Author: Jonathan Symcox

A former boss of Costa Express has raised £2 million for automated drinks retail platform Unity Coffee.

Founder Scott Martin previously co-founded Coffee Nation, which grew to a network of more than 900 self-service machines. Acquired in 2011 for £59.5 million by Whitbread, these were immediately rebranded as Costa Express.

Martin effectively introduced the first premium self-serve espresso solution to the UK, bringing real coffee and fresh milk to consumers at a time when instant coffee dominated the on-the-go market. It subsequently became a cornerstone of Coca-Cola’s acquisition of Costa Coffee.

Unity is expanding into a market that is rapidly changing how people buy food and drink on the move. It is building an automated retail platform, pairing premium beverages with connected hardware, app-based ordering and payments, and real-time loyalty. 

The funding will be used to roll out 500+ state-of-the-art machines across the next 12 months, scaling its app-first coffee stations into high-footfall venues including gyms, hotels and flexible workspaces, and forecourts.

Audoo, a music technology company redefining public performance royalty distributions, has announced a partnership with Sabam, the Belgian association for authors, composers and publishers.

The partnership will deliver a new approach to DJ reporting powered by the Audio Meter technology from Audoo, which topped our MediaTech 50 ranking last year.

Audoo’s scalable Audio Meter solution captures exactly what is played in real time across live environments – moving away from more complex technology solutions and manual and sample-based reporting. 

The result is more accurate data at scale, enabling royalty distributions based on actual usage. It also increases transparency and supports fairer remuneration for authors, composers and publishers. 

Audoo’s solution is designed for modern venues, including multi-room and multi-zone environments where multiple DJs may be performing simultaneously. Its technology captures music across all areas in parallel, delivering a complete and representative view of what is being played. 

The technology has already been deployed in several live environments in Belgium, where it successfully captured music across complex, multi-stage setups.

Shares in Manchester-headquartered online retailer THG have risen today after it reported revenue growth of 7% in the first quarter of 2026 – the highest Q1 figure for five years.

THG shares are currently trading just below 40 pence, up 3% in today, after rising 7% in early trading.

Building on the momentum of a strong end to 2025, the company’s group revenue was £393.1m, while Myprotein, the world’s largest online sports nutrition brand, saw its revenues rise by 8.8% to £159.8m.

THG also delivered its strongest Q1 cash flow performance in three years and has reiterated full-year guidance for FY 2026.

THG shares are down 14% in the year to date but 37% up last 12 months.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Shares in Trustpilot Group plc rose today after it announced an addition to its board.

John-Paul Savant, who is stepping down as CEO of listed Auction Technology Group after a decade in the role, will become a non-executive director from May.

Before ATG, Savant built 20 years of experience in digital marketplaces and commerce.

He spent almost 10 years at eBay/PayPal, serving in a number of leadership roles, latterly as PayPal’s vice president of product, experience and consumer engagement for EMEA.

He then held the role of CEO of Think Finance UK.

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

AI video platform for business Synthesia has revealed global expansion plans after it saw enterprise contracts triple.

The London-headquartered business will open new bases in Austin and Berlin, alongside an expanded presence in Paris and Zurich.

The company has tripled its contracts over $100,000 in the last 12 months and says it has a net revenue retention rate of more than 140%. The expansion follows Synthesia’s $200 million Series E raise at a $4 billion valuation in January 2026.

Founded in 2017, Synthesia is expanding its global footprint to support growing demand from enterprise customers. The company is scaling its teams across go-to-market and customer success functions, with plans to increase global headcount by more than 70% in 2026.

Newcastle-based finance startup CO4CH has launched a free Finance 4 Founders (F4F) community, which provides structured financial support to founders at each stage of their business journey.

The community brings together peer support, practical financial insight and pathway programmes designed to help early-stage entrepreneurs become investment-ready.

The launch will effectively introduce Cohort 1 of the Fund programme, featuring live sessions that take members through a structured curriculum focused on the process of raising capital.

Participants will develop the skills needed to raise external funding by building financial models, understanding the investor landscape, and preparing for due diligence.

Delivered on a cohort basis three times per year, the Fund programme forms a core part of CO4CH’s signature Start | Fund | Scale system. 

 

Manchester FinTech Firenze has raised £6m a year after its £2.5m seed round.

The firm aiming to redefine Lombard lending said the round was led by AlbionVC, with follow-on participation from all major existing investors, including Outward VC and Form Ventures.

Firenze, launched in January 2024 by co-founders David Newman and Anna Curtis, is an embedded finance platform allowing wealth managers to offer loans from as little as £65,000 secured against clients’ investment portfolios.

Because borrowing is secured lending with highly liquid collateral, Lombard lending offers lower interest rates compared to typical unsecured loans and allows decisions to be made in hours rather than weeks or months.

These so-called Lombard loans have typically only been available to clients of private banks who have, as a minimum, £1m of investments.

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

YFM Equity Partners has led a £3 million investment round into talent tech innovator inploi.

The London startup, founded by Matthew de la Hey and Alex Hanson-Smith in 2016 to serve the recruitment needs of the hospitality and leisure sector through a marketplace, was forced to pivot hard to enterprise SaaS when COVID wiped out its customer base and pipeline. 

With customers including Compass Group, wagamama, Gail’s and NHS trusts, inploi has facilitated millions of applications across over 70,000 vacancies since that pivot.

Daintta, professional services firm delivering technology into secure environments, has secured a significant investment from private equity investor LDC.

Founded in 2019 and headquartered in London with an office in Cheltenham, Daintta provides technical and business professional services, helping clients to design, secure and protect their data and technology systems. It delivers high-complexity technology projects across data intelligence, cyber security, networks and communications and AI engineering.

Daintta has built a team of more than 80 highly skilled consultants and engineers, establishing itself as a trusted partner to both public and private sector clients including central government departments and companies in the healthcare and telecommunications sectors. The business works in complex environments and uses innovative methods to solve the hardest data challenges to help organisations make more informed and accurate decisions.

Daintta has grown rapidly in recent years, driven by increasing demand for its market-leading services. It was featured in The FT1000: Europe’s Fastest-Growing Companies ranking in both 2025 and 2026.

LDC is backing Daintta’s management team, led by co-founders Justin Teutsch, Abu Sayed and M Alexander.

FinTech platform Arrival, which consolidates utility payments for the property sector, has secured £500,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by Fuel Ventures.

The investment is designed to scale B2B partnerships and combat the over £900 million annual cost of rent arrears for UK landlords.

Arrival is addressing a clear and costly inefficiency in the private rental sector by offering a solution that provides ‘clear, tangible value to both tenants and property operators’.

For B2B operators, the platform saves an average of 90 minutes per property on utility management and provides the cheapest managed rent collection product, which is up to 4x more cost-effective than alternatives.

The company is targeting 1 million units under management by year-end, with a strategic focus on the rapidly growing Build to Rent sector.

IW Capital has led a £7m investment into Alesi Surgical, a Cardiff-based surgical technology company tackling one of operating theatres’ most overlooked hazards.

Surgical smoke is produced in around 90% of all procedures globally but existing methods of clearing it are cumbersome, distracting and even harmful to the patient. While 95% is water vapour, the remaining 5% can contain harmful bacteria and chemicals, posing both infection and long-term toxicity risks for theatre staff.

Alesi’s Ultravision platform removes smoke 225x faster than competing technologies and has already been used in over 50,000 procedures worldwide.

This matters because regulation is shifting fast, particularly in the US, where 20 states have now mandated smoke management and the standard of care is moving toward smoke-free theatres worldwide.

Automotive Insights, a Manchester-based data and tech company which specialises in the automotive industry, has appointed Andy Barratt as chairman of its advisory board.

Barratt is a seasoned industry leader, having held senior positions at Ford Motor Company (UK and Ireland), Toyota, Lexus and emerging Chinese brands.

Automotive Insights surveys more than 1,000 UK motorists every month.

 

Finova, a provider of cloud-based mortgage, savings and lending software, has opened a new Manchester office which will see the creation of 50 jobs.

Over half of these positions have already been filled, with active recruitment underway to complete hiring over the coming months.

The move sees Finova challenge the common narrative around AI and employment, proving that AI can create jobs within a growing technology business as adoption of AI in financial services continues to expand.

The new hub at x+why, 100 Embankment Manchester will comprise developers and engineers focused on advancing Finova’s lending, broker and servicing platforms, alongside a commitment to apprenticeships to help develop the next generation of UK fintech talent.

The expansion follows sustained growth across Finova’s business, driven by continued demand from UK lenders and brokers and ongoing investment in its AI-enabled platform. The company serves over 60 financial institutions, manages nearly £50bn in loans and savings, and powers one in five UK mortgages.

Tenzo, a real-time data and analytics platform for hospitality operators, has announced a £3.7 million first close of its Series A extension round.

At a time when operators are facing sustained cost pressures and increasingly complex day-to-day decision-making, Tenzo is helping teams turn fragmented data into clear, real-time action. By integrating data from over 100 technology partners, the platform enables operators to make faster, more confident decisions across sales, labour and inventory.

On average, Tenzo customers have increased labour productivity by 15%, reduced food waste by 80%, and cut reporting time by 75%, highlighting how data and AI are vital tools for protecting margins and improving performance.

This latest investment will accelerate Tenzo’s expansion and product development.

First Light Fusion has announced a £25m successful first close of its latest funding round.

The inertial fusion energy company said the round was led by UK venture firm East X Ventures and its fusion fund Starmaker One with a significant strategic investment from the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).

It was also supported by existing shareholders including IP Group and its Hostplus managed fund. 

The capital will accelerate the commercial development of First Light Fusion’s groundbreaking FLARE Fusion Energy concept – a novel, reactor‑compatible approach to Inertial Fusion Energy, aimed at offering a simpler, lower cost, pathway to fusion energy.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

The CFO of a listed packaging and automation solutions group is to step down.

Coventry-headquartered Mpac Group plc said Will Wilkins will depart at the end of July 2026 as it revealed its annual results.

Mpac saw revenues rise in the 2025 calendar year, but profits dropped as it pursues a leaner operating model amid macroeconomic headwinds.

The results were in line with market expectations. 

Trustpilot Group plc is to appoint John-Paul Savant, who is stepping down as CEO of listed Auction Technology Group after a decade in the role, as a non-executive director from May.

Before ATG, he had 20 years of experience in digital marketplaces and commerce, having spent almost 10 years at eBay/PayPal, serving in a number of leadership roles, latterly as PayPal’s Vice President of Product, Experience, and Consumer Engagement for EMEA and, thereafter, holding the role of CEO of Think Finance UK.

Experian plc has appointed Adam Crozier as an independent non-executive director and chair designate from 12th May 2026.

The global data and technology company said he will succeed Mike Rogers, who is retiring after nine years on the board and seven as chair, following the conclusion of the Experian plc Annual General Meeting to be held on 22nd July 2026.

Crozier is currently chair of BT Group plc and Kantar Group. He was also previously chair of Whitbread PLC and ASOS plc, and a non-executive director of Sony Group Corporation.

He has over 20 years’ experience as a CEO across four different industries, most recently as the CEO of ITV from 2010 to 2017. Prior to ITV, Adam was CEO of Royal Mail from 2003 to 2010. Before that he was CEO of the Football Association from 2000 to 2002 and joint CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi from 1995 to 2000.

Abingdon Health plc, listed on London’s AIM market, has completed a secondary listing on the OTCQB Venture Market in the United States.

The firm is a developer, manufacturer and regulatory services provider for rapid diagnostic tests and MedTech.

The OTCQB is designed for entrepreneurial and development stage US and international companies. Foreign Private Issuers, such as Abingdon Health, that trade on the OTCQB are exempt under the US Exchange Act Rule 12g3-2(b) from SEC reporting if they make whatever information is required by their home market regulator publicly available to US investors in English.

Abingdon Health will therefore face no extra reporting obligations and incur minimal ongoing costs. 

SEEEN plc is to acquire Streaming Limited, trading as MEDIAL, in a £1.2m deal.

SEEEN is a global media and technology platform focused on AI-powered video optimisation, engagement and monetisation. It is registered and listed in London but has operations in the US.

MEDIAL is an established and profitable provider of enterprise media library and streaming software, with a recurring customer base of more than 50 universities and corporate organisations. For the financial year ended 30th April 2025, MEDIAL generated unaudited revenue of £640,000, adjusted profit before tax of £210,000.

Robert Thomas, founder of MEDIAL, will join the group’s leadership team and work closely with CEO Adrian Hargrave.

£950,000 of the deal will be paid in cash, with £50k in shares and a further £200k deferred.