EcoMachines Ventures Managing Director, Ilian Iliev gives some compelling reasons why investors should back Smart Cities.

• 51 per cent of Private Equity and Real Estate managers are less than satisfied with their current level of cybersecurity
• Over half view investing in their own firm’s technology as a high priority for the coming year
• Managers expect data management technology and AI to transform the way private equity operates
• Legacy systems and a lack of technology leadership and skills are identified as major barriers to innovation

Masters of Pie, a London-based early stage technology firm specialising in virtual and augmented reality software for manufacturing and wider enterprise solutions, has secured £1.6 million funding led by venture capital firm Downing Ventures to accelerate product development and extend commercial partnerships.

Motorway, the UK’s first price comparison website for selling your car, today announces it has secured £2.75 million in seed funding.

Launched in 2017, Motorway enables car owners to compare multiple instant offers for their vehicle and find the best deal in seconds – bringing speed and transparency to a previously frustrating process.

Hailo, a company developing a proprietary chip for deep learning on edge devices, today announced the completion of a $12.5 million Series A round. The company’s investors include Ourcrowd.com, Maniv Mobility, the Drive accelerator fund: Next Gear; as well as angel investors, Hailo Chairman Zohar Zisapel and Delek Motors CEO Gil Agmon. The company will use the funding to further develop its deep learning processor, which will deliver datacenter processing capacity to edge devices. This latest funding round brings the total raised to date by the Tel Aviv-based company to $16 million.

A revolutionary new wheelchair which is set to improve the lives of disabled people who need to go off-road, has secured a £25,000 loan from the Development Bank of Wales as working capital to meet order requirements from all over Europe.  Manufactured by Off-Road Engineering Limited, the ‘HexHog’ has been designed to bring together the functional attributes of a wheelchair and an all terrain vehicle (ATV). It features a flexible chassis, which keeps all six wheels in contact with the ground - even on the most rugged of terrain.

Barclays has launched a new £500m growth fund* for small and medium-sized businesses in the North of England as part of the bank’s commitment to support the Government’s Northern Powerhouse initiative. 

Companies in Northern Ireland (NI) raised £32.8m of equity capital in 2017 but are failing to attract larger rounds of investment, according to a new report released by Catalyst Inc.

Proparco and FMO will provide the senior debt for the 51 MWp solar PV park. The project, majority-owned by Neoen alongside Rekamniar Frontier Ventures and MPC Caribbean Clean Energy Fund, will be commissioned in the first half of 2019.

NVM Private Equity has invested £1.0 million of growth capital into Cambridge-based medical device company Ablatus Therapeutics Limited (“Ablatus”) alongside existing angel investors.

OnTruck, the haulage tech platform, has raised 25M€ from a group of investors to fund its expansion across Europe and consolidation of its position in the U.K. and Spain.

Bowmark Capital, the mid-market private equity firm, is backing the buy-out of LOD (Lawyers On Demand), the fast-growing alternative legal services provider, from Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP).