Bite-size news and insight from UK business and tech – including funding, deals and appointments
Published: February 5, 2026 at 4:49 pm
Award-winning podcast, We Built This City, has marked the milestone of reaching 100 episodes with a star-studded dinner in Manchester.
The honour of being the 100th guest on the podcast hosted by Lisa Morton went to Michael Ingall, founder and CEO of Allied London.
Ingall is the visionary behind some of Manchester’s most iconic neighbourhoods, including Spinningfields and St. John’s.
Morton, who founded PR agency Roland Dransfield in 1996, launched We Built This City in February 2020, just two weeks before the UK entered lockdown.
Notable podcast guests include Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester; Professor Erinma Bell, community activist; the late Sir Howard Bernstein; actor John Henshaw, DJ Paulette, Clint Boon, Sacha Lord, and Rowetta.
On Wednesday, Morton brought together 100 guests at the iconic Manchester Hall for a landmark celebration.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 4:17 pm
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined MediaLab, owner of image sharing and hosting platform Imgur, £247,590 for failing to use children’s personal information lawfully.
The penalty follows an investigation that found MediaLab allowed children to use Imgur without putting in place the basic safeguards required under UK data protection law.
The ICO concluded MediaLab breached the law by:
John Edwards, UK Information Commissioner, said: “MediaLab failed in its legal duties to protect children, putting them at unnecessary risk.
“For years, it allowed children to use Imgur without any effective age checks, while collecting and processing their data, which in turn exposed them to harmful and inappropriate content.”
Published: February 5, 2026 at 4:09 pm
Dragons’ Den star Peter Jones has bought the UK and Ireland’s leading specialist golf retailer, American Golf, from private equity firm Endless.
The 59-year-old serial entrepreneur is a keen golfer and said his latest purchase was ‘especially meaningful’.
Nigel Oddy, CEO of American Golf, said: “Joining forces with Peter Jones and his investment group marks an exciting new chapter for American Golf.”
Endless acquired Warrington-based American Golf in 2018, following an accelerated sale process completed in only two weeks.
Alvarez & Marsal acted as the lead financial advisor to Endless on the sale.
Jonathan Boyers, head of corporate finance for EMEA at Alvarez & Marsal: said: “American Golf is the UK and Ireland’s leading specialist golf retailer, with an annual turnover of £135m.
“It was acquired by Endless in 2018 and currently employs more than 1,000 people across its omnichannel operation, which consists of more than 80 bricks-and-mortar stores in the UK and Ireland alongside its online offering.
“I first started working with American Golf years ago and so it really is pleasing for my team at Alvarez & Marsal corporate finance to help achieve this excellent outcome for the business and its shareholders.”
Published: February 5, 2026 at 3:20 pm
The founder of photo-printing app Mosaic Journal has revealed the explosive impact this appearance on Dragons’ Den has had on the startup.
Last week viewers saw Murad Huseynov walk away with an investment offer of £70,000 from Steven Bartlett for a 15 per cent stake in the business.
Now the 30-year-old has told BusinessCloud about the full extent his TV appearance has had on Mosaic Journal.
Highlights include:
Huseynov is still the only full-time employee in the business, which is on track to hit £2.5m revenue this year and has active users in 21 countries.
He launched Mosaic Journal after becoming disillusioned with mainstream social platforms to create a digital and physical space designed to preserve memories in a tangible form.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 3:17 pm
Entrepreneur Paul Simkiss has warned that other SMEs will follow his lead in selling their business because of Rachel Reeves’ changes to inheritance tax.
Earlier this week it was revealed that United Infrastructure had acquired Rochdale-based Simkiss Group for an undisclosed sum.
Simkiss Group consists of Simkiss Control Systems, which was founded in 1999, and Instrument Control Services (ICS), which was acquired in 2025.
The leading engineering solutions provider works across multiple sectors, including energy, utilities and infrastructure and has a combined turnover of £20.5m and employs 152 staff.
Simkiss Control Systems designs and builds bespoke electrical control systems for a range of blue-chip clients, including Amazon, Network Rail and Siemens.
Although he welcomed the acquisition by United Infrastructure, Paul Simkiss said Labour’s changes to inheritance tax rules had been the ‘final straw’.
He asked: “Why is Rachel Reeves decimating SMEs in the country when they employ the vast majority of people in the UK?
“It’s frightening. Other SMEs will have to follow suit. Within a generation, SMEs are going to be eradicated because they’re not going to be able to continue.”
Published: February 5, 2026 at 2:50 pm
Two Manchester-based tech workers are celebrating the first year of a coffee side hustle that has grown from a Kickstarter experiment into a fast-growing national subscription business.
Vex Coffee was founded by Ross Jamieson and John Bradshaw, who both work full-time in the tech sector and began building the company in evenings and weekends after launching a Kickstarter campaign in late 2024.
The idea was born during a drive back to Manchester from Wales, when the pair began discussing how difficult it was for people outside major cities to discover high-quality speciality coffee without specialist knowledge, expensive equipment or access to independent cafés.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 2:42 pm
Lawhive, a LegalTech company transforming how consumer legal services are delivered, has raised £44 million in Series B funding to accelerate its expansion across the US.
Lawhive, live in 35 states and targeting a presence in all 50, plans to scale its model of building the world’s first ‘AI-native consumer law firm’.
In addition to Lawhive’s Austin office, a New York office is being opened to support this next stage of US growth.
The round was led by Mitch Rales, co-founder of Danaher Corporation, with participation from TQ Ventures, GV (Google Ventures), Balderton Capital, Jigsaw, Anton Levy and LTS.
The investment comes within a year of Lawhive’s $40m Series A, which included England footballers. In 2024 it raised £9.5m seed funding. Annual revenue now exceeds $35m, having grown sevenfold in the past year.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 2:25 pm
Maven Capital Partners has strengthened its investment team in the East Midlands with the appointment of Sabrina Mahmood as Investment Manager.
Mahmood will lead on deal origination and execution for MEIF II Debt Finance East and South East Midlands, part of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund II delivered by the British Business Bank.
She joined Maven’s Nottingham office at the end of 2025 and is responsible for sourcing and delivering MEIF II debt investments across the region, as well as managing a growing portfolio of companies.
Bringing over a decade of experience in Corporate and Commercial Banking, prior to joining Maven, Mahmood spent 11 years at Santander where she focused on new business origination, supporting regional companies with international expansion, and managing SME client portfolios.
She will also play a key role in Maven’s Female Founder Funding Programme, supporting women-led businesses in accessing growth finance.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 1:40 pm
Foresight Group, an investment manager in real assets and capital for growth, has announced a growth capital investment into AsiaVerify.
AsiaVerify is an intelligence RegTech platform founded in 2019 that draws on official sources across 14 Asian jurisdictions, providing users with real-time insights into 447 million companies, including ownership structures, ownership, risk indicators and compliance status – all through a single interface.
As global supply chains, investment flows, and corporate partnerships continue to deepen across Asia, organisations are facing growing pressure to understand who they do business with and how risk evolves over time. Increasing regulatory scrutiny around ownership transparency, sanctions, and ongoing monitoring has exposed significant gaps in traditional data sources.
These dynamics are driving strong and sustained demand for trusted, compliant, and real-time Asian corporate intelligence to support better risk management and decision-making.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 1:21 pm
Bound, an automated FX risk management platform helping businesses protect themselves from currency volatility, has announced a $24.5 million Series A funding round led by AlbionVC, with participation from Notion Capital and GoHub Ventures, and continued support from existing investors.
Founded in 2021 by CEO Seth Phillips and CTO Dan Kindler, and headquartered in London, Bound helps businesses protect themselves from unwanted currency risk through automated FX hedging.
The platform allows finance teams to set up simple, best-practice hedging strategies that run continuously in the background, automatically managing exposure to market volatility without the need for manual intervention or specialist trading expertise.
Bound will use the funding round to pursue regulatory authorisation in the European Union, as the company targets expansion in Europe, building on the nearly $2 billion it traded in 2025. The funding will also be used to drive product innovation for its perpetual FX hedging solutions.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 12:59 pm
Sidekick, a wealth platform built for professionals whose finances are becoming more complex as their incomes and assets grow, has raised £7.8m in Series A funding. The funding will be used to scale its investing products and make sophisticated investment tools more accessible outside traditional private banking.
The round is led by Eos Ventures and the Development Bank of Wales, with participation from Koro Capital and existing investors Seedcamp, MS&AD Ventures, TheVentureCity, PactVC, Blackwood, 1818 Venture Capital and Semantic Ventures.
Sidekick was founded in 2022 to modernise wealth management for professionals whose financial needs have outgrown entry-level investing apps.
Unlike most digital wealth platforms, which focus on entry-level investing or simple portfolios, Sidekick is built for people whose finances have become more complex. The platform brings together long-term investing, personalised portfolios, private markets and Lombard lending – a form of borrowing against an investment portfolio that allows customers to access liquidity without selling assets. This type of lending has traditionally only been available through private banks in the UK.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 12:53 pm
UK software engineering specialist Ultamation has hired Manchester digital agency Pixel Kicks to create a new digital platform to support its next stage of growth.
Ultamation builds tools and software used to run smart homes and commercial buildings, working with manufacturers, installers and end clients on high-end audio-visual and automation projects. The appointment forms part of a wider investment in digital infrastructure as the business accelerates its shift towards a software-services-led commercial model.
The four-month project will see Pixel Kicks, now operating under PushON Commerce, design and build a bespoke WordPress and WooCommerce website that brings together Ultamation’s existing brochure site, B2B eCommerce store and technical support content in one place.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 12:35 pm
Tandem Bank has announced the promotion of Ryan Heaps to Chief Financial Officer following regulatory approval as it continues to accelerate value-led growth.
Since joining Tandem, CEO Neil Chandler has prioritised building a leadership team fit for the bank’s next phase of growth. This includes the appointment of Ryan as CFO, the recent arrival of Russell Strevens as Chief Technology Officer – subject to regulatory approval, in addition to David Shrimpton Davis as new Managing Director of Motor Finance.
Ryan, a chartered accountant with over 15 years’ experience in senior finance roles, joined Tandem in 2022 as part of the Oplo acquisition, where he had served as Head of Finance since 2018. Since joining Tandem, he has been instrumental in shaping the bank’s strategic direction. The appointment is a testament to Tandem’s focus on nurturing internal talent and its investment in developing a strong pipeline of future leaders from within the bank.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 12:17 pm
ClearBank, an enabler of real-time clearing and embedded banking, has appointed Neil Drennan as CTO.
Drennan will lead the evolution and enhancement of ClearBank’s cloud-based API and payments infrastructure as it continues to expand its services across the UK and Europe.
Drennan joins the company from Visa, where he has spent three years as CTO for Visa Cross Border Solutions and Currency Cloud, the global cross-border payments, collections and FX provider. He brings over 15 years of experience across the media and financial services industry, including roles at 10x Future Technologies and Amazon.
He will lead ClearBank’s technology team and sit on the Group executive team as the company looks to accelerate its expansion into new markets.
Last year, ClearBank announced the launch of its channel partnerships offer and embedded banking services for corporate customers, enabling it to expand its services and attract new customers.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 10:36 am
Migrating to a new platform is one of the most important decisions a retail business can make, yet one of the easiest to postpone.
The risks are clear. This process can be costly, disruptive, and time-consuming.
Choosing the wrong platform or implementing it poorly can set a business back months and, in the worst case, undermine customer trust and revenue.
So what are the typical challenges businesses face during migration? And how can they avoid them?
Published: February 5, 2026 at 10:22 am
AppFactor has raised £3 million in seed funding to scale an AI-augmented platform which automates the maintenance and optimisation of enterprise software.
The round was led by Tensor Ventures, with participation from Begin Capital, Adara Ventures, and Narwhal Investments.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 10:04 am
Taxnova has raised £730,000 pre-seed funding to facilitate R&D tax credit applications through AI.
The funding is from a16z speedrun, s16vc, Karaoke Club and 20 angels based within tech companies.
The company connects directly to the tools engineers already use – including GitHub, Jira, Linear, Slack and Notion – to automatically extract evidence of qualifying R&D work.
It has also entered the a16z speedrun accelerator programme.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 9:54 am
Oxford AI startup Decima2 has raised £480,000 in pre-seed funding to eliminate wasted marketing spend for small and medium-sized businesses.
The female-founded startup said the round includes £335,000 in equity investment and £125,000 in equity-free grant support. Investors include Haatch and Y Combinator partner Nicolas Dessaigne.
Decima2 uses causal modelling and generative AI to help businesses understand what genuinely drives growth across paid marketing channels.
The platform continually optimises Google Ads and high-converting landing pages, giving smaller teams access to analytical capabilities traditionally reserved for large enterprises.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 9:40 am
Employee recognition, reward and benefits platform Rippl tripled its rate of new customer acquisition in the six months following the appointment of Will Roberts as CEO last spring.
This restructure and strategy refresh have also led to a second round of investment from Stonehage Fleming.
Roberts, who previously scaled digital rewards software Loyalty Bay and train ticket upgrade platform Seatfrog, is now focused on supporting organisations looking to engage and reward their deskless or decentralised teams, such as Betfred, DP World and Dyno-Rod.
This deskless demographic makes up 80% of the global workforce, and accounts for an estimated 2.7 billion employees, many of whom are neglected by traditional HR tools reliant on corporate email access.
Published: February 5, 2026 at 9:18 am
Vypr has appointed Gary Bennion as its chief product officer.
The Manchester-based technology business is investing in its product intelligence platform and strengthening its offering for UK and international customers as it welcomes the co-founder of CloudM, a cloud migration and security platform used by companies including Netflix, Spotify, Uber and Booking.com.
Bennion later joined employee experience platform Haiilo to shape product strategy within a high-growth environment serving customers such as Google, Salesforce and E.ON.
He will build on last year’s launch of Vypr Predict, a self-serve research platform designed with AI to help global consumer brands, retailers and manufacturers make faster, smarter product decisions.
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