Participated · Series B · Jun 2018

Stocard offers a mobile wallet that consolidates loyalty cards, shows real-time points and transactions, provides personalized offers, and allows users to sign up for new loyalty programmes inside the app. The company serves 25 million users globally and supports over 4,000 international retail brands including Carrefour, Ikea, and Decathlon. Led by Björn Goß and David Handlos, Stocard aims to add a payment feature that will let consumers make purchases directly from the app. It plans to use new funding to launch that mobile payment functionality, recruit 40 employees across engineering, sales and marketing, and expand into new markets. The company already operates offices in Mannheim, Sydney, Rome, Amsterdam (Benelux) and has just opened in Paris with Toronto planned next. Stocard is a mobile loyalty wallet founded in 2011 that enables users to store all their loyalty cards in one app, see points balances and transactions in real time, and receive personalized offers. The company reports far more than 10 million users and has described substantial growth since closing a Series A earlier this year. Stocard opened local offices in Italy and Australia to deepen collaboration with retailers and accelerate expansion. Management said it was not actively raising but has seen strong investor interest. The app’s roadmap includes launching a mobile payment function next year while keeping the holistic shopping experience—from browsing offers to paying at the POS—as its focus. The company positions itself as a market leader in mobile wallets and aims to shape the future of retail and the mobile wallet experience. Stocard offers a mobile loyalty-card wallet for iOS and Android that lets users scan physical loyalty cards with their phone camera and display replica barcodes at checkout. The app is multi-platform and does not require retailer integration, though partner retailers can push offers and coupons to users. Stocard targets customers in the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Australia. The company was founded in 2011 by David Handlos, Björn Goß and Florian Barth while they were studying at university. Prior to graduation the app had 200,000 installs and it has since grown to more than 425,000 installs. Its likely monetization route is through retailer partnerships that can deliver promotions via the app. Competitors noted in the article include Apple’s Passbook (iOS-only) and services such as FidMe.

Participated · Equity · Oct 2015

tado is an intelligent home climate management company offering smart thermostats and services that connect with heating or cooling systems. Founded in 2011 and based in Munich, it has sold three million smart thermostats and in 2022 doubled its smart thermostat and service sales. The company employs 180 people. In 2023 tado is expanding its in-home energy management by combining its Smart Thermostats with Time-of-Use energy tariffs. To support that strategy it acquired aWATTar GmbH, a leader in energy load shifting and Time-of-Use energy tariffs. tado raised additional funding in 2023, bringing total 2023 funding to €55M, and intends to use the proceeds to expand operations and its business reach. Tado develops smart thermostats and a software platform that manages home heating and cooling with features like geofencing and open-window detection. The company is expanding into smart energy tariffs after acquiring Awattar, enabling time-of-use load shifting to reduce customer energy costs. Tado plans to scale by working with real estate companies that manage rental properties and by helping customers cut heating expenses. Management says the company is pursuing profitability in 2023 and has not implemented layoffs. Operating metrics disclosed in the article include more than 3 million smart thermostats sold since founding and a headcount of about 200 employees, mostly at its Munich headquarters. Prior funding and investor relationships (including Amazon, Siemens and E.On) support its go-to-market and growth efforts. Tado is a Munich-based smart home climate startup that manufactures smart thermostats for heating and air conditioning systems. It also produces mobile consumer applications and SaaS products for utility and heating service companies. The company's platform-agnostic approach enables interfaces with any type of heating or cooling system. Tado plans to use its new funding for further product development and market expansion and has entered a strategic partnership with Hamburg-based proptech firm noventic to develop and distribute energy-efficient products for the commercial housing market. The company raised €38 million in the round. As compliance with the European Green Deal grows, 81% of real estate companies report plans to adopt new digital technologies, which Tado aims to address. Tado builds smart thermostats and air-conditioning controllers that connect central heating and AC systems to the internet for remote and smartphone control. Its devices support Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant and are sold through Amazon and Apple retail stores. Tado engineers its thermostat to interface with the digital serial interfaces of thousands of boiler manufacturers, enabling modulation, remote diagnostics and smarter controls beyond simple on/off. Its service offering includes “proactive” boiler maintenance driven by app-collected data and a roughly 40,000-strong network of heating engineer partners. About 50% of sales come via B2B utility partnerships, Tado is available from over 30 utility companies, and pilots with utilities aim to enable demand-response schemes to help grid stability. Financially, the company has raised $102 million to date and is using new capital to develop products and extend its service offerings. Tado builds smart thermostats and a smart AC controller that let users control home heating and cooling via a smartphone app with a flagship geo-location (geo-fencing) feature. The company says 87% of its users take advantage of the geo-fencing functionality to automatically control their home climate. Its thermostat can connect to a boiler’s digital serial interface to enable modulation of heating and remote health monitoring and diagnostics. Tado offers a diagnostics portal to partner installers and service companies and sees potential future monetization via a marketplace for parts or cloud-based technical libraries. The startup is pursuing international expansion and aims to participate in grid-level energy management through partnerships with utilities and demand-response schemes. Financially, Tado has raised a total of $57 million since its 2011 founding, including a recent $23 million round to fund further expansion.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2014

ZenMate is an internet security solution provider led by founder and CEO Simon Specka. The company offers a free, device-agnostic platform that encrypts browser traffic, hides users' real locations, unblocks geo-restrictions, and provides WiFi/hacker security to protect user privacy. Its products are available on Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, iOS and Android, with other products planned for the future. ZenMate says it is used by several million users across 180 countries. The company aims to develop new products and expand global adoption of its offering. ZenMate offers a VPN-style private browsing suite that encrypts web traffic and routes it through its network of servers to hide users' IP addresses and locations. The product is available as desktop extensions for Chrome, Opera and Firefox and as mobile apps for iOS and Android. The desktop version is free with unlimited browsing; mobile uses a freemium model (500 MB cap for free users) and a paid subscription that adds unlimited browsing, data compression and harmful-site blocking. Launched 18 months prior to the article, ZenMate had grown to 5 million users (up from 1 million after six months) and counts the U.S., UK and Germany as key markets. The company faces consumer VPN competitors including Privax (Hide My Ass), AnchorFree (Hotspot Shield), TunnelBear and CyberGhost. Investors Shortcut Ventures and T-Venture are noted as potentially providing inroads into the mobile space via connections to German telcos E-Plus and Deutsche Telekom. ZenGuard, founded in 2013 by Simon Specka and Markus Hanel, builds the ZenMate browser plug-in which encrypts outgoing and incoming traffic to protect user privacy. The company is based in Berlin, Germany. Its core product is a privacy-focused browser extension that secures users' internet connections. ZenGuard plans to use newly raised funds for technical development, creation of new products and hiring additional staff. The startup has previously received support from the Axel Springer Plug & Play Accelerators. Recent investors include Project A Ventures and several angel backers.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2013

Yuilop is a European free messaging startup launched in 2011 that has amassed millions of users across more than 40 countries. The app combines the open XMPP standard and mobile-number (MSISDN) interconnection to enable free calls and messages to non-Yuilop users using a virtual currency called 'energy'. Energy can be earned through actions such as referrals, using the app, talking with other Yuilop users, or engaging with promotions; receiving calls also earns energy. Yuilop offers free calls, SMS, and real-time multimedia chat and plans to add video chat, sticker-like features, a browser-based client, and possibly a free data component in the future. Its business model centers on advertising, promotions/voucher redemption, a white-label OTT SaaS product for carriers and MVNOs, and potential freemium/premium services like paid energy and additional phone numbers. Financially, the company has raised close to $10 million to date (about $7.12M per CrunchBase plus a €1.5M Spanish government loan) and counts Nauta Capital, Shortcut Ventures GmbH and Bright Capital among its investors. yuilop offers a free social communication app for all major mobile platforms that integrates Facebook Chat, instant messaging and free, unlimited SMS to any phone. Founded in 2010 by Jochen Doppelhammer and Antonio Brusola and based in Barcelona, Spain, the company has been backed by investors including Nauta Capital. It has raised €4.5m in a Series A round led by Shortcut with participation from Bright Capital, Bruno Ducharme and existing investor Nauta Capital. The company intends to use the new capital to expand internationally and to continue to develop its solutions. As part of the financing, Shortcut’s Martin Ostermayer and Bright Capital’s Vadim Tarasov will join the company’s board and Bruno Ducharme will join as an advisor. yuilop is currently hiring. Yuilop offers a real-time social communication hub that blends conversations from yuilop-to-yuilop, SMS, Facebook Chat and other channels into a single conversation thread. The service operates independently from wireless carriers. The company has launched its mobile communication service in Germany and says more markets will follow soon. Later this year Yuilop plans to add free voice communication between users. Job listings indicate support or planned support for Android, iOS, Symbian and BlackBerry. The startup is based in Barcelona and raised €1 million in seed funding from Nauta Capital; it was founded last year by Jochen Doppelhammer, Antonio Brusola and Julian Moreno Beltran.

Participated · Series A · Aug 2012

SumUp is a global fintech that provides payments and business tools to millions of merchants of all sizes. The company has generated positive EBITDA since December 2022 and has delivered over a decade of sustained growth. SumUp says it balances sustainable growth with fiscal responsibility, launching new markets and products while keeping finances under control. Management intends to use new capital to refinance existing debt and to pursue organic and inorganic global growth opportunities. Investor interest was strong and the company reports the round was oversubscribed, which SumUp cites as confirmation of market confidence in its business model. SumUp plans to continue scaling its services and products to provide merchants with tools and best-in-class support experiences. SumUp builds card readers and point-of-sale tools and offers related services such as invoicing, loyalty programs and business accounts to small merchants. The company is planning continued organic expansion of financial services around its hardware and is targeting more geographies beyond the 36 markets where it currently operates. SumUp is also pursuing inorganic growth through M&A, having previously acquired U.S. loyalty startup Fivestars in 2021 to expand services and U.S. presence. The business says it has been "positive on an EBITDA basis since Q4 2022" and reports over 30% year‑over‑year top-line growth. Its customer count is about 4 million, a figure unchanged from two years ago, indicating mixed operational signals. SumUp is a London-based financial technology company led by Marc-Alexander Christ, serving more than 4 million small merchants in over 35 markets. The company offers card terminals and point-of-sale registers, in-person and remote payments, a free business account and card, an online store, and invoicing. Its SumUp Cash Advance product provides merchants with advances of up to £20,000 based on their payment history. Advances are repaid through payment acceptance with SumUp card readers in a flexible, incremental manner. Merchants pay a fixed fee for access to advances and are not charged monthly interest or hidden fees. SumUp says it will use new financing to expand its merchant cash advance product and support UK-based merchants. SumUp started as a maker of card-reader dongles and has expanded into a broader suite of payments and business services used by about 4 million SMBs in 35 markets. The company now employs roughly 3,000 people and offers products including POS payments, online payments, and a business banking product used by about 10% of its customers. SumUp has pursued M&A to build its platform, acquiring companies such as Payleven, Goodtill, Tiller and U.S.-based loyalty startup Fivestars. Management says revenues have grown roughly 60% annually over the last couple of years, while POS payments remain the bulk of revenue. The company is pursuing further product development, hiring and additional acquisitions as it expands into more emerging markets (its most recent launch was Peru) and continues to focus on Europe as its largest geography. SumUp offers physical card readers and a suite of payments services — online payments, invoicing and POS solutions — to merchants, taking a cut of transactions as its primary revenue model. The company operates in 33 countries and serves roughly 3 million businesses. SumUp has grown in part through acquisitions (including Payleven in 2016 and more recent purchases such as Paysolut, Goodtill and Tiller) to expand its product set and geographic footprint. Its stated strategy is to build more services for businesses and scale transaction volume rather than move into consumer-facing financial products or cryptocurrency. The company says it has stable cash flow, which it cited as a reason for choosing debt financing to avoid dilution. SumUp is London-based and was founded in 2012.