Author: Patrick Killeen

Seat Unique and Gloucestershire County Cricket Club have agreed a new four-year extension to their commercial partnership, continuing a relationship that first began in 2021.

The renewal follows what both parties described as a strong period of growth in hospitality and premium ticket sales, alongside wider increases in digital engagement at the club.

Seat Unique, a premium ticketing marketplace for sport, music and live events, has worked with Gloucestershire to market and sell official hospitality packages and enhanced matchday experiences.

It has been backed by many of England’s sporting stars, including Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer and Harry Kane.

The Isle of Man Government has launched a new National AI Office (NAIO) to help coordinate how the Island adopts AI in a practical and responsible way.

Backed by £1 million of funding, it will build on the Activate AI programme, which the government says delivered around £2m in productivity savings in 2025.

Led by Digital Isle of Man, the office will focus on creating a national AI strategy, improving AI skills and literacy, helping businesses use AI, setting clear safety guidance and using AI to make public services more efficient.

A London-based DeepTech startup developing biomanufacturing technology for the global chemicals industry has raised £1.7 million in pre-seed funding to scale its cell-free enzyme reactor platform.

The round for Anzen Industries was led by LocalGlobe and Creator Fund and will help the company shift operations to the US, where it plans to establish its first manufacturing site and pursue new industrial partnerships.

The move will see Anzen build a biomanufacturing facility in California, producing high-value molecules used in cosmetics, fragrance and food, alongside applications in critical minerals processing.

Co-founded by scientists Amy Locks and Pedro Lovatt Garcia, the business combines proprietary enzyme reactors, immobilisation methods and AI-driven design to look to improve efficiency and reduce the cost and complexity of producing hard-to-make chemicals.

Beazley has acknowledged Zurich Insurance’s £7.7 billion takeover offer, saying it has not yet had the chance to consider it.

Zurich’s improved proposal of 1,280 pence per share was made public at around 1pm today and Beazley shares have spiked by over 40% since.

The insurance giant and FTSE 100 firm said that it will update shareholders in due course and urged them to take no action.

Sage has launched a £25,000 prize draw for sole traders as it steps up efforts to encourage preparation for Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax, due to begin in April. 

The FTSE-listed software firm’s competition is aimed at helping ease the cost of a tax bill for one winner, as millions of self-employed workers face the shift to quarterly digital reporting for the first time.

The announcement follows new research from Sage and IPSE suggesting that seven in ten sole traders are still unprepared for the change, just three months before the deadline. 

Under the new rules, sole traders will be required to keep digital records and send updates to HMRC every quarter, replacing the once-a-year system many currently use.15

Author: Patrick Killeen

Eolas Medical has raised $12 million (£8.9m) in a Series A round led by Acton Capital, as it looks to scale AI in the NHS.

The Belfast-based business will also look to scale its point-of-care knowledge platform as it expands internationally.

The clinician-led HealthTech is already used across 400+ UK clinical sites and in 85% of NHS acute trusts, helping frontline teams access local guidance, policies and medicines information “up to 10 times faster” than traditional intranets and document systems.

It ranked 21st in BusinessCloud’s HealthTech 50 for 2025 and was born out of its founder’s frustrations.

Angel Capital Scotland (ACS) has appointed a new board of directors, with Niki McKenzie, joint managing director at Archangels, named as chair.

The move follows the appointment of Margaret Morton as the firm’s first chief executive in September 2025 and is being positioned as the next step in the organisation’s development as Scotland’s national association for business angels.

McKenzie brings more than 14 years’ experience at Archangels, having previously worked in banking and structured finance at KPMG and Lloyds Banking Group.

She also sits on the board of St Andrews Innovation and is a trustee of National Museums Scotland.

She is joined on the new board by Lynne Cadenhead (TRICAPITAL Angels and Women’s Enterprise Scotland), Fraser Lusty (Equity Gap) and Professor Niall MacKenzie (University of Strathclyde).

The board refresh sees long-serving chair Jock Millican step down after 14 years, having overseen the transition from LINC Scotland to Angel Capital Scotland and the recruitment of Morton as CEO.

Cares Laboratory, the innovation-led developer of specialist laundry and household cleaning products behind the Vamoosh brand, has appointed Claire White as technical manager.

The hire comes as the Barnsley-based business looks to ramp up its technical and product development capabilities. 

White joins from Selden Research and brings 18 years’ experience in formulation, applied chemistry and regulatory compliance, alongside early career experience in the pharmaceutical sector. 

The firm said the hire comes as it looks to accelerate its product pipeline, with Vamoosh now its best-selling product and stocked in more than 5,000 UK retail outlets, including B&M, The Range, Pets at Home and Asda.

Author: Patrick Killeen

ElevenLabs is in talks to raise fresh funding in a deal that could value the voice AI company at around $11 billion, according to the Financial Times.

If agreed, the round would almost double its most recent valuation of $6.6bn and make the London-based business the UK’s most valuable AI startup.

Sources told the FT that the company is seeking to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, just four months after a secondary share sale that valued the business at $6.6 billion.

It also comes under a year on from a Series C funding round which valued it at $3.3bn.

Elyos AI has raised £9.6 million in Series A funding as it looks to scale its AI agents for the trades and field services industry.

The London-based startup, founded in 2023 through Y Combinator, offers tools designed to automate customer communications, bookings, dispatch and follow-ups for businesses including plumbers, electricians and HVAC providers.

The round was led by Blackbird Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator and Pi Labs, taking Elyos AI’s total funding to £11.9m.

Elyos said the investment will support product development, deeper integrations with field-service CRMs and international expansion plans in 2026.

A new £20 million innovation facility has opened in Buckinghamshire to provide specialist space for businesses working in the sector.

The Westcott Space Hub has been backed by the UK Space Agency alongside partners including URA Thrusters, Skyports Drone Services and Buckinghamshire Council.

The 62,000 sq ft site will offer testing and training equipment as well as commercial workspace.

It has been built at Westcott Venture Park, a location with more than 50 years of history as a rocket engine test site.

The project, which began in December 2023, is expected to support around 100 direct jobs and a further 200 roles across the wider supply chain in the years ahead.

Scottish activewear brand DFYNE has opened a new 21,623 sq ft headquarters in Glasgow, just four years after launching.

Created in partnership with workplace design and build firm Oktra, the new base is intended to support the firm’s expanding team and provide space for collaboration, product showcases and future growth.

The project has launched with a first phase, with more fit-out work planned in the months ahead.

It comes seven months on from the company being named as Britain’s fastest-growing private company in the fourth annual Sunday Times 100 rankings.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Zurich Insurance has made an offer of around £7.7 billion to acquire FTSE 100 company and fellow insurance giant Beazley plc.

The offer of 1,280p in cash per share, which comes after a previous offer was snubbed, represents a 56% premium to Beazley’s 820p closing price on 16th January and a similar uplift to its 30-day volume-weighted average share price.

This share price has now been dwarfed, as the London-based company’s stock has risen by a remarkable 42% to 1,173p in the last hour – around 200p higher than it has ever been in its 22 years as a public company.

The Swiss insurer’s latest approach marks an increase on its earlier 1,230p proposal submitted on 4th January, which Beazley rejected on 16th January as it “significantly undervalued” the business.

Bristol-based virtual meeting platform Jugo has appointed SaaS executive Geoff Bird as chief revenue officer as it prepares to scale its go-to-market strategy ahead of a planned product launch in Q1 2026.

Bird brings more than 20 years’ experience in technology sales, having held leadership roles at Extreme Networks, Clearcourse and most recently Velsera, where he helped drive commercial growth in regulated enterprise healthcare markets.

He said Jugo stood out for its product, vision and team, explaining that it aims to move remote meetings beyond “flat” video calls by offering fully branded, 3D environments.

The firm said Bird will focus on growing both strategic accounts and a volume SaaS offering, as the company looks to transition from a managed service model into a scalable software business.

Belfast-based SportTech firm TeamFeePay has raised £9 million in equity funding to support its expansion into new markets and drive a major hiring programme.

Founded in 2021 by grassroots coach Liam McStravick, the company provides software that helps clubs plan fixtures and training sessions, track attendance and reduce admin tasks such as fee collection.

It now supports more than 1,500 clubs and almost 300,000 users, and plans to create 75 jobs over the next two years across the UK and Europe.

The round was led by YFM Equity Partners with a £4.5m investment and the Investment Fund for Northern Ireland (IFNI) with £3m, managed by Clarendon Fund Managers.

Techstart also invested £800,000, with a further £700,000 coming from private investors.

Concept Life Sciences has appointed Dr Adam Davenport as chief scientific officer as it looks to strengthen its integrated drug discovery offering.

Davenport brings more than 25 years of experience across drug discovery and partnership-led R&D, having most recently served as chief discovery officer at Proxygen and previously held senior roles at Dalriada Drug Discovery and Evotec.

The appointment comes during a period of growth for the Chapel-en-le-Frith-based firm, as it continues to expand its discovery facilities and support global clients.

Author: Patrick Killeen

San Francisco-based tech giant Cloudflare has acquired Human Native, an AI data marketplace headquartered in London.

The deal signals the internet infrastructure firm’s growing focus on how content is accessed and monetised in the age of generative AI.

Founded in 2024 and backed by LocalGlobe and Mercuri, Human Native was set up to help content owners strike fairer, clearer deals with AI firms.

The team includes former staff from DeepMind, Google, Figma and Bloomberg, and will now support Cloudflare as it builds tools that make it easier for creators to package and share content with AI systems on their own terms.

The company specialises in transforming multimedia content into structured, searchable datasets that can be licensed by AI developers.

It aims to help publishers and creators package unstructured material into something that can be understood, valued and sold.

Marketing Signals has appointed Jade Denby and Jade Williams to strengthen its PR and marketing teams.

Denby joins the Manchester firm as head of digital PR, bringing more than 15 years of experience and arriving from Wavemaker, where she spent seven years delivering strategies for blue-chip brands. 

The agency said her appointment follows a period of sustained growth, including several new B2C e-commerce client wins.

Williams, a marketer and podcaster, has been named head of marketing and will oversee the company’s marketing activity across brand awareness, lead generation and revenue growth.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Investment, protection and retirement specialist LV= has made two key hires to its executive team.

Anita Fernqvist has been appointed as its new chief transformation and technology officer, subject to regulatory approval.

Fernqvist, a former HP and IBM figure, brings extensive expertise in technology, data and large-scale transformation.

She spent 20 years at Zurich Insurance, including in senior roles such as COO and chief data officer.

In her new role, she will join the Bournemouth-based firm’s executive team and lead its business change, technology services, data and operational resilience functions.

Alongside Fernqvist’s appointment, Chloe Stuttard will take on the role of chief customer officer.

Already part of LV’s senior leadership and having been with the business since 2019, she will join the executive team and lead customer and adviser experience and governance.

Ant & Dec have launched Belta Box, a new digital entertainment channel and their first move into podcasting.

The platform, part of the duo’s Mitre Studios production company and supported by YMU, is billed as a “feel-good entertainment” destination featuring content curated by the pair.

Its first release will be a new podcast series, Hanging Out, described as an unscripted show with no agenda, with the first episode due to launch this Thursday.