Northern Irish AgriTech company farmdrive has closed a £1 million pre-seed round to accelerate the global scale-up of its livestock data and supply chain platform.

The investment – led by TechStart Ventures and Ascension Ventures, with participation from Angel Invest – will fund product development, new hires, and expansion across the UK, Ireland, and
Europe.

Founded in 2023 by two UK entrepreneurs, Gareth McDonald (CEO) and Gareth Gordon (CTO), farmdrive was built based on their own family farm experience to replace the heavy burden of
compliance paperwork with software. Today, the platform is used by over 1,000 beef and dairy farms across the UK and Ireland, tracking over 150,000 cattle, with farmers reporting they are saving at least 6 hours per week on compliance and record-keeping.

Alongside its app for farmers, ‘farmdrive enterprise’ connects meat processors and retailers to real-time supply-chain data, enabling full traceability, 12-month supply forecasting, medication monitoring, and emerging sustainability reporting. Trusted by supply-chain leaders including ABP Linden and Foyle Meats, farmdrive enterprise customers report saving at least 20 hours per week on supply-chain paperwork and movement recording.

GMB Union has signed a landmark deal with Aeralis – the company set to build next generation of Red Arrows – to create 4,000 aerospace jobs.

An agreement was signed by Aeralis chairman Robin Southwell Gary Smith, General Secretary of the GMB, this week.

The company is committed to establishing a major industrial hub in Central Ayrshire, with plans to create more than 4,000 highly skilled jobs nationwide.

In Scotland, the programme is set to generate £600 million in annual exports, among the top three in the country.

Aeralis is the front runner in the race to create the next generation of Red Arrows and is the only bidder offering a British-designed and -built aircraft.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

FRP Advisory Group plc, a national specialist business advisory firm, has acquired Arc & Co Structured Finance Limited.

The deal for the FCA-regulated provider of financial advisory services to the real estate sector is for a consideration of £6.65 million, with £4.85m in cash and shares with a value of £1.8m.

The acquisition is the group’s 15th since IPO in March 2020 and its second in 2025, as it seeks to broaden and deepen its services.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Polarean Imaging Plc intends to quit the London Stock Exchange and re-register as a private company after its share price bombed in recent months.

The commercial-stage MedTech is described as a global leader in functional lung imaging but says its current cash balance is anticipated to fund it only through the second quarter of 2026.

It explained that it needs to raise approximately £15 million from strategic or financial investors during the current cash runway to execute its business plan to achieve profitability.

It is asking shareholders to vote in favour of cancelling the admission of its shares to the junior AIM market on 23rd December 2025.

It added that the costs of being a public company, both in terms of financial and management time, are significant, and also said the public markets “are not fairly valuing the company”.

Crossbar will be bringing its world first interactive football entertainment venue to Printworks in Manchester.

Crossbar will span 25,000 sq ft and will offer fully immersive football boxes which are private tech-enabled spaces.

The  new attraction comes complete with motion tracking, reactive projections, surround sound and tactile floor vibrations.

The venue will also feature a steak led restaurant, two bars and food and drink served directly to the immersive football boxes.

Big news in Rochdale after work started on building the new Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing Centre (SMMC) in Atom Valley.

The building is the first major development in Atom Valley and has the potential to create up to 20,000 new jobs in the region.

The ground-breaking ceremony was led  by GM Mayor Andy Burnham, who said: “Today is a great day for Greater Manchester.”

The SMMC will help scale up businesses and act as a springboard for them to pioneer new technology, offering lab space, workshops and flexible workspace.

It will also provide an important link between Atom Valley and the Oxford Road Corridor, in Manchester.

 

 

Author: Chris Maguire

The founder and CEO of US-based unicorn Glean has joined the growing debate about the threat posed by a worrying trend called ‘workslop’.

While the AI revolution has been hailed for the efficiencies it can bring to virtually any business, concerns have been raised about how it could be misused.

One growing trend is called ‘workslop’, described as AI-generated work that looks polished on first viewing but lacks any substance or depth.

Last year a study of more than 1,000 full-time desk workers in the US found an estimated 40 per cent had received workslop in the last month.

Now, one of the biggest names in US tech, has entered the debate.

Serial entrepreneur Arvind Jain is the founder and CEO of Glean, which he described as ‘Google inside your company’.

Unsurprisingly, Jain is a huge advocate of AI but warned that lazy behaviour can result in workslop.

Author: Patrick Killeen

When Clare Gambardella joined Zopa in 2018, the business was at a pivotal moment in its relatively short history. 

The now-unicorn was in the process of moving from a peer-to-peer lending platform into a fully regulated digital bank.

Gambardella had joined as chief customer officer (CCO) from Virgin Active, where she had spent nearly five years and worked her way up to CMO. 

Zopa describes itself as combining the reliability of a high street bank with the ease of app-based banking.

In September the digital bank revealed its plans to build a 500-strong workforce in Manchester after opening an office in the city.

In 2021 the digital bank achieved unicorn status when a £220m funding round pushed its valuation beyond $1bn.

Gambardella, who has been speaking at Lisbon’s BusinessCloud, tells BusinessCloud about the rise ad rise of Zopa.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

FTSE 100 company 3i Group has seen its share price drop more than 16% today – wiping billions off its valuation – despite posting a positive half-year trading update.

The private equity firm reported a total return of £3.3 billion or 13% on opening shareholders’ funds for the six months to 30th September 2025, compared with £2bn/10% in the corresponding period from the prior year.

Net asset value per share was 2,857 pence, up from 2,542p in the six months to 31st March 2025.

However CEO Simon Borrows sounded a note of caution, saying that 3i “remains cautious in deployment of capital into new investment”.

Tara Askham, a finance lecturer, author and entrepreneur, has been appointed to the steering committee for the Maple Review.

The Maple Review is a government-backed independent review led by Small Business Britain and supported by Xero. It is focused on tackling the barriers that economic deprivation creates for UK entrepreneurs.

Askham, who built her career from a working-class background in Nottingham, first became involved with the Maple Review after being invited to share her experiences at the House of Lords earlier this year. 

Endeavour Mining – +11.33%
Wizz Air – +9.27%
Convatec – +6.34%
Hochschild Mining – +5.94%
Keller Group – +5.79%

Tech companies whose share price has risen today include Experian (+1.11%) and Bytes (1%).

3i Group – -15.7%
Avon Technologies – -5.36%
WPP – -4.59%
Aviva – -4.36%
Greencoat UK Wind – -3.85%

Tech companies to experience falls today include Pinewood Technologies (-2.01%), Raspberry Pi (-1.67%), Vodafone (-1.58%), Entain (-1.38%), NCC (-1.37%), 4Imprint (-1.37%), Sage (-1.16%) and Rightmove (-1.14%).

SALESmanago, an AI-powered lifecycle engagement platform, has appointed Phil Draper as its new CEO.

Draper will lead the company’s international expansion and the development of its AI capabilities.

Most recently, he led DotDigital’s EMEA division, helping to grow the business to over $90 million ARR through both organic growth and strategic acquisitions.

Oxford-based Scripta Therapeutics has landed a £9.1 million seed round to find novel disease-modifying therapeutics, led by Oxford Science Enterprises and Apollo Health Ventures.

Founded by experienced BioTech and pharma operator Peter Hamley (Samsara Therapeutics, Sanofi, AstraZeneca) and Noel Buckley, Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Oxford, Scripta is combining AI, imaging, and unique patient-derived models to create and modulate disease maps based on transcriptional networks.

By focusing on understanding and manipulating the master controllers of biology, Scripta is searching for drugs with the potential not just to delay disease progression but to stop it altogether. Their first indication is neurodegeneration, but the company’s unbiased, biology-first approach could be applied to any condition.

Greater Manchester has today launched a ‘world first’ in mass participation events to tackle workplace stress, burnout and loneliness.

The Greater Manchester Wellbeing Series comprises two flagship events designed to improve mental, physical and social wellbeing.

Open to organisations of all sizes across all 10 Greater Manchester boroughs, it opens for registrations today and is marking the date with an official launch event, taking place at the Manchester city centre offices of KPMG.

The Greater Manchester Wellbeing Series aligns with Greater Manchester’s community-led Live Well strategy, which seeks to shift the focus from crisis to prevention and create the conditions for people to thrive, whatever their age and wherever they live.

The event is the brainchild of Nick Rusling, former owner of the Manchester Marathon, former CEO of IMG and ASO (owners of the Tour de France) and All Here (science and tech led meditation organisation).

Michael Ginn has joined Palatine as an investment director for its regional Growth Credit Fund, which was launched in 2024.

He arrives from Santander, following 12 years working in the bank’s growth capital and strategic debt solutions teams.

Palatine’s Growth Credit Fund was launched in 2024 and Ginn was drawn to its approach in supporting regional, ambitious, entrepreneurial businesses that have predictable revenue streams and a track record of growth and raising institutional equity, with non-dilutive funding.

Adclear has raised an oversubscribed £2.1m seed round led by Outward VC and backed by AFG Partners and Tenity.

Angels joining the round include Clearscore founder Dan Cobley; MD of Coinbase Keith Grose, who invested as part of a16z scout fund; and angel community Ventures Together.

Haatch and Force Over Mass Capital are also reinvesting after backing the company at the pre-seed stage.

Adclear says it is rapidly becoming the dominant player in the UK’s financial promotions market. Having launched in 2024, its AI-powered platform is used by marketing teams at Lloyds Banking Group, PensionBee, Plum, Yonder, InvestEngine, ActivTrades and Trade Nation.

North East Mayor Kim McGuinness has ‘unlocked’ £350 million to create jobs and grow small businesses across the region.

The region’s towns, trading estates and home-grown businesses are set for a major boost after McGuinness opened applications for the North East Fund.

The ambitious initiative – with £70m put in up front by the North East Combined Authority – aims to create 2,300 new jobs and support at least 470 innovative businesses over the next 15 years, helping to drive economic growth and opportunity.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Backed VC has closed its new fund at around £75m to invest in seed stage companies across Europe, especially those looking to expand in the US.

It is the third fund from the London-based VC which has backed five unicorns to date. Over almost a decade, Backed has invested in over 100 companies that are taking on firms like Nvidia and Google.

The fund works with founders at the very onset of their journey, partnering at the idea stage with companies like Thought Machine, Invisible Technologies, General Intuition, and Flow Engineering, all of which have recently raised follow-on rounds from Tier 1 US funds, such as Sequoia, Khosla, and General Catalyst.

Women with intellectual disabilities could receive added monitoring for breast cancer with the development of a smart textiles bra by researchers at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and the University of Glasgow (UofG).

Funded by Cancer Research UK, a team of scientists and designers are developing an electronic textile which would fit inside a bra and monitor whether a tumour is growing in real time, before alerting clinicians to potential risks.

Although women with intellectual disabilities have a lower incidence of breast cancer, they face significantly higher mortality rates due to barriers in accessing current screening methods.

The technology uses a form of electrical current that can scan to spot subtle differences in body tissues. Because tumours tend to be denser and hold less water than healthy areas, the device can help differentiate them.

The technology has the potential to detect growths as little as 5mm – enabling earlier detection and triggering other scans to be taken, such as MRI.

The device would record data and provide feedback via smartphone to the wearer, carers and clinicians so that assessments can be made.

It will be co-designed with input from women with intellectual disabilities, carers, and healthcare professionals to ensure usability and effectiveness.

Author: Chris Maguire

The CEO of US unicorn Lattice has announced plans to significantly expand its UK presence.

The tech giant is the number one AI-powered people platform and has 5,000 customers worldwide.

Lattice currently has around 200 customers in the UK, including Bolt, GoCardless, Guinness World Records, Tide, Monzo and Airwallex.

They’re currently serviced by a 40-strong London office but CEO Sarah Franklin told BusinessCloud that the plan was to grow its customer base significantly.

Speaking at the Web Summit in Lisbon, she said: “The UK is incredibly important. It is a financial hub, a global hub. It is a country and community that is forward thinking with great people.

“Our goal is to just grow. It’s our access to all of EMEA.  The UK is the hub for having our global business.”

In a far-ranging interview, Frankin said people shouldn’t be ‘paralysed’ by a fear of AI; guarded against the dangers of ‘doomscrolling’ on social media; and warned against the obsession people have with the valuation of tech companies.

Lattice was founded in 2016 by Jack Altman – brother of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI – and Eric Koslow.

Franklin became chief executive in January 2024 after spending 16 years at Salesforce.