Bite-size news and insight from UK business and tech – including funding, deals and appointments
Published: May 20, 2026 at 12:00 pm
North East entrepreneur Kelly M Whitfield has opened up about the reality of female founders trying to raise investment.
She recently joined a recent delegation of North East female founders to 11 Downing Street, which was organised by Sophie Milliken MBE.
Writing for BusinessCloud, Whitfield said: “I had my first child in 2004 and launched my first business in 2006 with a small loan.
“My second son arrived in 2008, the same year I was appointed regional director for a London-based UK trade body.
“Both businesses were profitable from year one and scaled organically.
“The reality is that I built around my children. I was hugely ambitious and wanted to go flat out, but instead I had to go steadily.
“I don’t think I’m alone as a woman in deliberately keeping my business smaller than I would ideally like because it fits around family life.
“I’ll turn 50 this year, and my youngest son turned seven in October.
“Only now, with the support of my husband, can I fully commit to my new venture, KLIK SaaS. The kind of raise I’ve secured simply would not have been possible in the previous decade.
“I didn’t build lifestyle businesses by choice or by accident. I put my boys first and have never regretted that decision for a moment. But I don’t think it is entirely fair that I had to make it.
“I’d like to see us dig deeper to understand why that 2 per cent statistic exists.
“Do women have the support they need to scale? Are we intentionally holding back so we can put our families first? I’m someone who believes women can have it all. I’ve done it all, and with very little support.
“But we need to understand what brilliant female founders and innovators truly need, and why only 2 per cent are securing funding.
“Only then can we create the solutions and support systems female founders need to level the playing field.”
Published: May 20, 2026 at 11:00 am
UK startup Scope has raised $20m (£15m) in Series A investment, which could spell the end of time-consuming clipboard inspections.
Jonathan Low and Jakob Cassiman founded Scope in 2024 to create an AI inspection platform for the testing, inspection and certification industry (TIC).
Inspection is the most common way physical data is collected, underpinning the integrity, operation and safety of every industry.
However, the software the inspection process runs on hasn’t changed in 20 years – which is why Low and Cassiman launched Scope.
They identified the problem that most inspectors still carry a clipboard and a typical four-hour inspection would entail spending days at a desk, manually transcribing findings into reports and chasing data across paper forms and legacy systems.
Scope’s AI platform changes all that by helping inspection teams capture findings in the field, autofill forms, and generate reports automatically – cutting report production time by up to 10x and error rates by 95 per cent.
Already, inspectors at six of the top 10 global inspection companies are using it and every pilot has converted to a paying customer – resulting in Scope’s ARR growing 9x since launch.
Explaining their investment, Stephane Kurgan and Bastian Hasslinger, of Index Ventures, said: “There’s a type of founder we keep coming back to at Index: someone who works so obsessively to fix a problem they’ve identified that it becomes their only calling.
“Rather than a market to be sized, it’s a challenge they feel compelled to solve. That’s how it felt the first time we sat down with Jonny Low, Scope’s CEO and co-founder.”
Published: May 20, 2026 at 10:15 am
Blue Wilson played a pivotal role in growing fashion label Nadine Merabi from £30k to £40m.
Now, she’s doing it for herself as the founder of jewellery brand Kouree, which has been worn by celebrities including Lindsay Lohan.
Wilson, who remains co-owner of Nadine Merabi, said: “I spent over a decade building other people’s dreams, and I genuinely loved it.
“I grew a leather jacket brand from £30k to £4m before I was 30, and became a partner at Nadine Merabi at 27, when it was doing only £30k a year.
“By the time I left, it had grown into a £40m global business. Building was always the part I thrived on.
“I also took less than four weeks of maternity leave. I don’t say that proudly or as a badge of honour; it was simply the reality at the time, and it is still the reality many women face.
“I was building someone else’s business while my son was a newborn, managing a team of 90 people and running on empty. I loved what I was doing, but I definitely lost a part of myself in it.”
Wilson spent more than eight years as managing director and chief executive at Nadine Merabi before leaving to launch Manchester-based jewellery brand Kouree in 2025.
Published: May 20, 2026 at 10:14 am
GEEIQ, a leader in insights, data and analytics for games and virtual worlds, has secured £5m ($6.8m) in new investment led by YFM Equity Partners.
London-headquartered GEEIQ was launched in 2018 and works with a range of global brands including Walmart, L’Oréal, Gucci, NASCAR and Warner Bros.
Brands use GEEIQ to benchmark performance, identify partners and creators, and optimise spend across activations, campaigns and social channels.
Charles Hambro, CEO and co-founder at GEEIQ, said: “At GEEIQ, our vision is to shape a future where every brand thrives in virtual worlds.
“What was once seen as an experimental corner of marketing is fast becoming one of the most important places where the next generation spends time, builds identity and engages with brands.
“History doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes, and virtual worlds are now entering a very familiar verse.
“Just as social media became a core marketing channel once brands had the data, measurement and intelligence to invest with confidence, the same transition is now happening here.
“This $6.8m (£5m) raise will help us accelerate our mission, deepening our product, data partnerships and AI capabilities as we build the intelligence layer behind enduring brand success in virtual worlds.”
Published: May 20, 2026 at 1:00 am
European FinTech bunch has raised $35m (£26m) to accelerate its growth plans.
The FinTech was founded in 2021 and is based in Berlin, but employs 20 people at its second-largest office in London.
The round was led by Portage, with participation from Illuminate Financial, significant follow-on investment from existing investors Motive Partners, Cherry Ventures and Fintech Collective, as well as additional angel investors.
bunch grew its ARR by 300 per cent in 2025 and achieved 156 per cent net revenue retention.
The latest round brings the total amount raised by the startup to more than $58m and will be used to accelerate commercial growth across Europe.
The investment comes as private markets enter a new phase of growth and operational pressure.
Assets Under Management (AUM) are forecast to reach $32tn by 2030, but the systems supporting them have not kept pace.
bunch has a growing base of private markets firms including FINVIA Family Office, Passion Capital, Hummingbird VC, Merantix, Tiny Supercomputer and Antler.
The company was co-founded by Levent Altunel and Enrico Ohnemüller and now supports more than 150 fund managers and over 12,000 LPs across major European jurisdictions.
Published: May 19, 2026 at 10:45 am
Matthew Scullion, CEO and founder of Matillion, knows a thing or two about AI.
His business joined an exclusive club of only 41 UK unicorns in 2021 when a $150m Series E funding round took its valuation beyond the magical $1bn mark.
He estimates Matillion has invested ‘many, many tens of millions into Maia’, which is its AI data automation platform.
“This market is crazy and one of the things AI is doing is reducing the barriers to entry to develop software,” he said.
He told The Naked Founder that AI could mean multi-million turnover companies could have only one or two members of staff.
“Established multi ten or hundred million pound companies (will be) disappearing because AI makes their business model irrelevant,” he warned.
You can listen to the podcast here
Published: May 19, 2026 at 10:42 am
To her more than one million social media followers, The Apprentice winner Karishma Vijay provides daily updates on all aspects of her ‘chaotic life’.
From her excitement about her forthcoming wedding and new product launches to behind-the-scenes chat about The Apprentice and her flourishing relationship with Lord Sugar, nothing appears off limits.
She proudly took to social media to reveal her skincare business Kishkin had clocked up £250k in sales in just 72 hours (as reported by BusinessCloud) after the 29-year-old was crowned the winner of series 20 of The Apprentice.
However, her business has been less forthcoming in providing updates when responding to complaints from a growing number of unhappy customers.
Out of Kishkin’s 80 reviews on the online platform Trustpilot, 62 per cent gave the company the lowest possible one-star rating, compared with 20 per cent who awarded it five stars.
Across all 80 reviews, Kishkin received an average score of 2.2, which Trustpilot describes as ‘poor’.
Most of the complaints have focused on the quality of Kishkin’s customer service – described as ‘awful’ and ‘terrible’ by some – as well as the length of delivery times.
Many customers have reported significant issues with their orders, unreliable tracking information, processing delays and items not arriving as expected.
Several people have complained about the quality of the company’s customer service, claiming their emails and messages have been ignored.
Published: May 18, 2026 at 10:48 pm
The last time I was in the States I was 21 years of age and known as Coach Jonathan.
A quarter of a century on, I’ve exchanged soccer camps for a technology convention – but the hot wind that hit me when I stepped out of the airport in Las Vegas yesterday took me right back.
All checked in at The Venetian and ready to check out the world-famous Strip, I was stopped in my tracks by the mother of all dust storms and had to retire back into the hotel!
Luckily hotels here are not like anywhere else so there was no danger of becoming bored: the resort contains bars and restaurants, a pool complex, shopping mall, a huge casino and even gondolas moving through waterways. The sight from my hotel room of a golden Trump Tower rising against the backdrop of the desert and mountains was another reminder of the excess of the place.
The sense of scale continued this Monday morning when I entered the immense convention centre – again, within the confines of The Venetian – where Dell Technologies World is taking place.
Joining Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies, on stage for the ‘Unleash the Future’ keynote were leaders at several world-leading companies that are working directly with Dell to harness the power of AI.
But it was the arrival of Jensen Huang on stage which really got the packed main stage audience buzzing. Huang is the founder and CEO of chipmaker NVIDIA, which started out making graphics chips for PC games but is now the world’s most valuable company. It is the partner for Dell’s AI Factory solution now used by more than 5,000 customers worldwide.
In his trademark leather jacket, Huang said the top software engineers of today are working with an AI agent to generate code before validation and deployment at a speed which would have been unthinkable a few years ago – but the engineers of the future will orchestrate entire teams of AI agents to unlock insights across every workload.
Published: May 18, 2026 at 4:54 pm
Climb26, the flagship business festival created by ClimbUK, is returning to Leeds in July.
The event will return to the Royal Armouries Museum and Leeds Dock on July 1 and 2, bringing together thousands of entrepreneurs, investors and business leaders.
Now in its fourth year, the festival has built a reputation for doing things differently.
Rather than relying on celebrity keynote speakers, Climb26 puts experienced founders, operators and investors on stage to share honest insights and practical lessons from building and scaling businesses.
The festival was created to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing UK entrepreneurs, including unequal access to investment and networks.
Gordon Bateman, founder of ClimbUK, said: “We created ClimbUK because we believed ambitious businesses outside London deserved better access to investment, expertise and opportunity.
“Too many business events feel predictable and inaccessible, with the same speakers and the same audiences year after year.
“ClimbUK was designed to be different and our goal is simple: for every attendee to leave with new ideas, valuable connections and greater confidence to take the next step in their business journey.”
Published: May 18, 2026 at 4:30 pm
NatWest Group has announced a £20bn funding commitment over the next 10 years to drive economic growth across the North of England.
The commitment, announced today by NatWest Group’s CEO Paul Thwaite at the Great North Investment Summit, forms part of the bank’s Growing Together plan to drive UK economic growth by backing powerful regions.
The £20bn ambition will support investment in areas that underpin regional growth and resilience, including energy, transport, infrastructure, regeneration and housing.
NatWest Group will do this by providing direct funding, sharing risk with partners and helping bring in investment from other sources.
Paul Thwaite, CEO of NatWest Group, said: “This commitment reflects our confidence in the North as a growth engine for the UK.
“We can see the strength of ambition across the region, and the scale of projects coming forward in housing, transport, energy and infrastructure.
“NatWest Group has deep roots in the North and an on-the-ground presence across its many communities, so we understand both the opportunity and what it takes to deliver it.
“Our role isn’t just to provide finance, it’s to connect capital with local ambition – working in partnership with combined authorities, business and investment partners to accelerate growth.”
Published: May 18, 2026 at 4:18 pm
Siemens has appointed Brian Holliday as its new chief executive officer (CEO) for the UK and Ireland.
Holliday succeeds Carl Ennis and will take up the role on June 1st.
He will lead Siemens’ strategy and engagement across the UK and Ireland, where the company employs 12,000 people and generated £4.6bn in revenue in the 2025 financial year.
Holliday has worked for Siemens for more than 32 years in a variety of technology and leadership roles.
He has worked with companies across the industrial spectrum to create value through technology.
He will continue as managing director of Siemens Digital Industries and builds on more than 10 years as a member of the UK and Ireland senior leadership team.
Holliday said: “I’m honoured to take up this position at a time of significant change, where technology and talent can make a real difference.
“I’ve always been proud of our people and inspired by the commitment and sense of purpose across our UK and Ireland organisation, so I’m genuinely excited to lead this strong team.
“With global leadership in industrial technology and AI, as well as the partnerships we’ve developed, Siemens is well placed to help our customers improve their competitiveness, resilience and sustainability.”
Published: May 18, 2026 at 11:10 am
Searchable, the AI performance marketing platform helping businesses compete in AI-driven search, has raised $14m (£10.5m) in funding led by global venture capital firm Headline.
The latest funding round values the company at $85m (£63.75m) and comes just 10 months after it was incorporated.
Searchable has achieved annual recurring revenue of $2.6m (£2m), and the new investment from Headline follows a $4m funding round led by Freestyle in December 2025.
The company has reached $100,000 in monthly recurring revenue, onboarded more than 500 paying customers, and converted five blue-chip companies from incumbent SEO platforms within 60 days.
Serial entrepreneur Chris Donnelly, who sold SEO agency Verb for $25m and scaled Lottie.org to a nine-figure valuation, said: “Search is going through a once-in-a-generation reset. When an AI assistant recommends your brand, customers arrive with more intent, more trust and a shorter path to purchase.
“Based on our own data, customers convert at three times the rate when they arrive from ChatGPT and other LLMs. If you aren’t visible in those answers, you’re giving ground to competitors every day.”
The company operates across New York and London.
Published: May 18, 2026 at 9:02 am
Ojan Rohani has joined fast-growing environmental consultancy Contollo Group as its new chief financial officer.
Ruth Percival founded NorthEdge-backed Contollo Group in 2024 and has already grown it to 230 staff and £35m turnover through a string of acquisitions.
The business has ambitious plans to double in size by the end of 2026, and the appointment of Rohani as CFO further strengthens Contollo’s senior leadership team.
Contollo Group CEO Ruth Percival said: “Ojan brings exactly the blend of technical expertise, transaction experience and strategic leadership we need as we continue to scale at pace.
“His track record in building finance functions, integrating acquisitions and supporting high-growth organisations will be invaluable as Contollo enters its next stage of expansion.”
Contollo has completed multiple acquisitions to date, including Abacus, MBA, TACE, ESP and KAM.
Rohani brings a strong blend of Big Four audit training, private equity experience and hands-on operational leadership in high-growth, multi-division organisations.
Published: May 18, 2026 at 8:49 am
Serial entrepreneur Ranjan Singh, founder of HealthHero, says people need to be careful whose advice they listen to.
He’s come up with four truths he thinks every founder needs to know before starting a business.
Singh wrote: “None of this is a reason not to do it. Building something meaningful is one of the most worthwhile things a person can do with their working life.
“But go in clear-eyed about what it really requires, not what the conference circuit claims it does.
“The advice around entrepreneurship is loud, sometimes inauthentic and almost always delivered by people trying to impress.
“It’s time we had quieter conversations grounded in reality, conversations that are reflective and honest.
“To succeed as early-stage entrepreneurs, we need role models we can relate to, not people we simply aspire to become.”
Published: May 18, 2026 at 8:41 am
A mix of established names and rising stars have been named as regional finalists in the 2026 EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.
A total of 110 entrepreneurs from 90 companies have made the list across five regions: London, South, Midlands, North and Scotland.
They include Marisa Poster, Teddie Levenfiche and Levi Levenfiche, co-founders of viral matcha brand PerfectTed, which has been backed by Dragons’ Den star Steven Bartlett.
Peter Cliff and Jos van der Steen, co-founders of Manchester-based CONDUCTR, have also made the list. The startup has grown turnover to £26m and staff numbers to 100 in four years, and Cliff and van der Steen recently shared their story on The Naked Founder podcast.
Amy Knight, founder of Must Have Ideas, has reached the regional finals in the South. She launched one of the UK’s fastest-growing ecommerce retailers in 2018, and it now serves more than 10 million customers.
The UK finalists will be announced in October, with the awards evening taking place in November
Last year’s UK winner was GLAS founder Mia Drennan, who will represent the UK at the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year later this month.
Published: May 15, 2026 at 9:14 am
Iceotope Group, a leading provider of precision liquid cooling technology solutions, has closed a £20 million Series B funding round.
The investment was led by Two Seas Capital and Barclays Climate Ventures along with participation by existing investors Edinv, ABC Impact, Northern Gritstone and British Business Bank.
The Sheffield firm will use the funding to advance product and engineering development, expand its patent portfolio and accelerate ecosystem partnerships that will bring solutions incorporating Iceotope technology to market.
Published: May 15, 2026 at 9:05 am
Multiverse has raised around £52 million in primary funding to drive growth across Europe.
The London firm, which achieved unicorn status in 2022 after securing a valuation of around £1.4 billion in a funding round, is valued at £1.57bn by the new strategic investment, which was led by Schroders Capital.
Originally launched as a business focused on matching people without university degrees to employers offering apprenticeships, the firm has evolved significantly in recent years.
Its core focus is now on retraining and upskilling employees already in work – many of them mid-career professionals – with a particular focus on AI and tech adoption.
Participating in the latest round were existing investors including General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, D1 Capital Partners, Index Ventures, Bond and StepStone Group.
The investment will accelerate Multiverse’s expansion across Europe. It completed the acquisition of Berlin-based data and AI training company StackFuel in January 2026.
Published: May 15, 2026 at 7:32 am
AI founders feature throughout The Sunday Times 40 Under 40 Rich List for 2026.
This year’s 40 Under 40 list showcases British talent across fashion, business and technology as well as music, sport and entertainment – and a third of them built their fortunes through AI startups.
For example, ElevenLabs, the synthetic voice developer backed by the Hollywood star Matthew McConaughey, is now worth £8.1 billion — three times as much as 12 months ago — pushing the Polish techies Piotr Dabkowski and Mati Staniszewski, both 31, into joint third.
Making the top 10 are Alex Kendall, founder of driverless car tech firm Wayve, which is worth $9bn after raising more than $1.5bn recently and this week signed a Government contract; and Herman Narula, founder of virtual worlds firm Improbable.
Wayve co-founder Amar Shah is 18th, while Victor Riparbelli and Steffen Tjerrild of Synthesia are 25th. Barney Hussey-Yeo, founder of FinTech Cleo, features in 30th.
Daniel Knight, founder and game director of Southampton-based Kinetic Games – the independent studio behind the hit horror game Phasmophobia – and now Kinetic Publishing is worth £160m.
Guest BBC Dragon Susie Ma of Tropic Skincare re-enters the list with a £100m fortune.
Published: May 14, 2026 at 1:58 pm
Cybersecurity software vendor AppCheck has secured a minority investment from private equity investor LDC, part of Lloyds Banking Group, to support its organic growth journey.
Headquartered in Leeds, AppCheck provides dynamic application security testing and a vulnerability discovery solution that helps businesses to detect and resolve cybersecurity issues before hackers can exploit them.
Its product scans web applications, APIs and IT infrastructure for vulnerabilities on live systems – identifying security gaps that traditional tools miss and allowing businesses to fix problems proactively.
Published: May 14, 2026 at 11:46 am
A listed AdTech company has plunged into administration.
The virtual in-content advertising technology company, founded in 2015, failed to secure emergency funding while a US joint venture has failed to perform.
On 29th April 2026, Mirriad Advertising plc announced the appointment of administrators to its UK operating subsidiary Mirriad Limited.
It has since become apparent that a number of key supplier and employee contracts are held by Mirriad plc rather than Mirriad Limited: the directors of Mirriad plc have therefore resolved to place Mirriad plc into administration ‘in order to protect and preserve value for creditors and stakeholders’.
Philip Reynolds of FRP Advisory and Robert Ferne of Begbies Traynor have therefore been appointed as joint administrators of the company.
Have Your Say