London Tech Week announces plans to definitively map the UK tech scene highlighting and promoting the best businesses, innovators and thinkers operating across the country.

Over the next 12 months, London Tech Week and UK Tech Cluster Group will explore the unique ecosystems and tech trends in every region of the UK. From space tech in the South West to cybersecurity in Northern Ireland, 12 Clusters of Tech charts the companies, sectors and case studies that make up the entire UK tech landscape.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed new statistics that show the UK economy has grown by 6.6% in the month of July. This news will be welcomed by many businesses owners as consumers regain their spending confidence. 

Luke Davis, CEO and founder of IW Capital, discusses how enterprises can scale and grow despite the pandemic.

Mollie, one of the fastest growing payment service providers in Europe, has announced the closing of €90 million (US$100 million) in its Series B funding round, taking the total amount raised by the company to €115 million. The round was led by TCV, one of the largest growth equity investors focused on technology. Mollie will use the funding to accelerate international expansion and invest in product and engineering, helping it to realise its vision of becoming the most-loved payment service provider (PSP) in Europe.

AppyWay, the leading kerbside management and smart parking technology firm, has announced the launch of its £20 million Series B funding round. This will be used to support organic growth of the platform, strategic acquisitions, further technological investment and international scalability.

AppyWay is helping to digitise and integrate what is a highly fragmented, but high potential, market for mobility. In the UK, the government has invested well over £200 million into connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) research and development since 2014, as well as several billion pounds into infrastructure investment for electric vehicles. 

Turquoise, the London-based merchant bank specialising in energy, environment and efficiency, has announced its latest investment through Low Carbon Innovation Fund 2 (LCIF2) in Spark EV Technology.  The investment, worth £160,000, is part of an ongoing £530,000 funding round for Spark EV Technology. This will support the company’s automotive market growth, assist business development efforts into China and expand its reach to European and North American customers. Harnessing live data and machine learning, Spark’s AI-based software produces highly accurate, personalised range predictions for electric vehicles. 

Moteefe, the ecommerce platform providing infrastructure, customisation and global fulfilment for retailers of all sizes, has successfully completed an $11M funding round. New investor BGF led the round with participation from existing investors including Gresham House Ventures and Force Over Mass Capital. 

A key stage in the commercial development of quantum computers has been reached with the successful UK trial of a high-performance, universal operating system.

Sheffield-based Electric Vehicle (EV) tech start-up Mina has successfully secured significant seed investment during the lockdown period supported by investment non-profit NorthInvest, valuing the business at £2m.  Private angel investors from a range of backgrounds including Energy, EV Charging and Vehicle Lease sectors contributed to the round led by NorthInvest Angel Investor Gary Shuckford and supported by equity finance advisor, Mick Morris at Compellor.

An online game developed by a start-up business in response to the recent Covid-19 lockdown is now being used to train the Artificial Intelligence (AI) component of its new legal contract management system.  ContrAI is a modular, web-first product that uses AI to aid contract management and analysis. The contract processing required to train the ContrAI system was due to enter its second phase from May this year following the initial categorisation process at the end of last year.

UK SME’s are at risk of 65,000 cyber security attacks daily – with around 4,500 of these being successful – and the figure could be much higher since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Gaming quality assurance and testing firm Testronic, part of the Catalis Group, has acquired Whyttest, a games QA and customer support business headquartered in Romania – a move set to increase headcount by 15 per cent. 

Glennmont Partners, one of Europe’s largest pure renewables fund managers, has adopted Greenbyte’s monitoring platform to oversee the technical performance of its dynamic European wind and solar portfolio. Greenbyte will be fully integrated with Glennmont’s financial and commercial management systems, pulling data from Glennmont’s newest funds with an operational fleet exceeding 1GW to inform decision-making and create transparency with investors.