We’ve just published the team’s predictions for 2021, but we’ve also been collating the highlights of 2020 — a roundup of our year, which we wanted to share. We hope you enjoy!
JANUARY
Evgenia was promoted to Partner — here’s the Business Insider write-up.
We led Europe’s open banking leader Tink’s $100m Series D funding round.
FEBRUARY
We made a follow-on investment into digital-first media company Minute Media from our Dawn Opportunities Fund.
MARCH
We led in Cleanshelf’s Series A round. Mina’s shared why we invested in the SaaS management solution and what it is delivering for enterprises.
Virginia joined the team as an Associate.
APRIL
We took part in Collibra’s $112.5m Series F round, first investing in the data management platform back in 2015.
We participated in Templafy’s $25m Series C round. We first partnered with the Copenhagen-based company, which manages every aspect of business document creation, in 2018.
Hannah joined the team as Director of Investor Relations and Marketing.
MAY
Daniela joined the team as an Associate, and shared why she’s excited about investing in B2B companies.
JUNE
We co-led Bryter’s Series A round alongside our partners at Accel, marking the final investment from our Dawn III fund. Evgenia shared our rundown on the no-code platform and the future it is building here.
We made a follow-on investment in Onna’s Series B round, a year on from our first investment in to the company which enables any employee to search across all tools and assets being used within their organisation.
As investors and founders were coming to terms with the impact of COVID-19, Norman spoke with Unquote News to share his views on where opportunities still lie.
Steven joined the team as Corporate Accountant.
JULY
We participated in Quantexa’s $65m Series C round to continue to support the business’s mission of enabling all organisations to harness their data to uncover hidden risk and discover new opportunities.
We also took part in the $28m Series B round of quantilope, which continues to generate actionable consumer insights for its customers.
And New Vector rebranded to Element!
AUGUST
We participated in AI and machine learning leader Dataiku’s $100m Series D investment round — a European unicorn we first invested in in 2018.
Shamillah and Laurens joined the team as Vice Presidents. We sat down with them to learn about their careers and moves to Dawn, read their profiles here and here.
SEPTEMBER
We launched Dawn IV! Our $400m fund is Europe’s largest to date focused exclusively on investing in early-stage B2B software. Haakon shared why we raised it.
David joined as Analyst (and was quickly promoted to Associate in December), and Elaine joined as Fund Accountant.
Evgenia joined the European Women in VC’s Briefing Series. Covering everything from our investment plans for Dawn IV, the team’s continued support of our founders through covid, as well as advice to others contemplating a career in VC.
Quantexa was ranked the 14th fastest growing UK tech company in The Sunday Times Tech Track 100.
Collibra and Dataiku were included in Forbes Cloud 100 list for 2020.
Eigen, OpenGamma and Tink were named as some of the fastest-growing Fintech startups by CBinsights.
OCTOBER
We made our first investment from Dawn IV, leading Access Fintech’s $20m Series B round. Mina shared our take on the new paradigm the financial trade data-sharing platform is engendering: a shared ontology for banks.
We supported secure communication platform Zivver’s latest $17m funding round.
And Josh wrote about the unique environment Sweden provides for fintechs — and why it continues to lead Europe.
NOVEMBER
Norman shared our concept of Equity Burn and why, in a world of easy money, it should govern decision-making.
Both Collibra and Dataiku featured in their respective Gartner 2020 Magic Quadrants. Collibra was recognised as a leader for Metadata Management Solutions and Dataiku as a leader for Data Science and Machine-Learning Platforms.
Dawn led Harbr’s highly competitive Series A round. Evgenia wrote about why we’re so excited about the data company here.
Evgenia joined Ryan Zauk at Wharton Fintech to discuss Dawn’s investments and how she thinks about B2B investing, Dawn’s value proposition, and much more.
Sheena joined as Administrative Associate, and Sophie was promoted to Marketing Associate.
Henry evaluated the Business Insider deck library, giving tips on how to build out a great pitch deck.
Mina featured on the StartUp to ScaleUp Game Plan podcast, speaking about how hiring talent is one of the main criteria we evaluate our CEOs against and why resilience is one of the most important qualities an entrepreneur needs.
DECEMBER
Julie joined the team as a Vice President.
We co-led Tink’s latest funding round, after first partnering with them in January.
Mina shared her insight on how banks are buying software in a post-covid world and David and Virginia wrote a very popular piece on the future of spreadsheets.
Eigen was listed in RegTech 100 (for the second year running).
We made a Christmas donation to Centre Point. The donation covered a festive meal on Christmas Day, as well as a year’s accommodation and support, for a significant number of young people in need of our help.
