Author: Jonathan Symcox

THG Ingenuity has appointed Gemma Spence as its next chief executive officer.

Effective from December 2026, she joins the private company as it enters its next phase of growth as a proprietary commerce operating system.

Technology platform THG Ingenuity was split away from former parent company THG, a beauty and nutrition retailer listed in London, at the start of 2025.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

SmartFrame Technologies has entered administration.

Founded in 2015, SmartFrame had developed a patented image-streaming technology that aimed to change how images are published, protected and monetised online. 

The London firm, which starred in fourth spot on our MediaTech 50 ranking earlier this year, was used by Premier League clubs Manchester City FC, Everton FC and Brentford FC, along with New Zealand Rugby, Six Nations Rugby and the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, plus leading photo agencies such as action press international, Sipa Press, Mirrorpix, IMAGO and ZUMA Press.

Publishers using SmartFrame include Reach, The Independent, the Mirror, The Scotsman, HuffPost, National World and Planet Sport.

Previous advertisers running in-image campaigns include Volkswagen, Samsung, Sony, Puma, Toyota, EA Sports, Etihad, Revolut, IHG and the Royal Air Force, many of them returning for repeat campaigns.

However it failed to secure further funding and appointed Henry Page and Shaun Walker of Mercer and Hole as administrators on 26th August.

Mobius, a pensions infrastructure platform, has appointed Lee Nicholls as CTO.

Mobius is entering its next phase of growth following its acquisition by Motive Partners, a deal which is subject to regulatory approval.

Nicholls brings extensive leadership experience across FinTech and financial services, with a strong track record in building and leading technology teams through periods of growth and transformation.

Before joining Mobius, he spent more than five years as CTO of InvestCloud, where he oversaw the development of its digital wealth technology. He also spent more than 18 years earlier in his career at Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, where he became CIO of EMEA global markets technology.

The Citation Group, an international provider of compliance software and services for SMEs, has appointed Steve Homan as its new chief technology and data officer.

Homan joins the Wilmslow-headquartered company with more than 25 years’ experience in PE-backed SaaS businesses. He built a marketplace from the ground up at The Instant Group, led a 220-strong engineering team at Metapack through to its successful sale, and is currently co-founder of AI My Site.  He has also held senior technology roles at Daily Mail Group and Fitness First.

His appointment brings hands-on AI-native engineering practice into the heart of the business, including new AI-powered capabilities already taking shape across the group’s product suite – from AI-assisted content creation in its eLearning platform to brand new AI features in its HR software.

He takes over from Nic Sheen, who is retiring from full-time executive work after five years with the group.

Tech investor Molten Ventures plc has announced the first close of its Growth Fund at £175 million.

The fund is a continuation of Molten’s existing investment strategy of Series B+ investments, with a track record of more than 40 deals and over £700m invested in the past 10 years. 

The fund offers private institutional capital the opportunity to invest at scale through a private fund structure, while benefiting from the public vehicle’s platform and governance.

The British Business Bank has committed £75m as its cornerstone investor. Molten Ventures has committed the remaining £100m of the first close and will continue to seek additional investors, with the aim of growing the Growth Fund to a target of £350m. 

Reward, a global leader in customer engagement and commerce media – and part of the Rezolve Ai group of companies – has appointed Matthew Keylock as chief data & analytics officer.

Keylock brings nearly three decades of experience at the forefront of data, analytics and AI.

Most recently, he was global chief data & analytics officer at Mars Petcare, where he built and led its global data and analytics function across the business. He previously held senior global roles at Yoox Net-A-Porter Group and dunnhumby.

HousingAI has appointed Ben Yexley as head of sales and Chris Galley as researcher to help deliver its ambitious growth plans.

The AI-powered knowledge platform, built specifically for the social housing sector in England, was launched earlier this year.

Bringing 13 years’ experience in property technology, spanning businesses from pre-seed start-ups to scaling companies, Yexley will lead HousingAI’s sales growth while supporting housing associations and local authorities in their AI journey.

With more than 15 years’ compliance and research experience across social housing, residential property, higher education and professional membership organisations, Galley will monitor sector developments, assess AI-collected material, manage information sources and develop the review processes behind HousingAI’s evidence-based content. This research, review and curation process will help ensure the platform’s knowledge base is accurate, current and relevant.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

FTSE 250 firm Gamma Communications has reported its latest half-year results ahead of a £1 billion take-private deal.

London private equity house Epiris recently agreed terms with the board of the technology firm, which is seeking shareholder approval for the takeover.

Gamma, led by CEO Andrew Belshaw, is a European business communications tech provider which employs more than 2,000 people.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

The CEO of Oxford Metrics plc has stepped down for health reasons.

Imogen O’Connor has served the smart sensing and measurement technology group – serving the life sciences, entertainment, engineering and manufacturing markets – for the last 25 years. She was appointed to lead it three years ago.

Stefan Lampa has been appointed as her successor and as a director of the company and is expected to join in early December 2026.

Gary Bullard, non-executive chair, will act as interim CEO until his appointment takes effect.

Blackbird plc, developer of browser-based collaborative video editor elevate.io, the technology licensor and the developer and seller of market-leading cloud native video editing platform, Blackbird, has appointed Adrian Wilding as non-board interim CFO.

He has held senior roles across software, payments, fintech and SaaS businesses, including businesses at a similar stage to Blackbird plc.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Vassili Philippov has spent his life immersed in science so when he sold his first business for $38 million, that’s where he turned his attention.

After moving to the UK from St Petersburg, he founded MEL Science to improve science education and give children a lifelong love of the subject.

With the rapid rise of machine learning, he handed over the business to a new CEO and began to look at where this revolutionary technology could have the most impact.

So why did he settle on language learning? How does his Glite app move far beyond the micro learning of Duolingo with its focus on 1,000-day learners? What mistakes did they learn from along the way? And why is learning science vital for everyone – not just those who will work in the lab?

I met up with him at The Hoxton in Holborn, London, on Founder Friday to find out.

A new travel technology platform is launching to help hotels, villas and unique stays connect with vetted travel creators.

Founded by South Wales marketing strategist Rachel Haines, Hotel Collab has been created to solve a growing challenge in hospitality marketing: how hotels manage creator interest, influencer requests and content partnerships in a more structured and professional way.

 

The University of Birmingham is commercialising a ‘game-changing’ platform that extracts and analyses real-world healthcare data from any source, with results within minutes.

Dexter AI taps into analysable datasets from electronic health records across primary and secondary care, claims data, private prescriber records and other sources. 

The platform enables medical researchers to rise to the challenge of delivering actionable insights and testable hypotheses, quickly and securely. It reduces the time needed for epidemiology studies, drug safety and effectiveness studies, clinical audits and clinical trials. 

It is based on software developed by Professor Krishnarajah Nirantharakumar, Dr Krishna Gokhale and Professor Joht Singh Chandan at Birmingham’s Department of Applied Health Sciences.  

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Pri0r1ty Intelligence Group PLC has rescued employee benefits startup Pirkx from administration.

Pirkx was co-founded in 2018 by Stella Smith and aimed at the gig economy – a sector which employs millions of people in the UK alone but does not generally offer many employee benefits.

In 2022 it set an ambitious target of reaching a million people by 2025. Total funding in the business to date is £5.4m.

However it fell some way short of that million-person target, with just 10,800 active paying members in the UK as of June this year. 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Apple is facing a £2 billion lawsuit in the UK after being accused of imposing ‘unfair’ app tracking rules on third-party developers.

The legal action was filed at London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal on Thursday by ATT Collective Action Limited, led by Ann Pope, a former senior official with UK regulator the Competition and Markets Authority.

The App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework, launched in 2021, requires user authorisation to access data tracked across other apps. Developers say it has significantly hit their ability to generate revenues through advertising, while increasing the cost of attracting new users.

The lawsuit argues that Apple has applied less restrictive standards to its own advertising and data collection activities. It also claims that Apple did not consult app developers on the changes.

Author: Chris Maguire

River Capital has provided a £500,000 funding package to Cortus Advisory Group, the multi-award-winning M&A advisory firm.

The money will be used to support its next phase of growth and the creation of a significant number of new roles.

Founded in the North West in 2020 by CEO Nicola Merritt – who was included in BusinessCloud’s 2025 Northern Leaders list – Cortus has grown to a team of 60+ in six years, with revenues climbing significantly over the same period.

The firm now operates from six offices across Manchester, Preston, Leeds, Nottingham, Birmingham and London, delivering transaction services, corporate finance, financial modelling, data analytics and value creation advice to mid-market businesses with enterprise values typically between £10m and £50m.

Author: Chris Maguire

CN Corporate Finance – the North West-based corporate finance advisory firm formerly known as CN Strategic Advisors – has marked its third anniversary with a new name following another year of growth in turnover, headcount and deal activity.

The firm, founded in 2023 by former RSM and Forvis Mazars dealmaker Dave Baggott, alongside his brother Andy, has changed its name to CN Corporate Finance to better reflect its specialism in corporate finance and M&A.

CN, which has offices in Manchester and Cheadle, has grown to a team of 12, including a five-strong deal advisory team. In the last 12 months, the firm has advised on 11 transactions with a value of more than £85m, as well as a host of other strategic advisory projects.

Established as a boutique corporate finance advisory firm, CN’s focus is on supporting founders, management teams and shareholders through the key stages of their business lifecycle, from growth and acquisition through to succession and exit.

Dave Baggott, partner at CN Corporate Finance, leads the firm’s deal advisory team together with brother Andy, also a highly experienced accountant and corporate finance professional, and the team also includes Syme Anwar and James Cox. The firm is planning further recruitment over the next six months.

Baggott said: “We’re incredibly proud of the progress the business has made over the past three years. Our growth has been driven by a clear focus on delivering high-quality, partner-led advice and building long-term relationships with our clients.

“The last 12 months has seen us increasing capacity and experience within our advisory team and we’re now dealing with more and larger mandates for both buyside and sell-side transactions.”

Recent deals the firm has advised on include the sale of Manchester-based commercial heating and cooling specialist Kool It to Nordic Climate Group, the sale of Stockport-based audio-visual integration specialist Pioneer Group to global AV and digital experiences specialist Trison, and the acquisition of Bastion Security Services by high-security and tactical training provider BeaverFit.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

easyJet has soared back into the FTSE 100 – but it is expected to only be there temporarily.

The airline returned to the top tier of London Stock Exchange companies after a six-month absence as its share price rebounded.

However easyJet  is set to be taken private in early 2027 after agreeing a £5.7 billion deal with Apollo following a bidding war also featuring fellow private equity firm Castlelake.

Uber and Wayve have today launched supervised autonomous rides in London, marking the first time autonomous trips are available in the United Kingdom. 

Starting today, Londoners requesting an UberX, Uber Electric, or Uber Comfort may be matched with a Wayve ride at no extra cost.

They will be able to travel anywhere within London, apart from airports. Riders will have the option to accept or switch to a non-AV ride before the car arrives.

 

Origin, an enterprise benefits intelligence platform, has announced that Martine Ferland has joined the company as an angel investor and strategic adviser.

Ferland brings four decades of experience in global benefits and human resources consulting, including five years leading Mercer, the world’s largest HR consulting firm.

She currently serves on the boards of WSP Global and the Adecco Group. Ferland has known Origin’s co-founders, Chris Bruce and Pete Craghill, since Mercer acquired Darwin (formerly Thomsons Online Benefits), the global benefits technology company they founded and led, and worked closely with them in the years that followed.