Tech News: 12th April 2022

The flotations market is likely to stagnate for months after the City endured its worst start to a year for listings for a decade, EY has warned. Companies floating on London’s main market and the junior Aim market raised only £397 million during the first three months of the year, down from £5.66 billion a year earlier, the accountancy giant said. It marked the lowest amount raised in Britain from initial public offerings during a first quarter since 2012, according to EY. The drop in listings comes after soaring inflation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rattled investors, causing stock market volatility to surge and deterring companies from selling shares. The drop in listings comes after a boom in flotations last year as companies that had delayed IPO plans in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic raced to take advantage of calmer markets. 

Motoring fintech Carmoola has raised £27m in a seed round, including capital from Jaguar Land Rover’s investment fund. London-based Carmoola will use the seed round investment to develop its product and launch the initial stages of the business, which provides an automated finance check for purchasing a car. Its motoring finance app lets users find out how much they can borrow in under a minute and has no broker commissions. It then creates a virtual card that can be used to purchase a vehicle online or at a dealership – including at UK-founded online car retailer Cazoo. The Carmoola app also gives customers the option to increase, pause or make single payments without any penalties or charges. 

US financial inclusion fintech Nova Credit has expanded into the UK with plans to open up access to credit for immigrants across Europe. The San Francisco-headquartered firm, which partners with global credit bureaus to those help those typically locked out of accessing credit, is opening a London office with plans to serve the whole European market, the firm announced. The firm says it is now looking to tap into a market of 3.5m immigrants in the UK who have little or no credit history but who could be categorised as creditworthy borrowers based on the data in their country of origin. 

Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, has secured $2bn in new funding from Sony and the group behind the Lego franchise as leading global games companies race to build an avatar-filled “metaverse”. The North Carolina-headquartered group revealed it had secured $1bn each from Japanese console and game developer Sony and Kirkbi, the investment company behind the Lego Group. The deal values Epic at $31.5bn. Following the transaction, Kirkbi will own 3 per cent of the company, while Sony will own a 4.9 per cent stake. The PlayStation creator had already provided $250mn in funding to Epic Games in July 2020, followed by another $200mn in April 2021, taking the total to $1.45bn. Financial Times

Montonio is an ‘all-in-one’ platform for online merchants to accept payments as well as offer financing and handle the post-checkout experience from shipping to returns and refunds. The company, which was co-founded by Markus Lember, Karel Nappus, Kristofer Turmen Henrik Rank, Karl Kristjan Kalluste and Rasmus Õisma, has just raised €11m in its Series A funding round. About 3,000 merchants across the Baltics have signed up since its launch in 2021 allowing them to accept bank payments - via an API integration -  with Montonio handling a range of ecommerce services, from financing to deliveries and refund management. 

The London-based startup IMMO has raised a $75 million funding. The Series B round was led by US-based Oak HC/FT. The funding is expected to accelerate its expansion across Europe. Offering technology solution for how people can sell, rent and invest in single-family rental (SFR) housing, IMMO uses data driven approach to building scalable residential exposure for investors. Its technology analyses over €6 billion in properties per month to identify investment opportunities. The team then physically inspects selected homes collecting over 300 data-points using the company’s proprietary inspection app to make an offer. Post-purchase, the platform upcycles the properties into modernised homes that are offered to residents via their ‘living-as-a-service’ rental platform at affordable prices and 52% less carbon footprint than a full redevelopment.