Deepbridge Capital, the UK venture capital investment manager, has announces that it has secured a £15m commitment from British Business Investments, a commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank, to fund early-stage businesses across the UK.

A syndicate of significant Welsh investment angels has completed a £950,000 investment in Swansea-based Marine Power Systems.  Led by lead investor Andrew Diplock, the syndicate of 15 investors has invested £700,000 along with £250,000 match funding from the Development Bank of Wales’ Wales Angel Co-investment Fund. A further £750,000 from private investors has brought the total of the latest equity fundraise to £1.7 million.

Bright Star Studios has secured over $2 million in funding from multiple investors for its forthcoming free-to-play MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online roleplaying game) Ember Sword. This investment comes ahead of the game’s first Solarwood land sale of 12,000 plots on May 27th. Bright Star Studios intends to use the funding to further Ember Sword’s development, enabling it to deliver on its vision of a high-quality and immersive player-first gaming experience supported by an innovative play-to-earn economy powered by the blockchain.

eleXsysEnergy has raised £640,000 through Angel Investment Network, the world’s largest online angel investment platform. eleXsys Energy has developed a unique, international award-winning, enabling technology that will drive the transition of global energy grids to a clean energy future. The eleXsys® technology enables large commercial and industrial rooftops to become grid-connected, solar power plants. eleXsys® is the critical enabling technology being installed to build the IKEA eleXsys Microgrid at IKEA Adelaide, which will become 100% powered by renewable generation by 2025.

Green Angel Syndicate  has invested in environmental DNA pioneers NatureMetrics.  The Series A round, led by Acuity Investments, includes funding from both Green Angel Syndicate members and the recently launched Green Angel Syndicate EIS Climate Change Fund as well as investment from Systemiq, a consulting and investment firm that backs system-changing technologies.

Oliver Woolley of Envestors shares his thoughts on the impact that Covid pandemic has had on investment.

With an initial pre-seed investment of £25k as part of a larger £150k SEIS seed round raised through team members, angels and friends, the DadShed application is ready to move onto its second build (v2), incorporating an updated category section, a mobile app version and a round of UI/UX design improvements.

Oceanium, the UK-based seaweed processing and food & material innovation business has announced the first close of a Seed II Round worth £2m led by Green Angel Syndicate with World Wildlife Fund. Oceanium will use the funds to scale up its proprietary biorefinery and processing model to open up the market for the nascent sustainable seaweed farming industry. Oceanium's technical and innovative refinement method has been developed to process seaweed for applications including use in plant-based foods and sustainable packaging material as an alternative to plastic.

Venture Capital investment firm JPIN VCATS has completed a £1.5million raise to drive forward the development of the world's largest investment corridor between the the UK and India. The investment has come from a group of Super Angels, renowned Family Offices and Institutional Investors from the UK, India, Europe, Africa and the Middle East in a raise that spans a global ecosystem of investors. JPIN VCATS will look at backing growth to Series D rounds.  

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.