Ahead of the Accelerating Investment & Innovation Summit, taking place on Tuesday 13th September, Jordan Dargue, Head of Access to Finance at Innovation SuperNetwork, argues that, although the North East is brimming with investment opportunities, innovative businesses continue to find it hard to raise finance, and considers what can be done to attract more investors to the region.

The North East is brimming with investment opportunities. So why do we still see less investment in our innovative businesses? asks Jordan Dargue, Head of Access to Finance at Innovation SuperNetwork.

GAS welcomed QLM to its portfolio in Spring 2021 and has now invested in a £12 million Series A funding round led by Schlumberger.

The round was led by Schlumberger with support from Green Angel Syndicate, Enterprise100 Syndicate, Development Bank of Wales, Newable, Quantum Exponential and several private investors. As a company with headquarters in Cardiff and operations in Bristol, this funding round also included British Business Investments funds committed to Green Angel Syndicate through its Regional Angels Programme.

Zero Carbon Capital has made a seed investment in ClimateCrop Ltd, an Israeli company using state-of-the-art gene editing techniques to improve the efficiency with which plants use sunlight to grow.

Joshua Wohle is a EdTech/Learning enthusiast, advisor, investor. He was previously CPTO & co-Founder of SuperAwesome, the largest kidtech company in the world and is currently CEO and co-founder of Mindstone.

Joshua is also a Venture Partner and LP of Emerge Education, an education sector focused European seed fund. Here he shares his experiences of being an angel investor.

Hypetex, the world’s first manufacturer of coloured carbon fibre, has attracted £1.25 million in new equity investment and welcomes two experienced business leaders as both investors and advisers to the company.

The investment is the latest round of Hypetex’s seed funding, led by 24Haymarket, which will support ambitious growth plans and help scale the business’s footprint.

Zeed, the first-ever investment platform that uses short-form video to empower Gen-Z investors in Europe, has secured £205,000 in pre-seed funding led by SFC Capital, the UK’s most active seed stage investor.

This month we talked to Jonathan Matlock, a serial investor in deep science and founder of Science Angel Syndicate, about the unique opportunities (and challenges) of investing in deep science businesses.

PhysioMedics is poised to scale its commercial operations after securing growth capital from investors led by Archangels, the world’s longest continually operated business angel syndicate. The investment follows the appointment last year of experienced CEO, Charles Sweeney, to lead the company through the next stage of its growth.

Birmingham-based smart-EV and energy storage startup WAU (We Are Universal) has raised £650,000 in a pre-seed funding round with Angel Investment Network.

Konsileo, the commercial insurance broker and risk management adviser, has completed a £4.7 million.

About:Energy, a spinout founded from battery research at Imperial College London and the University of Birmingham, has closed its pre-seed funding round thanks to investments from three notable technology experts. Rishi Khosla, co-founder and chief executive of OakNorth, Nikhil Shah, co-founder and chief executive of S-Cube, and Nicholas Yiu, founder of Intercalation Station, joined forces to complete the six-figure funding round, which will drive development of About:Energy’s proprietary software and database.

Magical Mushroom Company, the sustainable packaging challenger harnessing the magic of mushrooms, has raised £3m in seed funding to scale its eco-friendly packaging solution. The round was led by Ecovative Design LLC with participation by Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity – the world’s first green energy company; Robert Del Naja, the renowned activist – artist and musician; and Marcus Watson – an co-founder of Adoreum Partners, who brought 30 investors in.