Conflicts between businesses are taking longer and costing more to resolve, according to research conducted by Resolutiion, the AI-powered dispute resolution platform, and the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS).

In a joint survey of procurement and supply chain professionals, conducted as part of the two organisations’ Breaking the Deadlock report, nearly half of respondents (48%) said the time to resolve procurement conflict and disputes is increasing.

Only 15% felt it was decreasing, with the remaining 37% seeing no change.

FinTech group Fiinu Plc has agreed a £2m convertible loan note agreement with Conister Bank.

The listed technology platform provider, behind the ‘plugin Overdraft’, raised £700,000 in fresh funds via a share placing late last week.

It recently returned to London’s junior AIM market after completing a reverse takeover.

MedTech device company Creo Medical Group plc has reported a positive set of half-year results.

Creo, based in Chepstow, Wales, enables minimally invasive surgical endoscopy for pre-cancer and cancer patients.

For the six months ended 30th June 2025, revenues were up 40% to £2.2m, while underlying operating costs reduced by 24% to £9.1m. Profit before tax was £16.1m – compared to a loss of £14.8m in the prior year – after it sold 51% of Creo Medical Europe to Micro-Tech in the period.

It has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Micro-Tech.

Vault Ventures Plc, a London-based technology developer focused on blockchain and FinTech, has appointed Lucas Perraudin to its board as a non-executive director.

Perraudin brings extensive experience in AI execution and implementation. Since 2021, through AI Partners SASU (France), he has advised and delivered AI adoption programs for major global enterprises, including global household names such as EssilorLuxottica, L’Oréal, LVMH, Perfetti Van Melle, Lenovo, and Schmidt Group. 

He has also held senior roles at Hewlett-Packard and Meta.

Argo Blockchain has secured its Nasdaq listing until January.

The crypto mining firm, listed in both London and New York, was in danger of losing its Nasdaq status due to a low share price. However it now has until 14th January 2026 to demonstrate its compliance with these ‘minimum bid requirement’ rules.

The firm recently struck a new restructuring deal with Growler Mining and secured fresh funding to help steady its finances following a previously announced recapitalisation plan, aimed at reducing debt and securing its future through a court process. CEO Justin Nolan returned to the struggling business in March.

It also announced this morning that it had promoted Charlotte Proctor-Worrall to the position of CFO, effective immediately.

Renalytix plc, a precision medicine company, intends to raise a minimum of £4m through a share placing plus £500,000 via a retail offer.

The firm has developed kidneyintelX.dkd, the only prognostic test to support early-stage risk assessment in chronic kidney disease approved by the US FDA and also reimbursed via its Medicare system.

Renalytix has signed a collaboration agreement with Tempus to make kidneyintelX.dkd prognostic blood testing more widely available for eligible patients within its US network of healthcare institutions. Eligible patients have type 2 diabetes with chronic kidney disease. It says the proceeds raised will be used to service this deal.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

The leadership team and other directors at boohoo Group plc have survived a shareholder vote despite the best efforts of Frasers Group.

Frasers, which owns around 29.7% of shares in boohoo – now rebranded operationally as Debenhams Group – voted against the re-election of founder Mahmud Kamani, chairman Tim Morris, CEO Dan Finley, CFO Phil Ellis and non-executive director John Goold.

However Debenhams said around 98% of other shareholders had voted in favour of their re-election, which saw each resolution passed by 61% or 62%.

And despite two advisory groups urging that shareholders vote against the directors remuneration report for the year ended 28th February 2025, that was also passed with 57% of shareholders voting in favour.

Frasers, however – led by Mike Ashley, Kamani’s nemesis – managed to defeat three other resolutions.

Meanwhile, Tom Handley has been appointed to the board and Alistair McGeorge is to step down as a non-exec director.

Fiinu Plc has raised £700,000 in fresh funds via a share placing.

The FinTech group behind the ‘plugin Overdraft’ returned to AIM market recently after completing a reverse takeover.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Wayve, a UK-based leader in AI for autonomous driving, has signed a letter of intent with NVIDIA to evaluate a $500 (£371m) million strategic investment in Wayve’s next funding round. 

The London-headquartered firm’s foundation model approach, combined with NVIDIA’s computing platforms, equips automakers with advanced ’embodied AI’ and hardware.

The firms say the upcoming platform will push the frontier of embodied AI, advancing the Wayve AI Driver toward eyes-off (Level 3) and driverless (Level 4) capabilities across urban and highway domains.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

A top businesswoman has been banned as a company director for 11 years over Covid loan abuse.

Anna Daroy secured £100,000 in Bounce Back Loan funds for her management consultancy Globepoint Associates Ltd in 2020, when it should only have received £50,000.

The 61-year-old, who has had a 35-year career in the public and private sectors advising boards and executive teams, should have repaid one of the loans when she realised her company had received double the amount it was entitled to, the Insolvency Service said.

A London-based firm has launched its AI to make enterprise software systems more accessible.

Conduct claims to have signed major customers including Daimler Truck AG. It has raised a £9m seed round from Creandum, Lucid Capital and BOOOM.

It claims that its agentic AI delivers an in-depth understanding of firms’ custom code, allowing IT and business teams to speak to enterprise resource planning systems in plain language.

Chinese ChatGPT rival DeepSeek claims it spent just $294,000 training its R1 foundational AI model.

The announcement was made in a peer-reviewed article in the academic journal Nature, which listed DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng as one of the co-authors.

The United States has expressed doubt about DeepSeek’s past claims that it can train models at a far lower cost. Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, said in 2023 the training of foundational models had cost “much more” than $100 million, as reported by Reuters.

DeepSeek has openly admitted using data trained by rival models to train its own, although it says this is done indirectly.

The Liverpool City Region AI Summit will hear from some of the UK’s top names in artificial intelligence.

Taking place at ACC Liverpool on 23rd October and hosted by BBC presenter Jo Coburn – with support from AI-powered avatars – the speakers will set out an ‘inspiring vision for the future of AI’ – exploring how artificial intelligence can enrich lives and tackle some of the most pressing real-world challenges, while driving a fairer, more inclusive society.

Spanning four stages and in front of more than 800 people, the summit will hear from Oxford University Professor Michael Wooldridge, presenter of the televised Royal Institution Christmas Lectures about AI in 2023; and Mike Bracken CBE, founder and former executive director of the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) and the UK’s first Government chief data officer.

Representatives from Europe, Australia and the US will add an international feel to the summit – in a year that’s seen the world’s largest IT infrastructure services provider, Kyndryl, set up a major AI base in Liverpool.

GP Bullhound has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Allstars Awards.

Now in its 23rd year, thd event brings together the movers and shakers of the global tech world – from founders and investors to the key players behind the scenes, casting a spotlight on the innovators driving the future of European tech.

Author: Patrick Killeen

The widely-reported landmark Technology Prosperity Deal signed between the UK and the US during Donald Trump’s State Visit has been billed by ministers as the start of a “next Golden Age of Innovation”.

However, former Meta executive and ex-deputy Prime Minister, Sir Nick Clegg, has dismissed the mammoth investments as “sloppy seconds from Silicon Valley”.

Speaking at the Royal Television Society conference in Cambridge, he described the relationship as “all one-way traffic”, arguing that the announcements largely reflected infrastructure projects already in motion by US firms, merely accelerated to coincide with the state visit.

“We’re a kind of vassal state technologically, we really are,” he warned.

“The moment our companies, our tech companies, start developing any scale or ambition, they have to go to California, because we don’t have the growth capital here.

“In a sense, this US-UK tech deal is just another version of the United Kingdom holding on to Uncle Sam’s coat-tails … which is basically just taking sloppy seconds from Silicon Valley.”

NVIDIA, which yesterday confirmed a £500m investment in UK firm Nscale, has said it will invest $5 billion in fellow tech giant Intel.

The deal will see Intel and Nvidia jointly develop PC and data centre chips.

IG Group Holdings plc has acquired Independent Reserve, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Australia, for an initial enterprise value of £86.8m.

The bolt-on transaction accelerates its entry into cryptocurrency markets in the Asia Pacific region.

It said the move ‘brings a talented team of crypto-native specialists to the group… and complements the strategic progress we have made to enhance our crypto offerings organically in the UK and US’.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

‘Golden triangle’ property investor Life Science REIT is to wind down four years after a £350m IPO in London.

The firm invested in properties across London, Cambridge and Oxford which were then leased to tenants operating in the life science sector.

Following a strategic review and formal sale process that commenced in March – and following several offers for the company – it has decided to wind down operations over the coming 12-18 months.

Vodafone is to acquire the assets of Telekom Romania from Hellenic Telecommunications Organization for €30 million.

The deal is for Telekom Romania Mobile Communications and its post-paid customer base.

Meanwhile Digi has agreed to acquire its pre-paid customer business. Both companies will also gain additional spectrum and towers as part of the transaction.