Analysis

April 4, 2023

Seed funding March 2023: Fuel from thin air, faster cancer treatments and food waste fighters

Here are some of the rounds that caught Sifted's eye this month


Sadia Nowshin

4 min read

Evan Testa (right) and his cofounders of Roundtable

European startups raised around €413m across 272 seed rounds in March, continuing the year’s trend of a slight month-on-month decline, compared to February’s €423m across 273 rounds.

Despite the slight dip, there were still some promising startups that secured fresh funding, from those making hydrocarbons out of thin air (literally) and a platform to rid the angel community of WhatsApp groups, to a novel blood-testing method using menstrual blood and — of course — a bunch of teams innovating using AI. 

The rivalries between fintech, SaaS and health continues — and this month, SaaS topped the table with €56m, followed by fintech’s €48m and healthtech with €40m. 

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The battle between the countries at the top of the league continued, too: the UK retained gold with €96m in seed funding, despite raising €51m less than it did in February. Familiar competitors Germany and France took second and third place respectively, drumming up €81m and €54m each. 

March’s highest value seed rounds were a little more modest compared to some of the sky-high closes of previous months: Germany’s gene editing techbio startup Seamless Therapeutics raised the most with $12.5m, followed by climate tech Lun, which helps remove barriers to heat pump installation, with a €10.3m round. 

Here are some of the seed rounds that caught our eye in March.

Fintech

Connect Earth gives financial institutions, like banks and fintechs, tools to help their customers understand the climate impact of their transactions, by embedding carbon tracking or accounting into their products. The software can estimate the carbon data of every transaction, allowing consumers to make more sustainable purchases, and offers institutions a way to measure the impact of the SMEs they finance. The UK-based startup raised €5.1m in seed funding, led by Gresham House Ventures. 

As more founders and VCs look to dip their toes in angel investing, platforms for several individuals to invest as a collective rather than cluttering cap tables with smaller cheques have emerged. The UK’s Roundtable is one of them, and it raised €3m from the angels who use its service — including from Station F’s Roxanne Varza. Alongside offering a way for angels to invest together, it also provides a communication interface for like-minded groups to share investment opportunities, effectively eliminating the need for angel WhatsApp groups. 

London-based Ramp, which automates revenue forecasting for finance teams, secured $5m in a round led by AlbionVC and Eurazeo. The platform lets users map out potential scenarios based on the outcome of different hypothetical decisions, and even predicts the right amount of marketing spend based on optimal impact. 

Climate

Denmark-based startup Lun, which saw the sector’s biggest round of the month with €10.3m according to Dealroom, offers heat pump installers tools to plan a more streamlined installation process and speed up getting greener energy solutions into residential homes. Norrsken VC, Partech and Lowercarbon Capital all pitched in to the round. 

Atlas Metrics, which helps companies collect and manage ESG data, raised €5.2m in a round led by b2venture (formerly btov Partners) and Cherry Ventures. The German platform allows teams to produce ESG reports that are compliant with EU regulations.

Germany-based carbon-removal startup Greenlyte Carbon Technologies is developing technology that turns outdoor air into hydrocarbons, creating an alternative to fossil fuels. A spinout from the University of Duisburg-Essen, it drummed up $3.5m from Earlybird Venture Capital, plus Green Generation Fund and Carbon Removal Partners. 

OneThird, a Dutch startup working to reduce food waste in supply chains, secured €2.75m in additional seed funding from Halma, SHIFT Invest, Pymwymic and Oost NL. The company is working on handheld product scanners that predict the shelf life of fresh produce, plus a cloud-based platform to record and analyse data based on things like how seasonal changes affect food life.

Artificial Intelligence 

MVision AI uses AI to automate the planning of radiotherapy cancer treatments for healthcare providers, with the aim of streamlining the process and speeding up waiting times. The Helsinki-based startup’s 3D organ modelling and automated segmentation tools speed up the process of locating tumours and identifying at-risk organs before radiotherapy can be carried out, which can take weeks if done manually. It raised €5.4m from J12 Ventures and Voima Ventures.

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Humani, a Danish personal development app that uses AI-powered assessments to identify a user’s strengths or weaknesses, raised €2m led by Dreamcraft Ventures. The startup uses the results of the tests to offer guidance and career advice tailored to the individual. 

Techbio and healthtech

Dresden-based Seamless Therapeutics took the month’s largest seed round, raising $12.5m in a round co-led by Wellington Partners and Forbion. The company is developing technology to improve the use of gene editing to treat serious diseases. It also received non-dilutive financing from BMBF GO-Bio, an initiative by the German government to support startups in the life sciences sector. 

Theblood, a Berlin-based startup, offers a test kit for B2C digital healthcare customers to discover personal health data from menstrual blood. The company says it can analyse the blood to find insights on cycle-related health problems and provide individual health reports — it secured €1m in funding from investors including RoX Health and healthtech angel investor Dr Fiona Pathiraja.

Sadia Nowshin

Sadia Nowshin is a reporter at Sifted covering foodtech, biotech and startup life. Follow her on X and LinkedIn