People suffering with communication difficulties are benefitting from a new speech therapy service that has been developed by Caerphilly-based Cog-Neuro Speech Therapy Limited. With a £25,000 loan from the Development Bank of Wales and a £60,000 grant from Innovate UK, the mobile application has been developed to help people with communication difficulties to regain their ability to communicate, maintain relationships and re-integrate into the community.  Cog-Neuro was first established by speech therapist Sheiladen Montero Aquino in 2012. She has now developed an application that will enhance speech therapy service for people with communication difficulties following a stroke, brain injury, and other progressive neurological disorders including Parkinson’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis.

The number of active UK biotechnology businesses in the field of research and experimental development has soared by 65% in just over three years as the sector attracts record levels of funding, according to new analysis by investment manager Downing LLP.

Bristol Wood Recycling Project (BWRP) is celebrating having successfully raised the funds through a bond offer on Triodos Bank's crowdfunding platform  to buy its premises.

As it reaches the second anniversary of its launch, the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF) is celebrating having directly invested £100m in 385 Northern-based SMEs, in deals that have attracted an additional £84m of investment from the private sector.

Ozo Innovations (Ozo) announces that it has secured over £600,000 project funding from the Department of Business Energy Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator (IEEA) Programme managed by the Carbon Trust and Jacobs.

The IEEA aims to lower costs and increase the number of available energy efficient technologies for a range of industrial sectors, through demonstration of near to market innovations. This will help to reduce carbon emissions and improve the competitiveness of UK industry. The funding will enable Ozo to substantiate the significant energy savings that could be achieved by implementing Ozo’s eloclear® hygiene process.

Beauhurst report celebrates the UKs top 'serial entrepreneurs'.

Startup Funding Club ranks in the Top 5 Most Active Angel & Seed Investors in the World in PitchBook’s 2018 Global League Table.

Maven Capital Partners, one of the UK’s most active SME finance providers, has invested £150,000 in cloud-based project management system, Collabor8Online on behalf of NPIF – Maven Equity Finance, part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund.  The funding will support the expansion of the senior management, including the appointment of a Chief Technology Officer, strengthen the sales team and invest in extensive product development. Collabor8 will also use the funds raised to commence a targeted contact marketing campaign to better penetrate its customer base in niche sectors, principally construction and associated professional services.

London-based VC fund Fuel Ventures has expanded its portfolio of early-stage companies and invested £1 million in Capdesk, a progressive private equity management platform.

Deepbridge Capital, the tax-efficient investment manager, has announced the appointment of Anjali Roberts as Strategic Partnerships Manager.

WarDucks, the Dublin-based augmented reality (AR) game development studio, has announced a €3.3 million funding round. Lead investor in the round is the EQT Ventures fund, with participation from Suir Valley Ventures and other investors. The funding will be used to drive the development of WarDucks’ new location-based AR game and expand the company’s development team. WarDucks’ is the latest investment to be discovered by AI platform Motherbrain. The proprietary platform is used by EQT Ventures to leverage data to identify and proactively contact promising start-ups.

Since 2010, £120 million has been pumped into UK mapping businesses, a third of which was invested in 2018. Beauhurst has looked at the 21 companies exploring new ground in the UK's mapping sector.