Hopu uses AI and IoT to support data-driven urban design decisions. Its IoT hardware/software solution monitors air quality – particulate matter, harmful gases or volatile organic compounds – and parameters such as noise, weather, and people flow.
Globally, intervention management is a 98B€ market (17.4B€ in Europe); and Hopu has secured significant market share in Spain, having won public tenders in Madrid, Santander, Cartagena and La Palma. In Europe, Hopu helps over 30 cities combat climate change by making more informed urban design decisions.
The company compensates for long sales cycles by securing ‘sticky’ contracts with higher lifetime values, with an average deal size of 70,000€. The startup’s pilot projects resulted in a near 100% retention rate (turnover of 2M€ in 2020), in part due to high data reliability and accessible cost positions compared to alternatives.
The CEO Antonio is a repeat founder with extensive expertise in IoT (PhD) and AI (two Masters degrees), he also has experience with large public sector contracts. David, Hopu’s CTO has worked in embedded IoT for 8+ years.
Check out their public deck here.
UNSDG #11: Sustainable cities and communities
Use of funds: Developing a B2B software as a service offering and expansion to the German market.
Analysed by Tzvete Doncheva, Marco Fok [London Hub]
Matchable matches companies and employees to volunteer projects with non-profits and impact startups looking to effect social change through a bespoke process which enables a faster, accurate and cost-effective matching.
That unique process is what gives the startup its competitive differentiation. A match through traditional providers can take up to 6 months; can cost more than £5,000 and is completely passive. In comparison to current solutions, Matchable delivers matches 13x time faster, 50x cheaper and with a 100% match rate.
The company is backed by leading global charities like the British Red Cross, the British Heart Foundation, Guide Dogs and Save the Children. On the corporate side, they are live at 15 big companies including PwC, ServiceNow, Improbable and Ella’s Kitchen. At the same time, they have over 200 non-profits and impact startups onboarded.
Matchable’s founder and CEO Foong, was a Director in PwC’s Real Estate & Private Equity M&A department, where she led cross-functional teams working on billion-pound deals for clients like Blackstone and Davidson Kempner. She also founded the startup community Suits & Startups.
Check out their public deck here.
UNSDG #17: Partnerships for the goals
Use of funds: Tech and product, sales and customer support.
Analysed by Simeon Ivanov; Katy Svennas and Myron Krueger [London Hub]
GreenArc Capital is an AI-driven alternative lending platform with a mission to foster greater financial inclusion. Developed in partnership with BNP Paribas, their platform extends credit facilities to vulnerable populations and MSMEs who do not have access to financial services.
Using data-based credit risk tools and impact measurement, GreenArc Capital directs untapped private capital towards these social lending opportunities, offering investors access to a diversified portfolio and pipeline of debt financing opportunities. Investors on the platform also have access to an impact module using GIIN IRIS+ metrics to measure the impact of their debt portfolio.
With a $10.7Bn serviceable obtainable market, GreenArc is in a rapidly growing segment. They have recently onboarded 3 institutional investors from Japan, Switzerland and Singapore, with an AUM pipeline of $50m on the platform.
Their 14-member team has significant experience in impact, finance and technology. CEO Bikram Chaudhury was the former head of impact investment council at Credit Suisse APAC, COO Rony J Palathinkal was former head of AI & Analytics at Credit Suisse APAC, and CTO Naveen Agnihotri was CTO at Lenddo EFL.
UNSDG #1: No Poverty
Use of funds: Development of the tech stack, business development, IP and licensing expenses.
Analysed by Gideon Tay and Leeor Groen [APAC Hub]
Good on You is a sustainability ratings platform targeting fashion brands, characterised by a three-pronged business model of affiliated marketing, content marketing and specialized data services. Backed by Emma Watson and led by a 5-member team of industry experts, the Australian company synthesises its impact assessment framework and crunches hundreds of data points available in reports, audits and corporate communication.
Good on You has reached 3000 analysed brands and a 700,000 global user base using limited marketing budget, with the ambition to triple down by 2022 and quickly reach 12M users. It operates in the $155b global «conscious» e-commerce market (20-40yr old women), growing at 14% CAGR.
Main defensibility is their ability to automate the ratings system and make it a standard broadly recognised in the fashion space. To date, affiliate revenue – through 80 highly-rated corporate partners – represents 50% of the MRR and is expected to quickly reach 80%. The Covid-19 outbreak accelerated this trend with a 20% MoM user engagement growth.
UNSDG #12: Responsible Consumption & Production
Use of funds: automation of the rating process and business development.
Analysed by Gideon Tay and Pierrick Bouffaron [APAC Hub]
MarketForce 360 is building the most comprehensive field sales and distribution platform for emerging markets. Over 80% of Africa’s retail is informal. Retailers’ manual record-keeping leads to frequent stockouts, loss of income, difficulty accessing working capital and lack of access to daily essentials for customers, not to mention a paucity of crucial business planning data for suppliers.
MarketForce has built an end-to-end platform that automates and digitises the entire distribution value chain and enables FMCGs and financial service providers to manage their agent networks.
The platform has transacted over $200m to date with 20% MoM revenue growth. MarketForce has a partnership in place with Kenya’s biggest telco, Safaricom, which will see them onboard the telco’s vast network of retailers.
CEO Tesh Mbaabu is an experienced entrepreneur with a recent exit under his belt. The core team has experience in consulting, data analytics and FMCG sales. They are supported by an impressive roster of previous investors including YCombinator, echoVC and Ventures Platform. They have a lead investor in place for this funding round.
UNSDG #8: Decent work and economic growth
Use of funds: Growth of sales agent network and aggressive customer acquisition.
Analysed by Nzilani Kaunda and Andrew Gwadiva [Africa Hub]
Money BagChart Increasing Donaco is a vertically integrated B2B platform that automates online donor acquisition across multiple channels. The platform helps charities identify potential donors, provide the right messaging to resonate with potential donors, and uses smart units to ensure frictionless payments through data intelligence. It drives up to 13x more donations and reduces acquisition cost by a factor of 5 for non-profits.
Currently, Donaco targets UK charities with income >£10m and has successfully worked with players such as Unicef, Microsoft and the Guardian. The business will expand to cover other medium and small charities in the future to further tap the £41bn p.a. UK non-profit market. Donaco charges a 30%-35% of clients’ total campaign budget and intends to transit to a transaction-based business model in the future.
Donaco is led by a group of professionals from Microsoft, Yahoo, Sky and Imperial College with a strong team of advisors, together covering key business areas: finance, IT(including AI), payment, marketing, and social enterprise.
UNSDG #17: Partnerships for the goals
Use of funds: Accelerate market growth, improve automation through AI, and grow the team.
Analysed by Sonya Lu, Marco Fok [London Hub]
