AND Digital plans to expand its US business after a year of growth.

The provider of AI, data and digital platform services says it saw a fourfold increase in revenue Stateside in 2025 – putting the company on a solid path toward building a $100 million–plus Americas business in the coming years, it says.

Recently announced as a premier partner with Snowflake after being recognised for its expertise in delivering high-quality data and AI solutions to accelerate business impact, it also recently joined forces with Dynamic Yield by Mastercard, an AI-native personalisation suite that helps brands activate emotionally intelligent, real-time campaigns across web, app and email.

Ascentra Labs, a company building AI tools for consultants and corporate strategy professionals, has raised $2m in seed funding.

The round was led by NAP with participation from prominent founder-angels including Alan Chang (CEO of Fuse, former Revolut CRO) and Fredrik Hjelm (CEO of Voi).

Ascentra was founded by Paritosh Devbhandari, a former Mckinsey consultant who previously led AI product sales at QuantumBlack, and Oliver Thurston, former head of machine learning at Mathison AI, in London at the start of 2025.

A West London GP surgery has become the first in the UK to trial Mirror, an AI-powered patient scribe that captures the key points of a medical consultation and turns them into clear, plain-English notes for patients to take home.

Golborne Medical, part of the NeoHealth Primary Care Network, is launching the pilot under the leadership of Dr Yasmin Razak, Principal GP NeoHealth PCN and Education Lead for West London.

As part of the trial, the practice will offer a cohort of patients’ free access to the Mirror app to use during their appointments, enabling the surgery to gather real-world feedback on the tool’s impact.

IRIS Software Group has appointed a new CFO and president for North America.

The provider of accountancy, payroll, HR and education solutions has named Jens Ulrik Knudsen as its finance chief.

Meanwhile Shemin Nurmohamed will lead the company’s North American expansion as president and GM, Americas.

A new Government-backed Investor Corridor event in Leeds will spotlight the region’s growing strength in HealthTech and MedTech innovation this week, showcasing 15 active investors with some of the UK’s most promising early-stage startups. 

The event will position Leeds as a growing hub for global health and life sciences innovation.

Run by the UK Tech Cluster Group (UKTCG), the event in Leeds on 4th December is designed to open up access to investment networks often concentrated in London and the South East. It will provide a platform for emerging health and medical technology startups with an AI and data focus from across West Yorkshire to pitch their innovations, share progress and gain feedback.

Some of the UK’s biggest listed banks are slightly on the rise today after the Bank of England confirmed the major lenders had passed its latest stress tests and lowered the benchmark tier-one capital requirement.

Lloyds (1.51%) and Standard Chartered (1.28%) are two members of the FTSE 100 which have seen their shares increase. NatWest is also up.

Land Securities (2.33%) and British Land (2.26%) have also moved higher, with telecommunications giant Vodafone (1.54%) up too, just a day after Virgin Media was hit with a big Ofcom fine.

Victrex (6.41%) is the standout riser in the FTSE 250 after announcing its ‘profit improvement plan’, whilst the FTSE 100’s Rightmove (-1.58%) and Auto Trader (-1.58%) have fallen. 

Among the sharper FTSE 250 decliners, Foresight Group Holdings (-7.37%) is down despite its positive half-year results which were published this morning. 

Oxford Nanopore (-6.40%), XPS Pensions (-4.50%), Ithaca Energy (-3.40%) and Ceres Power (-2.87%) are also in the red today.

Save My Exams has forecast a 41% rise in revenue for 2025 as more students move revision online. 

The London-based EdTech platform, launched in 2017, expects to hit 2.5 million registered users and is predicting a 95% year-on-year jump in registrations by the end of the year. 

Covering qualifications from GCSE and IGCSE through to A Level, IB, AP, National 5 and O Level, the company has built its content around specialist teacher-led resources. 

Growth has been supported by faster expansion into the US, the launch of its AI marking tool Smart Mark and a broader product offer aimed at teachers.

TSB has named Serene, AVIEL Intelligence and Tunic Pay as winners of its 2025 Innovation Labs programme, with all three FinTechs now set to work with the bank as suppliers within its fraud prevention efforts. 

The programme, delivered with FinTech Scotland, focused on finding practical tools to tackle a rising fraud problem after UK Finance data showed criminals stole more than £620 million in the first half of 2025. 

Serene will pilot predictive behavioural intelligence to spot and protect vulnerable customers earlier, AVIEL Intelligence will apply AI-augmented intelligence gathering to detect emerging fraud patterns and mule accounts, and Tunic Pay will help TSB pause and assess suspicious transactions without slowing legitimate ones.

YFM Equity Partners has appointed Adam Milner as its new portfolio director, strengthening its national portfolio team and increasing capacity to support value creation across more high-growth businesses. 

Milner joins from Endless, where he spent six years managing SME growth and MBO investments, after senior industry roles and seven years at KPMG. The hire follows several recent appointments across the Leeds-based firm’s investment and portfolio teams, including new investment managers in London and Leeds. 

YFM invests £3 million-£15m in fast-growing UK companies and manages more than £750m in funds through offices nationwide.

Intelligent Core has raised £2 million in a funding round led by Fuel Ventures, with participation from Plug & Play Tech Center and Helion Partners, following a £500k raise earlier this year. 

The AI-powered company provides real-time, autonomous intelligence for industrial sectors such as energy, oil and gas, water, manufacturing and transport, using live sensor and equipment data to deliver instant visibility, forecasting and automated decision-making. 

Its INTELLIGENT CORE platform is designed to run in the cloud, on-premises or at the edge, bringing AI directly into remote and mission-critical environments. 

The fresh capital will be used to scale the team, push forward hardware product development and support larger global deployments, as the London-based company targets modernising legacy industrial infrastructure and helping operators cut costs, downtime and emissions.

True Potential Group has appointed Laura McCall as its first chief people officer, making a permanent hire into a newly created executive role. 

She will take up the position in early 2026 and be based at the wealth manager’s headquarters in Newcastle, leading a values-led people strategy as the group enters its next growth phase under CEO Gerry Mallon. 

McCall brings 17 years of senior HR experience in financial services, including roles at Scottish National Investment Bank, Martin Currie, NatWest and Baillie Gifford. 

True Potential, which manages close to £37 billion of platform assets and supports more than 590,000 clients, says the appointment reinforces its focus on investing in people alongside its tech-driven advice model.

Palatine Private Equity has appointed Eloise Veljovic as head of investor relations as it strengthens its senior leadership team. 

She joins from Pomona Capital, where she was a director leading investor relations across Europe and the Middle East and previously held roles at Alpstone Capital and Hollyport Capital. 

Veljovic will work alongside the company’s partners across its buyout, impact and growth credit strategies. 

She is set to start in January 2026 as Palatine continues to scale its investor engagement and fundraising activity.

S&W has strengthened its consulting arm with the acquisition of Fredward, a London-based financial services management and data consultancy. 

The deal brings all 45 Fredward colleagues into the business, including two partners and six directors, adding expertise in financial services data transformation and management. 

It follows the recent move to make consulting a standalone business line within S&W, designed to simplify access to services such as transformation, regulatory, accounting, risk advisory, technology and data. 

Fredward is the sixth business S&W has acquired since launching in March 2025 with Apax Funds backing, underlining the group’s rapid expansion strategy.

Leasing Options has promoted Ben Durkin to chief technology officer (CTO) to lead the next phase of technology investment.

Durkin has been instrumental in building Leasing Options’ in-house technology – from its bespoke website, CRM and workflow platform to the tools that power pricing, quotations and end-to-end sales and automated back office operations.

Nigel Brain, co-founder and CEO of Manchester-based Leasing Options, said: “Ben has been central to our growth story for almost 20 years, and his promotion to group CTO is both well-deserved and pivotal to our next chapter.

“As we navigate the exciting opportunities and challenges that come with embracing new technologies, Ben’s leadership will be instrumental in ensuring we maintain our customer focus and competitive edge while expanding into new product areas.”

Durkin added: “I’m incredibly proud of what our team has built and achieved so far.

“Our focus is simple – stay relentlessly customer-focused, give customers total confidence throughout their journey, and provide our colleagues with tools that are lightning fast, intuitive, and built for scalability and efficiency – all while maintaining the highest standards of compliance in everything we do.

“We will continue to invest heavily in our platform and explore new technologies that keep Leasing Options ahead of the market.”

 

 

HotHouse Therapeutics has raised £2.9 million in pre-seed funding as it comes out of stealth, backing its mission to develop sustainable, scalable pharmaceuticals using AI-optimised plant-based chemistry. 

The Norwich-based startup, supported by SynBioVen, Start Codon, UKI2S, Twin Path Ventures, Wren Capital, angel investors and an Innovate UK grant, is initially targeting the vaccine industry’s reliance on QS-21, which is currently sourced from the bark of a slow-growing Chilean tree. 

HotHouse says its AI-powered plant bioengineering platform can produce QS-21 and related adjuvants through bioengineered plants grown anywhere, cutting supply-chain fragility and improving access for low and middle-income countries.

Author: Chris Maguire

Manchester-based FinTech AccessPay has appointed Richard Dew as  director of GSI (GRC, Security and Internal IT) and Ian Clarke as chief technology officer (CTO).

Dew previously led various global functions at HSBC dealing with security, risk, and operations, he was also head of IT risk at Leeds Building Society.

Clarke was previously CTO of Sage UK and Landmark Information Group.

As AccessPay’s new CTO, he brings extensive engineering and technology leadership experience and has a strong record of delivering scalable, enterprise-ready platforms in the financial technology space.

Anish Kapoor, CEO of AccessPay, said: “Richard and Ian’s experience and strategic mindsets make them exceptional fits for their respective roles.

“As we continue to scale our platform and support complex enterprise environments, their leadership will be critical in shaping the next phase of our technology strategy.

“Together, they bring the technology and governance leadership we need to continue scaling securely and supporting the increasingly complex environments our customers operate in.”

AccessPay was launched in 2012 and is a pioneering force in the banking industry.

 

On the Beach saw record total transaction value for a fourth consecutive year in the 12 months to 30th September 2025.

TTV was up 11% to £1.25 billion (FY24: £1.1bn), while revenue increased 6% to £121.4m (FY24: £114.6m) and adjusted profit before tax increased 20% to £35m (FY24: £29.2m).

The group remains in a strong financial position, it says, with cash of £91.7m at the year end having completed a refinancing deal with Lloyds, Natwest and HSBC in September.

@businesscloud.co.uk 🔄Who were the winners and losers on the FTSE index in November?🔄 👀BusinessCloud gives the rundown on a hectic month for London markets, as the ship steadied following a record-breaking October and the Autumn Budget announcement ⬆️Ceres, Games Workshop, Fresnillo and Lloyds were all on the rise throughout the month ⬇️JD Sports, Auto Trader, Rightmove and 3i Group all struggled during the last official month of Autumn #ftse100 #ftse250 #londonstockexchange #uktech #plc ♬ original sound – BusinessCloud

Author: Chris Maguire

Forge Holiday Group, which owns Sykes Cottages and Forest Holidays, has entered into a partnership with channel manager Guesty.

At the core of the new partnership is Guesty’s channel manager, which is purpose-built for high-volume operators managing complex, multi-channel distribution.

James Shaw, chief commercial Officer at Chester-headquartered Forge Holiday Group said: “This is a big step forward for us.

“As we continue to scale Sykes Holiday Cottages, Forest Holidays and Bachcare, the ability to broaden our distribution, reach new audiences and unlock new channels is critical.

“Guesty’s tech gives us exactly that – smarter connectivity, more automation, and access to 60+ additional booking platforms with real-time accuracy across every touchpoint.”

Robin Clifford, EMEA sales director at Guesty, added: “Forge is the most forward-thinking hospitality group in the UK – consistently ahead of the curve in both technology adoption and AI innovation.

“At Guesty, we’re leading the evolution of software for the STR sector, embedding AI across our platform to drive performance, efficiency, and exceptional guest experiences.

“Forge recognises the power of combining strong distribution with operational excellence and the right technology partner.

“Their commitment to innovation and growth aligns deeply with our mission, and we’re proud to support them as they scale, strengthen their portfolio, and unlock new opportunities for both owners and guests.”

Completing a hat-trick of results from publicly-quoted investors is Foresight Group.

Revenues for the same period were £81.5m, up 11% from £73.2m in the prior year.

EBITDA before share-based payments was £30.6m, up 6% (2024: £29m).

AUM grew 4% from £13.2bn to £13.7bn.