May 2023 | Community Newsletter
Hello,
Welcome back to the Houghton Street Ventures Community newsletter, our monthly update on what’s happening within the LSE startup and venture ecosystem. We have some exciting events over the next couple of weeks:
Today, after a short reporting delay, we are able to share details of our first investment from the fund, Comet. We invested in Comet, founded by LSE alumni Andrew Shaw and Amit Siwal, as part of their pre-seed round in November 2022 alongside Valar Ventures and HV Capital. See the full blog below.
If you’re interested in learning more about Houghton Street Ventures, we’d love to hear from you. Or if you have ideas about future content or collaborations, just hit reply!
Why we invested in Comet…
In November 2022, Houghton Street Ventures marked its initial investment from Fund I by participating in Comet’s pre-seed funding round, backing serial founder, and high-growth operator team - Andrew Shaw and Amit Siwal. The round was led by Valar Ventures and HV Capital, with participation from Houghton Street Ventures and Antler.
The digital marketing environment underwent a dramatic shift in 2022, with Apple implementing a new 'privacy-centric' policy. Paid channels that once yielded substantial success, including social media and SEO, grappled with steep declines in performance. As a result, customer acquisition costs soared, witnessing a surge of up to 50% within a single year. This unprecedented change sent brands scrambling to identify alternative and more efficient methods to connect with their consumers - the solution: distributed commerce.
Community News & Updates
Houghton Street Ventures
We have been working hard on closing two new investments including a fintech opportunity in South America, transforming the B2B payments landscape. We’ll have more to share on these in the coming weeks and months.
It’s been a busy month on the travel front - Hannah met with alum founders/ VCs in San Francisco and her and Adam both took a trip to Paris to host a panel and drinks event with LSE Generate, bringing together founders and VCs in the French ecosystem.
LSE Generate kicked off their latest GAP accelerator programme and this cohort is one of the strongest yet, including exited entrepreneurs at Training Marketplace; Entrepreneur First graduates, Flare; and one of the leading communities for female professionals in LATAM, Afroricas. Book your slot at the GAP demo day on the 14th July here
Big Deals
Audioshake - founded by Luke Miner - raised a $3.3m Seed led by Indicator and Precursor Ventures
HelloBetter - founded by Dr Elena Heber - raised a $7m Series A led by MassMutual Ventures
Elementl - founded by Nick Schrock - raised a $33m Series B led by Georgian and Sequoia
SellerX - founded by Philipp Triebel - raised a $60m growth round by Sofina
Insider - founded by Hande Cilingir, Arda Koterin, Serhat Soyuerel - raised a $105m Series E led by the Qatar Investment Authority
In the News
Two LSE startups, Kita and Abatable, featured in Sifted’s list of climate fintechs to watch. Kita are building the first carbon removal insurance product, while Abatable are building a marketplace for trusted carbon offsets
Insider, featured in Bloomberg following their latest fundraise valuing them at almost $2 billion. Hear more from Hande Cilingir here about their meteoric rise in the Asian markets
Minoa landed in Forbes following the close of their Seed round to help SaaS sales and procurement managers navigate the maze of the many applications modern businesses use daily
Meet the Team
The team will be in:
Berlin: 28 - 30th June
New York: 19 - 23rd July
If our paths cross or if you’re swinging by London, come visit us in the 5th floor of the LSE library - we’d love to catch up, let us know!
Best,
Hannah, Adam, and David