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.

A non-exec director at Inspiration Healthcare Group plc is to retire.

Liz Shanahan will retire from the board on 20th November 2025. The company does not intend to replace this position.

Inspiration is a global medical technology company pioneering neonatal intensive care medical devices.

Sale Sharks have announced a major multi-year partnership with CorpAcq, which will see the Salford Community Stadium renamed the CorpAcq Stadium from the start of the 2025/26 Gallagher Premiership Rugby season.

Founded in 2006, the Altrincham-based business compounder acquires and holds controlling stakes in established companies, helping them grow through long-term ownership and shared expertise.

Its portfolio spans more than 50 businesses across multiple industries, generating revenues of over £900 million, and it was recently acquired by private equity firm TDR Capital LLP.

The new deal will see the CorpAcq brand showcased prominently across the stadium, including the West Stand and the North Stand roof visible from the M60.

London-based BNVT Capital has launched its debut $150 million (£111m) fund to back AI-first and technology-driven companies tackling ‘humanity’s biggest challenges’.

The fund is grounded in a landmark study, Benevolent Disruption, co-authored with Harvard, MIT, Oxford and VenCap, which found that ventures addressing major global problems historically deliver 51% higher returns.

Founded by Rory Mounsey-Heysham, Chris Corbishley and Nasir Alsharif, and seeded by Sackville Capital, BNVT has already invested in 11 companies across Europe and the US, including Swap Commerce, Cloover and Dawnguard, alongside global investors such as TPG and Iconiq.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Subcontractors in the UK and Australia are preparing landmark class actions against their governments, claiming they were misled by protections that failed to safeguard payments when major contractors collapsed.

The actions are being brought with litigation funders and law firms after the 2024 collapse of ISG in the UK, which left over £1.1 billion in unpaid debts, and the 2021 collapse of Pindan in Western Australia.

These left subcontractors unpaid for completed work, despite assurances that Project Bank Accounts (PBAs) would provide protection.

In both cases, money intended for subcontractors was diverted into insolvency estates.

Louise Stewart, founder of construction FinTech ProjectPay, said: “Subcontractors were promised protection that simply did not exist. PBAs only protect money already in the account. They fail to stop subcontractor payments being captured by insolvency administrators. Small businesses, families and taxpayers have all been let down and misled.”

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Manchester startup zally is to move its headquarters to San Francisco after raising £2.8 million in a bridge round of funding as it prepares for a US raise.

The firm’s executive chairman David Webb and Web3 specialist Dan Hibell are among the angel investors backing the behavioural AI startup.

Founder Patrick Smith told BusinessCloud the round was oversubscribed by 40% and included figures from Manchester Angels as well as London.

Webb, who joined as chairman 18 months ago and became executive chairman three months ago, is the founder of 6point6 — acquired by Accenture in December 2023, the same month zally closed its £1.6m pre-seed raise.

New York-listed Amentum has announced plans to create 3,000 new jobs in the UK over the next four years, driven by growth in nuclear power and defence.

CEO John Heller, following meetings with President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, emphasised the importance of UK-US collaboration in energy resilience and national security.

The company is a key delivery partner for the UK’s nuclear power stations at Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C, and is advancing work on small modular reactors and fusion research.

It expects to increase its UK headcount by 50% while investing in digital engineering, AI and automation to strengthen critical infrastructure and defence programmes across both nations.