Announcing Best in British Tech 2021!

Joe White handing out award

We’re delighted to share with you this year’s winners of Best in British Tech! Frontier, Kheiron Medical Technologies, and Agora won in their respective categories for their outstanding innovation, business scale and global impact.

UPSTART (UK/US-headquartered <$5m raised, expanding in/to the US)

Frontier
Founder: Elliot O’Connor
Frontier is a hiring marketplace that connects job seekers and employers faster than ever using virtual interviews. Since launching in April 2021, it signed employers like Burger King and Concentrix and has helped thousands of job seekers get back into the workforce post-COVID. The company raised $2.8M pre-seed led by NFX in 2020.

BRITISH LEADER (UK-headquartered >$5m raised, expanding to the US)

Kheiron Medical Technologies
Co-Founders: Dr. Peter Kecskemethy and Tobias Rijken
Kheiron’s initial focus is improving breast cancer detection so women can have better outcomes. Mia®, their breakthrough mammography AI platform, won the prestigious UK AI in Health & Social Care Award and is being deployed throughout the NHS and US. Kheiron has just launched RSViP™ to tackle the Covid screening backlog by prioritizing screening for women at highest risk. The team comprises clinicians, industry experts, and machine learning engineers. Kheiron raised a $23m series A in 2019.

SILICON VALLEY TRAILBLAZER (US-based, >$5m raised)

Agora
Co-Founders: Maria Rioumine and Ryan Gibson
Agora is an industry-leading materials procurement platform for commercial trade contractors that reduces materials costs, saves valuable time, and minimizes waste. The platform connects field foremen on the jobsite, purchasing teams, and vendors onto one platform, giving them the tools they need to seamlessly collaborate across the supply chain. To date, Agora has raised $45m from investors including Tiger Global, 8VC, and Tishman Speyer.

SHOUT OUTS

We’d also like to congratulate all the nominees again – we can’t wait to see what you do next!

While it’s been a tough 12-18 months for all of us, many of our digital businesses have thrived. There’s been some incredible fundraising activity from our Members & Friends over the past year or so.  In rough chronological order:

  • Golden raised $14.5 million in Series A, shout out to Jude Gomila!
  • Headroom announced their $5m Seed round, shout out to GBx Board Director, Julian Green!
  • Agora raised a $7m Series A and then a $33M Series B amid 760% YoY ARR growth!
  • Calm, a previous “Best of British” winner, raised new capital at a valuation of $2B.
  • Zyper, founded by GBx Board Director Amber Atherton was acquired by Discord.
  • Limitless raised $10m Series B
  • Hopin, who have absolutely shone during this pandemic raised $400m Series C at $5.65B valuation led by A16Z and General Catalyst
  • Viz.ai raised $71 million in Series C funding! Chris Mansi!
  • Slack was acquired by Salesforce for $27.7B.
  • Databook raised $16m Series A! Anand Shah!
  • Bugsnag was acquired by SmartBear. Congrats to James Smith and Simon Maynard.
  • Gr4vy raised $11.1m Series A.
  • Cazoo, the used car marketplace, listed on NYSE via a SPAC that valued them at $7B.
  • Tessian raised a $65m Series C.  Then later in the year went on to raise even more from Okta Ventures, Citi Ventures and Sozo Ventures as part of a Series C extension.
  • Babylon Health went public in the US via a SPAC.
  • SoFi made their public market debut!
  • Faculty! The British AI company raised $42.5m.
  • London HQ’d Wise IPO’d.  Shout out to Taavet Hinrikus!
  • Beamery, creating the ‘operating system for recruitment’ raised $138m from investors including Ali Mitchell of EQT Ventures
  • VividQ has raised $15m to develop its hologram technology for next-generation digital displays with participation by R42 Group, a VC out of Stanford led by another GBxer – Dr. Ronjon Nag!
  • Dr. Alex Young raised $10m for his digital training platform Virti.
  • Elements.cloud raised $20m.
  • Mercury raised $120 million in Series B funding! Immad!
  • Previous Brits by the Bay participants, Flock raised $17m Series A led by Chamath.
  • Enable, which started in the UK and moved to San Francisco in 2020 raised a $45 million Series B round.