Foresight Group has made a £1.5 million investment from the Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund into INSPHERE Ltd, experts in measurement and automation using innovative value-added metrology.

INSPHERE was founded in 2013 by CEO Ben Adeline and CTO Oliver Martin, originally providing metrology consultancy, sub-contract management and training to manufacturing businesses including Rolls-Royce, Airbus and Jaguar Land Rover.

Industries such as aerospace, automotive and defence all employ highly automated manufacturing processes which rely on production lines of robots performing precise and repeatable actions.

Kemp Little has advised private equity house Apse Capital in a deal with intelligent transformation provider Ultima Business Solutions. Apse Capital founder Max McNeill becomes a significant minority shareholder in a deal which the businesses expect to spark further investment.

For entrepreneurs to be able to find the ‘right’ investors, and vice versa for funders to select the ‘right’ founders is still very important  aspect of angel investing.  In this piece, Peter Cowley from The Invested Investor tries to describe the characteristics of the right investor.

Investment manager Downing has exited from two freehold gastropub investments managed by Upham Group.

Both gastropubs – The Navigator in Swanwick and The Winning Post in Winkfield - have been acquired by Upham Group.

Downing first partnered with Upham Group in October 2015 and subsequently refurbished the gastropub locations, both of which also have letting rooms. Upham Group itself has 15 pubs located across Hampshire, Berkshire, Sussex and Wiltshire. Additionally, all of Upham’s pubs and inns feature a range of fine real ales brewed by Upham’s own brewery, also based in Hampshire. 

This autumn Brexit will again dominate the minds of businesses and traders, but UK's SMEs should continue to plan ahead and look to export as a way of mitigating risk and increasing global sales. 

France Invest, the French private equity and venture capital association, in partnership with Deloitte, and with the methodological support of Reporting 21, has published its sixth ESG Annual Report - 2018, which describes, quantifies and qualifies the French private equity industry's commitment to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues by investment firms and their portfolio companies.

Fleetondemand, one of Europe’s leading mobility technology providers, has acquired Buckinghamshire-based vehicle management company FleetEurope for an undisclosed sum.  The significant deal was funded by Fleetondemand’s current long-term investment partner BGF, which acquired a minority stake in the technology business following a £5 million investment last year. BGF, the UK and Ireland’s most active investor, has committed more than £2 billion in over 285 growing businesses since it was set up in 2011.

This November, the Growth Investor Awards will turn five. Since 2015, this event has shone a spotlight on the people and teams that support SMEs with essential investment capital.

Wellington Partners has announced the final close of its fifth-generation fund Wellington Partners Life Science Fund V (WPLS-V).  

More than a third of small business owners (38%) say they won’t be having a summer holiday this year – a problem peaking among those with larger families (45%) and young children (45%) - according to a new poll from Hitachi Capital Business Finance.

FNA has closed a $5.5m Series A investment round led by IQ Capital, with participation from GETTYLAB. The funds will be used to further develop the FNA platform and solutions to help financial regulators and institutions operationalize advanced data analytics, identify fault lines in the financial system and prepare better for financial crisis and cyber threats.

Commenting on the number of electric car models in the European market set to more than triple within the next three years, Harry Merrison, Investment Manager at Kingswood, said: “Currently, around the globe, less than one per cent of vehicles are fully electric, which represents a significant growth opportunity given the inevitability of the technology’s future monopoly. The announcement today from Transport & Environment (T&E) on how the number of electric car models on sale in Europe is forecast to more than triple by 2021 is significant. The future of driving is very much electric, we are witnessing the phasing out of automotive internal combustion engines.”