SETsquared has released data which shows that a record level of investment was raised by its member companies in 2020, despite the pandemic. Investment from private and public sources across the year, totalled £616m, which represents a 40% increase on 2019.

Revolutionary synthetic diamond production business, Dyman Advanced Materials, based at the North East Technology Park (NETPark) in County Durham, is set to disrupt the $12bn market in 2021 after raising £571,466 in equity investment. 

ilumoni, the start-up app that aims to help people to borrow well, has raised £1.2m in an over-subscribed seed funding round after successfully launching in Beta earlier this year.  The purpose-led, AI-driven fintech had previously raised £455,000 in pre-seed funding, which saw the initial build of the first version of the app. The app went on to receive full FCA authorisation in January of 2021 and has already attracted its first beta users.

Money Alive, a regulatory technology business based in Bedford, is set for further growth following a £749,000 financial investment from Foresight Group using equity finance from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF) as part of a £1 million funding round together with a number of private investors.

The world’s first live sports streaming and advertising platform built specifically for commercial venues, Screach, is rolling out its technology globally after securing $2m in investment.

Nanotechnology business Figura Analytics has raised £180,000 seed funding from private investors and the UK’s leading early stage investor SFC Capital. 

The company was spun out of Loughborough University in January 2021, backed by an Innovate UK grant, to develop its rapid testing technology platform aimed at helping the drinks industry to improve quality and consistency of ingredients and finished product.  Figura’s nanopore technology uses microfluidics, sensors and software algorithms, which enables them to recognise and characterize any particle suspended in a solution. 

Charlotte Arneaud of Envestors looks at parallels in consumer spending with angel investor decision-making. 

PortalOne, the world's first hybrid games platform, has raised $15m in an oversubscribed total seed funding round. The round included U.S. investors like Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and TQ Ventures, the investment fund led by Scooter Braun, Schuster Tanger and Andrew Marks. Coatue Management´s investment was led by Arielle Zuckerberg, the Rogue Ventures investment was led by Alice Lloyd George. Sunny Dhillon led the investment from Signia Venture Partners whose LPs include Warner Bros., Disney and Tencent. European investors include Seedcamp , Talis Capital and SNÖ Ventures. 

Ecommerce startup aisle 3 has completed a successful follow on funding round, raising £250,000 via Angel Investment Network, the world’s largest online angel investment network. Aiming to become ‘the Wikipedia of product search’ the business secured the funds in just six weeks with the company’s valuation more than doubling in the past five months. Experienced angel investors have backed the founders’ vision for a new, disruptive ecommerce marketplace  offering truly personalised experiences for large networks of engaged shoppers.

The month of March proved to be an extremely successful one for Newable Ventures, the UK’s leading early stage investment network, which deployed circa £2m in six companies to round off a busy financial year, which also saw the group secure £10m from British Business Investment’s Regional Angel Programme.

A team of top scientists from the University of Bristol have formed a new biotech company that is developing ground-breaking and newly patented potential treatments for Coronavirus.

Bristol-based Halo Therapeutics is backed by Charles Grimsdale (former Eden Ventures), Keith MacDonald and Mark Farmer (of Eden Ventures) and a group of Angels from the Bristol area.  It was founded by the team of leading scientists who made a recent breakthrough discovery, which was published in Science Magazine. They found that exposing the SARS-CoV-2 (Coronavirus) virus to a free fatty acid called linoleic acid locks the virus’s spike protein into a closed, non-infective form stopping it in its tracks.

We are now past the end of the tax year.  So now is a good time to mull over what you will be doing as an angel investor over the next twelve months. Here are a few things the AngelNews team thinks it would be helpful to spend some time on.