QED Investors Leads $10.2 Million Series A Funding Round for Kudos

Kudos: AI-Powered Smart Wallet Company Raises $10.2 Million

QED Investors led a $10.2 million Series A funding round for Kudos, an AI-powered smart wallet company. The funding will be used to roll out new services and expand its product offerings.

QED Investors

QED Investors Participates in $114 Million Seed Funding Round for Clover

Climate fintech start-up Cloover secures $114m in seed funding round

German climate fintech Cloover raises €104.8M in Seed round led by Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon Capital

114 Millionen Dollar für Solar-Fintech Cloover

QED Investors participated in a $114 million seed funding round for Clover, a climate fintech start-up. The funding will be used to simplify operations for the entire renewables value chain.

QED Investors is a venture capital firm specializing in fintech investments, including traditional banking products, insurance, wealth management, proptech, and banking-as-a-service. They also invest in embedded finance companies.

QED Investors is a leading venture capital firm based in Alexandria, Virginia.  We are focused on investing in disruptive financial services companies in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe, Latin America, India and Southeast Asia and Africa. 

QED Investors is dedicated to building great businesses and uses a unique, hands-on approach that leverages its partners’ decades of entrepreneurial and operational experience, helping companies achieve breakthrough growth. Notable investments include AvidXchange, Betterfly, Bitso, Caribou, ClearScore, Creditas, Credit Karma, Current, Flywire, Kavak, Klarna, Konfio, Loft, Mission Lane, Nubank, QuintoAndar, Remitly, SoFi, Wagestream and Wayflyer.

Corpay One

YayPay

blooom

Credit Karma

Flywire

Nubank

OpenInvest

Orchard Platform

Remitly

Fundera

Provide

GreenSky

SoFi

TransUnion

StoryBlocks

Guiabolso

A huge congratulations to QED Partner Laura Bock on being named to Business Insider's list of rising stars of venture capital. 👏 ⭐ 

Laura's portfolio includes several breakout companies, including Collective, Trellis, Spinwheel, Wildfire Systems, Inc, OatFi, Finch, Decent and EasyHealth.

Prior to focusing on early stage domestic fintech companies with QED, Laura spent time advising financial institutions on growth, product, operations and strategy as a consultant at management consulting firm Oliver Wyman. 

🚨 New QED podcast alert 🚨

John Andrew Entwistle knows a thing or two about founding and running companies. At age 13, he embraced his desire to work hard like his ‘pop’, built his own computer and discovered his passion for software, design and product. Like most entrepreneurs, it all started with video games and, for him, quickly turned into a six-figure business.

When John Andrew entered high school, he had the opportunity to enroll in school online so he could spend time with his 'pop' who, as a lawyer, traveled around the world trying cases. This flexibility also came with more free time. So, as any entrepreneur would do, he made the most of his time and co-founded Coder, a company that allows software engineers to write code to an organization's cloud infrastructure, really with the vision of bringing the productivity of a startup to the enterprise.

After running Coder from 18 to 23, he and his team decided it was time for him to explore new opportunities. He took a break and rented a cabin in Colorado, and his disappointment in his rental led him to 'Wander' how he could make the rental and traveling experience better for all. 

John Andrew joined QED’s Head of Early Stage Investments Bill Cilluffo on the Fintech Thought Leaders podcast to discuss his entrepreneurial journey, which started at a young age, how his 'pop' influenced his ambition and desire to work hard, what sparked the idea for Wander and his approach to building and strengthening company culture in a remote-first environment.

👇 The links to the podcast are in the comments. 👇 

Here are three key takeaways:

📧 Cold emailing VCs:
..."When we launched, we saw incredible reception and we also at that point had a small team and were certainly also running out of money. So, I'll never forget being 18, 19, cold emailing VCs, didn't even have a LinkedIn at the time saying, "Hey, I have this company and this product and it's starting to grow, and it has a ton of potential. Can I please pitch you?" I think a lot of early entrepreneurs wonder, “How do I get in contact with VCs? How do I raise money?”...

🤝 Building a company on shared values:
"We believe in this idea of shared virtues, and I think that that idea really keeps the team tightly aligned. Certain things like, tomorrow is a lazy man's today, or we can take a punch, or just those different pieces.... And I think instilling that in the company very early is certainly something that you learn as a second-time founder..."

📣 Advice for entrepreneurs: 
“It's incredibly important to be a good person as you build a company. There are so many moments that you face with difficult decisions, whether it's letting someone go or how you present yourself in a meeting, or what investors you work with… The other thing is that if you're smart and you're kind and you're working on the right idea and you're unafraid to pivot, you will be successful. It's just a question of how long it's going to take…”

QED Partner Fernando Gonzalez, Executive-in-Residence and CEO of QED portfolio company Coru, will be participating in the "Funding the Future: the VC Dilemma" panel at Open Finance 2020 by finvero tomorrow.

Fernando will also be judge on the VC pitch competition. Be sure to say hello if you're at the St. Regis in Mexico City for the event.

QED's Managing Partner Nigel Morris joined Alexa von Tobel on Inspired Capital and Inc. Magazine's Inc. Founders Project podcast. 

Throughout the podcast, Nigel shares why Capital One's early success came down to rapid execution, why restlessness is a positive trait for founders, and how one interesting use case of AI is powering one-to-one marketing.

A few takeaways from the podcast:

💪 Traits that are critical for entrepreneurs to have:
Restlessness, tenacity, authenticity, sensitivity and awareness to realize that scaling a company is hard and the ability to listen to others. 

💡 Top trends:
Passionate about geographic expansion and trade finance. 

🤏 Pinch-me moment:
In 2021, five companies in the QED portfolio went public.

https://lnkd.in/eG4Vec79

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