September 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.
Today we share more about our new tool for founders, evAIuate. And, how Adam went from Python beginner to Web App developer with ChatGPT as his copilot. Check out 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!
Introducing evAIuate…
As a small firm with big ambitions, you can imagine that we have been excited to see how we can use AI in our own day-to-day activities. We are deeply embedded in the LSE entrepreneurial ecosystem and see a lot of pitches, and unfortunately, we have to say no to the overwhelming majority of businesses that come to us as an investor. However, we want to be supportive as possible, and this led to the idea behind evAIuate. evAIuate is an AI-powered pitch deck analyser providing feedback to founders on their pitches and gives them recommendations on areas they could look to improve. To make it as engaging as possible, it actually rates your pitch out of 100 and scores the 10 most important areas out of 10, providing feedback on what was good and what could be improved. Now, in the hands of entrepreneurs, I have been energised to hear that it is helping and providing important feedback for those who are looking to improve their pitches.
Ecosystem Offerings
A new feature in our Newsletter, we want to share details of LSE-alumni businesses that are building products for the community, this month we are highlighting:
Stackfix - founded by Camin McCluskey - Stackfix offer personalised software recommendations and guides founders to the right products fast with an expert advisor. Stackfix is free for founders and they are offering priority access to LSE alums.
If you’d like to feature in next month’s newsletter with an offer to the LSE startup community, please do get in touch!
Community News & Updates
Houghton Street Ventures
We are in the midst of finalising our ninth and tenth investments from the fund. The portfolio companies that we can share information are up to some very exciting work:
Comet launched their satellite store offering for e-commerce brands and publishers, turning any digital platform into a customisable e-commerce storefront. If you’re an e-commerce brand or content creator looking to maximise your affiliate conversions, please do get in touch.
Stacy Edgar at Venteur shared more about how they are using AI trained on 30 years of health insurance claims data to help their users make more informed decisions on the most suitable healthcare for their needs.
Raylo ran a successful crowdfunding round with Crowdcube and raised £1.25m from 350 investors to accelerate their mission of a circular economy in consumer electronics.
London School of Economics
LSE’s Open Innovation programme is open to project proposals. This is an opportunity to receive pro bono open innovation consultancy and expertise from MSc Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship or Management of Information Systems & Digital Innovations students. Please see brochure for further details. If you would like to sponsor a project, submit a proposal by 12th December 2023.
LSE Generate is launching a new programme for food & beverage entrepreneurs. If you’re an aspiring F&B founder, the launch event is taking place on November 23rd with an exciting panel of industry experts. Book your ticket here
Big Deals
Finematter - founded by Caroline Chalmer - raised a €2.6m Seed round led by Heartcore Capital
Awell Health - founded by Yann Buydens - raised a $5m Seed round led by Octopus Ventures
Rated - founded by Elias Simos - raised a $12.8m Series A led by Archetype Ventures
Plan A - founded by Lubomila Jordanova - raised a $27m Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners
Bright Money - founded by Avi Patchava - raised a $12m Series B led by Hummingbird & Peak XV Partners
In the News
VIDA, featured in Tech EU discussing how their geospatial climate risk software is assisting in new infrastructure development
Plan A, featured in TechCrunch with their latest fundraise and how they are taking the European carbon accounting market by storm
HelloBetter featured in Tech EU with how their evidence-based mental health programmes are contributing towards global mental health research
Meet the Team
If our paths cross or if you’re swinging by London, come visit us in the LSE library - we’d love to catch up, let us know!
Best,
David, Hannah, and Adam