Businesses urged to take tech opportunity and learn from leaders as Digital Festival announces line-up.

BDRC has published its quarterly SME Finance Monitor. The largest and most frequent study of its kind in the UK, research findings have been gathered across 27 waves of interviews since 2011 and are based on more than 130,000 interviews with SMEs.

Dow Schofield Watts Angels has completed its first deal, with a £500,000 investment in Warrington-based software company Avanite.

UK-leading meal-kit company, Gousto, has raised a further £28.5m additional equity funding from new and existing investors: Hargreave Hale, Angel CoFund, MMC Ventures, and BGF Ventures - bringing the total amount raised to £56.5m.

The investment shows enormous progress for the company, a first-mover in the highly competitive and fast-growing meal-kit industry, which is predicted to generate $10bn globally by 2020 and is already worth an estimated $3.5bn in the US.

Ascension Ventures has fully invested its CENTAUR EIS Fund I . Across the 17/18 tax year, the fund invested in 8 EIS qualifying Seed+ businesses.

World Business Angels Investment Forum has become an affiliated partner of the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) SME Finance subgroup. Its participation has been approved by the GPFI Troika linked to the Financial Inclusion Action Plan (FIAP).

MMC Ventures has launched a new podcast series, ‘Beyond the Hype: Artificial Intelligence’, sponsored by Barclays.

Bruntwood is set to acquire Innovation Birmingham, heralding a new era of major expansion at the region’s leading digital and technology campus.

Andrew Mearns Spragg, CEO of Jellagen, talks about how Newable's investment enabled the company to take the next step in its development. 

WiseAlphahas been named Best Investment Provider award in the British Bank Awards 2018.  In addition, 

GTR Ventures has made its debut deals with five trade FinTech companies – Tradeteq, Trade Finance Market, Culum Capital, eFundSME and Incomlend. These deals are the first in a strong pipeline of transactions. GTR Ventures has taken equity positions in the five companies, collectively valuing them at around US$50 million.

The companies – four digital trade lenders and a platform for institutional investors to access global trade instruments – have facilitated over US$160 million of trade loan deals since their inception.