A student start-up developing technology that will slash food waste in the education sector has won £10,000 to develop their idea.  UK schools, colleges and universities throw away 150m tonnes of food each year, at a cost of around £250m.  But the University of Bristol students behind KnoWaste believe their digital food management system will cut that waste by 50%, reducing institutions’ costs by 6%.

BGF has announced a successful exit from Cennox – a leading provider of services to the ATM sector. The business has been acquired by US-based investment firm, York Capital. 

BGF first invested £3 million in Cennox in June 2012 and subsequently put in three follow-on rounds into the business, taking total investment to £17 million.

SearchSmartly, the smart match-making property search platform that provides hyper-personalised property searches in minutes, has raised £1.25million seed investment to fuel its mission to redefine the relocation experience. This investment included leading investors in property and tech including Matt Cooper, founder of Carwow James Hind, serial proptech investor Antony Senny, Founders Factory and IFG.VC.

The UK tech sector reaches new heights with 100 UK tech companies valued at $1bn or more, according to new data from Dealroom and Tech Nation.

The UK’s 100th tech unicorn, Tractable, an AI startup building computer vision tools, and a member of Tech Nation’s late-stage Future Fifty programme, has today announced a $60 million Series D raise, that takes the company's valuation to $1 billion. 

Parcel2Go, the UK’s largest parcel delivery marketplace and e-commerce shipping platform, has announced the introduction of EQT Private Equity as a new cornerstone investor. EQT acquired its stake from Mayfair Equity Partners, management and certain selling shareholders.

The Maven UK Regional Buyout Fund, managed by Maven Capital Partners, one of the UK’s most active private equity houses, has invested in Titan Wealth Holdings to support their platform acquisitions and future acquisition strategy.

State Street Corporation has released new research, which reveals that with increasing pressures and demands on returns and reporting, alternative asset managers have work to do to meet the growing needs of institutional investors.

Tech Nation has launched the Diversity & Inclusion Toolkit; a comprehensive guide to address diversity challenges in tech companies and the UK tech sector, in order to help build a strong, diverse and inclusive tech sector.

British Patient Capital comments on the British Business Bank’s Small Business Equity Tracker which reveals the average pre-money valuation of a growth stage private company reached over £100m.

Clearco, the world's largest e-commerce investor and the company revolutionizing the way founders grow their businesses, has announced ambitious international expansion plans supported by two key executive hires

Gresham House Ventures – a growth equity investor specialising in software and digitally driven businesses in the consumer, healthcare and services sectors – has invested €5m into Scurri, a cloud-based software provider connecting and optimising e-commerce ordering, shipping, and delivery.  The investment is part of a €9m fundraising round that will support the creation of more than 100 jobs over the next two years, grow Scurri’s operations in the UK, and allow them to invest in marketing, sales and product development.

Ochre Bio, a biotech company developing RNA medicines for chronic liver diseases, has raised $9.6M seed financing led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Backed VC, Apollo Health Ventures, Selvedge, Hoxton and Hermes-Epitek. The funding will be used to advance the development of Ochre Bio’s RNA therapies and expand their deep phenotyping platform to identify and validate new liver targets.