This week we are filming at the offices of online coffee delivery service Pact Coffee. From their HQ here in London, they roast, pack and send out thousands of bags of freshly roasted coffee everyday. This week they launched an equity crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube, so that anyone can invest in the company.
London-based startup Qubit has closed a $40m Series C round led by Goldman Sachs. The startup, founded in 2010 by four former Google employees, also drew support from Sapphire Ventures, Salesforce Ventures and Accel.
In other investment news, MWR InfoSecurity, a research-led cybersecurity consultancy firm from Basingstoke, has raised £3m in funding from the Environmental Technologies Fund.
Other news
In other news, this week also saw the launch of Isomer Capital, a €150m investment fund to boost European tech startups.
Over in Wales, TechHub Swansea launched a tech accelerator in partnership with the Welsh Government. Successful teams will have the chance to win up to £10,000 in funding. Ideas.fund will take on a maximum of 10 startups which will receive two months of mentorship from brands including JustEat, Google, New Look and Entrepreneur First. Applications close on the 18th March.
MasterCard has confirmed that it will launch biometric payments for UK consumers this summer, enabling them to pay online by using a fingerprint or taking a selfie.
The move comes amid an increased interest in biometric security, with HSBC and First Direct announcing the roll-out of their voice biometric security tech in the UK just last week.
International news
India’s largest travel company, Ibibo Group, has raised $250m in new funding from majority stakeholder, Naspers Group, which is based in South Africa.
Ibibo Group, which is also backed by Chinese Internet giant Tencent, operates hotel and flight booking platform Goibibo.com,
Ibibo Group claims it processed 6.5 million transactions from October to December 2015 which is a 400% year-over-year increase.
Download of the week
Our download of the week is Hirehub. You can use hire hub to book a handyman, plumber or builder. All of the service providers are background checked for you and the rest is done through the app.
And finally…
The Facebook thumbs up has had its day. This week the company rolled out new reactions reducing the feelings of a human to five key emotions – the love, haha, wow, sad and angry buttons.