By Belinda Thomas, Triple Point

Making the journey from start-up to scale up can be one of the most precarious and unpredictable times in the life of any firm.  Causes of failure are plenty, but research indicates there are three major factors that account for forty percent of early-stage business failures.

Festicket, the world’s largest portal for music festival experiences, is announcing $10.5 million in Series D funding. The round is led by transatlantic venture capital firm Beringea and joined by Jaguar Land Rover’s venture capital fund InMotion Ventures, Channel 4’s Commercial Growth Fund, Lepe Partners, U-Start and ex Spinnin’ Records CEO Eelko Van Kooten.

Eyal Malinger, Investment Director at Beringea, will join the Festicket board, along with Treatwell’s Chief Operating Officer, Ben Leaver. The company will be appointing an independent non-executive chairman in the near future.

An online photography marketplace has secured £500,000, less than nine months launching its new customer facing platform. Perfocal.com was founded by entrepreneur and former photographer Tony Xu. Since then it has delivered more than 100,000 images.

Kumulos, a Scottish software company which has developed a platform for managing mobile apps, has completed a £750,000 funding round backed by Mercia Fund Managers, the Scottish Investment Bank and angel investors.  The Kumulos platform incorporates multiple tools to help companies and developers improve the performance of their mobile apps. The platform provides data on user engagement and allows them to optimize their ranking on the App Store and send notifications to customers.

Pitch@Palace has hosted its tenth UK Event at Buckingham Palace, announcing BioSURE as the winner, with Stasher and Lilypads as the runners up after competing against thirty nine other finalists. On The Tools secured the title of Pitch@Palace People’s Choice Award winner after a public vote.

By Siobhan Clarke, Episode 1  Ventures

Over a series of blogs, Episodde 1 is focusing on the Seed to Series A step of GTM and sharing what it means to think through the customer experience. This is the 4th article in the series. 

Albion Capital, the leading independent investment manager, has invested £5 million in The Evewell, a fully-integrated centre of medical excellence dedicated to caring for and protecting all aspects of fertility and gynaecological health.  The centre, which opened on Harley Street in London this month, focuses on both gynaecology and reproductive health to ensure that fertility patients receive the most appropriate treatment and advice to maximise their prospects of conceiving. It offers a fully integrated suite of women’s health services that differentiates it from other clinics. The clinic is equipped with the latest technologies for screening and treatment, and is set in a discreet and luxurious environment that provides a best-in-class service.

Montezuma’s, a company founded by Helen and Simon Pattinson in 2000, has received investment from Edinburgh-based private equity firm Inverleith LLP. The specialist consumer brands investor has acquired a majority in the Company from the founders.

Montezuma’s has established itself as one of the largest leading independent British manufacturers of premium artisanal chocolate. Montezuma’s manufactures chocolate bars, truffles and gifting products, runs a subscription ‘Chocolate Club’ and has retail stores in the south-east of England and London. Founded by husband and wife team, Helen and Simon Pattinson, with a chocolate shop in Brighton eighteen years ago, the Company has grown into a leading independent player in the premium UK chocolate market.

Maven Capital Partners and the Development Bank of Wales have confirmed a £3 million equity investment in Motokiki, Britain’s first truly independent vehicle tyre comparison website.

The investment of £1.5 million by each funder will support Motokiki’s drive to develop new strategic partners, and fund sales and marketing initiatives to raise awareness of the brand and grow its customer base.

Motokiki’s unique comparison engine will provide a whole of market solution, comparing the price of tyres from a large range of manufacturers and suppliers, providing consumers with an impartial comparison across a wide range of retailers. Existing UK websites that provide tyre pricing information, in practice only list prices based on their own stock.

GTR Ventures, the world’s first investment and venture-building platform specialised in trade and supply chain, has announced three new deals with Lucidity, iLoan and RM-Tech. These three investments, representing an expanded pivot towards markets in China and South Asia, were announced on the first day of the Singapore Fintech Festival, the world’s largest fintech gathering.

Mercia Technologies portfolio company nDreams, the award-winning virtual reality (VR) developer and publisher, has set up a dedicated team to create VR games and experiences for the fast-growing location-based entertainment (LBE) market. The first two titles, Shooty Fruity Arcade and Perfect Balloon Flight, will hit arcades in the coming months.

Shooty Fruity Arcade sees the critically acclaimed home VR game tailored specifically for an over-the-top arcade experience, giving even more people the chance to prove their skills as a mutant fruit-shooting checkout assistant! nDreams has joined forces with the likes of Ctrl V, VR Junkies, SynthesisVR and SpringboardVR as key arcade partners, with the game launching this winter.

Helping people to find a co-founder would unlock the potential of UK entrepreneurship with millions more people likely to become entrepreneurs if they had someone to set up business with, new research from Octopus Group reveals.

One in three (33%) Britons have considered becoming an entrepreneur and a higher proportion (40%) agreed that having a co-founder would allow them to take the leap and start a business.

Those who are currently considering starting a business in the near future were even more positive about the impact a co-founder could make. Seven in ten (70%) prospective entrepreneurs agreed that a co-founder would allow them to take the leap and set up their own business.