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Healthcare Markets

Our thanks to HealthcareMarkets for shining a spotlight on Pharmacierge. The article covers our team’s uncompromising approach to service quality and decision to transform and robotise three 18thC Georgian townhouses in the Harley Street Medical Area (HSMA).

“Pharmacierge has carved out a niche as a technology-enabled but traditional pharmacy”

Sincere thanks to Maria Davies for her insightful questions and capturing our healthtech evolution and service’s raison d’être.

Exciting times lie ahead as we continue to redefine the private pharmacy pathway in the UK.

Original Article

The Times

An American firm is buying two employee benefit suppliers and is planning to merge the businesses

The owners of two employee benefit suppliers are reaping multimillion-pound rewards after agreeing to sell to an American private equity firm that plans to merge them.

Vivup, which has 3.3 million customers largely in the public sector, including 85 per cent of NHS trusts, and Perkbox, which supports more than 600,000 employees, have been acquired by Great Hill Partners for an undisclosed sum. Two sources familiar with the deal confirmed that Perkbox’s valuation was in the region of £130 million, with Vivup valued at more than that.

The companies work with employers to provide staff with everything from supermarket discounts to gym membership.

Original Article

Fintech Finance News

Through this partnership, Ryft is enabling its eCommerce merchants within the UK to accept payments from Amex Cards, increasing payment flexibility. Ryft is a unified payment platform designed specifically to power marketplaces and B2B platforms. The end-to-end solution helps merchants meet their PSD2 compliance requirements, fully automates payouts, monetises transactions for digital platforms, and increases the number of payment options across digital marketplaces.

Launched in March, Ryft’s capabilities will expand to allow more cutting-edge digital platforms to add Amex as way to pay. As a global payments leader, Amex is an important addition to Ryft’s comprehensive suite of payment methods in its journey to scaling and growth.

Since its launch in 2022, the Ryft platform has experienced significant growth, processing millions of transactions across a variety of different digital merchant platforms. Constantly striving for optimisation and achieving the next level of innovation, the addition of Amex as a payment option allows Ryft to remain competitive in the market, giving its merchant customers the ability to welcome loyal and high spending Amex Cardmembers.

Speaking on the partnership, CEO and co-founder of Ryft, Sadra Hosseini commented: “We are delighted to announce our new partnership with American Express, a true leader in the payments industry. This collaboration marks a significant milestone for us, opening doors to exciting possibilities and reinforcing our commitment to delivering unparalleled value to our partners.

“Moving forward, we look forward to offering merchants innovative solutions that will redefine the way people experience payments. This partnership symbolises a powerful synergy between our two businesses, and we can’t wait to embark on this journey of growth in the marketplace space together.”

Original Article

David Bloom (Forbes)

Lapse, a three-year-old photo-sharing app, announced it raised $30 million in Series A funding from a group of prominent venture-capital firms and angel investors led by Greylock and DST Global Partners. Greylock general partner Jacob Andreou, a former Snap executive, joined Lapse’s board.

“Lapse has captured the hearts and minds of a generation who isn’t sharing their lives with friends on other social platforms,” Andreou said in a release. “This is a testament to Lapse’s founders Ben and Dan (Silvertown), who are a unique blend of art and science, and obsessed with building an authentic experience for young people to capture moments and share memories.”

The raise represents a particularly hefty show of financial support at a time when high interest rates have choked off access to VC money for many startups. The key, suggested Dan Silvertown in an interview, is the company’s very different approach to the notion of being a modern social-media app, focused on “friends, not followers.”

The app has gone through a couple of major iterations, but is notable because it doesn’t allow users to immediately see photos they take, instead holding off making the images available while they “develop” for one to three hours. The delayed-gratification approach is inspired by film-based disposable cameras, much as Silvertown’s brother and co-founder Ben used during a 2021 trip to Vietnam.

The “development” delay for images “allows (users) to stay in the moment and keep enjoying that experience,” Dan Silvertown said. “Instead of taking 50 angles, it takes you back to disposable cameras, where you take some photos and then put the camera away and prioritize the experience.”

Once the image is available, the app doesn’t allow any fiddling around with endless editing tools, freeing the user from any expectations of creating a perfected image. When an image is presented, the user swipes right to share to friends on the app, left to archive, or delete. It simplifies the photo app to its bare essentials.

The app does apply a dozen different enhancements to the developed image, adding such film-like touches as lens flares and grain, even halation or color bleeding around bright light sources, Silvertown said.

“We always felt it was really important to have a look, a unique look,” Silvertown said. “We wanted to have an aesthetic that was unique.”

Lapse’s approach may be a well-timed orthogonal digression from the dominant ways that billions of people use more traditional social-media tools. After photos are taken in those apps, the user typically dives into editing, twiddling the image with seemingly endless tools using artificial intelligence and computational photography functions. The resulting images are optimized, but frequently look highly manipulated and even inauthentic.

“The direction we’re moving is actually perpendicular to where the general market is moving,” Silvertown said. “We believe it’s a lot more satisfying. AI gives a double-edged sword, with the ability to create massive amounts of content. But the photos (created with AI) are not particularly satisfying. It’s not a real memory you’re solidifying. The image doesn’t tell you anything about the person who made it or what was going on when it was taken.”

Editing tools are available in the app, in the Lab section, but only if the image is being exported for other uses. Those tools include cropping and removal of the watermark the app applies to shared images.

The London-based Lapse will use the funding round to modestly expand its 20-person workforce, but remain focused on further improvements to the app experience, Silvertown said.

The company has raised a total of $42 million, including the Series A round, and is still building out the experience and user base, with no immediate investor pressure to make money, Silvertown said. When it comes time to generate revenue, the company will consider such common approaches as ads, in-app purchases and subscriptions.

Participants in the Series A also included re-ups from earlier rounds by GV, which is Alphabet’s venture fund, SpeedInvest, and Octopus Ventures, and angel investors Soleio, Naveen Gavini, Nima Khajehnouri, and Praveen Murugesan. The latter three are former senior executives from Pinterest, Snap and Uber, respectively.

Original Article

Mark Kleinman (Sky News)

Lopay founder Richard Carter has received financing from BackedVC and Portage for his payments start-up, which he says is far cheaper to use than more established rivals, Sky News understands.

A British payments start-up which is muscling in on the turf occupied by bigger rivals such as SumUp has secured £6m in backing from a host of prominent venture capitalists.

Sky News understands that Lopay, which was founded by industry executive Richard Carter, has amassed the substantial seed funding from BackedVC, Portage, The Venture Collective and a number of angel investors.

The funding round will be announced publicly on Thursday.

Lopay, which has signed up more than 20,000 small businesses, enables SMEs to take card payments from customers more cheaply than the costs charged by more established payment providers.

In total, Lopay says it has taken nearly 10m customer payments since being founded last year.

It claims its fees are less than a third of those charged by PayPal and half of SumUp and Zettle’s – three of the industry’s biggest names – while giving customers the option of receiving cleared funds in their accounts immediately after each transaction.

The company estimates its pricing has saved merchants more than £1m in aggregate fees since its launch, and anticipates processing another £500m in payments during the next year, saving its customers more than £2.5m.

“Lopay’s mission has resonated with thousands of small businesses and sole traders who are being squeezed simultaneously by high inflation and fragile customer demand,” Mr Carter, a former executive at Ecrebo, a point-of-sale marketing platform, said.

“Against that backdrop, the big beasts of the card payment industry have been poor champions of small business.

“Their high fees mean too many small firms are paying up to 300% more than they need to – or waiting up to three business days – to receive card payments from their customers.”

The £6m fundraising is large by comparison with most seed funding rounds, and comes amid a more challenging environment for early-stage companies to secure new capital.

Juliette Souliman, a principal at Portage, said Lopay was “breaking new ground in the archaic mobile POS payment industry, saving thousands of small businesses time and money as they navigate the post-pandemic business landscape”.

Original Article

George Simister (uktech.news)

Health tech firm Pharmacierge has announced plans to build a 5,500 sq ft dispensary at its London facility, with plans including a 30ft dispensing robot sending medication between floors via spiralling chutes.

The multi-arm robot will pick out the required medication and load it into chutes that travel up to the top floor of the pharmacy.

Inside the pharmacy, there will be zones designated for biological, refrigerated and controlled medications.

Edward Ungar, CEO of Pharmacierge, said: “While our mPrescribe technology now equally serves clinicians and patients outside of London, we felt very strongly that only a local investment would remain faithful to our brand values, our roots and the private medical community who have supported us through thick and thin.”

Pharmacierge told UKTN it expects the London facility and robotic arm to be up and running early next year.

The dispensary will be situated on Wimpole Street in Marylebone, London. With its nearby Harley Street location, the company will now operate 8,000 sqft of space.

According to Pharmacierge, it deals with more than 4,500 GP and consultants. Over 90% of the practices say it prescription software saves them “5-15 mins per prescription”.

Backers of the health tech business include Cazoo’s founder Alex Chesterman, who invested in its £1.25m round in 2021. Its most recent funding round came in April this year, when it scooped £2.4m, primarily from the doctors that use its service.

Original Article

Oscar Hornstein (uktech.news)

Mintago, a fintech startup based in London, has raised $4.75m (£3.9m) for its employee money management platform.

Founded in 2019, Mintago has created a platform for businesses to support employees with their financial management goals.

Users can manage pension contributions and locate lost pension pots. Mintago also offers access to financial advisors, debt counselling and financial education programmes.

The company lists Superscript, Oddbox and Lucky Saint among the brands that offer Mintago access to employees.

“There has never been a greater need for businesses to support their employees’ financial wellbeing,” said Daniel Conti, co-founder, COO and CFO of Mintago.

“The cost-of-living crisis is a source of significant stress for millions of Britons, and this can naturally impact their work life – the best employers recognise this and are upping their support for staff by providing the necessary financial planning tools and access to advice, in turn building better relationships with their employees.”

The equity investment round was led by BlackLion Ventures along with Love Ventures and Cur8 Capital. The startup said it would put the new funds towards developing the underlying technology of the platform, as well as hiring in sales and marketing.

Mintago, which employs 30 people, has raised a total of £5.5m in equity funding since launch.

Original Article

Oscar Hornstein (uktech.news)

Digital payments startup WeGift has secured £26m in funding, a sizeable round for British fintech startups amid slowing later-stage investment.

WeGift has built a platform for brands to provide customers with digital rewards and incentives.

Working with companies like Nike, Aldi, and Airbnb, WeGift said the pay-out for its digital gift cards is instant and its API can be incorporated into partner brands across a wide range of industries.

“We’re building the world’s leading infrastructure for moving stored value, and these funds will help us accelerate our growth,” said WeGift co-founder and CEO, Aron Alexander.

“Innovations in pay-outs have been few and far between, leading to solutions that no longer match the speed with which business operates.”

Alexander added: “Our digital currency network gives corporate and platform users powerful tools to incentivize, reward, drive conversion, disburse funds and more.”

The Series B round was led by Element Ventures and also included participation from new investors Clocktower Ventures and Volution Capital, and returning investors CommerzVentures, AlbionVC, and SAP.

“[WeGift has] created a simple, elegant solution to an extremely complex problem, and they have fantastic traction,” said Mike McFadgen, a partner at Element Ventures.

“They’re well positioned to have a major impact on how value moves and commerce functions. We look forward to working with them in the years to come as they revolutionise payouts.”

The company’s previous funding round came in March 2021, when it received £8.7m.

Original Article

George Simister (uktech.news)

Ryft has closed a seed round of funding that brings the total raised by the fintech startup to £1.2m for its automated next-day merchant payments system.

The Ryft seed round was led by SFC Capital, with further investment coming from the ex-founder of Shutterstock and the founder of LoveFilm.

The London-based company’s payment solution integrates into an online marketplace and accepts payments from all major cards, along with Google and Apple Pay.

The company competes with the likes of Stripe Connect, the marketplace payments integration created by Irish-American fintech giant Stripe.

Ryft claims that its solution comes “without the high fees and lengthy payout wait times”, with merchants receiving funds the next working day and Ryft charging a flat fee for each transaction.

“We are excited to work with Ryft in supporting marketplace businesses with a unified payment platform designed to power B2B platforms and provide a seamless experience for merchants and marketplaces,” said Ed Stevenson, investment manager, SFC Capital.

According to the company, its product adheres to PSD2 compliance rules, protect against FCA fines and comply with anti-money laundering rules.

Ryft was founded by Sadra Hosseini and Alex Mackenzie. The idea was inspired by their previous business restaurant ordering app Butlr, which went on to be acquired by OrderPay.

Sadra Hosseini, CEO and founder, Ryft, said: “We are both incredibly excited to be working with SFC Capital to further our ability to provide seamless support to marketplaces and merchants within the industry and continue to solve the current problems associated with complex money routines under PSD2 regulation.”

Payments startup Super this month emerged from stealth with a £22.5m pre-seed for its online checkout payments service.

Original Article

Nicole Fernandes (startuplanes.com)

Flexa Careers, the platform bringing transparency to the hiring market, has raised a £2.3m ($2.9m/€2.7m) Seed Round to expand its global reach. The round was led by Ada Ventures and joined by Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund, angel syndicate HERmesa, and a wide group of angel investors.

Flexa has flipped the hiring process on its head; enabling companies to showcase what their working environments offer when it comes to flexibility and benefits, and be discovered by candidates who want to know up-front how the company operates and get a transparent look at what its working policies are before applying for a role.

Flexa vets and verifies companies through a two-stage benchmarking process; looking at everything from their approach to working location, through to what benefits are on offer, and then surveying how their current employees feel about working there.

Companies are then approved to showcase their jobs on the platform and people can filter opportunities by these criteria to find their perfect working environment in seconds.

73% of candidates say flexibility is non-negotiable and people are 257% more likely to apply to a company through Flexa versus a job traditional platform, according to Flexa’s research with YouGov. Flexa is enabling companies to build their brands as flexible, empowering employers, whilst increasing the discoverability of their vacancies and their ability to appeal to a more diverse audience.

Founded in early 2020 by Molly Johnson-Jones, Maurice O’Brien, and Tim Leppard, Flexa Careers now has over 450,000 users, and more than 150 companies headquartered all over the world have been approved to feature on the platform. Flexa Careers has already been used by candidates across 70 countries, but their core audience is centred in the UK and Ireland, where they originally launched. This funding will therefore be used to expand and solidify their global reach.

Original Article