OurCrowd backed Sight Diagnostics has launched OLO, an AI-based blood diagnostics device which offers lab-quality Complete Blood Count (CBC) tests from finger prick samples at the point-of-care. The company also announces the completion of a 250-person clinical trial at Israel’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, which led to a CE Mark registration for OLO. This European regulatory certification indicates OLO’s conformity with high safety, health, and environmental protection standards and allows for commercial sale in countries that require CE marking.

Beauhurst's latest report takes a detailed look at foreign investment into British companies. This analysis looks at levels of investment from overseas in the past seven years, and created a detailed picture of where it's going and where it's come from. 

The Government has just published its white paper on our future relationship with the EU. With this in mind, it is more important than ever to understand how the UK's growing businesses interact with the rest of the world. 

The findings show that 2017 was the best year on record for overseas investment into British companies. Until now, countries in the EU have been an important source of this funding, but so has the US — will Brexit change this?

The British Business Bank has launched the £40m Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund (CIOSIF), aimed at boosting the local economy by providing debt and equity finance to help growing small businesses across the region.

The British Business Bank’s fourth annual Small Business Equity Tracker report reveals the UK equity finance market for smaller businesses has bounced back to record highs in 2017, following a decline in 2016.

The British Business Bank has a new £300m ENABLE guarantee to help Barclays Bank increase their provision of flexible asset finance to smaller businesses looking to invest in vehicles, equipment, plant and machinery.

Lending Works, the leading UK peer-to-peer lender, has received a £2.8 million capital injection, as it pursues an ambitious programme of growth.

Oura Health, the Finnish health technology company behind the Oura ring, has moved its total private funding to 12.5M€ after the closure of a round led by US-based Bold Capital Partners and Finnish Tesi. The funding will be used to scale US market operations and push the Oura platform forward.

Social-commerce fashion app 21Buttons has raised $17M Series B funding led by Idinvest Partners, the €8bn pan-European private equity and venture capital investor. The capital will mainly be invested in talent traction for tech and product profiles, and user acquisition.

All existing investors from the company’s $10M Series A Funding in Q3 2017 have followed on, including Kibo Ventures, Breega, Samaipata, JME VC, 360 Capital Partners and Sabadell VC.

NorthEdge Capital has closed its NorthEdge Capital SME Fund I, LP at its £120 million hard cap. The Fund was raised from existing investors and enables the firm to broaden its ability to take advantage of attractive investment opportunities in the U.K. regional lower mid-market.

Bregal Investments has secured a €400 million capital commitment for Bregal Milestone’s maiden private capital fund. 

Cutting Edge Solutions has acquired Majenta PLM to create the largest value-added reseller of Siemens computer-aided design and product lifecycle management software in the UK. 

The latest EMEA Private Equity Market Snapshot, by S&P Global Market Intelligence, has been published.