YFM Equity Partners has backed the MBO of Checkmate Fire Solutions Limited, the UK’s leading passive fire protection provider.

Friend-making app investors include LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner

I occasionally half joke with entrepreneurs that we are entrepreneurs too who are building a startup venture capital business and we have particularly felt their pain whilst we did our own fund-raising last year.

In the febrile three weeks before the end of the tax year, when many investors will be looking for ways to use up some S/EIS allowance, the hunt for a deal, any deal, may overtake the close interest one may take in returns.  For investors who are not overly interested in this issue, it might be wise to stop for a moment and satisfy yourself that you really are up for the journey. 

Kealan Doyle assess the likely impact on tax advantaged investing of a Corbyn-led Labour Government.

Patrick Reeve comments on VCT changes heralded by Royal Assent of the Finance Bill

Stephen Pegge, Director of Commercial Finance, UK Finance, responds to the publication of the SME Finance Monitor for Q4 2017.

The Week That Was is released by OFF3R. At OFF3R you can compare investments from leading equity crowdfunding and peer to peer lending sites through to robo-advisors and stocks and shares ISAs.

ClearScore’s huge FinTech exit and Funding Circle’s £2bn float.....

The  Lithuanian Business Angel Network (LitBAN) launched on March 14th in Vilnius, Lithuania, and was an overwhelming success with over 150 attendees and 50 registered paying members.

I remember the graduate dilemma well: “Work for a large firm, learn on someone else’s wallet!” was one option touted to me. Versus “Join a young organisation and get some real responsibility!”

Hats off to HBAN who funded an angel deal just 48 hours after the pitch.

How did this investment which is possibly the speediest investment ever (let me know if you know of a quicker one) happen?  HBAN explained that it was partly because with previous investors, including HBAN angels, already in the deal, all the due diligence was in place.

Brodie McGhie Willcox was a shipbroker who, in the early 19th Century, teamed up with the sailor, Arthur Anderson, to found a shipping line called the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company.  Arthur Anderson got to know McGhie Willcox when he was a clerk at the latter’s shipbroking business. They were later joined by a Dublin shipowner, Captain Richard Bourne, joined the business.