Praetura Ventures, the Manchester-based investor that backs quality businesses in high-value sectors, has launched the Praetura EIS Growth Fund as it continues to see increased demand for capital and support from high-growth businesses.

As an ‘evergreen’ fund, the Praetura EIS Growth Fund is looking to raise up to £30m per annum. It will soft close twice a year and the funds raised will be deployed to support the growth ambitions of businesses in the North and across the UK. This will include early-stage businesses looking for smaller, seed-stage investments as well as capital and support for more developed businesses that are looking to scale. 

There are some classic bear traps that new business angels should avoid if they want to get beyond that early exciting stage, and closer to the money making stage...

A year after the worldwide sales success of the Channel 5 film ‘Agatha and the Truth of Murder’, the North Yorkshire-based husband and wife team behind it – Emily and Tom Dalton – have received backing from the UK’s leading media focussed investment group, Great Point Media, to start a regional production company. Great Point Ventures’ EIS investment in Factual Fiction is its second to be announced this year and eighth overall, consolidating a successful first 18 months for the fund.

UK Innovation funder Rocking Horse has announced a multi-million-pound partnership with London-based specialist investment firm Quilam Capital who have provided a committed facility to enable it to assist the millions of UK SMEs who are eligible for around £22 billion worth of Government R&D tax credits or Innovate UK grant schemes, with advance funding to support their growth and development.

Smarterly, the digital wealth platform for the workplace, has secured £7 million investment to support its continued growth as it brings innovation to workplace savings, allowing people to save and invest directly through payroll. 

Qadre, a high-growth fintech trusted by leading institutions to deliver certainty with blockchain technology, has announced a new research report in partnership with techUK that reveals a third of UK fintechs have lost vital funding due to equity management problems. The report ‘Making fintech work for fintechs’ is based on a survey of 59 UK fintech founders and exposes the impact of complex equity management processes on business growth as well as the impact of COVID-19 on fundraising.

Xona Space Systems, a San Mateo-based startup creating a secure and precise Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) satellite service, announces that it has raised a $1M pre-seed round led by 1517, with participation from Seraphim Capital, Trucks Venture Capital, and Stellar Solutions.

British Business Investments, the commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank, has committed £35 million to Harwood Private Capital UK LP at its first close of £70m.

The fund will focus on deploying £3m to £15m into UK founder, family and management owned businesses, with flexible capital investing across the capital structure. Investment can be used to facilitate organic growth, acquisition, shareholder restructuring, refinancing or act as a bridge to an IPO.

Epic Games, creators of Unreal Engine, has awarded a 'MegaGrant' to Polystream, a deep-tech startup and the world’s most scalable real-time 3D content and application delivery platform, to further enhance its content development platform.

The digital staffing service, Zenjob, has successfully secured a Series C funding round of $30 million. The lead investor is Forestay Capital, who are joined by Redalpine, Acton Capital, Axa Venture Partners and Atlantic Labs. The new financing will primarily be used to support expansion into further cities in Germany. Zenjob plans to roll-out its digital recruiting technology throughout the country by the end of the year and subsequently expand internationally. Currently, the Berlin-based business’ services are deployed and used in 14 German Cities. 

Intertrust, a leading global provider of tech-enabled corporate and fund solutions, has appointed Derek Ramage as Head of Fund Operations, based in Luxembourg.

While the initial shock of lockdown was evident in early April with some deal processes being postponed or even falling away entirely, the surprise has perhaps been the speed of the bounce back in new deal activity in just a few weeks, according to David Gee, an investment committee member at YFM Equity Partners (YFM).