- Round was solely filled by existing shareholders
- Deal flow pipeline very robust and accelerating
- Funds will enable further follow on portfolio investments into the portfolio and opportunistic near-term additions
- Additional fund raising targeted in 2021
London, UK – Bloc Ventures (Bloc), the venture capital company focused on early stage European deep technology investment, has completed a £5 million equity raise that follows on from its Series B round of £15 million in January 2020.
This brings the total funds raised by Bloc in its Series B round to £20 million, with a total raised to date to just under £30 million.
Over 60% of Bloc existing shareholders participated in the extension including IPGL Limited, Michael Spencer’s investment company, Stuart Roden, and Bloc’s co-Founder and Chairman, Paul Roy and Bloc’s Chief Financial Officer, Andrew Griffin.
Bloc was founded by CEO Bruce Beckloff, CTO David Leftley, technology industry veterans from ARM and Vodafone respectively, to fill the gap in Europe for expert led funding of early-stage deep technology companies. Andrew Griffin, former managing director of European technology equity research for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, joined as CFO in early 2019.
Despite the disruptions to global businesses as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, Bloc has maintained very robust deal flow pipeline, reflecting the inherent resilience and structural benefits of deep technology in sectors including high performance computing, wireless communications, networking infrastructure, and the Internet of Things . The extension will enable Bloc to complete additional near-term follow-on rounds and continue to scale its team to capture the European deep tech opportunity.
Commenting on this announcement, Bruce Beckloff, Co-Founder and CEO of Bloc said:
“The main driver for deep technology, irrespective of any crisis, remains the need for service providers to deliver more for less year-on-year. This is only possible through continual adoption of new technology. In this crisis, demand for compute and connectivity, which serve as the core target markets for Bloc’s investment strategy, has significantly increased with the demands of a remote workforce.”
Andrew Griffin, Chief Financial Officer, added: “Despite the broader slowdown in start-up funding due to coronavirus, the first half of 2020 was a record investment period for Bloc. We are in a great position to support our companies as they drive the technology that will meet infrastructure demands which COVID-19 has accelerated. We look forward to using these additional funds to further scale the next generation of European deep technology companies.”
Notes to Editors
About Bloc Ventures
Bloc Ventures is a permanent venture capital company providing expert-led funding of European deep technology. Bloc is passionate about supporting and growing the next generation of European technology businesses at the forefront of telecommunications and computing. It provides its shareholders with access to the exciting, high growth early-stage European deep-technology landscape using an approach that lowers the risk of crystallising returns.
The Bloc team has a tight complementary mix of technology, commercialisation and finance expertise borne out of extensive careers in the technology industry, including many years in corporate venture capital and M&A at Vodafone and ARM. They apply expertise via detailed due diligence pre-investment, and a hands-on collaborative approach with portfolio companies to scale them rapidly post-investment.
Bloc serves as the catalyst for its portfolio companies, moving them from early-stage to growth businesses and driving substantial value-creation. This positions Bloc as the preferred investor partner for tech businesses.
For further enquiries:
Bloc Ventures
Andrew Griffin (CFO) +44 20 3826 7100
pr@blocventures.com
Powerscourt Group (Public Relations)
James White + 44 (0) 7855 432 699
Jessica Hodgson +44 (0) 7561 424788
bloc@powerscourt-group.com
THE GAME OF LIFE 2 gives the player more choices and more freedom, offering a contemporary spin on the original game. Now players can approach the game in different ways, with brand new life achievements to aim for and more ways to succeed than ever before!
Marmalade brought Hasbro’s family favourite, THE GAME OF LIFE, to mobile devices in 2016. Now 4 years later, the studio has created a brilliant, up-to-date sequel for a whole new generation of players!
See full article here: https://www.marmaladegamestudio.com/more-choices-freedom-await-in-the-game-of-life-2-out-now-on-mobile/
University of Southampton Spin-Out Unveils Breakthrough 5G Cellular Optimisation Technology Delivering Highest Throughput, Lowest Latency Forward Error Correction IP
AccelerComm, the company supercharging 5G with Optimisation and Latency Reduction IP, has been named in the EE Times Silicon 100 list of emerging electronics and semiconductor startups to watch. Now in its 20th edition, the list has this time expanded from the Silicon 60 to now list 100 companies from across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. The full list is available to view here.
See full article here:https://www.accelercomm.com/news/ee-times-silicon-100-emerging-startups
Earlier this year, when we were still able to hold physical events (remember those!) we hosted an Investment Dinner in London to introduce some of our Scale-Up companies which are currently raising to a select number of investors.
As part of that event, I MC’d a fireside chat between a company founder – Gareth Williams from YellowDog – and their investor David Leftley from Bloc Ventures. It’s not an opportunity that comes along very often so I am indebted to them both for willingness to take part and in helping us to better understand the VC – founder relationship.
See full article here: https://www.setsquared.co.uk/its-like-a-marriage-exploring-the-investor-founder-relationship/
Crypta Labs, a specialist in Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) technology, has signed up to the national SPRINT business support programme to develop its QRNGs for space applications.
Crypta Labs will collaborate with SPRINT partner, the University of Southampton, which will conduct environmental and performance testing of the company’s QRNGs to CubeSat level specifications. This will provide high quality random numbers for use in cryptographic tasks, such as encryption of the data that is being sent between satellites and Earth or for securing communication within a CubeSat constellation.
Crypta Labs has developed a compact QRNG prototype, which uses the quantum property of light to generate high-quality randomness. The project will redesign the Crypta Labs’ QRNG using space-qualified materials and components, and test the prototype to standards that match those used by CubeSat primes.
See full article here: https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/quantum-random-number-generators-enhance-encryption-satellite-data
Channel Coding Software Increases Network Power Efficiency and Reduces Latency
AccelerComm, the company supercharging 5G with Optimisation and Latency Reduction IP, today announced they have developed a highly optimised LDPC software decoder in collaboration with Intel.
The solution is integrated into the Intel’s FlexRAN Reference Software resulting in increased throughput by up to 3 times over alternate implementations. The LDPC decoder benefits from a combination of optimised architectural and algorithmic enhancements and use of the powerful Intel Architecture and Intel Advanced Vector Instructions 512 (Intel AVX512) instruction sets. The AccelerComm LDPC implementation takes advantage of these capabilities on Intel Xeon Scalable processor and with fewer cores delivers performance within 0.1 dB of Intel’s SDK module. FlexRAN is a reference architecture developed by Intel to implement virtualised Radio Access Networks which can be deployed on any part of the wireless infrastructure from edge to core.
See full article here: https://www.accelercomm.com/news/highly-optimised-ldpc-decoder-software-intel
Every week we talk to a business angel, one of the early-stage investors who collectively inject £1.5bn a year into British start-up companies
Bruce Beckloff is co-founder and chief executive of Bloc Ventures, which is based in Farringdon, on the edge of the City, and backs early-stage technology companies.
Bloc’s investments include YellowDog, which develops software to harness power from underused data centres, and AccelerComm, a Southampton University spinout producing technology that minimises transmission errors in 5G mobile devices.
See full article here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/q-amp-a-with-angel-investor-bruce-beckloff-j9m7f5bbs
Veteran financier Michael Spencer and Rolls-Royce boss Warren East have thrown their backing behind a venture capital business identifying start-ups which provide ” the picks and shovels for the digital world”….
See full article here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/01/27/michael-spencer-gives-backing-early-stage-venture-company/
Bloc Ventures attracts over £20M in funding to support European deep technology
27 January 2020, London. Bloc Ventures Limited (Bloc), the venture capital company focussed on early stage European deep technology investment, today announces it has raised over £20m in equity funding from UK industry leaders.
The latest funding round was led by Michael Spencer’s investment company IPGL Limited and supported by a number of other industry leaders including Warren East, Christopher (Jock) Miller, Gavyn Davies, Stuart Roden, and Stephen Catlin, who also serves as a non-executive director on the Bloc Board. As part of the round, Samantha (Sam) Wren, CEO of IPGL, also joins as a non-executive director.
Bloc was founded by CEO Bruce Beckloff, CTO David Leftley, technology industry veterans from ARM and Vodafone respectively, and Chairman Paul Roy, to fill the gap in Europe for expert led funding of early stage deep technology companies. Andrew Griffin, former managing director of European technology equity research for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, joined as CFO in early 2019.
The team has already built a portfolio of nine companies and will use the new funds for new portfolio additions and follow-on investments in line with Bloc’s strategy to create companies of global scale with enduring value in the European deep technology market. Sectors in which Bloc has invested include high performance computing, wireless communications, networking infrastructure, and the Internet of Things.
Commenting on this announcement, Paul Roy, Chairman of Bloc said:
“We are very pleased to have reached this significant milestone and to welcome further notable new shareholders to Bloc, and Sam Wren to the Board. Sam brings considerable expertise and a full understanding of the perspectives of the professional investor to the table. Existing and new investors have supported Bloc in this funding round, and we are excited by the opportunity to accelerate the growth and success of our current portfolio and continue our disciplined approach to investing in new companies in the deep technology space.”
Bruce Beckloff, Co-Founder and CEO added:
“Our approach is to invest in companies in the deep technology sector that provide the picks and shovels for the digital world. With Bloc’s hands on approach and complementary mix of experience and expertise, we are uniquely placed to identify and invest in the next generation of technology companies, whilst de-risking the journey for our shareholders by actively helping our companies optimise and scale. It is a significant endorsement of our strategy to have such notable industry players backing Bloc. We look forward to continuing our journey to build a global brand for investing in deep technology in Europe.”
-ENDS-
Notes to Editors
About Bloc Ventures
Bloc Ventures is a permanent venture capital company providing expert-led funding of European deep technology. Bloc is passionate about supporting and growing the next generation of European technology businesses at the forefront of telecommunications and computing. It provides its shareholders with access to the exciting, high growth early-stage European deep-technology landscape using an approach that lowers the risk of crystallising returns.
The Bloc team has a tight complementary mix of technology, commercialisation and finance expertise borne out of extensive careers in the technology industry, including many years in corporate venture capital and M&A at Vodafone and ARM. They apply expertise via detailed due diligence pre-investment, and a hands-on collaborative approach with portfolio companies to scale them rapidly post-investment.
Bloc serves as the catalyst for its portfolio companies, moving them from early-stage to growth businesses and driving substantial value-creation. This positions Bloc as the preferred investor partner for tech businesses.
www.blocventures.com
About Samantha Wren
Samantha Wren joined the interdealer broker ICAP in 2009 as Group Treasurer and later became CFO and COO of the voice-broking division. On the sale of this division, Wren became the Chief Commercial Officer for NEX Markets, which houses NEX Group’s trading venues, before becoming Group CFO and COO of NEX Group Plc. In 2019 she became Chief Executive Officer of ICAP founder Michael Spencer’s private investment company, IPGL.
www.ipgl.co.uk
For further enquiries:
Bloc Ventures
Andrew Griffin (CFO) +44 20 3826 7100
info@blocventures.com
Paternoster Communications
Catriona Woolner-Winders/ Tom Buchanan/ Charlie Codrington +44 20 3012 0241
bloc@paternostercomms.com
EVRYTHNG announced their partnership with Wiliot to power dynamic consumer product experiences.
Wiliot is disrupting the industry with a battery-free Bluetooth tag that — when combined with EVRYTHNG Active Digital Identities in the EVRYTHNG Product Cloud — allows consumer brands to gather rich (really rich) data across the full product lifecycle while making it easier to deliver dynamic consumer experiences. Link to full article here.
