UX-Republic joins Smile, the leading group recognized for its unique expertise in open source technologies, and also known through its brands Neopixl, the mobile applications specialist, and SensioLabs, creator of the world-famous Symfony framework. UX-Republic will continue to operate under its own brand and will benefit from Smile's capabilities to strengthen its customer offering – particularly on the technological side - and roll out its expertise in France and Europe. 

Maven Capital Partners has acquired a 28,000 sq ft building in Nottingham city centre for £3.7 million from a South African-listed property fund. The transaction was funded by Maven Investor Partners, an established network of professional client investors.

University of Birmingham spinout ChromaTwist Ltd has secured £300k of seed funding to develop a new class of fluorescent materials for use in bio-sensing and bio-imaging tests for diseases such as cancer and diabetes.

Research from Yoppie

Welsh-based start-up, Yimba, a multimedia and marketing platform that enhances bank digital wallet integrations, has finalised a bridge round of financing supported by the Development Bank of Wales and a group of private investors. This new funding will support Yimba’s immediate network and bank integrations as well as accelerate the development of next-generation features to its core platform. 

YFM Equity Partners is continuing to expand its team with the appointment of Tiffany Young as investment manager, based at its London office. Tiffany will join YFM’s investment team to support the origination and execution of new investments across both growth capital and buyout opportunities.

Two of Wales' leading entrepreneurs have been appointed as non-executive directors of the Development Bank of Wales. 

Foresight Group has made a £1.25 million growth capital investment under the Scottish Growth Scheme into FURTHER.SPACE Limited, a luxury glamping pod holiday company, providing outdoor premium short breaks in Scotland and Ireland.

The company is well placed to benefit from the growth in staycations with COVID-19 likely impacting international tourism for some time to come and more broadly to serve a growing segment of consumers concerned about the carbon footprint of air travel.

Ecommerce startup aisle 3 has completed a successful follow on funding round, raising £250,000 via Angel Investment Network, the world’s largest online angel investment network. Aiming to become ‘the Wikipedia of product search’ the business secured the funds in just six weeks with the company’s valuation more than doubling in the past five months. Experienced angel investors have backed the founders’ vision for a new, disruptive ecommerce marketplace  offering truly personalised experiences for large networks of engaged shoppers.

Growth capital investor, BGF has exited its investment in Nottingham-based life sciences incubation business, BioCity.  

BGF backed BioCity in January 2019 with funding facilitating BioCity’s investment into a number of seed-stage life sciences businesses. BGF has also invested alongside BioCity in deals such as its investment into North West-headquartered proteomic-data science and diagnostics company, Kinomica, in November last year.   

Cornerstone Partners, a leading angel network focused on investing in exceptional black and diverse founder led businesses across the UK, has released a ground-breaking report in collaboration with Engage Inclusivity, Diversity VC and Beauhurst about the barriers to inclusive investment for minority founders in the UK.

The purpose of the research is to identify how many black and minority ethnic founders have achieved VC backing, in addition to unveiling insights into diverse founders’ journeys and experiences of securing funding. The Cornerstone Report takes a closer look at the funding landscape for minority ethnic founders at two specific and critical stages of their funding journey: the seed/pre-VC stage (Cohort 1) and scale up/VC funded stage (Cohort 2).

Osprey Flight Solutions, creators of the most powerful resource for supporting aviation risk management in the industry, has closed a £2.2m investment led by venture capital firm 24Haymarket.