Techstart Ventures is a venture capital fund manager operating in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The female-founded corporate gifting platform has closed a seed round backed by Clarendon Fund Managers and Techstart Ventures.
"Needi's seamless, tech-driven solution to sourcing high quality, unique gifts has the potential to revolutionise corporate gifting strategies."
The pre-seed round was led by Techstart Ventures and Ascension VC to support platform development and hiring.
"There are some 20,000 speech therapists in the UK with 5,000 in private practice and 15,000 in the NHS, many of whom are keen to take on part-time private work. If we can unlock this pool of talent, it goes some way towards alleviating the problem and helping parents to get an assessment within days not years"
Singular led the Series A investment alongside existing backers Credo, Playfair, and Techstart Ventures to fund team expansion and international growth.
"If we are going to deliver the energy transition required in time to meet global climate goals, we need to completely rethink worldwide energy infrastructure – transforming what we have, but also building considerably more, and doing so at an unprecedented pace. The best way to do that is to work smarter, not harder – as highlighted by the UK Electricity Networks Commissioner, automated infrastructure planning processes, such as those that we provide, have a big part to play. But the impact of technology needn’t be limited to the planning stage – we’re excited to bring its transformative power to developers throughout the development process as we continue to grow with this new funding."
The seed round was led by Techstart with participation from international funds and angel investors.
"We are proud of the partners we have brought on board during this funding round, because they are dedicated to supporting us in our mission to eradicate single-use plastic waste. With this funding, we are building tools that will help businesses create sustainable packaging strategies to meet changing customer demands, legal requirements, and show the economic return that reusable packaging can generate. Our goal is to show businesses that environmental choices are also economic ones and this funding is a crucial step towards that goal."
The funding round was co-led by PropTech1 and JLL Spark to expand the hybrid workspace platform internationally.
"We’ve come a long way from launching our initial product from our living rooms in Edinburgh, to working at a global scale with some of the biggest companies in the world as they fundamentally rethink the way they utilise office space. We established Desana ahead of one of the biggest shifts in working culture for generations, and this unprecedented transition has driven a huge amount of growth for us. But, given the scale of the change in this industry, we believe that there’s still so much more to come."
