North West-headquartered Tactus Group, a specialist in the development of consumer technology products, has expanded into the US market with an investment into pi-top, the coding and robotics firm that specialises in improving digital skills in education. 

The Robot Exchange has secured a significant £500k investment from leading private equity investment firm, Foresight Group, through the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF).  The Nottingham-based business supplies Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software and services to deliver efficiencies to businesses, helping them streamline and automate their processes via robotic infrastructure.

Cron AI, a leading DeepTech company building a 3D Data Edge perception platform, has raised $4 million as part of its Series A funding. The round was led by VenturEast and Kitaki Ventures, along with participation from existing investor, YourNest Venture Capital.

Foresight Group and Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE) have made an investment into Machine Discovery, an innovative University of Oxford spin-out commercialising new machine learning technology.

The investment  will be used to support the senior management team in taking Machine Discovery through its next stage of growth, assisted by Foresight Williams’ expertise in the sector. During the process, Oxford Technology introduced Bijan Kiani to the business.  Bijan was previously VP Product and Marketing at Synopsys, a NASDAQ listed Electronic Design Automation company focusing on advanced technologies for chip design, validation and application ($3.7bn revenue in 2020) and will take over as CEO.

Par Equity has led an investment of £2m in Datactics, a leader in the field of data management.  Belfast-based Datactics provides software and services to large organisations that need to improve and control the quality of the data held in their computer systems. The AI-enabled platform allows staff who are not IT experts to efficiently deduplicate, clean-up and enrich the information in their lines of business. For businesses that have information spread across many databases, the products enable them to give their customers a better quality, more joined-up service, while reducing their costs.

nPlan, a company that uses machine learning to forecast the duration, risks and opportunities of construction projects, has secured an $18.5 million investment round, led by GV (formerly Google Ventures). The company’s proprietary AI algorithms have analysed nearly $1 trillion worth of global construction projects and deploys this learning to spot delays and recommend improvements with an accuracy and scale previously not possible. In doing so, nPlan’s data-led insights effectively reduce the volatility of and increase investor confidence in construction projects.

Sellforte, an AI-powered marketing optimization platform, has raised €4 million in funding led by Sonae IM, with Bonnier Ventures and Icebreaker.vc also participating in the round. The company will use the capital to hire new talent to scale R&D on its product offering and further expand its operations internationally.

London-based investment fund RLC Ventures led Alloxentric’s seed round of $275,000, providing the necessary capital to build on their early success. To-date, Alloxentric has been operational across Latin America in countries such as Chile and Colombia, providing an omnichannel platform as a service, powered by AI, for customers across numerous industries.

Vivacity Labs, the London-based tech company which uses artificial intelligence to improve traffic insights and safety, has secured £5m of Series A funding in a VC round led by investor Mobeus, with additional funding from existing investors Downing Ventures and London Co-Investment Fund.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) company Peak has raised a $21 million Series B funding round led by venture capital firm Oxx, with participation from existing investors MMC Ventures and Praetura Ventures, and new investor Arete. This brings Peak’s total funding raised to date to $43 million.

AI adoption in businesses saw a rapid acceleration in 2020 as companies looked for new ways to boost sales and maximize profits. This is especially true for the many firms prioritizing digital transformation in the wake of evolving consumer demands, the continued e-commerce boom and the global pandemic.

Ai Build has raised $1m in a funding round led by SuperSeed, a London based VC that specialises in Business Automation and Industry 4.0 investments. Also joining the round is William Tunstall-Pedoe, the British entrepreneur who was one of the inventors behind Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant.

Limitless, the AI-driven gig customer experience platform, has raised $10 million in financing. The Series B investment is led by Redline Capital and features new investment from Genesys, as well as continued participation from AlbionVC and Unilever Ventures.

The financing round will see London-based Limitless continue its dedicated growth in the US market, establishing a new US-based headquarters to focus on its product development, particularly surrounding routing, automation and AI to augment the strengths of humans.