Perplexity has struck a global partnership with Cristiano Ronaldo, with the footballing icon taking a strategic investment stake in the AI answer-engine company.

The California-based firm says Ronaldo uses the product as part of his preparation and decision-making, and the collaboration will help push the platform to a wider mainstream audience.

To launch the tie-up, Perplexity is rolling out a dedicated Cristiano Ronaldo hub featuring an interactive CR7 experience, including career timelines, curated questions and exclusive imagery for fans to explore.

Greengage & Co has set out plans to join the Access segment of the Aquis Stock Exchange Growth Market, aiming to scale its FinTech platform while launching a Bitcoin-backed yield strategy alongside the float.

Founded in 2018, the London-based company positions itself as a relationship-led bridge between traditional finance and digital assets.

The float is designed to fund what it calls a “Bitcoin Yield Reserve Strategy”.

Greengage said that this is different from passive corporate treasury Bitcoin holdings because it seeks yield on top of any potential price upside.

The plan is to purchase Bitcoin with IPO proceeds, then borrow against those holdings on a non-recourse basis and deploy the borrowed funds into high-yield private credit portfolios.

If Bitcoin appreciates, the business expects to keep that capital upside after loan repayment and if it falls sharply, the lender can liquidate the collateral but Greengage says it would have no liability beyond losing the pledged Bitcoin.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Oxford Nanopore Technologies has named Francis Van Parys as its next chief executive, replacing founder Gordon Sanghera who has led the FTSE 250 firm since its inception in 2005.

The London-listed company, which develops molecular sensing technology based on nanopores, said Van Parys will join the business and its board as an executive director on 2nd March 2026.

He arrives with more than two decades of senior leadership experience in life sciences and is currently president and CEO of Radiometer, the acute-care diagnostics specialist owned by Danaher.

Sanghera will remain with the group in an advisory role through to early 2027 to support an orderly handover.

Netflix has agreed a £54bn deal to take over Warner Bros’ film and TV studios.

The deal will commence once the latter’s Discovery Global division – which includes CNN and the TNT Sports – is separated.

As well as its high-profile film studio, Warner Bros’ portfolio includes HBO, the HBO Max streaming platform and DC Studios.

Paramount Skydance and Comcast were the rival bidders for Warner Bros. The former has made a complaint that Netflix was given preferential treatment during the bidding process.

The deal, not expected to close until late 2026 or 2027, is likely to be closely scrutinised by competition regulators in the United States and UK.

Author: Chris Maguire

Cloud giant Cloudflare has apologised for its lateness outage, which impacted more than a quarter of its customers.

The US-based tech firm revealed that its network first reported problems at 8.47am on Friday morning and resolved its services 25 minutes later at 9.12am.

LinkedIn, Zoom and Canva were among the websites to go down with users met by empty pages.

The latest problem came just two weeks after Cloudflare’s CEO Matthew Prince was forced to issue a public apology for letting the ‘internet down’ after its latest high profile crash.

A company spokesman said: “Any outage of our systems is unacceptable, and we know we have let the internet down again following the incident on November 18.

“We will be publishing details next week about the work we are doing to stop these types of incidents from occurring.”

Nithin Kamath, founder and CEO at Zerodha and Rainmatter, said: “Cloudflare powers approximately 20-25 per cent of all internet traffic globally.

“It’s the infrastructure behind millions of websites and apps—from content delivery and DDoS protection to DNS services.

“When Cloudflare has an outage, it doesn’t just affect one company; it impacts a significant chunk of the internet simultaneously.”

 

Zally CEO’s ‘regret’ over 11 previous business failures. Patrick Smith said he’s been completely ‘open’ about leaving a trail of unpaid creditors earlier in his career following several business failures.

£38m deal for Manchester United partner backed by Rio Ferdinand. Fast-growing Sokin, club’s official global business payment solutions partner, valued at $300m by Series B round.

Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom signs deal with Ten Percent Club. Firm, which was launched less than three years ago, becomes official supplement partner for firm in ‘surreal’ moment for founder.

LDC leads major funding deal for Gateshead’s Aspire. Private equity investor leads significant minority investment deal into expanding tech company targeting £100m revenue by 2030.

Stricken Versarien to appoint administrators. Time running out for graphene specialist after fellow listed company pulled out of £200,000 takeover deal at final hurdle.

KKR completes £4.7bn acquisition of Spectris. CEO of listed UK firm to be changed from start of 2026 as deal completes following US private equity bidding war.

FTSE 100 & 250: November in review. After a record-breaking October for the FTSE 100, BusinessCloud looks at which of the UK’s biggest stocks moved most in a hectic month.

Record year at Manchester’s On the Beach. Listed holidays booking platform reveals record total transaction value for fourth consecutive year as revenue and profits also jump.

8 startups funded by PXN’s PraeSeed programme. Early stage companies from Newcastle, Durham, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Lancaster each win £200k backing.

A newly formed community initiative has launched to champion Nottingham’s tech ecosystem.

Built in Notts has been launched by Martin Sandhu alongside research which claims the city’s tech sector is significantly outperforming its level of public investment.

The ‘Potential vs Investment Index’ compares 20 UK cities across Innovate UK funding, startup creation and graduate outcomes. It found that Nottingham is outpacing many of its larger rivals but receives far less Innovate UK support per capita than other major tech hubs.

The city secured just £6.1 million in Innovate UK technology funding in 2024/25, equivalent to £19 per capita, compared with over £45m for York (£225 per capita) and £28m for Cambridge (£188 per capita).

However the city saw 170 new tech businesses formed in the last year, and continues to produce more than 2,000 engineering and technology graduates annually, providing a strong skills pipeline for its digital economy.

At an event last night at Oldknows Factory in Nottingham, local founder and investor Jordan Adams delivered a talk titled ‘The Great London Lie: How Regional Champions Win the Scale Game’.

Azoma, a company pioneering Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) for eCommerce, has raised £3m in pre-Series A funding.

The platform helps major brands and retailers – including Mars, Colgate, HP, Reckitt, Beiersdorf, Canadian Tire and Zappos – increase their share of visibility in AI search.

The London startup was founded by former Amazon executive Max Sinclair and Timur Luguev, a PhD and postdoc in AI.

The round included Ignite Ventures, Rank Ventures, eBay Ventures x Techstars, Twinpath and MaRS IAF, as well as strategic angel investors such as the chairman & CEO of The Winn-Dixie Company, and senior leadership at Google DeepMind.

Construction tech provider Causeway Technologies has expanded further into Europe with the acquisition of LetsBuild Aproplan.

The Buckinghamshire firm said the deal extends its reach across Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

This transaction represents the sixth strategic acquisition by Causeway since Five Arrows made a significant investment in Causeway in 2021. 

Causeway was founded in 1999 by chief executive Phil Brown. It now serves over 3,000 customers globally and has 500 employees.

BGF-backed hybrid cloud and IT managed services provider Celerity has appointed Stephen Leonard as advisor to its board.

Leonard will guide Celerity’s expansion into the IBM Power marketplace in the US.

He brings a wealth of experience from senior roles including CEO of IBM UK, General Manager of IBM Americas and IBM Power Solutions globally, and Senior Vice President, Alliances and Partnerships for Kyndryl.

Over his career, he has led large-scale transformation programmes, strengthened strategic alliances, and advanced enterprise cloud adoption across global markets.

Founded in 2002, North West-based Celerity has established itself as a market leader in cybersecurity, data protection, and data visualisation services. Following a £15 million investment from BGF in 2021, the company has continued to grow through service expansion, strategic partnerships, and targeted acquisitions.

In 2024, Celerity appointed Craig Aston as CEO to lead its next phase of growth.

Sustainable Ventures and Barclays Eagle Labs have launched The National Climate Tech Accelerator (NCTA), a new programme designed to rapidly scale high-potential climate tech startups across the UK.

Founders participating in the accelerator programme will benefit from a blended package of commercial and technical support, including access to the Sustainable Ventures Digital Learning Platform, the Eagle Labs Entrepreneur Academy, and up to $250,000 in Google Cloud credits.

Barclays customers will additionally unlock premium, high-impact acceleration tools including funded 1:1 mentoring, pitch events with climate tech investors, dedicated workspace access across the Eagle Labs network or at Sustainable Ventures and enhanced national visibility through the Barclays Entrepreneur Awards and the NCTA Pitch Competition.

BuiltAI, a financial modelling platform for commercial real estate investment, has secured £4.5 million in seed funding.

The firm was co-founded in 2020 by real estate investment banking and private equity veteran Natan Lempert, who previously held roles at Goldman Sachs, Citi and Benson Elliott, and Firoz Noordeen, previously launched and scaled FinTech ventures as Director at Natwest Ventures.

The company has scaled rapidly in the UK and Europe, where investors have used the platform to analyse $70 billion of investment opportunities over the past year.

The round was led by New York City-based VC Work-Bench, with participation from Lerer Hippeau, Timber Grove Ventures, Emerald Pine as well as several angel investors and property sector veterans. This includes current Manet Capital Managing Partner Jeremy Ford, who previously held senior real estate investment roles at The Carlyle Group and REEF.

Curvestone AI, a workflow automation platform for the financial services, legal and insurance sectors, has raised £3 million in seed funding.

Brothers Dawid and Sebastian Kotur founded the company after running AI automation programmes at PwC, Metro Bank and GKN, and serving as Facebook Developer Circles London Leads for one of the largest AI communities.

Realising GenAI would transform professional services, they shut down their consulting business to build Curvestone AI, which works with law firms, mortgage networks and wealth management firms – including Stephenson Harwood, Browne Jacobson, Walker Morris, and Pivotal Growth, the UK’s leading mortgage and protection advice provider – with insurance expansion underway.

The platform now processes billions of tokens quarterly across legal and financial services workflows. The business has already reached profitability and grew revenue 7x in the last 12 months.

The round was led by MTech Capital, with participation from Boost Capital Partners, D2 Fund, and Portfolio Ventures.

Track Titan has raised a £3.7 million seed round for its AI-powered ‘Strava for motorsport’.

Founded by gamer turned pro-racer Max Teichert – who made the transition following success in the Gran Turismo Academy – the London startup aims to make elite-level coaching and insights accessible to gamers and drivers of all abilities.

Having launched in 2021, the platform already has more than 200,000 users and the company has seen ten-fold growth in ARR over the last two years.

The seed round was co-led by Partech and Game Changers Ventures, the fund led by Alpine F1 co-owner Roger Ehrenberg. They are joined by a raft of high-profile investors including: Colton Parayko, Stanley Cup-winning NHL star; Trevoh Chalobah, Chelsea and England footballer; Sequel, the digital family office for athletes; On CEO Martin Hoffmann; and Third Bridge Founder Emmanuel Tahar.

Existing investor APX, a joint venture by Axel Springer SE and Porsche AG, has also invested again.

A company named Abby Connect has launched a worldwide warning about the irresponsible development of – and broken conversation around – AI.

The campaign, which has begun with billboards in San Francisco, is a response to the approach of companies such as Artisan AI – which went viral with its own West Coast adverts urging companies to stop hiring humans and instead adopt autonomous agents.

Abby Connect says its own campaign is also intended to be provocative and designed to expose the risks of reckless AI.

The virtual receptionist service has been built with humans in mind, it says, and has 20 years of operation ‘serving the frontlines of human connection’.

Now it says it has had enough of attention-grabbing headlines touting the removal of humans from the workplace – a narrative it describes as “dangerous”.

 

Author: Chris Maguire

A beauty technology firm, which won record investment on Dragons’ Den, has today closed a £9.5m ($12m) Series A funding round.

yuv, a London-based company transforming professional hair colour, set an all-time record for both the amount of financing offered and the valuation achieved in the show’s 22-season history when the show was aired in October.

Steven Bartlett and Sara Davies offered a combined £500,000 for 2 per cent equity – valuing the company at £25m.

The latest $12m Series A investment was led by Nineyards Equity, a Sweden-based growth equity firm focused on companies delivering both financial returns and positive ESG impact, with strong participation from yuv’s founder Francisco Gimenez, existing investor VNV Global, and a network of strategic angels.

Millions of crypto owners have gained stronger legal protection as the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act received Royal Assent this week.

England, Wales and Northern Ireland are among the first countries in the world to confirm in law that digital assets – such as cryptocurrency or non-fungible tokens – can now be recognised as personal property. 

This will provide greater protections and ensure they are treated like traditional assets.  

FTSE 100 firm Halma has acquired E2S Group Ltd for £230 million.

Founded in 1992, E2S designs and manufactures notification, initiation and detection devices primarily used in highly hazardous environments in heavy industries and complex manufacturing. 

Headquartered in London, it also has operations in the USA and France.

 

SkinBioTherapeutics plc, a life science group focused on skin health, has reported a 284% increase in full-year revenues to £4.6m.

The Newcastle firm said adjusted EBITDA was a £400k loss, narrowed from £2.1m in 2024, with an operating loss improvement of 61% to £1.1m (2024: £2.9m loss).

Market expectations for the year ending 30th June 2026 are revenue of £6.2m and adjusted EBITDA of £700,000.

Simon Hewitson, who only joined the company in April, stepped down as COO for personal reasons following the year-end period.

Emily Bertram, who was appointed group finance director in April, is to be promoted to CFO and also to the board.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has provided an update on its action to tackle cookie compliance, which has brought the vast majority of the UK’s most used websites into compliance with rules on the use of advertising cookies.

This has given an estimated 80% of UK internet users over the age of 14 – equating to around 40 million people – greater control over how they are tracked for personalised advertising, it said.

Its assessment focused on three key areas of compliance: whether non-essential advertising cookies were stored on users’ devices before users could exercise their choice to accept or reject them; whether rejecting non-essential advertising cookies was as easy as accepting them; and whether any non-essential advertising cookies were placed even though a user had not consented to them.

The ICO says that as a result of this work, 979 of the top 1,000 websites met the ICO’s compliance checks at the time of their most recent test, with only 21 websites identified as still failing.