California-based venture capital firm Sequoia Capital has revealed the 17 members of its inaugural Arc cohort, a seed-stage investment and mentorship programme for European tech startups.
Sequoia is a powerhouse in the tech VC investment world and has previously backed the likes of Google, Nvidia, Apple and PayPal.
Historically, it has mainly invested in US startups, followed by those in China and India. Dealroom data shows that Sequoia Capital has made the majority of its investments – 683 – in Series A rounds.
In March, the VC firm announced plans to turn its attention to Europe and search for “outliers” in the tech industry.
Those accepted on the Arc programme will receive an initial $1m upfront investment, followed by eight weeks of sessions for the startups, including mentoring and training from key figures in Sequoia’s illustrious portfolio.
Training will come from the likes of Bolt founder and CEO Markus Villig, Hubspot marketing SVP Kieran Flanagan, and others.
Out of the 15 companies that made it into the Arc cohort, eight are based in the UK. A further two startups are still in stealth mode and have not yet been named.
The full cohort includes: Akeero, Baselime, Calliper, Choice Options, CreatorSpace, Fides, Otto Finance, Popsink, RevMap, Studeo, SureIn, Synativ, Telescope, Twain and Xelda.
Here are the UK startups in Sequoia Capital’s Arc Europe cohort in more detail.
The UK startups in Sequoia Capital’s Arc Europe cohort
Baselime
Based out of London, Baselime creates automated dashboards and alerts to help software developers switch to a serverless architecture.
Calliper
A software company that is developing a platform that brings together all of a business’s data and displays it without requiring a data engineer.
Choice Options
Choice Options is a recommendation platform for things such as movies, books and food, amongst others. It wants to provide users with recommendations whilst still preserving privacy.
Otto Finance
Fintech Otto Finance is a financial health and wellbeing platform for employees. Otto gives users access to an overview of their finances, a financial coach, as well as planning and tracking towards financial goals.
Studeo
An app that provides access to online education from tutors who have graduated from top universities including Cambridge and Oxford. The app teaches using the Pomodoro technique and spaced repetition.
Synativ
Headquartered in London, Synativ is a platform that creates data for computer vision models using high-resolution image synthesis to transform existing datasets.
Telescope
Artificial intelligence company Telescope collects data from different companies to help those working in sales. It finds potential clients, creates personalised outreach emails with follow-ups and uses data to improve outreach.
Xelda
Xelda allows businesses to receive payment through a QR code. Customers do not need to enter an email address or download anything extra to make the payment.
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