Seneca Partners, the SME focused investment firm has announced that it completed seven new growth capital investments in Q1 2019 into fast growing UK based SMEs, totalling in excess of £10m of funds invested. With these recent investments, Seneca’s equity investment team has now supported over 50 SMEs to date.

Weedingtech, the world-leader in supplying herbicide-free systems for controlling unwanted vegetation, has received an investment from environmental fund manager, Earthworm.  Earthworm only backs companies that have a positive social or environmental impact. Working with a variety of industry professionals across multiple sectors, a core part of Earthworm’s investment ethos is that companies within the Earthworm community must be ethically driven and contribute to the circular economy.

High-flying firms across the UK will benefit from a further £200 million of government support to ensure that innovative British firms can access the finance they need to grow.

The Exchequer Secretary, Robert Jenrick, has marked the launch of the new funding that will be made available to innovative businesses through funds supported by the British Business Bank. He said Ministers were determined to make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a business. This type of funding has traditionally been sought by fast-growing firms in the science and technology sectors.

Fasteners and tools company Spotnails Ltd has new owners after the Development Bank of Wales supported a management buy-out (MBO) of the business with a multi-million pound equity investment.

Spotnails, based in Bedwas, Caerphilly is a long-standing independent distributor of tools and fastener products to the UK building industry with more than 60 years trading history. It has a national salesforce as well as a manufacturing base with servicing and repair facilities at the Caerphilly headquarters.

Imandra Inc, creator of the Imandra cloud-native automated reasoning engine, has completed a $5 million Seed investment led by AlbionVC, IQ Capital and LiveOak Venture Partners. The capital will be used towards further growth in financial services and fast-growing applications of their AI technology to autonomous vehicles, robotics and machine learning. Imandra democratises deep advances in symbolic AI for making algorithms safe, explainable and fair. Imandra’s “Reasoning as a Service ®” platform makes these techniques widely accessible to those without specialised background in these fields.

Cytora, a provider of AI-powered solutions for the commercial insurance industry, has completed its £25 million Series B funding round led by the EQT Ventures fund. Other participants include existing investors Cambridge Innovation Capital, Parkwalk, and a number of angel investors. The funding will be used to accelerate the expansion of Cytora’s product suite and scaling into new geographies. Cytora was founded and spun out of the University of Cambridge in 2014 by a team of machine learning scientists, data engineers and strategists.

Credit Kudos, challenger credit bureau and leader in commercial applications of Open Banking, has raised £2.2m in their latest round of funding.

Funding is led by Ascension Ventures, through its social impact fund Fair by Design, with additional investment from existing investors NFT Ventures and Entrepreneur First’s Next Stage Fund.

New backers include Dragons’ Den star Sarah Willingham; prolific angel investor Charlie Songhurst (investor in Affirm, ClassPass, and Coindesk); and key figures from the credit industry, including both the former CEO and MD of Callcredit, now TransUnion, John McAndrew and Graham Lund. The investment will be used to drive further growth within the UK and support expansion into Europe, alongside further investment into Credit Kudos’ platform. 

In 2016, Seonaidh MacDonald led his company mLED Ltd, a world leader in micro-displays for augmented and virtual reality products, through a successful trade sale to a US tech giant. A former EIE participant and now keynote speaker at this year’s event, Seonaidh shares his experience of how EIE contributed to mLED’s success and offers advice to companies pitching on 24 April in Edinburgh.

Specialist property peer-to-peer lender CrowdProperty has closed a £1.1m equity funding round. The campaign, hosted on Seedrs, smashed the £600,000 target, over-funding by 81% with £1,089,000 raised from 575 investors based on a pre-money valuation of £15.7m.

Newable, a leading provider of professional services, financial support and property space to UK businesses, has signed a 

Guardian Angel, a free and private online platform that simplifies the bereavement process; connecting families, friends and funeral directors together, has closed its pre-seed round, raising £492,000 after investment from former Co-op executives.

The secure platform helps to reduce the stress in the immediate aftermath of a loved one’s death by enabling you to coordinate support from family and friends. There is a ‘Key times’ function which informs people when they can visit and when you and your family 

Chelverton Asset Management Limited, a specialist investor in sub-FTSE 100 quoted equities and unquoted SMEs, has confirmed a further investment in VeloVixen, the UK’s leading online retailer of and premier site for female-specific cycling apparel and accessories; VeloVixen has become the ‘go-to’ destination for the latest news, views, hints and tips for female cycling enthusiasts.