eCommerce and creative marketing agencies Say Yes and Verse have merged to create Common, a design-and-build practice centred around commerce systems and digital experience.

Migrating key accounts include Mitchells & Butlers, Myomaster and Union Coffee.

Co-founder and CEO Phil Clark has appointed seasoned commerce specialist John Brolly into a newly created role of chief orchestration officer to strengthen the existing senior team. 

 

Olympic medallist and DNAfit co-founder Andrew Steele has raised £4.6 million in seed funding for HealthTech Stride.

Norwich-based Stride is described as the UK’s first diagnostics-driven preventative health membership, designed to help people understand, track and proactively improve their health data over time.

The round includes investment from Arāya Ventures, Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures, Better Ventures, Innovate UK, and an a16z Scout Fund investor, alongside a group of angel investors.

 

Airtel Money, the mobile money arm of London-listed Airtel Africa, has began trading on the main market of the London Stock Exchange in a high-profile IPO.

Priced at £5.3 billion ($7bn), it is the biggest debut on the LSE in five years. However earlier expectations when the IPO plans were announced were for a $10bn valuation.

The float is expected to have raised somewhere in the region of £500 million for the firm.

Alchera Technologies has raised £2.7 million in seed funding to accelerate growth and scale its AI platform for transport authorities and operators.

The round includes £2m led by Maven Capital Partners through the British Business Bank’s South West Investment Fund, alongside Bayes Entrepreneurship Fund and The FSE Group, with additional backing from Innovate UK and existing investor Cambridge Applied Research.

The Cambridge-based company helps transport authorities make faster, data-driven decisions using real-time data, with customers including City of York Council, Lancashire County Council and Greater Cambridgeshire Partnership.

easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou is taking on Amazon with the launch of easyShop.com.

The new multi-category marketplace has launched across 21 European countries. 

Retailers can reach shoppers in their choice of 21 markets through one account, with VAT calculated automatically. They do not need to establish a company in every country, which opens international expansion to businesses that may previously have found the cost and complexity of local operations a barrier. 

Unlike retail-led marketplaces, easyShop does not hold stock, sell own-label products or compete with the businesses using its platform. Every product belongs to a retailer, and every customer order generates a sale for a retailer. 

A new specialist venture capital fund will invest exclusively in high-growth businesses founded by refugees in the UK, catalysing the targeting of an overlooked segment of the UK’s entrepreneurial economy.

Launching with an initial £300,000 pilot fund, the Refugee Venture Fund (RVF) expects to make initial investments of £50,000–£100,000 in approximately three to five companies. 

Bringing together specialist knowledge of refugee entrepreneurship, venture capital expertise and early-stage investment experience, the fund has been set up by The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network (TERN) – the only UK organisation dedicated to supporting refugee entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses. 

Affinity Labs, an AI software builder for creators, has announced a $2m pre-seed funding round. The London-based startup is a new house of creator-led software brands, launching and scaling products co-founded with leading content creators.

The round was led by Fuel Ventures, alongside Antler, and includes a £498k grant from Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), awarded through its competitive Growth Catalyst: Investor Partnerships programme.

They are joined by angel investors from Google DeepMind, Meta, and Playfair VC, alongside content creator Marcello Ascani and Devran Amaratunga Karaca, CEO of creator economy company Kyra.

Affinity Labs’ wider backers include Christian Arnstedt, CEO of Blazar Capital, the venture studio behind Emma Chamberlain’s Chamberlain Coffee; Ryan Nelson, co-founder of JOBI Brands, which has launched consumer brands with Courteney Cox and Kaley Cuoco; and Quentin Jayat, head of design at easyJet.

Shares in Bytes Technology Group plc dropped 5% today after it announced a £19 million acquisition.

However the FTSE 250 firm’s market cap remains above £1 billion – and 45% up in last six months – after it also posted positive half-year results.

The software, security, AI and cloud services specialist said it had acquired CyberOne, a UK cybersecurity services provider to enterprise and the mid-market, for an initial consideration of £19.4m.

 

High street retailer Poundland could enter administration within days – but there are hopes thousands of jobs could be saved as its management team works towards an MBO.

Ireland-based Martin Property Group, which this week bought car parks giant NCP out of administration, is backing a potential management buyout.

Poundland was bought for just £1 last summer from Pepco Group by investment firm Gordon Brothers but the latter is now seeking a buyer for the discount retailer.

Poundland employs nearly 12,000 people and operates almost 600 stores, predominantly in the UK but also in Ireland. Its managing director Barry Williams is leading the bid for a solvent takeover.

Digital care management platform Log my Care has secured a £2 million growth credit facility from Palatine Growth Credit.

Founded in 2017, Log my Care is a B2B SaaS provider of digital care management software to the care sector, with a specialism in complex care. Holding NHS Assured Supplier status, Log my Care supports better outcomes for some of the UK’s most vulnerable people.

The business has scaled to serve more than 1,000 customers across the UK, who are, in turn, responsible for the support of 30,000 service users.

In September Sam Hussain, one of the founders of the business and CEO, moved into a new role as founder director. Matt Russell has joined the business as the incoming CEO.

CMR Surgical has struck a £300 million investment deal which could lead to a full takeover.

The Cambridge-headquartered firm has agreed a strategic alliance with New York-listed Stryker to advance its robotic-assisted surgery technology.

Stryker announced the strategic equity investment of approximately £300m, with an exclusive option for it to acquire the remaining equity of CMR Surgical, alongside an exclusive US commercial agency agreement for the latter’s Versius portfolio.

CMR Surgical will continue to lead portfolio development and commercialisation in markets outside the United States.

The British Government has announced a series of measures which it says will protect the nation from the risks posed by increasingly powerful AI.

Ironically it has tasked frontier AI models with strengthening cyber defences, examining stronger legal protections and preparing for serious incidents involving autonomous AI systems.

It says the move builds on two pilots that have already helped identify and fix over a thousand potential cyber vulnerabilities across government systems, and detect potential cyber threats. 

 

LHV Bank Limited has appointed a former executive at Starling Bank as its new CEO.

The UK banking subsidiary of AS LHV Group said Damian Thompson will join on 4th January 2027, subject to regulatory approval. 

The digital-first bank will focus on expanding its lending, particularly to SMEs.

 

Scottish technology scaleup Snappy Group has secured a seven-figure funding facility with Virgin Money’s venture debt team as the business continues to scale its retail technology and marketplace platforms across the UK. 

The Dundee-founded company says this will strengthen its ability to invest across its product suite, support growing enterprise demand and accelerate the rollout of its technology to UK retailers.

Best known for its quick-commerce marketplace Snappy Shopper, Snappy Group has evolved into a broader retail technology platform, providing marketplace, order aggregation, white-label and retail media solutions to retailers across the UK.

 

Gateley has appointed Nige Tranter as its new CTO, reinforcing the professional services group’s commitment to innovation and AI.

A key priority will be supporting the rollout of the Jylo AI platform, which will provide Gateley’s workforce with secure access to leading AI technologies and enable the development of scalable, repeatable workflows that enhance productivity and collaboration.

Tranter has more than three decades of experience leading technology transformation and business change programmes at the likes of global law firms Orrick and Pinsent Masons, as well as Gulf Bank and Barclays.

intelliflo, a provider of financial advice software to UK businesses, has acquired Mabel Insights.

Mabel Insights operates the largest freely accessible database in the UK for managed portfolio services, spanning more than 80 asset managers and discretionary fund managers and over 3,000 risk-rated portfolios, covering both managed portfolio services and multi asset solutions. 

Offering portfolio comparison and analysis alongside cashflow modelling, risk profiling and digital fact-find, it gives advisers a single place to research investments, model client outcomes and produce clear, branded recommendation reports.

Mabel Insights is already integrated with intelliflo office, letting advisers move client details and portfolios between the two systems without rekeying, carry out whole-of-market research and due diligence, and bring the results back into their existing workflow. 

By acquiring the business, intelliflo says it can now invest in developing the proposition and deepen the integration.

Sava Technologies, a London-based health technology company behind a next-generation glucose microsensor, has raised $36 million (£27m).

The Series B funding was secured alongside an agreement appointing Ascensia, a subsidiary of PHC Holdings Corporation, as its commercialisation and distribution partner, initially in Europe.

The round brings Sava’s total funding to $68m. The round was led by Ascensia, with participation from institutional investors Balderton Capital, Norrsken VC, Simplyhealth Ventures, JamJar Investments, Pentland Ventures and others. 

Founded in 2019, Sava has developed a wearable built on its proprietary microsensor technology, which measures molecules just beneath the skin, painlessly and continuously. While starting with glucose, the platform is designed to track other biomarkers too, opening the door to continuous sensing well beyond diabetes.

Sava says it now has the capital to scale manufacturing and the infrastructure to bring its first product to market.

 

Local leaders will be handed dedicated research and development funding for the first time under plans unveiled by Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

In a major speech at the Innovation Nation Summit in Manchester, the Prime Minister set out his vision to make Britain the best place in the world to innovate, build and grow.

He argued that the next generation of breakthroughs should not only be discovered here, but developed, scaled, and commercialised here too.

The R&D funding will be complemented and sit alongside new Good Growth Funds – a single, flexible, long-term growth budget.

The Government said it will also commit £1 billion through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) over the next four years to support high-growth innovation clusters in the Industrial Strategy’s priority sectors across the UK.

No.10 North will also be tasked with bringing forward new partnerships between clusters in the Industrial Strategy’s eight growth-driving sectors, building on the success of the Cambridge and Manchester collaboration.

 

Fuse Energy co-founder and CEO Alan Chang has backed Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s pledge to curb non-compete clauses in employment contracts.

The PM said the restrictions had ‘gone too far’ and were holding back innovative UK companies.

Chang, who co-founded Fuse Energy with Charles Orr in 2022, shared his own experience of how the clauses can prevent businesses from recruiting talent.

He said: “Greg Wilk, who is now CTO at Fuse, joined us from a top hedge fund before Fuse, who had a six month non-compete, during that time he was not allowed to work at any official capacity, he got so bored he built a VR app that made a grand total of $600 in revenue.

“If Greg was allowed to join earlier, Fuse would have been much more valuable today, energy costs would be even lower, and we would have been one step closer to energy abundance.”

Chang and Orr were  included in BusinessCloud’s Founder 250 list.

Myprotein, the UK and Europe’s No. 1 sports nutrition brand and part of the global THG portfolio, has teamed up with Krispy Kreme for a new collaboration.

The first product from the partnership is an Original Glazed doughnut-flavoured whey protein milkshake inspired by the iconic taste of Krispy Kreme.

Launching exclusively on Myprotein.com across the UK and EU from October 8, the product will then move into UK retail, including 730 Boots stores and five Boots wellness destinations.

Neil Mistry, CEO of THG Nutrition, commented: “This is the first of several flavours and products we have planned together, combining Myprotein’s sports nutrition expertise with Krispy Kreme’s flavour credentials.”