Established North West capital finance advisory firm Acceleris Capital has announced a return to Greater Manchester as part of a formal spin-out from Seneca Partners Limited. The spin-out is on the back of increasing demand from regional SMEs for capital advisory services, fundraising support and post-transaction assistance.

Synthesia, a UK based startup developing video synthesis technology, has raised $3.1 million to continue their mission of helping brands and content creators scale their video production using AI. This financing was led by LDV Capital, early investor Mark Cuban, and joined by new investors  MMC Ventures, Seedcamp, Martin Varsavsky’s VAS Ventures, TransferWise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus, Tiny VC, and advertising executive Nigel Morris.

Sure Ventures has made a direct investment of £500,000 in VividQ Limited, a UK-based deep tech software company pioneering the application of holography in AR/VR and consumer electronics display.

London-based Venture Firm, Hambro Perks, has appointed ex-Morgan Stanley’s Svenja Grundmann as Investment Associate.

The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF), delivered by British Business Bank, has invested a total of £20m in ambitious, high-growth SMEs in the Leeds City Region.  Since its launch in February 2017, NPIF has delivered equity finance, debt finance, and microfinance solutions, ranging in size from £25,000 to £2m to businesses across the 10 Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP) that make up the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ region.  To date, NPIF has completed 104 investments in Leeds City Region-based SMEs across a range of sectors including ICT and manufacturing, which received £5.50m and £5.17m respectively.

Workbooks, a British cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and marketing automation vendor, today announces the arrival of Alex Bradley as head of Sales. Following strong company growth, Alex Bradley is the tenth person to join Workbooks in the past six months. These appointments reflect the company’s aim to build a world class organisation focussed on delivering cloud-based business applications to the mid-market that enable operations to be streamlined, insightful decisions to be made and productivity increased.

MUSO, the global authority on digital piracy data, has raised £3.5m in an extension to its £2.5m 2017 Series A with Harwell Capital. The investment will be used to expand the company's sales and marketing and increase its foothold in the digital media, gaming and live broadcast sectors.

Innovative medtech company Odin Vision is to scale up its pioneering cancer detection technology thanks to an investment round led by the UCL Technology Fund alongside London Co-Investment Fund (LCIF) and AI seed and grant funding from InnovateUK, the NHS and the UK Space Agency and European Space Agency. 

A company which helps universities to commercialise academic research by initiating new collaborations with industry has secured a £950,000 investment. The funding includes £750,000 from NPIF - Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia Fund Managers and is part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, with an additional £200,000 from two private investors.

Bowmark Capital, the mid-market private equity firm, has agreed to sell CARE Fertility, the UK’s leading fertility clinic group for IVF treatment, to Silverfleet Capital.

Edinburgh’s tech sector will go from strength to strength after a partnership between Informatics Ventures and the Data-Driven Innovation Initiative was announced at the annual international technology investor event, Engage Invest Exploit (EIE).

Masthaven, the UK specialist bank, has completed a strategic £60 million investment by Värde Partners, a leading global alternative investment firm. The completion of the investment will enable the bank to deliver against its strategic ambition to become one of the leading specialist banks in UK residential and SME markets.