Elmtronics, the leading independent provider of charging points, has raised  £1.5 million funding from the North East Venture Fund (NEVF) and the Ingenious Infrastructure Ventures EIS Service.

The investment, which follows the announcement that the government is to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, will allow Elmtronics to step up its work in underserved UK regions.

Based in Consett and with offices in Bristol, Manchester and London, Elmtronics supplies and installs public charging stations as well as those for homes and businesses. Its clients include Nike, the NHS, National Grid, FedEx, Taylor Wimpey and a number of city councils.

Downing Ventures has led the first closing of the $15 million Series A funding round for Carbice Corporation with additional funding provided by Toyota AI Ventures.

Carbice produces Carbice® Carbon, a product that lowers device temperatures and dissipates heat away from product packaging. It is being used in space applications within satellites as well as in many terrestrial applications, and leads the industry on long-term reliability in diverse operational environments. Carbice® Carbon technology provides the only thermo-interface solution on the market allowing for thermo-connectivity management that is simple to make and easy to handle, apply and rework. These funds will allow Carbice to attract top talent to help grow their sales and marketing functions and enable the company to scale their production to meet the significant product demand.

Performance marketing technology provider Envolve Tech has successfully closed its latest funding round for a total of £720,000. The vast majority of investment was provided by private investors, including several prominent members of the performance marketing industry from the Thorium Technology Investor Network. Additional investment came from the female angel investment network Angel Academe.

TransferGo, one of the world’s fastest growing money transfer companies, has received £4m in financing from Silicon Valley Bank UK Branch (SVB), the bank of the world’s most innovative companies. This will enable the business to further develop and expand its real-time payments platform for consumers, SMEs and enterprise clients.

The digital healthcare consent platform, Flynotes, has successfully secured funding from NPIF - Maven Equity Finance, managed by Maven Capital Partners and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, and the GM&C Life Sciences Fund, managed by Catapult Ventures. 

Flynotes is addressing a major issue faced by doctors, dentists and patients alike: gaining valid and informed consent prior to delivering or receiving dental and medical treatment. Its platform provides a simple and effective digital solution to the current paper-based consent and disclosure process. This innovative interface between patients and health professionals is streamlining consent to treatment, removing inefficiencies brought about by paper forms and providing a fully compliant audit trail.

YFM Equity Partners has boosted its growing portfolio of high-growth technology businesses with an investment into award-winning marketing automation platform, Force24.

Force24 is a cloud-based marketing automation platform that allows an in-house marketing manager to deliver personalised marketing campaigns with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) integration. The platform is already trusted by a number of  household brands including Michelin, Tarmac and BBC Children in Need, to deliver over 900 million marketing emails so far this year, and the business saw turnover leap by 40% from 2018 to 2019, with revenues expected to reach over £3.5m this year despite the economic impact of the global pandemic.

Hams Hall Sustainable Energy has secured an £800,000 loan from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF) Debt Finance, managed by Maven Capital Partners.  The company is set to use the funding to support the delivery of new contracts, including purchasing and installing a sustainable energy system for a Birmingham-based blue-chip customer. 

Livingbridge has agreed the sale of Giacom, a specialist cloud services marketplace which provides cloud services to SMEs via the Information Technology Consultants ('ITCs') community.

Opteran, the Natural Intelligence company, has raised £2.1 million in seed funding. Opteran will use the funds to pioneer its radical lightweight, low cost silicon-based approach to autonomy called Natural Intelligence and expects its technology will significantly expand the potential addressable market for autonomy in machines and robotics.

The round was led by IQ Capital with Episode1, Join and Seraphim Capital also participating. Following on from a pre-seed round from the Connecting Capabilities Fund of the British Business Bank, the latest funding round also includes angel investors and a CCF grant, a part of the Northern Triangle Initiative.

RB's (Reckitt Benckiser) new purpose-led venture arm, RB Ventures, has backed space-age laundry and dry-cleaning startup, Oxwash, who are on a sustainability mission within the sector. The strategic partnership will provide Oxwash with access to RB Venture’s global scale and expertise, helping to solidify the startup as the new leaders in sustainable laundry. Along with strategic mentorship, RB’s EVP of Group Marketing Excellence and Category Development Organisation Hygiene, Fabrice Beaulieu will be taking a position on the Oxwash board, helping the company to set and achieve its sustainability goals.

Reflecting the growth in tech for good companies in the North of England, Bethnal Green Ventures and Leeds-based investment non-profit NorthInvest are partnering to increase the access to funding for early stage businesses in the sector.

Entrepreneur Alicia Navarro has closed a £1.2 million pre-seed investment round to fund her latest venture, Flown, a new online platform that aims to help knowledge workers achieve “deep work”. By matching them with inspiring properties setup for productive and ergonomic remote work,  as well as providing an array of interactive tools and resources, Flown will provide the ideal mental and physical spaces required for knowledge workers to get away from their day-to-day work environments to do their most productive and creative work.