Mining stocks dominate the FTSE 100 risers, with Antofagasta (+5.20%), Glencore (+4.68%), Fresnillo (+3.23%) and Anglo American (+1.96%) all moving higher in tandem.

Berkeley Group (+2.01%) is also on the rise.

Outside of the top five, Games Workshop (+1.43%), JD Sports (+1.39%) and Vodafone (+1.09%) are all up slightly again today.

On the downside in the FTSE 100, Sainsbury’s (-3.74%) is the sharpest faller after it announced late on yesterday that Qatar Holding LLC intends to sell up to 83.6 million ordinary shares in the business.

WPP (-2.11%), ConvaTec (-2.07%) and ICG (-2.05%) are all also lower today, while there are slight dips for Marks & Spencer (-1.35%) and Lloyds (-1.29%).

In the FTSE 250, Zigup (+14.39%) is the standout riser by a long way. The integrated mobility solutions platform providing services across the vehicle lifecycle saw H1 2026 revenue increase by 2.9% year-on-year to £929.6m.

Drax (+5.15%) and Hunting (+3.84%) are also on the up, while Ceres Power (+3.22%) and Oxford Nanopore (+2.84%) are recovering some ground after weakness yesterday.

On the fallers’ side, Spire Healthcare (-16.15%) is down after it announced that EBITDA for FY25 is expected to be around the bottom end of its guidance range of £270m to £285m.

There are also drops in Paragon (-5.63%), Trainline (-5.21%), DiscoverIE (-3.36%) and Frasers Group (-2.86%).

Away from the big indexes, SysGroup is down almost 4% after reporting a fall in evenues and profits this morning.

Maven Capital Partners has completed an initial £1.5 million investment in the London-based HealthTech business FITR.

FITR is a premium fitness training platform designed to help coaches and fitness professionals build, manage and scale their businesses.

It facilitates communication and engagement with clients, helping to deliver tailored plans and monitor their progress, while its payment and scheduling tools also enable coaches to sell their services and manage subscriptions within a single system.

Lifted Ventures has joined an investment round for MyBliss, a pioneering women’s sexual health brand.

Manchester-based MyBliss, which says it is ‘committed to redefining intimacy care through science and women-centred design’, was founded by Mo Carrier and Joel Birkhead following Mo’s experience with hormonal contraception side-effects.

Their science-backed products – including ultra-thin condoms and intimacy gels – prioritise women’s bodies, comfort and pleasure. It was created to challenge a market historically designed by men, for men.

The round was led by Mint Ventures, with additional co-investment from Alma Angels, bringing together three women-led angel groups dedicated to backing purpose-driven female founders.

Citrus-Lime, a fast-growing retail software and digital marketing services provider, has secured a multi-million-pound investment from BGF.

Headquartered in Cumbria, Citrus-Lime provides an end-to-end cloud retail solution focused on serving hundreds of independent retailers in the cycling, equestrian, running and outdoor space. 

Citrus-Lime has expanded to global markets with a US base and quickly established itself as a leading supplier of EPOS systems in the UK and USA. Citrus-Lime also supplies its Cloud POS to retailers throughout Europe and across Australia. 

 

Investor BGF has exited a tech-enabled fairground firm which only launched in 2019.

Bedfordshire-based Tenpin Entertainment, which is backed by American private equity firm Trive Capital, has completed a deal for Fairgame, which operates two sites in London.

Fairgame reimagines the traditional outdoor fairground in an indoor venue by combining proprietary tech-enabled fairground games with food and beverages such as candyfloss prosecco. 

The company was founded by Richard Hilton in 2019. Its sites, which include live leaderboards for the games, are in the City and Canary Wharf. 

 

Outra, a household intelligence company helping brands better understand and anticipate customer behaviour at the address level, has appointed Fred Jones as CEO.

It started life as the data engine that powered Hometrack, an industry leader in property data which was acquired by Zoopla in 2017. Giles Mackay subsequently spun Outra out as a separate business.

‘Signal erosion’ is a real challenge for marketing professionals everywhere, the firm says: as cookies and device IDs disappear, marketers are losing the clear signals they’ve long relied on.

Outra aims to solve this via AI and advanced technologies which provide household-linked signals which allow brands to predict transactions.

It counts Sky, Zoopla, Shell and AXA among its clients,

FinTech Currensea has appointed a former executive at Amex and Wise as COO.

Enrique Garland will join the London company, behind travel spending cards and co-branded debit cards, as it looks to expand the latter portfolio.

It follows Currensea’s recently-announced partnership with Marriott Bonvoy and Mastercard to offer two co-branded multi-bank debit cards to Marriott’s UK customers, allowing cardholders to earn loyalty points wherever and whenever they spend.

Ideagen has launched Mazlan, a new agentic AI platform aimed at transforming quality, safety and compliance operations by embedding autonomous workflows directly into its software.

Early pilots show tasks that typically take around 30 minutes can be reduced to just a few minutes, with admin workloads cut by more than 70%, and enterprise rollouts potentially shrinking from six-to-nine months to roughly 30 days.

The platform is designed to continuously monitor regulatory frameworks, detect risks, flag audit gaps and automate compliance actions while keeping final oversight with human teams.

The business says further features such as voice control for frontline workers will follow.

Blackmont Legal, a Manchester-based law firm that launched last year as a fully virtual practice, has opened its first physical office in the city.

The firm has taken space at 1 Balloon Street, the former Co-operative Group headquarters, giving its team a base while continuing to operate mainly remote.

The business says the office is about having a hub for collaboration and city-centre presence, not rolling back its remote-first model, and signals a long-term commitment to Manchester and the wider North West.

Bourn has raised £3.5m to scale its Flexible Trade Account, a secured working-capital product designed to modernise the traditional business overdraft for SMEs.

The round includes a strategic minority investment from NatWest Group alongside backing from McPike Global Family Office, Haatch, Love Ventures, Portfolio Ventures and Aperture, with the funding set to expand product functionality, hire across the team and accelerate partnerships with banks and platforms.

The FinTech has already been piloting the solution with Investec and is now integrating across ERPs, accounting systems and B2B marketplaces to reach SMEs inside the workflows they already use.

Author: Chris Maguire

Only 14 per cent of SMEs in the UK are now female-led, down from 19 per cent in 2021, according to government data.

Serial entrepreneur Debbie Wosskow OBE, who is the co-chair of the UK’s Invest in Women Taskforce, said the drop equates to tens of thousands fewer women running businesses across Britain.

She said: “If women started and scaled businesses at the same rate as men, the UK economy would gain £250bn.

“We need to stop treating women-led firms as a DE&I ‘nice to have’.

“They deliver stronger returns, drive jobs, and fuel growth in overlooked sectors.

“If we want a thriving economy, we must change the system – tax policy, childcare, capital access, to make it possible for more women to build and grow.

“Because every lost female entrepreneur is a lost opportunity for Britain.”

Wosskow identified rising taxes; wage pressures; and capital barriers as three of the biggest reasons for the decline.

Author: Chris Maguire

Regional private equity firm NorthEdge has made a number of senior promotions.

Dan Matkin, Liam May and James Hales have been promoted to partner and Jordana Cropper has been promoted to director.

NorthEdge, which has offices in Manchester and Birmingham, has a reputation for backing entrepreneurial and ambitious management teams in the technology, healthcare and business services sectors.

Outside of the firm’s deal activity, the portfolio has also continued to deliver strong growth – with average EBITDA growth of 36 per cent year-on-year in its core sectors.

Ray Stenton and Keven Parker, joint managing partners of NorthEdge, said: “These promotions represent a significant investment in what has always been our most important asset – our people.

“Following a strong year of performance across the business and portfolio, it is great to celebrate that success with these well-deserved promotions.

“We look forward to working with Dan, James, Liam and Jordana in their new roles, as we continue to deliver on our mission of building better businesses, and communities, across the UK regions.”

 

SysGroup plc has reported a fall in half-year revenues and profits.

The cloud, cybersecurity and AI transformation firm, headquartered in Manchester and formerly based in Liverpool, has reduced headcount from 111 in FY23 to 80.

For the six months ended 30th September 2025, revenue was £9.9m, down from £10.2m in H1 FY25.

Adjusted EBITDA was £200,000 (H1 FY25: £400,000), while loss before tax was £1.6m (H1 FY25: £1.1m).

Net cash at 30th September 2025 was £3.1m (2024: £4.6m).

Cybersecurity now represents a significant and fast-growing revenue stream for the group, today comprising 47% of revenue in the period.

The CEO of Physiomics plc is to step down next year.

Peter Sargent will leave the mathematical modelling, data science and biometrics company – which supports the development of new therapeutics and personalised medicine solutions – with effect from 29th May 2026.

The company has commenced its search to appoint a new CEO. Dr Jim Millen, currently non-executive chairman, will be available to resume the position of executive chairman from the date of Dr Sargent’s departure, for as long as required.

Dr Millen was formerly the CEO of the company from 2016 to 2024, during which time he grew the business from total income of under £300k to a peak of over £900k, as well as securing a major contract with long-term client Merck KGaA and kicking off the company’s personalised medicine initiative.

4imprint Group plc has appointed Paul Forman as a non-executive director and its next chair.

Forman is an experienced director of both listed and private-equity backed businesses. He has held chief executive roles at three FTSE 250 businesses – Essentra PLC, Coats Group PLC and Low and Bonar PLC – and is also a former non-executive director of Brammer PLC and Tate and Lyle PLC.

He is currently chair of Topps Tiles PLC, Britain’s largest tile specialist group, and Natara and Winder Power, two private equity-backed industrial groups.

He will begin as a NED on 1st January 2026 and take up the chair role from 16th March 2026.

On that date, Paul Moody will step down as chair and from the board.

Aspire Technology Solutions has secured a fresh round of investment led by private equity investor LDC which values the business at £200 million.

The provider of managed IT, cyber security and modern workplace solutions said LDC has reinvested for a significant minority alongside new minority co-investor Federated Hermes. 

In the three years since LDC’s original investment in 2022, Aspire has delivered strong and sustained growth, with revenue up 158% and headcount increasing 55%. The company has also expanded its UK reach and completed two strategic acquisitions.

The latest investment positions Aspire to accelerate its plans and advance toward its £100m revenue target for 2030.

Eight North of England startups have become the latest to receive investment from the PraeSeed programme.

The summer programme for early-stage businesses lasts six weeks and is led by the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II (NPIF II) and PXN Ventures, created by a merger between Praetura Ventures and Par Equity.

Now eight of the 12 businesses have each won £200,000 funding. They hail from Newcastle, Durham, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Lancaster.

NVM Private Equity and eComplete have backed a £31 million management buyout of Noted Aromas.

Durham-based Noted Aromas is a rapidly scaling direct-to-consumer fragrance brand.

eComplete is an eCommerce specialist and majority shareholder behind The Beauty Tech Group PLC – the parent company of CurrentBody – which was admitted to the London Stock Exchange in October with a market capitalisation of £300m.

As part of the pre-deal process, Megan O’Sullivan has been appointed managing director, bringing strong leadership credentials from the eCommerce and beauty space, having held several senior roles at THG. 

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 pre-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.