Foresight Group announces a £3 million development capital investment from Foresight Funds into managed services provider Luminet.

Luminet is an award-winning provider of connectivity and managed IT services to businesses and organisations in London.  Founded in 2005, the Company was one of the first to offer commercial wireless broadband solutions to businesses and has grown its client base in London to more than 550 businesses.

London-based investment management firm, Downing LLP, and BioScience Managers Limited, the international healthcare investment firm and advisers to the Downing FOUR VCT, have invested £1.14 million in Wales-based ADC Biotechnology Ltd.

ADC Biotechnology is creating innovative new technology, which aims to speed up, simplify and significantly lower the costs of the processes involved in the production of new antibody drug 

GSK and Orchard Therapeutics have announced a strategic agreement, under which GSK will transfer its portfolio of approved and investigational rare disease gene therapies to Orchard, securing the continued development of the programmes and access for patients. This acquisition strengthens Orchard’s position as a global leader in gene therapy for rare diseases. GSK will continue to invest in the development of its platform capabilities in cell and gene therapies, with a focus on oncology.

Calculus has completed two follow-on investments into portfolio companies Weedingtech and Quai. These investments represent further funding and support for businesses we have previously backed as they continue to grow. Weedingtech is a multi-award winning cleantech company and Quai are specialists in digital administration.

Maven Capital Partners has been appointed to manage the £27 million North East Development Capital Fund, which will provide equity, debt and mezzanine funding of between £400,000 and £2 million to established businesses.

Maven Capital Partners has completed a £1.1 million VCT investment in WaterBear Education Ltd, a private higher education college which provides a range of Master of Arts (MA) and Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree courses across the creative industries in partnership with the University of Chichester.  

Funds advised and managed by YFM Equity Partners have backed an investment into Eikon Group Limited, a cutting edge, end-to-end, digital post-production services for the motion picture and broadcast industry.

The Association of Investment Companies (AIC) has published the fundraising figure for Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) for the 2017/18 tax year. 

Mobeus Equity Partners and Beringea have co-invested in a £5 million funding round for mpb.com, a specialist online marketplace for second-hand photographic and filmmaking equipment.

Launched in 2011, the Brighton-based company currently facilitates more than 6,000 transactions per month, and is on track to generate £22 million in turnover this year at a year-on-year growth rate of more than 60 per cent. Since its Series A funding round, completed in June 2016, mpb.com has grown from 28 people to a team of 90, with offices in Brighton and New York. 

In the third of three articles on the changes brought in with the Budget, James Ramsay, an independent tax efficient specialist, takes an adviser’s eye view of the changes and their implications to firms and their clients.

A tiny group of UK companies are punching well above their weight showing they can be a significant force in driving the country’s economic growth, increasing UK productivity, skills and employment, according to The Octopus High Growth Small Business Report 2018.

One in every five new jobs in the UK and more than 20% of economic growth was created by high growth small businesses between 2015 and 2016. Representing less than 1% of UK business, these 22,074 companies created on average more than 3,000 new jobs each week.

State Street Global Exchange today released the results of the State Street Investor Confidence Index® (ICI) for March 2018.