Scottish Equity Partners portfolio compnay Insightful Science, a  leading software provider serving the global life sciences community, has entered into a transaction to acquire Dotmatics, an industry leading cloud-based scientific R&D data management platform.

An e-commerce software business which allows retailers to sell through multiple online channels has undergone a management buy-in led by an award-winning business leader.

Elizabeth Gooch MBE will now take on the role of CEO of Expandly. The deal, which also gives the Milton Keynes-based business access to £750,000 investment to support its further growth, was backed by a group of private investors; as well as existing investor the MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund, which is managed by Mercia and part of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF); and the government’s Future Fund.

Deepbridge Capital investee company, VoxSmart Ltd., a global leader in communications surveillance, has successfully closed a $25 Million growth equity financing round

Sellforte, an AI-powered marketing optimization platform, has raised €4 million in funding led by Sonae IM, with Bonnier Ventures and Icebreaker.vc also participating in the round. The company will use the capital to hire new talent to scale R&D on its product offering and further expand its operations internationally.

Biomedical startup Adapttech has raised £2 million in a new venture capital funding round. The round was supported by existing investors including the MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund, which is managed by Mercia and part of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund;  Bionova Capital (formerly Hovione Capital), as well as new investors including ACF Investors, Wealth Club and Wren Capital.

Arbolus, the expert knowledge platform is delivering the future of work through innovative tools to support the knowledge sharing process and has raised $6m investment, led by Fuel Ventures, in order to scale the platform to serve large enterprises, consultancies and investment firms.

QVentures has invested in Kortext, the UK’s leading B2B2C digital learning platform. QVentures joins the £9 million Series A funding round led by dmg Ventures, and brought investment from several private investors including a Family Office to add strategic value to Kortext. Kortext’s platform allows discovery and access to over two million key digital textbooks from over 4,000 publishers in one easy to use content and learning platform. The Kortext platform is being used by universities across the world from South Africa to Vietnam, Oman to India.

Signal Capital Partners Limited, the London-based private asset management firm, has held a final closing for a new €900m fund targeting European credit and real estate special situations investments.

Ian Sayers, Chief Executive of the Association of Investment Companies (AIC), has decided to step down later this year.

Ian was appointed Chief Executive of the AIC in January 2010, having joined the Association as Technical Director in November 1999. Ian has agreed to stay in position whilst a search for a new Chief Executive is undertaken. A full search will be completed by Odgers Berndtson and further details about the position can be found here. The AIC will make a further announcement later this year and it is expected that the process will be concluded by the end of 2021.

Memory innovator Intrinsic Semiconductor Technologies Ltd has closed a £1.35m seed funding round led by investors UCL Technology Fund and IP Group plc.

The funding will enable Intrinsic to disrupt the $60bn non-volatile memory market by partnering with leading semiconductor research foundry, imec in Belgium, to develop prototypes of its proprietary non-volatile memory devices using industry standard ‘complementary metal oxide semiconductor' (CMOS) processing on 300mm silicon wafers.

A group of successful entrepreneurs from the Bristol area have set up a mechanism to provide seed-funding for early-stage start-up businesses in the South West.

It is a new venture for the well-established Bristol Private Equity Club (BPEC), which previously only invested in established enterprises with growth potential.

Pembroke VCT, the venture capital trust focused on building the brands of tomorrow, has made an initial investment of £1.75 million into Dropless, the eco-friendly vehicle maintenance company revolutionising its sector.

Dropless was launched in 2018 by co-founders Christian Duncan and Mike Grindy, to bring digital and sustainable innovation, alongside exceptional customer service, to vehicle owners globally.