London-based conversational media platform Octaive has raised £500k in an angel investment round. Backed by high profile industry leaders, the funding round is the first external investment by the two year old creative technology startup, which has seen revenues more than double in the past year, making it already profitable. Octaive’s ‘conversational media’ technology generates ‘active attention’ through conversations between consumers and brands within standard display and video inventory.

Modwenna Rees-Mogg considers the challenge angel investors face in valuing companies and offers a solution….

Method Grid, providers of an enterprise-level connected assurance platform for regulated sectors, including engineering-construction and consultancy, with plans to expand into new project-based sectors, have raised their third round of investment from a network of eleven private investors. Including new funding and conversion of loan into equity, Method Grid have received a total of roughly £1 million to fuel their expansion into new markets and development of their integrated platform capabilities.

Digital and tech start up investment network NorthInvest has extended its strategic partnership with law firm Gordons following a successful three-year relationship.

Profian, a Confidential Computing platform focused on bespoke open source solutions, has secured $5 million seed funding. 

Angel Investment Network, the world’s largest online angel investment platform, has launched its Private Equity and Venture Capital division, AIV Capital

cheqd – a start-up whose technology could drive widespread uptake of digital IDs – has secured a £1.9m investment to support the launch of its product later this year.  The latest funding round was backed by Outlier Ventures, Evernym, TitanBlock, Torque, 3GR and a consortium of private investors. It follows their initial investment in March this year and brings the total raised by the company to £2.4m.

Futures Factory, a marketplace for selling sneakers, that merges both the physical and digital worlds through Augmented Reality (AR) and NFTs, has raised a $2.5 million seed round led by Seedcamp and Stride. Further participation comes from the co-founders of Voodoo, Kima Ventures, RTP Global, along with technology, crypto, and fashion angel investors.

For angels and other investors interested in space, Rémy Astié, CEO of Vauban has advice on how to get involved. 

A green robotics company slashing the cost of maintaining wind turbines is flying high after securing £1.6million in its latest funding round.  Perceptual Robotics uses autonomous drones to map turbines, before passing the images onto a cloud-based artificial intelligence system which processes them to detect damage.

Veremark, the global pre-employment screening service that helps companies verify employee credentials, has raised a $2.8m seed round in follow-on investment from ACF Investors, Triple Point Ventures and SOV Ventures. This brings the total funding to $3.8m. Launched in late 2019, Veremark provides an automated digital first solution that instantly lets companies, large or small, order a wide range of checks like employment history, academic, criminal and credit records checks anywhere in the world.

GoKwik, an e-commerce enablement company on a mission to democratize the shopping experience and increase GMV realization for e-commerce businesses, has raised a $5.5m (INR 40 crores) Pre-Series A round led by Matrix Partners, which also saw the participation of global investor RTP Global.  Marquee Angels and other leading industry figures have also contributed to the fund, which will be used to expand internationally.