Newsletter: VC Breakfast Club

/deals

🏗️ London-based Converge secured €19.4M to scale its ConcreteDNA platform, using AI and sensor data to cut emissions in the concrete industry. Led by ABN AMRO SIF, the round backs tech to decarbonise one of construction’s dirtiest sectors.

🍽️ Australian-founded EatClub raised $18.2M Series A to expand its real-time restaurant discount app into the UK. Backed by Co:Act and Gandel Invest, the startup doubled users in 2024 and is gaining traction in London.

💼 London-based Penfold secured €4.6M from Gresham House Ventures to expand its SME pension platform and enhance its app. The startup’s user base tripled in 2024, targeting a digital overhaul of the UK’s €9.4T pensions sector.

🔋 London-based Sention has raised £3.7M seed funding to commercialise its AI-powered battery diagnostics platform. Backed by Twin Path Ventures and others, the startup enables real-time, non-invasive analysis to improve safety, cut waste, and boost battery performance.

🧾 London-based Ontik raised €3.2M to automate credit and collections for wholesalers, starting with building materials. Backed by Firstminute and Slack/Affirm founders, it’s aiming to be the “Stripe for the real economy.”

🚚 Dublin- and London-based Axe raised £1.3M pre-seed to build AI agents for freight teams, automating quoting, scheduling, and order entry. Backed by Pitchdrive, Accel Scouts, and angels from Google and Realex, it’s targeting the $10T logistics sector.

📹 London-based Servo AI raised €1.2M to upgrade CCTV systems with AI-powered video analytics. Backed by Early Game Ventures, it’s expanding into Romania to build a tech hub and scale retail insights across CEE.

🧪 Leeds-based Envoke secured €1.1M to scale its AI-powered simulation platform—dubbed a “flight simulator for lab equipment.” Backed by NPIF and Finance Yorkshire, it supports NHS labs and global medtechs like Bio-Rad and Terumo.

🌈 Oxford-affiliated Quantum Light raised $1M to develop color-changing nanomaterials using quantum confinement tech. Backed by Venrex, Oxford Seed Fund, and Meta execs, the startup targets applications in cosmetics, textiles, and aerospace coatings.

🧪 Leeds-based Envoke has raised another £1M to expand its AI-powered simulation platform for lab equipment training. Used by NHS and global medtech firms, the platform has nearly doubled ARR and slashes costly downtime via virtual diagnostics and remote support.

⚙️ Liverpool-based Atomik AM, a female-founded advanced manufacturing startup, raised €713K from NPIF II to scale its sustainable materials tech. The company partners with Unilever and Ricoh, turning metal waste into cleaner industrial products.

📝 London-based adeus has secured a £500K Innovate UK grant to build electronic will infrastructure, aligning with proposed legal reforms. The legaltech startup aims to modernise legacy planning and expand its platform globally.

🧬 Native Labs has raised a pre-seed round led by Zinc VC to tackle cell and gene therapy bottlenecks. Its AI platform streamlines manufacturing workflows, aiming to bridge data, robotics, and biotech for faster, scalable CGT production.

👗 Fashion-tech startup Persi has raised a £660K pre-seed round led by Haatch and ESM Investments to fix online personalisation. The round was oversubscribed, with £50K reserved for female angels aiming to diversify the cap table.

/spotlight

☀️ London-based climatetech startup Rivan has raised £10M in a round led by Plural, joined by 20VC, NFDG, and Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison.

Founded by former footballer and serial founder Harvey Hodd, Rivan is building modular, solar-powered synthetic fuel plants to decarbonise heavy industry.

Its pilot site in Wiltshire produces synthetic natural gas (SNG) from air and water using proprietary DAC, electrolysis, and Sabatier modules. The new capital will scale production to 1MW and fulfill early commercial orders.

/funds

🤖 QuantumLight, the AI-powered VC firm founded by Revolut’s Nik Storonsky, just closed a $250M fund. Every one of its 17 investments to date has been sourced by its proprietary model, which scans 10B+ data points across 700K startups — aiming to strip out human bias and speed up Series B/C decisions.

🎥 Sidemen launch £18M venture firm Upside VC to back consumer tech startups. With 12 deals already - including Howbout and Nimbi - the YouTube group plans to back 40 startups and amplify them across their 150M+ follower base.

/tech

• The UK’s AI skills gap has more than doubled in a year, with 52% of tech leaders citing shortages amid soaring enterprise investment.

/flywheel

• EU-Startups ranks 30 top universities and business schools powering Europe’s next wave of founders. Imperial, LBS, LSE, UCL, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Manchester make the cut.

• VC investment in Cambridge doubled to $2.3B in 2024, defying Europe’s downturn. The city leads globally in seed-to-Series A conversions and now ranks as the UK’s second most valuable tech ecosystem at $222B.

• US law firm Pillsbury has hired Sarah Melaney to boost its VC practice in London. Known for advising high-growth tech and climate startups, Melaney joins Pillsbury amid a broader expansion to serve the UK’s rising startup economy.

• UK unicorn Builder.ai, backed by Microsoft and Qatar Investment Fund, has filed for bankruptcy after financial restatements and mounting debts.

• Used by nearly half of UK startups, SeedLegals has redefined legaltech by replacing billable hours with fixed pricing, automation, and founder-first tools - powering over 500,000 legal docs and one-third of UK early-stage fundraising.

/breakfast

• Will AI kill the venture capitalist? Part 1 - the end of the apprentice model

• 5 UK startups solving for AI's energy problem

• Why photonic chips might be the next deep tech moonshot

📸 /techbrunch

Every week I use ChatGPT to reimagine a TechCrunch story from the week.

This week, when the robots start picking term sheets, where does that leave the junior analyst? Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky has raised $250m for a ‘fully automated’ VC fund - and it made me think… what happens when we have a fully automated venture chain?

• Caption this in comments?