Leading European social media management platform Agorapulse has announced a growth investment round of £14.7 million from three investors - Hi Inov Dentressangle, Cipio Partners and Entrepreneur Venture.

The company, headquartered in Paris, employs more than 65 highly skilled team members from all over the world and has rapidly grown a user base of over 22,500 users across 6,200 accounts to date. Agorapulse has been bootstrapped since its inception to achieve £9 million in ARR, with year-on-year growth exceeding 65%. Agorapulse marks one of the few European companies in the SMB sector that has excelled in the UK market. Agorapulse currently sees an annual UK revenue of  £500,000 and with this new investment Agorapulse plans to continue its expansion across the UK and Europe. 

Origin Capital has invested in Cyclops Marine, a specialist provider of load measurement instruments and technologies for sailing vessels. Cyclops has already secured several prestigious clients, not least the New Zealand America’s Cup team. Origin’s Mark Woodhams has joined the Cyclops board of directors.

Learning with Experts has just completed a latest funding round above target, raising £800k with an impressive group of High Net Worth (HNW) Angels. The investment followed an investor showcase pitch to The Oxford Opportunity Network (OION), at Rathbones. New investors joining this round via OION include Rupert Pennant-Rea, Learning with Expert’s New Chairman, former editor of The Economist and Deputy Governor of The Bank of England. 

CEO/Founder Elspeth Briscoe, formerly eBay, The Guardian, and ‘Skype Mafia’ explained: “The raise is enabling us to execute on our hiring plan, to scale our B to B, tech development and marketing teams and to hire new A list tutors for our consumer product.  We intend to drive the next education revolution beyond the MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), with our unique approach to community based, trusted, high quality, global interactive online learning.   MOOCs have 80% drop out rates.  Learning with Experts has 80% course completion rates.”

Israeli startup GK8, which provides secure end-to-end management of digital assets, has completed the development of a patented technology for sending transactions to the blockchain without any direct or indirect internet connection. GK8 is now emerging out of stealth mode having completed a seed funding round of $4 million, led by Check Point co-founder Marius Nachtand Israel Discount Capital, Israel Discount Bank Investments Arm, with the participation of investors such as the blockchain VC firm EdenBlock, iAngels, IDEAL-HLS, StratX and Israel Innovation Authority.

Red Sift, the cognitive data platform that provides cloud-based email security solutions, has closed a $8.8m investment round from research-led VC  MMC Ventures. New investor In-Q-Tel, Inc. (IQT) the US not-for-profit strategic investor, also invested alongside existing investors, White Star Capital and Oxford Capital. The news of the Series A funding comes as Red Sift plans to expand into the US and makes its latest product, OnINBOX, publicly available.

Founded in 2015 by Rahul Powar and Randal Pinto, Red Sift is a data-driven cybersecurity business that uses machine learning to analyse and synthesise data from core business processes, such as email, to help its global customer base better manage its online security. 

klarx, Europe’s leading online platform for construction machinery rental, has raised €12.5 million in a funding round led by B&C Innovation Investments GmbH (BCII), alongside existing investor Target Global. The funding will facilitate further product development and the company’s expansion into new European markets.  Founded in 2015 by brothers, Matthias and Florian Handschuh, together with Vincent Koch, klarx is a digital platform that seeks to make the supply of construction equipment easier, faster and more cost efficient for its users. 

Process Systems Enterprise (PSE), the leading supplier of predictive Advanced Process Modelling (APM) software and services to many of the world’s largest companies, including 60 Fortune 500 firms, is exiting the AlbionVC portfolio to join Siemens AG in Q4 this year, for an undisclosed amount.

NVM Private Equity has completed the management buy-out of Mobius Networks Limited (MNL), a market leading mobile virtual network operator, providing data connectivity services for Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) applications across healthcare, transport and retail sectors. The investment from NVM will help to accelerate Mobius’ growth and drive continued development of its software and sales expertise.

Spark EV Technology has completed extensive trials of its electric vehicle (EV) range prediction technology with Hyundai. Carried out as part of the prestigious Wayra UK/Connected Places Catapult Intelligent Mobility (IM) Accelerator programme, the one month real-world trials using Hyundai electric vehicles successfully demonstrated that Spark increases the accuracy of EV journey predictions. 

Spirable, the next generation of personalised video marketing automation, today announced it has closed a £6M Series A investment round led by Smedvig Capital. Existing backers Frontline Ventures, Downing Ventures, and 24 Haymarket also followed-on. 

The new funding will accelerate Spirable’s geographical expansion and product development, to meet the growing demand for more efficient and automated personalised video creation at scale. Spirable is poised to revolutionise marketing away from a mass approach and towards highly targeted and relevant video content. 

Green Angel Syndicate has successfully led a £520k investment round into AirEx, the IoT-enabled smart ventilation control solution start-up tackling heat waste in homes.

In the UK alone, tens of millions of homes were built with low energy standards. Homeowners struggle with cold, uncomfortable draughts and high energy bills – and this situation leads to energy waste on a massive scale.

NVM Private Equity has completed the management buy-out of Leicestershire-based Secure Retail Limited (Secure), a leading provider of electronic payment solutions.