Pictet Alternative Advisors (PAA), the Pictet Group's wholly-owned alternative investment business line, has launched its first thematic private equity fund, which will focus on technology investments.

Edgify, a company building AI training frameworks at the edge, has secured a $6.5m seed funding round backed by Octopus Ventures, Mangrove Capital Partners and a semiconductor giant.

Edgify’s technology enables any connected device - known as ‘edge devices’ - to interpret vast amounts of data generated at the edge, train a complete AI model locally, and proceed to share that learning across an entire network of similar devices, thereby training them all to identify unique aspects of a given object for use of computer vision, NLP, voice recognition and any other form of AI. 

John Auckland from TribeFirst discusses the proposed merger between Seedrs and Crowdcube. 

Two construction experts who aim to revolutionise the industry through the use of digital technology have raised £250,000 to bring their smart building software to market.  

Ian Yeo and Scott Pilgrim launched Bimsense four years ago after becoming frustrated by the traditional approach to building design, construction and management. The Hull-based consultancy has advised on major developments throughout the UK and internationally and has now developed its own operations and maintenance software, Operance.

AI chatbot specialists, We Build Bots, has set its sights on global growth with the announcement that international technology evangelist, Patrick Hosch, has been appointed as chief commercial officer.

Resilience and Recovery, a new report from the Female Founders Forum – a project by think tank The Entrepreneurs Network, in partnership with Barclays – has revealed that female-founded, equity-backed businesses have been worse affected by the COVID-19 pandemic than their male counterparts. 

eFront, the leading financial software and solutions provider dedicated to Alternative Investments, has published its latest Quarterly Private Equity Performance report, 

Humley, a company which develops conversational assistants capable of manning helpdesks and answering technical enquiries, has raised £700,000 to help scale up its operationssecured the investment from the MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund, which is managed by Mercia and part of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF), Mercia’s own EIS funds and a private investor.

The funding, which follows an earlier round by private investors, brings the total raised by Humley to £1.4m and will allow the Northampton-based company to grow its customer base and revenue ahead of a planned Series A funding round next year.

Antler has welcomed James Anderson to its advisory board. James is the co-manager of the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust at Baillie Gifford. 

BGF, the UK and Ireland’s most active investor in growing businesses, has appointed Liam Pursall as an investor and Georgie Stratton in direct origination as part of its growing team based in the South West and Wales.

Liam joins from Foundation Investment Partners, where he spent four years focusing on UK buy-outs with an enterprise value of between £5 million and £50 million. Prior to this, Liam spent five years in the Corporate Finance team at EY.

British digital health start-up Clin-e-cal has raised over £130,000 on leading crowdfunding platform Crowdcube to fund the commercialisation and scale-up of its smart inhaler monitoring technology. Clin-e-cal’s smartphone apps use unique SoundResponse® technology, which analyses sound signals asscociated with the inhaler device. The apps then use these sound signals to provide real-time visual feedback to users on their inhalation technique, as well as tracking their adherence.

Condense Reality, a virtual reality startup developing technology to transform how viewers watch live entertainment and sports, has raised a seed round of more than £800,000, including £220,000 from SFC Capital, the most active seed-stage investor in the UK. The remaining funds come from two grant awards, together worth almost £500,000, as well as smaller commitments from RLC Ventures and angel investors. The investment will see Condense Reality increase its R&D capabilities and commercialise its technology over the next 12 months.