A new crowdfunding initiative has been launched by ACE Entrepreneurs to support early stage black-owned businesses. The ‘small diverse business’ crowdfund is for £25,000, being raised on GoFundMe, which will be distributed to 10 small diverse businesses with initial stage growth investment. Led by businesswoman and entrepreneur Nadine Campbell, ACE Entrepreneurs is a community for diverse entrepreneurs and is also a champion of women in business.

Foresight Group LLP has to announced the completion of a €4.5 million top-up to the Project Bond issued in January 2019 by Pagano & Ascolillo S.p.A. and listed on Borsa Italiana, for the installation of LED street lights on behalf of the Foresight Italian Green Bond Fund.  The top-up will support four further street lighting projects to retrofit c.7,235 street lighting points across four municipalities in the Centre and South of Italy. 

Private equity-backed property, site and people protection specialist Orbis Protect has made its first acquisition following a strong period of growth despite the UK-wide lockdown.

Clarilis, the high-growth legal technology business, has raised a further £6m in a Series B investment round. The funding has come from its existing investor the Northern Venture Capital Trust Funds which are managed by Mercia,and Gresham House Ventures, investing on behalf of the Baronsmead VCTs.  The funding raised in this round will be used to support Clarilis’ ongoing growth and international expansion.

TaxScouts, the company making tax preparation effortless for the UK market, has announced a Series A investment round of £5M to further its mission to build a Pan-European Tax Service. The company is expanding into its first market outside the UK and is establishing a team in Spain, following the appointment of a Country Manager. 

Foresight Group LLP, a leading private equity and infrastructure investment manager, has announced a further £2 million follow-on investment into Envair Technology, a provider of containment solutions that facilitates faster and more flexible drug R&D and manufacture across the globe. 

UCL Technology Fund, managed by AlbionVC in collaboration with UCL Business (the university’s commercialisation company and part of UCL Innovation & Enterprise), announces first close of a £100m target Fund 2.

Bramble Energy, the world’s most scalable hydrogen fuel cell company has raised a £5m Series A round. BGF led the round and was joined by existing investors including IP Group, Parkwalk Advisors, and UCL Technology Fund.  Bramble Energy has developed the only technology capable of producing gigawatts of hydrogen fuel cells using existing global manufacturing resources, dramatically reducing the time to market and investment needed versus existing fuel cell designs. Hydrogen fuel cells generate electric power from an electrochemical reaction rather than combustion, thereby eliminating carbon emissions from the power unit and producing only water and heat as by-products.

Symetrica, a manufacturer of radiation detection products for military and homeland security applications, has closed a £4 million funding round. The round was led by Parkwalk, the leading investor in startups spun out of UK universities – with participation from other existing Investors and the management team - and includes a provision for a further £2 million commitment from a specialist defence and security investor.

Humanloop, a game changing UCL spinout, has attracted investment from UCL’s Technology Fund (UCLTF). Based on the world-leading research of two notable academics at UCL’s AI Centre Humanloop is teaching AI to improve performance with 10 times less human training than existing systems.  The UCLTF has invested in Humanloop to help the team, which includes Professors David Barber and Emine Yilmaz, to build software that can train AI models to reach high levels of accuracy while using smaller datasets through better interaction with their human users.

Aceleron, the UK developer of sustainable and reusable battery solutions, has announced a £2m million equity investment with £1.45m from BGF, the UK’s most active investor, and the remainder from existing investor Mercia Asset Management.

Sex therapy app Blueheart has attracted £1m of funding in a Seed Round led by PROfounders Capital and joined by Calm/Storm. The app offers pioneering sex and relationship therapy, designed by experts and based on the latest scientific research.