GP Bullhound acted as exclusive financial advisor to Croud on a £30 million minority investment from private equity house LDC.

Founded in the UK in 2011, Croud provides tech-enabled digital marketing services to leading brands via an innovative and disruptive service delivery model. Croud uses its proprietary technology to support planning, automation and execution of digital marketing campaigns - and then scales this capability via its global network of 2,400 on-demand digital marketing specialists. It operates from offices in London, New York, Sydney and Shrewsbury.

ScaleUp Group has supported exclusively its client Active Navigation, a leader in Data Privacy & Governance, inc. attracting growth funding from Mobeus VCT and members of SUG itself together with the setting up of an Employee Benefit Trust.

Active Navigation, a UK registered business with Angel Funding of only £1.5 million net to date has achieved profitable growth of 60% CAGR in the last 3 years. It’s 100+ clients include some of the largest organisations, predominantly in the USA, in both the commercial and Federal sectors, helping to manage their data and to recover from or avoid serious breaches, often stimulated by GDPR and similar regulations, such as CCPA in California.

Startup Funding Club has led a £250,000 seed round into fintech company Ember. The accounting software startup strives to make business simpler for contractors and SMEs by automating the entirety of the business administration and tax process.

Ember believes in an economy powered by small business and is creating a future where independent workers and companies can thrive without the need for an accountant. Its software helps businesses manage their financial obligations by automating the entire accounting process from bank transaction through to tax submission. Ember allows its users to see all the relevant numbers in one central feed – and even replaces technical terms for language that is easy to understand.

The Management team of Professional Music Technology has completed a Management Buyout of the business, with financing provided by YFM Equity Partners and the founders of the business.

Celonis, the market leader in AI-enhanced Process Mining and Process Excellence software, has raised approximately $290 million in Series C funding, valuing the company at $2.5 billion. Leading global enterprises including 3M, Airbus, Danaher, L’Oréal, Lufthansa, Siemens, and Uber rely on Celonis to improve the efficiency of their finance, supply chain, IT, sales, and customer service functions.  Arena Holdings led the round alongside a group of principal investors and established entrepreneurs who have successfully scaled profitable, high-growth businesses. 

ABN AMRO's Digital Impact Fund (DIF) has doubled its assets under management from EUR 50 million to EUR 100 million and will continue its activities under the name ABN AMRO Ventures. 

Capitolis, the innovative FinTech company reimagining and reshaping how the global capital markets operate, has announced the successful completion of its Series B round of $40 million, led by Spark Capital and SVB Capital. Existing investors, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital and S Capital also participated in the round, bringing the total capital raised to date to $70 million. The investment will support Capitolis’ next phase of rapid growth, including the expansion of its technology platform, functionality and product offering. 

Foresight Group LLP, a leading independent infrastructure and private equity investment manager, has announced the successful sale of Idio Limited to Episerver Inc, a customer-centric digital experience company. The acquisition is expected to enhance Episerver’s analytics and personalisation capabilities to deliver customer-centric digital experiences.  Idio is a content personalisation and analytics platform powering the digital buying experience of some of the world’s largest enterprise organisations. 

Headstart, the HR tech company using data science to remove bias when hiring, has announced a $7million seed investment round, led by FoundersX, the Silicon Valley VC specialising in AI. Headstart’s fresh approach to large enterprises fighting the ‘war for talent’ uses sophisticated software to find the right candidate for the right job - regardless of background, gender or ethnicity. The investment will help the company to develop its platform further, grow the team and move into international markets. 

Ad-Lib, a UK-based marketing technology SaaS platform that helps global brands manage and automate the production and activation of creative assets in their digital advertising worldwide, has closed $6million in Series A funding from San Francisco-based Fog City Capital. 

The ScaleUp Institute has appointed successful scaleup entrepreneur Adam Hale as its new Chair.

He takes over from Sherry Coutu, co-founder of the ScaleUp Institute, who has served her planned five-year term since the publication of the original Scaleup Report in 2014 and the subsequent formation of the ScaleUp Institute in 2015.

Snowplow Analytics, the company that helps businesses to collect and own their customer data, has closed a £4m funding round from research-led VC MMC Ventures. The funding will support the company’s continued expansion in the US and Europe, and will help to further develop the technology behind its product.