Teckro, a software platform that claims to make the conduct of clinical trials more efficient and collaborative, has closed $25 million in Series C funding. The round, which brings the total raised by the Irish company to $43 million, was led by Northpond Ventures, with participation from Founders Fund, Sands Capital Ventures, Bill Maris’ Section 32 venture fund and Borealis Ventures.

Founded by brothers Gary and Nigel Hughes and Jacek Skrzypiec in 2015, Teckro’s technology is designed to improve the conduct of clinical trials, including by employing machine learning to improve the speed and accuracy of clinical trials. Through digitisation, it also attempts to make clinical trials more transparent across stakeholders and those responsible for conducting the trial, including doctors, research nurses and patients.

“The industry still relies heavily on paper, on working off retrospective data, and there is still an over-reliance on sending CRAs to busy research sites,” says Teckro co-founder and CEO Gary Hughes. “This approach, together with the plethora of point solutions that get ‘bolted on,’ only adds to the complexity and disjointed experience of research sites and patients.”

To that end, Teckro says it has users in more than 80 countries, up from 30 countries at the time of the Series B in August 2017. It employs more than 100 staff across its global headquarters in Limerick, Ireland, an engineering hub in Dublin, Ireland and a U.S. base in Nashville, Tennessee.

“Our mission is to engage more physicians in clinical research,” Hughes tells me. “We believe increased participation by physicians (currently less than 3 percent globally) will provide greater access to patients, effectively making clinical research a treatment option for millions of patients with unmet medical needs. That requires a complete rethink of clinical trial operations, particularly the experience of research sites. It’s very much a ‘fix one thing’ approach, establishing new digital touch points that remove friction and provide busy research staff with instant access to critical trial information when it is needed most.”

The broader Teckro vision is to be “at the centre of all site and patient interactions in a clinical trial,” says Hughes. “We are building a new digital infrastructure and toolset for clinical research that makes the conduct of trials simpler, more transparent and more inclusive.”

The resulting aim, of course, is to ensure that effective drugs are efficiently moved from the lab to the patient “so that [more] lives can be saved.”

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Teckro scores M Series C round to speed up clinical trials

French startup Malt is raising a $28.6 million funding round (€25 million) with Idinvest Partners leading the round and existing investors ISAI and Serena also participating. Overall, the company has raised $36.6 million since its creation (€32 million).

Malt has created a marketplace for engineers working as freelancers and companies. There are currently 100,000 freelancers on the platform and 15,000 companies using Malt regularly.

With today’s funding round, the company wants to grow its platform in other European countries. There are 10,000 freelancers on the platform in Spain, and the company plans to open new markets, starting with Germany and the Netherlands.

The startup thinks that hiring freelancers can be a great alternative to big IT consulting companies. Every time a freelancer accepts a job, clients rate the freelancer. This way, clients can know for sure that somebody is a capable developer.

On the other side, freelancers don’t necessarily have all the connections to find freelancing jobs on their own. Malt can help you work with more companies. The startup also acts as a sort of broker. You no longer have to send emails weeks or even months after completing a job to get your money. Malt takes care of all the pesky admin tasks. Freelancers also get a few deals on benefits, health coverage, etc.

Big French companies, such as Accorhotels, Société Générale and BlaBlaCar use Malt. 75 percent of France’s top 40 public companies in the CAC40 have worked with a Malt freelancer at some point. And if your big company doesn’t know much about data science, devops and other jobs, Malt can help you find freelancers for you.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Malt raises .6 million for its freelancer platform

Eastnine, a new fitness startup and app co-founded by London entrepreneur and investor Jason Goodman, is de-cloaking today, including disclosing that it has raised £2 million in seed funding.

Leading the round is London-based LocalGlobe and Berlin-based Cherry Ventures, who are joined by a list of prominent angel investors that includes Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Skype and London venture capital firm Atomico.

Also participating is former Spotify CMO and now Atomico Partner Sophia Bendz, Supercell founder Ilkka Paananen, Moo co-founder Richard Moross, Wonga founder Errol Damelin, and Climate Corp co-founder and Atomico Partner Siraj Khaliq, amongst others.

The links to current Atomico personnel, who have all invested in a personal capacity, shouldn’t come as a total surprise. Before co-founding Eastnine, Goodman spent a year as an Atomico Executive-in-Residence (XiR) where he mentored founders within the venture capital firm’s portfolio. Prior to Atomico, he was founder and CEO of product design agency Albion, which was acquired by KBS.

Launching in beta for iOS, the Eastnine app is initially focusing on running, blending professional coaching sessions delivered via audio with more innovative social features. The latter includes the ability to “race” against other Eastnine runners who have previously taken the same coaching session. The feature uses asynchronous session data, but is presented on a map in real-time, something akin to racing against an action replay.

The social element, explained Goodman in a call yesterday, is important to help motivate people to engage with and improve their fitness. That’s because running can often feel incredibly isolated and it is difficult to see an improvement because it can be slow to manifest.

“A daily run is hard to make a habit and can be inherently solitary,” says Goodman. “Doing it with others makes it enjoyable, purposeful and addictive. We’ve tried all sorts of apps, but they are linear and lonely and miss the extra push you get from doing it with others, on your terms. Our training experience combines the fun and sport of being surrounded by other Eastnine runners on a real-time leaderboard with [a] genuinely knowledgeable coaching approach that inspires people to run more and run better”.

(“Hate running but now actually doing it,” is how one London millennial founder described the Eastnine app, having taken part in the startup’s closed beta.)

More broadly, Goodman says he wants to disrupt the “con” in fitness and the way people approach fitness everyday. “We want to do this by helping to create the right habits, making it accessible, social and enjoyable,” he tells me, whilst bemoaning the number of charlatans that currently exist in the fitness space. He also believes the industry is crying out for a more British and quietly European approach, instead of the “shouty” coaching style often imported from North America.

The Eastnine coaching team is made up of qualified coaches from the world of professional sport. They include Team GB athletes JJ Jegede and Lewis Richardson; former professional rugby player Leo Savage; osteopath to elite sports professionals Alice Monger-Godfrey; and nutritionist to competitive cyclists and Ironman athletes Will Girling.

“The fitness industry on so many levels is a con,” says Goodman. “Too many products and services are sold to us in a way that suggests an immediate fix — but human nature means that when we don’t see results, or create the right habits, we don’t push on and make tangible progress. The real challenge is to learn the right habits that help us make real progress. The cons are well documented: gyms make profit on the users that don’t show up or cancel their membership and social media is full of pseudo celebrities selling the latest appetite suppressant lollipop that they have never used but are happy to endorse. The category is full of people saying one thing and trying to sell you something else”.

While in beta, the Eastnine app remains entirely free. However, the startup plans to eventually switch to a freemium model, with an optional monthly subscription similar to Calm or Headspace that can be canceled at any time. “We want as many people using it as possible so we can develop the service with our members feedback,” adds Goodman. “We’ll use a freemium approach so a portion of content will always be free”.

Meanwhile, it would be remiss not to mention Eastnine’s other co-founders. They are David McCreary, previously VP Engineering of Boiler Room and Senior Software Engineer at NextVR; Cat Forrest, former international GB high jumper, Rapha cycling ambassador and marketeer at Virgin Group; and Matt Harrison, previously Strategy Director at innovation agency Seymourpowell.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Fitness startup Eastnine picks up £2M from LocalGlobe, Cherry Ventures, Niklas Zennström and others