BGF has announced the exit of its investment in Olive Communications, the Buckinghamshire-based managed cloud communications provider.  

BGF, which invested £10 million of growth capital into Olive in 2016, has exited the business as part of the deal.  BGF’s funding helped the business grow to more than £31 million in annual revenue, pivoting its proposition in 2014 from being “mobile only” to become the UK’s leading cloud communications provider. During this period Olive Communications has become one of Vodafone’s most successful strategic partners and in 2020 it was recognised as Vodafone’s Innovation Partner of the Year.

Ai Build has raised $1m in a funding round led by SuperSeed, a London based VC that specialises in Business Automation and Industry 4.0 investments. Also joining the round is William Tunstall-Pedoe, the British entrepreneur who was one of the inventors behind Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant.

BGF has exitedf its investment in Arcinova, the U.K.-based multiservice contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO). Following a period of growth and expansion, the business has been acquired by Quotient Sciences, the drug development and manufacturing accelerator, backed by the global private equity firm Permira.

Invenio Business Solutions and LSI Consulting – the market leading SAP solutions providers – are to merge, in a move which will deliver significant benefits to existing customers and drive growth globally.

Invenio is a global provider of SAP enterprise solutions and consultancy for the public sector focused on tax and revenue management and for the private sector focused on media and entertainment, manufacturing and pharmaceutical domains. US-based LSI Consulting is a leading provider of SAP enterprise solutions to government, utility, healthcare and educational institutions.

Hoxton Farms has raised £2.7 million seed funding to cultivate animal fat and solve an urgent issue for the rapidly growing meat alternatives market.

Its approach delivers the missing ingredient necessary to make meat alternatives delicious, realistic and versatile: fat.  For decades, the food industry has faced the challenge of finding effective, low-cost and sustainable replacements for traditional animal fat, the most important sensory ingredient in meat. Fat defines how meat looks, cooks, and tastes – and it does this in a way that cannot be replicated by plant oils currently used in meat alternatives. 

Turin-based e-mobility and advanced materials venture Tau has secured an investment of a consortium of two leading Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and a German investment manager to top up its ongoing series A equity investment round to a total of EUR 6.75m. This round’s initial investment was made by the corporate venturing arm of German specialty chemicals company Altana AG.

Wombat, the UK’s first thematic & curated fractional investment platform, has closed a £2million seed round to help the fast-growth business serve consumers’ increasing appetite for shares investing. The seed round, led by Fuel Ventures, will help Wombat further develop the platform to provide easy access to the world of investment and further open up its ability to offer fractional shares in global, household brands. Wombat’s fractional investment platform is the first of its kind in the UK and is encouraging a new generation of investors to save for the future by helping them to invest in shares, without the complexity and cost that is so often associated with trading on the stock market. 

DynaRisk announced an extension of their seed funding round, bringing total funding to over $3m. This round of funding was led by Nexus Investments with participation from existing investors Insurance Capital Partners and Jonathan Marland. The company was originally backed by London based Cylon Lab.

Jack & Bry, a producer of plant-based meat alternatives, has secured £1.25 million in seed funding.  The round was led by SFC Capital, with other backers including KM Capital, Rubix Ventures, and a number of high net worth private investors. The investment comes at a time of rapid growth for Jack & Bry, and follows the recent appointment of FMCG industry veterans including former Quorn chairman Clive Sharpe and Singha Europe MD David Flower to the management team. The funding will support further product innovation as the jackfruit pioneer targets more big-name customer acquisitions. AI to help develop more jackfruit products that closely mimic the texture of meat using its proprietary manufacturing process.

BGF, the UK’s most active investor in growth economy businesses, has successfully exited its investment in Renal Services, an independent provider of dialysis services, after it was acquired by DaVita UK Limited, a DaVita International Group Company.

Following the launch of BBC Maestro in October 2020, Downing Ventures has announced that it has led the second £2.05 million funding round with a first investment close confirmed, with additional funding supported by Great Point Ventures.

Limitless, the AI-driven gig customer experience platform, has raised $10 million in financing. The Series B investment is led by Redline Capital and features new investment from Genesys, as well as continued participation from AlbionVC and Unilever Ventures.

The financing round will see London-based Limitless continue its dedicated growth in the US market, establishing a new US-based headquarters to focus on its product development, particularly surrounding routing, automation and AI to augment the strengths of humans.