Green Angel Syndicate, the UK's largest network of specialist investors fighting climate change, has led a £1.9 million funding round in startup Sphera.

"Natasha and her team really impressed our specialist Green Angel Syndicate members, right from the very first meeting" says GAS CEO Cam Ross. "The Sphera approach to decarbonising such a mainstream component of global building materials is very compelling, hence our substantial investment."

Fast growing Edtech startup Vygo has raised £1.5m in a pre-seed funding round supported by Angel Investment Network, the world’s largest online angel investment platform. Vygo is a Saas platform reinventing the conventional social support ecosystem in higher education.

Offering personalised support services beyond the physical campus, the business already works with a third of Australian Universities and is rapidly growing in the UK. The raise will help it expand in the UK and Europe and fuel its ambition to build borderless social education for every student.

British Business Bank's Small Business Finance Markets 2021/22 report highlights a surge in equity investment into smaller UK businesses last year. £14bn was invested over the first three quarters of 2021, a 130% increase on the £6.1bn invested over the first three quarters of 20201. With one quarter still to go, investment has already exceeded the £8.7bn invested in the whole of 2020. At the same time, the report shows that bank lending has returned to close to pre-pandemic levels, with 2021 lending down 45% from 2020, driven by lower drawdowns of government-supported loans.

Fox Robotics, an agritech company specialising in the development, manufacture and sale of autonomous robots in agriculture, has received investment from multiple members of Henley Business Angels, contributing to a total funding round of £145,000.

Financial Crime Intelligence startup Schwarzthal Tech has raised £150,000 in a pre-seed funding round from SFC Capital, the UK’s most active seed-stage investor. Schwarzthal Tech uses AI to fight financial crime  by gathering publicly available information and building an individual’s network to support investigations into potential criminals. Schwarzthal Tech will use the funds to further develop the platform, build a marketing team as well as filing for an intellectual property patent on their unique “Know your Network” methodology. 

Wave power specialists Mocean Energy have secured major new investment to accelerate the commercial roll-out of their ground-breaking wave energy technology.  The Edinburgh firm has raised £730,000 equity funding from existing funders, led by angel syndicate Equity Gap, together with Old College Capital, the University of Edinburgh’s in-house venture investment fund, and Scottish Enterprise.

Delio has raised a further $8.3m to enable angel networks and fellow financial institutions to create greater investor access to alternative assets such as private equity, private debt, and real estate.

Our member and University of Bristol spin-out, FluoretiQ, has today announced the completion of a £1.1 million, pre-series A investment. Their pioneering NANOPLEX technology is a 15-minute proprietary diagnostic platform for bacterial infections.  

Detected, the critical infrastructure component for global KYB compliance, has raised an additional £1.5 million in just three weeks, adding to £2 million seeded in previous funding rounds.

The Oxford Innovation EIS Growth Fund 2 is open for investment until 31 March 2022. It offers the opportunity to invest in a portfolio of high-potential science and technology businesses in the UK with a focus on Oxford and the surrounding start-up ecosystem. 

Are you looking for financial returns, benefit from excellent tax breaks, and have a positive impact on society and the environment?

Impact investment firm Boundary Capital Partners seeks up to £5 million for it's fund.  For more information and to find out how to invest, go to our Funding Page website.

Gigamine, a UK start-up, is developing technology and solutions to provide lithium-ion battery recycling that will deliver a step change in efficiency and sustainability. Early-stage fund, 7percent Ventures led the seed round, joined by a group of prominent angel investors that includes the founder of Extreme E and Formula E, Alejandro Agag.