AI insurance pricing solution Akur8 has raised €8m in its Series A round from BlackFin Capital Partners and MTech Capital, bringing Akur8’s total funding to €10 million following initial investment and incubation from Kamet Venturesin 2018. Akur8 solves the insurance industry’s issue of ever-increasing pressure to find a sophisticated way to offer quick, easy and appropriate prices for today’s retail and commercial insurance customers.

Speaking at Leyton UK event, techUK Director of Policy, Vinous Ali praises policy moves and new attitude

The Director of Policy at techUK, Vinous Ali has welcomed the approach of the new UK Government as being ‘incredibly tech positive’ and backing up words with actions. The comments came at an event held yesterday, Tuesday 10 March, at techUK, the membership organisation representing the tech industry, hosted by the UK’s largest innovation funding consultancy, Leyton UK. Speaking at the event titled ‘Fast Track Your Innovation Journey’ Ali praised the new Government’s ‘energy and enthusiasm’ and action in ‘broadening out the definition of R&D’. She said this was a great example of a positive policy move sending out the right signals post-Brexit.

Property technology company Goodlord, which provides software and services to transform how people rent, has been backed by some of the UK’s most respected investors in a  £10m Series B round.

Bowmark Capital, the mid-market private equity firm, has purchased a significant minority stake in Focus Group, a leading UK provider of communications and IT solutions.

246 angel investors shared a major payday this year with the €363 million sale of Irish chip-maker Decawave to US Apple supplier Qorvo.

Loughborough-based Previsico has signed up to the national SPRINT business support programme to work with the University of Leicester on a major flood forecasting project. The University of Leicester will provide Previsico with flood extent information retrieved from satellite imagery. This will be combined with real-time flood models based on meteorological forecasts to enhance the accuracy and predictive capabilities of Previsico's flood forecasting.

London-based TechApp Consultants, a specialist in bespoke antenna solutions, has signed up to the national SPRINT business support programme. TAC will develop a new range of low-cost and high-performance beam-tracking antennas for non-geostationary satellites, in collaboration with SPRINT partner, the University of Surrey.

The project will be funded by a grant from the £4.8 million SPRINT programme.

BGF has exited its minority stake in Vysiion Group, a communications infrastructure and outsourced IT service provider. The business has been acquired by Exponential-e, a cloud, network and unified communications company.

Manchester-based entertainment brand Vistavenus, has received its first angel investment of £200,000 from renowned businessman David Walter, giving Vistavenus a pre-market valuation of over £4 million.

Speedinvest, a European venture capital fund with offices in London, Berlin, Vienna, Munich and San Francisco, has raised €190 million for its third flagship fund, surpassing its original target ahead of schedule due to high investor demand. The oversubscribed round increases Speedinvest’s total AUM to more than €400M.

AND Digital has secured an £11m equity investment from BGF, the UK and Ireland’s most active investor in growing businesses, to support its continued growth and global expansion.

Established in 2014, AND Digital is one of Europe’s fastest growing tech companies, employing over 600 people and generating an annual turnover of £42m. In this year’s The Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For, AND was ranked at number 10, demonstrating its people first focus for tech talent.

BGF has successfully exited its investment in fast-growth web hosting company, Miss Group, as financial backing has been secured from private equity investor Perwyn.

Miss Group, which offers services including web hosting, domain registration and VPS to SMEs, received an initial £6.4m from BGF in August 2018. This was followed by a further £13m investment to accelerate its international expansion strategy in 2019.