We were delighted to welcome Rahko to the portfolio this month! Rahko is building a ‘quantum discovery’ capability for chemical simulation, which could enable groundbreaking advances in batteries, chemicals, advanced materials and drugs.
"The pace and rate of change in this field over the past few years has been astonishing, and we feel incredibly lucky to be supporting this exceptional team as they continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible"
Lars Fjeldsoe-Nielsen, General Partner, Balderton
Read more about the fundraise here, and see Colin's thinking behind the investment here.
Hybrid real estate agent McMakler joins the Balderton portfolio
Through our Liquidity I fund, we were also proud to welcome McMakler, Germany's fastest-growing online real estate agent, to the portfolio. The team is working to radically improve the experience of buying and selling a property for homeowners and agents alike.
"They have an unparalleled value proposition in their market combining the best of digitalisation, data science and a network of professional agents with incredible historical execution to boot. We are excited to be part of the journey and look forward to supporting Felix and the team!"
Laura Connell, Principal, Balderton
Read more here.
Healx raises $56M to accelerate rare disease treatments
There are currently around 7,000 rare diseases, affecting 400 million people in the world. These conditions are often chronic and life threatening, yet only 5% currently have a treatment.
Healx aims to improve the lives of rare disease patients by making the drug discovery process faster, more efficient and more cost-effective.
With this new funding, Healx is launching the Rare Treatment Accelerator, where it will be able to work collaboratively alongside selected patient groups to discover new treatments for rare disease patients. Read more about the fundraise here.
Luno granted approval to operate in Malaysia
Luno became the first cryptocurrency exchange in Malaysia to receive full approval by the Securities Commission to operate as a Recognised Market Operator. This means the firm can now offer Malaysians the opportunity to safely buy, sell and store cryptocurrency on its platform. Read more about the news here.
We think there should be broader access to support and advice from the Venture Capital sector. If you'd like to speak to our team and get advice on your startup, please just sign up here and/or share this link with founders you believe would be interested. We'd love to meet you!
The next Balderton Founder Office Hours session will be 9:00 - 11:30 am, Thursday, 7th November.
Events
The Probably Quantum? Summit
We were honoured to co-host many world-leading thinkers and builders in Quantum Computing at Balderton HQ with the UK's National Physical Laboratory, just a night before Google announced their achievement of quantum supremacy! There was vigorous debate from leaders like Christopher Savoie, CEO at Zapata, Ilyas Khan, CEO at Cambridge Quantum Computing, and Justin Ging, CCO at Honeywell Quantum.
We were excited to engage in this debate alongside the new portfolio team at Rahko, uncovering challenges associated with scaling to many high quality qubits, potential near-term applications, and how quantum computing might be well-suited to problems requiring high dimensionality rather than high throughput.
The event welcomed many within the UK government, including Roger McKinlay, the Challenge Director for Quantum Technologies at
UK Research and Innovation. Gathering perspectives from academia, industry, investors, and government is an important way to drive technologies further in a thoughtful fashion and we look forward to continuing the conversation with all those who joined us.
SLUSH 2019 Workshop:
Secondary transactions for high-growth startups: how to do it right
During fast growth, most founders face challenges around how to retain employees, address pressure from early investors, clean up cap tables, and access partial liquidity for themselves to help them focus on the business.
Join Balderton’s Laura Connell and Daniel Waterhouse for breakfast at SLUSH, and to ask questions and gain insight into how to do secondary transactions the right way.
Sign up and learn more here.
ComplyAdvantage Conference:
Digital Transformation in Compliance
On November 28th, ComplyAdvantage is hosting conference at the British Library looking at the vital role that digital transformation has in compliance. Their agenda includes experts from the FCA, KPMG, RUSI, Santander and many more.
You can see the full agenda and get 20% off tickets here.
Catch the Balderton team at the following events
- 4th Nov - Lars and Caye at WebSummit in Lisbon
- 12th Nov - Isabel will be speaking at the BVCA Series A Forum
- 22nd Nov - Bernard will be on the Founders Stage at SLUSH along Christopher Ahlberg of Recorded Future, speaking on The Next Chapter of European Exits. You'll also be able to meet lots of our other team members at SLUSH, including Lars, Daniel, Laura, Magda, Alice and Jen.
- 2nd Dec - Rob will be speaking at the Forbes 30 under 30 Summit in Berlin
- 11th Dec - Suranga will be speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt in Berlin
In the news
From our portfolio
Revolut launched in Singapore and signed a global partnership with Mastercard. You can read more in TechCrunch
Thrive Global published an interview with Dr. Jurgi Camblong, CEO of SOPHiA Genetics
Zego's CEO, Sten Saar, appeared on BBC News discussing how to insure the gig economy.
Swedish daily Expressen published a video feature looking at the latest developments from Furhat Robotics
The Times reported on new analysis from Zopa which uncovered huge complexity in car finance market
Hiya announced a new partnership with GoDaddy to target billions of unwanted robocalls. Read more in Geekwire.
From our team
Suranga was quoted in the Financial Times discussing the French startup ecosystem
Lars spoke to TechCrunch about the trends he's excited about for the year ahead
Rob was featured in the 11:YEARS documentary on how the UK built a booming fintech ecosystem, following the 2008 financial crisis
Les Echos interviewed Caye on why DNVB's are attracting more and more investor interest
James and Laura were named as two of the most influential people in UK tech in Business Insiders' Tech100 list
James joined the board of trustees at Doteveryone
Back catalogue
We have new subscribers joining us all the time, so if this is your first newsletter, you can catch up on previous issues here: Sep 19 | Jul 19 | Jun 19 | May 19 (Recorded Future acquisition) | May 19 (Wagestream) | Apr 19 | Mar 19 | Feb 19 | Jan 19 (Kaia Health)
