French and Benelux funds raise $2.4B in Q1'22, outpacing their British and Irish counterparts.

Plus: Sweden's Instabox joins the unicorn club with a $190M funding round.

Inside.com Part of   Network April 22, 2022

The percentage of European VC beings raised by GPs from the U.K. and Ireland is on track to shrink, according to Pitchbook. The biggest winner looks to be managers from France and the Benelux region, while the DACH region is set to hold steady. More: France and the Benelux countries raised a total of $2.4B (€2.2B) in fresh dry powder last quarter, about 29.8% of the total for the entire continent. The DACH and U.K. & Ireland regions raised $1.6B (€1.5B) and $1.7B (€1.6B) in Q1, respectively. The average and median fund sizes for Europe are predicted to grow to $91.3M and $156.1M in 2022, based on recent figures. The total amount of fresh capital raised by funds in Q1’22 reached $8B, on pace to beat out the record-setting total of $26.1B last year. On the other hand, the growth in the number of new vehicles has fallen, with only 54 new funds announced in the first three months of the year. That is down from an average of 82 per quarter last year.

Instabox raised $190M to expand its automated package locker service. The Stockholm, Sweden-based company became a unicorn with the latest injection. The funds came from Verdane, with existing investors Creades, EQT Ventures, Tham Special Investment AB, Nineyards, Tacito, and M2 Asset Management participating. More: The company has shown an uncanny ability to make an announcement every four to six months. Prior to the fresh capital, it made public in January its acquisition of Norwegian same-day logistics and e-commerce delivery solutions firm Porterbuddy. Today’s round is a product of that deal: Verdane was a majority shareholder in Porterbuddy and committed to reinvesting its proceeds from the deal into the new entity. Last year, it entered the Dutch market and raised $90M Series B. Instabox focuses on the last mile of e-commerce logistics, offering consumers up to 10 locations they can have their packages sent. The company delivers 3 million packages per month in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany. By centralizing collection and distribution, the company claims to have created a delivery method with a smaller carbon footprint.

Analysts expect ad revenue from the six major digital marketing players to grow 19% YoY next quarter, down from 28% in Q4’21. The fall is even steeper compared to the 40% growth seen in the first quarter last year. More: The distribution of the slowing growth will not be equal: Google is expected to report 23% YoY growth to $55.1B, while Facebook’s ad machine will only grow by 8% to bring in $27.5B. Only Twitter is expected to post higher growth rates, rising to 25% to $1.1B from 22% in Q4’21. Snap and Pinterest, which make up a tiny fraction of the entire market, will see declines of 3% each. The lower figures are responses to the combined downward pressure from rising inflation, continued supply-chain problems, the war in Ukraine, and changes to Apple’s iOS last year. The changes made by Apple, which made it harder for advertisers to target their customers, are expected to affect Google the least, thanks to its traditional search-based business.

Flipside Crypto, provider of blockchain analytics and crypto business intelligence, raised $50M led by Republic Capital. The round saw participation from True Ventures, Galaxy, Terra, Dapper Labs, M13, and Blockchain Coinvestors and valued Flipside at $350M. More: Prior to today’s round, Flipside raised $7.1M in Sept. 2019 at a $32M valuation. It currently has 66 people on staff and aims to expand to 85 people by the end of the year. The company analyzes blockchain networks through a process called “chainwalking.” It uses this to gain insights into on- and off-chain activities of holders, miners, voters, and token holders, which it then makes available to analysts. It also runs a bounty program, which paid out $2M last year. It produced 30,000 bounties in March, a figure it wants to scale up massively. In the same month, it onboarded 19,000 analysts. The firm deploys both a Layer 1 and Layer 2 network.

Today’s Funding 💸 Adtech/Martech tvScientific (Pasadena, Calif.), performance advertising platform built for the connected TV: $20M A led by Norwest Venture Partners, participation from NBCUniversal, Hearst Ventures. Influur ((Miami, Fla.), marketplace that connects stars, celebrities, and influencers with brands: $5M Seed led by Point72 Ventures, participation from Sofia Vergara, Luis Balaguer, Tommy Mottola, Thalia, Lex Borrero, et al. AI/ML Mendel (San Jose, Calif.), clinical AI/ML platform: $40M B led by Oak HC/FT, participation from DCM. Jarvis ML (​​Cupertino, Calif.), enterprise ML platform: $16M Seed led by Dell Technologies Capital. Biotech/Health NexHealth ​​(San Francisco, Calif.), patient experience platform: $125M C led by Buckley Ventures, participation from Lachy Groom, Jack Altman, Scott Belsky, Shreyas Doshi, et al. Octant (Emeryville, Calif.), data-driven therapeutics: $80M B led by Catalio Capital Management, participation from Bristol Myers Squibb, Andreessen Horowitz Bio Fund, et al. Climatetech Carbon Technologies ​​(Calgary, Canada), conversion CO2 gas into advanced material additives: $6M led by Clean Energy Ventures, participation from CEMEX Ventures, Amplify Capital, Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, et al. Consumer Fresco (Dublin, Ireland), smart kitchen platform: $20M led by Instant Brands, Vorwerk. Vyng ​​(Los Angeles, Calif.), dialer app provider: $5M from undisclosed sources. Data/Analytics Dassana ​​(San Jose, Calif.), Cloud Log Lake solutions: $5M Seed led by Dell Technologies Capital. Enterprise Live Bash  ​​(Chicago, Ill.), platform to help young artists organize shows: $21M Seed from undisclosed sources. Fintech MetaLend (Santa Monica, Calif.), bank for digital economy: $5M Seed led by Pantera Capital, participation from Sky Mavis, Ancient8, David Cho. TravelTech Kindred (U.S.), home-swapping model: $7.75M led by Andreessen Horowitz, participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, et al. Did you enjoy reading about all of today's funding in one place? The funding roundup is only available to free users on Mondays and Fridays. Upgrade to Inside VC Premium for either $10/month, or $100 billed annually, to receive the full list in every issue! For a limited time, we are offering a 14-day free trial. Click here to sign up! Upgrade now to Inside VC Premium

Quick Hits Same old marketing automation not cutting it these days? Get our eBook and power up your customer experiences.* SoftBank will maintain a controlling stake in Arm Technologies following the chip company’s IPO. The offering itself may be pushed back until next year, thanks to greater flexibility via a term loan. Andreessen Horowitz will launch a new academic lab to dig into the research problems facing the digital asset industry. It wi be led by Tim Roughgarden, a former professor at Columbia and Stanford and a16z’s research advisor since last year. Pixotope Technologie, a provider of live AR/VR production solutions, acquired Germany-based TrackMen, a one-stop shop for real-time 3D camera and media talent tracking, for an undisclosed sum. Funding for blockchain gaming startups soared to  $2.5B in Q1 of 2022, up 150% from the same quarter last year. It now makes up 52% of all blockchain activity in terms of investment and usage, according to Coinbase. Here’s an innovative way to eliminate technical debt. Adopt this low-code technique to quickly clear your tech debt problem and return to innovating quality apps on AWS.* *This is a sponsored post.

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