Richard Hope, Managing Director and Head of EMEA at Hamilton Lane, says 2021 set sector records and the big challenges for private equity in 2022 will be resisting ‘FOMO’ and developing ESG data provision:

Guernsey Finance has strengthened its Strategy & Technical team, appointing Henry Freeman as Strategic Advisor.

The application window for Sheffield Hallam University’s latest Wellbeing Accelerator has opened for start-up businesses seeking fully-funded R&D support to bring new health products and services to market. Participants receive up to £20,000 of support to accelerate product development and market access activities.  

Experienced investor, lender and adviser Stephen Murray has joined YFM Equity Partners as investment director

Edinburgh-based angel syndicate, Equity Gap, has reached a £25m investment milestone following its most successful year to date. Leveraging additional funding of over £100m for investee companies since its launch, these investments have helped create over 500 high quality jobs in Scotland, worth around £20m each year to the Scottish economy.

£100m of private funding has been made available to a new-generation internet service provider on a mission to provide hypersonic broadband access to 1,000,000 premises, over the next six years.

ape2o, a company that is looking to eradicate bottled water waste by setting up a network of sophisticated vending machines for ‘on the go’ customers, has received investment from Henley Business Angels members as part of a total funding round of £500k.  UK consumers buy 8 billion plastic water bottles a year, with 80% of them ending up in landfills or oceans. They then leach micro-plastics and chemicals in the water that people go on to consume.  With bottled water customers also paying approximately £2 per 500ml (more than twice the comparative cost of petrol), ape2o provides a solution with its vending machines, without the need for plastic bottles and at a fraction of the price.

A Newcastle-based entrepreneur with ambitions to disrupt the online dating industry has raised £225,000 in a bid to create a dating platform with user safety at its heart.  The Women angels of the North syndicate investment made up part of the total fundraise for Safer Date. A number of other investors were also contributed to the total investment of £225,000.

Fast growing, international web hosting business, Miss Group, has completed the acquisition of one of Switzerland’s leading web hosting providers, Webland. 

To help founders navigate the complex world of fund raising Oliver Woolley of Envestors has provided an overview to help identify the type of investor that might be best for businesses seeking investment.

MedKitDoc, a German telemedicine platform, has raised 7 million euros in seed financing. In addition to Vorwerk Ventures, Acton Capital, and existing investor Picus Capital, FlixBus founders Daniel Krauss and Jochen Engert are also investing in the fast-growing digital health start-up based in Berlin and Hannoversch Münden.

Archangels, the Edinburgh-based business angel investment group, led investments totalling a record £23.7m in promising Scottish tech and life sciences companies during 2021.