Expa, a company founded by serial entrepreneur and Uber co-founder Garrett Camp to help entrepreneurs create and launch new companies, has hired industry veteran David Clark as its newest Partner.

UK deal making has plunged to the lowest monthly total in almost 35 years according to research from Refinitiv.

Deal value involving a UK target totalled £409.1 million from 35 deals in April 2020 – lows not seen since September 1985 which saw £269.5m worth from 9 deals.

Social impact investor Nesta Impact Investments (NII), part of Nesta, and London-based investment manager, Downing, have led a £2m growth funding round in Empiribox Ltd. The rapidly growing science education provider supplies resources for primary school teachers to teach practical science lessons. 

Bot-Hive, a digital marketplace for robotics and AI solutions has successfully completed a six-figure equity funding round.

Bot-Hive is a digital marketplace which connects SMEs with the right automation technology for their business and shows them the best way to introduce robots to their workflow processes.

The world's leading online Karaoke channel, Sing King, has raised £550,000 via Angel Investment Network (AIN), the world’s largest online angel investment platform as part of a seed funding round. Sing King offers high quality karaoke content via its YouTube channel and has over 90 million views per month

The raise took just seven weeks on the platform (the original £400k target was notably achieved within 4 days) with the money raised being used for launching standalone apps across IOS & Android as well as a web platform.

Kluster has received a $1m investment from VCs Newable and SuperSeed, alongside Cognism CEO James Isilay. The announcement comes in the same week GoCardless signed up as their latest enterprise client.  Two years since their AI platform went live, Kluster have raised funds to capitalise on surging demand for revenue analytics on both sides of the Atlantic, with current customers already spanning Europe, US and Canada.   

Figures from Plexal and Beauhurst released this week show there was £663 million of investment in UK companies over the lockdown period between March 23 and April 27. However, the total number of deals is down and almost 1,000 small U.K firms are currently in administration or liquidation.

Kerry Baldwin, Managing Partner of IQ Capital has commented on why the UK investment industry shouldn't get a false sense of security from these figures.

Stress in the financial markets is prompting a growing number of people to make extreme investment decisions that could ultimately hit their wealth, warns Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group.

The British Business Bank has allocated an additional £23.7m to Maven Capital Partners from the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund.

Maven was first awarded the Northern Powerhouse Investment mandate for Equity investments in the North West of the UK in 2017 and since then has invested £33m into 49 small and medium SME’s, creating 382 roles within the North West Region.

Leeds-based investment non-profit NorthInvest supported three investment rounds in the first quarter of 2020. The investment facilitator has helped IP-rich start-ups based in the North of England raise almost £2m through its funding network, and has already hosted two virtual pitch events since lockdown began.

Littledata, a SaaS company that connects and automates ecommerce analytics for its customers, has received investment from one member of Henley Business Angels (HBA), contributing towards a total funding round of £80,000.

Innovative law firm Muve has completed a £1.1 million equity funding round to finance its further aggressive expansion into the £1.75bn UK conveyancing law market.

Muve supports over 250 home movers every month with residential conveyancing. The Company's success is built on the three pillars of: process automation through technology, 100% ownership of the lowest cost off-shoring facility in the UK conveyancing market, and being the first law firm to guarantee home buyers an exchange of contracts within as little as 25 days, or return its fees.