Blackfinch Ventures has invested £540,000 into innovate start-up Kokoon. The London based company has developed the world’s first sleep aiding headphones, allowing customers to take control of their sleep. Kokoon has developed noise cancelling headphones that include bio-sensors, measuring when the wearer falls asleep.  The product is specifically designed to help the customer sleep using its relaxing audio and soundscapes. The connected app, Kokoon Relax, monitors and tracks the users’ sleep journey, providing suggested audio that is specifically designed to protect the user from disturbances throughout the night.

Clyde Biosciences Ltd. has raised a £2 million ‘Series A’ investment led by Epidarex Capital, a leading international early-stage life science venture capital fund. Scottish Enterprise’s investment arm, the Scottish Investment Bank, also participated in the round along with Glasgow University Holdings, Ltd.

PredictImmune, developers of pioneering prognostic tools for guiding treatment options and improving patient outcomes in immune-mediated diseases, is delighted to welcome Tim Rea, an investor at BGF, to its board.

Scottish biotech company, and the market leader in gene therapy control technologies, Synpromics, has been bought by AskBio, the American pioneer in gene therapeutics.  EIS and VCT fund manager Calculus Capital, which first invested in Synpromics in 2015 and invested £5.6m into the company in total, will receive a return on investment that significantly exceeds target returns.

Wellington Partners has announced the final close of its fifth-generation fund Wellington Partners Life Science Fund V (WPLS-V).  

Thriva, the proactive health company, has secured a £6M Series A funding round. The funding will support Thriva as it builds towards it’s ambitious vision: to put optimal health in anyone’s hands.  The round, from a range of investors including Pembroke VCT and Guinness Asset Management, takes the total raised by Thriva to £7.5m since its launch in 2016.  Thriva offers affordable, clinical-grade insights based on the latest research and has helped over 100,000 people understand how their lifestyle is impacting their health.

The Animal Health Laboratory within the Colorado Department of Agriculture is assisting in a trial of Actiphage®, a new rapid blood test for 

Bluecrest Health Screening, a leading provider of affordable health checks, has secured a £17 million investment arranged by private equity firm Vespa Capital.

PredictImmune, developers of pioneering prognostic tools for guiding treatment options and improving patient outcomes in immune-mediated diseases, has announced the completion of its Series B funding having raised £10M.

Keensight Capital, one of the leading private equity managers dedicated to pan-European Growth Buyout[1] investments, announces the acquisition of Infarco’s majority stake in 3P Biopharmaceuticals, a leading Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) specialized in the process development and GMP manufacturing of biologics.

Medical device company Flow, creators of the first and only medically approved treatment for depression of its kind in Europe, today announces it has raised $1.5m in an investment round led by Khosla Ventures to tackle the world’s most urgent mental health challenges. The investment will be used to support Flow’s European rollout, introduce Flow to healthcare clinics, and fund clinical studies.

Foresight Group has invested a further £4 million growth capital investment into portfolio company ONFAB to fund the acquisition of Lancashire based designer and manufacturer of clean air containment products, Envair Holdings Limited.

ONFAB produces flexible clean-air enclosures and consumables, designed and manufactured in-house from sites in Cheshire and Spain. Founded in 2005 by Oliver Nulty, ONFAB received investment from the £60 million Foresight Regional Investment LP fund in September 2017 to facilitate a majority buyout of the business. Since then, with an enlarged team and renewed focus on sales, margins and new products, it has grown by over 30% per year and continues to benefit from ever stricter safety standards protecting workers across the globe.