Welcome to our 143rd newsletter. It was written with 🖤 by Justine Pelisson and Angèle Sahraoui
In 2023, baby vc is proudly sponsored by OneRagtime which will fund enrolment fees for the 2023 VC bootcamps participants, to promote diversity and inclusivity in the VC ecosystem — giving everyone the opportunity to succeed, regardless of their background.
OneRagtime is a European Seed & Series A venture capital fund with 40+ portfolio companies like Jellysmack, Homa Games and Zenly.
Follow OneRagtime on LinkedIn and check their website!
Fundraisings from last week with Volt, Djust and CorWave
News from last week with Frst and IBM
Internship & Job offers of the week
And before we dive into this week’ edition: the team is currently working on our next regional chapter : Iberia 🇪🇸🇵🇹 — in line with our mission at baby vc to build a vibrant European tech ecosystem from the ground up!
We are actively looking for a Head of Iberia based in Spain to build and lead the team there. If you're interested or know someone who might be a good fit, please reach out! 😊
And now, wishing you a pleasant read 🖤
💸 Volt raised $60M to bet on open banking market (🇬🇧)
The UK-based fintech Volt, which has developed a payment infrastructure powering instant account-to-account transfers based on open-banking, has raised a $60M series B round to accelerate on its international expansion—exactly two years after its A series of $23.5M 🌍
The round, led by IVP and joined by CommerzVentures, as well as previous investors like EQT Ventures, Augmentum Fintench, Fuel Ventures, placed the valuation at about $350M.. 🚀 As Eric Liaw, General Partner at IVP mentions: “[…] Volt is creating an electrifying global network for instantaneous, secure and cost-effective A2A payments. The wisdom and experience of the founders coupled with the talented employees at the company strongly position Volt to give merchants and payment partners the lightning-fast, best-in-class payment solution they’ve wanted and needed..” 🔥
This open banking approach is very interesting for merchants as 1) it offers a much less expensive payment option than using a bank card, through the bypass of interchange fees (normally paid by the acquiring back to the issuing bank) and 2) allows the money to reach the merchant’s account much more quickly as it transfers directly from one bank to the other. ✅
Volt raises $60m Series B round led by Silicon Valley investor IVP (PR)
💵 Djust raised €12M to accelerate on their all-in-one B2B e-commerce solution (🇫🇷)
Djust, the French startup that helps companies launch their B2B e-commerce and e-procurement platforms seamlessly, has just announced its latest series A round of €12M led by New Enterprise Associates, joined by Elaia.👌🏼
Concretely, the platform allows professional buyers and sellers to be more productive, have a better and frictionless purchasing experience, and to find an all-in-one solution that really responds to their current (digital) needs. Current customers already include Monoprix and Franprix. As Arnaud Rihiant, Founder and CEO of Djust says: “The B2B eCommerce journey has been upended over the past decade, and behaviors and expectations on both the buyer and seller have significantly changed the way B2B companies need to acquire, convert, retain, and expand customers. Yet many B2B companies are left to deal with these shifts on their own, supported only by outdated solutions that don’t fit their current needs…”. 🧐
The funding will allow Djust to launch new functionalities and to penetrate new markets. 😎
👩⚕️ CorWave raised €61M to finance its next-gen heart pump industrial development (🇫🇷)
Great news this week in the French MedTech field, with CorWave’s second Series C funding closing at €61M, led by the SPI fund (managed by BPI France) as part of France 2030 as well as leading family-controlled entrepreneurial groups which are experts in the industry. 🚀
CorWave is a French medtech that develops innovative cardiac assistance devices. It has been working for over 10 years on the development of a novel cardiac assistance pump (called the “wave membrane” pump) based on a technology that is inspired by the way aquatic animals swim (a sort of undulating membrane which reproduces a pulse and blood flow speed alike those of a healthy heart). Its technology—the result of research conducted with a CNRS laboratory and the AMS R&D—is already protected by 9 patent families.
With this new heart pump, CorWave seeks to help cardiac surgeons and cardiologists save patients who are suffering from heart failure—as in France only, heart failure today accounts for 1 in 10 deaths... 🔍
CorWave Announces Second Closing of Its Series C Funding at €61M (PR)
💰 Frst just closed a new €72m fund
Paris-based VC firm Frst, and backer of companies including Pigment, Payfit and Owkin has just announced it had raised a new €72M fund, with a €100M target set for the end of this year. This fresh funding was notably raised among investors that include the European Investment Fund, Bpifrance, and Axa Venture Partners. 🤝
The objective with this new fund will be to invest in 30+ seed-stage companies, with half the fund reserved for follow-on investments. 👀
Pigment, Payfit and Owkin-backer Frst has closed €72m of third fund
🧾 7th acquisition of the year for IBM to double down on hybrid cloud services
IBM, one of the leading global technology and innovation companies, has just announced the acquisition of the FinOps company Apptio for $4.6B… 💫
Apptio, an American cloud software company, has developed a unique platform to help companies better track their data stored in hybrid environments (usually mixing SaaS in private and public clouds with on-premise tools) in regards to the data’s location and usage—in order to monitor associated hosting costs. With this new acquisition, IBM will integrate Apptio’s solution to its own IT automation software in order to help businesses optimize their IT spend and thus expand its services. ✔️
Apptio is already working with more than 1,500 enterprises and integrates with all major cloud providers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and GCP; as Arvind Krishna, CEO and chairman of IBM said: “Apptio’s offerings combined with IBM’s IT automation software and watsonx AI platform gives clients the most comprehensive approach to optimize and manage all of their technology investments”. Depending on regulatory approvals, the acquisition should be closing by end of 2023. 👏🏻
IBM acquires Apptio from Vista for $4.6B in cash to double down on hybrid cloud services
Internships
Venture Science Analyst Intern - Talent & Community - Marble (Paris)
Jobs
Analyst or Associate - Cathay Innovation (Berlin)
Chief of Staff - Cherry Ventures (Berlin)
👉 If you’d like to discover more offers… you can check our job board just here. And if you want to submit a new job offer, you can fill in this form (or share it)!
Also, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at joinbabyvc@gmail.com. We’d be super happy to have you sharing job/internship offers, events or feedback with us! 🤝
You can also read about us on our website and follow what we do on LinkedIn.
Take care, and see you next week,
The whole baby vc crew 🖤