Simple Feast announced a $33M Series B round led by US-based venture capital firm 14W and existing investors, including Balderton. 

"Helping people transition to a plant first lifestyle is pivotal if you want to reverse global warming in the coming decades as well as reversing the explosion in life-style caused diseases." 

Jakob Jønck, Simple Feast co-founder and CEO

The funding will help Simple Feast expand its efforts to new markets, including the US, while also strengthening R&D efforts into new sustainable food innovations and products. Read more here. 

Infarm launches in London in partnership with M&S

Infarm and M&S have partnered to deliver a range of fresh produce grown and harvested in a selection of M&S’ London stores. 

Each in-store farm unit uses 95% less water and 75% less fertiliser than traditional soil-based agriculture and is capable of producing the equivalent of 400 square meters of farmland! Read more here. 

More highlights this month  

Kaia Health secures strategic investment to accelerate US growth

Digital therapeutics company, Kaia Health, secured $8M from Optum Ventures to extend its platform to other chronic conditions and expand its existing supporting clinical evidence base. Read more here. 

GoCardless launches in the US 

GoCardless, which makes it easy for businesses to receive recurring bank payments, has launched a U.S. debit solution and opened a San Francisco office. Read more in TechCrunch. 

ComplyAdvantage launches in Asia 

ComplyAdvantage, which uses Machine Learning to neutralise the risk of financial crime, has expanded into the Asia-Pacific region and opened an office in Singapore. Read more here. 

Voi offers free rides to users who learn to ride safely

Voi has launched a new safety campaign encouraging responsible use of e-scooters. Users who take the interactive online challenges are rewarded with free Voi rides. Watch the video here. 

Events this month  

Founder meet-ups with Sequoia 

It was a pleasure to co-host a group of early-stage founders in London at our HQ, and in Paris at Station F, with our friends from Sequoia, and learn from Tessian's experience of going from Series A with Balderton in Europe, to Series B with Sequoia in Silicon Valley. Thank you so much to everyone who joined us!   

Suranga introduces a group of fast-growing French startups to Sequoia partners Matt Miller, Pat Grady and Alfred Lin.

Portfolio marketing meet up

We gathered portfolio marketing leads at Balderton HQ so we could learn from one another, share insights, and make new connections. We also heard from expert speaker, Bob Wright, partner of Firebrick Consulting, on the importance of positioning for B2B firms. 

Bob Wright of Firebrick discusses why good positioning is critical to success.

Peakon’s inaugural conference, Belong

Peakon hosted an immersive one-day event for over 500 of the world’s best people leaders, designed to collaboratively examine employee experience in the workplace. 

They also launched the incredible Employee Voice Heartbeat report, analysing over 11M comments from their platform. You can read all their Heartbeat reports here.

Catch the Balderton team at the following events

• 2nd Oct - Rob, Laura and Caye will be in Madrid for South Summit
• 10th Oct - Laura and James will be speaking at BVCA Summit, London
• 14th Oct - Catch Caye on stage at SaaStock Dublin
• 17th Oct - Magda will be in Stockholm for Sting 
• 31st Oct - Rob will be at NOAH London
• 4th Nov - You can catch Lars and Caye at WebSummit in Lisbon
• 12th Nov - Isabel will be speaking at the BVCA Series A Forum
• 21st Nov - Bernard will be giving a keynote at SLUSH. You'll also be able to meet lots of our other team members there, including Lars, Laura, Magda, Alice and Jen. 
• 2nd Dec - Rob will be speaking at the Forbes 30 under 30 Summit in Berlin

In the news 

From our portfolio

TechCrunch published a series examining how Willard Ahdritz built Kobalt, the "world’s next music unicorn"

The BBC reported a new blood test, using tech from Oncimmune, catches cancer before symptoms show 

The WSJ published a photo story on how Depop tapped into Gen Z's desire for environmental sustainability and penchant for vintage fashion

Leading fashion weekly, Grazia, discussed why it's imperative we get on board with 'circular fashion' - like Vestiaire Collective - to protect the environment

Wagestream was selected by BBC News as one of the 'high-tech' way you can keep employees happy

The Times looked at how Virtuo is making car-rental hassle-free by offering 15-minute check-in by app

Sifted spoke to Crowdcube co-founder Luke Lang about the books he likes and recommends

Revolut came top of this year's Sunday Times Tech Track 100. In the same list, ComplyAdvantage moved from being a 'One to watch' to being ranked number 16 in just one year.

ComplyAdvantage was also awarded Best RegTech Solution Award 2019 at the Finovate Awards.

Once again, Mojiworks was crowned one of the best places to work in the UK Games Industry.

From our team

Sifted covered a new report from Dealroom and LocalGlobe which named Balderton as Europe's most active Series A investor. 

Laura spoke to L'Agefi on why liquidity is important to the European tech ecosystem.

Caye wrote a post on Medium about the art of understanding, or in most cases not understanding, Gen Z. You can also read Caye's tips on early-stage fundraising on UKTN.

Isabel and Magda were featured in TechWorld discussing how to cold pitch VCs. 

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: Jul 19 | Jun 19 | May 19 (Recorded Future acquisition) | May 19 (Wagestream) | Apr 19 | Mar 19 | Feb 19 | Jan 19 (Kaia Health)