Bite-size news and insight from UK business and tech – including funding, deals and appointments
Published: March 25, 2026 at 5:45 pm
Northstar Ventures has opened the third tranche of its EIS Growth Fund for investor subscriptions.
The Newcastle-based venture capital firm has a track record built over two decades of investing, scaling and exiting fast-growing technology companies.
Now in its third year, the Northstar EIS Growth Fund gives individual investors the opportunity to back high-growth companies whilst also benefiting from generous income tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax reliefs.
The third tranche of the fund is now open for new subscriptions, with fundraising scheduled to close on 30th April 2026.
Funds will be invested during the 2026/27 tax year in later stage growth companies alongside other funds managed by Northstar Ventures.
Published: March 25, 2026 at 2:32 pm
Shares in ASOS Plc have risen almost 13% after it announced a positive trading update this morning.
The online fashion giant said it expected to report an approximate 50% improvement in EBITDA year-on-year for the half-year period ended 1st March 2026.
ASOS said it had reduced fixed costs by more than 10% YoY and also reduced total supply chain costs.
It reiterated its FY26 guidance.
Published: March 25, 2026 at 2:19 pm
NatWest Group has sold its employment law, HR, health and safety and environmental management consultancy business Mentor to Empowering People Group, backed by Limerston Capital.
Following the sale, NatWest will continue to offer access to Mentor’s services on a referral basis.
Empowering People Group has offices across the UK, providing comprehensive HR and health & safety support alongside employment law expertise.
Published: March 25, 2026 at 12:16 pm
London-based conversational AI platform instep.ai has secured £900,000 in pre-seed funding in a round led by Fuel Ventures.
The investment will accelerate the company’s national roll-out and enhance its back-office automation capabilities, purpose-built to tackle a £190k gap in missed enquiries for property agencies.
Instep.ai’s AI assistant Ella is purpose-built for the property industry to tackle the structural issue of overwhelming inbound calls and enquiries – offering 360 logistical support from managing inbound demand round the clock across voice to managing leads, helping agencies recoup lost leads without bloating teams.
Published: March 25, 2026 at 11:30 am
LegalTech Summize has appointed Alexandria Lutz as its first general counsel after it raised £40 million funding to accelerate global expansion.
The Manchester-headquartered scaleup is an AI-powered contract lifecycle management provider with a growing presence in the United States.
Lutz most recently served as senior corporate counsel at Nordstrom, where she advised on data protection, AI adoption and emerging technology across the business.
She has also held in-house legal roles at a national hospitality company and an international food services organisation.
Published: March 25, 2026 at 11:01 am
Stateful Robotics has raised £3.6 million in pre‑seed funding, led by Amadeus Capital Partners and Oxford Science Enterprises, with additional investment from Stan Boland (founder of Five, acquired by Bosch).
The round backs the company’s breakthrough in ‘stateful’ AI – a new approach to decision‑making software for physical robots that makes them safer, more adaptive and commercially viable in dynamic environments.
It aims to maintain a persistent, shared memory of tasks, environments and prior behaviour, allowing robots to plan over longer horizons and operate reliably without constant human intervention.
Published: March 25, 2026 at 10:59 am
Leeds-based online training platform Virtual College has appointed Laura Cooper as marketing director.
Cooper, who has worked within the company for two and a half years, brings extensive marketing experience to the role, and will lead the company’s marketing function as it continues to expand its compliance training offering across key sectors.
The appointment comes as regulatory pressure on organisations continues to grow but UK training provisions are declining, exposing a gap between compliance expectations and real-world delivery.
Published: March 25, 2026 at 9:14 am
Hewlett Packard Enterprise has won £920 million compensation from the estate of late entrepreneur Mike Lynch.
Lynch died two years ago in a freak accident while celebrating his acquittal on 15 counts of fraud – avoiding a potential 20 years behind bars – in a San Francisco trial over the 2011 sale of Cambridge firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for $11.1 billion.
However HPE said it would follow through on a potential £3 billion legal claim against his widow Angela Bacares.
London’s High Court said the estate was liable to pay £700m compensation after a 2022 ruling that he duped the US firm into paying £8.2bn for Autonomy. It is also liable for £220m in costs and interest.
Lawyers for Lynch’s estate sought permission to appeal, but that was refused. Estimated to be worth about £500m, the damages could leave it bankrupt. However it can apply directly to the Court of Appeal.
Published: March 25, 2026 at 8:05 am
THG CEO Matt Moulding has said Julian Hearn deserves every penny of his reported £400m payout after Paris-based food giant Danone acquired Huel in a deal worth €1bn.
Hearn founded Huel in 2015 with a mission to improve the health of people and the planet through complete and convenient nutrition.
Huel – which takes its name from a combination of ‘Human’ and ‘Fuel’ – has since sold more than 600 million meals across 100+ countries, with around 50 per cent less CO2 impact than the average meal.
Moulding took to LinkedIn to praise Hearn, saying he fully deserved his payout of up to £400m ‘as payback for all the risk-taking, stress and sleepless nights over the years’.
He wrote: “You can’t help but respect and recognise the hard work that’s gone into making Huel the success it’s become.
“The back story is brilliant. A young working-class man backing himself to switch from manual labour and start a meal replacement company.”
THG owns Myprotein, the world’s largest online sports nutrition brand, and Moulding said the deal was another example of a ‘British champion’ being sold to an overseas company.
Published: March 25, 2026 at 7:14 am
Leonid Radvinsky, the owner of OnlyFans, has died from cancer aged 43.
The American businessman, who was born in Ukraine but grew up in Chicago, purchased Fenix International Ltd – the British parent company of OnlyFans – from its founders Tim and Guy Stokely in 2018.
OnlyFans is a platform where users pay a subscription to creators in return for video content or images, or tip them for custom requests.
While other creators are on the platform, it is known for transforming the pornographic industry.
Radvinsky, estimated by Forbes to be worth $4.7 billion, “passed away peacefully after a long battle with cancer”, OnlyFans confirmed in a statement.
Published: March 24, 2026 at 7:50 pm
Online review platform Trustpilot saw its share price fall by more than 16 per cent after Advent Global Opportunities offloaded 21.6m shares.
Advent, a leading global private equity investor, placed the shares at 214p, raising around £46m.
Trustpilot will not receive any proceeds from the placing.
The placing represented around 5.6 per cent of Trustpilot’s existing issued ordinary share capital.
The news spooked the market, sending Trustpilot’s share price tumbling from 235.80p to 196p during the day, giving it a market cap of £754.8m.
Advent continues to hold a small residual stake of approximately 250,000 shares through a separate fund, which, if sold in the future, will not be through a capital markets event.
Today’s fall comes just a week after Trustpilot’s share price rose nearly 30 per cent after the firm reported profitability ahead of expectations, amid a dramatic rise in its visibility within AI models.
Published: March 24, 2026 at 4:53 pm
Starling Group’s chief risk officer is to leave the digital bank to pursue a portfolio career.
The firm said that over the last two years, Cyrille Salle De Chou led a programme to scale Starling’s risk controls and to further embed risk management into the bank’s culture.
Between September 2021 and November 2023, prior to him joining the firm, Starling – founded in 2014 by Anne Boden and backed by Goldman Sachs – was found to have opened over 54,000 accounts for 49,000 high-risk customers.
The Financial Conduct Authority subsequently fined Starling £29 million for financial crime failings related to its financial sanctions screening.
De Chou joined in February 2024 – months before the fine was issued. Starling has named Keith Algie as his successor, subject to regulatory approval.
Published: March 24, 2026 at 4:32 pm
CMC Markets plc, a provider of online trading and investing businesses, has appointed Emma Earp as a non-executive director of the company with effect from 1st April 2026.
Earp will become a member of the audit, nomination, remuneration and risk committees with effect from that date.
A senior legal professional and qualified solicitor with over 15 years’ experience in banking and finance transactions, she is currently a senior lawyer at Foot Anstey LLP, a national law firm with specialists in the private equity, energy & infrastructure, private wealth, Islamic finance, developer, retail & consumer and charities sectors.
Published: March 24, 2026 at 2:36 pm
Companies House, the government body that maintains the register of companies and incorporates all forms of companies in the United Kingdom, has disciplined 132 staff over the past three years, according to new data.
The findings were revealed via the Freedom of Information Act (FOI), and analysed by the Parliament Street think tank, observing the number of disciplinary actions taken against staff as well as the number of employees sent on compliance and ethics training each year, for the past three years.
In total, disciplinary action was taken against 132 staff over the period, with Companies House attributing these to breaches of internal policies, including attendance management, grievance, performance, disciplinary and probation.
Published: March 24, 2026 at 1:50 pm
The co-founder of a platform looking to overhaul how financial crime is combated has outlined its focused strategy for growth in the UK.
CEO Bradley Elliott founded RelyComply with CTO James Saunders in South Africa in 2020. Specialising in Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know-Your-Customer (KYC), and Know-Your-Business (KYB) processes, it significantly decreases the likelihood of financial crime through enhanced identity verification, with integrated bias mitigation and region-based government identification capabilities.
When RelyComply formally entered the UK last year, it did so with intent rather than noise.
“The UK is one of the most sophisticated and demanding financial services markets in the world,” says Brad. “If you can build credibility here, you can build it anywhere.
“What market penetration means for us right now is quality engagement with partners, prospective customers, regulators and the broader ecosystem. We’re not chasing vanity metrics.
“We’re using what we’ve achieved in other countries to illustrate the value we can add to the UK market.”
Published: March 24, 2026 at 1:15 pm
A tech startup backed by Susie Ma on Dragons’ Den is looking to raise £350,000 in seed funding.
Sisters Olivia and Tanyka Davson secured £50,000 for their business, Cubbi, from the founder of Tropic Skincare when they appeared in the Den in February.
Birmingham-based Cubbi is a discount platform for new and expecting parents, and the siblings hailed Ma as a ‘fantastic investor’ who has been ‘incredibly engaged’.
Olivia, who was nine months pregnant at the time of filming, founded Cubbi following her own experience of becoming a parent and feeling the financial strain and isolation that can accompany early parenthood.
Following their Dragons’ Den appearance, Cubbi’s user base has grown to more than 20,000 and the company is now working with over 250 brand partners.
Tanyka said: “With the momentum from the Den, we’re supercharging that growth, aiming to reach over 100,000 users and more than 500 brands by the end of the year.”
To fund the next stage of growth, Cubbi is looking to raise £350,000, with £100,000 already committed. The round is expected to close in June.
Published: March 24, 2026 at 1:09 pm
London-based ClimateYech platform Zevero has raised £5.2 million in new funding, bringing total investment to $14 million, alongside 400% year-on-year revenue growth and a doubling of its customer base.
As climate disclosure frameworks tighten across the UK, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, companies are increasingly treating carbon data with the same rigour as financial reporting.
Zevero sits at the centre of that shift, helping multinational organisations operationalise emissions data across supply chains and decision-making.
The company is already working with major international organisations across manufacturing and consumer sectors, and is expanding rapidly across Europe and Asia-Pacific, where regulatory and supply chain pressures are intensifying.
Published: March 24, 2026 at 12:30 pm
ECI Partners, a growth-focused mid-market private equity firm, has announced the appointment of David Danon as partner into its investment team.
Danon joins ECI following almost 20 years in the private equity team at Bain Capital, where he served as a partner. Having originated, led and successfully exited deals across a broad range of sectors and geographies, Danon brings with him a wealth of experience to support ECI’s investment strategy, partnering with growth businesses valued up to £300m to deliver top quartile returns.
Published: March 24, 2026 at 11:55 am
Abselion, a life sciences technology company focused on simplifying biomolecule quantification, has appointed Dale Gordon as chair of the board of directors.
The firm, which recently established a US subsidiary, says it is committed to building a well-governed organisation that can support collaboration and reliable delivery as interest in its Amperia protein quantification system grows internationally.
Gordon’s background spans bioprocessing, company building and board leadership. Most recently, he served as CEO of Mirus Bio, a leading provider of transfection technologies widely used in viral vector production, where he led the business through a period of significant growth and strategic development. He was also CEO at Gemini Bio and held leadership roles at GE Life Sciences (now Cytiva), and Merck Millipore.
He succeeds Simon Douglas, who is stepping down from the role after serving as chair of the board for over four years.
Published: March 24, 2026 at 11:30 am
Chameleon Technology has appointed Tim Cox as CTO.
Chameleon is a pioneer of smart energy devices. More than 20 million people, in over a third of homes in Great Britain, have access to a Chameleon in-home display to help them keep track of their energy use and spending.
Cox joins from Sycurio, where he served as chief product and technology officer and VP customer delivery, leading global technology strategy, product development and customer-facing operations.
He brings extensive experience in mission-critical SaaS solutions across cybersecurity, telecommunications, and cloud transformation.
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