Thermetrix Ltd has secured £500,000 investment for their latest venture to support the development of a diabetic footcare system.  The funding includes £200,000 seed investment from the Development Bank of Wales as well as business angels and corporate support.

The equity investment, which has come from the Wales Technology Seed Fund, will also back the launch of Podium, for both home and professional use, working with nursing homes, podiatrists and other medical professionals.

Established in 2018, Thermetrix, based in Abercynon is working with a team of experts to produce Podium, giving people with diabetes an easy and fast way to check the soles of their feet and seek earlier intervention from their healthcare team to prevent further complications. Using thermal imaging technology, the system can be used to take a daily image of their feet which can then be shared with their podiatrist or GP through a cloud-based dashboard app.

Port Talbot headquartered Vizolution will be expanding in North America and South America following a recent round of funding.

The Development Bank of Wales has confirmed a £200,000 investment in Dafen based DRL Partitions Limited, a new manufacturing business specialising in movable wall systems.

Established by Managing Director Dennis Lewis, DRL manufactures sliding folding walls, expanding walls, operable walls and glass partitions for the education, health, leisure, community and commercial markets. Opportunities in the Middle East and India mean that the business is already exporting around 10% of products with this figure set to grow to 40% within the next two years.

W2, a provider of SaaS, B2B software solutions and services has today announced it has completed a £3 million Series A round of financing with investment from investors Mercia Technologies PLC and the Development Bank of Wales.  

This substantial funding builds on an exceptional year for W2 which saw a rapidly growing list of clients, key employee appointments and market momentum in target sectors such as emerging payments, betting and gaming.

This funding will help W2 to further expand its sales and marketing efforts as well as broaden and accelerate product development and extend its global reach.

The Riverside Company has signed a definitive agreement to sell its investment in Euromed Botanicals S.A. to Dermapharm Holding SE. Barcelona-based Euromed provides standardized herbal extracts and natural active substances for the pharmaceutical, dietary supplement and cosmetic industries. The transaction is expected to close in the next few months upon receipt of antitrust approval. 

Cardiff-based online learning platform, Careercake, has secured over £300,000 in its latest funding round. The round has been led by existing investor the Development Bank of Wales, with additional funding from a consortium of angels including Sunnybarn Investments founded by entrepreneur Phil Buck.

Careercake aims to help organisations who want to help their staff build confidence in their careers and the challenges they may face in their working lives.

Following a year of steady growth that includes working with over 70 of Wales’ largest brands, Business News Wales has announced new investment from The Development Bank.

Led by Managing Director, Mark Powney, Business News Wales has secured a six figure investment to enable the business to recruit a new editor, sales team and expand on the services it currently offers to clients, including the ability to provide a new add-on product suite.

The deal was put together by Verde Corporate Finance (finance) and Greenaway Scott (legal). Both advisory businesses are part of the multi-discipline Greenaway Scott Group.

RED Capital Partners, a new venture capital firm with offices in Madrid and Tel Aviv, has announced that it will launch RED Ventures Fund I, EMEA’s largest VC fund investing exclusively in high-growth tech companies founded or co-founded by women.

RED Ventures Fund I channels the exchange of technology between Israeli and European companies and opens opportunities for Israeli companies to enter the European market. The fund also invests in European technology companies, with a particular focus on Spain, looking to expand internationally, or to access Israeli innovative technology.

With a target size of €50m, the fund will back up to 10 portfolio companies. RED invests in previously funded companies with strong and differential technological components and sustainable competitive advantages. RED assumes the role of lead, co-lead or sole investor in all investment rounds writing equity tickets of up to €10 million from RED Ventures Fund I, plus the possibility of channeling additional capital with co-investments from its LPs.

By Damien Lane, Episode 1 Ventures

A lot of founders that pitch to us miss a fundamental point of venture funding – VCs are all about trying to find really big outcomes. They want to discover the startups that will grow into 200million, 300million, 500million, billion dollar companies. Such companies are – to borrow a phrase from current political discourse – the few, not the many. 

And so, as a founder, perhaps the most important part of the pitching process is convincing the investor that there is a chance that the idea you’ve got, the business you’re running, can get to that size. That’s difficult, especially as you might not yet have any revenues to speak of. But some entrepreneurs we see don’t talk at all about how big the opportunity could be.

WestBridge Capital has appointed a new Investment Manager as growth continues.

Inovus Medical, a leading designer and manufacturer of medical and surgical simulators, has announced the successful completion of a £500,000 investment from NPIF - Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia Fund Managers and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund.

The investment is part of a £700,000 investment round alongside an angel investor and will help to create four new jobs, accelerating the growth of Inovus Medical’s commercial operations in the domestic and international markets.

The company also plans to utilise the funding to add a suite of new 3D printing technologies to its manufacturing processes and introduce new software additions to its existing product offering.

Leading law firm, Ashfords has advised Fluidly, an applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) company, on a recent £5million investment led by New York-based venture capital firm Nyca Partners.