HealthTech startup Holly Health has received peer-reviewed validation for its digital coaching platform. 

Research published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) confirms that Holly Health meaningfully improves subjective well-being in people living with multiple chronic conditions.

The research, conducted with University College London (UCL), tracked 565 users over 12 weeks and found significant improvements in life satisfaction, happiness, sense of purpose and anxiety across all age groups, including older adults.

The study also identified how the platform drives change. The app’s chatbot, habit-tracking tools and small-goals framework were found to reduce feelings of loneliness, build self-compassion and support sustained behaviour change. 

Northern-focused venture capital firm PXN Ventures has reopened applications for PraeSeed, its cohort-based investment programme designed to bridge the funding gap for preseed founders across the North of England.

Applications are now open with PXN Ventures recruiting a third cohort of 10-12 startups who will secure places on the six-week programme. Up to eight will receive £200,000 each from NPIF II – PXN Equity Finance, which is managed by PXN Ventures as part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II.

Since launching in 2024, PraeSeed has already invested a total of £3m into 15 startups across Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire, Cumbria, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Durham and Sheffield.

85% of businesses funded in the 2024 cohort have since raised additional funding.

A London PropTech has secured a £69 million funding deal to fuel the expansion of its AI-powered rental marketplace across the UK.

Dwelly says it leverages AI to significantly enhance the user experience throughout the entire letting cycle, streamlining tenant-landlord matchmaking, maintenance and rent collection.

The firm secured the debt and equity investment to continue its acquisition of lettings agencies. To date it has snapped up eight and currently manages over £200m in GMV. 

 

Chelsea have agreed a deal with IFS which they hope will see the AI software firm boost performance on and off the pitch.

The multi-year global partnership sees IFS elevated to principal partner with immediate effect, featuring on the front of the Blues’ shirt for the remainder of the 2025/26 season.

It marks the beginning of a long-term collaboration that places advanced AI agents at the heart of football performance, operational excellence and fan engagement, according to the club.

 

Author: Chris Maguire

Firms must be bold, brave and unafraid of risk if they want to succeed internationally.

That was one of the key messages at BusinessCloud’s latest event in association with VirtualNonExecs.

VirtualNonExecs is the UK’s largest community of board advisors, giving corporate partners unparalleled access to the boardrooms of over 50,000 SMEs.

The Leeds office of Eversheds Sutherland hosted Wednesday’s business breakfast, entitled ‘How to scale internationally’.

The audience of 70 delegates heard from two panels of international experts and business leaders.

Alexander Celik is the CEO of Sowerby Bridge-based material science company Rosehill Polymers, which is set to hit £50m turnover this year.

Rosehill was established in 1998 and Celik joined in 2005, growing the firm’s export from 25 per cent to 80 per cent

He told the audience “Don’t be afraid to take risks and be bold. Find products that are novel, interesting and desirable.

“Having an understanding of the cultural elements of each individual market is important.”

Peter McCormack is a partner at Eversheds Sutherland and the head of the firm’s international commercial product group.

He said: “We’ve got around 3,000 people in 70 offices in 30 jurisdictions around the world. Advising clients on multi-jurisdictional contracts, legal issues and needs is really what we do and stands us apart from the competition.”

Moneybox, a wealth management platform, has appointed Sir James Leigh-Pemberton as a non-executive director to its board.

Sir James will draw on his deep expertise in corporate governance, regulatory oversight and complex stakeholder management, developed through senior roles at the intersection of government and financial services, to further strengthen Moneybox’s governance as the business continues to scale.

He joins Moneybox in its 10th anniversary year after becoming a shareholder back in 2017.

Enginuity, an AI platform helping innovators find and commercialise existing inventions, has raised £500,000 in a funding round led by Fuel Ventures alongside Symvan Capital and angel investors.

Enginuity is described as the market demand system for intellectual property, using multi-agent AI to map global IP against live market demand signals – helping innovators, research and development teams, universities and corporates to commercialise dormant assets.

The investment will accelerate product development, grow engineering and business-development teams, and expand partnerships with companies, universities and innovation ecosystems across the UK, US and Europe.

A former VP at Amazon has joined Multiverse as chief product officer.

The upskilling platform for AI and tech adoption said Jay Richman will move from New York to London to take up the role.

Richman, a veteran product leader who most recently led the development of agentic AI systems at Amazon, also worked on the launch of Hulu – one of the first major streaming platforms – before spending a decade at Spotify, where he was instrumental in scaling the company’s advertising, subscription and podcasting businesses.

Multiverse’s platform has enabled more than 30,000 learners across 1,500 customers to close their skills gaps through an end-to-end solution that unlocks productivity through a mixture of human expertise and a Socratic AI coach, Atlas. Atlas has more than tripled its daily active users in the last year, according to the firm.

CodeBase co-founder and CEO Stephen Coleman OBE is to move to the role of group chair with chief strategy officer Jon Hope stepping into the CEO role on an interim basis.

Former Skyscanner leader and Current Health exec Richard Lennox has joined the CodeBase board and steps in as interim COO to support the transition.

Coleman took up the CEO role in 2016, overseeing and guiding CodeBase’s growth and evolution over the last ten years, from an Edinburgh startup hub to a global tech ecosystem platform.

CodeBase now operates across Scotland, the UK, and internationally, delivering programmes for the Scottish Government, UK Government, European Union and other strategic partners.

Amber Therapeutics has strengthened its board and leadership team among other major business updates following its £80 million Series A financing in July 2024.

Amber has appointed Dave Amerson as an independent board member and strengthened its executive leadership team with the appointment of Claire Smith as VP, commercial.

Amerson previously served as president and CEO of NeoTract, Inc. through its $1.1 billion acquisition, and as chairman of the board at Palette Life Sciences through its $600m acquisition.

Smith joins from Nevro. She led the launch of multiple innovative products, helped establish and expand new markets, and developed scalable business model solutions that enabled the delivery of world-class patient care.

The Series A financing has also enabled Amber to significantly expand its operational footprint, including the opening of its new headquarters and manufacturing facility at Harwell, the UK’s leading science and innovation campus.

The Harwell site will support clinical-scale manufacturing, product development, and team growth as the company prepares for pivotal trials to treat mixed urinary incontinence.

Brainomix, a global leader and pioneer of AI-powered imaging tools in stroke and lung fibrosis, has announced a £4.8 million extension to its Series C financing, in addition to the £14m secured in March 2025.

With existing operations in the US and an extensive portfolio of FDA-cleared AI imaging solutions, the additional capital will enable Brainomix to further expand in the US market as the company advances deployment of its AI imaging platforms, Brainomix 360 Stroke and e-Lung, across multiple hospitals.

The extension round was led by existing investors, Parkwalk Advisors and Hostplus via the IP Group Hostplus Innovation Fund, and includes participation from a new US-based investor, Modi Ventures.

A London-based AI infrastructure platform has merged with Radiant, a newly launched portfolio company of global investment giant Brookfield.

The deal caps off a seven-year journey for Ori Industries, which has been led by founder Mahdi Yahya since inception.

Ori provides telecommunication companies and corporates with the software stack to build, manage and deploy AI cloud.

Ori will be the software and team layer sitting on top of Radiant’s compute and physical data centres, with Yahya now serving as president of Radiant and Ori’s senior team becoming the senior team at the merged firm.

Radiant says it is one of the world’s first infrastructure companies engineered from the ground up to deliver integrated AI compute, with access to scaled capital from Brookfield.

It is the second seed investment from Brookfield’s AI Infrastructure Fund and provides Radiant with a direct pipeline to a $100 billion investment program for AI Infrastructure.

 

A Manchester animation software firm has been acquired by digital media giant Canva.

The Australian-founded firm with more than 265 million users has snapped up Cavalry, a 2D animation platform used by top motion designers.

Cliff Obrecht, co-founder and COO at Canva, said the deal will see it “take another big step toward helping professional designers break free from bloated and expensive tools, bringing everything from vector to motion design into one powerful creative suite”.

Canva has also acquired MangoAI, developer of algorithms and learning loops to power the next generation of its AI-driven marketing products.

Laundryheap – the world’s biggest on-demand laundry company – has launched into four new international markets: Colombia, Mexico, Malaysia and Scotland.

This means the company is now operating in 28 cities and 16 countries globally, with more launches planned for later this year.

Laundryheap has served more than 400,000 customers globally and grown 700% since 2020, with several acquisitions completed.

Palatine has invested £5m into AI-powered healthcare expert network Techspert to accelerate hiring and further develop its AI platform – marking the 11th deal from its Growth Credit Fund.

Techspert’s AI-driven platform connects clients, such as pharmaceutical and biotech companies, with relevant subject matter experts facilitating interviews, calls, surveys and bespoke interactions to gather insights.

The fully remote global business, formerly based in Cambridge, has a database of 25 million healthcare profiles covering 5 million specialisms, with 400,000 actively engaged.

Techspert is already backed by BGF and Nauta Capital. The fresh funding will support the hiring of around 20 employees in 2026 across sales, marketing and customer success teams, along with the development of AI research and market intelligence tools.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Allica Bank, a digital bank serving small and medium businesses, has raised £115 million in Series D capital to become the UK’s latest unicorn.

The raise comes from Ventura Capital, GLG , Sona AM and existing investors TCV and Blue Owl. The majority of the round consists of common equity, alongside a portion of new additional Tier 1 equity capital. 

Allica’s core market is established SMEs – businesses with typically 5-250 employees – and provides a full stack of services using proprietary technology.

The round values Allica at close to $1.2 billion.

The capital will fuel Allica’s continued lending growth and deepen investment into its technology stack, including using AI to revolutionise lending opportunities for established SME businesses, while expanding outside of its UK home market for the first time.

BeyondMath, a DeepTech company that has developed a ‘first-of-its-kind’ generative physics model, has closed a £7.4 million seed extension.

Founded in 2022 by AI industry veterans Alan Patterson and Darren Garvey, BeyondMath has developed the world’s largest foundational physics model, which is capable of simulating complex physical phenomena, from aerodynamics to thermal management.

Customers include major automotive, aerospace and electronics manufacturers, as well as players in data centre design and semiconductor manufacturing. In automotive engineering specifically – where BeyondMath works with an F1 team – the platform supports real-time testing of thousands of design combinations to identify optimisations in aerodynamics and thermal management. 

The company also has established partnerships with NVIDIA and AWS.

The round was led by Cambridge Innovation Capital, alongside existing investors including UP.Partners, Insight Partners, and InMotion Ventures. It closes the seed round at almost £14m.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

The CEO of Trainline plc is to step down after more than six years at the company.

Under the leadership of Jody Ford, who succeeded Clare Gilmartin as CEO in 2021, Trainline doubled net ticket sales and saw growth in new markets in France, Spain and Italy.

The listed independent rail and coach platform said Ford will continue to lead the company as CEO through the transition to new leadership.  The board has commenced a formal search process for his successor.   

Formerly COO, Ford had previously held the role of CEO at Photobox Group, encompassing the Moonpig and Photobox brands, and led global growth at eBay. 

 

Author: Chris Maguire

Wayve, a UK-based leader in AI for autonomous driving, has announced it has raised $1.2bn in a Series D investment round.

Uber, who also participated in the round, committed  additional capital of $300m to support the development of Wayve-powered ‘robotaxis’ on the Uber network,

The total funding of $1.5bn brings the London-based firm’s valuation to $8.6bn and will accelerate the company’s shift from AI research leadership to scaled commercial deployment of its end-to-end AI platform.

The round was led by Eclipse, Balderton and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and brings in new investment from Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Baillie Gifford, British Business Bank, Icehouse Ventures, Schroders Capital and other global institutional investors.

Microsoft, NVIDIA and Uber participated in the round, alongside global automotive manufacturers Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Stellantis.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Leaf, a Newcastle-based technology and data science company delivering performance intelligence for eCommerce brands, started life far from a UK-headquartered eCommerce specialist. 

The business was originally founded on the other side of the world as Leaf Music, a platform designed to help musicians engage audiences and monetise their work at a time when streaming was rapidly reshaping the industry.

“We started the business in Costa Rica,” said CEO and co-founder Gilbert Corrales. “Our original mission with Leaf Music was to empower musicians to engage, grow and monetise audiences.”

At the time, Corrales and his co-founders Helga Alvarez and Wesley Hartley believed artists had been pushed out of the value chain by streaming platforms. 

Revenue had shifted away from albums and towards live gigs, while playlists – not musicians – increasingly dictated discovery.

“Artists went from making money through CD sales and albums to not making money from their music, and instead making money through gigs.

“Music became playlist-centric rather than artist-centric.”

While the mission resonated, the business struggled to scale in the way the founders had hoped. Corrales described the period as when a romantic idea met commercial reality.

What did work, however, was the underlying capability the team had built – marketing execution, data analysis and performance optimisation.

Gilbert explains the pivot and journey so far in our interview.