I was in Burgundy last week with a travelling companion to have a look at the wines of the 2018 vintage and what an interesting trip it turned out to be.

Independent games studio and virtual reality developer XR Games has secured a £1.5m funding round, led by Praetura Ventures alongside existing investor ACT Capital Partners.

Praetura Ventures, the firm committed to providing capital and support to early-stage businesses across the north of England, has invested from its EIS 2019 Fund and will now work closely with founder and CEO Bobby Thandi and his team as they execute the next stage of their growth strategy.

The Midlands Engine Investment Fund Debt Finance, managed by Maven Capital Partners, has provided Telling Architectural Limited, architectural façade design specialists, with a £750,000 loan to expand their facilities, creating 7 new roles in the region.

Architectural specialist, Telling, designs and supplies a variety of façade rainscreen systems, specialising in clay, brick, ceramic and stone cladding as well as Glass-fibre Reinforced Concrete (GRC) cladding in the UK. With offices in the UK and New York, the company has internationally built a reputation for its expertise in cladding, offering clients design services, technical assistance and installation support.

Tech Nation, the UK’s leading network for ambitious tech entrepreneurs, has revealed the 33 regional winners of its nationwide competition. Rising Stars represents and recognises the UK’s most exciting and innovative early-stage scaling tech companies. 

Iotic has secured investment of €7.5million to accelerate growth and meet increasing demand for its pioneering digital twin technology. Iotic enables enterprises and their ecosystems of assets, objects, companies and people to interact automatically and securely. The digital software company provides the secure operating environment and tools to create digital twins of any thing, enabling their secure interactions, and building true interoperable ecosystems.  

Whilst the politicians continue to battle it out, Beauhurst has profiled some of the young startups who are working to increase sustainability across the energy and food sector, no matter who gets into Number 10.

With all the uncertainty around Brexit, and the General Election, business leaders can be forgiven for wanting to hang up their gloves and taking December off.

However, as we know, that is unfortunately not possible and while certain sectors might slow down as the holiday period approaches others particularly in the hospitality, food, drinks and gifts sector are ramping up to contend with the seasonal rush.

MMC Ventures has backed Cloudsmith as the team build for the next stage of software development. Cloudsmith’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offers an advanced logistics platform for software developers, operators and vendors, who need to secure, manage and accelerate their product development and distribution.

ClearlySo, Europe’s leading impact investment bank, has helped MyKindaFuture (“MKF”), the leading expert in early careers at apprentice and graduate level, complete a £2.75 million Series A equity round. The new funding, which came from Puma Private Equity, will enable MKF to expand its mission to help employers access a broader and more diverse talent pool, improve retention rates and tackle skills shortages.  MKF empowers young people with ‘employability’ skills, confidence and contacts enabling them to be successful from school and university through to Year-1 in job.

Gresham House Renewable Energy VCT 1 plc and Gresham House Renewable Energy VCT 2 plc have made a new investment of £1.2 million into bio-bean, the world’s largest recycler of waste coffee grounds.

This investment represents 30% of the £4 million funding round announced by bio-bean in April 2019. The Gresham House VCTs’ investment forms the final part of that round, and values bio-bean at £7.6 million.

Economic Intelligence Wales has published its latest report on medium-sized firms and Welsh business structure. 

EBAN, the European Business Angels Network, has produced the new editions of its much anticipated annual mapping of fiscal incentives and co-investment funds available to business angels in Europe.