• London and Cambridge occupy first and second places, with Oxford ranking eighth
• UK cities represent 5 of Europe’s top 20 dynamic metropolitan centres, and 11 out of top 40
• The Savills IM Dynamic Cities index comprehensively measures European cities’ future-proofi

State Street Global Exchange has released the results of the State Street Investor Confidence Index® (ICI) for June 2018.

The Global Investor Confidence Index decreased to 101.7, down 2.1 points from May’s revised reading of 103.8. The decline in sentiment was driven by a 10.8 drop in the European ICI to 90.8 along with the 0.8 point decrease in the Asian ICI to 102.6.  By contrast, the North American ICI rose by 0.8 points to 105.7.

The European Business Angel Network (EBAN), which is the pan-European community for the early stage investors covering over 150 member organizations in more than 50 countries has appointed Peter Cowley as its new President.

Peter Cowley, serial entrepreneur, invested investor and UK Angel of the Year 2014-15, will take the lead of the organisation for the next two years.

Leading deeptech VC, IQ Capital, has held the first close of its £125m third fund, IQ Capital Fund III, at £92 million. The fund will invest at Seed and Series A stages into UK deeptech companies with transformational deep-tech, AI or disruptive algorithms at their core and led by visionary founders.

Louis Poulsen has developed strongly under Polaris’ ownership since 2014, generating considerable revenue and earnings growth. The development has been driven by significant investments in the Group’s brand, product development and sales as well as organizational and operational improvements. Polaris has today entered into an agreement to divest its majority shareholding to Investindustrial Group Holdings SA, which is an investment subsidiary of Investindustrial VI L.P.

Dr Graham Davies, Investment Director at Mercia, which provides funding for tech firms and other SMEs, explains how to give your business the best chance of success.

The Prime Minister has unveiled the government's new industrial strategy, which is intended to put the UK at the forefront of the global economy - and, argues Kin Capital's Tom Hopkins, EIS and VCTs are perfectly positioned to help.

Kuber Ventures has produced a short educational animation highlighting the attractive Capital Gains tax treatment offered by EIS, with potential for tax free gains and the ability to defer Gains made on other investments until the shares in the EIS are sold.

Inflexion Private Equity has announced the appointment of Irina Hemmers as a Partner. Irina will lead the TMT team, building on Inflexion’s long history of successful investments in the sector including On the Beach, FDM and Reward Gateway.

Triptease, a travel SaaS startup which helps hotels to get more direct bookings and bring hospitality online, has raised  $4m of additional funding from its investors BGF and Notion Capital, taking the total amount raised since last year to $13m.

Triptease provides a data-driven software platform to hotels looking to increase their online conversion rate in the face of intense competition from online travel agencies (OTAs). Hotels around the world are anxious to avoid the large commissions paid to OTAs but need tools to make sure that travellers complete bookings through their website.

Pfizer Ltd has announced that Medopad, Perfect Ward and Inhealthcare have been selected to be part of the Pfizer Healthcare Hub: London.

TourRadar, the largest OTA in the multi-day touring market, announced today a US$50m Series C, led by TCV with participation from existing investors Cherry Ventures, Endeit Capital, Hoxton Ventures and Speedinvest.  TCV is one of the largest providers of capital to growth-stage private and public companies in the technology industry and has backed industry-leading companies including Airbnb, Expedia, HomeAway, Netflix, SiteMinder, Spotify, Vice, and Zillow.