UK-based space services startup, Gravitilab, is on a mission to make conducting research in space more accessible and affordable. The company has just secured a £100k investment from British Design Fund.

Stamp Free Limited, the digital postage company, has raised £600k in an oversubscribed funding round as the business progresses towards the commercial launch of its global award-winning AI phone-based alternative to traditional mailing and returns. 

Investment was led by existing investors Silicon Valley-based R42 Group and Cambridge Angels along with other technology angel investors from the UK, US and Australia. 

Kapaga, the UK-based cross-border payment platform for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), has announced a £1.5m funding round led by Target Global and with participation from well-known angel investors in the fintech space, Chris Adelsbach, Andreas Mihalovits, and Mark Ransford.

GivePenny Technologies, a West Midlands company which has developed a unique charity fundraising platform has  secured £1.25m in investment to help further enhance its technology and expand its client base.

Aramune Technologies has raised £800,000 of new equity funding to develop an industrial-scale process for manufacturing its first product.

DNA-based biodiversity monitoring company NatureMetrics has raised $15m in new funding. The investment is led by urban sustainability-focused VC fund 2150 with participation from Ananda Impact Ventures, SWEN Capital Partners’ Blue Ocean and BNP Paribas Solar Impulse Venture Fund, and follow-on from Systemiq Capital and Green Angels Syndicate.

Flexa Careers, the platform bringing transparency to the hiring market, has raised a £2.3m ($2.9m/€2.7m) Seed Round to expand their global reach. The round was led by Ada Ventures and joined by Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund, angel syndicate HERmesa, and a wide group of angel investors.

Flexa has flipped the hiring process on its head; enabling companies to showcase what their working environments offer when it comes to flexibility and benefits, and be discovered by candidates who want to know up-front how the company operates and get a transparent look at what its working policies are before applying for a role. 

SFC Capital has made a new investment in Blue Skies Space Ltd to further accelerate its first satellite development, Twinkle, with manufacturers ABB and Airbus, preparing the company for its Series A funding round.

Oxford Drug Design Limited (ODD), a biotechnology company with a proprietary computational and machine learning platform, has raised £2.2M in funding from existing investors ACF Investors, o2h Ventures, Meltwind Advisory, a number of returning angels and new investors and the US-based R42 Group. This brings the firm’s total amount of grant and equity funding to over £10M. 

Challenger bank, Recognise Bank, will benefit from £8.7 million in new capital following the latest successful round of fund raising by the City of London Group (CoLG), the Bank's parent company.

James Murdoch reviews how his investments have fared in the last 12 months.