The British Business Bank has announced that it has approved a new lender for accreditation to the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS), five new lenders for accreditation under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) and four new lenders under the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS).

Zelluna Immunotherapy, a T Cell Receptor (TCR) cell therapy company, has completed a fundraise to fully focus on the development of its proprietary TCR guided Natural Killer (NK) cell therapy platform (TCR-NK) for the treatment of cancers.  

A total of approximately EUR 7.5 million has been raised in equity financing and public grants. Zelluna’s strategy is to concentrate on the development of TCR-NK cell therapy products based on its proprietary technology platform, where TCRs are functionally expressed in NK cells. The combination of the broad target range of TCRs with the inherent anti-tumor activity and allogeneic nature of NK cells could offer novel, safe, and effective “off the shelf” cell therapy treatments for solid cancer patients. 

Vintro, a new digital, global marketplace of business decision makers, is opening its platform to entrepreneurs and innovators who are seeking mentorship, guidance or investment.

Tech Nation, the growth platform for tech companies and leaders, has launched its new Net Zero growth programme. The programme is designed to support tech companies that are building a greener, cleaner, and more sustainable future, and helping the UK reach its goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Ten technology rich early stage businesses in Wales are a step closer to developing their innovative products and services having secured equity investment from the Development Bank of Wales.

£2.4 million has been secured by ten companies in just ten weeks since the UK went into lockdown. Those to benefit include £625,000 for Flintshire based Reacta Biotech to further develop their diagnostic tool for food allergies. 

No women in private equity report that they see starting their own firm as part of their future ambitions, according to Investec’s 10th edition of their global GP Trends Report.

Down from just 2.3 per cent of women who claimed they would like to start their own firm in 2018, 0 per cent of female respondents for the 2019 survey said that if they left their current firm, they would start their own. This is compared to nearly 15 per cent of male general partners.

Livingbridge, one of the UK’s leading mid-market private equity investors, has invested in TitanHQ, a fast-growing, global, cloud security vendor. Headquartered in Galway, Ireland and with offices in Tampa, Florida, TitanHQ provides Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and businesses with advanced web filtering, email security and email archiving solutions.  The company has over 20 years’ experience in the cyber security sector and protects over 8,500 businesses and 2,500 MSPs across 150 countries, including Virgin, O2, ViaSat, Pepsi and Datto.  It has demonstrated year on year growth with this momentum propelling ARR to more than $15m today.

Following the launch of Blackfinch Asset Management, investment specialist Blackfinch Group launches four Adaptation Funds. 

The coronavirus pandemic has hit the housing market hard but this does not mean that developers looking for financing are out of options, says Hilltop Credit Partners, adding how a combination of factors will translate into specialist finance providers coming to the forefront for filling in the funding gap. The West-End fund is a specialist funding partner for small and mid-sized residential property developers and house builders in the UK.

Axiom is launching with an enterprise-grade solution to manage and analyse machine data at any scale, across any type of infrastructure. Axiom gives DevOps teams a cloud-native, serverless solution to store and query their data all the time in one intuitive interface - without the overhead of maintaining and scaling data infrastructure. 

Richard Davies, Chief Operating Officer at Revolut, just spoke at CogX, the Global Leadership Summit and Festival of AI and Breakthrough Technology, where he discussed the future of challenger banks, the ambitions for Revolut  and the challenges for the sector ahead.

Spectrum Logic has been awarded an Innovate UK grant to develop a novel Western Blot scanner to be used in the first instance for Covid19 antibody testing. The project is entitled ‘Low Cost, High Throughput Western Blot Antibody Detection Device for Those Already Infected with COVID-19’.