Deals of the Week July 4 to July 8 – a Growth Business round-up

Deals this week include the biggest Series A investment into quantum computing, a family investment app and a fintech to help Gen Z better understand finance

Quantum computing start-up processes £38m

Reading-based Oxford Quantum Circuits has raised £38m in Series A funding. Landsdowne Partners and The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners co-led the round with participation from British Patient Capital, Oxford Science Enterprises and Oxford Investment Consultants.

OQC’s technology allows superconducting circuits for quantum computing to be scaled without compromising on quality and is the largest Series A investment into a UK quantum computing start-up to date.

Data centre cooling specialist secures a cool £30m

A Sheffield-based start-up that provides liquid cooling solutions for data centres has secured £30m. ABC Impact led the round with participation from nVent, the SDCL Energy Efficiency Income Trust, Northern Gritstone, British Patient Capital, Pavilion Capital and existing investor Edinv.

Iceotope’s environmentally efficient immersion cooling technology reduces the amount of energy and water required to cool data centre servers and is aiming to make the data centre industry more environmentally friendly by reducing carbon emissions by 40 per cent.

Phone lease start-up Raylo pockets £6.5m

London-based Raylo has raised £6.5m for its tech leasing service. Users can lease new or refurbished tech like phones or laptops for a cheaper monthly fee than traditional contracts. At the end of the contract term, users can then either upgrade with a new phone or hand it back to Raylo.

Wayra UK led the round with participation from existing investors Octopus Ventures and Macquarie.

Commercial insurance broker Konsileo books £4.7m

Commercial insurance broker and risk management adviser Konsileo has raised £4.7m in Series A funding. The round was led by existing investor Growth Tech VC Committed Capital with participation from ACF Investors and angel investors.

The London-based start-up has developed a broking platform with built-in compliance checks and policy administration that frees brokers from unnecessary tasks, offers risk insights and allows cross-firm collaboration.

Family investment app saves up £650,000 in crowdfunding

Family investment app Beanstalk has raised over £650,000 in crowdfunding on the Seedrs platform.

The app allows parents to build a pot of money for their children with an option for family members to view accounts, add to the pot and share ideas on gifts. How much each account holds can be viewed on the app homepage.

Electric bike start-up pedals away with £650,000

Birmingham-based electric vehicle and energy storage start-up We Are Universal (WAU) has raised £650,000 in a pre-seed funding round with Angel Investment Network.

WAU offers urban mobility solutions including a long-range electric bike and a soon-to-be-unveiled product enabling the bike’s power cells to be linked together to serve as power storage for solar homes and power plants.

Tik-Tok style fintech clocks £205,000 in pre-seed funding

Zeed, a fintech which produces short-form video content with financial institutions and verified content creators to break down financial concepts for Gen Z investors, has secured £205,000 in pre-seed funding led by SFC Capital.

The London-based app, launching later this month, will enable users to watch educational video content on investment trends and general financial knowledge, with a plan in future to allow users to invest in equities in a TikTok-style feed.

More Deals of the Week

Deals of the Week June 27 to July 1 – a Growth Business round-up

Deals of the Week June 20 to June 24 – a Growth Business round-up

Dom Walbanke

Fred Mann

Dom is a feature writer for Growth Business and Small Business, focused on matters concerning start-ups and scale-ups. He has also been published in the Independent, FourFourTwo magazine and various lifestyle...

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