Fishbrain, the Sweden-based creator of a social media platform for the angling community, has received $13.5m in a series B round featuring SoftBank Ventures Korea, a subsidiary of telecommunications company SoftBank.
B Capital Group, the investment firm backed by consulting firm Boston Consulting Group, led the round, which also featured venture capital firms Industrifonden and Northzone.
Fishbrain is a social networking app that enables angling enthusiasts to pinpoint lucrative fishing locations and see what other people are catching. The platform has so far processed the equivalent of 3.7 million catches.
The company intends to use the series B cash to double its headcount to 60 by the end of 2018 as it attempts to intensify user growth and build out the wider platform.
The round brought Fishbrain’s overall funding to $28m to date and came after a $3.7m investment by Recruit Strategic Partners (RSP), a corporate venturing vehicle for human resources firm Recruit, in April 2017.
Northzone led an $8m round for Fishbrain in 2015 that included RSP, Industrifonden, Active Venture Partners, GP Bullhound, Edastra Venture Capital and Novel TMT Ventures, part of textile producer Novel Group.
Northzone and Active had co-led the company’s $2.4m seed round the year before, participating alongside Edastra, GP Bullhound, Swedish state-owned fund Almi Invest and angel investors Mathias Ackermand and Rickard Steiber.