Author: Jonathan Symcox

A leading firm in the Wales tech scene has entered liquidation.

Amplyfi is an AI-powered market intelligence platform which was backed with more than £7 million investment from Cardiff Capital Region’s flagship fund Innovation Investment Capital and the Development Bank of Wales. 

It delivered insights to businesses by connecting structured and unstructured data at scale to uncover previously hidden links, trends and opportunities – summarising huge volumes of data sourced from millions of documents a day including company websites, news, RSS feeds and scientific papers.

Advancements in generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT have impacted its business and forced the board into a creditors voluntary liquidation. Bethan Evans and John Cullen of insolvency practice Menzies have been appointed joint liquidators.

CEO Paul Teather has ‘ended’ his tenure with a dateline of April 2026 on his LinkedIn profile. Formerly on the board as an investor, he took over the CEO role in 2023.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Aurrigo International plc is to triple the size of its headquarters with a move to Power Park in Coventry.

The self-driving technology leader, which recently announced a £6 million contract with Ultra Global for 25 autonomous guided vehicles, said it would install a test track at the 130,615 square feet site.

It will serve as its UK hub for advanced engineering, autonomous vehicle development, high-volume manufacturing and ongoing automotive activities. 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Andrew Higginson is to step down as chair of JD Sports Fashion Plc in a shock move.

He joined Britain’s biggest listed sporting goods group in 2022 and transformed its corporate governance. 

Together with his chief executive hire Regis Schultz, the firm expanded overseas and sold off non-core brands. It says that 40% of its business is now in North America.

Identity specialist GBG said trading was solid in the last financial year.

 

For the year ended 31st March 2026, expected revenue of £285 million represents 3.2% year-on-year growth on a constant currency basis.

FY26 adjusted operating profit will be approximately £67.5m (FY25: £67m).

GBG announced a £175 million refinancing deal last month.

TPXimpact Holdings PLC, a digital transformation partner to the UK public services sector, has reported strong results and hailed the completion of a three-year turnaround.

The AIM-listed firm said for the financial year ended 31st March 2026 it expects to comfortably exceed the recently upgraded consensus across all key financial metrics.

Revenue is expected to be around £78.1m (FY25: £77.3m), representing 1% year-on-year growth and ahead of market consensus of £76.2m.

Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be c.£8.6m (FY25: £5.6m) a 54% year-on-year increase.

“The group’s performance in FY26 marks the successful conclusion of its three-year strategic turnaround. Having met or exceeded all key financial and operational targets, the group has established a profitable, cash-generative platform with a significantly healthier balance sheet,” it stated.

“TPXimpact is now entering its new three-year strategic phase focused on sustainable growth, supported by new business wins of £122m and the recent appointment of Emma Broom as chief growth officer. “

Time To ACT plc, a group focused on technology for the energy transition supply chain, says Gary Wallace has resigned and will step down from the board and his role as CFO on 17^th July 2026.  

It said he leaves on good terms and will remain in the business during this period to ensure an orderly transition of responsibilities.

Eight new firms, including Barclays, Experian, Lloyds Banking Group (Scottish Widows), and UBS, have been chosen by the Financial Conduct Authority to live test AI applications to support safe and responsible deployment.

The FCA is working with its technical partner Advai, a London-based specialist in automated AI assurance, to provide AI Live Testing. This initiative helps successful applicants explore key questions around risk management and live monitoring to support the responsible deployment of AI for consumers and markets.

Applications reflect the fast-evolving nature of the technology, with a diverse range of AI models underpinning use cases – from agentic AI and small language models to emerging solutions such as neurosymbolic AI. Firms in the second group are testing both customer-facing and business‑to‑business use cases, including AI-enabled targeted support for investments, credit score insights for consumers, agentic payments, anti-money laundering detection, and Know Your Customer.

The FCA will also publish a good and poor practice report for AI in financial services later in 2026 to support firms in the safe and responsible adoption of the developing technology.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

A former boss of Costa Express has raised £2 million for automated drinks retail platform Unity Coffee.

Founder Scott Martin previously co-founded Coffee Nation, which grew to a network of more than 900 self-service machines. Acquired in 2011 for £59.5 million by Whitbread, these were immediately rebranded as Costa Express.

Martin effectively introduced the first premium self-serve espresso solution to the UK, bringing real coffee and fresh milk to consumers at a time when instant coffee dominated the on-the-go market. It subsequently became a cornerstone of Coca-Cola’s acquisition of Costa Coffee.

Unity is expanding into a market that is rapidly changing how people buy food and drink on the move. It is building an automated retail platform, pairing premium beverages with connected hardware, app-based ordering and payments, and real-time loyalty. 

The funding will be used to roll out 500+ state-of-the-art machines across the next 12 months, scaling its app-first coffee stations into high-footfall venues including gyms, hotels and flexible workspaces, and forecourts.

Audoo, a music technology company redefining public performance royalty distributions, has announced a partnership with Sabam, the Belgian association for authors, composers and publishers.

The partnership will deliver a new approach to DJ reporting powered by the Audio Meter technology from Audoo, which topped our MediaTech 50 ranking last year.

Audoo’s scalable Audio Meter solution captures exactly what is played in real time across live environments – moving away from more complex technology solutions and manual and sample-based reporting. 

The result is more accurate data at scale, enabling royalty distributions based on actual usage. It also increases transparency and supports fairer remuneration for authors, composers and publishers. 

Audoo’s solution is designed for modern venues, including multi-room and multi-zone environments where multiple DJs may be performing simultaneously. Its technology captures music across all areas in parallel, delivering a complete and representative view of what is being played. 

The technology has already been deployed in several live environments in Belgium, where it successfully captured music across complex, multi-stage setups.

Shares in Manchester-headquartered online retailer THG have risen today after it reported revenue growth of 7% in the first quarter of 2026 – the highest Q1 figure for five years.

THG shares are currently trading just below 40 pence, up 3% in today, after rising 7% in early trading.

Building on the momentum of a strong end to 2025, the company’s group revenue was £393.1m, while Myprotein, the world’s largest online sports nutrition brand, saw its revenues rise by 8.8% to £159.8m.

THG also delivered its strongest Q1 cash flow performance in three years and has reiterated full-year guidance for FY 2026.

THG shares are down 14% in the year to date but 37% up last 12 months.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Shares in Trustpilot Group plc rose today after it announced an addition to its board.

John-Paul Savant, who is stepping down as CEO of listed Auction Technology Group after a decade in the role, will become a non-executive director from May.

Before ATG, Savant built 20 years of experience in digital marketplaces and commerce.

He spent almost 10 years at eBay/PayPal, serving in a number of leadership roles, latterly as PayPal’s vice president of product, experience and consumer engagement for EMEA.

He then held the role of CEO of Think Finance UK.

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

AI video platform for business Synthesia has revealed global expansion plans after it saw enterprise contracts triple.

The London-headquartered business will open new bases in Austin and Berlin, alongside an expanded presence in Paris and Zurich.

The company has tripled its contracts over $100,000 in the last 12 months and says it has a net revenue retention rate of more than 140%. The expansion follows Synthesia’s $200 million Series E raise at a $4 billion valuation in January 2026.

Founded in 2017, Synthesia is expanding its global footprint to support growing demand from enterprise customers. The company is scaling its teams across go-to-market and customer success functions, with plans to increase global headcount by more than 70% in 2026.

Newcastle-based finance startup CO4CH has launched a free Finance 4 Founders (F4F) community, which provides structured financial support to founders at each stage of their business journey.

The community brings together peer support, practical financial insight and pathway programmes designed to help early-stage entrepreneurs become investment-ready.

The launch will effectively introduce Cohort 1 of the Fund programme, featuring live sessions that take members through a structured curriculum focused on the process of raising capital.

Participants will develop the skills needed to raise external funding by building financial models, understanding the investor landscape, and preparing for due diligence.

Delivered on a cohort basis three times per year, the Fund programme forms a core part of CO4CH’s signature Start | Fund | Scale system. 

 

Manchester FinTech Firenze has raised £6m a year after its £2.5m seed round.

The firm aiming to redefine Lombard lending said the round was led by AlbionVC, with follow-on participation from all major existing investors, including Outward VC and Form Ventures.

Firenze, launched in January 2024 by co-founders David Newman and Anna Curtis, is an embedded finance platform allowing wealth managers to offer loans from as little as £65,000 secured against clients’ investment portfolios.

Because borrowing is secured lending with highly liquid collateral, Lombard lending offers lower interest rates compared to typical unsecured loans and allows decisions to be made in hours rather than weeks or months.

These so-called Lombard loans have typically only been available to clients of private banks who have, as a minimum, £1m of investments.

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

YFM Equity Partners has led a £3 million investment round into talent tech innovator inploi.

The London startup, founded by Matthew de la Hey and Alex Hanson-Smith in 2016 to serve the recruitment needs of the hospitality and leisure sector through a marketplace, was forced to pivot hard to enterprise SaaS when COVID wiped out its customer base and pipeline. 

With customers including Compass Group, wagamama, Gail’s and NHS trusts, inploi has facilitated millions of applications across over 70,000 vacancies since that pivot.

Daintta, professional services firm delivering technology into secure environments, has secured a significant investment from private equity investor LDC.

Founded in 2019 and headquartered in London with an office in Cheltenham, Daintta provides technical and business professional services, helping clients to design, secure and protect their data and technology systems. It delivers high-complexity technology projects across data intelligence, cyber security, networks and communications and AI engineering.

Daintta has built a team of more than 80 highly skilled consultants and engineers, establishing itself as a trusted partner to both public and private sector clients including central government departments and companies in the healthcare and telecommunications sectors. The business works in complex environments and uses innovative methods to solve the hardest data challenges to help organisations make more informed and accurate decisions.

Daintta has grown rapidly in recent years, driven by increasing demand for its market-leading services. It was featured in The FT1000: Europe’s Fastest-Growing Companies ranking in both 2025 and 2026.

LDC is backing Daintta’s management team, led by co-founders Justin Teutsch, Abu Sayed and M Alexander.

FinTech platform Arrival, which consolidates utility payments for the property sector, has secured £500,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by Fuel Ventures.

The investment is designed to scale B2B partnerships and combat the over £900 million annual cost of rent arrears for UK landlords.

Arrival is addressing a clear and costly inefficiency in the private rental sector by offering a solution that provides ‘clear, tangible value to both tenants and property operators’.

For B2B operators, the platform saves an average of 90 minutes per property on utility management and provides the cheapest managed rent collection product, which is up to 4x more cost-effective than alternatives.

The company is targeting 1 million units under management by year-end, with a strategic focus on the rapidly growing Build to Rent sector.

IW Capital has led a £7m investment into Alesi Surgical, a Cardiff-based surgical technology company tackling one of operating theatres’ most overlooked hazards.

Surgical smoke is produced in around 90% of all procedures globally but existing methods of clearing it are cumbersome, distracting and even harmful to the patient. While 95% is water vapour, the remaining 5% can contain harmful bacteria and chemicals, posing both infection and long-term toxicity risks for theatre staff.

Alesi’s Ultravision platform removes smoke 225x faster than competing technologies and has already been used in over 50,000 procedures worldwide.

This matters because regulation is shifting fast, particularly in the US, where 20 states have now mandated smoke management and the standard of care is moving toward smoke-free theatres worldwide.

Automotive Insights, a Manchester-based data and tech company which specialises in the automotive industry, has appointed Andy Barratt as chairman of its advisory board.

Barratt is a seasoned industry leader, having held senior positions at Ford Motor Company (UK and Ireland), Toyota, Lexus and emerging Chinese brands.

Automotive Insights surveys more than 1,000 UK motorists every month.

 

Finova, a provider of cloud-based mortgage, savings and lending software, has opened a new Manchester office which will see the creation of 50 jobs.

Over half of these positions have already been filled, with active recruitment underway to complete hiring over the coming months.

The move sees Finova challenge the common narrative around AI and employment, proving that AI can create jobs within a growing technology business as adoption of AI in financial services continues to expand.

The new hub at x+why, 100 Embankment Manchester will comprise developers and engineers focused on advancing Finova’s lending, broker and servicing platforms, alongside a commitment to apprenticeships to help develop the next generation of UK fintech talent.

The expansion follows sustained growth across Finova’s business, driven by continued demand from UK lenders and brokers and ongoing investment in its AI-enabled platform. The company serves over 60 financial institutions, manages nearly £50bn in loans and savings, and powers one in five UK mortgages.