Birmingham-based language technology firm, Learning Labs Limited, has secured a £500,000 investment to ramp up product development and establish itself in new markets. The investment round includes finance from some existing investors and £250,000 from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF) Equity Finance Fund, managed by venture capital firm Midven. 

Future VC 2020, Diversity VC’s programme that helps people from backgrounds that are underrepresented in venture capital to break into the industry. The outreach for participants begins today, and the programme will begin on Tuesday 9th June.

Continuum Industries, which provides AI tools for engineering professionals to rapidly design linear infrastructure projects and reduce their costs, has raised £1.5M in seed funding to make its technology widely available to infrastructure planning and design teams around the world.

The round was co-led by Playfair Capital and Credo Ventures with participation from Techstart Ventures, Simon Blakey, Michael Blakey and others.

Ambitious new route map points the way to £1 billion for nature conservation. Nick Lyth, Founder and CEO of Green Angel Syndicate, is a member of the working party that has brought this project to fruition.

A route map towards unlocking £1 billion of new investment for nature conservation in Scotland has been published by the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). This work comes at a critical time as society plans a green recovery from the social and economic upheaval caused by Covid-19, and continues to respond to the urgent climate and ecological emergencies.

European VC-backed companies raised $8.8B across 923 deals in the first quarter of 2020 according to the latest KPMG Venture Pulse Report.

Investment in Europe got off to an excellent start in 2020 even with the exit of the UK from the European Union and the sudden uncertainty created by the rapid spread of COVID-19 in February and March. The expanding startup ecosystem across Europe, low interest rates, and a strong base of maturing startups helped drive the continued VC investment.

Mole Valley Asset Management (MVAM) has launched its new Yorkshire T20 portfolio, headed up up by Duncan Sanford. The portfolio is made up of 20 handpicked, listed companies from across Yorkshire, including a scientific innovator on the brink of announcing a ground-breaking, instant test for the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Community-based asset management company MVAM is determined to champion some of the best businesses the county has to offer and provide a way for people to grow their savings while supporting local, home-grown industry.

Urgentem (formerly Engaged Tracking), one of the pioneering companies in climate risk management, data and analytics space, has raised £500k from existing investors and has appointed a new CEO and senior management team in place alongside a new name, corporate identity and website.

Technology company Sennen, whose bespoke software enables safer and more efficient renewable energy operations, has won a major new client.

Brytlyt, provider of the world’s fastest data analytics and visualisation technology, has raised $4 million in Series A funding from global technology investor Amadeus Capital Partners and Finch Capital.  Until now, sectors with billion-record data sets such as telcos, retail and finance, have struggled to use their data to gain insights into company performance and improve customer experience and retention. This is because legacy systems were unable to handle ad-hoc analyses of such large data in real-time.

The healthcare scale-up behind a location-based platform which has been shown to double team throughput, has announced £9m in series A funding led QBN Capital.

A company which has developed an eco-friendly water treatment system that can reduce pollution levels has raised £550,000 to help roll it out to the water industry.  Industrial Phycology (I-Phyc) has secured a second round of funding from the MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund, which is managed by Mercia and part of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund, and private investors.

MGB Biopharma, the Glasgow-based biopharmaceutical company developing a novel class of anti-infectives, has announced the successful conclusion of its Phase II clinical study into MGB-BP-3, for the treatment of Clostridium difficile Infection (CDI).