Birmingham Tech Week will bring industry leaders, researchers, investors and young innovators together from 19th to 23rd October to explore how advances in AI can help create businesses, jobs and wider opportunities across the West Midlands.

The programme draws on questions and topics raised by the region’s tech community through ongoing conversations with TechWM, giving speakers and visitors the chance to challenge assumptions and identify practical next steps.

Held under the theme ‘Fast Forward’ and hosted at multiple venues across Birmingham, this year’s programme spans more than 30 events and is expected to attract thousands of attendees, including international delegates from China, India, South Korea and other nations.

The opening day, 19th October, will also feature announcements about the future of the West Midlands’ technology sector, with further details to be revealed at the event.

GLAS, an independent global provider of loan administration services, has appointed Sairam Rangachari as chief product & technology officer – a newly created role on the executive team.

Rangachari will lead the global product, technology and AI strategy, turning GLAS’s transaction data and market expertise into products clients use directly.

He joins the London-headquartered firm from Temenos, where he was chief product officer and head of AI, leading product and AI strategy for one of the world’s largest banking software providers. He previously co-founded the FinTech business Tandym and held senior leadership roles at JP Morgan and Capital One. 

Mia Drennan founded GLAS in 2011 with £6k of capital and secured strategic investment from Oakley Capital and La Caisse earlier this year in a £1 billion+ deal. She recently won the EY’s UK Entrepreneur of the Year and featured on BusinessCloud’s Founder 250 list.

With over $920bn of assets under administration, GLAS has an established international presence, with offices in the United States, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.

West Yorkshire firm North Defence has appointed a director of public affairs.

The fast-growing manufacturer of military vehicles welcomes Katie Mallinson to the company as it continues its rapid international expansion.

The non-executive director appointment comes at a pivotal moment for North Defence, which has grown from its origins as North Fire, into a defence manufacturer supplying armoured and non-armoured light mobility vehicles to Ukraine and other European defence organisations. 

The company recently opened a new European headquarters in Luxembourg, alongside its expanding manufacturing base in West Yorkshire, and has taken on a higher public profile through partnerships including Leeds United and Matchroom Boxing.

Mallinson built and sold Scriba PR – an agency she founded in 2013 and grew over a decade – specialising in the strategic profile-raising of technical businesses on an international scale. 

Just Eat is expanding its autonomous delivery trial with Starship Technologies to Cambourne, Cambridge bringing robot grocery delivery with Morrisons to more than 12,000 residents.

It’s the first trial location where Just Eat doesn’t already offer grocery delivery, testing how autonomous robots can expand delivery into new areas as well as add capacity to its existing network.

Morrisons now has four stores offering robot delivery through Just Eat, with customers in Cambourne receiving £5 off £25 plus free delivery until 21 st October.

Aspire Technology Solutions has acquired Warrington-based Sentis Managed Solutions, adding more than 80 customers and an experienced team as it continues to scale its UK operations.

Sentis is a long-established Managed Service Provider with a strong record of sustained growth. It has built a substantial base across the North West, with a clear focus on mid-sized organisations that closely aligns with Aspire’s core market. The acquisition gives Aspire an immediate presence in the region and further expands its geographic reach.

The deal builds on Aspire’s established position in the UK mid-market and supports the next stage of its growth strategy. Customers will gain access to Aspire’s broader capabilities across cyber security, managed services, secure networks and enterprise voice, bringing a wider range of specialist services and expertise to their organisations.

All Sentis employees will become part of the Aspire group and trade under the Aspire brand. Co-founder Neil Homer will remain with the business, providing continuity of leadership and playing an active role in the integration, while fellow co-founders Martin Perry and Michael Cox will step back from day-to-day operations and continue to support the business in ambassadorial roles. Customers will continue to work with the existing team while benefiting from the breadth and expertise of the wider Aspire group.

Specialist SME lender Simply Asset Finance has announced an extension of its funding partnership with Lombard, part of NatWest Group, broadening access to finance for SMEs across the UK.

The news follows a successful initial phase, which has provided £25 million of funding to UK SMEs over five months via a wholesale facility from Lombard, supporting businesses through hire purchase and finance lease products.

Approximately 90% of the funding has been deployed to businesses outside London and the South East, including 20% to SMEs in the North West, alongside strong demand across Scotland, Yorkshire and the South West.

Through the expanded model, SMEs will benefit from greater access to finance, combining Simply’s vendor relationships, market-leading technology – including AI agent Kara – and local presence with Lombard’s specialist lending expertise, scale and funding strength.

Maven Capital Partners has launched new joint share offers to raise up to £20 million across its four Maven Income and Growth VCTs.

The offers give advisers and their clients access to VCTs with a 6% annual dividend target; more than 125 private and AIM-quoted companies; 20% initial income tax relief; tax-free dividends and exemption from capital gains tax; and a strong investment record, with 17 new private companies added to the portfolios since September 2023 and 14 profitable exits since September 2023.

Each VCT will initially seek to raise up to £5 million (totalling £20m), with an over-allotment facility of up to a further £5m, raising the taking the maximum aggregate fundraising to £40m.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

BT Group plc’s rescue of TalkTalk is to be probed by the UK’s competitions regulator.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has taken ‘urgent action’ under the Enterprise Act to order the Competition and ⁠Markets Authority to examine the pre-pack deal, which was announced yesterday morning.

The cost to BT of the deal – which would see it acquire TalkTalk Telecommunications Limited and PlatformX Communications Limited out of administration, saving all 900 jobs at Salford-headquartered TalkTalk – would be around £400m.

However experts have raised concerns over the deal.

London InsurTech Nettle has raised $4.8 million (£3.6m) in seed funding.

Nettle was founded in 2024 by former QuantumBlack colleagues Jack Miller and Katya Kinane, who previously built and deployed AI products across insurance and financial services at McKinsey.

The firm, which has a presence in New York, says commercial insurers face increasing numbers of risks to assess with fewer experienced risk engineers available to assess them. To solve this, Nettle has built an ‘AI workspace for loss control’.

The round was led by MTech, with Project A Ventures following on with a super pro rata and participation from SVV (Sure Valley Ventures), Portfolio Ventures, Ventures Together and selected angels. 

Nettle will use the funding to expand across the US and Europe, and grow its engineering and go-to-market teams.

THG Ingenuity has been selected as the strategic UK eCommerce partner for Tata Consumer Products’ tea and wellness brands including teapigs, Good Earth and Organic India.

The end-to-end partnership will leverage THG Ingenuity’s integrated commerce. fulfilment and creative capabilities.

Aptitude Software, a provider of enterprise finance software, has appointed Kenneth Paqvalén as CFO.

The company is scaling Fynapse, an AI-native Enterprise Resource Planning system for finance. ERP systems are used by organisations to manage and integrate their core business processes.

Paqvalén brings a strong track record of scaling SaaS and AI businesses. His 2020-2023 tenure at Matillion, a data pipeline platform for AI and analytics at scale, saw him grow the business from $150 million to $1.5 billion, achieving tech unicorn status.

 

Exited founders Hazel Savage and James Butcher have been appointed as advisors at Fhunded Angels, Lancashire County Council’s early-stage equity investment initiative.

Savage is an experienced music tech founder, board member and private investor. With deep experience across the global music and technology sectors, she is the former CEO and co-founder of Musiio – later acquired by SoundCloud – and has worked with music industry giants such as Shazam and Pandora.

Currently lead investor at the Leeds Angels syndicate in West Yorkshire, she will use her commercial expertise to help Fhunded Angels increase the flow of early-stage finance specifically within Lancashire’s creative and entertainment sectors.

Butcher is an in-demand non-executive director and company chair. Already one of Fhunded Angel’s most active investors, his advisory role will now see him helping Lancashire startups seeking finance to get more investment-ready.

Reclinker, a company turning demolition waste into low-carbon cement, has secured £10 million in Series A funding to take its breakthrough cement recycling process from successful trials to full commercial production.

The round is co-led by specialist ClimateTech investors Clean Growth Fund and AP Ventures, with further participation from Development Bank of Wales, Kibo Invest and existing investors including Zero Carbon Capital and Cambridge Enterprise.

The new funding will scale production in Cardiff, bringing skilled green jobs to the area.

Reclinker has already made thousands of tonnes at 7 Steel UK’s site and secured its first commercial sales; those first sales tap directly into surging commercial demand. Blast-furnace slag, long used to make low-carbon cement blends, is disappearing fast as steelmakers move away from blast furnaces, leaving concrete producers short of the low-carbon materials they increasingly need. Reclinker’s product steps straight into that gap.

The firm says the funding will support replication across additional electric arc furnace sites in Europe and the US.

Nuba has secured £320,000 in pre-seed funding led by SFC Capital to make rent rewarding.

The startup is building a rewards network connecting renters, property operators and neighbourhood businesses. The idea is to give residents more value from where they live, while helping property partners reward renewals and referrals, and local businesses attract repeat customers.

Its initial rent-by-card product has processed nearly £200,000 in rent payments. The funding will support the wider platform, its first operator pilots and rewards partnerships.

Author: Chris Maguire

Car Finance 247 is on track for a year of record growth, with revenue in the first half of this year up 25 per cent on the same period in 2025 and EBITDA up 60 per cent.

The news comes as the market-leading car finance platform reports on its financial performance for the 18-month period ended 31 December 2025, announcing revenue of £100m and EBITDA of £12.2m.

The company was founded in 2006 by brothers Reg and Louis Rix, who were included in BusinessCloud’s Founder 250 list.

George Farmer, managing director at Car Finance 247, said: “These results reflect the hard work of our team and the investments we’ve made across the business during a period of consolidation.

“We’re now seeing those investments bear fruit. With strong momentum in the current financial year, growing profitability and a highly scalable platform, we’re already delivering on our plans and we’re confident that Car Finance 247 is well positioned for significant future growth.”

The results follow a sustained period of investment and consolidation, which included announcing plans to open its first office outside Manchester in Bournemouth.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

BT Group plc has acquired TalkTalk Telecommunications Limited and PlatformX Communications Limited out of administration, saving 900 jobs.

The cost to BT is around £400 million, the company said. This includes transaction and administration costs, working capital, a £60m trading loss and £100m in uncollected Openreach revenue.

All employees at Salford-headquartered TalkTalk will move across as part of the deal.

 

Two 21-year-old childhood friends have raised $3 million for an AI platform designed to help growing businesses find customers and build their sales pipelines without the cost of a large in-house marketing team.

Revnu was founded by George Jefferson and Art Freebrey, who first met in secondary school before going on to launch a string of businesses together while still in education.

After recognising that the AI systems they had developed to automate work in their own businesses could have a much wider application, George and Art were encouraged by Monzo co-founder Jonas Templestein to pursue the opportunity and apply to Y Combinator. 

The pair then dropped out of university and moved temporarily to Silicon Valley to take part in the renowned accelerator.

Revnu has now raised $3m in a round led by NPIF II – PXN Equity Finance, which is managed by PXN Ventures as part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II. The company also received backing from Y Combinator.

Despite considering building Revnu in San Francisco following the programme – and with much of its current customer base located there – George and Art instead returned to Manchester, where they believe access to emerging engineering and technology talent gives them the right base from which to scale globally.

Winners across 12 categories have been recognised at the ninth annual Leeds Digital Festival Awards, celebrating the people, businesses and teams contributing to Yorkshire’s technology sector.

The awards, organised by Ward Hadaway and tech consultancy byProduct, form part of Leeds Digital Festival and recognise achievement across areas including growth, innovation, leadership, workplace culture, equality and the use of technology for social good.

The 2026 winners were chosen by a judging panel of figures from across Leeds’ technology and business community, including founders, operators and public sector representatives. They were announced at an awards ceremony at The Wardrobe in Leeds on Thursday 1st October.

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

An adaptive AI study platform has been sold to a US company just a year after its founders graduated.

Ben Ward, 23, and Jonathan Graham, 24, founded StudyStash while studying computer science at the University of Birmingham to turn their own course notes into study materials. They also worked together on PwC’s technology degree apprenticeship. 

The platform – which uses neuroscience to supercharge learning – has been acquired by EdTech leader Kortext for an undisclosed figure which reports suggest is in eight figures – i.e. at least $10 million.

Ward and Graham will remain as CEO and CTO respectively, and continue to lead StudyStash as a distinct brand. The pair is relocating to Silicon Valley.

Author: Chris Maguire

Following August’s shock news that Oldham-based Mansell Building Solutions had filed for administration, Angela Mansell is back.

The former managing director of the family-run construction firm has now founded Northing Advisory to work with owners, boards and leadership teams across the built environment, manufacturing and MMC.

She said: “I don’t think another traditional full-time MD role is what I want. I’ve done that for a long time and, right now, I’m much more interested in where nearly 25 years of actually running a business might be useful to other people.”

Mansell Building Solutions blamed a  ‘prolonged period of exceptionally challenging trading conditions across the UK construction sector’ for the decision to call in administrators.

The news came a few months after Andy Burnham, then the Greater Manchester Mayor, opened the company’s new headquarters and Greater Manchester’s first dedicated Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) Centre.