Author: EU_Startups Online News

Potsdam-based supply chain visibility platform Synfioo raises €2.5 million

Potsdam-based startup Synfioo is tackling the difficulties of non-transparent supply chains, by displaying real-time information for rail, air, and road transport to all companies involved on its cloud-based platform. The platform includes an algorithm that calculates possible sources of disruption on the transport route from large amounts of data, and alerts all parties involved at an early stage if necessary.

The startup is expanding its platform for monitoring intermodal supply chains with a new investment of €2.5 million. The funding comes from previous investors BFB Brandenburg Kapital and HPI Seed Fund, as well as business angels, btov’s Industrial Tech Fund and Senovo.

“Both the previous and the new investors are expressing their confidence in us in this way. This proves that we are on the right track. With the additional funds, we will now continue to build our brand. Our team will also be expanded to better support our customers,” said Marian Pufahl, CEO of Synfioo.

Synfioo..

Paris-based shipping and logistics startup Fretlink lands €25 million to expand its range of services

Paris-based Fretlink connects shippers to the largest hub of local carriers in Europe, helping them to secure, manage, and optimize their transportation plans, while helping carriers to drive their business growth. For those of you who are joining us at the EU-Startup Summit on May 2-3 in Barcelona, Fretlink Co–Founder & CEO Paul Guillemin will be joining us to speak on our Future of Transportation panel.

Founded in 2015, the road transit specialist has just raised €25 million in a Series B round from the corporates Edenred and TIP, as well as existing investors including Daphni, Elaia Partners, Breega Capital, The Family, SGH Capital and Tekton Ventures. Also participating in the round was the Weaving Invest fund and the business angel F Grinda.

Edenred has a sector dedicated to mobility, and more specifically, fleet management, while TIP specializes in leasing industrial vehicles, with more than 70,000 trucks in Europe. These two new investors should allow Fretlink to enrich its of..

Madrid-based car sharing platform eccocar raises €495k

Mobility has become one of the main challenges of the 21st century. Having a personal vehicle is more expensive than ever, however most vehicles aren’t in use during 95% of their lifetime.

The Madrid-based carsharing platform eccocar offers fleet management services to car rental agencies, corporates, car dealers, public administrations, and communities. Unlike other existing platforms that are available in the market, eccocar allows the sharing of vehicles, thereby optimizing fleet size and reducing the number of vehicles used (and CO2 emissions).

Founded in 2015, eccocar has just raised €495k, which will be mainly used to implement its technology to boost the digitalization of the car rental sector. The round was led by investors from Valgine, CMC XXI and Pinama, with participation from Galician capital funds such as Xesgalicia, Vigo Activo, and various business angels.

With eccocar, users are able to manage the entire process of renting a car from their mobile phone, including op..

Berlin-based automotive AI startup Teraki raises €2 million and launches DevCenter for customers

Berlin-based automotive AI startup Teraki has developed a platform that promises to bring a more than tenfold increase in efficiency to components used in automotive electronics, a €350 billion industry. Founded in 2014, the startup has now raised €2 million from Hong Kong-based Horizon Ventures and American Family Ventures, bringing its total funding to €4.7 million.

Teraki’s software allows for the scaling of insurance, predictive maintenance, and autonomous driving applications by providing access to more qualitative data. When embedded in automotive electronic systems, the software enables hardware to process more than 10 times more data – without loss of information to train – and run machine learning methods of its customers.

By applying techniques originally developed for quantum computing, Teraki is able to condense data to as little as two percent of its original size. This means that with Teraki pre-processing, applications run more than 10 times faster than implementations..

Ontruck, Fretlink and Maersk will join us at the EU-Startups Summit to discuss the future of Transportation!

On May 2-3, we’re going to host the EU-Startups Summit in Barcelona. It will be the 6th edition of our annual flagship event – and with over 1,200 startup founders and investors from across Europe also our biggest one so far! Today we’re excited to announce another highlight and three additional speakers:

Fretlink Co–Founder & CEO Paul Guillemin, Ontruck Co-Founder & CMO Gonzalo Parejo, and Jeppe Høier, the Venture Partner of Maersk Growth, will join us for a panel discussion about the future of the transportation/logistics market!

The Ontruck and Fretlink founders are just perfect for this discussion, since both are innovating and growing rapidly in this field. Below you’ll find a bit more info regarding both startups:

Ontruck provides regional road goods transportation services relying on technology to offer a management system for immediate loads and transparent prices. Ontruck connects companies with a wide network of professional drivers, with the goal of providing a reliable a..

Berlin-based digital car insurance startup FRIDAY secures €114 million in a combination of equity and media-for-equity financing

Berlin-based insurtech startup FRIDAY has raised €114 million in a combination of media-for-equity and equity financing. Of the total, €39 million is from a media-for-equity deal with SevenVentures and the media investor German Media Pool, while the Baloise Group, FRIDAY’s founder and majority shareholder, is investing an additional €75 million in the company.

FRIDAY offers innovative, digital car insurance with features like kilometer accurate billing, monthly terminability, and completely paperless administration. The startup has acquired over 45,000 new customers for its car coverage since it was founded in 2017, and aims to be Germany’s most popular digital insurer by 2021. The investment round will stimulate future growth and support further product development.

“The media-for-equity investment from new investors shows that, at FRIDAY, we are connecting with the spirit of the times,” said Baloise Group CEO Gert De Winter. “Our customers want simpler insurance products, and toget..

London-based vehicle data startup Cazana sets out to raise €1.15 million on Crowdcube for global expansion

London-based vehicle data company Cazana has opened up a part of their Series A funding round to their users and fans with a €1.15 million crowd-fundraise on Crowdcube.

Using big data and predictive analytics, Cazana provides automotive insights for vehicle owners and renters, analysing millions of automotive transactions daily to assess the value and risk associated with every vehicle on the road. Founded in 2013, Cazana is already used by manufacturers, finance companies, dealerships, and insurers across the globe.

The funding round is set to be led by Passion Capital, along with industry heavyweights David Hammond and Robert Diamond, along with existing Cazana customers and motoring enthusiasts also expected to take a stake.

The funding will support the global expansion of the business, and be used to develop Cazana’s growing suite of services, including the newly acquired Car & Classic website – the largest classic and specialist vehicle marketplace in Europe, with over 2 millio..

French startup Ambler raises €1.5 million to streamline medical transportation

Aging populations, chronic diseases and the rise of ambulatory healthcare have caused a significant increase in medical transportation in France, which today amounts to a €5 billion market – surpassing that of taxis and rental vehicles.

The French startup Ambler’s platform allows individuals and healthcare institutions to easily book private ambulances, medical transportation operators, and approved taxis in order to meet the growing demand. The platform saves time for health care workers, optimises fleet utilisation, and lets individuals book their medical transportation from the best operators in just a few clicks.

“We constantly meet new transportations companies to increase the capacity of our network, generate significant scale benefits and position our partners on bigger and bigger markets,” explained Mehdi Ben Abroug, co-founder and CEO of Ambler. “We offer the health institutions exceptional deliverability of transportation requests as well as thorough cost control. Our appro..

Lithuanian car-sharing startup CityBee secures €110 million to expand its fleet with 5,000 new cars

With the costs of payments, insurance, and repairs, owning your own car can be a hassle. Vilnius-based car-sharing startup CityBee relieves you of these concerns by letting you easily rent a car through its app, starting at just €.14 per minute.

Founded in 2013, CityBee Solutions, which operates car-sharing services in Lithuania and Poland, has just received €110 million in investment from its owner, Modus Group. With the funding, the startup has announced an international tender to buy more than 5,000 new cars – five times more than the company’s current stock. The new cars will make CityBee one of the biggest car-sharing companies in Europe.

The car-sharing market is growing fast. In 2018 alone, CityBee’s customers made more than 1.2 million trips. And according to research by Berg Insight, by 2022 nearly 61 million people around the world will be using car sharing services.

The expansion of CityBee’s fleet will support the company’s plans to enter the Latvian and Estonian markets..

Spanish freight transport platform Ontruck sees exponential growth in UK market since launching in January

The freight shipping platform Ontruck has seen its growth in monthly shipments triple in the UK since it launched in the country in January, as shippers and hauliers continue to join the platform’s network. The weight in tonnes delivered by UK hauliers using the platform has now surpassed 53,000 tonnes. We previously featured Ontruck as one of the top Spanish startups to look out for in 2018, and interviewed its founder Iñigo Juantegui in October.

Founded in 2016, Ontruck is on track to becoming the default platform for European road transportation, with plans to enter into new European markets by 2019. The Madrid-based startup now counts over 130 employees and has raised €36 million in venture capital.

To date, Ontruck’s platform across the UK and Spain has helped reduce empty miles in the trucking industry by 10%, saving truck drivers a total of €500k and over 350,000 liters in fuel. Ontruck’s platform also helps smaller hauliers to grow as a business by providing a way for them to..