Author: Patrick Killeen

ElevenLabs is in talks to raise fresh funding in a deal that could value the voice AI company at around $11 billion, according to the Financial Times.

If agreed, the round would almost double its most recent valuation of $6.6bn and make the London-based business the UK’s most valuable AI startup.

Sources told the FT that the company is seeking to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, just four months after a secondary share sale that valued the business at $6.6 billion.

It also comes under a year on from a Series C funding round which valued it at $3.3bn.

Elyos AI has raised £9.6 million in Series A funding as it looks to scale its AI agents for the trades and field services industry.

The London-based startup, founded in 2023 through Y Combinator, offers tools designed to automate customer communications, bookings, dispatch and follow-ups for businesses including plumbers, electricians and HVAC providers.

The round was led by Blackbird Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator and Pi Labs, taking Elyos AI’s total funding to £11.9m.

Elyos said the investment will support product development, deeper integrations with field-service CRMs and international expansion plans in 2026.

A new £20 million innovation facility has opened in Buckinghamshire to provide specialist space for businesses working in the sector.

The Westcott Space Hub has been backed by the UK Space Agency alongside partners including URA Thrusters, Skyports Drone Services and Buckinghamshire Council.

The 62,000 sq ft site will offer testing and training equipment as well as commercial workspace.

It has been built at Westcott Venture Park, a location with more than 50 years of history as a rocket engine test site.

The project, which began in December 2023, is expected to support around 100 direct jobs and a further 200 roles across the wider supply chain in the years ahead.

Scottish activewear brand DFYNE has opened a new 21,623 sq ft headquarters in Glasgow, just four years after launching.

Created in partnership with workplace design and build firm Oktra, the new base is intended to support the firm’s expanding team and provide space for collaboration, product showcases and future growth.

The project has launched with a first phase, with more fit-out work planned in the months ahead.

It comes seven months on from the company being named as Britain’s fastest-growing private company in the fourth annual Sunday Times 100 rankings.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Zurich Insurance has made an offer of around £7.7 billion to acquire FTSE 100 company and fellow insurance giant Beazley plc.

The offer of 1,280p in cash per share, which comes after a previous offer was snubbed, represents a 56% premium to Beazley’s 820p closing price on 16th January and a similar uplift to its 30-day volume-weighted average share price.

This share price has now been dwarfed, as the London-based company’s stock has risen by a remarkable 42% to 1,173p in the last hour – around 200p higher than it has ever been in its 22 years as a public company.

The Swiss insurer’s latest approach marks an increase on its earlier 1,230p proposal submitted on 4th January, which Beazley rejected on 16th January as it “significantly undervalued” the business.

Bristol-based virtual meeting platform Jugo has appointed SaaS executive Geoff Bird as chief revenue officer as it prepares to scale its go-to-market strategy ahead of a planned product launch in Q1 2026.

Bird brings more than 20 years’ experience in technology sales, having held leadership roles at Extreme Networks, Clearcourse and most recently Velsera, where he helped drive commercial growth in regulated enterprise healthcare markets.

He said Jugo stood out for its product, vision and team, explaining that it aims to move remote meetings beyond “flat” video calls by offering fully branded, 3D environments.

The firm said Bird will focus on growing both strategic accounts and a volume SaaS offering, as the company looks to transition from a managed service model into a scalable software business.

Belfast-based SportTech firm TeamFeePay has raised £9 million in equity funding to support its expansion into new markets and drive a major hiring programme.

Founded in 2021 by grassroots coach Liam McStravick, the company provides software that helps clubs plan fixtures and training sessions, track attendance and reduce admin tasks such as fee collection.

It now supports more than 1,500 clubs and almost 300,000 users, and plans to create 75 jobs over the next two years across the UK and Europe.

The round was led by YFM Equity Partners with a £4.5m investment and the Investment Fund for Northern Ireland (IFNI) with £3m, managed by Clarendon Fund Managers.

Techstart also invested £800,000, with a further £700,000 coming from private investors.

Concept Life Sciences has appointed Dr Adam Davenport as chief scientific officer as it looks to strengthen its integrated drug discovery offering.

Davenport brings more than 25 years of experience across drug discovery and partnership-led R&D, having most recently served as chief discovery officer at Proxygen and previously held senior roles at Dalriada Drug Discovery and Evotec.

The appointment comes during a period of growth for the Chapel-en-le-Frith-based firm, as it continues to expand its discovery facilities and support global clients.

Author: Patrick Killeen

San Francisco-based tech giant Cloudflare has acquired Human Native, an AI data marketplace headquartered in London.

The deal signals the internet infrastructure firm’s growing focus on how content is accessed and monetised in the age of generative AI.

Founded in 2024 and backed by LocalGlobe and Mercuri, Human Native was set up to help content owners strike fairer, clearer deals with AI firms.

The team includes former staff from DeepMind, Google, Figma and Bloomberg, and will now support Cloudflare as it builds tools that make it easier for creators to package and share content with AI systems on their own terms.

The company specialises in transforming multimedia content into structured, searchable datasets that can be licensed by AI developers.

It aims to help publishers and creators package unstructured material into something that can be understood, valued and sold.

Marketing Signals has appointed Jade Denby and Jade Williams to strengthen its PR and marketing teams.

Denby joins the Manchester firm as head of digital PR, bringing more than 15 years of experience and arriving from Wavemaker, where she spent seven years delivering strategies for blue-chip brands. 

The agency said her appointment follows a period of sustained growth, including several new B2C e-commerce client wins.

Williams, a marketer and podcaster, has been named head of marketing and will oversee the company’s marketing activity across brand awareness, lead generation and revenue growth.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Investment, protection and retirement specialist LV= has made two key hires to its executive team.

Anita Fernqvist has been appointed as its new chief transformation and technology officer, subject to regulatory approval.

Fernqvist, a former HP and IBM figure, brings extensive expertise in technology, data and large-scale transformation.

She spent 20 years at Zurich Insurance, including in senior roles such as COO and chief data officer.

In her new role, she will join the Bournemouth-based firm’s executive team and lead its business change, technology services, data and operational resilience functions.

Alongside Fernqvist’s appointment, Chloe Stuttard will take on the role of chief customer officer.

Already part of LV’s senior leadership and having been with the business since 2019, she will join the executive team and lead customer and adviser experience and governance.

Ant & Dec have launched Belta Box, a new digital entertainment channel and their first move into podcasting.

The platform, part of the duo’s Mitre Studios production company and supported by YMU, is billed as a “feel-good entertainment” destination featuring content curated by the pair.

Its first release will be a new podcast series, Hanging Out, described as an unscripted show with no agenda, with the first episode due to launch this Thursday.

Author: Patrick Killeen

The University of Manchester has partnered with Microsoft, becoming the first university in the world to provide Microsoft 365 Copilot access and training to every student and member of staff.

The rollout will cover around 65,000 people across the institution and is due to be completed by summer 2026.

It is part of a wider programme aimed at improving AI literacy and ensuring responsible use of emerging technology.

The Russell Group university said universal access will support teaching, research and professional services work, while also helping to tackle an “emerging digital divide” by ensuring students can access advanced AI tools, regardless of personal circumstances.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

GM Business Growth Hub, in partnership with KPMG and RBC Brewin Dolphin, has opened applications for the next intake of its ASCEND Scale Up Programme.

Starting in April 2026, ASCEND 3 will guide another 25 businesses through a 12-month scale-up programme designed to support their future ambitions and foster business growth. 

Building on a proven format of success, the programme offers expert mentorship, tailored workshops, and exclusive networking opportunities, including a strategy retreat and international exposure at an exciting founders conference – SLUSH 2026 in Helsinki.

Now in its third cohort, ASCEND offers dedicated mentors who provide personalised support to assist participants in creating and executing customised strategic growth plans. The programme helps founders in Greater Manchester maximise the potential of their businesses. 

Those on the programme will get access to workshops, talks and discussions with successful founders spanning a broad spectrum of topics, including strategy governance, people and culture, innovation, finance and longer-term exit planning.

Founders interested in accessing the support and resources available to Greater Manchester’s business community are encouraged to apply.

Axol Bioscience has raised £2.1 million to support its next phase of growth, with the funding round led by US life sciences investor BroadOak Capital Partners and backed by founding investor the Roslin Foundation.

The Edinburgh-based firm, which develops induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technologies for drug discovery and disease research, will use the investment to expand its US commercial presence and scale up manufacturing at its Roslin Innovation Centre base.

It also plans to develop enhanced neuroscience, ophthalmology and cardiovascular disease models.

London-based brand growth consultancy G=mc2 has secured backing from private equity firm Mobeus Equity Partners in a deal advised by Initium Corporate Finance.

The firm works with major brands including JBL, Danone, Heineken, Santander, Volvo, Pandora, L’Oreal and Unilever, using AI-driven consumer intelligence to inform category growth strategy, brand positioning, communications and innovation.

Its proprietary platform Visible gathers around 10,000 images per hour and can cluster roughly 40,000 data points in 20 seconds, which is then combined with insight from its 30-person team of consultants.

Workspace Group chief executive Lawrence Hutchings is stepping down with immediate effect, with Charlie Green set to take over as CEO on 2nd February.

Green is best known as the co-founder of The Office Group (now Fora), which he grew into one of the UK’s largest flexible workspace operators with more than 70 locations, including through Blackstone’s majority investment in 2017.

The London-listed business, which focuses on flexible and sustainable workspace across the capital, said it is also preparing for a finance leadership change, with Tom Edwards-Moss due to join as CFO designate on 23rd February.

Outgoing CFO Dave Benson will remain in post until the end of April to support the handover.

XP Power has reported a pick-up in orders in the final quarter of 2025, with Q4 order intake rising 29% year-on-year to £57.9 million and revenue edging up 2% to £61.2m.

For the full year, order intake climbed 24% to £225.9m, but revenue fell 7% to £229.7m.

The group said profit and earnings per share are expected to be in line with market forecasts, supported by improved second-half trading and a year-end order book of £116.1m.

It also confirmed it will exit the RF market following lower returns and new US export controls restricting sales to key Chinese customers from 2026, with the wind-down expected to take around three years and supported by a £16.4m pre-payment for planned 2026 deliveries.

The listed firm has also completed construction of a new manufacturing facility in Malaysia, due to become operational in 2026, and has shut its Kunshan site in China.

GlobalData has appointed Rachel Higham as an independent non-executive director.

Higham brings more than 30 years’ experience in the IT sector, having held senior roles at Marks & Spencer, WPP, BT and Vodafone.

The appointment comes as part of wider board changes at the AIM-listed company, with long-serving non-executive directors Annette Barnes and Andrew Day set to step down ahead of its full-year results on 2nd March.

Both will not stand for re-election at the 2026 AGM, after serving on the board for more than nine years.

Higham will replace Day, while a further appointment to succeed Barnes is expected to be announced shortly.

WH Smith is set to appoint former Balfour Beatty boss Leo Quinn as executive chairman from 7th April, subject to shareholder approval.

Current chair Annette Court will step down after the retail giant’s AGM on 2nd February, with senior independent director Simon Emeny will act as interim non-executive chair in the meantime.

Quinn brings more than two decades of experience leading listed UK businesses, most recently overseeing a major turnaround and growth programme at Balfour Beatty.

The news comes two months on from the resignation of CEO Carl Cowling, who left after accounting inconsistencies in supplier income recognition within its North America division were identified.