RB's (Reckitt Benckiser) new purpose-led venture arm, RB Ventures, has backed space-age laundry and dry-cleaning startup, Oxwash, who are on a sustainability mission within the sector. The strategic partnership will provide Oxwash with access to RB Venture’s global scale and expertise, helping to solidify the startup as the new leaders in sustainable laundry. Along with strategic mentorship, RB’s EVP of Group Marketing Excellence and Category Development Organisation Hygiene, Fabrice Beaulieu will be taking a position on the Oxwash board, helping the company to set and achieve its sustainability goals.

Reflecting the growth in tech for good companies in the North of England, Bethnal Green Ventures and Leeds-based investment non-profit NorthInvest are partnering to increase the access to funding for early stage businesses in the sector.

NorthEdge has supported the management buyout of Lights4fun, one of Europe’s leading e-commerce retailers of decorative lighting, to further expand the business’ existing market presence internationally.

Cambridge-based agritech company KisanHub has raised £1.12m for its seed to sale connectivity platform that is accelerating the pace of digital transformation of the agri-food industry. KisanHub’s supply chain management platform makes use of big data and machine learning in order to help growers, field staff, procurement managers and management teams make informed decisions. 

DefiniGEN, a provider of human cell products and services, has raised £3.25 million to accelerate its next phase of growth. This includes £2 million from BGF, the UK’s most active investor, alongside its existing consortium of investors led by 24Haymarket.

DefiniGEN is a spin-out from the University of Cambridge, creating highly predictive disease cell models for preclinical research and drug development. The process of bringing new drugs to market is arduous, expensive and blighted by a high failure rate. DefiniGEN’s models help the biopharma industry to respond to these challenges, enabling highly relevant information on potential new drug efficacy to be realised in an accelerated manner.

Alphagreen, Europe’s leading marketplace for CBD and alternative healthcare products,has secured £1.1m of seed funding to help finance the roll out of new products and services alongside their expansion into the US. This is the largest amount raised to date in Europe for a CBD marketplace. Participants in the seed round included Stockholm-based Enexis AB, US cannabis fund West Creek Investments and angel investors, including Igor and Oleg Tikhturov. 

BGF – the UK’s most active growth capital investor – has invested £8 million into Midlands-headquartered UK Flooring Direct to support its ongoing growth ambitions.

UK Flooring Direct is an online retailer supplyingquality own-brand wood, laminate, and vinyl flooring direct to consumers and trade, growing from an early ecommerce pioneer, to now being regarded as a market leader in the home improvement market.

Wave power specialists Mocean Energy have secured major new investment to accelerate the commercialisation of their ground-breaking wave energy technology.

The Edinburgh start-up has raised £612,000 equity seed funding plus £250,000 from Innovate UK to advance the design of their Blue Star wave machine and drive its adoption in subsea oil and gas.

Bdeo, the leading insurtech company in Spain and Latin America, has just closed a Series A round of funding worth €5 million. The fundraising was led by BlackFin, a European investment firm focused on financial services, with further support from current investors K Fund and Big Sur Ventures who invested €1 million in Bdeo’s seed round in 2019.  The new funding will help consolidate Bdeo's position in the markets where it currently operates as part of its plan to become leaders in visual intelligence in the insurance sector by 2022.

The outperformance of the tech sector during COVID-19 has never been far from the headlines. But some of the fastest-growing technology companies fly under the radar, as they are not quoted on public markets. Private equity investment companies offer a way to access some of these opportunities, which may turn into the FAANG stocks of the future.

British predictive analytics platform, DragonflyAI, has completed a £625,000 ($1m) seed funding round. Downing Ventures is the lead investor in the round which includes existing shareholders Capita plc and private investors. Having onboarded and retained brand giants including Diageo and Mitsubishi this year alone, the investment allows DragonflyAI to grow their team across sales and customer success in addition to further developing the research into how companies will be able to take advantage of predictive visual analytics in creative workflow.

Direct.me, the social media platform that connects audiences with influencers’ content, has raised a $2.6m seed round, led by Fuel Ventures, to help people organise their social presence and build greater personal connections with their audiences.