Liverpool-based contracting software company Videosign has appointed Jack O’Sullivan as its new business development manager as it continues to expand in the UK and beyond.

O’Sullivan, who previously worked in sales and business development roles across the legal and financial sectors, will focus on growing the firm’s customer base and helping professionals adopt its secure, AI-powered contract signing platform.

Videosign was founded in 2019 and enables remote document signing and identity verification through video conferencing.

It recently launched a major software update introducing new tools such as the Videosign Contract Creator and AI Assistant.

Author: Curtis Holmes, executive vice president, global payroll, Vistra

The outage is a powerful reminder of payroll’s role as a business-critical function that keeps organisations running.

When systems go down, HR and finance teams lose access to the very tools they depend on to process pay, manage employee records, and meet tax obligations.

When pay is interrupted, even temporarily, the consequences are immediate, from financial stress for employees to operational disruption for employers.

Modern payroll systems rely on cloud platforms for accuracy, compliance and speed, and this interdependence highlights the importance of robust systems and contingency plans that ensure employees are paid accurately and on time, regardless of external events.

Pizza Hut UK’s dine-in arm has fallen into administration, placing more than 1,200 jobs at risk and confirming the closure of 68 restaurants across the country.

However, the company’s online ordering, delivery and takeaway operations are expected to continue trading, offering a potential lifeline through its digital infrastructure.

The franchisee behind the UK fast-food giant, DC London Pie Limited, appointed administrators from FTI this week after what it described as challenging trading conditions.

Around 64 restaurants will continue to operate under new ownership through a deal backed by parent company Yum! Brands, which also owns KFC and Taco Bell. This agreement will see 1,276 jobs saved.

London-based MedTech CoMind has raised $102.5 million (£76.7m) to advance its non-invasive brain monitoring technology aimed at transforming care for critically ill patients.

The round was led by Plural, the investment firm founded by tech entrepreneurs including Taavet Hinrikus and Ian Hogarth, with participation from Angelini Ventures, LocalGlobe, Octopus Ventures, Crane, Backed VC and Entrepreneurs First.

The funding will be used to complete clinical trials, scale manufacturing and secure regulatory approval for its first product, CoMind One.

Durham-based eCommerce agency Visualsoft has appointed Lucy Dixon as its new CFO as the company continues to expand its Shopify offering and strengthen its financial foundations for growth.

Dixon joined the business six years ago from KPMG, where she trained and qualified as a chartered accountant before moving into industry.

During her time at Visualsoft, she has overseen the evolution of the company’s finance function, introducing new systems, improving profitability visibility and embedding data-led decision-making across the business.

In her new role, she will be responsible for driving financial strategy, operational efficiency and long-term value creation as Visualsoft focuses on scaling its Shopify partnerships and deepening relationships with larger enterprise clients.

Risers:

B&M European Value Retail S.A. – +3.61%

W.A.G Payment Solutions – +3.10%

Melrose Industries – +2.96%

Segro – +2.94%

AO World PLC – +2.81%

Fallers:

Playtech – -28.20%

Hochschild Mining – -9.38%

Fresnillo – -5.98%

Bluefield Solar Income Fund – -5.64%

Endeavour Mining PLC – -4.12%

AIM-listed spend analytics specialist Rosslyn expects to report revenue of £3 million for the year, up slightly from £2.9m a year earlier.

The London-based company anticipates a narrower adjusted EBITDA loss of £2m, compared with £2.5m in FY2024.

A £300,000 portion of development work for a major new client has been deferred and will now be recognised across FY2026 and FY2027, which the business has said will improve performance in those years.

The board said trading in the first quarter of FY2026 was in line with expectations, but full-year performance will depend on the timing of new contract wins and the rollout of work with its major client.

Shawbrook Group has set the price range for its London IPO at 350-390p per share, valuing the specialist bank at between £1.8-£2 billion.

The company plans to raise around £50 million through the issue of up to 14.3m new shares, while its current owner, Marlin Bidco, will sell up to 81.1m existing shares.

Admission to the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market is expected on 4th November 2025, with the final offer price to be announced on 30th October.

Rio and Anton Ferdinand have launched a new partnership between their organisation, The Ferdinand Collective, and FinTech firm Intuit QuickBooks.

The initiative is aimed at helping young footballers build financial awareness alongside their development on the pitch.

It brings financial literacy into youth football pathways, teaching players and their families practical skills around money management, business basics and planning for life after sport.

It follows warnings from the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), which says 10-20% of former Premier League players face serious financial trouble within five years of retiring.

AB Dynamics has appointed Sarah Matthews-DeMers as its next CEO.

Matthews-DeMers, who currently serves as CFO, succeeds James Routh, who will remain with the business until the end of the year to ensure a smooth transition.

Routh will then leave to lead fellow listed firm Victrex at the start of 2026.

The new CEO is said to have played a key role in transforming the automotive testing and simulation group over the past six years.

A Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales, she previously held senior finance and strategy roles at Avon Rubber, Rotork and Carclo, following 14 years at PwC.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Digital healthcare firm Trellus Health faces a race to secure fresh funding and stay afloat, despite extending its cash runway until early December 2025.

The AIM-listed company, which operates the Trellus Elevate digital platform to help patients manage chronic conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, said it held $1.6 million in cash at the end of June.

This was enough to fund operations until early November, but, following new cost-saving measures, that runway has been extended by another month.

The London and New York-headquartered firm has also managed to reduce its monthly cash burn from around $440,000 to $395,000, but without new investment or a major revenue boost, it could still run out of funds before the end of the year.

Cybersecurity and software escrow firm NCC Group has reported annual revenue of around £294 million for the year to 30th September 2025 – a 2.5% drop from the previous year.

The fall was driven by a 4% decline in its Cyber Security division to £227m, partly offset by a 2% rise in Escode, its software escrow arm, to £66.5m.

Despite the dip in sales, gross margins improved to 44.5% thanks to tighter cost control, while adjusted EBITDA came in at roughly £43.5m – in line with forecasts.

The listed Manchester-based company ended the year with net cash of £13m, giving it flexibility as it explores options for its Escode business, including a possible sale.

Amazon Web Services says the problems which saw dozens of the world’s most popular platforms go down yesterday have now been fixed.

AWS said all services have “returned to normal operations”.

EdTech provider EdenFiftyOne has announced a strategic partnership and investment from fellow educational technology firm, MathsWatch, following a £250,000 pre-seed equity raise. 

The investment secures a 13% stake for MathsWatch and is designed to dramatically scale EdenFiftyOne’s footprint and accelerate its AI-driven product roadmap, specifically focusing on literacy support across the UK and beyond.

Both companies were founded by former teachers who developed technology to deliver equitable and inclusive access to core skills.

A £187 million AI & cyber plan for the West Midlands has been unveiled at Birmingham Tech Week.

The announcement came as part of the leadership opening event for the seventh annual Birmingham Tech Week, which brings together 8,000 industry experts and regional figureheads over five event-packed days in venues across the city.

Among the most significant announcements were the regional rollout of TechFirst, a £187m programme that will bring AI and digital skills into classrooms, careers, and communities; and the launch of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) AI Missions Document, a ten-year vision to help regional SMEs harness the potential of AI for growth innovation and public service adoption.

Content solutions company RWS has named Michael Wayne as head of media and entertainment.

The Maidenhead company says the appointment underscores its ambition to transform the future of AI-powered media localisation.

Wayne, based in Los Angeles, is a former executive at Papercup, Sony Pictures Entertainment and ABC Television.

Author: Mona Schroedel, specialist data protection lawyer, Freeths

[The AWS incident] is not the first major outage we have experienced in recent memory. Only a little over a year ago a Microsoft outage caused airports and banks to grind to a halt. Modern life especially after the pandemic has become dependent on virtual connectivity and systems. It isn’t that long ago that most people carried cash and would have been perfectly able to bridge a banking issue without complications. However, nowadays cashless payments are the norm and most of us don’t habitually carry cash anymore.

As with the law in this area, the need for practical review and adjustments just cannot keep up with the speed of the advancement. That leaves end users vulnerable to be negatively impacted if the few big providers are targeted or have a technical issue. More ought to be done to ensure that there are (a) backup systems for critical services and (b) that the practical aspects of our modern convenient virtual life are reviewed and regulated.

Innovate UK has launched the Agentic AI Pioneers Prize – a £1 million national competition to accelerate agentic AI development across three critical UK sectors: Advanced Manufacturing, Health and Life Sciences, and Creative Industries.

The competition will focus on developing practical Agentic AI solutions to real challenges defined by sector specialists. These have the potential to accelerate drug development, cut manufacturing costs, and bring new applications of generative design to creative production.

Expressions of interest are open until Wednesday 19th November, and an online briefing event is taking place for potential applicants on Thursday 23rd October. Both can be accessed via the Innovate UK website.

Three UK regions have been given an extra £20m science and tech cash boost.

Greater Manchester, West Midlands and Glasgow City Region have been backed to the tune of £50 million each to support local innovation priorities from life-saving medicines to clean fuels that can cut bills.

The new funding is the latest commitment from the government’s £500m Local Innovation Partnerships Fund (LIPF) and builds on the initial £30 million earmarked for each place in June’s Spending Review, along with seven others across the UK, including Cardiff City Region, Belfast-Derry/Londonderry and West Yorkshire.

The Government is also inviting further bids of up to £20m from high potential innovation clusters in all other regions of the UK.

Real estate agency Douglas & Gordon has deployed AI in its operations and will be expanding its development team in 2026.

Since 2021 buyers have been able to submit offers online 24/7, with adoption now at scale. Today, 88% of lettings offers and 50% of sales offers are now made through the website.

At the heart of this innovation is EDGE, D&G’s proprietary technology platform and app. EDGE integrates marketing, operations and clients services into a single, streamlined system, supported by an online documentation library and built-in CRM.

D&G has now gone further, deploying AI to enhance partner prospecting and client engagement at scale. The new capability will enable faster, more targeted communication and unlock new opportunities across the company’s 400,000-strong client base, making interactions with the property market more efficient, responsive and personal.