Fiona Alston

Italian IoT startup WSense has developed a kind of wifi for under the sea. The spin-out from Sapienza University in Rome has raised a €9 million funding round which was led by SWEN Blue Ocean. CDP Ventures, RunwayFBU, Axon Capital Partners, Katapult Ocean, CoreAngels Climate and Moonstone also got in on the investment action. WSense’s patented technology gives way to wireless communication underwater, opening itself up to a wealth of use cases including critical infrastructure monitoring,…

Irish cloud and security service provider Ekco has acquired IT services company Radius Technologies. No financial details of the deal have been disclosed. The Radius takeover is the third acquisition by Ekco in the past eighteen months. Sitting firmly in the SMB IT sector Ekco brings its total number of staff to more than 650 following the latest deal across its offices in Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands “We’re delighted to add a strong business like Radius Technologies to the group. We…

Berlin-based B2B digital mental health solution provider Likeminded has raised an additional €1.5 million to add to a previous Seed funding round. Earlier this year the healthtech startup closed a round of €5.9 million. It also acquired fellow Berlin mental health startup whylab. The fresh capital, to escalate Likeminded’s growth, came from IBB Ventures and the family office N & V Capital. Founded in 2020, Likeminded was created to support those seeking professional mental health support…

The Landbanking Group has raised $11 million in Seed funding. The round was led by BonVenture and André Hoffmann and included participation by 4P Capital, Vanagon, Planet A, the SUN Institute of the Deutsche Post Foundation and angel investors and family offices such as Prince Maximilian of Liechtenstein, Alexa Firmenich, Jan-Hendrik Goldbeck and Fabian Strüngmann. Founded in 2022 The Landbanking Group has grown into an international team of 40 experts in ecology, ecosystem modelling, data…

Spanish green fintech Twinco Capital has secured a debt facility of €50 million from BBVA Spark. The facility will enable Twinco to support its customers in ‘building sustainable and competitive global supply chains’. The firm also has debt financing relationships with EBN Banco de Negocios and Zubi Capital. Twinco, founded by Sandra Nolasco and Carmen Marin, is a venture-backed fintech - included in the investor lineup are Quona Capital, Working Capital Fund, Mundi Ventures and Finch Capital.…

Paris-based I4d Ventures has raised €16 million for its Pre-seed fund. The fund will support ‘new frontier technologies’ like AI, climate, healthcare and computer vision. The startups in its portfolio include compensation tracker Amalia.io and mobility startup Ayes. Backing founders at the pre-seed and seed stages with initial investments ranging from €200,000 to €500,000 Id4 Ventures says it is committed to supporting the European early-stage ecosystem via three key verticals; direct…

Finnish climate action plan platform Kausal has raised €880,000 in a Seed funding round which includes investment from Innovestor and Zubi Capital. The funding will increase sales and marketing efforts in the DACH region and North America. The startup provides climate action plan information for cities and governments, and its platform details impact assessment of policy measures and supporting decision-making. Recognising that cities account for over 70 percent of global CO2 emissions, Kausal…

Swiss-based firm SkyCell has raised a $57 million funding round. The investment was provided by M&G’s Catalyst Fund and will see its temperature-controlled hybrid containers and technological solutions support pharma supply chains globally. SkyCell is scaling up the availability of its containers by expanding its global service centre network which services customers within 24 hours’ notice at their global manufacturing hubs. With $35 billion worth of products lost annually due to temperatur…

Dutch online payment solutions provider Fero Payment Science has raised a $3 million seed round from Coatue, Volta Ventures and Antler. The fresh funding will see further expansion and enhancements of Fero’s payment solution as it expands its teams in Europe and the US. Fuelled by the possibility of solving issues in online payments for end-merchants Craig Savage and Maximilian van Boxel, both ex-Ekata and Mastercard, founded Fero while participating in Antler’s founder residency in 2022. “…

This special screening of the highly anticipated release took place at Dublin’s Light House Cinema. Here are some social photos...