Author: Jonathan Symcox

The business ecosystem has backed the announcement of a Founders’ Relief initiative in today’s Budget.

John Healey delivered his first fiscal plan as Chancellor alongside Prime Minister Andy Burnham and the capital gains tax relief stole headlines among businesses and those who support them.

The relief will apply a 10% rate of CGT to qualifying disposals of shares, up to a lifetime limit of £10 million of gains per individual. 

The Government said this will incentivise those whose records, creativity and resilience in building successful businesses mean they have the potential to deliver even more UK jobs, growth and wider economic benefits in future.

It has launched a consultation seeking views on how the proposed individual, company and growth and innovation conditions will work for this in practice.

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Tech entrepreneurs have called for the Chancellor to “change Britain’s ambition and appetite for risk” in his first Budget today.

In a video address ahead of the unveiling of his first fiscal plan alongside Prime Minister Andy Burham, John Healey pledged to provide “breathing space” to businesses and households.

He also promised to deliver long-term measures to “get energy costs down for good” and to “strengthen national security and our defences”. 

“We’ll do all of this responsibly, sticking within tight fiscal rules, and make sure every pound is well invested,” he said.

However Steven Mendel and Laura Ashford, co-founders of Lateral – a private health insurance startup for active over-60s – want to see a more radical plan to back entrepreneurs.

“The Chancellor talks about backing entrepreneurs, but I’d like to know whether this Budget has done anything meaningful to change Britain’s ambition and appetite for risk,” they said.

“We’re asking people to take enormous personal and financial risks to build the businesses that will drive our future growth. Yet too often the incentives facing those same people seem designed to encourage them to work less, earn less and play it safe.”

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Private equity giant Accel-KKR’s £207 million takeover of historic firm Eleco plc has been given the green light by shareholders.

Eleco, founded in 1895, has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since the start of World War II.

Early in this century it entered the built environment software market with a series of acquisitions and in 2013 divested its remaining building systems and precast concrete businesses, making it a software-focused group.

 

Cortile, an end-to-end platform for UK residential property management, has appointed former Checkatrade head of AI services James Hamilton as general manager and HomeViews co-founder Hannah Marsh as head of marketing. 

The business was co-founded in 2019 by Manchester-based property and technology entrepreneur Akeel Malik. It has since attracted clients including Pinnacle Group, RMG and Urban Splash and is now trusted by managing agents overseeing more than 400,000 homes across the UK. 

Its technology development has been supported by Innovate UK, the UK government’s innovation agency. 

JJ Double Gold, a fitness and recovery natural nutrient business founded by double Olympic Taekwondo gold medallist Jade Jones OBE with tech entrepreneur Richard Groves, has agreed a landmark deal with York-based CBD wellness business HempWell Ltd.

JJ Double Gold has acquired an equity stake in HempWell in a move that will see a phased multi-million-pound investment over the next three years. 

The deal will accelerate Hempwell’s growth and enable JJ Double Gold to enter new markets for the first time, including the supply of natural CBD-led vitamins, minerals and wellness products designed to support overall mental and physical wellbeing.

 

Machenta, a frontier AI company building a new kind of foundation model for robots, has raised a £30 million seed round co-led by Creandum and Union Square Ventures.

People are remarkably good at learning new physical tasks: show someone how to do something once and, in many cases, they can do it straight away. However, robots today are very different, and teaching them a new task usually takes several days or weeks. 

First, hundreds or thousands of human demonstrations of the task are collected, then the model is trained on this data, and finally after waiting for all this, the robot can perform the task by itself.

Machenta has built a foundational model designed to eliminate that intelligence gap between humans and robots, and to achieve ‘instant learning’. 

Utilising this model, the firm says, if a robot sees just one demonstration of a task, it can perform the task immediately afterwards – instantly adapting to entirely new variations of the task. There is no need to wait for further demonstrations or training. 

 

Lovey, which claims to be the UK’s fastest-growing FinTech and financial services provider, has announced a senior secured credit facility of up to £250 million with Pollen Street Capital.

The facility is made up of £50m committed capital and a £200m accordion, making it the largest funding facility in the Birmingham firm’s history.

Lovey is a finance provider focused on SME funding. The facility will significantly increase its lending capacity, supporting the business as it scales its own-book lending while continuing to grow its established brokerage proposition.

Founded by Jack Smith in 2016, Lovey has grown from a one-person start-up into a 120-strong business, funding more than £600m in loans to over 11,000 UK SMEs. 

THG Fulfil, a provider of Software-as-a-Service technology, robotics and operations platforms built for global eCommerce, has extended its partnership with CDS Superstores.

CDS trades as The Range, wilko and Homebase.

The multi-year contract extension builds on a partnership that began in 2024, in which THG Fulfil provides fulfilment and courier management services for the home, leisure and garden retailer.

Concretene has raised £4.5 million in the first close of its Series A funding round to scale up ‘Manchester graphene’ technology.

The company – a spinout from the University of Manchester – is developing a circular manufacturing programme using local wastewater biogas from United Utilities as a feedstock for carbon-negative graphene at multiple-tonne scale in Manchester.

That ‘Manchester graphene’ can then be used to reduce the carbon-footprint of concrete assets for the water sector and wider construction industry.

The first close of the funding round was announced during a visit by Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds to Concretene’s materials testing facility in Manchester’s Sister innovation district.

The visit coincided with a meeting of Prime Minister Andy Burnham, DBIST Secretary Reynolds and small business representatives at Number 10 North, as the Government announced measures to ease costs and administrative burden for SMEs ahead of the Budget.

adsilico, a University of Leeds spinout, has raised £10 million in Series A funding.

The startup will expand its AI and simulation technology for assessing medical device performance in diverse virtual patient populations.

The round was led by PXN Ventures, and existing investors Northern Gritstone and Parkwalk also took part. 

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

The long-running hostile takeover bid of System1 Group plc by fellow listed MarTech firm Brave Bison has petered out.

This month Brave Bison made a fifth and final offer valued at £53.4 million, using its own criteria, but it failed to attract sufficient support among shareholders of System1.

The offer was equivalent to 10.7x of System1’s forecasted FY27 adjusted profit before tax of £5m, Brave Bison said. It has now lapsed, having failed to satisfy the acceptance condition. Accordingly, System1 is no longer in an offer period for the purposes of the Takeover Code.

Brave Bison’s largest shareholder Lord Michael Ashcroft recently slammed the ‘hypocrisy’ of its board during the hostile move for the marketing effectiveness research company.

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

The CEO of NCC Group plc has stepped down with immediate effect.

Mike Maddison was named CEO four and a half years ago and has led a strategic transformation at the Manchester-headquartered cybersecurity firm.

He will be succeeded by CFO Guy Ellis.

NCC also provided a trading update for the year ended 30th September 2026 this morning.

Nous, a household AI agent helping families reduce life admin and save money on their routine spending, has raised £13m of new capital to expand internationally and add new features. 

Founded by Greg Marsh – the entrepreneur behind luxury accommodation marketplace onefinestay, which exited to Accor in a $200m deal – Nous has built an AI agent for households that allows normal people with busy lives to offload everyday admin and save money. The Nous agent finds cheaper deals, carries out the work of switching providers, cancels subscriptions, fills out forms, and spots dodgy contract terms or pricey renewal traps.

It also manages family calendars, reminds you of deadlines, finds local tradespeople, and books appointments.

The new funding is provided by Heartcore Capital and existing seed investor, Mosaic Ventures. Chalfen Ventures, Joyance Partners and Bain Future Back Ventures also participated. 

Nous has also previously secured angel investment from leading founders and entrepreneurs including: Tom Blomfield (GoCardless & Monzo); Brent Hoberman (Founders Factory, lastminute.com, Made.com); Doug Monro, (Adzuna); Richard Moross, (MOO); Andrew Brookes, Angie Ma and Marc Warner, (Faculty.ai); James Meekings, (Funding Circle); Eamon Jubbawy and  Husayn Kassai (Onfido); Will Dean (Tough Mudder); and Daniel Hegarty (Habito).

Cambridge technology company Gearset has appointed former Matillion marketing chief Mark Johnston as its new CMO, as the business looks to build on its global growth and expand further into enterprise AI.

Based at Cambridge Science Park, Gearset recorded 37% revenue growth in 2025 and moved into a larger headquarters on the Park.

It now serves more than 3,500 organisations worldwide.

Johnston joins with experience at Matillion, Domo and Microsoft, having helped bring Matillion’s agentic AI product to market. He will now help Gearset expand its enterprise offering, following the launch of Cam, its own AI agent for Salesforce teams.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

An activist investor is seeking to replace the chair of Auction Technology Group plc months after it saw a dozen takeover bids rejected.

FitzWalter Capital, which is based in London, is ATG’s largest shareholder and is demanding that the firm – also headquartered and listed in London – be moved to the US.

It has requisitioned a general meeting to remove Scott Forbes (pictured) as a director and appoint Richard Campbell-Breeden in his place. If the resolutions are passed, FitzWalter will ask the board to appoint him as chair. 

Alex Depledge MBE has quit as the Treasury’s entrepreneurship adviser ahead of the Budget, blaming the “sideshow” treatment of scaleup entrepreneurs.

Depledge was appointed to the newly created role by former Chancellor Rachel Reeves in June 2025 but said under John Healey – set to deliver his first Budget on Wednesday – the Government was instead directing taxpayer money towards traditional industries.

“Keeping scaleups on the fringes underestimates the contribution of our greatest companies, and we need to support and develop them on British shores at all costs”, she told The Sunday Times. “We treat them as a bit of a sideshow.”

The serial founder, who grew up in Bradford, exited cleaning marketplace Hassle.com in 2015 before founding PropTech Resi. She stepped down from ‘the UK’s largest residential architect’ at the end of last year.

Depledge said: “Where’s the real economy? They think it’s over here with steel, cars and hard hats, that this is the ‘main event’.

“And my argument has always been: no, scaleups are the main event.”

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Manchester is among the UK’s fastest-growing local economies – and accountancy firm S&W’s regional operation is expanding right alongside it.

The city has made headlines this year as the home to Number 10 North, thanks to the rise of former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to Prime Minister, and has a booming digital and tech cluster.

Meanwhile, S&W was launched last year to build on the strength and heritage of Smith & Williamson, founded in 1881, and aims to bring the “personal touch” to professional services for businesses across Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle – building on successful operations in Birmingham, Bristol and London, among others. 

Gary Fenemore-Schenk, a tax director, spent 10 years at Mazars before joining Alvarez & Marsal and then, soon afterwards, the fledgling S&W business.

“The North, and Manchester in particular, is seen as a real target for the business,” he tells me.

“Everyone within S&W recognises that the growth of Manchester’s economy and ecosystem is outstripping everywhere across the UK. It is fair to say that it’s a city that is getting  maximum attention at the moment.”

Gary will speak on the breakfast panel at FUEL Manchester next week. You can register for free at the link below.

Manchester-based charity technology startup Raiser has secured innovation funding and attracted investment from former JustGiving adviser Daryl Upsall as it targets its next phase of growth. 

The company, which is developing an AI-enabled platform to connect charities with potential funders, has also strengthened its leadership expertise with the addition of experienced figures from the charity, philanthropy and financial sectors. 

Daryl Upsall, an internationally recognised fundraising consultant who advised JustGiving’s founders during its early development and launch, has joined as an investor and ambassador. 

Zahra Hedges, former chief executive of Winning Scotland and IoD Director of the Year (Third Sector) 2025, has recently joined as an adviser, while Mark Carrigan, a specialist in philanthropy and capital mobilisation, joined Raiser’s board as a non-executive director earlier this year. 

The innovation funding, awarded by the GM Business Growth Hub, will support development of Raiser’s grant-matching technology and its wider growth ambitions. 

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

The chair of GB Group plc is to retire from the role after overseeing a 65% drop in the firm’s share price.

Richard Longdon took on the role in September 2022, when GBG’s shares were valued at 450 pence. Today they are worth 156p, with a market cap of £358 million.

He will step down on 30th November to spend more time with his family and on personal interests, the global identity and location technology provider said.

 

The Government has pledged to slash red tape for businesses ahead of next week’s Budget.

The changes include making compliance guidance clearer, simpler and small business-friendly; simplifying the UK’s corporate reporting requirements; reducing duplicative reporting burdens for asset managers; streamlining the home-buying and selling process, saving money for businesses in the transaction chain; and extending import tariff suspensions on more than 250 products favoured by businesses.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Chancellor John Healey said they could save businesses a combined £800 million.

They will today meet with small business owners and representative organisations, including the Federation of Small Businesses, at Number 10 North. 

There, they will accept recommendations from the Small Business Taskforce, which has seen government work in partnership with business leaders over the past months to identify and reduce the bureaucracy holding firms back.