Flavia Richardson, Portfolio Manager at the London Co-investment Fund looks how the UK FinTech market compares to other European economies such as Germany and France – and also major economies such as the USA/ China and asks what we can learn from them.

Countingup, a revolutionary mobile app, allowing small businesses to do their banking, bookkeeping and stay on top of their taxes, has received the backing of leading fintech investors.  The London-based fintech startup has raised a £2.3m seed round led by Forward Partners with participation from Frontline Ventures and JamJar Investments. The investors are backing the company’s vision to be the financial platform for 1m small businesses. Today, Countingup boasts more than four thousand customers.

Shoosmiths has advised on the sale of specialist IT-provider Taylor Made Computer Solutions (TMCS) to Peach Technologies, creating one of the UK’s biggest IT managed providers as a result.

Apperio, the UK-based legal tech start-up transforming the way companies analyse their legal spend, today announces that it has raised $10 million (£7.5 million) in a Series A round, led by Draper Esprit and supported by existing investors Notion, IQ Capital and angels.

Apperio provides companies and their in-house legal teams with complete visibility of legal spend. It allows them to track both billed and unbilled hours, in real-time, run analytics and monitor law firm performance. The technology helps in-house teams to effectively manage budgets, while at the same time helping them to demonstrate value.

A new pioneering investment app has been launched by one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organisations due to a “seismic shift in client expectations.”

The Nigerian Agricultural Bank, Bank of Agriculture and the African electricity supplier Daystar Power have entered into a comprehensive cooperation for rural electrification in Nigeria. The cooperation includes the supply of solar power to the bank branches as well as a concept for the supply of electricity to rural Nigeria.

Keywords Studios, the international technical services provider to the global video games industry, has announced that it has acquired Studio Gobo Ltd and Electric Square Ltd.

In its latest analysis of global Mergers & Acquisitions activity in Enterprise Software, Hampleton Partners reports that the sector delivered its best half year on record with 522 transactions in total. Deal volume was up 11 percent year-over-year and up 15 percent from the previous half-year period. With above $1 billion valuations also rising fast - 14 during the first half of 2018, compared with just five in 2H2017 and three during 1H2017 - records for the sector are already breaking. 

The top three acquirers over the past 30 months were: Wisetech Global, the Australian logistics software company (14 deals, including: Pierbridge Inc and SaaS Transportation); Vista Equity Partners (13 deals, including Allocate Software Plc and Gather Technologies) and Thoma Bravo (12 deals, including MeridianLink Inc and ABC Financial).

Triple Point, which provides innovative and compelling investment solutions for private and institutional investors, announces the first investment of its Impact EIS managed service of up to £250,000 in MWS Technology, a company that is transforming the efficiency and compliance of organisations that deliver apprenticeship training through its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform Aptem.

The investment will support the growth of MWS, significantly increasing its workforce and helping to develop Aptem, the only end-to-end technology platform software that can deliver the functionality required for forward-thinking training providers.

In partnership with global law firm Penningtons Manches, Beauhurst recently produced a ground-breaking report on the investment dynamics between Britain and the investment firms of the United States. The results were fascinating, revealing that investment from the West Coast of the US into British tech has increased to record levels over the past eight years.

YFM Equity Partners has backed the MBO of DSP Database Managed Services, a leading provider of database and data platform managed services. One of the fastest growing implementation partners for Oracle Database Cloud, with a similar pedigree in Microsoft Azure, DSP is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of Data Platform support & consulting services, whether on-premise, in-the-cloud or hybrid.

High-growth Miss Group, a web hosting company, has received a £6.4m investment from BGF to accelerate its international expansion strategy.