Alan, Ferovinum, and Sirius

Welcome to another edition of the Who Got Funded newsletter. 🚀 

My name is Onofre, and I'm an entrepreneur living in Aarhus, Denmark. Every week, I dedicate 3 to 4 hours of my free time to reading startup news, which I then summarize in this newsletter.

I hope you enjoy this content. Thank you so much for reading. ✌️ 

Estimated reading time: ⌛️ 5 min 20 sec.

SERIES B AND LATER
Paris-based Alan, which provides health insurance for businesses and their employees, raises €173 million Series F

🇫🇷 Paris-based Alan, a provider of health insurance for businesses and their employees, has raised €173 million in a Series F round at a €4 billion valuation.

With this funding round, Alan has raised €654 million since its launch in 2016, firmly establishing itself as one of the most successful European healthtech startups in recent years.

In February this year, one of its cofounders said they had “no plans to raise again” after achieving €350 million in revenue in 2023, covering over 500k employees across France, Belgium, and Spain.

But, spoiler... they ended up fundraising 😂. So it seems the original plan has changed.

According to the funding press release, the company's goal is to become profitable by 2026, after reporting a net loss of €59 million in 2023. They are currently serving 650k employees across 23k businesses, growing at 40% year-over-year.

👉️ You can read more about this deal here.

More Series B (and later) interesting stories:

🇩🇪 Berlin-based quick-commerce startup Flink raises another €134.2 million at a valuation of nearly $1 billion.

🇫🇷 Paris-based Akur8, a machine learning-powered insurance pricing and reserving platform, bags €107.8 million.

🇨🇭 Lausanne-based Neo Medical secures €60.8 million to accelerate global growth and deliver personalized treatments for spine surgery patients.

🇩🇪 Munich-based DeepDrive raises €30 million Series B to build production lines of EV motor tech.

🇬🇧 North Yorkshire-based Peratech raises €28.2 million to bring the computer keyboard up to date with its haptics tech.

SERIES A
London-based Ferovinum, a funding and supply chain platform for wine and spirits, raises over €20 million

🇬🇧 London-based Ferovinum, a funding and supply chain platform for wine and spirits businesses, has raised €20.8 million in a Series A round.

This startup has created an end-to-end digital platform that helps businesses fund, produce, procure, and sell wine and spirits globally. Nice! 🥂 

But what’s the problem with the wine and spirits industry? Why is this startup targeting this market?

Well, according to the funding press release, businesses in the drinks industry face specific challenges, including:

1. Significant liquidity constraints (with funds tied up in stock and payment terms).

2. A complex and outdated supply chain.

3. A highly regulated global market that creates friction and barriers to international sales.

The company has already seen tremendous growth in the UK market, with over €200 million worth of products transacted through the platform and annual sales growing by 1,000% since early 2023. To date, Ferovinum’s platform has deployed over €135 million in funding to support UK wine and spirits producers.

“The wine and spirits industry is worth $800 billion annually, and yet we’re running it in an archaic and inefficient way,” said Mitchel Fowler, Ferovinum Co-founder & CEO.

👉️ You can read more about this deal here.

More Series A interesting stories:

🇫🇷 Lyon-based Brenus Pharma raises €22.2 million for precision cancer vaccines.

🇫🇷 Paris-based Inbolt raises €15 million to make industrial robots smarter with AI.

🇫🇷 Paris-based Wegrow, a software platform that enables companies to share and scale business best practices, raises €7 million.

🇪🇪 Estonian Patchstack raise €4.5 million Series A for its open-source cybersecurity tool.

SEED
Berlin-based startup Sirius raises €3.6 million for its online music school

🇩🇪 Berlin-based startup Sirius has secured €3.6 million in seed funding to further develop its innovative online music school platform.

This startup, founded in 2020, is on a mission to empower musicians by offering online lessons at the highest level. 🎻 

If you’re a musician or learning music, you likely know that conventional video conferencing platforms doesn't work well for online lessons, as it often classifies musical tones as background noise and introduces delays. They aren't well-suited for this purpose.

According to the the press release, Sirius’s platform matches students with suitable teachers. It schedules lessons, ensures excellent sound quality for online lessons, and offers virtual piano, sheet music, metronome, recording, and learning access.

I’d be very curious to understand how Sirius’s SaaS videoconferencing tool for musicians compares to platforms like Google Meet. That said, raising over €3 million is a significant milestone, and I’m sure they have something that sets Sirius apart from the rest.

👉️ You can read more about this deal here.

More Seed interesting stories:

🇩🇪 Munich-based Phlair raises €14.5 million to scale hydrolyzer-based Direct Air Capture (DAC) tech.

🇩🇪 Berlin-based Smalt raises €8 million to address the talent supply for the energy transition.

🇨🇭 Zurich-based Lightium bags €6.2 million to meet data center growth with advanced photonic chips.

🇬🇧 London-based Zevero raises €6.2 million to streamline supply chain carbon reporting.

🇧🇪 Ghent-based AI startup Timefold raises €6 million for planning optimization software.

🇬🇧 Belfast-based Reform RX raises €4.6 million to enhance Pilates personalization and the mind-body connection.

🇫🇮 Finnish startup QMill raises €4 million to deliver near-term industrial quantum advantage.

🇦🇹 Vienna-based ContextSDK gets €3.6 million to build the future of app engagement and retention.

🇩🇪 Munich-based VidLab7 gets €3.5 million for AI-driven synthetic media suite for sales teams

🇩🇪 Munich-based medtech Symphera secures €2.4 million to streamline surgical procedures.

🇫🇷 Paris-based My Digital Buildings raises €2 million to accelerate spatial building data.

🇳🇴 Norwegian tech company Ei Solutions raises €1.2 million to help real estate increase its green potential.