A startup using AI to make websites and apps more accessible to people with visual impairments and neurodivergent conditions has secured a £300,000 boost for its next stage of development.

BrowsAble has received backing through Innovate UK’s investor partnerships programme, which brings together grant funding and private investment to accelerate the development of pioneering UK businesses.

A £150,000 grant from Innovate UK is being matched by investment from Manchester-headquartered EHE Group through its AI Growth Fund, with support from EHE Venture Studio. EHE Group is an Innovate UK investor partner.

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Allergy Therapeutics plc is looking to de-list in London – and then intends to join the public markets in Hong Kong.

The West Sussex-based MedTech, led by CEO Manuel Llobet, has maintained a London listing since 2004 but its board has complained of costs amid a 71% drop in its share price this year.

The firm, which develops allergy vaccines and immunotherapy treatments, will need 75% of its shareholder base to vote through a cancellation of its shares on the junior AIM market at its annual general meeting before it re-registers as a private company.

Revolut has secured a banking licence from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand – making it the country’s first digital bank.

The UK-headquartered global powerhouse has committed to invest NZ$120 million (£50m) into its local operations over the next five years.

Revolut, which has more than 80m customers worldwide, is now operating as a licensed bank in 34 markets, including the UK, Europe and Australia.

 

Tesco is considering a bid to buy up to 150 stores from the owners of stricken discount retailer Poundland.

Poundland filed a notice to appoint administrators on Thursday, which gave it 10 days of breathing space with creditors to explore a rescue deal.

According to Press Association sources, Tesco – the UK’s largest supermarket – held talks over the potential acquisition of a quarter of Poundland’s 600 UK and Ireland stores.

 

Travel Counsellors, one of the UK’s largest and fastest-growing travel companies, has celebrated receiving the King’s Award for Enterprise for Innovation at a special presentation ceremony held at its office in Manchester.

Mrs Diane Hawkins JP LLB, His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Greater Manchester, formally presented the award.

The presentation follows Travel Counsellors being named a recipient of the King’s Award for Enterprise for Innovation earlier this year, marking the fourth time the company has received one of the UK’s most prestigious business honours and the second time it has been recognised for Innovation. The company previously received the Queen’s Award for Innovation in 2003 and awards for International Trade in 2014 and 2020.

The Oxford Road Corridor has launched a new 10-year strategy, setting out the next phase of growth and development for Manchester’s Knowledge Quarter.

Covering one square mile south of Manchester city centre, the Oxford Road Corridor is one of the UK’s most significant concentrations of research and innovation. It supports more than 104,000 jobs and generates £7.8 billion in annual economic output.

The Oxford Road Corridor Strategy 2026–2036 builds on decades of collaboration between the major institutions that shape this part of Manchester. Over almost two decades of formal partnership, more than £2.8 billion of public and private investment has been aligned across the area. During that period, more than 60,000 jobs have been created and annual economic output has increased by £4.6 billion.

Future growth will build on established strengths in health and life sciences, digital and technology, advanced materials and the creative industries.

SETsquared has announced the 21 DeepTech spinouts and startups that will pitch at Investment Futures 2026 on 24th November in central London.

The line-up spans core growth sectors including advanced manufacturing, clean energy, defence, life sciences, and digital technologies, identified in the UK’s Industrial Strategy as having the greatest growth potential over the next decade. Each company is actively raising between £250k and £5m.

Featured companies include Attomarker Ltd, a Bristol-based life sciences spin-out developing biomarker-based diagnostics for earlier, more accurate diagnosis of conditions including Long Covid, Lyme disease and Type 1 diabetes; DATAMBIT, an AI-powered defence company whose NATO-validated infrastructure detects and verifies synthetic audio and video in real time and Sorair Technologies, a Surrey-based autonomous security firm whose drone automation platform lets industrial, commercial and government organisations build their own autonomous security and site safety workforce.

The 21 ventures were selected from a pool of 57 applications through a competitive process run with external investors.

A major milestone has been reached in the circa £210 million transformation of Enstone Business Park following the granting of outline planning permission by West Oxfordshire District Council for its redevelopment and expansion. 

Now unveiled as Enstone Estate, the 310-acre development is conceived as a country estate for innovators, with the ambition to become a new destination for British innovation.

The permission has been granted to estate owner Leven Holdings Limited and will provide for up to 692,174 sq ft (64,305 sq m) of flexible employment floorspace, alongside associated landscaping, drainage and infrastructure improvements.

Set within 310 acres of Oxfordshire countryside, next to Soho Farmhouse and the site of the approved Mullin Automotive Museum, Enstone Estate has a distinctive setting. Building on the area’s strengths in motorsport, aviation and engineering, it will create opportunities across advanced manufacturing, future mobility, creative, film and digital industries, agri-tech, environmental technologies and research and development.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

A listed bitcoin firm which counts Nigel Farage as a major shareholder has amended its agreed £12 million deal to buy Direct Bullion – the precious metals group which pays the Reform UK leader £22,500 an hour to promote it – to remove the cash elements.

Direct Bullion’s founder and sole shareholder is Paul Withers, who is also chief strategy officer at acquirer Stack BTC.

The original deal consisted of cash, new equity and deferred equity consideration, with £3m payable in cash on completion; £4m satisfied by the issue of new ordinary shares in the company; and potential earn-outs of £5m, subject to performance.

However they firms have agreed to amend the deal.

The Government has launched a search for 10 locations across the UK which will benefit from its Strategic Sites Accelerator.

A total of £700m funding and expert support will be deployed to ‘reindustrialise’ the sites. Mayors and local leaders are working with No10 North to drive the search for the ‘top 10’ locations.

Tackling the key barriers holding back high-potential sites – from access to finance, grid connections and planning constraints – it hopes that the blockers that can cool would-be private investors will be removed.

 

RWS Holdings plc’s £22.4 million deal to acquire a French rival has been completed.

RWS is a London-listed AI content localisation services firm headquartered in Berkshire which turned over almost £700 million last year.

It has acquired Acogroup, the parent company of Acolad, a global provider of language and content solutions headquartered in the Paris region.

 

The Competition and Markets Authority has launched an investigation into whether Meta’s commercial terms for businesses using its platforms and services breach competition law.

The terms, which Meta planned to revise on 20th November but has since put on hold, could allow it to collect content from the websites of businesses and publishers that use its services and then use it to develop and provide its own products and services, including its AI features – without those businesses getting a choice on if or how their content is used.

The CMA is concerned that Meta requiring news publishers and other content businesses to accept these terms could amount to an unlawful imposition of unfair trading conditions for thousands of UK businesses that rely on its services to reach customers and audiences.

AdvancedAdvT, an international software solutions provider for the business solutions and compliance sectors, has reported a jump in half-year profits and revenue.

The firm, listed on London’s junior AIM market, said that for the six months to 31st August 2026 revenue increased by 13% to £28.8m. Recurring revenue of £23.8m representing 83% of total revenues (2025: £20.6m and 81%).

Adjusted EBITDA from operations increased by 17% to £8.4m, while operating profit significantly increased to £8.2m (2025: £2.9m).

The chair of global packaging and automation solutions group Mpac will step down next year.

Following the conclusion of its 2027 Annual General Meeting, expected to be held in May 2027, Andrew Kitchingman will also step down from the board.

Kitchingman has served as a non-executive director of Mpac for 10 years, including eight years as chair.

The board of Mpac – listed on London’s junior AIM market – has decided that David Squires, currently non-executive director, will succeed him as chair.

Blackbird plc has appointed another interim chair as it seeks a permanent solution.

The previous chair stepped down in June 2025, leading CEO Ian McDonough to take on the role on an interim basis.

COO and CFO Steve White then stepped down at the end of August this year.

Now the company behind cloud-native video editing platform Blackbird and collaborative video editing and content creation platform elevate.io has appointed non-exec director Youri Hazanov as interim non-executive chair “in order to follow best governance practice”.

StormHarvester, an AI-powered wastewater analytics company, has appointed international water technology executive Colby Manwaring as a board advisor.

Manwaring is the former CEO of Innovyze, a global leader in water infrastructure software, which was acquired by Autodesk in 2021 in a deal valued at approximately $1 billion.

His appointment comes as StormHarvester continues to build its international presence, with North America identified as a key market for the company’s next phase of growth.

Founded by civil engineer Brian Moloney, StormHarvester uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to help wastewater utilities identify and prevent network failures before they result in flooding or environmental pollution.

The company now analyses data from more than 400,000 sensors across global customers and detects over 10,000 sewer blockages each year.

Employee benefits platform Perkbox has appointed Shahid Naveed as chief product and technology officer, bringing more than 20 years’ experience across Amazon, Freetrade and Auction Technology Group.

Previously CPTO at Freetrade, where he helped steer the business through its acquisition by IG Group, Shahid will now lead Perkbox’s 70-strong technology division, focusing on making employee benefits easier to access and helping employers get more value from their investment.

A key priority will be exploring how AI can help HR teams identify underused benefits and take action to improve engagement.

Perkbox currently supports 7,500+ organisations and nearly 4 million employees worldwide.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Fractile, a UK company aiming to build a chip to deliver exponential performance improvements for AI models, has raised £577 million in Series C funding.

Funding database platform Dealroom flagged the figure based on Companies House share allotments filed for September to October 2026. It follows a £160m round this summer.

Nvidia is the world’s most valuable company, valued at more than $5 trillion. With demand for chips rising exponentially amid the rise of artificial intelligence, it dominates the global semiconductor market. 

Nvidia’s chips are based on GPUs (Graphics Processing Units). Meanwhile Fractie, founded in 2022 by artificial intelligence PhD Walter Goodwin, takes a radically different approach. Its chips are designed for AI inference that it claims can deliver transformational improvements in performance for frontier AI models in deployment.

According to Bloomberg, frontier AI model firm Anthropic – maker of Claude – has placed an initial order with Fractile for $250 million in chips. The company expects to deploy its chips in data centres in 2027.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

A new pilot scheme has been launched to accelerate 200 high-growth companies based around the UK.

Ambitious businesses from across Britain are urged to apply for Scale UK Connect to access support from a network of partners across a 12-month period.

The 200 companies will get expert account management and tailored advice on how to expand. The programme will also include new ways to network with fellow founders, investors and major funds, opening up new trade opportunities at home and abroad. 

The pilot aims to develop a pipeline of high-growth companies to follow in the footsteps of UK success stories like Quantexa and Synthesia.

The announcement is one piece in a major package of support for entrepreneurs announced in Chancellor John Healey’s Budget, including Founders’ Relief – largely welcomed by the business community – and a step change in how procurement will support UK industry and innovation. 

The package aims to address practical barriers founders and high-growth firms continue to face: finding customers, accessing capital, attracting exceptional talent and navigating government. 

The Scale UK Connect pilot will be led by growth agency London & Partners. Regional delivery partners include the Manchester Growth Company; the West Midlands Growth Company; TechSPARK in the South West; Tech SY in Yorkshire; and Pathways Forward in Scotland.

Recruitment for the pilot runs from now until January 2027. The cohort launches in February 2027; firms get 12 months of support; and a final report is due in April 2028.

 

EDX Medical Group plc, which develops and supplies innovative digital diagnostic products and services to improve the early detection and treatment of major diseases, has appointed Professor Michael John Owen as its non-executive chairman.  

Professor Owen succeeds with immediate effect non-executive chairman Jason Holt, who has led the board since the company’s inception and is stepping down owing to a need for increasing focus on other chairman roles and charitable interests.

A highly experienced R&D executive and non-executive director, Professor Owen has a broad knowledge of the pharma industry and of the finance community that supports life sciences. He is currently an independent member of a number of boards of BioTech companies and an adviser to several investment partnerships.

He has also held senior executive positions, notably as co-founder and chief scientific officer of Kymab Limited, a biopharmaceutical company ultimately acquired by Sanofi, as well as several senior leadership positions at GlaxoSmithKline.