OurCrowd, a global investment platform and Israel’s leading venture investor has announced that it will invest and partner with 7thirty to build the world’s leading global cannabis technology venture capital fund. The new $30M fund is focused on emerging cannabis technology companies in med-tech, ag-tech, retail, e-commerce, marketplaces, SaaS solutions, and the deep-tech research in Cannabis. The fund, headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, will be active globally and include activities in Israel, Canada and the United States.

London-based Newable Private Investing (NPI) has announced the launch of its first evergreen fund. With an initial raise of £10 million in the first year, the Newable Scaleup Fund 3 addresses the investment gap between seed stage and Series A, targeting high-growth early-stage companies that have moved from concept to a working business model but don’t yet have the numbers to attract VC or private equity money.

NPI aims to invest in seven to ten such businesses operating in knowledge-intensive industries through the EIS fund, with particular emphasis on the specialist areas of electronics, automation, medtech, and spacetech. 

Investors are increasingly being drawn to cash and cash equivalents (like money market funds and very liquid debt) for capital preservation amid greater market uncertainty.

Hubble, the online platform for flexible office space, has secured £4 million in Series A financing from a group of industry-leading investors, spearheaded by JLL Spark Global Venture Fund.

Farewill, the UK's fastest growing will writing service has announced it has raised £7.5 million to disrupt the death industry.  The latest capital raise sees further investments from listed fund Augmentum Fintech, Taavet Hinrikus, Transferwise and Tracy Terrill ex CTO of LegalZoom. Other investors include founders of innocent smoothies JamJar, SAATCHiNVEST, dmg ventures, Kindred Capital, Tiny VC And Venture Founders. They join the likes of Alex Chesterman, founder of Zoopla who invested in Farewill’s seed-round.

Equity Gap, Scotland’s most active business angel syndicate, is preparing for further expansionafter completing its biggest investment deals to date.

Hundreds of books and articles have been written on leadership – most are written by academics based on surveys and by people, who neither held penultimate leadership roles in sizeable global organisations nor directly worked with any truly great leaders. So, it isn’t surprising that leadership is a much talked about topic, yet misunderstood by most. In my search for unearthing the real traits of great leaders of our generation, I caught up with Sukhendu, whose development as a leader is similar to an apprentice chef learning the amazing culinary skills in the hot kitchens from some of the world’s iconic chefs. Sukhendu saw firsthand how Mother Theresa started her journey in Calcutta as an immigrant to become a global icon as well as his experience of working with people who led their companies from the start-up to world beating organisations, including Larry Ellison and Geoff Squire of Oracle, Tom Siebel of Siebel Systems, Steve Garnett and Marc Benioff of Salesforce, John Reed of Citicorp and Sandy Weill of Travelers Group. Here is what I discovered.

The British Business Bank has appointed Paul Jones to a new position as Senior Manager, UK Network for the South West.

Private equity chief financial officers (CFOs) reported another year of unprecedented growth of their firms but are still struggling to overcome operational issues that are dramatically eroding their margins, according to the EY 2019 Global Private Equity Survey, How do you see the opportunity in your obstacles?

The sixth annual survey of 103 private equity (PE) CFOs finds that despite great strides in launching new products and investing in technological solutions, expenses continue to grow as fast as assets. The survey also found that while CFOs begin to prioritize the cost-effective and competitive advantage of outsourcing to boost their bottom lines, they are acutely aware of the talent necessary to grow their firms.

“CFOs face different paths for altering their operational infrastructure and achieving sustainable growth,” said Denise Davidson, Associate Partner, Wealth and Asset Management, EY. “Determining the right balance of technology, talent and outsourcing is not a one-size-fits-all approach. While CFOs are divided on which path is the best fit for their aspirational goals, one thing is certain: they must act quickly to achieve a competitive edge.”

Alastair George, Chief Investment Strategist at Edison Investment Research discusses his outlook for 2019 in the attached strategy note.

Fintech business lender MarketInvoice has announced it has raised £26m in new equity funding. This Series-B funding round was led by Barclays and fintech fund Santander InnoVentures with significant participation from European venture fund Northzone, an existing investor in the company. Technology credit fund Viola Credit, who also participated in the equity round, will provide a debt facility of up to £30m to help scale the MarketInvoice business loans solution, that sits alongside their core invoice finance solutions.

Silverfleet Capital, the leading Pan-European private equity firm, has acquired a majority stake in STAXS Contamination Control Experts, the Benelux leader in value-added distribution of consumable products for cleanrooms in the Life Sciences and other industries. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.