Finseta plc has announced that Judy Happe, it CFO, has decided to leave the business ‘to pursue other opportunities’.

Happe led the London company through its IPO and its early growth, while she was also key to the opening of offices in Canada and Dubai.

She has a six-month notice period and has agreed with the board that she will step down as a director with effect from today but will continue to work with the group until such time as a successor is appointed.

Finseta is a foreign exchange and payments company offering multi-currency accounts and payment solutions to businesses and individuals.

Dataline Labs, a London-based AI data analysis startup, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding led by Haatch Ventures with backing from the British Business Bank.

The bootstrapped startup has also been selected for the Ministry of Defence’s Digital Supply Chain Accelerator, where they’re working alongside Babcock, Thales and Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land to fix fragmented data systems slowing down UK defence.

The company turns messy, fragmented enterprise data into clean AI-ready APIs in minutes – and is betting on a future where any worker can query complex business data in plain English.

APEXX Global has raised strategic investment of up to £7.3 million led by Finch Capital, a European growth investor with deep expertise in payments and scaling financial technology players internationally. 

APEXX Global is a payment orchestration platform enabling enterprise merchants to optimise payment performance at scale through a single API. By intelligently routing transactions across the global payments ecosystem, APEXX materially increases acceptance rates, reduces processing costs, and improves unit economics – turning payments from an operational burden into a measurable driver of revenue and margin. 

APEXX Global secured significant enterprise merchant wins including Jet2, Iglu.com and Norse Atlantic towards the end of 2025.

As part of the investment, Radboud Vlaar, managing partner at Finch Capital, will join the APEXX Global board and assume the role of chairman, bringing extensive experience supporting boards and high-growth payments and financial technology businesses.

A new AI platform is launching to address a growing quality problem in UK grant applications.

Ailsa has attracted early-stage backing from Monzo co-founder Gary Dolman and former Tesco Bank CEO Benny Higgins.  

As the widespread use of generative AI drives application volumes up, success rates have fallen to record lows. 

Despite billions of pounds being channelled through non-dilutive funding programmes each year, recent Innovate UK Smart Grant competitions reported success rates of just 2-3%. 

An estimated £200 million in available UK grant funding went unclaimed in the past year, with sector bodies noting that poorly applied AI is adding to assessment workloads without improving application quality.

S&W, the fast-growing professional services group, has appointed Dan Goodall as partner in its data and technology services team. 

Goodall brings extensive experience helping organisations use data and technology to improve operations, strengthen resilience and deliver strategic outcomes.

He has led major transformation programmes across multiple sectors, supporting organisations with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and data platform modernisation, cloud migration, automation, AI adoption, governance and large‑scale digital change.

 

Financielle, a platform described as the home of money for women, has surpassed 350,000 downloads worldwide after receiving £125,000 of investment from GC Angels in December 2022.

The platform has also grown to 25,000 monthly active users and expanded its content, community and product features as it continues its mission to help women take control of their money.

Founded in Manchester in 2021 by BBC Morning Live finance expert Laura Pomfret (pictured, right), Financielle was built to give women a supportive space to improve their financial confidence through clear tools and relatable content. The app has since been named Apple’s App of The Day both in the UK and the US. 

 

OneDome, a London-based housing and FinTech platform, has raised £18 million in a Pre-Series C funding round, taking total funding raised to date to almost £30m.

The round was funded largely by existing investors alongside Channel 4 Ventures, whose investment was announced in late 2025.

The funding will be used to support the next phase of growth, including continued investment in technology, product development, and expansion of OneDome’s integrated housing and financial services platform.

The Growth Company, powered by its early-stage investment arm GC Angels, and Bruntwood SciTech have successfully brought together over 150 investors, founders and key ecosystem partners from across the UK at their flagship ‘Early-Stage Northern Showcase – Investor x Founder’ event.

Held at Sister’s Renold Innovation Hub, the event welcomed more than 75 pre-vetted early-stage businesses from across the North of England and over 50 investors from across the UK, marking a historic moment for the region’s early-stage investment community. 30 of the businesses present were among the first cohort of GC Angels’ Underrepresented Accelerator Programme – Venture Forward – delivered on behalf of Innovate UK.

Designed to connect investors from outside the North with regional investors and ambitious Northern businesses, the event focused on building long-term relationships, ensuring early-stage and scale-up businesses can access the capital needed to continue expanding at pace. Each business is undergoing an active pre-seed or seed fundraising round, covering high-growth sectors including EdTech, ClimateTech, MedTech, BioTech, FinTech, PropTech and advanced manufacturing.

Aston University has joined forces with Aurrigo, a provider of autonomous vehicles and related software for international airport operations, to develop AI to make its fleet even more efficient, responsive and sustainable.

As the number of autonomous vehicles used for baggage and cargo handling at airports continues to grow, managing these fleets becomes increasingly complex.

Traditionally, task allocation and scheduling have relied on centrally controlled systems overseen by human operators. They must interpret large volumes of real-time information (for example, battery level and location) and respond to frequent changes such as flight delays or gate reassignments. While effective at smaller scales, this approach can create decision bottlenecks and limit the ability of fleets to adapt quickly as operations expand.

Under the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), Aston University’s research team will develop new algorithms that allow individual vehicles to make smart, safe decisions locally, based on their real-time status and surroundings, and their place in the wider network of AVs.

Digital Catapult, the deep tech innovation organisation, has announced the opening of a new office for South Gloucestershire, Bristol and Bath, strengthening its long-term commitment to working in partnership across the South West of England and Wales.

To deliver shared economic and skills ambitions, Digital Catapult is primed to deliver in-demand innovation services to local startups and businesses, including technological consultancy, accelerator programmes, and access to Digital Catapult’s network of labs to enable deep tech startups to scale.

Located on the Bristol & Bath Science Park, the new permanent base will strengthen Digital Catapult’s regional presence, building on its place-based approach to innovation that has established successful partnerships with local academic institutions, government authorities, industry leaders, and startups.

This includes delivering the £30million MyWorld programme in collaboration with the University of Bristol, the University of Bath and the University of the West of England (UWE), catalysing nearly £28.3m of investment raised by South West based SMEs, and working with the University of Bristol to accelerate the commercial deployment of future 6G technologies through the REASON and JOINER projects.

Insurwave, a leader in AI-driven exposure management for specialty insurance, today announces the appointment of Deepak Saigal as Chief Delivery Officer. Deepak joins Insurwave at a critical phase of growth, as the company continues to scale its platform and sharpen its focus across distinct product lines.

Deepak brings more than 20 years of experience in the specialty insurance market, with a proven track record of leading the build and delivery of core policy, exposure, and risk platforms for many of the largest insurers, reinsurers, and brokers across the London market and the United States.

He has also played a pivotal role in delivering the platform foundations that enabled the creation and successful scaling of multiple MGAs across the UK and EEA.

Paragon Group has announced its acquisition of Parseq, a specialist in document, finance, and payment process automation. This acquisition helps Paragon continue its strategic growth strategy and reinforces its position as a leader in business process services.

Acquiring Parseq enables Paragon Group to scale its current offerings with new BPS market clients, accelerate its innovation using Parseq’s Robotic Process Automation and Machine Learning capabilities, and obtain Parseq’s Secure Cheque Encoding patent to provide enforced reliability for FS clients.

Veeam Software has announced the appointment of Piero Gallucci as regional VP for UK and Ireland.

Prior to joining Veeam, Gallucci served as area vice president and general manager for UK & Ireland at NetApp, where he led strategic growth and customer success initiatives across the region.

He has also held leadership positions at VMware Tanzu, Docker, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HSBC and Intel Corporation.

Edinburgh’s Smart Data Foundry has secured £35,000 in funding to develop a new data-driven platform designed to ease the transport and accommodation pressures facing Scotland’s cultural events.

The data-for-good pioneer is one of just 12 Scottish companies selected by CivTech, the Scottish Government’s innovation programme, to fast-track high-impact tech solutions that improve lives and public services. The funding will support the development of a prototype ‘festival planner’ map-based dashboard, aimed at helping cities and event organisers better co-ordinate major events such as the Edinburgh Festival, blockbuster concerts by artists like Taylor Swift and Oasis, and sporting fixtures including the Six Nations.

Smart Data Foundry will now enter CivTech’s 15-week Accelerator programme, working closely with public sector partners to deliver a Minimum Viable Product. By the end of the programme, participants could compete for a share of up to £7.7 million in public sector contracts.

A Sheffield-based startup backed by Innovate UK and 3D printing inventor Scott Crump has launched a crowdfunding campaign.

Fyous, a pioneer of polymorphic manufacturing, has launched a £1.5m equity crowdfunding round to advance and expand its ‘shape-shifting’ tooling technologies.

The funding round, which is now open on Crowdcube, builds on a £1.3m raise from angel investors in 2025, and allows a wider range of investors to own a stake in Fyous at a £25m valuation.

Fyous says it has a waitlist of manufacturers for its machines in the footwear and dental sectors and has already received expressions of interest to join this round worth £724,000.

POWWR, an energy software provider, has received a significant multi-million-pound cash injection from Five Elms Capital.

The investment will be used to bolster POWWR’s product innovation and enable it to increase its headcount by up to 40% over the next 12 months.

Paul Hodnett, founder of the UK business formerly known as UD Group, has been appointed as CEO in place of Matt Tormollen. In 2019 POWWR merged with UD Group.

Polaron, a London-based AI startup transforming how advanced materials are characterised, designed and manufactured, has raised £5.8 million to build the ‘intelligence layer for materials science’.

This means addressing a bottleneck in materials manufacturing: understanding the connection between how materials are made and how they perform.

The round was led by Racine2, an impact focused fund led by Serena and Makesense, with co-investment from Speedinvest and Futurepresent, plus angel backing from senior figures across the industrial AI ecosystem.

‍Spun-out from Imperial College London after seven years of research at the intersection of AI and materials science, the company was co-founded by CEO Isaac Squires, CTO Steve Kench and Chief Scientist Sam Cooper.

Welsh EdTech Academii has raised £1m Series A investment.

The Caerphilly-based business, established in 2019 by former ALS People chief executive Steve Lanigan, supports workplace training with AI-powered tech tools.

The round was led by the Development Bank of Wales with £700,000.

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have announced the first cohort of banks and building societies to benefit from their joint Scale-up Unit.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Barnsley is making the headlines after the Government designated it the UK’s first ‘Tech Town’.

Serving as a blueprint for future nationwide adoption of AI across public services, healthcare, schools and jobs, the South Yorkshire town’s institutions will work closely with US tech giants to bring about a “transformation designed to make life easier, fairer and more prosperous in Barnsley”.

While some outside the county may be sceptical, it is the latest phase of a long-running council plan to reinvent Barnsley following the decimation of the mining industry in the 1980s and 90s.

So how did we get here? And what is at the core of the vision?