London is up to its usual tricks with Starling Bank and e-commerce data analytics platform Conjura securing tech funding.
Starling Bank has completed an internal fundraise of £130.5 million at a pre-money valuation of more than £2.5 billion.
Conjura has charmed the right people and announced it raised €15 million (£12.6 million) in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Act Venture Capital and MiddleGame Ventures, with participation from Tribal VC.
Succinct Starling
In a remarkably brief announcement, a Starling Bank spokesperson says: “This will enable us to continue our growth and to build a war chest for acquisitions. We are looking at a number of potential targets.”
That was it in terms of official details but based on Crunchbase data existing investors include Goldman Sachs, Qatar Investment Authority and Fidelity.
The previous funding was in April 2021, when the challenger bank received a £50 million investment by Goldman Sachs. The investment was an extension of the bank’s oversubscribed £272 million Series D funding round announced in March 2021, which valued it in excess of £1.1 billion pre-money.
Starling has made two acquisitions so far. In November 2021 it bought the £1 billion home loans portfolio from Kensington Mortgages. While in July 2021 it acquired the specialist buy-to-let mortgage lender Fleet Mortgages in a £50 million cash and share deal.
As reported in September 2021, Starling revealed its plans to make its Banking as a Service (BaaS) solution offering available in the EU, including France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. It’s aiming for H1 2022, subject to regulatory approval.
The bank has offices in Southampton, Cardiff and Dublin. According to its website, it has opened more than 2.8 million customer accounts.
Magical Days at Conjura
Conjura says it will use the capital to enhance its e-commerce solutions. It also plans to broaden its UK and Ireland operations and expand into several international markets simultaneously. The firm has an office in Dublin and was founded in Ireland in 2018.
Conjura provides e-commerce data analytics for businesses on a cloud-based platform. The tech company explains that it combines data from fulfillment, warehousing and supply chain sources, with online/offline sales and marketplace transactions and customer metrics.
“Consumers last year spent over $175 billion [£137.7 billion] online with UK merchants, and those sales are expected to grow by more than 10% in 2022 – representing a market value of at least $200 billion [£157.3 billion]. The relentless growth of e-commerce combined with rising customer expectations has meant that the need for businesses to maximise performance and differentiate themselves from their competition has never been as acute,” states Fran Quilty, CEO and Co-Founder of Conjura.
Conjura integrates with various e-commerce tools and systems. Its clients include Naturecan, Wild, Saint+Sofia, Percival and CleanCo.
