The corporate team at leading UK law firm Shoosmiths have made a record-breaking start to the year, 

Palamon Capital Partners has announced that its portfolio company, connected insurance service provider FairConnect, has signed an agreement to acquire G-Evolution from Groupama Assicurazioni Italia. 

Lovehoney, a leading e-commerce retailer, manufacturer and distributor of pleasure products and accessories, and WOW Tech Group, a pioneering provider of premium sexual wellness products, has announced a €1 billion merger and the creation of Lovehoney Group. The newly formed Group will also include Amorana, a fast-growing Swiss sexual well-being retailer acquired by Lovehoney in September 2020. Additional financial terms have not been disclosed.

Commenting on quarter on quarter GDP rising 4.8%, Ian Warwick, Managing Partner at Deepbridge Capital, said:

Ryde (formerly Ryders), the SaaS (Software as a Service) platform for last-mile delivery, has raised £2.5m to continue to expand its vision to become the world's first fully integrated delivery management system.

NPIF – Maven Equity Finance, managed by Maven Capital Partners and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund has supported water filter treatment technology business, G2O Water Technologies Limited with a £250,000 follow-on investment.  Since the original investment  in 2018, NPIF has invested a total of £970,000 to support the business following a period of growth which has included creating a further facility at Sci-Tech Daresbury, expanding its team and customer reach and developing its product portfolio.

The EQT Mid Market Europe fund has agreed to sell Utimaco Verwaltungs GmbH to SGT Capital, a global alternative asset manager with offices in Germany and Singapore.

Forefront RF, a Cambridge-based fabless semiconductor company, is set to change the way global smartphones, wearables and IoT Devices are designed. The Forefront RF chip enables connected devices to operate across the increasingly wide range of 3G to 6G mobile telephony frequency bands.

Ultrafast laser manufacturer Chromacity has completed a growth funding round of £1.2 million. Contributors to the round include existing investors, Kelvin Capital, EOS and the Scottish Enterprise, as well as new investor ESM Investments.  Chromacity, which develops ultrafast fibre lasers for a wide range of scientific and industrial applications, will use the funding to expand the company’s workforce, particularly within its manufacturing and R&D divisions.

Global early-stage VC Antler announced that it is launching in South Korea. The firm is present in most major startup ecosystems globally, and recently expanded its operations to Toronto, Canada, and Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.

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Finnish startup Innomost has raised €5M to bring their birch bark innovation into new markets as a sustainable alternative for environmentally harmful ingredients in consumer products. The funding round was led by Metsä Spring Ltd. with Innovestor and angel investors joining the round. The round was completed with grants and loans from Business Finland as well as other public financing sources.