Author: Jonathan Symcox

Touker Suleyman, like Peter Jones, fears that they are limiting themselves by focusing on new parents.

However Susie says she loves that they are focused on new mums.

Steven Bartlett agrees that they should keep that focus.

They tell him that the majority of the funding would go on marketing on platforms such as TikTok.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

They are looking for a 10% stake in the business for £50,000.

They have 20,000 followers on social media and 12,000 app downloads.

The app is free to use. The revenue will be based on commission, paid by brands.

700,000 babies are born UK each year.

But the business is pre-revenue. They are looking to generate £20k in year one; £160k in year two; £600k in year three with profit of £190k; and £5.5m in year five with profit of £5m.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

First up are sisters Olivia and Tanyka Davson, who will present Cubbi – the UK’s discount platform for new and expecting parents.

Pitching while nine months pregnant, Olivia will bring her own experience into the room as she and Tanyka talk through the realities of balancing family life with growing a startup.  

Cubbi was founded following Olivia’s own experience of becoming a parent and feeling the financial strain and isolation that can accompany early parenthood. 

Drawing on her background in engineering and programme management, she went on to build the platform with her sister, who brings more than a decade of experience in communications.

Tanyka built the first version of the Cubbi app from scratch despite having no prior technical background.

Author: Chris Maguire

Tropic Skincare’s founder first found fame on The Apprentice but has grown turnover to $100m ahead of her appearance in the Den.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

The latest series of Dragons’ Den is set for episode 3 tonight as guest judge Susie Ma makes her debut.

Tropic Skincare’s founder first found fame on The Apprentice but has grown turnover to $100m ahead of her appearance in the Den.

Explaining what viewers can expect, she said: “I’m here to back the bold – the next generation of change-makers building businesses with purpose, creativity and courage. I’m so excited to help brilliant founders bring their dreams to life.”

The beauty empire founder joins Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Steven Bartlett and Touker Suleyman as they put another set of business hopefuls to the test.

Tembo, a digital savings and mortgage platform, has raised £16 million in growth investment to accelerate its mission to help tackle the homeownership affordability crisis.

The round was led by new investor Gresham House Ventures, alongside existing investors Goodwater Capital, Aviva Investors, McPike Family Office, Love Ventures, Ascension and new participation from the British Business Bank via Ascension.

The funding follows a breakout year for Tembo. During 2025, its savings business grew 10x, reaching £3bn in assets under administration, as more customers used the Tembo app to save, plan and buy their first home. The funds will be used to expand its app and end-to-end homebuying platform. 

The Access Group, one of the largest UK-headquartered business software providers serving over 160,000 organisations globally, has reached an agreement to acquire Enthuse, a fundraising, donations and events registration technology provider.

The partnership adds peer-to-peer fundraising and events expertise to the Access charity software proposition, offering solutions that enable organisations to maximise their fundraising impact under their own brand identity.

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a key channel to generate funds for many charities and the Enthuse platform serves charities across the UK and Ireland, helping them raise millions while putting good causes in control of their own data.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Key figures behind Downing Street’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic have raised £10 million for their startup.

Electric Twin was founded by Dr Ben Warner, a physicist and the former Chief Adviser on Digital and Data to the Prime Minister, and Alex Cooper, a former military commander who established the UK’s mass testing response during the pandemic.

Having worked together in Number 10 at the heart of the COVID response, they founded Electric Twin so that decision makers had the tools they needed to make better decisions.

“Electric Twin was born from our experience leading through crisis, where we spotted a common problem: too many decisions had to be made with incomplete information,” said CEO Cooper.

The AI platform is building synthetic audiences that accurately model how people think and behave in real life.

Quantexa is to establish a new global headquarters at The Delft on London’s South Bank.

The decision intelligence firm has signed an agreement with Great Portland Estates plc for 52,293 sq ft of premium office space in the newly developed building.

Quantexa says the move is part of its plan to scale as a category-defining software company, supporting accelerating global demand for trusted data, contextual analytics and AI-driven decision intelligence across financial services, government and complex regulated industries.

Manchester Digital Charity Ball is to launch at Kimpton Clocktower Hotel to raise funds tackling digital exclusion across Greater Manchester.

The event in October 2026 will bring together 300+ members of the North’s digital and technology community for an evening of networking, celebration and fundraising, with proceeds supporting Forever Manchester, Greater Manchester’s Community Foundation.

The inaugural Manchester event follows the proven model of the Leeds Digital Charity Ball, which has raised over £300,000 for digital inclusion projects since launching.

Digital exclusion remains a real and growing barrier to opportunity, from applying for jobs and accessing essential services, to education and staying connected. The Lloyds Consumer Digital Index 2024 reported that 1.6 million people are offline in the UK, and 12.1 million have the opportunity to improve their digital capability.

Funds raised through the Ball will support Forever Manchester’s work funding and strengthening community activity across Greater Manchester, backing grass-roots organisations and initiatives that help people and neighbourhoods thrive.

Just Eat has today launched delivery robots in the UK, with an initial trial across Bristol and Milton Keynes.

Launched in partnership with Delivers.AI in Bristol and RIVR robots in Milton Keyes, the arrival of the robots comes just in time to support local restaurants ahead of the busy Valentine’s Day weekend.

Delivering from the local high street direct to customers, the robotics trial follows the pilot launch in Switzerland, where nearly 1,000 orders have now been completed.

The Infection Innovation Consortium (iiCON) has welcomed LYVA Labs, an innovation investment company based in the Liverpool City Region, as a core consortium partner.

LYVA Labs, which launched in 2021, works to drive investment and growth through the commercialisation of innovation.

Supported by a £10.5m investment from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, LYVA Labs provides funding, incubation, and consultancy to companies at all stages, accelerating and supporting innovation-led growth with a particular focus on organisations working in health, life sciences, and deep tech.

Led by Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), iiCON is a global R&D program that brings together industry, academia, and clinical organisations to speed up the discovery and development of new treatments, diagnostics, and preventative products for infectious diseases – saving and improving millions of lives through collaborative innovation.

LYVA Labs joins existing core partners within iiCON including Evotec, Infex Therapeutics, LifeArc, Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust, Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), Unilever, and the University of Liverpool.

Under the new agreement, the organisations will pool knowledge and resources to deliver key programmes of activity to strengthen innovation-led growth across the Liverpool City Region, nationally and globally.

As a core partner, LYVA Labs will strengthen iiCON’s activity to support SMEs and develop regional innovation ecosystems. It will also work to support the spin-out and commercialisation of assets developed by iiCON partners and collaborators.

Southampton-based Vape Guardian, the UK’s leading vape detection technology provider, has successfully raised £350,000 in a seed funding round through Angel Investment Network, the world’s largest online angel investment network.

The investment will accelerate the company’s mission to eliminate vaping in prohibited spaces and establish its proprietary technology as the global industry standard.

Founded by husband and wife, Simon & Jean Hassett, Vape Guardian provides a solution to the ‘silent epidemic’ of underage vaping, with recent NHS data showing that 1 in 4 students aged 11-15 have tried vaping.

While schools have previously struggled to respond, Vape Guardian’s real-time detection hardware offers a non-intrusive, automated alternative to unpopular measures like bathroom patrols or closing facilities.

The company’s smart sensors, which resemble traditional smoke alarms, utilise an advanced 10-point formula to accurately detect exhaled vaping and THC, with the system sending immediate alerts to staff via SMS, email, or a dedicated app. The technology has been designed to integrate directly with existing fire and security systems.

Currently protecting over 400 schools in the UK and Ireland, Vape Guardian has achieved significant market traction and is the named brand on all new Department of Education tenders requiring vape detection.

Sancus Lending Group has entered into definitive legal agreements to increase the size, and extend the maturity, of its existing credit facility with Pollen Street Capital following a strong year of lending growth across its UK and Ireland businesses.

Under the revised terms, the size of the facility has been increased from £200 million to £300 million, with the tenor extended such that it will now mature no earlier than 11^th February 2031, providing at least five years of committed funding from the date of the agreed terms.

Orthofuse, an orthopaedic MedTech company focused on delivering safer and more efficient surgical procedures, has closed a £2.2m seed round led by a group of angel investors.

Orthopaedic trauma and spinal degenerative conditions often require technically demanding procedures, but current implant systems are often difficult to use leading to prolonged surgery times and increased risks for both patients and clinicians.

By leveraging additive manufacturing techniques, Orthofuse is developing a new generation of implants designed to improve the reversibility of procedures in challenging cases, simplify surgical procedures, and deliver better patient outcomes.

The investment will support Orthofuse’s mission to develop 3D-printed implant systems that prioritise surgical ease of use and patient safety.

Bracket, a London-based FinTech that has developed an FX, treasury and cash management platform aimed at high-growth and mid-market businesses, has raised £5 million in new funding led by Macquarie Group and Blackfinch Ventures.

Following a landmark year in 2025 that delivered 600% YoY revenue growth, Bracket is one of the UK’s fastest-growing FinTechs and is soon to expand through Europe and Australia.

The funding will support product development and Bracket’s next phase of growth, including opening new offices in Europe and Australia and doubling employee headcount over the next 12 months.

Tangible, a FinTech platform that enables HardTech companies to access and manage debt financing, has raised a £3.2m seed round led by Pale Blue Dot, with participation from MMC, Future Positive Capital, Unruly, SDAC, Prototype Capital, and Aperture.

HardTech is central to solving the biggest macroeconomic themes of our generation – the energy transition, compute buildout, transport, and reindustrialisation.

However financing these companies efficiently can be difficult. Hard asset companies need significant funding, but most companies struggle to obtain scalable debt financing until they are deemed mature or ‘institutional-ready’. As a result, many earlier-stage companies fund their capex with expensive equity, slowing deployment, compounding dilution, and often jeopardising company survival. Conversely the best companies in this category are leveraging their capital intensity, as a strategic tool for growth.

Tangible was set up to solve this problem. Tangible’s AI-powered platform and finance experts standardise the data, documentation, and ongoing reporting that lenders need. This reduces underwriting time and cost for lenders, and enables founders to run structured facilities without building an in-house structured finance team.

Author: Alastair Winsey, founder, AIVA Revolution

There is a commercial blind spot in hospitality that rarely appears in reports or revenue forecasts. It sits outside standard operating hours and reveals itself only when demand and availability fail to align.

This is what we refer to as the Golden Hour.

The Golden Hour is not a fixed time of day. It is a window of high intent when guests decide whether to move forward. Evenings after work, late nights on social platforms, or weekends when planning finally happens. For wedding venues, this often means midweek evenings or weekends. For hotels and restaurants, it frequently occurs just before or during peak service.

The issue is structural rather than behavioural. These decision points coincide with moments when teams are busiest, front of house, mid-event or intentionally offline. Yet this is when enquiries arrive.

Be.EV has acquired the UK public charging network from Mer, a leading European electric vehicle charging company.

The deal significantly expands the Manchester-based EV charge point operator’s footprint nationwide and will make it easier for customers to charge on one reliable network.

The acquisition adds over 1,600 charging bays across more than 450 sites to the Be.EV network, strengthening its presence across the South of England and will complement its existing strength in the North and Midlands.

The deal moves Be.EV into the UK’s top 10 charging networks by rapid and ultra-rapid charging capacity.

Be.EV is majority owned by Octopus Energy Generation’s Sky Fund, including an employee ownership stake.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Global tech firm LogChain is swapping Singapore for Liverpool in a move that will bring jobs and growth to Merseyside.

The digital shipping technology firm has selected Liverpool, a port city and historic trade hub, as its new headquarters.

LogChain helped deliver the world’s first fully digitalised goods shipment in 2023 with a ship making its way from Burnley to Singapore processed without any physical customs documents.