Beechbrook Capital, the specialist direct lender, has reached the first close of its second UK SME Credit Fund, with commitments of £128m. The Fund has also made its first two investments, in Hosted Desktop UK and Gravity Global.

Beechbrook’s UK SME Credit II supports small and medium-sized businesses in the UK with a turnover of between £10m and £100m and EBITDA of £1m and above. It will provide mainly senior secured loans to non private equity-backed companies to support acquisitions, buy-outs, shareholder re-alignments, refinancings and general expansion plans.

Clyde Blowers Capital (CBC), Duplomatic Motion Solutions (Duplomatic) and Alcedo SGR (Alcedo) has completed the successful sale of hydraulic technologies provider, Hydreco, from CBC to Duplomatic, sponsored by Alcedo. Cavendish acted as exclusive financial advisor to CBC for the transaction, with CMS acting as legal advisors for CBC.

Draper Esprit portfolio company Trustpilot, the leading independent platform for companies to build trust with consumers, has raised $55 million in its Series E funding round.

Investment manager Downing LLP has completed the acquisition of Funding Empire, a peer-to-peer (P2P) lender and the company behind Downing Crowd’s platform technology.

Nico Valenti Gatto and Tanguy Confavreux at Partech Ventures have published a white paper analysing the relationships between corporates and start-ups.

Download the white paper : And Corporates and start-ups lived happily ever after.

Maven Capital Partners has led a £7 million investment in Northumberland based AVID Technology Group (“AVID”), a leader in the manufacture and design of components for electric and hybrid vehicles for an impressive blue-chip customer base.

The deal is led by Maven’s VCTs together with the North East Development Capital Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Maven, and from AVID’s existing shareholders NVM Private Equity and Downing Ventures. The funding will enable AVID to increase production volumes of its current component product range and enable the firm to invest in further development of class leading electric motors, power electronics and battery systems. 

Growth in the UK private sector remained stagnant in the three months to February as momentum in early 2019 remained subdued, the latest Confederation of British Industry Growth Indicator showed on Sunday. Looking ahead, further decline is anticipated with private sector activity expected to fall slightly, in the quarter to May, with a negative balance of 4%.

Two trade associations, who work at policy level to help small businesses secure growth funding, and a private investment house specialising in alternative investment for SMEs, discuss the reasons behind the slowdown and the support needed for small businesses to prop up the private sector.

New research from Revolution.Aero, the global meeting place for people who are reshaping, rethinking and revolutionising business and personal aviation, 

London-based veterinary tech business, Felcana, has received an early stage venture capital investment from Global Venture Partners and Seedrs. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 2016 by veterinary professionals, Felcana combines artificial intelligence, data analytics and veterinary expertise to help predict, simplify and treat over 90% of health issues for dogs and cats. Felcana will use the fresh capital to expand its presence in the UK and to scale internationally.

Belfast-based ECG biometrics innovator B-Secur has closed a follow-on funding round worth £4 million, from investors, including Accelerated Digital Ventures(ADV) and Kernel Capital.

Beauhurst has outlined the UK’s Life Sciences landscape and provided a downloadable spreadsheet of the top companies in the sector – by amount of funding received, percentage growth in turnover and latest valuation. 

Harwell Campus, the UK’s science and innovation hub, has secured £110 million funding from Santander Corporate & Commercial to further expand the Campus, and enter its next 400,000 sq ft phase of development.  Santander has assisted with growth that will exceed 1 million sq ft in under eight years. With a total of 5.5 million sq ft planned develpment, Harwell Campus is rapidly becoming the fastest growing UK location dedicated to the science and technology sector.