Everything centres on London with Birdie, Distributed, Ophelos and Bondsmith picking up tech funding.
Healthcare technology platform Birdie is not in a ‘fowl’ mood as it has raised $30 million (£25 million) in a Series B funding round.
Distributed, a provider of on-demand software teams, has secured £8 million in a follow-on funding round, co-led by Downing Ventures and Guinness Ventures.
Ophelos, which uses AI for the debt resolution process, has raised a seed round of £5 million.
Wealth management platform FNZ has led a Series A investment in Bondsmith, a fintech providing cash management and savings solutions for the wealth industry.
Game On for Birdie
Birdie was founded in 2017 and works with over 700 care businesses, including Alina Homecare, Medacs Healthcare and Care at Home Group.
The healthtech firm provides a solution that supports those doing care visits. Such as building rotas, billing clients, auditing and coordinating with local GPs.
Birdie says it has two new investors, Sofina and OMERS Ventures, and follow-on investment from Index Ventures. The latest round takes the total investment in Birdie to $52 million (£43 million).
The company seems to be in a healthy state and explains that over the past 12 months the demand for Birdie technology has increased threefold.
The funding will be used to develop support articles, in-app tips, creating a one-stop resource hub, product development and European expansion plans.
The UK’s healthtech sector is not in a frail state as there’s plenty of action going. In an eWeek UK scoop we recently reported on Oplinx preparing to unveil its app for the world of medical communications.
Distributed Shares the News
Distributed will use the latest investment to target the “private talent cloud market” and extend the international reach of its Elastic Team of freelance developers.
Existing seed investors, Fuel Ventures, and professional services firm Capita, also contributed to the funding round.
The tech firm is in a good mood as it picked up a £30 million partnership with BT in February. Together with the company’s Series A fundraise of £5 million in May 2021, Distributed’s total investment secured now stands at £17 million.
In addition to this financial investment, Distributed has acquired core IP that “will accelerate product development by approximately six months”.
Advantage to Ophelos
Ophelos is a pending B-corp and its name is probably derived from the Greek word ‘ophello’, meaning to ‘accumulate’ or ‘benefit’.
Despite the mythical feel to its name, the reality for the fintech company is a pleasant one.
The funding round was led by AlbionVC, which has previously invested in fintechs such as Quantexa and Credit Kudos. Contributions were also made by Vast Ventures, Connect Ventures, Fly Ventures and a group of angel investors.
Launched in 2021 by Amon Ghaiumy, Paul Chong and Professor Qingchen Wang, Ophelos’ client list includes three of the largest energy retailers in the UK, and fintech brands including Yonder, Plend and Butter.
Ophelos will use the funding to expand its debt resolution automation platform and double the size of its team in the next year. (It has 18 employees listed on LinkedIn.) This will include technical and go-to-market roles, from engineering, product, data and machine learning, to marketing, sales and people functions.
It will have rivals in a way – as we all do. Last month, Sydney-based fintech company InDebted officially arrived in the UK to offer debt collection fuelled by machine leaning and data science.
The Name’s Bondsmith
There are no financial details about the funding but the investment forms part of a wider partnership that sees Bondsmith’s solutions integrated into FNZ’s wealth management platform. The latter works with 650 financial institutions and 8,000 wealth management firms in 21 countries.
Bondsmith, which launched last year, offers a range of savings solutions that connect savers, banks and financial companies. The solution allows savers to get access to “competitive” interest rates and view all their cash savings in one place. It does include Financial Services Compensation Scheme protection, and investment and pension tax wrappers.
The fintech startup delivers this solution in partnership with a panel of banks including Investec and Cater Allen. Bondsmith says it also offers a treasury platform, alongside treasury advisory services.
The company has ambitions to enter new global markets and intends to establish operations in Asia-Pacific by year-end.
The funding will be used to support this expansion, develop its product roadmap, recruit more staff, and was recently used to fund its acquisition of UK institutional cash deposit broker, Wells Money Brokers.
