Journee, the online tour operator that matches people with experiential trips to mystery destinations, has secured £1.75 million investment. The seed round is led by Fuel Ventures and includes angel investment from Depop’s founder, Simon Beckerman, and CEO, Maria Raga.   

Equity investment in the UK’s smaller businesses increased by 88% in 2021 to £18.1bn compared to the previous year, the highest yearly amount since the Beauhurst data series began in 2011, reveals the British Business Bank’s annual Small Business Equity Tracker, published today. The strong momentum continued into Q1 2022, with £7.6bn of equity investment reaching smaller businesses, the highest amount invested in a single quarter at nearly double that of the £4.3bn in Q1 2021. 

SithSwap, a next-generation automated market maker (AMM) on StarkNet, has successfully raised $2.65 million at a $25 million valuation in a seed funding round led by Lemniscap, with participation from Big Brain Holdings, GSR, DWeb3 Capital, Ghaf Capital Partners, as well as angel investors Anthony Beaumont and Etienne Royole.

London and Malta based fintech CityFALCON closed an equity fundraising campaign on Seedrs of £1.65m ($2m) to scale up the business and bring even more insightful products to market faster.  On Seedrs, the leading UK private investment platform, CityFALCON has leveraged individual investors from their growing fanbase and onboarded institutional investors.  Serial entrepreneurs took part in the round, including one who sold his last company for £500m.

Calculus has invested in Riff Raff Entertainment (RRE), co-founded by BAFTA Award-winning and Academy Award®-nominated actor Jude Law and creative partner Ben Jackson. The Calculus funds investing include the Calculus VCT and its Creative Content and other EIS funds.

Sonrai Analytics, an emerging global innovator in AI Cloud Data Analytics, has announced a ‘seed plus’ funding round of £2.175 million to accelerate the global adoption of its technology. The investment will help Sonrai reach more companies globally to translate precision medicine’s complex multi-omics data into real insights leading to better-personalised treatments for patients.

Spirea Limited, a Cambridge company created to advance a new generation of antibody drug conjugate (ADC) therapeutics, has announced that it has secured funding of £2.4 million with investments from high-profile UK and US investors. Spirea will use the funds to initiate its pipeline of superior and differentiated ADCs in the treatment of solid tumours where there is a high unmet need.

The team behind REAP Bikes has received widespread support from the cycling community reaching their initial crowdfunding target of £300,000.  

Sky is anchoring a new £100m ‘operator-first’ venture capital fund powered by Founders Factory that will champion early-stage entrepreneurs launching planet positive technologies. 

Research gathered by LegalTech company SeedLegals suggests that there are six sectors to watch if you’re thinking about investing in or starting a business in the UK.

Hiphops, which automates the complex business of releasing code, has raised a $3.5 million pre-seed round co-led by firstminute Capital & Seedcamp with participation from Tiny VC, RLC Ventures, and prominent Angel investors such as Matt Robinson, Will Neale, and Jack Kleeman.

Rayon, the space design software makers, has completed a $2m pre-seed round, which will be used to grow the Rayon team, refine its product and launch its offering in October of this year.