The FGB Digest brings you the latest news on the world’s fastest growing direct-to-consumer and challenger brands. In today’s edition: Felicis Ventures raises for its seventh fund; Petalon funding on Crowdcube for national awareness; and Superpeer raises USD$2m to help influencer monetisation. 

Felicis Ventures raises for its seventh fund

Felicis Ventures, an early-stage VC firm that's riding high with the recent sales of Plaid (to Visa for USD$5bn) and Credit Karma (to Intuit for USD$7bn), has raised USD$510m for its seventh fund.

Most of the fund was raised before coronavirus sent the markets into chaos, but Felicis founder Aydin Senkut has been through enough cycles to avoid sudden investment strategy shifts. Senkut experienced the dotcom boom and bust while an early Google executive, and raised the first Felicis fund just as the financial crisis was subsiding in 2010. He says “the reality is that we’ve been thinking about it for the last 10 years because you can’t predict these black swans. We’re gonna keep focusing on critical areas that are never gonna go out of fashion.”

In addition to the new fund, Felicis also disclosed it has a lifetime cash-on-cash multiple of 5.4x across all funds as of January.

Petalon funding on Crowdcube for national awareness

Petalon, an eco-friendly flower delivery business, is funding on Crowdcube. The business, which is looking to raise £100k, has an annual turnover of £250k after three years of operating. 

The business delivers by bicycle across London and across Britain with a courier striving for carbon-neutrality. Bouquets are packaged in biodegradable or recyclable materials, and Petalon donates 5% of operating profits to bee conservation charities and plant a tree in Britain for every 100 postal deliveries.

Petalon was incorporated in 2016 and three years later had turned over £700k. Petalon began with weekday bicycle delivery to London, launching our national delivery service in 2017 and expanding in 2018 to offer delivery seven days a week. They aim to increase revenue by raising awareness nationally.

Though the business now has an infrastructure capable of offering a national delivery service, it feels brand awareness is low outside of London. The goal is to utilise the highly visual nature of the product and strong Instagram engagement level to develop their online brand image. Petalon wants to build on their organic growth and are seeking investment to fund a nationwide marketing campaign. 

Superpeer raises USD$2m to help influencer monetisation 

Superpeer, a platform which gives influencers a chance to make money with one-to-one video calls, has raised USD$2m. The pre-seed round is led by Eniac Ventures. 

The idea behind the business is that if you’re watching a video to learn how to paint, or how to code, or about whatever the topic might be, there’s a good chance you have follow-up questions. 

With Superpeer, experts who are interested in sharing their knowledge can do so via remote, one-on-one video calls. They upload an intro video, the times that they want to be available for calls and how much they want to charge for their time. Then Superpeer handles the appointments (integrating directly with the expert’s calendar), the calls and the payments, adding a 15% fee on top.

So a YouTube creator could start adding a message at the end of their videos directing fans who want to learn more to their Superpeer page. And if you’re a founder who wants to talk to an experienced designer, executive coach, product manager, marketing/sales expert, VC or other founder, you could start with this list.

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