CogX, the world’s leading festival of AI and emerging technologies, today announces the headline speakers for its third edition, taking place between Monday 10th – Wednesday 12th June.

Sponsored by Principal partner HSBC, this year’s conference will be the world’s largest festival marketplace for AI and emerging technology, bringing together full tech ecosystems across industry, Government and society. Festival stages include  Finance and the Economy, the Future of Work and Education, Healthcare, Web3.0 and new tech markets, Cutting-edge tech development, Alan Turing Research, Ethics and more

Foresight Group and Williams Advanced Engineering have made a £2 million investment, as part of a £2.9 million growth round, into the disruptive technology business Synaptec Ltd. The Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund led the round alongside £100,000 from the newly created Foresight Scottish Growth Fund financed by the Scottish Growth Scheme through a combination of Scottish Government funds and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and £800,000 from existing shareholders, including The Scottish Investment Bank, the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise, Equity Gap and the University of Strathclyde.

Quotevine, a provider of SaaS solutions for the asset and automotive finance industries, has received £2.2 million in funding from private-equity firm, NVM. The UK based investors’ backing of Quotevine is validation of its mission to help asset and automotive finance companies modernise operations and create opportunities from disruptive technologies such as IoT and Artificial Intelligence.

Octopus Investments, part of Octopus Group and the UK’s largest Venture Capital Trust (VCT) manager1, today announced the launch of a new £20 million fundraise for its Apollo VCT.

Investing in a range of proven UK smaller companies, Apollo VCT is the UK’s seventh largest generalist VCT with £117m assets under management.2. It is also one of Octopus’ four VCTs that support the next generation of UK business through their growth cycle, providing seed to later stage funding, including to businesses recently listed on the AIM market.

A Greater Lincolnshire-based horticulture producer and supplier has secured a £200,000 debt funding package from Maven Capital Partners and the Midlands Engine Investment Fund.

Jepco Glebe Limited will use the finance to invest in a new hydroponic lettuce production facility - the first of its kind in the UK.

Now in its third generation, the family-run company produces and sells a wide range of salad and vegetable products to the manufacturing, retail, food service and wholesale sectors in the UK and overseas markets.

Edison Group, the leading investment research, investor relations and consulting firm, headquartered in London, with offices in New York, Europe and Asia-Pacific, has established Edison Israel, a joint venture with GK Investor Relations (GK), Israel’s market leading international IR firm, based in Tel Aviv.

Triple Point has invested nearly £1 million of funding to back the latest two companies in their Impact EIS Investment Fund. The fund targets fast-growing companies in the health, environment, youth and inequality sectors that are having a positive social impact, and are expected to generate significant capital growth.

The Impact EIS fund has invested £525,000 in GripAble, a company that has developed a digital hand grip to help rehabilitation for people living with a range of upper limb impairments, and £400,000 in We Are Digital (WaD), a digital and financial training provider, targeting the estimated 3 million people in the UK who lack digital skills to access services online.

Digital disruption has heightened the need for technological experience amongst leaders of the UK’s biggest businesses, yet broader boardroom diversity is failing to progress, according to new data from specialist recruitment firm, Robert Half UK.

According to the results of the annual Robert Half FTSE 100 CEO Tracker, the proportion of FTSE 100 CEOs with a background in technology has increased by 27% in the last year, with 14% of CEOs now having a background in the sector. This includes 30% of all new CEOs appointed in the last year. In contrast the number of FTSE leaders with retail and hospitality experience is in decline, from 21% in 2016 to 15% in 2019. Of the new CEOs appointed this year, just one (10%) had a background in retail and hospitality.

Hardman & Co has introduced a new panel service which will help advisers cope with what it calls the “…the greatest financial planning opportunity of our generation…”

Having reviewed the entire non-AIM Business Relief market, the firm is now creating panels of products which are tailored to the needs of an adviser’s business, and range of client profiles. It will also review and update panels on a regular basis, so that advisers are always up-to-date in their recommendations.

Maven Capital Partners has led an investment, alongside existing shareholders Par Equity and the Scottish Investment Bank, in Edinburgh-based Symphonic Software Limited, a leading player in the Identity and Access Management market. The funding will be used to further scale the business, investing in sales and marketing resource, as well as product innovation, to ensure Symphonic continues to offer customers a best-of-breed solution in this important and growing market.

The British Business Bank has appointed Dharmash Mistry as non-executive director (NED) to the board of British Business Bank.

Par Equity, the Edinburgh-based multi-award-winning venture capital firm, has led investments totalling £3.2m in two Northern Irish software companies, Plotbox and Datactics.

The companies represent a growing collective of technology firms based in the country benefitting from consistent support for start-ups from the private and public sector. A study published last year by the Enterprise Research Centre showed that compared to the rest of the UK, a higher proportion of Northern Irish companies exceeded £1m turnover within three years.