Ingenious's Infrastructure Ventures EIS Service has led a £2.3m A-series investment round in 3D Repo, the pioneers of cloud-based design collaboration in Building Information Modelling (‘BIM’).  The investment represents another major vote of confidence and a financial boost for 3D Repo’s digital construction services business.

Funds advised by YFM Equity Partners have backed a £5.6m investment into Unbiased EC1 Limited to support the continued growth of the team and its financial advice marketplace. YFM’s investment comes from its two advised VCTs, British Smaller Companies VCT plc and British Smaller Companies VCT2 plc, alongside YFM Equity Partners Growth II LP.

Unbiased is the leading online platform for connecting millions of people to the trusted financial specialists across Financial Adviser, Mortgage Broker and Accountancy markets.

NatWest has launched a new partnership with Soldo, a pre-paid company card provider for small businesses, which will allow two of the bank’s ventures, Esme Loans and Rapid Cash, to be offered directly to Soldo’s customers, as the bank aims to increase lending to UK SMEs throughout 2020.

eFront, the leading financial software and solutions provider dedicated to Alternative Investments, has published its latest Quarterly Private Equity Performance report, showing that venture capital funds globally reached their best ever performance in Q2 2019, surpassing the previous high recorded one year earlier. 

The membership of the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) has elected Gay Collins and Francesca Ecsery to the board of the AIC.

James Murdoch considers whether Accelerator/Incubator Funds are a good option for crowdfunding investors.

Dazzle, the automated conversation platform, has closed its first seed funding round raising £2.3m from global corporates, government accelerators and individuals including Telefonica and Finance Birmingham.

BookingLive has secured £1.31 million in new investment from Blackfinch Ventures and the Development Bank of Wales. The funding will help BookingLive with its plans to more than double revenues during 2020, and coincides with a decision to relocate the company headquarters to Cardiff.

Founded by CEO Vinnie Morgan in 2014, BookingLive provides online booking and reservation software to over 700 private and public sector customers. Its Enterprise system clients including Microsoft, BMW, Universal Music Group, the BBC, CAPITA, The City of Westminster, and numerous other public sector agencies across the UK.

Photek, a Sussex-based specialist manufacturer and global supplier of vacuum-based tubes and camera systems for photon detection, has signed up to the national SPRINT business support programme. 

Maven Equity Finance, managed by Maven Capital Partners and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, has invested £250,000 in healthy snacking brand Real Handful Limited. The funding will allow the business to invest in product development as well as its sales and marketing activities to develop its commercial offering and expand its team, creating 14 new jobs in the Manchester region.

Clean energy solutions provider, Logan Energy, has secured £1 million investment from Kelvin Capital via their International collaboration with Henan Lanxing Power Equipment Co Ltd (Lanxing) to build on its hydrogen technology capabilities and develop operations in the Chinese market.

This joint venture with Lanxing will kick off in 2020 and will see Logan Energy perform similar business functions in China to its current hydrogen tech activities throughout the UK and Europe.

Work on the third phase of Glan yr Afon Industrial Estate in Aberystwyth has begun with confirmation of a commercial property loan for developers Ellis Development Company (Wales) Ltd  by the Development Bank of Wales.

Speaking on Monday 13 January 2020, Ken Skates, Minister for Economy and Transport welcomed the first investment from the £55 million Wales Commercial Property Fund managed by  the Development Bank of Wales.