Etiq AI, a female-founded AI-startup based in London, has raised €900,000 in seed funding led by GapMinder VC, following previous grant funding of £1million from InnovateUK, and will be used to scale its newly launched "Data Science Copilot", a platform designed to radically accelerate debugging and testing for machine learning models.

Inicio AI, a Coventry-based FinTech company, has secured £2.6M in seed funding to transform how organisations assess affordability for customers, including for those in financial difficulty. This investment follows their recent victory in the OneToWin pitch competition at Birmingham Tech Week.

The funding round includes a £500,000 investment from the West Midlands Co-Investment Fund (WMCO), managed by Midven, part of Future Planet Capital, alongside £500,000 from Rigby Group PLC, £300,000 fron Haatch Ventures, and further investment from Morgan Stanley, Angel Academe, Mint Ventures and individual angel investors.

Mindset AI, an embedded AI agent platform, has raised £4.3 million in funding to expand its operations in the UK and open an office in the US. 

Cloud Capital, a startup founded by repeat SaaS entrepreneurs, has launched out of stealth with $7.7 million in funding to help CFOs regain financial control of their cloud infrastructure. As AI accelerates cloud usage, Cloud Capital is launching the first FinTech platform built for cloud. It helps companies forecast usage, unlock savings, and eliminate the financial risk of long-term commitments.

Aichitect, the first AI-powered platform designed by an architect to revolutionise and streamline construction and development projects, has closed a pre-seed funding round of £300k, led by SFC Capital.

Grid Edge, a UK company whose AI-powered software helps reduce carbon emissions and energy costs in commercial buildings has raised over £2.8m from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund II and Mercia Ventures, Centrica, bp Ventures and private investors.

A technology spin-out of the Alacrity Foundation has closed a significant six-figure equity investment pre-seed round led by SFC Capital, the Development Bank of Wales and a syndicate of business angels.

Dealstack has closed a $5.5 million seed funding round, 

nettle, an AI-powered risk assessment platform, has raised £1.45M in pre-seed funding led by Project A, alongside top angel investors from major insurers, startups, and insurance & AI leaders. With this funding, nettle is scaling out the core engineering team and bolstering a platform already cutting risk engineering turnaround times for early partners.

UK-based startup Matoha, manufacturers of AI-powered material identification scanners, have completed a first phase of Seed funding which will enable them to solve the problem of textiles sorting for recycling. The round was led by Archipelago Ventures and the Circular Plastics Accelerator with additional investment from Conduit Connect, British Design Fund, Fashion for Good and others.

AI-native AML compliance platform Flagright has closed a £3.3m seed round to further develop Flagright solutions and fund international expansion. The raise was led by Frontline Ventures, with contributions from a series of notable angel investors.

AI-powered financial crime can take many shapes. In one particular case, an employee at a Hong Kong-based institution was tricked into sending a fraudster some £20m, after a video call with what seemed to be their colleagues and CFO. Some experts estimate that today, around half of all bank scams involve AI in one shape or another. One report suggests that in 2023, deepfake instances in fintech increased by 700%.

MarTech startup POCKLA has raised £1.6 million to scale its proprietary AI-powered content strategy and creation platform in a seed funding round led by Venrex. Other high-profile investors and advisors joining the round include The Sidemen's VC arm Upside Ventures, Love Ventures, Shuttle, and Syndicate Room, plus a wealth of industry heavyweights including Rich Waterworth, formerly at TikTok, Dan Cobley, previously Head of Google UK/Ireland, and Michael Chock and Ryan Quinn, formerly at MiQ.