Founder D-Day

Welcome to London Tech Weekly. Each week, we’re going to highlight a startup or VC firm in London that’s doing cool shit. And see some of the deals that’s happened right here in London in the past week. If you’re looking for something to do, check out my pick at the end.

A couple of weeks ago, a demo day happened in London. And today we’re highlighting a few of the companies that got on the (virtual) stage.

Demo day. It’s a big day for startup founders, a time to show potential investors their company and dream that the money follows. Often, they’re at the end of accelerator programs. But there’s one demo day that doesn’t with the accelerator.

Focal pitches itself as the demo day without the accelerator and two weeks ago, it had its spring offering.

Started by Hector Mason of Episode One Ventures and Taos Edmondson of dmg Ventures in 2011, Focal’s alumni have gone on to raise over £100m.

And with their most recent demo day over, a few companies caught my eye.

Because of the sensitivity of financial information, I’m excluding specific figures below.

FlowBio

We need water. Ever feel sluggish in the morning when you wake up? It’s probably because you’re dehydrated. Sometimes you’ll feel hungry, but you’re actually thirsty. This is stuff hydro homies know, but a lot of people don’t understand how important it is to drink water throughout the day.

FlowBio tackle this problem with their S1 hydration sensor. It provides information on the user’s hydration levels and recommends how they can rehydrate.

Already they’re making a good amount in MRR from athletes and have a game plan for how to expand into different sectors (including defence and industrial work, such as oil and gas) that also need their staff well-hydrated.

If they keep evolving their technology, they’ll become an ideal acquisition target for a larger player in the fitness wearables space.

Zoiya

Product placement is everywhere. In 2022, Paramount made an estimated $412m from well-placed products in their library. And by using AI, inserting product placements into older content becomes much easier. Imagine widely popular shows such as Friends and Seinfeld with modern day ads in the background, the value would be huge.

Zoiya uses AI to insert products without any loss in fidelity using proprietary technology and also provide the UI to insert products and analyse data. It’s only taken them a few months. They’re mainly targeting marketing brands and agencies currently, but are partnering with larger production companies.

The founding team contains a former 2x founder and a patent-holder in machine learning, showing a combination of business and technical acumen.

Built AI

Real estate is one of the world’s largest markets, valued at £15.4t. But inefficiencies when investing can cause a significant loss for investors. Finding opportunities takes on average. And due-diligence? £3m on average per investment.

To tackle this problem, Built AI are (unsurprisingly, given their name) using AI. Across the whole purchasing process, they’re aiming to leverage an AI copilot to help with underwriting, valuations, screening, and more.

With strong ARR, a tasty TAM and a good number of deals in the pipeline. Built AI are ones to watch.

Fin Sustainable Logistics

Amazon changed the game by getting us parcels so quickly. The amount of CO2 emissions these expectations set causes the environment to cry. In London, 30% of the CO2 emitted from transport is by delivery vehicles even though they only account for 19% of miles driven.

Fin look to wipe away the environment’s tears by using a combination of electric vans and lorries and e-bikes. Packages go into the electric lorries, delivered to a fulfilment site and sent to customers via an e-bike.

Their dispatch system (fuelled by AI, quelle surprise), optimises the routes to increase the parcel drop rate. But they are reliant on cycling infrastructure in cities, making me think that while they’ll do well in Europe, tackling the United States may prove a challenge.

It’s brave to build. The effort it requires to make something and the vulnerability it takes to release it into the world. You don’t know what people are going to think. All you have is your conviction. And credit to all of the founders at Focal’s demo day. I takes guts to do what you did.

What happened last week?

• Unify, a router tool for developers to find suitable LLMs, raised $8m.

• Ember, automated expense management, tax filing and accounting support, raised £5m.

• Zen Educate, a marketplace connecting schools to teachers, raised $37m.

Harry’s pick

Another wine bar recommendation for you. And again, it’s in Islington. Right by King’s Cross Station in the Regent’s Quarter, Bar Rioja is a cosy venue offering delicious wine. I didn’t get a chance to sample their food, but it smelt great based on the plates on nearby tables.

But watch out if you go there on a Thursday night because you will need to manoeuvre around a crowd of shirt and trouser laden men. And there backpacks. Watch where you’re stepping.

Last week, I wrote about Entrepreneur First and the work they’re doing to get ambitious builders building in the UK ecosystem. Well, literally about an hour before I posted the newsletter, EF announced a new program - def/acc

def/acc is for people who want to build AI to defend us. Not only our freedom, but our health, our infrastructure etc. And rather than offering just the $125,000 like on their other programs, they’re also doing $125,000 on an MFN SAFE (an investment agreement where the investor receives equity at a future date, with terms that are as favourable as the best terms given to any future investor in the company.)

You can read more here or sign up to their launch event happening this Thursday.