Cycle insurer Laka has launched in the Netherlands.
The company recently closed a £2.1 million crowdfunding campaign, bringing the total funds raised to date to £7 million. The £2.1 million overfunded raised on Seedrs exceeded the £1 million investment target in just 21 hours of the campaign going live and attracted investors from 37 countries.
Support came from both private investors and Laka’s own customers, with over 50% of investors already insured with Laka.
Kelly Barnes, Laka’s VP marketing, said “We invited our customers, our Laka Collective, to not only invest and be a part of Laka’s growth, but also to invest in Laka’s mission; to inspire more people to enjoy cycling and keep cyclists moving.
This year’s cohort is heavily skewed towards healthtech companies, representing 18 per cent of the total.
The UK is now third in the world for healthtech investment after the US and China, and over the course of 2020 we saw an increase in early stage investment, from $2.27bn in 2019 to $2.32bn in 2020.
Healthtech companies among the fastest-growing tech start-ups include LabGenius, which develops new protein-based drugs using machine learning – lowering the associated costs and risks of drug development; Belfast-based Locate a Locum, which enables temporary healthcare workers to connect; Oxford-based Vitaccess, a platform which quantifies patients’ experiences of treatments and illness; and London-based Blink, a communications platform for Frontline workers.