Maven Capital Partners has raised £6.26 million to fund Oak Meadows, a new-build family home development consisting of 61 homes in Middleton St George, Darlington, in conjunction with Calmont Homes.

The transaction includes a £1.76 million equity fundraise from Maven's co-investor network, Maven Investor Partners, alongside a £4.5 million debt facility from TOC Property Backed Lending Trust PLC, managed by Newcastle upon Tyne-based wealth management and property lending specialists, Tier One Capital. This is the second transaction in eight months that Maven and Tier One have successfully concluded.

detected, the global mark of trust for eCommerce, has completed its latest funding round of £900k. This newest round demonstrates impressive industry backing and strong support for detected. Participants in this round include existing angel investors and institutional stakeholder EmergeVest, plus a new tranche of high-profile investors.

Liam Chennells, Chief Executive Officer at detected, said: “Twelve months ago, detected was an idea; the opportunity to build a business capable of solving an existential problem facing the entire eCommerce industry. Buyer trust, and for marketplaces, knowing who your sellers are. I couldn’t be prouder of our team and what they have achieved already.

Graphite Capital, a leading UK mid-market private equity specialist, has agreed to sell U-POL, a leading manufacturer and distributor of automotive repair and refinishing products, to Axalta Coating Systems. Headquartered in Philadelphia, United States, Axalta is a global manufacturer and distributor of coatings and the leader in the premium automotive refinish segment.

GingrTech, developers of the award-winning ROCKET Serious Games platform for experiential learning, has announced that games industry legends Philip and Andrew Oliver, AKA 'The Oliver Twins', are investing a significant amount to fund the next stage of the company's growth.

Pharmaceutical business Remedi Pharmacy Solutions has secured a £250,000 loan to support the development of its latest software platform and enable it to create seven new jobs.

Arborea – which is industrialising photosynthesis to expand the world’s food supply –  has completed a funding round led by BGF, the UK & Ireland’s most active investor, alongside Rubio Impact Ventures and Volta Circle.

Arborea is a technology business that has developed a breakthrough cultivation platform for photosynthetic microorganisms for use as food ingredients and proteins. It was founded by CEO Julian Melchiorri in 2015 following his research at Imperial College London. 

A fast-growing company that delivers high-speed internet connectivity to sites that lack the usual infrastructure has secured a further £500,000 investment from the North East Venture Fund (NEVF), supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Mercia.

Trench Networks’ innovative device, Outpost, aggregates connections from all the major mobile networks and combines them to provide a reliable internet service. The business, which started out by supplying construction sites, has recently launched a ‘Wi-Fi SOS’  service for businesses suffering wi-fi outages or moving to sites which lack connectivity.

Rory Kenny, Co Founder & CEO of Loudly, looks at how music catalogues are an exciting prospect both now and in the future. 

Maven Capital Partners has led the £2.6 million investment in cloud-based internal communication and employee engagement platform Oak Engage Limited. A total of £1.825 million has been provided by Maven’s Investor Partners network alongside a further £775,000 from the Maven managed North East Development Capital Fund and the North East Innovation Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Northstar Ventures, as well as existing and new private investors.

Unibuddy, the number one peer-to-peer university recruitment platform that has helped 770,000 students from over 180 countries make better decisions about their higher education journey, has raised $20 million USD in funding. The Series B round was led by Highland Europe with additional participation from Stride.VC. Unibuddy has raised a total of USD $32 million since its inception in 2017.

Video-software company mmhmm has raised a $100 million B round led by SoftBank Vision Fund a year after launching its first private beta, totalling $136 million raised for mmhmm since October 2020.

BGF and the ScaleUp Institute have released a seven-point plan based on key outcomes from the inaugural Scaleup Week: The Business Plan event which took place in May. 

The report analyses some of the key trends that will affect growing businesses in the next 10 years and that were a topic of discussion during the week. It outlines a series of proposals to ensure scaleups are well-prepared to overcome challenges and benefit from the opportunities that are ahead.