Author: Jonathan Symcox

From the outside, PerfectTed’s first five years have been something of a fairytale.

The firm was co-founded from a kitchen table in 2021 by Teddie Levenfiche, his brother Levi and Levi’s wife Marisa Poster – who is also Teddie’s best friend – to bring quality matcha to the UK. 

They made headlines in 2023 after receiving five offers from the BBC Dragons. With Steven Bartlett heavily invested in the brand both financially and personally, it has grown to become the UK’s biggest matcha brand and is set to hit $100 million+ annual recurring revenue this year.

Yet even as it celebrates its fifth birthday this week – with hundreds of beloved products now sold in more than 50 countries around the world – a look inside the business would unearth ‘chaos’.

Basecamp Research has raised $140 million (£106m) in Series C financing to continue developing its AI-designed medicines.

Basecamp’s ambition is to develop cures for diseases that remain incurable by designing medicines that reprogram the body to repair itself. 

The company combines frontier AI models trained on proprietary biological data with technology for writing DNA sequences into cells.

Abingdon Health plc, a York-based developer, manufacturer and provider of regulatory services for rapid diagnostic tests and MedTech, has opened its new manufacturing hub in the United States.

The company’s facility is at University Research Park in Madison, Wisconsin. 

Abingdon says the new manufacturing facility represents a significant step forward for the company’s US operations, providing it with the infrastructure and capacity to respond to growing demand for high-quality, rapidly deployable diagnostic testing solutions.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Travel Counsellors has appointed a technology heavyweight as its new CTO.

David Jack has joined the technology platform for travel entrepreneurs with immediate effect. He was most recently CTO at Tunstall Healthcare, where he led a programme of major technology transformation – including AI adoption across manufacturing, supply chain, product development and security.

Earlier in his career he served as the CIO of Trainline, while he has also held CTO and CIO roles at collapsed transport data firm wejo, eCommerce delivery management software company MetaPack, data science firm dunnhumby and insurer Howden.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

A ground-breaking HealthTech co-founded by Spotify’s Daniel Ek which built its model in the UK has launched in New York.

Ek founded Neko Health with Hjalmar Nilsonne to redefine how people understand and act on their health. This summer it raised $700 million in Series C funding.

At the heart of Neko’s offering is the Neko Health Scan – a 60-minute, comprehensive, non-invasive and radiation-free health assessment that captures millions of health data points.

Neko has opened its first US clinic in SoHo, New York – the first step in a US roll-out, with more New York sites and Miami, Washington, DC and San Francisco also planned.

The firm said there was a New York waitlist of more than 25,000 before opening day.

Businesses across Trafford are being invited to help shape the future workforce needed to support one of Greater Manchester’s most significant regeneration and employment opportunities.

As plans continue to progress for Therme Manchester and the growth of Trafford City, partners from across education, skills, business and local government are working together to understand future workforce needs and ensure local people are well placed to benefit from the jobs and careers being created.

Therme Manchester alone is forecast to create around 1,200 jobs across 47 different disciplines when it opens in 2028, creating opportunities across hospitality, leisure, wellness, operations, customer experience, facilities management, digital technology and a range of specialist roles.

Alongside developments including Trafford Waters, new leisure and visitor attractions, and continued investment across Trafford City’s wider business and visitor economy.

A survey, commissioned by Trafford Council, Trafford & Stockport College Group, Therme Manchester, The Growth Company and the University of Salford will ask businesses in the borough of Trafford about their current and future skills and recruitment needs, as well as anticipated future demand from existing employers and new developments across Trafford City.

Partners will use the evidence to inform future curriculum planning, skills programmes, investment and collaborative activity, with the ambition of ensuring that TraffordCity’s economic growth translates into sustainable employment, progression and opportunity for local communities.

Cambridge Tech Week 2026 closed last week after five days of debate, dealmaking and networking – and it was the biggest to date.

This year’s programme placed a sharper focus on the practical challenge of turning world-class research and technology into scalable businesses and real-world applications.

Held from 14th-18th September under the theme ‘How Deep Tech Changes the World’, this year’s event drew 1,781 delegates from 52 countries – a 15% increase on last year’s event.

Across the week, discussions ranged from artificial intelligence and quantum computing to HealthTech, MedTech, energy, infrastructure and security.

Indeed, BusinessCloud joined forces with RSM UK for a roundatable canvassing the views of some of the city’s leading tech businesses and voices.

But beneath the breadth of the programme was a consistent question: what does it take to move deep technology beyond the laboratory and into the market?

The British Business Bank has agreed to commit £60m to Advent Life Sciences Fund IV and committed £75m to Advent Life Sciences Growth Fund, bringing its total commitment across these two strategies to £135 million.

Together, these investments will help create deeper pools of capital for the UK’s high-potential life sciences companies, supporting companies from early-stage development through to later-stage growth and commercialisation.

The Bank has been a close partner of Advent since 2019 having made a commitment to Advent Life Sciences Fund III. Since then, the Bank has co-invested alongside Advent into innovative life sciences companies such as Proximie in 2022 and Cyted Health in 2025.

Advent Life Sciences is a transatlantic venture capital firm focused on building and investing in innovative life sciences businesses across the UK, Europe and the United States. The firm specialises in early and mid-stage companies developing new medicines, medical technologies and enabling platforms.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Raspberry Pi Holdings plc has reported record revenue and profitability for the first half of its financial year.

The Cambridge-based firm said this morning that revenue increased 90% to $256.9 million and adjusted EBITDA climbed 108% to $40.3m in the six months ended 30th June 2026. Profit before tax increased 216% to $19.6m.

The firm’s share price rose 16% in the first 30 minutes of trading. It has climbed almost 150% in the year to date.

 

Enterprise Nation and Visa Foundation have today announced the launch of AI for Every Business, a three-year programme designed to reach micro and small businesses across the UK and Ireland with practical support to adopt AI tools and use them effectively and securely in their businesses.

Backed by a $2 million grant from Visa Foundation, the programme will provide free, targeted support to more than 157,000 small businesses over three years.

Support will range from practical videos, webinars, and regional events to personalized assessments and learning paths. A smaller cohort of entrepreneurs will receive more intensive support including coaching, peer learning, and one to one mentorship to help them put their AI tools into practice.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Another four speakers have been confirmed for BusinessCloud’s FUEL Manchester 2026 event on October 28^th.

Founders Fergal O’Connor, Thomas Keighley, Sid Sethi and Gabriel Erinle will join the breakfast panel of the ground-breaking event at No.1 Circle Square in Manchester city centre.

O’Connor, a star of our Founder 250 list, is the CEO and founder of Buymedia – a data-driven, AI‑powered advertising platform. Founded in Galway in 2015, Buymedia expanded to the UK, launching a head office in Manchester in October 2025. It has been ranked as the 4th fastest-growing tech company in Ireland, and 73rd in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Keighley founded Urfuture alongside fellow Founder 250 figures COO Jayel Williams and CCO Holly Hobbs in Preston and moved to Manchester at the start of this year. The HR startup raised £1.7m in seed investment in April as it looks to replace CVs and job boards with tech solutions for the AI era.

Sethi, from Delhi, India, founded Specscart after his glasses broke while studying for a key exam during his Masters at The University of Manchester. Finding the industry was dominated by a small monopoly of companies, he started the business in 2018 with a focus on fashionable, low-priced eyewear, sustainably-made in its in-house Bury HQ and delivered within 24 hours. A Forbes 30 Under 30 alumni, he is targeting the £10m turnover.

Erinle spent 17 years helping to shape some of Manchester’s best-known developments – then decided it was time to back himself. The former Allied London estates director, who played key roles at Spinningfields, St John’s and Leeds Dock, swapped managing landmark estates for starting his own company GAME FM, which stands for Go A Mile Extra Facilities Management.

The event is sponsored by GM Business Growth Hub and S&W, with support from Bruntwood SciTech.

givestar, a fundraising technology company connecting events, fundraisers, donors and charities, has raised £9 million to accelerate its ambition to build the technology layer powering modern fundraising. 

The round – led by Mercia, with participation from Love Ventures – will fuel continued UK growth and a major expansion in the US. 

It is the largest round completed by a UK fundraising technology platform. 

 

SolarSub, an Edinburgh solar technology company developing passive cooling solutions for photovoltaic modules, has completed a £1.34 million funding round to accelerate the development and commercialisation of its technology.

The round was led by Sustainable Ventures, with participation from Zinc VC, Scottish Enterprise, Old College Capital – the University of Edinburgh’s venture investment fund, SFC Capital and the British Business Bank, alongside support from Innovate UK’s Investor Partnership programme.

Solar PV has a heat problem. As solar panels become hotter, they generate less electricity and degrade more quickly, reducing both energy output and lifetime value.

SolarSub is developing passive cooling technology designed to keep solar modules closer to their optimal operating temperature. Requiring no pumps or moving parts, the technology increases energy generation, reduces temperature-driven degradation and improves the long-term economics of solar projects.

Over the coming months, SolarSub, which was founded by two University of Edinburgh Engineering graduates, will undertake trials across multiple international locations as it works towards commercial-scale deployment.

Connect Ventures has announced the first close of its fifth fund at $55m as it increases its focus on founders with deep technical expertise building the next generation of European technology companies.

The final close target is $80m. The firm will lead pre-seed rounds across Europe, with cheque sizes ranging from $500k–$5m, investing at the intersection of AI, hardware and real-world automation.

The firm has invested in over 120 companies to date, leading the earliest rounds in category-defining technology companies including Aikido Security, a European outlier in AI cybersecurity; and TrueLayer, the leading Pay By Bank network.

The fund is anchored by British Business Bank, with significant participation from returning limited partners including Aldea Ventures, Sella Venture Partners and Molten Ventures, alongside new investors and a group of leading European family offices and several founders of Connect-backed companies.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Airtel Money, the mobile money arm of London-listed Airtel Africa, has confirmed its intention to float on the main market of the London Stock Exchange.

The firm will have an expected valuation of around $9 billion (£6.8bn) – below earlier expectations of up to $10bn – and see it raise around £600m.

The news is a boost for the UK capital markets after UK-based AI infrastructure firm Nscale chose to list in New York rather than London.

 

MAGIC AI, the business behind the MAGIC AI Mirror, has closed an £8 million Series B round to scale in the United States and capitalise on the surging AI fitness market.

The round is believed to be the largest funding round for an AI fitness company this year, and arrives as MAGIC AI is named the fourth fastest-growing hardware company by The Sunday Times. 

The business has posted 342% annual growth, supported by rapid expansion in the US with a community already spanning 18,000+ members across all 50 states. It takes total funding to $20m.

Open GI has appointed James Barnard as Group CEO to lead the organisation through its next phase of growth and transformation.

The specialist technology partner serves the general insurance industry across the UK and Ireland and has more than 600 customers.

Barnard will be responsible for building on Open GI’s established market position, industry expertise and longstanding customer relationships.

Having joined from Aviva where he was chief operations officer of Aviva General Insurance, he has held a range of senior technology and operations roles at Aviva as well as at Ardonagh.

A company behind carbon-storing technologies and products for the construction industry has secured a £4 million funding package to launch commercially.

Bristol-based Adaptavate has combined equity investment with major UK and European innovation funding, marking a significant milestone in the company’s evolution from technology development to commercial deployment.

The funding will accelerate Adaptavate’s commercial licensing strategy and international manufacturing partnerships, enabling the company to help existing wallboard manufacturers transition towards commercially competitive production of carbon-storing wallboard.

 

CSignum, a provider of wireless communications from beneath the surface of water, ice and ground, has completed a £2.6 million funding round to accelerate commercial deployment of its EM2 product portfolio across multiple markets and applications, including water quality monitoring.

The investment supports CSignum’s mission to become an indispensable enabler of AI in the physical world, extending reliable data communications to underwater and below ground environments that have historically been impossible to connect.

Archangels, PXN Ventures, Scottish Enterprise, British Business Bank and a group of US-based angel investors have provided additional investment, reflecting their continued confidence in CSignum’s technology and momentum in multiple markets.

Funding will be used to support commercial expansion and manufacturing scale-up. Since completing a £6m investment with the existing investor group in April 2025, CSignum has moved from pilot projects into volume deployments with multiple UK water utilities and international customers.

A new £140 million fund designed to support the growth of small and medium sized businesses in the East of England has been launched today by the British Business Bank.

The launch of the East of England Investment Fund means the British Business Bank is now delivering targeted finance across every UK nation and region outside London. 

Covering  Essex, Suffolk, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire , the fund will provide much-needed access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses, offering loans from £25,000 to £2 million and equity investments of up to £5m to help businesses start, scale and grow.