FJ Labs

Playgama raises $3M to build the go-to HTML5 game distribution platform https://lnkd.in/eY6RjQHy

🚨 Big News! 🚨 We're excited to announce a partnership between Leland and LinkedIn to bring career coaching to LinkedIn Premium members! Starting today, millions of LinkedIn Premium members will have access to a free month of Leland to build their career, develop in-demand skills, and reach professional goals across hundreds of different categories. Leland access is being rolled out among four other perks for Premium members: Spotify, The Wall Street Journal, name.com, and Duolingo. What a group. So, if you are a Premium member, make sure you take advantage of this exclusive perk by clicking "Your Premium features" or looking out for an email from the LinkedIn team. If you aren't a Premium member yet, go try it out! You'll get access to a wealth of resources, including this exclusive Leland trial. Big thank you to the LinkedIn team who made this possible. Can't wait to see all the lives we change together through this partnership. #linkedin #partnership #premium

🚀 Big news for Playgama We’ve raised $3 million to transform the global HTML5 gaming market. This funding round was led by The Open Platform and s16vc: Portfolio News & Jobs, with support from FJ Labs, The Games Fund, TON Foundation and Kirill Eves To all our partners: thank you for believing in our mission to revolutionize web gaming 🙌 Fundraising isn’t the destination—it’s a milestone. A milestone that brings us closer to unlocking the full potential of HTML5 for game creators worldwide. With this funding, we will: - Further develop and expand our developer-focused PaaS ecosystem with new tools for distribution, analytics, monetization, and fintech - Expand and strengthen our partnerships with playground and distributors  - Continue our efforts in bridging Web2 and Web3 gaming And of course we’ll continue building a world-class team dedicated to empowering developers. So there's still time to grab a seat on this spaceship 🚀 To our team, partners, and supporters: it’s been an incredible start, and this is just the beginning. Let’s go 🔥 #GameTech #HTML5Games #WebGames #BrowserGames

🚀 JUST raises €8 million to shape the future of e-commerce! We’re thrilled to announce our €8 million Seed funding round led by BACKED VC, with participation from daphni, Otium, FJ Labs, Kima Ventures, Purple Tiny VC, Material Ventures and our amazing business angels. This milestone fuels our mission to make online shopping simple, smart & social for the new generation of shoppers. After helping 500+ merchants in France grow their revenues by +15% and transforming the experience for 1 million users, we’re ready to expand across Europe—starting with the UK, the largest e-commerce market in the region. 🌟 And we’re just getting started! To accompany this growth, we’re on the lookout for passionate, talented individuals to join this incredible journey. Ready to shape the future of e-commerce with us? Check out our open roles in the comments. Buckle up : this is JUST the beginning! #JUSTFundraising #Ecommerce #NextGenShopping #WeAreHiring

Announcing Leland's $12M Series A led by Forerunner! Forerunner has an incredible track record of backing iconic consumer brands and marketplaces like Warby Parker, Chime, Glossier, Inc., ŌURA, Faire, Zola, The Expert, and others. We couldn't be more excited to welcome Eurie Kim to the board and partner with her and Forerunner to take Leland to the next level. Also participating in the round are GSV Ventures, inVest Ventures, and our early investors like FJ Labs, Contrary, Peterson Ventures, and GSBackers. We’re also proud that dozens of Leland coaches and customers participated, in addition to leading marketplace founders, operators, and angels from companies like Instacart, Handshake, LinkedIn, Pluralsight, Mercado Libre, and others. With this fresh capital and support, we're well positioned to accelerate our vision of unlocking human potential by making the world's expertise more accessible. In the past year alone, our coaches have helped hundreds of thousands of people in over 70 countries break into top schools or companies, develop new skills, prepare for interviews or tests, and pursue goals across dozens of unique categories. While a fundraise is never a destination, it certainly represents an opportunity to reflect on the progress we’ve made and thank the community who has helped us get this far. So, THANK YOU! We know the biggest opportunity is ahead of us, and we’re excited to be building a world-class team to go after it. If you want to join us, we're hiring. if you want to partner with us, shoot me a DM. And if you are interested in working with a coach or coaching the next generation, we'd love to have you in our community. Big thank you to Deborah Quazzo, Ben Capell, Kyle Harrison, Eric Tarczynski, Jason Bornstein, Lauri J. Moore, Karen Chi, Glenn Borok, Jeff Weinstein, Jose Marin, Jen Yang-Wong, Jason Chen, Taylor Jones, ilana stern, Aaron Skonnard, Gary Williams, Martin Rudigier, and the many others who have made this possible through your support! Here's to the next chapter of helping people reach their most ambitious goals. (TechCrunch coverage in comments)

🚀 Big news for Bounce today! 🚀 We're beyond excited for this new chapter and the opportunities it brings. Huge thanks to our amazing team and supporters for making this possible. Stay tuned for the exciting projects coming in the year ahead! See our founder's Cody Candee interview with Techcrunch in the link in the comments.

Excited to share that Neo Financial has raised $360M to fund our next wave of growth. 🔥 This milestone isn’t just about the money—it’s a testament to the dedication and hard work of our team, the trust our investors have in our vision, and the belief that we're truly making a difference in people's lives. To have Canadian visionaries like Shopify’s Tobi Lütke, Slack’s Stewart Butterfield, and Roblox's David Baszucki back us is humbling. It’s a reminder that even in times of uncertainty, with the right people, perseverance, and commitment to your customers, the impossible becomes possible. 🇨🇦 This funding will allow us to accelerate our mission: expanding our innovative financial products, from Canada’s best cashback credit cards, to high-interest savings accounts, AI-enhanced budgeting tools, and competitive mortgage rates. We’re here to build solutions that don’t just meet the needs of today, but redefine what’s possible for the future of finance. And we’re just getting started. The future of finance is here, and it's built by Canadians, for Canadians. 🚀 https://lnkd.in/gU_xnyBU

Congratulation to LoopUp for closing a £12 million equity round https://lnkd.in/eZrD-ZVM

We are ecstatic to quadruple down in Vinted, now our largest position by carrying value at FJ Labs and our highest-conviction investment. CEO (and FJ Labs alumnus!) Thomas Plantenga has done a spectacular job of running the company and navigating market cycles since he was brought in to turn around the company (more on that story here: https://lnkd.in/eXtWnQbi) Not only is this one of the only up-rounds we've seen following a 2021 late-stage fundraise, it was secondary only, a testament to company's monster performance and capital efficiency!

Hero is now live in the US App Store! 🎉 Earlier this year, Hero was just an idea. We believed that selling secondhand goods online sucked... Platforms like eBay and Craigslist are clunky, slow, and filled with friction. Plus, AI will make them hopelessly outdated. Our vision was simple: selling should be fast, easy, and frictionless. With Hero, you can list items 100x faster—in under 30 seconds. Just snap a video or photo, and our AI takes care of the pricing, descriptions, and listing creation. You can catalog your items, get the price/value, and we’re working on integrating other marketplaces for effortless cross listing/selling. This is just the beginning. We’re building an AI-first marketplace that not only makes selling faster but removes all friction from the process. We’re still in beta, learning from every scan, improving with each iteration, and growing rapidly. Thank you to everyone who’s supported us so far. 🙌