Participated · Seed · Mar 2021

Adimo builds commerce-media and shoppable ad technology that integrates with any form of marketing to make ads shoppable. Its interactive ad formats surface live pricing and product availability and let consumers add items directly to their basket at their chosen online retailer or receive suggestions for nearby offline purchase locations. The platform targets CPG, electronics, health & beauty, and DIY brands and works with global clients including Nestle, SC Johnson, Beyond Meat, and Crown Paints. Adimo sits at the intersection of retail media and commerce media and positions commerce media as an opportunity to convert missed purchase journeys. Management says the company will use new capital to accelerate growth, meet increasing demand for commerce media solutions, and help brands create better ad experiences that deliver improved return on investment. The company has secured additional funding from FirstPartyCapital alongside existing investors including Scottish Enterprise. Adimo provides technology that lets brands natively embed commerce functionality into digital media and content, shortening the consumer path to purchase and aiming to maximise conversion. The platform supplies real-time analytics that track products viewed, basket additions and revenue, and can attribute those events to specific marketing sources—capabilities the article notes were previously unavailable in awareness-based e-commerce marketing. The firm counts over 400 retailers as customers, including Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Arla, Kelloggs, PepsiCo and Danone, and operates in 60 countries across 40 languages. Adimo closed a $3.5 million seed funding round from Maven Capital Partners, Scottish Enterprise, GWC, ESM Investments and Galvanise Capital. Proceeds will be used to accelerate expansion into the US market and to scale the business globally. Richard Kelly, founder and CEO, said the company sees tremendous opportunity to expand its solutions in rapidly maturing markets such as the US over the next year. Adimo is a Glasgow, Scotland-based marketing technology startup that connects FMCG and CPG brands directly with consumers. Its solution lets shoppers add products directly to their online grocery baskets for later purchase and integrates with any form of marketing. The company works with consumer goods companies including Nestle, P&G and PepsiCo. Co-founded by Richard Kelly (Founder, CEO) and Colin Brown (CTO), Adimo intends to use new funds to accelerate expansion of its commercial team and global adoption of its solution. The startup secured £1m in funding from a group of investors to drive growth and commercialization.

Participated · Equity · Nov 2020

iGii (formerly Integrated Graphene) manufactures Gii™, a 3D foam of carbon atoms that aims to deliver graphene-like sensitivity, flexibility and conductivity while avoiding scale-up challenges. Gii is produced via a low-energy, chemical-free process that generates minimal waste and is presented as more cost-effective than traditional sensing materials such as gold. The company sells Gii-Sens™, a component for point-of-care diagnostic sensors, and has seen applications demonstrated by University of Bath researchers in a battery-free lactic-acid sensor for athletes. iGii reports strong global demand for Gii-Sens™ across diagnostics, with potential applications in cancer, pathogen detection, and monitoring liver and heart failure. The new funding will be used to accelerate customer projects and expand reel-to-reel manufacturing to deliver commercial quantities. iGii also plans to deepen R&D into water and food quality sensors, agricultural sensors, and battery storage applications. Integrated Graphene is a Scotland-based startup producing Gii®, a pure 3D graphene foam made via a novel ambient‑temperature manufacturing process the company says is the world’s only commercially viable, high‑volume method. Its core products are printable electronic materials such as Gii‑Sens® for human diagnostics and Gii‑Cap® for graphene‑enhanced electrodes and supercapacitors. The company plans to invest up to $9.5M (£8M) to scale manufacturing, double its Stirling footprint, treble headcount to 100 over three years, and expand capex on a next‑generation pilot line. Gii‑Sens pilots target point‑of‑care human diagnostics, wearables, animal and environmental diagnostics; Gii‑Cap targets segments of the $500B battery market including drones, e‑mobility, space, satellites and wearables. Since exiting stealth in 2020 Integrated Graphene says it has won several commercial contracts and dramatically increased its IP portfolio; it also projects Gii‑Cap could address 10% of the $500B battery market and potentially remove 60 million batteries from disposal annually. The company is positioning production to deliver millions of units per annum from a new Stirling facility and to transfer the technology at scale to global partners. Integrated Graphene has developed a manufacturing process that produces high-performing 3D graphene (3DG) foam, branded Gii, directly onto any surface at room temperature in seconds. The company says this enables cost-effective, application-specific 3D graphene foam with properties—very light, extremely flexible, highly conductive and far stronger than steel—that can improve a wide range of products. Target applications cited include human diagnostics, power storage, electronics, solar power and water filtration. Integrated Graphene secured £3.1m of funding to buy equipment to demonstrate product performance and to significantly expand resources for commercialisation of Gii. The round was led by Archangels, with participation from Par Equity, Techstart Ventures, ESM Investments and a number of the company’s original seed investors. Long term the firm aims to capitalise on the growing worldwide graphene market, which the article cites as an estimated $1.6bn by 2025 and up to $6bn by 2030.

Participated · Equity · Dec 2018

Orca is a fintech focused on peer-to-peer investment products, developing a multi-platform Innovation Finance ISA (IF ISA) that will let investors hold multiple P2P providers in a single ISA. The company is also building a Self-Select portfolio builder to help investors diversify ISA money across P2P platforms and to enable investing ISA money at non-ISA P2P providers. Orca highlights product benefits including interest earnings of up to 6.5%, tax-free returns, the transfer of old ISA money, and diversified exposure across multiple P2P providers. To fund these plans, Orca raised more than £500,000 in an equity round in November, with over 400 investors committing to the fundraiser. Investors include a mix of venture capital funds, private angel investors and notable backer ESM Investments (an angel network of 80+ high-net-worth individuals). The company is building a wait list ahead of its early-2019 launch and CEO Iain Niblock described 2019 as a "landmark year" as it rolls out new product.