AVIII Update: Welcoming four new companies to the Adara portfolio

Since the last update on our €80m third fund, we’ve invested in four more world-class teams, including our first-ever investment in Italy and our first in the legaltech sector.

In this article, we learn more about the latest companies to join the Adara family over the past three months and why we’re excited about the verticals they are building in.

Cybersecurity: Training employees to be the first line of defence

Despite the advancements in cybersecurity technology, the “human factor” is still one of the primary vectors cybercriminals use to attack an organisation. According to IBM, 24% of data breaches are caused by human error. Technology to detect these threats is improving; however, it’s still important that employees learn how to recognise and deal with them. 

Marking our first investment in Italy, we partnered with P101 to invest in the €3.6 million Serie A round of Cyber Guru, a platform that helps educate employees around the dangers and pitfalls of information security. 

Companies that have employed CyberGuru’s services report a 400% or more improvement in phishing resilience after only ten months of use. We’re excited to work with CEO Gianni Baroni and the whole Cyber Guru team on their mission to strengthen the defence against social engineering attacks.

Learn more about Cyber Guru here.

Infrastructure: Enabling real-time video surveillance at scale

Today’s enterprise security systems are large and complex. Behind the scenes, security control centres are dealing with an increasing number of cameras and video feeds to analyse. For many enterprises, monitoring massive amounts of video data manually is expensive and unscalable, resulting in a reactive approach rather than an active approach to security.

We’re pleased to start working with InteleXVision, a UK-based company that is disrupting the professional surveillance industry by enabling real-time video monitoring at scale with its AI platform, iSentry.  

Founders Callum Wilson and Michael Vorstman have built a truly impressive team that brings together seasoned industry veterans with highly skilled technical expertise. We led a £2.5 million investment alongside Inveready.

Learn more about InteleXVision here.

Infrastructure: Powering more scalable, sustainable NFT business models

Interest in NFTs exploded over the past year, with sales (primarily of artwork and collectibles) soaring to more than $2 billion in the first quarter of 2021 alone. However, collectibles and static assets represent only a tiny fraction of NFTs potential. There is a significant opportunity for NFTs to be Living Assets that can evolve over time as users engage with them.

Barcelona-based Freeverse.io is pioneering a technology that permits the creation and management of blockchain-based Living Assets, an evolved version of NFTs with the potential to power more scalable and sustainable business models in the virtual goods space.

We led the $1 million seed round with 4Founders Capital and support from Seedway Ventures, Key Wolf, and several angel investors, including Luis Fernández, co-founder of Playgiga, another Adara portfolio company acquired by Facebook in 2019, and David Xicota, co-founder of Gamesdonia, a company acquired by GSN Games in 2016.

Learn more about Freeverse.io here.

Data & Applications: Bringing legal validity to virtual meetings

As demand for remote video conferencing tools skyrocketed in 2020, the security measures and the legal validity of legacy platforms like Zoom came into question – especially for law firms, government organisations, and corporate shareholder meetings. 

Founded by Galician entrepreneurs Agustín Tourón and Victor López,  COUNCILBOX helps organisations host virtual and hybrid meetings while simultaneously guaranteeing the legal validity of all discussions and decisions that take place. 

In 2020, COUNCILBOX tripled its growth, and in the first half of 2021, the platform has already hosted more than 450 meetings with more than 80,000 votes cast. More than 700 organizations have hosted meetings using COUNCILBOX, including Spain’s Ministry of Justice, the Spanish Olympic Committee, Booking.com, the Madrid Assembly, and more.

COUNCILBOX represents one of our first investments in the legaltech space, and we led the €5 million Series A round alongside Telefónica’s Wayra and ABANCA. COUNCILBOX also welcomed Javier Polo to the team as CEO to lead the company through the next stages of internationalisation and growth. 

Javier Polo is a seasoned entrepreneur and technology executive who most recently was CEO of the Spanish cloud gaming startup Playgiga, another Adara portfolio company that was acquired by Facebook in 2019.

Learn more about COUNCILBOX here.

What’s Next…Investment #13

We’ve been very busy over the past few months, but we’re not done yet. We will be announcing another new investment very soon (also in the legaltech space), and we will be continuing to grow our international network of support for founders. 

If you’d like to stay up-to-date on our announcements and portfolio news, subscribe to our monthly Caminos newsletter. 

Entrepreneurs, we also want to hear your story. Submit your pitch here.