Bite-size news and insight from UK business and tech – including funding, deals and appointments
Author: Jonathan Symcox
Ripjar has replaced its CEO Tom Obermaier with a former executive at Featurespace.
Obermaier was installed as CEO in late 2024 by private equity firm Long Ridge as it became the majority owner of the Cheltenham RegTech, with founder Jeremy Annis moving to a pure board position.
Obermaier is still listed as CEO on his LinkedIn profile but reference to him has been removed from the company’s team page on its website, with Mills now listed as CEO.
Neither Ripjar nor Mills referred to Obermaier in a press release announcing the new appointment.
Ripjar, a technology provider of risk and threat screening intelligence solutions for financial services firms, corporations and governments, has turned to Mills. He spent a decade at RegTech Featurespace as chief commercial officer and general manager and helped grow the organisation from 12 to more than 400 employees before the company’s acquisition by Visa in 2024.
Mills also led innovation, sales and partnerships for Aurasma, later acquired by HP, where he expanded the business to over 10,000 commercial customers and partners during his three‑year tenure.
Obermaier had operated as a chief risk officer at leading financial institutions including Citibank and Deutsche Bank. As CEO at RDC, he pioneered a leading customer risk diligence standard before its acquisition by Moody’s Analytics.
Propel Healthtech West Yorkshire is inviting innovators with ambitious healthtech solutions to apply for the next cohort of its flagship accelerator programme, supporting businesses to develop, test and scale innovations within the NHS and wider healthcare system.
The programme is free for successful applicants and offers a comprehensive package of support, including enhanced business development, regulatory guidance, access to NHS networks and tailored advice to support sustainable growth.
Propel Healthtech has recently secured £4.5 million in funding through the West Yorkshire Mayor’s Investment Zone, part of a wider £160 million regional Investment Zone aimed at accelerating growth across the health innovation and technology sector.
Over the next four years, the programme will support hundreds of businesses, helping them to scale in the NHS, contribute to regional economic growth and develop life-changing innovations for patients.
Delivered in collaboration with a strong network of national and international partners, Propel Healthtech provides innovators with access to organisations that bring lived experience of operating and scaling in global markets.
The programme is open to both early-stage innovators and scale-up organisations that can demonstrate traction within the NHS. Applicants must have an existing presence in West Yorkshire or be willing to establish one.
Pharmacy2U has today relaunched its veterinary care platform, as Pharmacy2U Pet Health, becoming the only online pharmacy to offer pet services alongside ‘human’ health services via an app that customers can access on the go.
Pharmacy2U, which has 1.8 million customers in England, says its website and app now gives people the ability to look after the health, wellbeing and prescriptions of their whole family using a combined basket feature.
The move comes amid a major probe with the CMA investigating prescription pricing in the veterinary sector, with a final decision due to be announced in early spring.
The watchdog has rung the alarm on a lack of price transparency, high costs and ineffective competition within the industry – finding average vet prices rose 63% between 2016 and 2023, well above the rate of inflation.
Author: Jonathan Symcox
A dentist is using AI to tackle the children’s dental health crisis.
Dr Ramzan Mohammed founded Manchester startup My Dental Buddy in 2023 and says it has developed a ‘world-first’ in AI functionality.
The platform now offers a live dashboard for supervising tooth brushing sessions and tracking engagement for children and their guardians. At home or in schools, parents, guardians and professionals can access free tools including interactive brushing guides, habit trackers and dentist-approved educational content to reinforce healthy routines.
My Dental Buddy has been awarded a £248,000 two-year oral health programme contract with Oldham Council.
The company is projecting £1.6m of total revenue in the next three years.
Plus500 has grown annual revenue and profits.
The FinTech group, which operates technology-based trading platforms, reported $792.4m revenue for the year ended 31st December 2025.
That was 3% up on the $768.3m reported last year.
EBITDA grew 2% to $348.1m (FY 2024: $342.3m).
Author: Jonathan Symcox
YouGov has replaced its CFO as its share price continues to drop.
The listed research services and data analytics firm said it has mutually agreed with Alex McIntosh that he will step down ‘to pursue other opportunities’ with effect from today.
McIntosh has been with the company for 19 years, including eight years on the board as CFO.
James Davies, former CFO of Monzo Bank, has been appointed his successor, initially on an interim basis.
YouGov’s share price is down 12% in the last five days; 40% in the last six months; and nearly 50% in the last year.
A year ago almost to the day, then-CEO Steve Hatch – a former Meta executive who took the role in 2023 – left the company with immediate effect after its share price had more than halved during his 18 months in charge.
Author: Jonathan Symcox
NatWest Group has sealed a £2.7 billion swoop for wealth management firm Evelyn Partners.
It sees an exit for British private equity giant Permira and US peer Warburg Pincus.
Evelyn Partners – formed from the merger of Tilney and Smith & Williamson – has grown from £5bn to £69bn in client assets since 2014, when Permira first invested. Warburg Pincus invested in 2020.
NatWest said the transaction creates the UK’s leading private banking and wealth management business and will transform its savings and investment offering for its 20 million customers.
NatWest is also announcing a share buyback of £750m to return capital to shareholders.
Author: Chris Maguire
Susie Ma has been described as the powerhouse behind one of the UK’s fastest-growing beauty brands.
Born in Shanghai, she spent her early years in Australia before moving to the UK.
She attended Croydon High School and was just 15 when she recreated and sold her grandma’s body scrub recipe at Greenwich Market to help her mum pay the bills.
Today, Tropic Skincare has grown into a $100m+ revenue business and has won more than 450 awards.
Ma gained national attention in 2011 when she appeared in seventh series of The Apprentice at the age of 21.
On Thursday, she’ll step into the Den when she makes her appearance as a guest Dragon on Dragons’ Den.
Author: Chris Maguire
A food startup, described as ‘the bath bomb for your saucepan’, registered six months’ sales in just two hours after their appearance on Dragons’ Den.
Tina Faghihi-Hallam and her husband Olly Hallam founded Flavour Bombs in February 2024 with just £300 and are on a mission to change the face of home cooking.
On Thursday, millions of viewers saw the couple receive offers from three Dragons – Peter Jones, Touker Suleyman and guest Dragon Gary Neville.
Immediately after the show was screened Flavour Bombs saw:
- £52k sales in just two hours – the equivalent of half of all sales in 2024;
- 3,000 per cent surge in website traffic; and
- Thousands of new social media followers.
Despite zero marketing spend, Flavour Bombs surpassed £100,000 in revenue in its first year and is now targeting sales of more than £100m.
Faghihi-Hallam comes from a tech background, which included four-and-a-half years at PatSnap, while her husband is a film-maker.
On the show, they eventually accepted a £50k offer from the longest-serving Dragon, Peter Jones, for 25 per cent of the business.
NatWest has announced a major expansion of its support for UK entrepreneurs, aiming to grow the Accelerator community to 50,000 members – a five-fold increase on the 10,000 ambition set for 2025.
This step-up‑ follows a strong 2025, when the bank exceeded its ambition by growing the community to 12,000, beating in a single year the total number it had supported over the previous 10 years in total.
The announcement forms part of the bank’s new five point Growing Together plan, setting out how the bank will help build the conditions for UK-wide growth: backing powerful regions, championing mid-market companies, strengthening the country’s infrastructure and housing foundations, boosting financial confidence amongst families and young people, and supporting the innovators shaping the future economy.
Uplift360, an advanced materials start-up transforming how aerospace, defence and industrial sectors recover and reuse high-value composite waste, has closed its €7.4m seed funding round.
The round was led by Extantia, one of Europe’s leading deep tech venture funds, with significant contributions from the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), Promus Ventures and Fund F.
This constitutes a significant milestone for deep-tech dual-use investments in advanced material resilience. Advanced materials like carbon fibre and aramids underpin defence, aerospace and manufacturing and are critical to Europe’s ability to revitalise industrial capabilities more broadly.
However, these materials currently face severe supply-chain bottlenecks due to geopolitical pressure and limited virgin fibre availability and, as they are built to last, contribute to a fast-growing global waste stream.
Uplift360 can help address this challenge through its proprietary technology, a chemical process that recovers advanced composite materials, resulting in the same quality output as inputted. Unlike recycling, Uplift360’s regeneration process is non-degenerative, giving them a true second life.
Smart Money People has announced the appointment of Peer Jelendorf as its new CEO, succeeding longstanding CEO Jacqueline Dewey, who is stepping down at the end of February after nearly six years in the role.
Jelendorf joins from savings and investment platform Moneybox, where he most recently served as head of commercial.
Founded in 2014, Surrey-headquartered Smart Money People is described as the UK’s most comprehensive review site providing deeper, more detailed insight than traditional review sites to help consumers make better financial decisions.
Bruntwood SciTech has officially submitted planning proposals for a £17m transformation of Manchester One.
The transformative project, delivered by Bruntwood SciTech – a joint venture between Bruntwood, L&G and Greater Manchester Pension Fund – combines a full refurbishment of the existing 21-storey tower with a bold four-storey extension.
It brings the total building size to 160,000 sq ft and introducing significant new amenities designed to support the health, wellbeing and productivity of the building’s business community.
Manchester One currently hosts 30 businesses across its 131,000 sq ft of space. The works will see the building reimagined as a modern, sustainable workspace while retaining and celebrating its 1960s architectural heritage.
Author: David Smith, partner, DSW Ventures
For all the discussion around the UK’s innovation economy, one reality is often missed.
Some of the most exciting, world-class technologies are emerging not from London, Oxford or Cambridge, but from universities across the North.
The real challenge is not the quality of the research. It is how that research is converted into scalable commercial ventures, and whether those businesses can stay rooted in the regions where they began.
Northern universities are producing extraordinary research. With the right mix of capital, commercial expertise and regional commitment, they can also produce the next wave of globally significant businesses, without those businesses having to leave home to succeed.
Cornwall games studio TruePlayers has completed a funding round that includes a £140,000 investment from the British Business Bank via The FSE Group.
The latest funding follows a 2022 investment made by FSE and will help the company build on its recent commercial momentum and growing interest from both gamers and new commercial channels.
Launched in 2021, TruePlayers originally focused on mobile‑first titles before pivoting to concentrate on PC and console gaming in response to market changes.
Their latest release, FireHawk FPV, is a high‑fidelity drone‑flying simulator that has already sold more than 10,000 units.
Designed with highly realistic physics and controls, the game has picked up strong community reviews and caught the attention of organisations exploring new simulation‑based training tools.
After FinTech Finseta said yesterday that CFO Judy Happe will be leaving the company, it has now appointed an interim replacement.
The foreign exchange and payments solutions company, which offers multi-currency accounts to businesses and individuals through its technology platform, said Andrew Richards would join with immediate effect.
He brings 25 years’ experience, primarily within the financial services and insurance industries. He joins Finseta after spending 12 years with Chesnara plc, a life insurance and pensions consolidator operating in the UK, the Netherlands and Sweden.
Happe will work with him over the coming weeks to ensure an orderly handover of responsibilities. The board says it has made progress in its search for a permanent CFO.
Huddled Group plc, a circular economy eCommerce group, has received commitments for a proposed subscription of up to £730,000 of new ordinary shares in the company alongside a debt facility of up to £600,000.
Management and connected parties have committed to subscribe for up to £370,000, with existing institutional shareholders, and one new shareholder placing firm orders for £360,000.
The growing company also intends to announce a retail offer via the Winterflood Retail Access Platform to its existing shareholders on the same terms as the proposed subscription for approximately £100,000.
NuVision Biotherapies, a UK spin-out whose products speed up healing of eye conditions, has raised a further £4.8m in a funding round led by the Midlands Engine Investment Fund II through its appointed fund manager Mercia Ventures, and including the University of Nottingham and Pioneer Group.
NuVision’s products harness amniotic membrane, the tissue that surrounds babies in the womb, to support wound healing after surgery and manage conditions including ulcers, burns, glaucoma and infections.
NuVision currently supplies over 160 NHS centres and private clinics in the UK, including Moorfields Eye Hospital, as well as clinics in 12 countries across Europe, Scandinavia and the Middle East.
Hove business SimplyVAT has been acquired by AVASK Global Compliance in a deal that strengthens their combined position in the worldwide compliance and indirect tax sector.
Founded in 2014, SimplyVAT has grown into a global business supporting thousands of e‑commerce companies with international VAT advice.
AVASK, which has offices across the world, brings a technology-led compliance platform and expertise across a wide range of compliance products including VAT, customs, environmental taxes and international regulatory compliance.
Stockport-based accountants HURST has been acquired by PE-backed Dains Group, a fast-growing Top 30 UK accountancy and advisory firm.
Dains is a respected national group and backed by IK Partners, a leading European mid-market private equity firm.
Headquartered in the Midlands, Dains is expanding rapidly across the UK and Ireland to target the SME market.
Simon Brownbill, partner and head of practice development at HURST, said: “By joining Dains, we now have access to a broader range of expertise, deeper resources, and a growing team of over 1,000 professionals.
“This enables us to enhance our digital capabilities, broaden our service offering and accelerate our growth – while maintaining the highly personal service that defines HURST.”
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