“With the number of CCTV cameras set to grow by 100% globally, our platform is becoming ever-more critical to ensuring retailers and hospitality operators can leverage at scale all of their video data to improve the in-store customer experience, reduce theft and fraud, and deliver real operational cost savings. Having had a positive response from the market to date, particularly in the USA, we look forward to accelerating our sales, implementing our product roadmap, and growing our team over the coming months.” – David Owen
We are excited to announce our investment in EveryAngle.
EVERYANGLE’s platform uses computer vision to analyse CCTV footage for events of interest, without the need for human review. With the number of CCTV cameras deployed globally set to double from 1 billion to 2 billion in the next 3 years, enterprises are increasingly surrounded by oceans of video. However, less than 0.1% of CCTV video captured is ever reviewed by a human being, due to time and cost factors. EVERYANGLE’s unique platform analyses video footage rapidly and cost-effectively at-scale to help retailers and hospitality operators gain rich in-store customer insights, reduce loss and optimise their operations.
We look forward to working with David and the Everyangle team to transform in-store analytics.
“BNPL for business is a completely different concept to B2C BNPL. Right now, there are very few B2B purchases happening online. We’ve created a platform that gives total control for businesses to dictate what payment terms they want to have, helping them pay over 6-12 months, whilst their suppliers are still paid within 24 hours”. Jamie Beaumont – CEO
We are excited to announce our investment in Playter, a company with a vision to be the leading B2B financing platform for SMEs. In participation with Adit Ventures, Fasanara Capital, Fin Capital and 1818 Capital, we believe in the value proposition for B2B BNPL for the underserved SME market and Playter is well-positioned to unlock this value.
B2B commerce is vastly larger than B2C and for too long, B2B payments have been characterised by laborious paper-intensive payment processes that consumers have forgotten.
Consumer fintech has witnessed big winners in BNPL because of the digital checkout and seamless one-click nature of payments. Yet, most B2B transactions do not live online and there is no checkout.
With c.$120 trillion in B2B payments made globally every year, digital payments still considerably lag the B2C market. Before the pandemic, around 33% of B2B expenditure was electronic, compared to around 70% of B2C expenditure. In the US alone, cheques still account for half of the $25 trillion in B2B payments every year.
Over the next decade, B2B payments will see more transactions move onto digital payment rails, more tools to assist cash flow management and more friction removed. Companies have already been built to streamline collections and payments, but Playter is doing that and more.
For SMEs, Playter allows businesses to take control of payment terms. This means that they can spread the cost of software, agency fees, rent, marketing, and many more payments over 6 or 12 months.
“For SMEs, the ability to take advantage of annual discounts on software as well as smoothing out cashflow can be invaluable in tougher times. Playter doesn’t just help businesses with cashflow, it also helps redistribute liquidity, allowing businesses to invest in high growth areas such as marketing, hiring and development.” Jamie Beaumont.
By reducing friction, increasing speed and improving cash flow for SMEs, the team at Playter have a compelling value proposition within B2B payments financing, a category where they have the potential to become a leader.
“A feature of our maturing market has been the recycling of capital and talent from the increasing number of successful exits, and we are seeing very strong network effects from repeat entrepreneurs. This will see Ireland build larger and more impactful companies”. John Flynn
We are delighted to announce the first close of ACT VI.
Firstly, we would like to thank our investor base for continuing to trust us and our strategy – now over multiple funds. Having institutional investors such as the European Investment Fund, Enterprise Ireland, ISIF and AIB – together with a number of founders and entrepreneurial family offices, we are fortunate to have both valuable strategic support and strong co-investment capabilities.
We are glad to say that the majority of the new commitments come from our existing investors, while we welcome valuable new investors and partners to the firm.
We would also like to thank our founders, whom we have been fortunate enough to have worked with. While investors play a part, we know that we are the supporting actors and that great companies are built by great founders who sacrifice so much along the way to turn their vision into a reality.
What’s the plan?
Our strategy is not changing. We will continue to back exceptional and passionate founders tackling big problems, but with more capacity to support founders earlier.
In the Irish market, we have witnessed the market over double in size within 4 years and we are incredibly excited about the future of Irish tech companies and the talented and ambitious founders that will build them.
We will target 35 companies with the fund targeting 75% of companies to be seed stage through our continued partnership and support from Enterprise Ireland in our seed sidecar fund.
With a capacity to write cheques anywhere from €100k – €10m and the capacity to add significant additional co-investment through our LP base, we have a platform to support ambitious founders seeking to build the next generation of category leaders and exceptional companies.
Act is a people-driven business, and we will continue investing in outstanding founders, partnering with, and supporting them through the scaling journey.
Finally, we partner exclusively with companies that target long-term, sustainable growth, which seek to improve the world we live and work in.
We are in a privileged position to be agents of positive change and will continue backing founders that have a mission and values that go beyond financials. We know we all need to do more as diversity is still a big problem and climate change is the existential crisis of our time. We truly believe the companies that prioritise the ESG agenda have proven that, on top of making a positive change, they attract better talent, and provide a better financial return for investors.
“We are excited to continue our rapidly accelerating journey toward having sustainable lightweight materials as standard on vehicles, structures and devices. Right now these are limited by cost and complexity to high-tech applications, or premium price points, with limited real environmental impact. Pushing recyclable composites into mainstream mass-production will move the dial on all our efforts for a sustainable tomorrow..”
Alan Barry – CEO
PlasmaBound’s Controlled Polymer Ablation (CPA) technology empowers global industry to achieve their sustainability goals, particularly in carbon reduction & battery range extension.
Fundamentally, PlasmaBound’s CPA enables high-speed bonding of ultra-lightweight fibre-reinforced materials in a manner where it will effectively take on a role similar to welding in metals. This will collapse operational cycle times, extend shelf-life, and reduce manufacturing waste streams, all the while improving ultimate bond strengths.
Thus empowering industries from aerospace to transport and more, to achieve their sustainability goals, particularly in carbon reduction & battery range extensions.
We look forward to supporting Alan, James Nicholas and Xavier on their mission to lightweight global industries.
“Some companies have tackled the space in a partial way, mainly because it’s easier and you can get there faster. With us, we came initially from a services background and we were keen to understand the full suite of problems. We definitely understood from working with our early customers that the current solutions were just still only solving part of the problem..”
Fran Quilty – CEO
Conjura offers an analytics and data science platform for e-commerce merchants. The company is pioneering the next generation of e-commerce data analytics by equipping businesses of all sizes with enhanced visibility over their entire operations on a single cloud-based platform, as opposed to multiple and disconnected tools. Traditionally, e-commerce data analysis has been confined to one section of operations, such as marketing or customer retention.
Conjura’s real-time analysis is overcoming this limitation by combining data from fulfilment, warehousing, and supply chain sources, with online/offline sales and marketplace transactions and customer metrics.
The new, integrated approach to data analysis pioneered by Conjura provides automated insights and recommendations across every aspect of e-commerce to accelerate overall business performance.
We welcome Conjura and Fran to the portfolio and look forward to working together to bring e-commerce companies better visibility over their operations that deliver better results.
With companies like PayPal or other ways of paying someone, they only ever deal with the money. That relies on the buyer, etc, in a transaction saying they are happy and the company will release the money. We run all our transactions in a milestone-based way so it doesn’t give power to the buyer or seller to say they didn’t get something, or something didn’t happen, because we are managing the rest of the transaction.”
Conor Lyden
Consumers can find anything they can think of in P2P marketplaces – yet finding a place where you can truly trust the other party is still difficult.
The biggest problem in the P2P payment market is a lack of trust. Most transactions still happen offline, online wallets are quick but not safe, and traditional escrow is document-heavy and designed for large transactions.
Enter Trustap:
– They manage the entire process of the transaction
– The resolution process is preventative, not reactive like many incumbents
– Their APIs are built to seamlessly integrate with existing marketplaces and other platforms
Buyers can track the transaction across each step of the journey with funds held securely and not released until the milestones are complete, with sellers getting transparency over where funds are being sent, verification of the buyer’s identity and options to collect and ship items.
We are delighted to be supporting Conor and the whole Trustap team on their mission to bring trust and peace of mind to online buyers.
“This is just the start and we have much more to come. Today, we are opening up access to our public beta. If you are interested in joining and influencing the direction of Interplay, sign up here.” Michael Fitzgerald
Modern design tools have allowed everyone to be a designer now, and now more design tasks are becoming automated, the role of the designer is transitioning to more specialised as it becomes more systematic.
Design systems were built to scale design and development – as product complexity and releases accelerated.
Yet maintaining ever-evolving design systems, so design work doesn’t get outdated with the existing code is a complex challenge – enter Interplay.
Interplay wants to re-envision how digital product teams could work together with these new best practices. A shared space where we can work in fast iterative loops, simultaneously working on the same screens from anywhere, moving closer to production with each iteration. The vision is to blend design and implementation, automating repetitive tasks to create a more enjoyable and efficient way to build digital products together.
We are delighted to be supporting Michael & Adam, on their mission to be the one source of truth for design.
Find out more about Interplay’s pre-seed round here.
“We embarked on the ambitious journey of positively redesigning that meeting experience, based on the tools you use and love.” David Coallier
Online meetings are driving the workplace today.
We’ve been excited about this trend for the future of work for a long time, and the last two years has been an obvious inflection point to prove that video and remote work is here to stay.
Almost every meeting can be done via video and arguably more efficiently.
Yet these meetings are not perfect. The important stuff is rarely stored in the same way as over email – that can be searched, referenced, and forwarded. While video calls can be recorded, and there are lots of transcription tools out there – it’s often a laborious task to sift through hours of unrefined text to derive real value and context.
A new category is needed to redefine the experience and deliver more value to both employees and organisations, in order to better collaborate and work.
Meet Clearword – They are a stellar team that has been laser-focused on building a product to empower companies to use meetings better, and we are proud to be supporting them.
Find out more about Clearword’s seed round here.
“One point three five road deaths to zero drives everything we do at Provizio. We have put together an incredible team that is growing daily. AI is the future of automotive accident prevention and Provizio 5D radars with AI on-the-edge are the first step towards that goal.” Barry Lunn
We’re backing Barry…again.
We have known Barry for a long time. We backed him in Arralis from seed to a successful acquisition. It was a great experience and we knew he would want to go again…but this time, after an even bigger opportunity.
Barry has now assembled a world-class team in Steve Christie, Eamonn Boland, Luke Curley, Denver Humphrey, Peter Ludlow, and Patrick O’Sullivan Greene that have deep AI, computer vision, and radar expertise and are developing a unique platform to solve the enormous challenge around accident prevention.
Currently, there are 1,350,000 road deaths every year, 50m injuries at an annual cost of over $2 trillion. In the US alone car accidents cost 2% of GDP. 94% of those accidents are caused by human error, errors current accident prevention systems cannot stop. Today’s emergency braking systems can only measure approximately 40m ahead or 1 second reaction time at highway speeds. To perceive, predict and prevent accidents you need to 10x the capability of these systems and Provizio’s Accident Prevention Technology Platform combines proprietary vision sensors and machine learning to do just that. The radar backboned, AI on-the-edge sensor suite with ultra-long-range and foresight capabilities can prevent collisions at high speed and in all weather conditions.
Car safety focus has until now largely been on a reactive basis or with prescriptive safety measures, these merely minimise damage to passengers, they do not stop the crash from occurring. To prevent accidents advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) need to have greatly increased range and object discrimination capability to see danger long before they currently do.
We are delighted to back Barry again and support the Provizio mission.
“ “Our mission is to enable a new way of buying a car by building a compelling end-to-end experience for our users and offering car purchase as an all-round service. To make this possible, we are consistently digitizing all processes along the car buying value chain”. Dr. Nikola Dešković CEO
We are excited to be investing in Instamotion through their €24 million Series B led by G+J Digital Ventures with existing investors, Earlybird and THI Investments.
Including financing with instant commitment, insurance, registration, and delivery to the user’s own door, Instamotion enables a completely digital experience of purchasing a car.
In just 15 minutes, a user can choose his or her own car from a selection of more than 30,000 immediately available, expert-approved, pre-owned cars and buy or finance them directly.
All vehicles are a maximum of 5 years old and have run less than 100,000 km. The purchase is worry-free for the customer: the buyer receives a 14 -day right of return and a 12-month all-inclusive Allianz guarantee, including a Europe-wide Roadside Assistance from Allianz, who is also a shareholder in Instamotion.
Dr. Nikola Dešković and the talented InstaMotion team have a deep understanding and exciting vision around the future of this market. Instamotion represents the next chapter in car buying, and the team has created a fantastic product focused on great customer experience.
We are excited to support their ambition that Instamotion is the future of car buying in Europe.