Newcastle-based FinTech Noggin HQ has launched its alternative credit scoring technology to UK lenders after raising £2.3 million in an oversubscribed seed round. 

The raise comes as the business successfully obtains its credit referencing authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority, meaning it can now provide its cashflow-based credit data to FCA-authorised lenders. 

This latest round of funding was led by Blackfinch Ventures, with continued participation from Oxford Capital and Bethnal Green Ventures and several domain-specific angel investors, including Alastair Douglas, former CEO of TotallyMoney.  

The firm previously raised £710,000 in pre-seed funding, led by Oxford Capital with support from Bethnal Green Ventures and other investors. 

Childhood friends Evangeline Atkinson and Laura Mills founded the company after they were declined for credit despite being in full-time work and paying rent and bills. 

The experience highlighted how people with thin credit files, limited borrowing histories or time spent living abroad can appear risky, even when their banking data shows they can afford to repay.

Y1 Group, a British sports and custom apparel company that rose to fame following its appearance on BBC show Dragons’ Den, has acquired university clothing specialist Redbird Apparel in a seven-figure deal.

The acquisition brings together two founder-led businesses that each began with just a few thousand pounds from their student loans. They have been built without venture capital investment and now form a combined business generating more than £7.5 million in annual revenue.

It also creates one of the UK’s leading providers of premium branded apparel by combining Y1’s expertise in bespoke sportswear, teamwear and custom merchandise with Redbird’s fashion-led university clothing, rapid-turnaround collections and eCommerce platform.

 

Assetz Capital, the specialist in property lending, has appointed Callum Thompson and Vincent Ricks as Business Development Managers, deepening its on-the-ground capability across the North West and reinforcing its commitment to SME housebuilders and brokers across the region.

Thompson joins from Together where he spent the last two years as a development underwriter, he brings expertise from across the SME market, with a deep understanding of the pain points and opportunities for developers across the UK market.

Vincent brings over 15 years’ experience working across business development within the property and mortgage sectors, having spent this time working with developers and brokers across the market to support development activity and SME developers.

These latest appointments follow two further additions to Assetz’s business development team in June. This includes Georgia Peach and Joe Reynolds, who joined as business development managers in the North West and London teams respectively.

Seismic has completed its merger with Highspot.

Operating under the Seismic name and led by Seismic CEO Rob Tarkoff, the combined company measures how effectively companies turn strategy into revenue. Post-merger, Seismic now enables 2,500 customers and 3.5 million users worldwide to excel in revenue execution.

It serves the world’s largest and most respected brands that operate on a global scale in all major industries, including Allianz Trade, Expedia Group, IBM, Invesco, Oracle, Royal London Asset Management, Thomson Reuters and Uber.

Nominations are now open for the everywoman in Technology Awards, the longest-running programme celebrating the tech industry’s most exceptional female talent. Women have until 26th October to submit their entries for this year’s programme, which is free to enter. 

Now in its 17th year, these prestigious awards represent women at every stage of their careers, from apprentices to the C-Suite, shining a light on their achievements so they can be valuable role models to inspire the next generation and help to attract more women to the sector. 

Solihull-based FLAGS Software has been sold to US-headquartered Recur Software.

Founded in 1989, FLAGS is a specialist provider of quality management and production control software used within complex manufacturing environments across the automotive, aerospace, rail and marine sectors.

Its technology captures quality and production data at the point of build, supporting manufacturers with product traceability, earlier identification of quality issues and reduced rework. 

FLAGS software has been deployed within manufacturing environments operated by companies including Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley Motors, Aston Martin and Harley-Davidson.

 

Specialist military vehicle manufacturer North Defence has invested in two significant hires as the £25m firm prepares to announce its next wave of innovation.

With vast autonomous technology expertise, Greg Homewood has joined as chief engineer. An accomplished defence sector designer with 15 years’ industry experience, he most recently led a robotics team on UGV projects for a major prime contractor.

Operating from North Defence’s West Yorkshire facilities, he will play a critical role in the development and deployment of next-generation technology for the modern battlefield.

Known for innovation with empathy – and with strong military DNA running throughout the existing team – North Defence has also welcomed esteemed British Army veteran Russell Bailey, as chief defence liaison officer.

Russell joined the army as a private soldier in 1989 and, having moved up through the ranks, commissioned to officer in 2013. Assigned to multiple missions including Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, he retired as major earlier this summer, as second in command of Old College at the Royal Army Military Academy Sandhurst.

Core to his new role is continued dialogue with the stakeholders North Defence is here to serve, especially on the front-line. Russell will also drive deeper collaboration between the firm’s UK manufacturing hubs and Luxembourg centre of innovation excellence, where he will work closely with Ana Vale Lopez who already heads up that operation.

Completing the people announcements, Oscar North – son of founder Oliver – has graduated as a production engineer, having begun his apprenticeship with the group two years ago.

Online examination platform Synap has released Synoptic—an exam proctoring solution that’s designed for transparent security, fair monitoring and equitable exam access.

The launch comes at a critical time, reinforcing recent calls from Ofqual Chief Regulator Ian Bauckham for exam boards to clamp down on cheating.

As AI tools become more sophisticated and online exam providers face growing scrutiny over the integrity of online assessments, organisations and institutions alike need better evidence, not heavier surveillance.

Synoptic has been built on years of Synap’s experience working with educational institutions, training providers and enterprise users, where they have successfully delivered proctored exams across extremely diverse environments, ranging from stable, high-bandwidth settings to regions with limited power and network availability. Synoptic aims to replace blanket surveillance with configurable proctoring features and clear audit trails to maintain academic integrity in digital settings.

Dr James Gupta, CEO of Synap – star of our EdTech 50 ranking – explained why this transparent proctoring is essential for scaling secure online exams.

“While online exams have expanded rapidly in recent years, third-party proctoring tools have faced growing criticism for intrusive candidate monitoring, inconsistent flagging and data compliance concerns,” he said.

“At the same time, as online exams became more pervasive across sectors, tools like generative AI and wearable tech have also made cheating much harder to detect and prove. The conversation shouldn’t be whether online exams can be trusted. It should be whether institutions are using technology that deserves to be trusted.

“We wanted to offer a more seamless exam experience, so we created Synoptic to embed proctoring directly into the exam lifecycle.”

 

Peter Cox has been appointed non-executive chairman and has acquired a substantial shareholding in Prepay Services Ltd, a recently incorporated FinTech.

Cox brings more than 40 years of success and experience in payments and financial technology. He launched ClubCard with Tesco and assisted in the creation of Nectar under ID Data, then founded Contis in 2008 and developed the company into one of Europe’s leading Banking-as-a-Service and payments platforms. Contis was acquired for a significant sum by Solarisbank in 2021.

Since then he has been a serial investor in a number of regulated financial services companies including Capitalise.com and driven their move to profitability and market dominance.

His appointment reinforces Prepay Services’ commitment to strong governance, responsible innovation, regulatory compliance and the highest standards of customer protection as the business expands across Southern Africa and the wider African market.

inploi, the fast-growing talent technology platform helping employers hire at scale, today announces that it has secured £3m funding in a round led by YFM Equity Partners, alongside support from existing investors.

Following a 2021 pivot to enterprise SaaS, to address growing inefficiencies and poor engagement in high-volume recruitment, inploi’s platform works alongside existing applicant tracking systems to streamline candidate journeys, reduce drop-off and enable faster, more effective hiring decisions.

The investment will support the company’s next phase of commercial and product growth, including building out sales and marketing capabilities, expanding the team, and accelerating development of Talent Agents – a new suite of AI-driven hiring assistants designed to automate sourcing, screening, scheduling and candidate communications.

To date, inploi’s white-labelled technology has supported millions of job applications across more than 70,000 vacancies, with customers spanning sectors including hospitality, leisure, healthcare, construction, government, and retail. Organisations such as Compass Group, Wagamama, Gail’s, PureGym and multiple NHS trusts use the platform to simplify hiring processes and improve engagement with applicants.

Since launching its platform, the company has signed more than 30 enterprise customers and recently expanded into the US market, reflecting strong demand from employers managing rising application volumes while under pressure to improve candidate experience.

Money management FinTech Snoop has launched Future You, a personalised feature that shows customers what their existing saving habits could add up to over time and how small changes could make a meaningful difference to their future finances.

The launch comes as around 14 million people in the UK have less than £100 in savings to fall back on in an emergency, highlighting the importance of helping people build and maintain saving habits.

The feature is designed to address one of the biggest barriers to saving: the benefit of putting money aside today can feel distant, abstract and difficult to visualise. It combines a personalised future balance, based on the customer’s current saving rules; flexible scenarios, allowing customers to change deposits, round-ups and timeframes; a clear comparison, showing the potential additional value of changing their saving behaviour; and immediate action, enabling customers to apply their revised auto saver rules straight away.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

A listed Sheffield tech firm has rung the changes on its board amid falling revenue and profits.

Synectics plc helps to protect people, property, communities and assets around the world. Its target sectors include gaming, oil and gas, public space, transport and critical infrastructure.

For the six months ended 31st May 2026, it reported revenue of £22.2 million (H1 2025: £35.5m) and adjusted EBITDA of £1m (H1 2025: £4.2m).

Amanda Larnder, who took over as CEO of Synectics in late 2024 following the death of long-time leader Paul Webb, said the firm was on track with its transformation plan, announced earlier this year, which focused on Product, Partner-led, Market Presence, Productivity, and People.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Nourish Care, a provider of software for the UK social and community care sector, has secured a strategic growth investment from private equity investor Hg.

Nuno Almeida, founder of the Bournemouth-based business, will continue to lead Nourish as CEO and remains a significant shareholder. 

Livingbridge, which has backed the company since 2022, will retain a minority stake.

The terms of the transaction are not disclosed. However HgCapital Trust plc, which is managed by Hg, said it had invested approximately £20 million in Nourish, with other institutional clients of Hg investing alongside it through the Hg Mercury Fund.

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Pulsar Group Plc has been hit with a winding-up petition from UK tax collection body HMRC.

The AIM-listed firm is behind ResponseSource, a matchmaking tool used by journalists and PR professionals, which it acquired in 2018. ResponseSource was named in a separate winding-up petition, according to CityAM.

It also operates Pulsar, an audience insights and social listening platform; Vuelio, which provides monitoring, insight, engagement and evaluation tools to more than 3,500 organisations; and Isentia, a media monitoring and insights company operating in the APAC region which is headquartered in Sydney.

Pulsar – led by CEO Joanna Arnold – told the London Stock Exchange this morning that it expects to meet outstanding VAT and PAYE obligations in due course.

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Frasers Group has taken down the Harvey Nichols website after acquiring it out of administration.

Mike Ashley’s retail group said it would not honour orders placed or gift cards bought prior to 13th August 2026, instead pointing customers towards administrators FTI Consulting.

Harvey Nichols is one of the UK’s most recognised luxury retailers, with a heritage spanning almost 200 years and a portfolio of more than 800 premium and luxury brands.

The acquisition – announced last week – includes Harvey Nichols’ portfolio of six stores, including the newly refurbished flagship in Knightsbridge, London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds and Edinburgh, together with its online business, existing inventory and over 1,000 employees.

However today the Harvey Nichols website has been taken down, with a holding page stating: “We are pleased to confirm that Harvey Nichols has entered an exciting new chapter with new ownership, supporting its future, under the Frasers Group.

“Harvey Nichols is currently unavailable online whilst we complete a period of transition.

“In the meantime, our stores remain open, and our teams are on hand to assist with anything you may need.

“Thank you for your continued support.”

It added underneath: “Orders placed and gift cards purchased prior to 13 August 2026 fall under the ownership structure preceding this transition. Refunds relating to these orders cannot be processed by Harvey Nichols directly; customers with an outstanding refund from this period are asked to contact, HNCustomers@fticonsulting.com.

“Orders placed from 13 August 2026 onwards will be processed under our standard refunds and returns policy.”

Singular Machines, a UK engineering automation company, has been spun out of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).

A strategic investment round from the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund (managed by Future Planet Capital), Oxford Science Enterprises, global engineering firm Arup and Japan’s Miraisozo Investments – alongside a fresh contract with Arup to use its coEngen platform – has been announced.

Fusion energy requires the efficient execution of complex, high-assurance engineering. Singular Machines applies that discipline beyond fusion, to engineering automation across wider industry.

GALLOS Technologies, a security, defence and resilience technology venture studio and investor, has announced a £35 million balance sheet investment round.

The round was led by Ventura Capital and Aberdeen Investments and will fund the next phase of growth at GALLOS. Founding investor Lansdowne Partners also participated in the financing, and the round remains open to a small number of additional strategic investors.

The raise comes at a moment of heightened geopolitical tension, with allied governments rearming and the private sector waking up to security and resilience as a strategic imperative rather than a cost line.

The UK competition regulator has approved Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.

The Competition and Markets Authority confirmed on Monday that it is among regulators from almost 70 countries to green-light the deal, despite opposition inside the United States.

The deal was announced in February after Paramount threatened legal action against Warner Bros. in January following the news that the latter had snubbed it in favour of a lower bid from Netflix.

However a dozen US states are currently blocking the deal in the courts, accusing Paramount of violating antitrust laws. It believes the deal could lead to price increases for cable bills and movie tickets. 

 

Thirty years after it was founded, digital healthcare platform Patient.info is celebrating a major milestone, following a year of strong growth since becoming part of Navigate Health.

The business entered a new chapter in May 2025 when it was acquired by the UK-based digital health company, bringing together two organisations with a shared vision of delivering innovative, technology-led healthcare solutions and high-quality editorial.

Since the acquisition, Patient.info has experienced significant growth, including a revenue increase of 45%, continued customer growth and the launch of new digital products that further strengthen its offering to medical professionals and patients, including a healthcare insights platform driven by NHS data and a healthcare jobs portal.

Today, the platform serves eight million monthly visitors with 11,000 pages of healthcare content and articles including patient information leaflets, medicine guides and professional references, 770,000 subscribers, millions of social media users and 284 active patient communities.

Home pizza oven firm Ooni has announced the appointment of Jim Rowan as chair of its board.

Rowan joins Ooni following senior leadership roles at some of the world’s most recognised design-led businesses, including CEO and President of Volvo Cars, CEO and COO of Dyson, and COO of BlackBerry.

He currently also chairs Lime and STAC and serves as an independent director at Lotus Cars.

Ruth Chandler, former chief people officer at Skyscanner, and Scott Maguire, president and COO of On and former CEO of Specialized and COO of Dyson, have also joined the board as non-executive directors.

Since launching its first portable pizza oven in 2012, Ooni has sold more than three million globally.