Milan-based startup Japal.it, a B2C and B2B ‘e-brand’ platform selling well-known brands of food, personal, care and home items, has announced closing its second round of €300K from a group of private investors. It will use the funds to strengthen its new online shop, where customers can buy for delivery across all of Italy.

As the coronavirus emergency makes supermarket shopping more difficult, home delivery has become the norm. Japal, founded in 2018, calls itself an ‘e-brand’ shop, or one of Italy’s first ‘e-commerce as a service’ (EaaS) platforms. For customers at home, Japal is the marketplace for consumer products where you can find an entire range of reputable brands and do your daily shopping online. For business customers, Japal is an e-commerce service outsourcing big brands where you can find special items, as well as buy traditional items without minimum quantities. For brands, Japal is a centralized reference point for your online sales activities, offering the opportunity to directly manage sales in an accessible, controllable, reliable and measurable way.

In February 2020, Japal launched its new custom-made CMS (Content Management System) and improved its logistics processes in order to manage and process a high volume of orders. Plus, thanks to its traffic analysis tools, it is now able to provide its brands with important real-time data on customer purchasing behaviour.

Paolo Broglia and Jacopo Moschini, CEO and COO, commented: “Our goal is to deliver grocery shopping to everyone, and at the same time help the consumer goods industry to innovate their processes through e-commerce, especially with regards to food products, offering a technologically advanced tool accessible to medium enterprises. In this very exceptional historical period, we have received many requests for help from brands to make the delivery of their products to quarantined consumers safe due to COVID19. We know that our mission in this situation becomes even more important, which is why we are at the forefront of ensuring the shipment of basic necessities. In addition, together with the Rava Foundation, we have launched a solidarity campaign for the purchase of urgent intensive care equipment at hospitals”.

Among the brands on Japal.it you can find Bonomelli, Cannamela, Petti, Panarello, Dr Beckmann, Orphea, Podovis, Pearl Drops, Mister Magic, Arbre Magique and many others.

Italian insurtech startup Neosurance has announced closing a €1.1 million funding round, backed by Net Insurance, Luiss Alumni 4 Growth and a group of investors led by Mezzetti Advisory Group.

Neosurance, founded in 2016, provides insurance companies and digital communities with a platform that helps profile and engage their customers, offer relevant insurance through push notifications, deliver an ‘instant’ 7-second insurance policy sign-up, and overall deliver a better insurance experience for users.

The startup has won a whole host of awards, including the Insurance IoT Europe Newcomer Award (Jun 2016), Aviva Digital On Award (Sep 2016), the Best Italian Insurance Startup at the MF Insurance Awards 2017 (Apr 2017), Best Insurance Game-changer award, by Munich Re Digital Partners (Sept 2017) and Ambrosetti Best startups Fintech/ Insurtech in Italy (Apr 2018).

The new funds raised mean that the startup now has a pre-money valuation of €10 million.

“The trust that such prestigious members have given us is a significant milestone in the history of Neosurance because with this operation – which is a further confirmation of the value of our  solutions – the foundations have been laid to attract new capital from institutional investors, in order to give even more propulsion to the exciting projects that the company is carrying out,” said Andrea Silvello, President of Neosurance.

French startup Solaire Box, which specializes in the construction of eco-friendly wooden houses, has announced closing a pre-Series A round of around €1.4 million, supported by both investment funds and private individuals.   

Founded in 2014, Solaire Box is taking on the construction of green ecological houses in France and further afield. The Paris-based team differs from other players in the sector due to its approach and innovative manufacturing process. Having launched to market in 2017, Solaire Box’s houses are designed with 3 unique aspects in mind, including: a structure made from French pine and wood fibre that offers optimal thermal performance; a large photovoltaic roof that produces up to twice as much energy as consumed by its inhabitants; and, a digital approach to design and pre-assembly, as well as deployment of associated services. With this range of studios and homes, Solaire Box wants to enable its customers to adopt a zero-carbon lifestyle and fight global warming without compromising their comfort.

New shareholders participated in its second funding round, joining existing investors investment fund AVIVA Impact Investing, Inter InvestCapital, as well as individual shareholders, notably via the platform Sowefund, the crowdfunding specialist. The funds include €600K brought by Inter Invest Capital for the development of Solaire Box’s subsidiary established in the West Indies and Guyana in 2017.

Thomas Coquil, President and co-founder of Solaire Box said: “We are proud of the trust  placed in us by our investors, both existing and new, and are delighted that they offer us the means to work even further towards the ecological transition. A revolution is underway in the  field of sustainable housing, and this is the perfect time to seize this opportunity. These funds will enable us to integrate innovative new devices into our products, and accelerate the commercial rollout of our range of homes launched in October 2019.”

In 2020, Solar Box’s innovation programme will allow new eco-components (batteries, green heating, etc.) to be integrated into its models, to increase customization capabilities, and to integrate even more energy-related services. After completing a hundred projects since its inception in 2015, Solaire Box aims to deliver 635 homes by 2023.

Philippe Taffin, of Aviva Impact, commented: “We are very pleased to be part of Solaire Box’s innovative project. With this investment, Aviva marks its active participation in the ecological transition, through a project that also values the French wood sector. In an uncertain economic context, we wish by this round to confirm our support for Solaire Box and wish it every success in its development.”

Lyon-based startup Adrenalead has raised €1 million from SIDE Capital, and with the support of BPI France, to help companies activate their customers using “Web Push Notifications”. Adrenalead now intends to accelerate the development of its network and extend its influence on a European scale.

Founded in 2018, Adrenalead aims to offer new alternatives to conquer and retain customers for e-commerce on a constantly (r)evolving digital advertising market. Using AI, and powerful predictive and behavioural targeting algorithms, the marketing platform developed by Adrenalead allows e-merchants and retailers to design and distribute campaigns  to their users by “Web Push Notifications” via computer or mobile. The “Web Push Notification” is, according to the startup, a virtual way of realigning the interests of advertisers, the media and internet users. Basically, it lets advertisers send precisely the right message at the right time to the right person.

The digital advertising market has become a hotspot for company spending, but can also cause collateral damage for companies, the best known being deterioration of brand image, lack of transparency, fraud and the increasing adoption of adblockers by internet users. Guided by new consumer expectations and the strengthening of personal data protection regulations, Adrenalead offers a more transparent and respectful advertising alternative for internet users, with prior and explicit consent from the user.

“Beyond allowing brands to regain control of their audience, the platform offers a complete suite of audience extension solutions. Any brand can now reach profiles similar to its “look-alike” audience and this in real time,” explains Edouard Ducray, one of the co-founders.

Swiss chemtech startup CyanoGuard announces raising over €2.8 million in a seed round led by Wingman Ventures with participation of BlueOcean Ventures, and the awarding of a non-dilutive SME Instrument grant by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme.

CyanoGuard is a fast-growing chemtech startup based in Zurich, Switzerland, dedicated to shaping the future of cyanide detection, monitoring and optimization. Its solutions allow both trained and untrained users to test liquid samples using a sensor that changes colour upon the presence of cyanide – a fast and simple idea, that eliminates the use of hazardous substances.

Founded in 2016, its next generation cyanide monitoring solutions are used in gold mining, food safety and medical applications. For example, CyanoGuard manufactures and provides the best solution for safe and efficient cyanide monitoring for industrial process control and toxicological analyses. Additionally, Mines rely on CyanoGuard’s data-driven and connected solutions to extract more gold, while reducing their operating costs and environmental footprint. 

Co-founder Benedikt Kirchgässler states: “These funds enable us to scale our ground-breaking monitoring solutions and roll them out to gold mines around the world. I am excited about the positive impact that our digital, AI-based technology has on the global gold mining industry as well as the local communities and the environment. I believe that we will benefit from both the experience of leading venture funds, Wingman and BlueOcean, as well as the support of the European Union to speed up market penetration and develop further applications for our technology.”

With the newly raised capital from this seed round, CyanoGuard plans to accelerate its go-to-market strategy in the global mining industry. Alex Stöckl, Founding Partner at Wingman Ventures, who has joined CyanoGuard’s Board of Directors in the context of the round adds: “With its current offering, CyanoGuard has a unique value proposition for its mining clients that is beyond improved cyanide testing. This encompasses an efficiency-enhancing digitization of process control and a more sustainable usage of cyanide in mining operations. We are convinced that Benedikt, Mathias and their team will drive CyanoGuard to become a globally leading provider of digital mining solutions.”

The freshly obtained funds are also intended to further expedite the development of CyanoGuard’s product offering for food safety and healthcare applications. This is also one of the reasons Geneva-based medtech and life sciences venture firm BlueOcean Ventures has joined the financing round, as General Partner Sacha Haymoz points out: “The opportunity to apply CyanoGuard’s unique and already validated technology to the medical field, be it in blood, urine or breath testing for cyanide detection, will be a huge game changer for healthcare professionals around the world in the treatment of smoke inhalation victims.”

London-based Nano Interactive has announced new funding of €6.3 million to further boost its privacy-friendly targeting platform, with support coming from Maven Capital Partners, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank and existing investors Foresight Group. The investment will enable the startup to expand its business into the US, and invest in rapid expansion of its award-winning AI driven intent targeting platform.

Founded in 2014, Nano Interactive helps businesses drive growth using fully transparent intent data to find customers, at scale, across all media platforms. Called “Search Intent Targeting”, its proprietary tech allows advertisers to deliver display, mobile, video and direct response campaigns according to the specific search behaviour of individual users. To date, it’s delivered +2000 campaigns using this exact method, always prioritising user privacy.

With people all over the globe quarantining at home, there are more eyes than ever on online company branding and relevance. It’s no surprise, then, the timing of this funding round. Publishers and advertisers want to work with innovative platforms that can help them to get the best results, whilst fully respecting the privacy of their users.

Christian Geyer co-founder and President US Operations, Nano Interactive commented: “We have successfully market tested our products during a period of great change in the European privacy landscape and we have great confidence that our offering will have great resonance in the United States. I am personally looking forward to leading this aspect of our development.”

Carl White, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Nano Interactive, commented: “It is a massive endorsement of the business for us to receive such significant investment at a time of great turmoil. Our privacy-centric platform focuses on live intent rather than identity and this initiative has been really well received in the last 18 months. Difficult market conditions often provide an opportunity for innovative products and we believe that this will be the case for Nano Interactive.”