Sifted - Oxford startups to watch

Good morning there,

Capital cities take the lion’s share of startup funding in most countries across Europe. The UK is no different. 

London — Europe’s leading tech hub for funding — has raised €13.5bn across 712 deals in 2024, according to Sifted data. That puts it way out in front of Cambridge in second place (€1.46bn across 57 deals) and third-placed Oxford (€455m raised across 28 deals).

That said, there’s a lot of investor activity in the two university cities — most of which is being directed at spinouts. When my colleague Kai Nicol-Schwarz asked investors for their picks of companies to watch in Cambridge earlier this year, a bunch had been created from academic research. It’s the same in Oxford. Pretty much all the companies investors told me they have an eye on there are spinouts from the University of Oxford. As I wrote in yesterday’s newsletter, investors believe the next big thing in Europe will emerge from one of the region’s top research labs.

Elsewhere today:

• How to build a platform for a niche audience
• Mubadala-backed e-commerce fulfilment startup Huboo raises £45m

— Tom Nugent, newsletter editor

/A message from our sponsor HSBC Innovation Banking

💰 Huboo, which helps e-commerce brands manage warehousing and delivery logistics, has raised £44.7m, according to Companies House documents. 

• The filings were published in October and relate to the issuing of new shares in July. 
• In May, the Bristol-based startup’s cofounder and CEO Martin Bysh stepped down and was replaced by Andrew Pinnington. At the time, it was reported by multiple media outlets that Huboo had secured an undisclosed investment led by its existing backer, UAE sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, and featuring other previous investors.
• It’s not clear whether that round is related to the startup’s recent Companies House filings. Huboo didn’t respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

🎓 7 Oxford-based startups to watch, according to VCs

💪 “It’s very easy to argue that eBay or Vinted could create a niche segment, but without a dedicated community, sellers are forced to severely devalue their product and buyers struggle to find what they are looking for,” Anoli Mehta, the founder and CEO of Circular Threads, a London-based marketplace for preloved South Asian fashion, tells Sifted.

• That’s why there’s a need for specialised businesses like hers, she adds. But how do you go about building a platform for a niche audience? Anoli shares her tips with Sifted’s Anisah Osman Britton here. 

This article first appeared in Sifted’s Startup Life newsletter, which drops into inboxes every Wednesday. Not signed up yet? You can do that here. Startups can also get unlimited access to Sifted’s journalism through our free Sifted for Startups subscription. 

🇦🇹 Austria wants to be the go-to business location for quantum - here’s how it plans to get there. (Sponsored by Austrian Business Agency)

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Hamburg, Germany-based TCC, which develops telemedicine solutions for intensive care patients, raised €20m in Series A funding. German entrepreneur Captain Thomas Pötzsch led the round.

Vienna-based Idwell, a property management platform, raised €10m in funding from investors including Knight Capital, Flashpoint Venture Capital and Wecken & Cie.

Bertrange, Luxembourg-based Fundcraft, a platform that centralises all fund back-office operations for investment managers, raised €6m in Series A funding (taking the total for its round to €11m). 3VC and MiddleGame Ventures led the round.

Amsterdam-based SeaO2, which specialises in removing CO2 from seawater, raised €2m in seed funding from investors including Doen Participaties, NV NOM, Future Tech Ventures, CarbonFix, Eduard Talman (managing director and GigaSpg) and Siddharth Kambe (CEO at Kambe Energy).

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