July 2022 Update
newsletter
Published:
July 22, 2022
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Dear friends of Lightrock,
Today’s markets continue to be challenged by the dynamics of worldwide political and economic events, with the rise in inflation, supply chain disruptions, and the increase in energy prices bringing uncertainties, all while the effects of global warming grow more tangible.
In light of turbulent markets and heat waves, we are grateful that at Lightrock, we invest in secular trends that are accelerated by the current dynamics and contribute solutions to challenges that are on top of all our minds.
We continue to invest at unaltered speed in new exciting companies, such as Distribusion, a leading ground transportation marketplace that promotes sustainable forms of transportation, or Mainspring Energy, a generator of clean, affordable electricity. It is comforting to share that our portfolio is demonstrating resilient performance and that many companies have reached important milestones in terms of expansion and fundraising.
We are also humbled to announce the close of our Latin America focused growth fund at $300 million. Through this fund, we have the opportunity to support Latin American startups that create significant impact across the region.
Now more than ever, we are fired up to join forces with you, our founders, investors, partners and team across the globe to scale solutions with positive impact.
With regards,
The Lightrock Global Team
We have led and participated in many new exciting investments, while continuing to support the growth of our existing portfolio companies.
We led the $135 million Series E funding round for Visby Medical, a molecular diagnostic platform with the aim to drive access and quality of testing. With its miniaturised and hand-held PCR technology, Visby enables detection in less than 30 minutes and accelerates access to diagnostics in point of care, and eventually home settings.
We also led the €30 million Series B funding round in Distribusion, world’s leading B2B ground transportation marketplace. The company is tackling the digitalization gap in this industry, by creating an online network to connect online retailers and operators with a single API, thus promoting the most sustainable form of clean transportation and having positive climate impact on our environment.
We participated in Mainspring Energy’s $150 million Series E funding round. Mainspring Energy is an exciting onsite power generation provider, whose versatile and innovative fuel-flexible linear generator produces zero-carbon electricity from green fuels. Its goal is to deliver unprecedented adaptability on the way toward decarbonisation.
We invested in Dock, leading provider of modern financial technology infrastructure in Latin America, in its $110million funding round. Dock offers solutions for card issuing and processing, digital banking, acquiring and risk & compliance.
- Antec Biogas, a developer of biogas technology, opened its first commercial plant in Western Norway, Renevo, a testament to Antec’s highly efficient technology and its ability to meaningfully scale.
- Sunfire welcomed Amazon’s $2 billion Climate Pledge as a new investor, to help accelerate Sunfire’s scaling plans and its path to net-zero carbon.
- South Pole brought together climate leaders from across industries and geographies to scale up high quality removals through the NextGen CDR Facility. Boston Consulting Group, LGT Private Bank, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Swiss Re and UBS joined South Pole's facility as founding buyers to accelerate carbon removal technologies.
- Wefox successfully closed Series D funding round of $400 million, raising its valuation to $4.5 billion.
- CMR Surgical introduced Versius® Surgical Robotic System in Hong Kong, thus becoming gateway for the company in the APAC region.
- Dataiku, the platform for Everyday AI, has been named at the Forbes AI 50, a list of the top private companies in North America using artificial intelligence to transform industries and shape the future.
- Betterfly started operating in Europe, following the acquisition of Spanish fintech Flexoh.
- Vivriti Capital, a lender to mid-market enterprises, raised $30million for business expansion and to further develop its technology for customer acquisition.
- MediBuddy acquired Clinix, an online doctor consultation platform, focused to further scale their operations and expand services to the interiors in rural India.
We are delighted to have recently closed a new $300 million growth equity fund for Latin America, as part of our intention to significantly increase our investment in the region over the coming years. The fund is backed by our anchor capital provider LGT Group as well as a select group of local institutional investors.
We have made our first investment in Latin America in 2017 and since then, we have deployed $400 million in the region in companies like frete.com, Creditas, Dr. Consulta, Konfío, Buser, General Water, Tul, Betterfly, and most recently in Dock.
The new fund will expand Lightrock’s presence in the region and will invest in themes like «Planet» – on energy transition and efficient use of natural resources, «People» - on healthcare and education, and lastly «Productivity» - using technology innovation to transform finance and accelerate business efficiency.
Lightrock is humbled to be featured in BlueMark’s recently published ‘Making the Mark’ report, Spotlighting Leadership in Impact Management. The report features a case study on Lightrock’s approach to assessing potential impact risks and negative impact, a key impact management practice according to BlueMark’s dashboard of indicators.
Vertical farming company Infarm published its first Impact Vision Paper, sharing its commitment to transparency and sustainability. The Vision Paper includes Infarm’s net-zero carbon approach and actions the company is taking in its ‘Big Four’ impact areas: local production and urban farming, land use and biodiversity, carbon and energy, and water.
Lightrock Head of Impact visited the global manufacturer of industrial eletrolysers, Sunfire, in Dresden, to welcome onboard Sunfire’s new Head of Sustainability. In a full day workshop on impact and ESG, they had the opportunity to discuss impact and sustainability, value creation areas, action plans, KPIs, reporting, and also took a closer look at the R&D and production centre of the electroylsers.
Lightrock CFO and Head of Investor Relations participated in Female Founders’ event, Europe’s leading event for female entrepreneurship and the meeting place for female-led startups, investors and founders.
We also took part in Private Equity International’s Impact Investor Global Summit in London, where we had the pleasure to connect with industry peers to discuss impact investment strategies.
Ashish Puri, Partner in Europe, took the stage at Tech.eu Summit 2022 to discuss the future of impact investing.
We were part of D-Techcon’s panel discussion, where we talked about clinical outcomes at scale and financial returns in India.
We will also join upcoming events at Norrsken Impact/Return, IPEM and GIIN Investor Forum. Looking forward to re-connecting with you at some of these events and wishing you a nice summer break!
