Energy software provider POWWR has announced a host of new hires.

The Manchester-based business welcomes Jo Hannaford as product director, Stewart Anderson as head of development and Graham Cockcroft as finance director.

This is the first stage in a widespread recruitment drive this year that is expected to lead to headcount growth of between 30-40%.

Hannaford joins POWWR from energy software company Correla, where she was product portfolio director. Prior to Correla, Hannaford worked for Shell Energy, npower, and John Lewis.

Anderson most recently worked at the NCC Group, where he was director of global applications and software/platforms.

Cockcroft joins POWWR from PwC, where he led the delivery of innovative solutions that drove digital transformation for clients across various industries. Prior to PwC, he worked for Sopra Steria, Shared Services Connected and BT.

POWWR has also promoted David Sheldrake to chief revenue officer, Andre Vejdani to head of innovation and Clair Staines to chief people officer.

SatVu, a UK-based thermal intelligence company, has closed a £30m funding round bringing its total equity funding to £60m.

The firm, which reveals operational activity and infrastructure performance from space, is accelerating from single-satellite demonstration to execution of a multi-satellite constellation.

The round completes with a strategic investment from the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), together with British Business Bank, Space Frontiers Fund II (with SPARX Asset Management Co. Ltd. as the Fund Manager), and Presto Tech Horizons, strengthening SatVu’s institutional backing as it scales toward persistent, sovereign-relevant thermal intelligence, unlocking activity insights previously unavailable from commercial sources.

John Williams has been appointed as chief performance officer by accountancy group Dains.

He will help shape Dains’ strategic plans and operating models as it continues to grow both organically and through acquisitions.

Williams joins from Radius, where he spent seven years as director of finance across the fuel, telematics and emerging business units. During this time, Williams led more than 18 acquisitions with a combined enterprise value in excess of £200 million.

Before joining Radius, Williams spent more than 20 years with EY and Deloitte between 1997 and 2018. 

Leonard Curtis, the private equity-backed professional services group, has appointed its first head of corporate development to drive M&A, partnerships and strategic growth. 

Logan Mantle joins the fast-growing multi-disciplinary team at Leonard Curtis, bringing vast experience into the business, which includes an eight-year spell in the corporate finance advisory team at Deloitte.

Leonard Curtis, which is headquartered in Manchester, has over 30 years’ experience in providing restructuring, legal, funding, M&A advisory and business services to SMEs and corporates throughout the UK and offshore. 

Pollen Street Capital took a majority stake in Leonard Curtis last August with a key focus on M&A to meet ambitious expansion targets.

The group’s acquisition activity will be focused on its restructuring and insolvency, legal and funding service lines. 

It says Logan is a proven performer in identifying and executing M&A transactions for owner-managed, privately owned, private equity-backed, and corporate businesses. These range from £10m to £300m across multiple sectors.

His expertise includes acquisitions, disposals, buyouts, finance raising, and strategic reviews and extends to advising on cross-border transactions, including those in North America and Europe.

CUBE has acquired 4CRisk.ai, a Silicon Valley-headquartered RegTech business whose agentic AI platform delivers policy and procedure mapping to regulatory obligations, controls and risks.

Founded in 2019, 4CRisk also provides specialised corporate compliance solutions to meet evolving requirements across cyber, AI, privacy, labour laws and ESG.

CUBE, backed by private equity firm Hg, says the deal strengthens its ability to deliver fully automated compliance and risk solutions, complementing its existing capabilities in regulatory compliance, operational risk and regulatory change management.

ClearBank has appointed a new European CEO and the opening of a branch in France.

Tristan Kirchner joins the tech-enabled clearing bank as CEO of ClearBank Europe N.V. to spearhead the bank’s accelerating expansion across the continent.

Kirchner brings more than 25 years of payments and financial services experience, having held senior leadership roles at Uber Payments, Barclays and Visa.

Based in Amsterdam, Kirchner will lead ClearBank’s European operations and long‑term strategy. He will work closely with Mark Fairless, ClearBank Group CEO, and Maurice Oostendorp, Chair of ClearBank Europe Supervisory Board, to shape expansion into new markets and evolve the bank’s services across the region.

His deep understanding of Europe’s regulatory and payments landscape will be instrumental as ClearBank scales its presence across a dynamic payments market.

Author: Chris Maguire

Boohoo co-founder Mahmud Kamani has invested £8m as part of Debenhams Group’s latest £40m fundraise.

Earlier this week, Debenhams Group outlined its plans for the £35m fundraise in a statement to the London Stock Exchange – triggering a 14 per cent drop in Boohoo Group’s share price.

In a positive update this morning, the company said following ‘investor demand significantly in excess of £35m’ it had upscaled the fundraise c.£40m.

As part of the fundraise, it has been revealed Kamani invested £8m together with his close relatives and related trusts to acquire 44m shares.

Outgoing non-executive director Iain McDonald invested £3m in return for 16.6m shares while group CEO Dan Finley invested £150,000 for 833,333 shares.

Frasers Group acquired nearly 60m shares and remains the company’s biggest shareholder.

Online retail giant Boohoo Group rebranded as Debenhams Group in 2025 and its brands include Debenhams, Karen Millen, boohoo, MAN and PLT.

Following the successful completion of the fundraise, Iain McDonald informed the company he would be stepping down as  non-executive director and chair of the renumeration committee with immediate effect.

Tech companies will be ordered to take down intimate images shared without a victim’s consent within 48 hours, under new UK laws to protect women and girls from this distressing abuse.

Through an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, companies will be legally required to remove this content no more than 48 hours after it is flagged to them, and platforms that fail to act could face fines of up to 10% of their qualifying worldwide revenue or having their services blocked in the UK.

The Government says it is determined to make sure that victims will only need to report an image once. This would mean where an image is reported, they are removed across multiple platforms in one go, and from then on, they are automatically deleted at every new upload.

As part of that work, plans are currently being considered by Ofcom for these kinds of images to be treated with the same severity as child sexual abuse and terrorism content, digitally marking them so that any time someone tries to repost them, they will be automatically taken down.

In a further step to protect victims, the Government will publish guidance for internet providers setting out how they should block access to sites hosting this content, targeting rogue websites that may fall outside the reach of the Online Safety Act.

In recent years, there has been a worrying trend of intimate images being used to threaten, intimidate and distress, and the Prime Minister is determined to hand back control to victims and end their fear that even when an image is taken down, it will only be put up somewhere else.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Beauty Bay staff were warned internally that the business was under pressure weeks before the online beauty retailer filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators.

The Salford-based online cosmetics retailer has taken down its website, which now shows a holding page with the message: “We’ll Be Back Soon. BEAUTY BAY is offline right now, we’ll be back shortly.”

A source said employees had been told the business urgently needed funding as efforts continued to stabilise the company.

Some staff were advised to begin exploring alternative roles on the same day the administration notice was filed, creating uncertainty around jobs and pay.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

eBay has agreed a $1.2 billion (£890 million) deal to buy second-hand fashion marketplace Depop from Etsy.

The all-cash deal comes five years after online marketplace Etsy bought Depop for $1.6bn (£1.18bn).

Depop, which was founded in the UK in 2011, will give eBay greater volume in one of its fastest-growing categories.

In the UK and Europe, eBay is seeking to compete with rising star Vinted. In response to Vinted, eBay had already scrapped selling fees for second-hand clothes; meanwhile Vinted announced a launch into the US just weeks ago.

However Depop is expected to retain its name, brand and platform.

Author: Chris Maguire

Tributes have been paid to Tim Corke, chief operating officer of UK FinTech Token.io, who died after a freak fall.

After doctors told the father-of-five’s devastated family that he wouldn’t survive they agreed that his organs could be donated to save the lives of six strangers.

Last Friday he was able to donate his heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas and liver in six life-saving operations.

His sister Nicki Martin, founder of Buzzio, said: “Whilst we experienced this tragedy, six families got given a second chance at life.

“This would have meant the world to him, and it certainly does to us.  It’s the most comforting thing we have right now.”

Corke, who previously worked at eMerit, Monitise and Bottonline Technologies, joined Token.io in 2020.

Token.io is a leading account-to-account (A2A) payment infrastructure provider and has offices in London and Berlin.

His sister Nicki Martin revealed how her brother suffered catastrophic head injuries in a ‘freak accident’.

“A simple stumble that could have happened to anyone,” she wrote on social media. “His head took the impact.

“We were told last Wednesday (after the most traumatic week by his bedside) that he wouldn’t make it.”

She said she hoped her brother’s actions would inspire other people to became organ donors.

Author: Chris Maguire

Liverpool-based eCommerce solution provide Made With Intent is looking to expand globally after raising £2.4m in investment.

The company has developed an AI-powered model that, when added to eCommerce websites, provides real-time customer insights by analysing over 800 onsite signals.

The approach has been likened to Moneyball and looks at indicators like clicks to predict intent which retailers can the use to inform marketing and website experience.

The company was founded by David Mannheim and has raised £2.4m in an investment round led by NPIFII – PXN Equity Finance.

Customers have been able to boost revenues by almost 10 per cent by delivering personalised experiences.

Author: Chris Maguire

Epetōme, the fast-growing gut health company founded by nutritionist and social media influencer Emily English, has secured a multi-million pound investment.

The funding, led by Active Partners and Redrice Ventures, will enable the fast-growing gut health brand to scale globally.

Founded in 2023, Epetōme has experienced rapid growth, building a highly loyal consumer base alongside celebrity backing.

English said: “I truly believe our gut health underpins everything, and I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved over the past year. This funding marks an exciting next step for Epetōme, and it is only the beginning.”

Epetōme’s ambition is to build the UK’s leading gut health company and the capital will enable the brand to increase investment into clinical testing across both probiotics and prebiotics.

Jimmy Hill, co-founder and executive chair of Epetōme, said: “The growth of Epetōme over the past 12 months has truly been amazing to be a part of.

“We are proud to announce Active Partners and Redrice Ventures as our new business partners on this exciting project of building the biggest gut health company in the UK.

“We can now double down on our investment into science, international growth and our already brilliant team here at Epetōme.”

Axol Bioscience, a leading provider of induced pluripotent stem cell technologies for drug discovery and research, has acquired the ophthalmology business of Newcells Biotech.

The acquisition of Newcastle-based Newcells’ ophthalmology business includes its specialist team, facilities and intellectual property related to supply of proprietary iPSC-derived products and ophthalmology research services to biopharma, biotechnology and CRO customers across Europe and the US.

The news follows Cambridge-based Axol’s recent $2.8m financing, led by US life sciences investor BroadOak Capital Partners, which is supporting expansion of its US commercial operations, product development and manufacturing scale-up.

Liam Taylor, CEO of Axol Bioscience, said: “Following our recent financing and continued strong revenue growth, we are executing on a clear strategy to scale Axol internationally and deepen our scientific capabilities.

“The addition of Newcells’ retinal organoid business is our third acquisition in five years and significantly enhances our ophthalmology offering, combining complementary expertise and intellectual property to create the most comprehensive independent portfolio of iPSC-derived retinal models globally.”

AIM-listed Malvern International, the global learning and skills development partner, has announced a £2m fundraise through a share issue.

The corporate team at regional law firm Knights supported Malvern International on its successful fundraising, comprising a placing, retail offer and, potentially, a directors subscription.

Malvern International will deploy this funding to help scale up four pathway contracts recently won with the universities of Wolverhampton, Cumbria and Liverpool, and a new 15-year contract with London Metropolitan University.

Karen Proctor, corporate Partner at Knights in Manchester, said: “We are delighted to have helped our long-standing client access further funding for this promising next phase of growth via its listing on AIM.

“Hopefully, this marks the start of an anticipated uptick in secondary placings and other capital market fundraises this year, as the simplified regime has removed the need for an FCA-approved prospectus for many more raises.

“The new rules also allow for easier participation of retail investors, so we expect to see more companies including their retail shareholder base in capital fundraises as Malvern has done here.

“The board at Malvern, as well as the team at Zeus Capital, who are nominated advisers and brokers to the company, have been highly supportive throughout the process, and we look forward to continuing work with them again in future.”

 

Leeds-based ClotProtect has raised £1.2m through a combination of Innovate UK funding and angel investment from the Lifted Ventures Angel Network

The company, which develops innovative solutions to improve patient safety and reduce the risks associated with blood clots, came through Lifted Ventures’ Elevate Her Accelerator programme.

Since completing the programme, ClotProtect has continued to receive support from the Lifted team, including ongoing mentorship from co-founder Jordan Dargue.

As part of the funding round, Lifted Ventures and its angel network helped unlock Innovate UK Investor Partnership funding and, together with its angels, contributed £600,000, playing a key role in enabling ClotProtect to secure both public and private investment to support its growth.

Helen Philippou, founder of ClotProtect, said: “Taking part in the Elevate Her Accelerator was a turning point for ClotProtect.

“The support, mentorship and belief from the Lifted team, particularly from Jordan, has been instrumental in helping us secure Innovate UK funding and close this £1.2m round.

“This investment gives us the platform to scale faster and bring our technology to more patients who need it.”

Author: Jonathan Symcox

The chair of YouGov, the international research and data analytics group, is to step down as its share price continues to fall.

Deborah Davis, who joined the board in June 2024 and was appointed chair on an interim basis in February 2025, has decided to step down as chair and from the board with effect from today.

Ian Griffiths, who joined the board in September 2025, has been appointed permanent chair.

He was deputy CEO and CFO of market intelligence agency Kantar from 2020 to 2022. Before that he was CFO and COO of ITV plc for more than 10 years and before that CFO of EMAP plc.  

YouGov’s share price is down 47% in the last 12 months and 19% in the year-to-date. Earlier this month the firm replaced its long-term CFO with an interim appointment.

 

The UK inflation rate fell to 3 per cent in January, according to the Office for National Statistics, sparking hopes of a cut in interest rates.

The inflation rate is now at its lowest level since March 2025 and has been driven partly by the costs of bread, cereal and petrol.

It follows yesterday’s news that the UK employment rate has climbed to 5.2 per cent in the three months to December – the highest rate in nearly five years.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

FYLD, a frontline intelligence platform for the global infrastructure sector, has announced a Series B funding round of £32 million.

The London firm, which serves the energy, construction and water sectors, said the round was led by New-York based Energy Impact Partners LP, with participation from European growth equity specialist Partech through its Growth Impact Fund. 

The raise comes as FYLD closed out another year of global momentum with 82% year-over-year growth. 

FYLD turns frontline work into a real-time source of operational intelligence. Field teams capture short videos instead of completing static forms, and FYLD’s AI analyses conditions to identify safety, quality, and delivery risks before they escalate. 

Managers get live visibility across jobs without adding site visits or headcount, and every action is automatically documented for compliance and audit purposes. 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Beauty Bay has filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators.

The Salford-based online cosmetics retailer has taken down its website, which now shows a holding page with the message: “We’ll Be Back Soon. BEAUTY BAY is offline right now, we’ll be back shortly.”

The company, founded by owners Arron and David Gabbie as Fragrance Bay in 1999, has been seeking a sale or investment in recent weeks with advisory firm Interpath.

The brothers also launched a sale process in 2022, but that did not result in a transaction.

Having filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators, Beauty Bay now has 10 days in which creditors cannot pursue any action against it.