International private equity firm Pamplona Capital Management has announced that it has signed an agreement to sell its investment in Partner in Pet Food to Cinven.

Headquartered in Hungary, PPF is a market-leading pet food manufacturer with nine manufacturing operations across Europe. PPF supplies pet food to more than 250 customers in Europe, including traditional retailers, discounters, speciality pet retailers and online specialists. Its product range covers the main categories of dog and cat food, including wet and dry food, and single serve products.  Established in 1999, the company employs more than 1,400 people and produces more than 450,000 tons of pet food per annum, distributed across 38 countries in Europe.

Oracle has signed an agreement to acquire Grapeshot, a provider of brand safety and pre-bid contextual solutions to over 5,000 of the world's leading marketers. Every month, over 38 billion programmatic ad impressions are enhanced using Grapeshot's Contextual Intelligence Platform in dozens of languages, and this number has grown well over 100% year over year.

NorthEdge backs £40m turnover fleet management specialist NorthEdge Capital has supported the MBO of Prohire, a specialist provider of commercial fleet management solutions, backing the existing management team led by Managing Director Dave Barlow.

The Clearway Group, a vacant property services business, has received a £23m funding package from BGF and Santander to support its organic and acquisitive growth strategy. The funding is initially being used to make two acquisitions – Cerberus Security and Monitoring Services Limited (Cerberus), a Leeds-based security and monitoring business, and Protim SAS, a Paris based void property services company.

Mercia Fund Managers has announced that it has been awarded the £27 million Venture Fund to support businesses across the North East region as part of the £120.0million North East Fund, supported by The European Regional Development Fund.

This follows a succession of contract wins for Mercia amounting to in excess of £200 million, which includes the recent award of a £23 million Proof-of-Concept and Early Stage Equity Fund, part of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund, £108 million of the British Business Bank’s Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, the first closing of EV Growth II with initial commitments totalling £45.1million and £11.8million in Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) capital.

Inflexion Private Equity has created Comparison Technologies, a multi-channel price comparison enabler in home services (energy, broadband, TV and telephone), through the simultaneous buyouts of Energy Helpline and UK Web Media.

Basic economics tells us that markets are efficient when supply and demand are in balance. Too many goods brought to market, and prices fall. Too much demand for scarce supply and prices rise. Although we can appreciate that reality is more complex, it’s easy to believe most real world markets eventually adjust to find an equilibrium where markets clear.

Barclays UK has launched a new unit that will focus on developing new business lines, promoting innovation and driving returns within Barclays UK. 

Reality Zero One has secured £285,000 investment from startup funders and private investors  including the British Robotics Seed Fund, Startup Funding Club, and the London Co-Investment Fund.  The funidng will enhance its new digital reality capture platform. The tech makes it easy to capture ultra-high-definition 3D versions of real-world objects for use in any virtual or augmented-reality application.

With the virtual/augmented reality market predicted to hit $215 billion dollars by 2021 and an estimated ten billion commercial and cultural objects ripe for conversion, potential demand for the tech is huge. However, the high cost and difficulty of mass 3D capture has put potential users off - until now.

A new mission-led investment venture aimed at stimulating social entrepreneurship in Scotland has been launched by leading responsible finance provider Social Investment Scotland (SIS).

SIS Ventures plans to provide the tools and mission-aligned investment required to help early stage businesses and social enterprises grow and deliver social impact at scale. The company is in the process of seeking authorisation from the FCA, under a wholly owned subsidiary of SIS.

Maven Capital Partners has been appointed to manage the £27 million North East Development Capital Fund, which will provide equity, debt and mezzanine funding of between £400,000 and £2 million to established businesses.

National law firm Shoosmiths has advised long standing clients Octopus Investments on its multi-million pound funding into office catering company City Pantry.