9 January

Seb Saywood appointed to BGF investment team, joins Ian Downing and Jonathan Earl for the launch of BGF’s new Nottingham office

BGF, the UK & Ireland’s most active investor in growing businesses, has announced the launch of its East Midlands office in Nottingham as it continues to scale its operations. Located at City Gate East, Nottingham, the office will serve as a base to build even closer connections to businesses and advisors in the East Midlands.

The UK again topped European league tables for venture capital investment in 2018, attracting £6.3bn ($7.9bn) in funding from investors, according to new figures from Dealroom and Tech Nation. Over the same period the UK also had a landmark year for exits: achieving sales, IPOs and mergers worth $40bn, ahead of every other country in Europe including Sweden, the source of Europe’s single biggest IPO in 2018.

The Development Bank of Wales is pleased to announce the appointment of a new Executive Director and Board member. David Staziker has been promoted to the post of Finance Director and will take up his new role at the end of the financial year. 

European Braking Systems, a manufacturer and seller of air brake and vehicle control systems, has secured significant investment from BGF to support product development and accelerate international growth.

Mercia Technologies PLC has invested £3.5 million into Intechnica Limited, a business that provides scalable software solutions to manage high and variable website traffic demand, including the removal of unwanted traffic from bots, crawlers and spiders.

AuditComply has become the first business to benefit from technology and investment as part of the strategic partnership between First Derivatives and BGF. AuditComply will use the new funding from BGF and existing investors Clarendon/CoFundNI together with First Derivatives’ Kx technology to accelerate its growth.

As part of its Half Year Results, Mercia Technologies PLC has announced the first closing of EV Growth II with initial commitments totalling £45.1million. The Fund has closed with commitments from institutions and private individuals, including three Mercia Fund Managers team members, who will be responsible for managing the new fund, and who were instrumental in managing its successful predecessor fund, EVG I.

A UK games studio which has developed a unique real-time football game has closed a £600,000 funding round from Mercia Fund Managers and a leading global mobile games developer.

UFL is the first real-time fantasy soccer game that allows fans worldwide to connect simultaneously to a live soccer match. Unlike typical fantasy games, the action happens as the match unfolds and every player’s move on the pitch is mirrored in a real-time game. Launched in 2016, it now has over 1 million registered users worldwide.

Senseye Limited, the leader in predictive maintenance software, today announced it has raised £3.5 million at the close of a Series A funding round led by MMC Ventures, a venture capital fund investing in early stage, high growth companies. The round was also supported by existing investors Breed Reply, IQ Capital and Momenta Partners.

Discngine, a software company specializing in applications for life sciences research, today announces a Series A financing round of €1.1 million ($1.3M), received from Extens Développement e-Santé. The funds raised will allow Discngine to move forward with its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution offering for the life sciences industry, a model that is not, as yet, widely used in this sector.

Mercia Technologies PLC has appointed Dr Alistair Forbes as head of its Software & the Internet sector to lead its specialist investment team, which focuses on areas including artificial intelligence, cyber security, advertising technology and software as a service (SAAS).

TravelNest, an advertising optimisation platform for holiday rental owners, has secured a £3m seed round from leading early stage venture firms Pentech, Mangrove Capital Partners and Frontline Ventures. Investors also include Mark Logan, ex-COO at Skyscanner, who has joined the company as a board member.