Correcto raise a $7 million seed round

Correcto has closed their second round of investment (Seed) for a total of 7 million dollars being one of the highest for a Spanish startup. The round was led by Octopus Ventures and had participation from Carya Venture Partners and River Park Ventures. The funds will be used to accelerate product development, international expansion and an increase of the entire team and start expanding into Latin America, given the progress the team had achieved in Spain over the last couple of years.

What is Correcto?

Correcto is a writing tool for Spanish founded in 2021, by Abraham López Lee, Ignacio Prieto Mayorgas and Antonio Triguero Noriega.

It is a platform that improves language, spelling and offers real-time solutions through artificial intelligence to communicate with impact in Spanish. With more than 120,000 downloads, it is designed for anyone who communicates in Spanish, whether for social, professional or academic reasons.

Correcto's team has had great growth in the last year, at the beginning of 2022 there were a total of 6 employees and currently there are more than 25 people in the whole team, forming the departments of artificial intelligence, marketing, technology and sales.

In the last year they have participated in very important events such as the Web Summit held in Lisbon, #Disrupt by TechCrunch in San Francisco and South Summit Madrid 2023 where they had the opportunity to be speakers and show Correcto to an entire community of entrepreneurs and investors.

Alexander Breeden an investor at Fuel Ventures: "Since we have invested in Correcto's pre-seed round, the team have made huge strides in terms of product and growth. Abraham and Ignacio have managed to gain a strong foothold in terms of users in Spain and this large seed round will really help them accelerate their growth in LATAM. We are excited to see how this round of funding will help support their continued growth."

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Adam Harrison joins Fundpath as Chief Growth Officer

Fundpath, the pioneering data and business intelligence business bridging the information disconnect between asset managers and wealth managers – the buyers and sellers of funds – is pleased to announce the appointment of Adam Harrison as Chief Growth Officer, a newly created role. An experienced entrepreneur, whose career in funds distribution spans more than 20 years, Adam was most recently a member of the founding team and Chief Commercial Officer of private markets investment platform, Titanbay. Prior to that, he was a founder of World Golf Group, the precedent for LIV Golf. Adam has also held senior positions with Standard Life UK as Investment Director, Global Financial Institutions and with Capital Group as Managing Director, Global Financial Institutions.

Harrison’s appointment comes in the wake of Fundpath’s completion of a £4m late seed funding round with growth capital partner Fuel Ventures, one of the UK’s most active early and growth stage investors into leading, fast growth technology businesses. Fuel Ventures observed a significant opportunity to make a positive impact on the fund distribution process, with Fundpath solving a communication problem through technology and data. The investment in Fundpath is one of Fuel’s largest commitments to date, allowing Fundpath to extend the breadth and depth of its systems and proprietary data, to invest in new technologies, and recruit the very best people.

Harrison is the most high-profile of four key appointments today announced by the fast-growing firm:

Flora Scott joins Fundpath as Chief Marketing Officer, having consulted for the organisation over the last two years. Previously Scott headed Communications & Marketing at asset manager Redwheel.

Jim Way joins as Senior Relationship Manager. He brings 24 years of sales experience in asset management, most recently having been with Invesco.

Stephen Capon joins the company as Senior Relationship Manager, having spent the last 20 years working with investment funds and solutions at Ninety One Asset Management.


Fundpath has been working ever more closely with the wealth and asset management industry over the last two years, and with c. 350 wealth management organisations now regularly sharing their data and business information, and over 70 asset managers signed as clients, it has made significant progress in a relatively short period. Co-Founder & CEO, Jamie Hinchliffe commented:

“We simply use the power of real time, accurate and whole of industry data to share information across the whole fund distribution ecosystem to enable more targeted, more effective communication between the buyers and sellers of funds.

“This is a critical period in our evolution as we develop the Fundpath offering and capability, and it is vital that we can invest in the very best people. With his deep experience on the frontline with Standard Life and

Capital Group, Adam understands only too well the disconnect which exists between asset and wealth managers. We are grateful to our funding partner Fuel Ventures, without whom we would not be able to invest in building the team with such confidence.”

Commenting on the significant market opportunity and his new role, Harrison said: “From my earliest engagement with the team, I could see the enormous potential of the Fundpath model; the way in which it improves the flow of information and democratises data. Fundpath presents a new way of thinking about fund distribution, using the power of data to better serve clients. It’s a very powerful tool, and I am excited about the efficiencies we are bringing to our wealth management partners and asset management clients alike – and the company’s ambitious development plans.”

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Supportwave is pleased to announce the successful closure of its seed funding round, following their pre-seed round in late 2021. The capital injection will enable the IT Support resource platform to continue to deploy its industry leading strategic sourcing of IT Support Specialists.

The round of investment has been secured by industry leaders including High-Tech Gründerfonds, Big Sur Ventures and Fuel Ventures. The capital raised will propel Supportwave to expand its resource pool in an effort to gain significant market share in the SMB and Enterprise markets.

Founded in 2020, Supportwave pioneered a new approach to IT Skill Sourcing. Once an archaic and manual process, is now accessible at the click of a button by connecting you to the right IT support skills at the right time, for instant or long-term outsourced IT Support. Boasting a strong community of 5,000+ verified specialists, the team plans to triple this in the next 6 months.

Current partners include VISA, HSBC and Parliament Hill.

"We are thrilled to embark on the next chapter of our journey, supported by our incredible investors, partners and IT Specialists. This funding will play a vital role in bridging the skills gaps that many businesses are facing, whilst also spearheading the future of work by creating job opportunities within our community," says Supportwave Founder and CEO, Kelvin Wetherill.

“We invested in Supportwave because we have experienced the problem with ineffective IT Support services firsthand, finding traditional solutions outdated and ineffective. We were impressed by its exceptional user experience. The management team has an impressive background in IT services. We are convinced that Supportwave will be a game changer for the industry and excited to be on board for this journey.” Jose Miguel Herrero, Big Sur Ventures

"When Fuel Ventures led Supportwave's Pre-Seed investment round, we already knew the impact they would have on disrupting the traditional IT Support Services industry. We use them ourselves which gives us even more confidence that they are going to scale and take a large chunk of the $1.7T global IT services market. We are thrilled to be involved in their fundraising journey " Mark Pearson, Fuel Ventures

For more information, please visit www.supportwave.com or contact: press@supportwave.com

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Odore, the customer engagement platform empowering direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands to streamline their marketing efforts, today announces its $5 million Seed round led by Fuel Ventures with participation from existing investors.

What is Odore?

Odore is the preferred customer engagement platform for leading D2C brands. It drives brand effectiveness in customer acquisition and engagement across various online channels. Integrating data analytics with superior UX, Odore is revolutionising brand-customer interactions, making them more personalised, meaningful, and impactful. The Odore platform offers a range of products that enable brands to create engaging online experiences, centralise operations, and bridge physical and digital marketing efforts with innovative solutions like product sampling and metaverse campaigns.

The escalating changes within the advertising industry, with rising costs of social media advertising and shifts in privacy laws, have rendered customer retargeting increasingly challenging and expensive. Meanwhile, Facebook and TikTok’s Cost Per Thousand Impression (CPM) rates surged last year by 89% and 92%, respectively, underscoring the need for innovative strategies to efficiently navigate the landscape.

Odore has made its mark by offering a diverse product suite that enables brands to create engaging online experiences, centralise operations, cultivate customer bases, and integrate physical and digital marketing efforts through unique solutions like product sampling, metaverse campaigns and cross-channel digital activations. These innovative campaigns use consumer touchpoints to collect zero-party data, enabling brands to be in control of their retargeting and customer engagement.

The platform’s Design Studio empowers brands to create attractive online experiences (e.g. landing pages and emails) via a user-friendly drag-and-drop builder. An Integration Hub offers connections with several social channels, publishers, and retailers, reducing data fragmentation and centralising operations. Advanced CRM solutions equip brands with tools for nurturing and retargeting customers, fostering robust brand-customer relationships and enhancing customer lifetime value.

Odore already counts the entire L’Oreal Group (including Armani, Lancome, YSL, etc.), Dior, LVMH, Shiseido, and others among its clients. The platform’s intuitive design and reduced agency dependency have led to a tenfold decrease in campaign deployment costs, a 24% increase in customer lifetime value, and marketing opt-in rates exceeding 90% (3x industry average).

With a broad approach that caters to large-scale enterprises and smaller brands alike and first-to-market integrations with platforms like TikTok, Odore has a unique market position. The company has seen significant growth amongst their customers, with Net Dollar Retention (NDR) rates exceeding 320% over the past year and recurring revenue increase by 3x over the past 12 months.

Odore was launched in 2020 by co-founders Armaan Mehta and Karan Gupta, both graduates of the London School of Economics.

Armaan Mehta, Cofounder Odore, said: "The challenges that today's industry faces are complex, and we founded Odore to provide solutions that are not only comprehensive but also transform the way brands strategise, operate, and connect. This is just the beginning. With this latest funding round, we're delighted to have Fuel Ventures on board for our next chapter as we expand our team and business globally and launch new tools to better serve our customers.”

Shiv Patel, Investment Director at Fuel Ventures, said: “From the platform experience, the robust suite of tools, and the blending of digital and physical, everything is designed specifically for the brands, resulting in a far superior experience and very high levels of continued business from world-leading brands. The rapid expansion of both Odore’s geographic footprint, as well as its financial traction, makes us really excited to see what the team does next.”

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ChipFlow Raises £1.2M in Pre-Seed Funding

ChipFlow Raises £1.2M in Pre-Seed Funding to Democratise Semiconductor Design Through Open-Source Software Tools The oversubscribed financing round, which was led by Fontinalis Partners, includes participation from Fuel Ventures, InMotion Ventures, the investment arm of JLR, APX, and others.

ChipFlow, a UK startup building an open source semiconductor chip design platform (PaaS), today announces the completion of a £1.2M pre-seed round of financing. The round was led by Fontinalis Partners and included investments from Fuel Ventures, InMotion Ventures, APX, and others. The new funding will be instrumental in expanding ChipFlow's team, enabling the company to attract top-tier engineering talent to further enhance its open-source software tools and accelerate product development efforts, while supporting the progression of ChipFlow's early commercial engagements.

What is ChipFlow

ChipFlow’s market disrupting Platform as a Service offering will provide a new, significantly more affordable way for OEMs to design and order integrated circuits. The company was founded in 2021 by a co-Founder team of 10 and is currently building its MVP platform offering together with lead customers across a number of sectors, including automotive. Please visit www.chipflow.io for more information.

“We believe that open-source silicon design represents a transformational shift that is occurring, and we founded ChipFlow to be at the forefront of that movement,” commented Rob Taylor, CEO and co-founder at ChipFlow. “This round of capital, and importantly the investors behind it, serves both as early validation to the global scale of our vision and provides the firepower to execute upon our ambitions.”

“Open source maturation has changed business models and vastly increased overall market opportunity in every industry where it has occurred,” commented Tomi Rantakari, CCO. ‘’Even today, existing Open Source hardware coupled with our core platform enables us to build custom ICs for Electronic Manufacturers at a greatly reduced cost. This funding, along with funding from the British Government - Innovate UK, enables us to bring this capability directly to the whole embedded electronics market, enabling companies to directly drive their own innovation and supply chain resilience.”

Founded in 2021 by a group of experienced open-source software and semiconductor executives including Rob Taylor (CEO), Tom Rantakari (CCO), and Staf Verhaegen (CTO), ChipFlow has also collaborated closely with several leaders across the broader open-source software, hardware, and chip design industries, having received significant early contributions from Ian Page, Matt Venn, Michel Laudes, Catherine Zotova and Myrtle Shah. To date, ChipFlow is building upon Amaranth, a novel, Python-based hardware description language that transforms productivity for designing digital ICs. The ChipFlow platform provides cloud-scalable debug, test, simulation, and formal verification frameworks out of the box, connecting this with both industry standard semiconductor foundries and novel IC manufacturing processes, like plastic chips, GaN and SiGe.

For the first time, many of ChipFlow’s prospective customers are able to bring silicon design in-house: lowering costs, simplifying design complexities, and shortening feedback loops from design to verification. Rob remarks, “Our team has worked with hundreds of electronic product companies over our careers, and the capability and availability of ICs have been at the heart of many issues in getting products to market. Our platform replaces the time-consuming process of component selection and removes complexities surrounding hardware and software interaction, accelerating innovation whilst reducing time-to-market.”

“We admire the impressive work that Rob and his team have been able to achieve in building the foundation for ChipFlow on a bootstrapped budget, and we are thrilled to support the company alongside a great group of investors that have joined Fontinalis Partners in backing the company,” commented Dan Ratliff, Principal at Fontinalis Partners. “We’re still in the early innings for open-source silicon design, but we recognize several supportive tailwinds that align well with ChipFlow’s thoughtful approach to scaling its team and technology in close collaboration with industry players and this open-source movement.”

To date, the open-source movement has significantly lagged for hardware development, particularly for products that require custom silicon chip design and fabrication where the costs, partnerships, tools, and expertise required create significant barriers. ChipFlow aims to accelerate a budding transformation that’s occurring in open-source silicon design by integrating and building upon a set of novel tools and datasets being developed in real time. “The recent semiconductor shortages highlighted fundamental issues within value chains across multiple industries. Novel platforms like ChipFlow are critical in enabling manufacturers to innovate faster and better by reducing development cycles, increasing supply chain control and business resilience,” commented Sam Nasrolahi, Principal at InMotion Ventures. ‘’It’s exciting to see a UK startup pioneering a semiconductor design approach with the potential to enhance JLR's next generation vehicles and services."

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Fuel Ventures lead SalesLynk's £250,000 pre-seed round

We're investing alongside Redu co-founders Gary Hunter and Sam Morton are investing £250,000 in cyber security sales platform, SalesLynk. The investment into SalesLynk allows the team to focus on accelerating the development of their platform, building out the operations team, and launching fully commercially over the next few months. Gary and Sam will leverage their business expertise, network and experience in becoming board members.

What is SalesLynk?

It’s a sales intelligence platform for the cyber security industry. SalesLynk provides data, insights and intelligence to help cyber vendors sell more, sell quicker and build better relationships with their prospects and clients. SalesLynk combines proprietary databases, public data sets, API's and an integration of OpenAI to provide an incredibly powerful platform for its users.

SalesLynk has been created by CEO Ian Todd, who has over a decade of experience in the cyber security industry, and CTO Alan Easton, who has extensive software development experience. Both founders are passionate about building tech that helps clients work more efficiently, has a clear ROI and improves their performance. Initial users believe SalesLynk saves them tens of hours per week of manual sales effort, speeds up the sales cycle and results in greater revenue for the organisation.

Why now?

The cyber security industry has three key challenges; firstly, the environment has become incredibly saturated and in so, incredibly competitive for vendors. Second, there is a well known skills shortfall and finally, there are growing time constraints on cyber professionals, who are tasked with generating pipeline, closing deals, expanding into new or current accounts, as well as staying up to date with trends, regulations, breaches, understanding organisational challenges and much more.

Current sales and marketing tools are not good enough, leaving cyber security professionals to do tens of hours of manual research and preparation, or get lost in the noise of data and insights that aren't important to them.

SalesLynk has been developed to change all of this. In a competitive cyber security industry, we want you to succeed.

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Ambr, a burnout prevention software company, announced today that it has successfully closed its $900k pre-seed funding round. The investment was led by Fuel Ventures, with participation from Pi Labs, APX VC, Plug & Play, Loyal VC and a number of strategic angels.

"We are thrilled to have closed our pre-seed round and are excited to move forward with our mission to prevent workplace burnout" said Zoe Stones, CEO & Co-founder of Ambr. "Burnout is not the inevitable consequence of hard work, and yet for too many individuals and organisations, its costs are real. With the rise of hybrid work and the pressures of modern life, it has become increasingly difficult for managers to identify and prevent the root causes of burnout in their teams - with this funding, we will continue to develop our cutting-edge burnout prevention software to help them do exactly that.”

Ambr works by using anonymised and aggregated organisational data to identify the root causes of burnout in teams, and then alerts management when preventative action needs to be taken. The product is built using the latest academic research on organisational burnout prevention. The product is particularly valuable for organisations operating in high-pressure sectors, such as professional services or tech scaleups, but can be used by any desk-based teams of more than 5 employees.

The company was founded by three ex-tech executives with backgrounds at Uber, Spotify, Accenture and Deloitte, after struggling to protect their own teams from burnout. Ambr addresses the mismatch between what most organisations spend money on - such as individual wellness like meditation, coaching or yoga (often referred to as ‘Wellbeing Washing’), and what is shown by research to actually prevent burnout - reducing organisational root causes such as a lack of time boundaries, meeting overload or poor working relationships.

With Ambr, organisations can target these root causes, rather than just treating the symptoms of burnout. This not only creates a more sustainable working culture, but also saves organisations money through reduced staff turnover and absenteeism, and improved productivity. Data from the CEBR shows that workplace stress costs the UK economy £28bn a year, while Harvard Business Review estimates that the US healthcare spend on burnout exceeds $125 billion. A recent Deloitte survey revealed that 77% of respondents have experienced burnout at their current job (rising to 84% of millennials), and nearly 70% of professionals feel that their employers are not doing enough to prevent or alleviate burnout in their organisation.

"We were impressed by Ambr's innovative, privacy-first approach to solving the complex problem of workplace burnout.'' said Alex Breeden of Fuel Ventures. "Their software has the potential to transform the way people work, and we are excited to support them in their mission."

Faisal Butt, Founder and Managing Partner at Pi Labs, commented: “As the business world grapples with new methods of talent management, burnout has become a very real challenge affecting all generations within today’s workforce. We need better tools to help in-office, remote, and hybrid teams and businesses find a more sustainable rhythm to working life, in order to meet the needs of today’s teams, and future employees entering the workforce. We see the potential for Ambr to become a key tool in the future of work, one that can enable businesses around the world to use actionable insights to positively impact workplace management and team wellbeing.”

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Productive Machines, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup from The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), announced today that it has raised £2.2 million in Seed funding to make its advanced machine tool process optimisation technology available to a far wider range of manufacturers worldwide.

We at Fuel Ventures co-invested alongside UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) who led the round with participation from NPIF – Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund and ACT Venture Partners, alongside grant funding from Innovate UK.

So what is Productive Machines?

Spun-out from The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) in 2021, Productive Machines is making advanced machine tool process optimisation more accessible to manufacturers. It uses AI to predict and mitigate the influence of harmful vibrations in milling processes, enabling manufacturers to reduce lead times and improve quality, productivity and sustainability. Founded by Dr Erdem Ozturk (CEO) and Dr Huseyin Celikag (CTO), Productive Machines is commercialising the results of a six-year AMRC research project on machining dynamics.

Productive Machines has developed a powerful computational model to predict and mitigate the influence of these harmful vibrations at every stage in metal and composite milling jobs. It uses a digital twin to determine the best parameters for each machine tool and production run, eliminating wasteful configuration experiments and ensuring that milling jobs are right the first time.

Productive Machines' AI technology is designed to enhance the manufacturing processes, reduce energy consumption, and overall improve product quality. It has a wide range of benefits for manufacturers, including reducing energy consumption by up to 25%, enhancing surface quality and production yields, and reducing waste. The technology has powerful optimisation algorithms that can suggest modifications to industrial processes on-the-fly, leading to a significant reduction in manual adjustments, reduced cycle times, and component waste. Productive Machines' technology has also proven successful in reducing lead times for production processes while lowering carbon emissions.

The technology been deployed in 10 major manufacturing companies, including Renault and MASA Aerospace, where it's found its use in industries ranging from automotive to aerospace. By providing accurate insight into parameter optimisation, it eliminates the need for manual testing, leading to smarter decision-making, more efficient workflows, and higher yields.

Dr Erdem Ozturk, CEO at Productive Machines, comments: “Manufacturers want to reduce costs, improve quality and cut carbon emissions. But most don’t want to buy complex software products or hire PhD-level engineers to make them work. We are meeting all of their goals. The results of our research and innovation are proven with major manufacturers, and this investment enables us to make the significant benefits more accessible to manufacturers of all sizes, anywhere in the world.

“Our cutting-edge technology is already best-in-class in a $400 billion industry ripe for optimisation. There are three million machines in the world that would be more accurate, productive and sustainable with our AI, and we are removing the cost and skill barriers to its adoption.”

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Fuel Ventures lead Kepler's pre-seed round

We're thrilled to announce that we are investing Kepler. The team are fully focused on developing our technology, building out our operations team, and launching our first corridor in Europe.

What is Kepler?

It’s a digital freight platform that aims to revolutionise the logistics industry by bringing in cutting edge tech solutions to cut transit times by 50% using a Relay led model.

Why now?

Their relay road freight services are designed to solve some of the biggest challenges the industry is facing, such as the driver shortage caused by difficult job conditions and long periods away from home. Their innovative approach is particularly valuable for industries that require fast and reliable services in the likes of fresh produce, high-value items, pharmaceuticals, and express shipping services like DHL.

It's worth noting that the road freight industry in Europe is facing new regulations that will require carriers to meet stricter emissions standards and adopt new technologies to improve safety and efficiency. At Kepler, they're already ahead of the curve and well-positioned to help their customers comply with these new regulations while still delivering high-quality transportation services.

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Fundpath secures £4m funding round with Fuel Ventures

Fundpath, the data and technology business bridging the information disconnect between asset managers and wealth managers, today confirmed the completion of a £4m late seed funding round with Fuel Ventures.

What is Fundpath?

Launched in 2021, intelligent data-driven SaaS platform Fundpath, is transforming the traditional sales process, enabling fund buyers and allocators to share their business responsibilities, parameters, interests and intentions quickly and securely with asset management firms. This helps asset management fund distribution teams to deliver a superior client experience by communicating relevant, timely and actionable investment information, thereby improving the quality and relevance of engagement between fund buyers and sellers.

The £4m investment round will enable Fundpath to extend the breadth and depth of its systems and data, and to invest in new technologies.

Fundpath Co-Founder & CEO, Jamie Hinchliffe explains: “Our mission is to bridge the information disconnect between the buyers and sellers of funds. Over the last 18 months, we’ve been working even closer with the wealth and asset management industry to do just that. Now, with Fuel’s investment and hands-on support we can continue to innovate, launch supporting tech platforms, and invest in the very best people.

“The Fundpath team is extremely excited about this next phase of growth, providing the industry with ever smarter solutions, to further improve professional lives.”

Fuel Ventures evaluates more than 6,000 investment opportunities each and every year, but invests in just 12-15 firms.

Mark Pearson, General Partner at Fuel Ventures said: “With Fundpath, we see a huge opportunity to positively impact an important industry, by solving a genuine problem through technology and data.

“The outstanding feedback we have received from wealth managers and asset managers about what Fundpath is creating, and the scale of the progress that has been made in such a short period, was enough to convince us that we should be part of their journey. The team can be sure of our total support as they work to bridge the information disconnect in the fund buying sales process.”

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