QVentures has backed the online marketplace for affordable art in its latest seed round.
"Millennials and Gen-Z are buying art like never before. The alternatives to access affordable art today are not specifically designed to trade art and so the process to discover as a buyer and upload as an artist is dull and unfit for purpose. We believe that digital art is the stepping stone for millennials and Gen-Z to engage with the NFT market and are very excited to be supporting Odie and the BRUSHWRK team as they challenge traditional ways of the art market."
The funding round was backed by Octopus Ventures, Headline, Volution, Verso Capital, and Channel 4 Ventures, alongside a retail crowdfunding campaign.
"We’re delighted to have such great support from the VC community as well as ‘the Crowd’. There’s significant momentum behind revolutionising the life insurance space, but there is also a much broader opportunity for our deathwish platform which allows people to plan exactly what they want to happen when they die. We’re here to help our customers think about how they want to be remembered and enable those wishes to be tied into their life insurance plan, to give it a real meaning."
The financing round was led by Love Ventures with participation from fintech advisor John Lunn.
"Detected can find any legitimate company in the world instantly. KYB is currently seen as an operational hurdle when it should be an asset, and our technology is steering that shift. Detected gives businesses full visibility of any entity they want to work with, significantly reducing the friction involved in onboarding suppliers. In that way, it can help stimulate business activity, especially when working with clients, suppliers or partners in emerging markets."
Octopus Ventures led the seed financing round, which included participation from Deeptech Labs and Cambridge Enterprise.
"Construction is one of the world economy’s largest sectors, worth £7 trillion. McKinsey estimates that if the productivity levels were to catch up with the progress made by other sectors over the past 20 years or with the total economy, it could increase the industry’s value added by £1.2 trillion a year. We’re delighted to be backing such a formidable founder who is taking on a giant industry and we’re excited by BKwai because it is giving the industry the tools it needs to meet its potential. Not only is it helping companies optimise their builds and assets, it is also moving the industry to more green, sustainable practices that have long-term impact."
The oversubscribed funding round includes participation from Mercia Asset Management, Calculus Capital, Downing Ventures, and BGF.
"We are delighted that our investors have emphatically and unanimously backed our vision to become leaders in next generation affinity reagents following the achievement of the key milestones we set together 18 months ago. We will continue to bring highly talented and experienced people to the business at all levels to accelerate our growth. This will be delivered by completing the industrialisation of our technology in targeted applications and bringing exciting new products to market to address unmet needs with high performance customer-centric solutions, which in turn will drive market adoption."
