands and retailers in driving the adoption of sustainable and circular fashion consumption.

You can read more in Les Echos.

ROLI launched LUMI - a fully illuminated keyboard and app

ROLI launched LUMI this month on Kickstarter. The keyboard and interactive app are designed to help anyone learn to play regardless of previous experience. Everything is connected by light and colour, and you can learn music fundamentals through fast and fun interactive lessons.

Over £1M has already been pledged! If you want one - you can still pledge here for another few days.

PKB announces strategic partnership with OMRON

Finally, Patients Know Best (PKB) announced it has entered into a new strategic partnership with world leading medical device manufacturer, OMRON.

This partnership represents a significant milestone in PKB’s history, helping the company to accelerate business growth globally and further diversify its digital platform by integrating OMRON’s own medical devices with the PKB platform.

Balderton events this month

摸着石头过河 - Cross the river by feeling for stones

Earlier this month, we hosted an event at Balderton HQ which tried to shed light on how foreign internet entrepreneurs might best engage with China.

Alongside Balderton's Colin and Jodi, we were lucky enough to be joined by David Sullivan, founder of ADG China, one of the top cross-border technology advisory firms focused on China, and Joanna Shan, a Beijing-native and Peking University graduate who is now on the Partnerships team at Facebook.

If you want to find out more about the discussion, you can read Colin's write up of the event here.

Growth Loops with Phiture, Berlin

We were also delighted to host a workshop with mobile growth consultancy, Phiture, in Berlin discussing how to build a growth loop from scratch. We were joined by Alper Taner, VP of Performance at our portfolio company, Kaia Health.

Catch the Balderton team at the following events

3rd Jul - Lars will be at Roskilde Festival in Denmark
16th Aug - Magda will be at Reykjavik Demo Day
18th Sep - Caye will be speaking at B2B Rocks at Station F in Paris on how to raise Seed and Series A as a B2B SaaS Startup in Europe

Highlights from the news this month

Our portfolio companies

Forbes spoke to Recorded Future CEO, Christopher Ahlberg, about the sale of his company to Insight Partners for $780M.

BBC News examined how income streaming from Wagestream is helping workers to avoid high cost credit.

Revolut expanded beyond Europe for the time, launching a beta release in Australia earlier this month. You can read more in TechCrunch.

Vestiaire Collective CEO, Max Bittner, spoke to Drapers about how Vestiaire is offering a sustainable formula for luxury fashion resale.

The Times, reported that Tengai, world’s first recruitment robot, created by Furhat Robotics and TNG, is said to have many of humanity’s qualities but few of our faults.

Virtuo continued its European expansion and launched in Barcelona at the start of the month. You can read more in La Vanguardia.

Nutmeg successfully secured more than £4M from nearly 2,000 investors, less than a week after launching its equity crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube. Read more here.

Voi's Carro Hjelm explained to Forbes why collaboration is the key to the micro-mobility company's success.

The Balderton team

Rob wrote two articles for french tech site, Maddyness, looking at how startups should budget for internationalisation, and the mistakes founders make when planning for internationalisation.

Business Insider reported Suranga's comments on why London has remained a centre for tech excellence.

Bernard spoke to La Tribune about why VC's should offer more than just money to help their startups grow.

Rob spoke to Business Insider about the lessons he gives founders to help them avoid failure.

Welcome to our summer interns

We have seven amazing interns joining us for the summer! Welcome to the team!

From L-R, Pacho, Alexandra, Maria, Temi, Margaux, Cassandra & Daniel

We are hiring!

Want to join the Balderton team? We have positions open. Apply on our Workable portal here.

The newsletter back catalogue

We have new subscribers joining us all the time, so if this is your first newsletter, this space allows you to catch up on the previous issues:

Recorded Future acquired by Insight Partners

Depop raises $62M to meet rising demand from Gen Z in the US