Amsterdam-based Rockstart, a global early-stage investor, announced that it has led a €400K pre-Seed round of investment in London-based micromobility platform Lanterne, an existing Rockstart portfolio company.
The round also saw participation from other co-investors.
Max ter Horst, Managing Partner Rockstart Energy, says, “Lanterne’s AI-based software platform improves vehicle demand predictions for micro-mobility operators. This allows them to continuously optimise the distribution of vehicles within a city and therefore increase usage and revenues of fleets. We’re delighted to continue investing in Lanterne for the development and commercialisation of its impactful solution.”
The Rockstart Energy fund was closed at €27M earlier this year. In the coming months, the fund is looking to back promising energy startups addressing the following themes: decentralisation, decarbonisation and digitalisation.
So far, Rockstart has invested in 19 energy-related startups from seven countries since the launch of its Energy fund in October, 2020.
Using data to optimise micromobility operations
Founded in 2019 by Alex Barnes and Sebastian Mueller, Lanterne is a data science and geospatial analytics company that predicts demand for micromobility companies to help them to get more rides, as well as optimises the route for fleet technicians, helping them complete the most tasks in the shortest amount of time.
Additionally, Lanterne also helps mobility companies plan their expansion and monitor their fleet performance. Currently, the company is operational in 12 locations in the UK and Europe. Previously, the UK-based startup has collaborated on geospatial projects with the European Space Agency and Innovate UK.
CEO of Lanterne, Alex Barnes, says, “We’re delighted to close this pre-seed round with Rockstart and our network of angels in the UK, Europe and Australia. We’ll be using these funds to double down on our engineering and data science capability to hit our scaling targets for 2022-2023. Shared mobility is highly dynamic and data-rich, and we’re very proud to be helping these innovative companies transform urban transport.”
“Paving the way for purpose-driven founders”
Rockstart is a domain-focused accelerator VC firm that provides follow-on growth funding to support startups to become successful across four domains: energy, health, agrifood, and emerging technologies. The firm invests in early-stage startups and provides access to capital, market and expertise by connecting founders with co-investors, mentors, partners, corporates, and the wider Rockstart network.
Since its inception, Rockstart has invested in more than 260 startups and its alumni value to date is $1B. The company has a team of more than 40+ professionals dedicated to empowering ‘purpose-driven founders to become scalable and drive positive change on a global scale’.
Some of its notable exits include startups such as Wercker, Bouw7, iClinic, and in 2021, 3D Hubs and Brincr. The company has offices in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Copenhagen, Denmark and Bogota, Colombia.
