Ad-Lib, a UK-based marketing technology SaaS platform that helps global brands manage and automate the production and activation of creative assets in their digital advertising worldwide, has closed $6million in Series A funding from San Francisco-based Fog City Capital. 

The shortlist for the North East Innovation Awards has been announced. 

Sixteen coveted trophies covering every aspect of business life have been presented to the winners of the 18^th Lloyds Bank National Business Awards.

Calculus Capital has appointed Dominic Harris as Portfolio Management Director. Harris was previously an Investment Director at Valtegra, a private equity firm focused on the investment in and turnaround of mid-market companies facing unique situational challenges.

Snaffling Pig, the UK’s leading pork-based snack business, has received investment from multiple Henley Business Angels members, who contributed to a record breaking funding round of over £1.1m.

Chosen as one of the Thames Valley 50 Game Changers in 2018, Snaffling Pig produces a wide range of pork snack products, including flavoured pork crackling sold in traditional foil bags, gift jars and advent calendars, as well as a variety of sauces, beers, nuts, and additional food goods ideal for gifts. The products are supplied into some of the UK’s leading supermarkets, such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, The Co-operative, John Lewis and Selfridges. Over 2,000 pubs, including Greene King and Punch Taverns among others, are also supplied with its products.

The ScaleUp Institute has appointed successful scaleup entrepreneur Adam Hale as its new Chair.

He takes over from Sherry Coutu, co-founder of the ScaleUp Institute, who has served her planned five-year term since the publication of the original Scaleup Report in 2014 and the subsequent formation of the ScaleUp Institute in 2015.

Envestors has announced that the banking giant Santander has acquired a 50.1% controlling stake in Ebury for £350m. This has provided several members of the Envestors private network huge returns on their original investments and placed Ebury firmly on the path to becoming the first Envestors unicorn portfolio company.

EIT InnoEnergy, the world’s largest sustainable energy accelerator, has issued its first ever global call for start-ups across the entire sustainability value chain. The call is open to start-ups worldwide in areas including but not limited to: renewable energy, energy efficiency, heat and transport, to solve the decarbonisation challenge.

Funds advised by YFM Equity Partners, the specialist private equity fund manager, have backed a £4.5m investment into SharpCloud Software Limited to support the continued growth and roll out of its enterprise SaaS product. 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.

SharpCloud was founded in 2012 by Sarim Khan and Rusty Johnson, following the successful sale of their previous software business to Oracle Primavera. Having spent some time within the Business Intelligence (‘BI’) and data analytics space, they noted a lack of powerful top-down software tools that could allow large organisations to visualise complex data across siloed lines-of-business and built SharpCloud to solve this.

Snowplow Analytics, the company that helps businesses to collect and own their customer data, has closed a £4m funding round from research-led VC MMC Ventures. The funding will support the company’s continued expansion in the US and Europe, and will help to further develop the technology behind its product.

Bioplastics company Teysha Technologies has successfully raised £1.2m of investment, supported by Angel Investment Network (AIN), the world’s largest online angel investing platform. London-based Teysha has created a patented, renewable, fully biodegradable plastic substitute, using waste from landfill to creating polymers for hundreds of different applications.