Monzo alumni raise seed round for their AI agents

Good morning there,

Today we’ve got news of the latest company to raise money founded by alumni of one of Europe’s big startup names. Dimitri Masin, Neal Lathia and Danai Antoniou — who all worked at Monzo — have bagged a seed round for Gradient Labs, an AI customer service startup for companies working in “complex and higher-risk environments”. Fintech reporter Tom Matsuda has more details here.

Plus, startup employees, we want to hear from you. A few years ago we polled you on how your managers were doing. The verdict? Not great. Now, we want an update. Please fill out our latest (anonymous) survey and we’ll publish the results in a few weeks.

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💰 A trio of former Monzo employees have raised £2.8m in a seed round led by LocalGlobe for Gradient Labs, an AI customer service startup that supports companies working in “complex and higher-risk environments”. 

• Other investors in the round include Berlin-based Puzzle Ventures and Monzo cofounders Tom Blomfield and Jonas Templestein. 
• Gradient Labs’s funding round follows in the footsteps of other former Monzo employees who’ve since pivoted to entrepreneurship. Ex-employees from the digital bank have founded at least 16 other startups, Sifted reported in March.

🤝 C-Questra, a Dutch carbon storage startup, has partnered with US company RepAir to develop the European Union’s first onshore direct air capture and storage (DACS) project in France. By 2030, the goal is to remove 100k tonnes of CO2 per year from the atmosphere and scale that to megatonnes by 2035. 

💪 UK GenAI startup Stability AI has appointed Hanno Basse as its new chief technology officer. Basse joins from visual effects and digital production company Digital Domain. He’s also held the CTO role for Microsoft Azure Media and Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Film Corp.

😯 Big Tech’s talent raids on AI startups sideline early investors. (Financial Times)

🤔 Are we approaching peak AI investment in the UK? (UKTN)

How to handle employee equity

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B2B SaaS Rising 100. Meet the ultimate list of B2B SaaS startups we believe will someday join the ranks of the $1bn-plus unicorns and explore the market forces shaping and shaking them. Download it here. 

Ghent, Belgium-based Uman, an AI sales assistant for B2B teams, raised €2m in funding from investors including Holland Capital, Seeder Fund, Imec.istart and ML6.

Berlin-based Root Global, a platform which helps food and drink companies manage and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, raised €8m in seed funding. Point Nine led the round and was joined by investors including Project A, HelloWorld and Arc Investors.

Zurich, Switzerland-based Apheros, which develops metal foams to help the cooling process in data centres, raised $1.85m in pre-seed funding. Founderful led the round.

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