Astarte Capital Partners, a specialist alternatives co-investment platform with a focus on value-add real asset strategies, has made two appointments to its London-based investment team.

The two new hires strengthen Astarte’s investment team and coincide with the firm’s expansion and strategic development. Astarte’s global team is based across London, Zurich, Sydney and New York.

Sanford DeLand Asset Management, the multiple award winning investment boutique specialising in Business Perspective Investing, has announced the appointment of Alex Brotherston as Chief Executive Officer.

Private equity firms are continuing to invest in the UK, despite the uncertainty created by the Brexit process, according to a new report from eFront, the leading financial software and solutions provider dedicated to Alternative Investments.

Acre, the next-generation mortgage, protection and general insurance platform, has announced an exclusive arrangement with Sesame Bankhall Group (SBG), one of the UK’s largest distributors of financial advice, coupled with a £5 million investment from Aviva and SBG. The deal will help transform the way mortgage and protection advisers process business and service their clients.

Intertrust, a global leader in providing expert administrative services to clients operating and investing in the international business environment has strengthened its fund servicing platform in Ireland with the launch of a new fund administration business. 

Intechnica, the Manchester-based technology business, has closed a £2.85million funding round led by investment group Mercia.

The lead investment of £2.0million came from NPIF – Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia Fund Managers and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund. An additional £750,000 was invested by Mercia Technologies PLC and £100,000 by existing private investors as part of the funding round.

The Riverside Company, a global private equity firm, has named Karsten Langer as its new Managing Partner for the Riverside Europe Fund (REF). Langer will lead the management of 30 professionals across Europe as Riverside continues to look for internationally growing entrepreneurial companies. 

True, the retail and consumer sector specialist investor, has invested in artificial intelligence (AI) solutions based company FunnelAI as part of its recent $1.5million seed series funding round. The investment was led by San Antonio-based venture capital firm Active Capital, alongside existing investors Geekdom Fund and several angel investors from San Antonio and Houston.

Over 40% of Scotland’s tech start-ups and scale-ups are targeting the US market for growth but have found access to finance the biggest barrier to their ambitious plans.  That’s one of the key findings from a new survey of 100 data-driven tech start-ups and scale-ups, undertaken ahead of this year’s Engage Invest Exploit (EIE) by the event’s organiser Informatics Ventures, and conference sponsor TalentSpark.

Partnership will support collaboration between five SPRINT universities and high growth SpaceTech start-ups.

The national SPRINT (SPace Research and Innovation Network for Technology) programme has entered into a partnership with Seraphim Space Camp, (Seraphim Capital’s SpaceTech accelerator).

The partnership with SPRINT will enable Seraphim Space Camp companies to access university expertise, help to accelerate the growth of their products and services, and will also support long-term collaboration between SPRINT universities and high-growth space companies.

Sceenic has raised its seed round through Startup Funding Club to continue expanding its “Watch Together” SaaS solution

Startup Funding Club (SFC) has led the seed investment round into Sceenic, a B2B SaaS technology company that powers interactive co-viewing experiences for some of the world’s best media companies with its “Watch Together” software. Utilising its real-time video chat API and SDKs, Sceenic enables people who are physically apart to watch video and TV together.

Beechbrook Capital, the specialist direct lender, has established its first office in Germany.and has appointed Peter Gottron as Investment Director, DACH, covering Germany, Austria and Switzerland.