Arda Biomaterials’ mission to transform waste into a valuable, animal and plastic-free leather alternatives has just received a major boost with £1.1m of new investment, led by Clean Growth Fund, the UK clean-tech venture capital fund, alongside a number of other investors and angels.

Given the market potential of Arda’s innovative technology, Clean Growth Fund, has led a £1.1m investment in the company, alongside Plug and Play, Serpentine Ventures, Satgana, and a group of angel investors from alternative protein, fashion, and the climate tech ecosystem.

London-based consumer health startup Berry Health raised $1.6m from Lightspeed Venture Partners and General Catalyst to democratize access to healthcare in Africa, starting out with mental health, sexual health and dermatology.

Ready Burger, a plant-based fast food brand, has closed a  investment round, reaching well over its £250,000 target, with funds raised totalling more than £290,000.  The funding will be used to further progress its goal of becoming a major player within the global vegan food market, which is forecast to grow to over $60bn by 2028.

Green Angel Ventures has followed its original investment in Qualis Flow, a female-founded technology company provides construction teams with the data they need to reduce waste.  The round will further accelerate growth, and is a reflection of the success of this construction-sector company following a first investment in 2021.

Distil.ai – a customer data platform that helps e-commerce businesses to understand customers’ behaviour and boost sales – has raised a further £1.1m in a funding round led by Mercia Ventures and supported by angel investors.

MIPISE, a Fintech-Regtech specialized in development of “end-to-end white-label” solutions for the digitalization of financial activities, announces a €1.3 million fundraising to accelerate the European rollout of its offering dedicated to management companies (private equity, real estate) and crowdfunding players.

Recent research from the British Business Bank found there has been no improvement in the value of investment deals to all-female founder teams over the past decade. While the Small Business Equity Tracker 2023 found that 27% of deals went to teams with at least one female founder, the highest proportion ever, all-female teams accounted for 9% of deals in 2022 but only received 2% of funding, which reflects no improvement since 2011.

Germany: SQUAKE, a climate tech startup powering accurate carbon calculations and providing tangible compensation for travel and logistics emissions, has raised €3.5 million in funding led by Simon Capital, with participation from Schenker Ventures and Rivus Capital.

A move towards AI as a trusted ‘advisor’; the impact of the cost of living crisis and a move away from ethical investing are just some of the key findings published from the Investor Index - an annual study of UK investors.

SFC Capital has been awarded the prestigious 'Best SEIS Investment Manager' and 'EISA Impact Award' at this year's EISA Awards.

Green Angel Ventures has made a follow-on investment in an early stage venture producing a revolutionary chain drive product. New Motion Labs Limited (NML) is a high tech engineering company that has successfully re-engineered chain drives for the first time in 150 years, substantially improving their durability and efficiency.

Wales’ first all-female angel investor syndicate has marked its first investment into a new business intelligence platform, supported by the Development Bank of Wales.

Women Angels of Wales (WAW) backed Newport-based Talent Intuition and CEO Alison Ettridge with £60,000 into its Stratigens software, a SaaS product which brings together labour market, economics and location data to provide the insight businesses need to shape radically smarter decisions.