Startup Funding Club has invested over £300K in British startups Curamicus, Designed in Colour, icarusparts.com and Torsion Information Security.

Maven Capital Partners welcomes Alex Marsh to the investment team in the North East, joining as Investment Manager to transact on behalf of Maven’s private equity funds and help manage the £20m Finance Durham Fund, announced earlier this year by Business Durham.

OurCrowd, the leading global equity crowdfunding platform, is announcing further expansion of its tech bridge between Israel and Australia/New Zealand.

eepbridge has set out a wish list of EIS/SEIS measures it would like to see the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, announcing during his Budget on the 22^nd November. The wish list comes off the back of the Government’s Patient Capital Review and its consultation on ‘Financing Growth in Innovative Firms’ – both of which provide details on how the Government wants to see innovative firms access the finance they need in order to scale up, and the methods by which investors provide this finance including EIS & SEIS.

30 October

The amount raised by VCTs has risen by over £100 million in a year.  VCTs issued shares to a value of £570 million in 2016-17, a 28% rise over the previous year according to stats released by HMRC recently. “The increase in the amount of money that is available to benefit start-up and scale-up industries is great news for all involved,” said Nick Travis, partner in investment management at Smith & Williamson, the accountancy, investment management and tax group.

The Association of Investment Companies (AIC) announces that Rachel Beagles has been voted Chairman-elect of the AIC, with William Hemmings voted Deputy Chairman-elect. Their positions will come into effect after the AIC’s AGM on Wednesday 17 January 2018.

Maven Capital Partners has exited its investment in Crawford Scientific, a leading supplier of chromatography products and analytical services to the laboratory research and testing sectors, following its sale to Limerston Capital Partners I, LP. The sale realised a return for Maven clients of 4.7x the initial investment in just over three years, with an IRR of 70%. 

Ventilation systems specialist Monodraught has received a £2.65m investment from BGF to support its long-term growth plans. The High Wycombe headquartered company will use the funding for product development and expansion into new markets.

Draper Esprit has announced a strategy to target up to £75m ($100m) of investment in the top seed funds across Europe over a five-year period. Draper Esprit has committed to invest in the latest funds of both Seedcamp (www.seedcamp.com) and Episode 1 Ventures (www.episode1.com), widely recognised as two of the UK’s leading seed fund platforms. 

ENVESTORS announces that it has successfully facilitated SOLARIS PHOTONICS to close its funding round of c. £600,000. 

ENVESTORS has assisted SNAPTRIP in raising £1M to expand their marketing reach for offline / branding opportunities and support the company's international expansion.

The social enterprise Charity Checkout has successfully raised over $1m to accelerate its growth. This round of investment was led by the founders of Octopus Group, Chris Hulatt and Simon Rogerson, who last week were announced EY Entrepreneur of the Year UK 2017. The investment round also included four existing investors.