The Development Bank of Wales has now worked with over 900 women involved in the ownership of companies in Wales. 

Imperial College London has launched its first Innovation Fund to invest in early-stage, high-growth, knowledge-intensive companies spun out of the world top ten university. It offers alumni and investors the opportunity to support the commercial development of Imperial’s discoveries into tomorrow’s solutions in medicine, engineering, biochemistry, genetics, materials, quantum computing, data science, and beyond. 

YFM Equity Partners has appointed Roux Brits as Portfolio Director. Based in the London office, Roux will focus on actively managing YFM’s Growth and Buyout investment portfolio as part of the national portfolio team led by David Bell.

Roux’s appointment follows a strong recent investment period for YFM, with seven new investments from its Growth and Buyout funds during 2019, plus a number of additional new deals expected to complete soon.  YFM added almost £100m to its investment capacity last year, including a £60m first close of Buyout Fund II. With this significant growth funding capacity, further growth in portfolio numbers is expected over the coming years.

Intertrust has appointed Frank Hattann as Global Head of Sales. 

Guernsey Finance, the promotional agency for the island’s finance industry internationally, has appointed Rupert Pleasant as its new Chief Executive.

Livingbridge has made four new appointments to its investment team as well as a new Head of Marketing, based across the firm’s offices in London, Manchester and Boston. 

The Accelerator Network, in partnership with White Horse Capital, welcomes Piers Linney as ScaleUp Entrepreneur-In-Residence for The ScaleUp Accelerator programme and Venture Partner at White Horse Capital. 

PetMedix has been voted best start-up in the global Animal Pharm Awards. The UK-based start-up is developing a new tier of monoclonal antibody therapy for the animal health market. Situated in the heart of the Cambridge biotechnology cluster, 2020 will see the company take up residence in the new Babraham Campus later in the year.

Appointments follow investment by pan-European private equity fund manager, capital D.

At the 93rd International Selection Panel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the international jury of the non-governmental organisation Endeavor honoured the two German founders and managing directors of the Nigerian solar energy company Daystar Power as High Impact Entrepreneurs. With this seal of approval and its network, Endeavor, based in New York, honors and supports entrepreneurial personalities worldwide.

Livingbridge investee company Brainlabs has made two investments in online marketing agency Distilled and US digital marketing specialist Hanapin, underlining its ambitious growth strategy. 

Tech Nation, the UK network for ambitious tech entrepreneurs, has revealed the 10 early-stage scaleup winners of its nationwide competition, Rising Stars. 

The Rising Stars competition is the only national early-stage tech scaleup competition in the UK, and is designed to showcase the most exciting companies at Seed to pre-Series A funding from all areas of the country. Tech Nation’s Rising Stars are on track to become the world leading tech companies of tomorrow - the UK is a world leader in producing successful tech companies, and is now home to 77 billion-dollar businesses, double that of Germany and almost four times as many as Israel.