Author: Jonathan Symcox

Frasers Group has made a £1.7 billion bid to buy Hugo Boss.

Mike Ashley’s listed retail group has offered cash for the 74% of the legendary German fashion designer firm it does not already own.

Listed firm Hugo Boss makes high-quality men’s and women’s apparel, shoes and accessories.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Employee survey platform Stribe has promoted Lucy Harvey to CEO following nine years with the business and several years serving as COO.

Harvey joined the company as marketing manager during its early growth stage, when the business operated a single product, Tootoot, an anti-bullying platform designed to help children and young people safely speak up. 

During this period, the business partnered with the UK Department for Education, supported more than 600,000 young people globally, and built the foundations that would later shape Stribe’s approach to employee voice.

Her appointment comes during a period of significant momentum for Stribe, which has doubled customer numbers for the second consecutive year and grown ARR by 40% YoY. 

Founder Kieran Innes will step aside but remain with the business. He wrote on LinkedIn: “This change means I’ll be getting even more focused on product development, building on the momentum we’ve created, improving the tools our customers rely on, and continuing to make sure Stribe and Tootoot help give people a voice in workplaces, schools, and beyond.”

Author: Jonathan Symcox

A former A&E doctor has raised £11.2 million to bring ‘big city’ healthcare to local clinics.

Oxford-trained former NHS doctor Dr Sonia Szamocki founded 01Health in 2022 after seeing firsthand how specialist healthcare remained concentrated in hospitals and major cities, while the local clinics closest to many patients lacked the infrastructure, oversight, and operational systems needed to deliver more advanced care. 

The results of this imbalance are years-long waiting lists, delayed treatment and limited access to specialist expertise.

The Series A round was led by Gresham House Ventures, with follow-on investment from existing backers Balderton Capital, Eka Ventures, and Wavemaker360, alongside angels including Nicolas Cary, co-founder of Blockchain.com.

The investment will support the launch of the 01Health platform across the UK and its introduction to the US – where trials are currently underway and a Head of US commercial operations has been appointed to lead the expansion. 

For the first time, practices, practice groups and dental service organisations will be able to license the 01Health platform which, until now, has underpinned the 01Health-owned specialist dental platforms 32Co and Aerox Health.

Built environment consultancy Contollo Group is accelerating its North West growth with a series of office moves, expansions and refurbishments across Manchester, Cheadle and Knutsford, including a major new presence in Manchester’s Spinningfields district.

Contollo Group moved into Spinningfields this week, after completing a deal for nearly 10,000 sq ft of fitted office space at XYZ until February 2032. JLL’s Manchester team advised on the sublet, with Contollo supported by Canning O’Neill.

The move brings three of the Group’s specialist consultancies; Abacus Cost Management, KAM Project Consultants and ESP together in the heart of Manchester’s business district, creating a flagship city‑centre hub for clients across the region.

Doctify – a platform for healthcare reviews and patient feedback – has launched in Saudi Arabia, entering a market where patient choice and transparency are becoming central to how care is accessed and chosen.

The launch comes at a pivotal moment for the Saudi Arabia healthcare sector. The country’s healthcare system is undergoing a structural shift, as care becomes more digital, more private and increasingly shaped by how patients choose where to go.

As part of Vision 2030’s Health Sector Transformation Program, the private sector is playing an increasingly important role in delivering care, while digital health adoption continues to accelerate.

Doctify gives patients access to verified reviews and peer-to-peer endorsements, helping them make more confident decisions about where to seek care. For healthcare providers, the platform offers structured, real-time patient feedback, supporting continuous improvement and stronger patient relationships.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

A major new organisation designed to strengthen West Yorkshire’s technology sector is being launched with backing from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

Tech West Yorkshire will operate across Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Calderdale and Kirklees, bringing together technology businesses, universities, investors, entrepreneurs and skills providers under a single regional banner.

Its central aim is straightforward, to connect people and companies across the region more effectively and help build a stronger, more resilient tech ecosystem that supports economic growth throughout West Yorkshire.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Shares in LADbible’s parent company plummeted on Tuesday after it said algorithm changes had resulted in a steep decline in Facebook advertising revenue and Google visibility.

Shares in LBG Media plc fell 34% as half-year profits were mostly wiped out despite a substantial increase in revenue.

Founder and CEO Solly Solomou said its indirect business – traffic and revenue away from direct visitors to its platforms – “was hit harder than expected”. 

Author: Chris Maguire

Strand Intelligence, a Manchester-based cybersecurity software company, has closed a £1m seed round.

The round was led by Osney Capital and will be used to accelerate the startup’s hiring and product development plans.

Founded in 2025 and based in Ancoats, Strand is building automation for Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR), the investigative work that follows a security incident.

Its platform automates investigations across cloud and endpoint environments and claims to deliver investigations up to five times faster.

The company’s co-founders, Will Poole and Oli Fletcher, met as next-door neighbours and developed the idea for Strand while talking over the garden fence.

Author: Chris Maguire

Tributes have been paid to tech boss Neil Muller, 54, who died after being found with stab wounds at his home.

Mr Muller was appointed group CEO of Derby-based Node4 in April 2026, having previously served as CEO of Digital Space for seven years between 2018 and 2025.

Prior to that, he was group CEO of  Daisy Group from 2015-2018 after spending more than 20 years at Computacenter.

A spokesperson for Warwickshire Police said: “We have launched an investigation following the death of a man at a house on Langley Road in Claverdon on Sunday morning.

“We received a report from ambulance services at 6.15am about a man in his 50s who required emergency medical care following a stab wound to his chest.

“Sadly, he was declared deceased at the scene at 6.37am. At 7.33am, a 55-year-old woman from Birmingham was arrested on suspicion of murder. She has since been released on bail.

“An investigation is underway. There is no wider risk to the public.”

In 2021, Mr Muller was named by LDC as one of its 50 Most Ambitious Leaders.

Matthew Riley, chair of the newly formed O2 Business and founder of Daisy Group, said on LinkedIn: “I’m deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Neil Muller.

“Many of you will remember that Neil served as CEO of Daisy for almost four years and was well thought of by many colleagues across the business. My thoughts are with his family and friends at this sad time.”

Cloud Pharmacy, a digital-first healthcare provider, has surpassed a million customers as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. 

Founded in 2016 by a former Boots pharmacist, Nazmul Kadir, to make healthcare more accessible, the company has transformed from a weekend operation into a major industry disruptor, recording £70 million in revenue. 

Cloud Pharmacy was established with a singular, mission-driven purpose – to address critical gaps within the NHS. Identifying the increasing difficulty patients faced in accessing essential sexual health treatments and contraceptives, Kadir set out to build a service that prioritised patient care defined not by price, but by an unwavering commitment to safety, ethics, and clinical excellence. 

The health provider also specialises in weight loss management and general health for men and women. 

“This 10-year journey has been about proving that healthcare can be delivered with both digital agility and deep clinical integrity,” said Kadir, who performs the role of superintendent pharmacist. 

“Reaching one million patients is a testament to our team’s commitment to providing a service that supports the overstretched NHS by empowering patients to take control of their preventative health.” 

PXN Ventures has unveiled the third cohort for PraeSeed, its annual investor readiness programme aimed at supporting early-stage founders in the North.

The programme is backed by the British Business Bank’s Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II (NPIF II).

Three quarters of this year’s cohort of 13 companies are led by founders from diverse backgrounds, with more than half having at least one female founder.

Rem3dy Health has raised £14 million to accelerate global expansion and AI innovation.

The Midlands-based parent company of personalised nutrition brand Nourished said the funding round values it at £84m.

The round was led by a group of global strategic investors, including Suntory, Estrella Galicia, Apollo Hospitals and UPSA, while investment from Birmingham’s Future Planet Capital Regional further reinforces the company’s strong regional roots and contribution to the UK’s innovation ecosystem. 

The funding will support Rem3dy Health’s rapid growth, which includes expansion into key international markets such as the United States, MENA region, and India – as well as continued investment in automation, advanced manufacturing, and AI-driven personalised nutrition. 

Rem3dy will also expand its product offering into personalised health solutions for pets, reflecting growing consumer demand for tailored wellness across both human and animal health.

Record OS, a London startup building a platform for self-assessment and Making Tax Digital, has launched publicly after raising £1.5m in pre-seed funding.

The round was led by Episode 1 and also featured a group of angel investors, including former CFOs and senior leaders from Wise, Revolut, Deliveroo and Alphabet.

Founded by Dhruv Chadha and José Luis De La Peña, the company is focused on simplifying tax returns for individuals, sole traders, freelancers and professionals with increasingly complex finances.

The launch comes shortly after the UK’s Making Tax Digital rollout, which required self-employed workers and landlords earning more than £50,000 to submit quarterly digital updates to HMRC from April 2026.

The founders first met as early employees at Wise.

Ripe, the UK-based digital managing general agent, today announces the appointment of Jon Fell as COO.

Jon joins Ripe from Verso Wealth Management, where he served as group COO, leading the integration of acquired businesses and driving operational scalability across the group.

His appointment reflects Ripe’s continued growth trajectory as the business expands through both organic growth and strategic acquisitions. Today, Ripe serves more than 430,000 customers across the UK.

Barclays has announced an investment in CommonAI, supporting the acceleration and development of artificial intelligence capabilities across the UK.

Founded by Anthemis and Cambridge AI Venture Partners, CommonAI brings together startups, enterprises, engineers and academics to develop, test and deploy AI systems at scale through its collaborative engineering and compute platform.

Through its membership model, CommonAI also aims to close the scale and knowledge gap in AI development that can hold back start-ups and small businesses from competing globally. It does this by providing access to models, training data, hardware design and affordable compute power, empowering organisations to build business-specific AI solutions safely, without prohibitive development costs.

Independent proxy adviser Glass Lewis has recommended that shareholders in Nanoco vote in favour of its plan to delist from the London Stock Exchange and return to private ownership.

The Manchester spinout company said recently that it is looking to delist from the LSE’s main market.

Nanoco Group plc, headquartered in Runcorn, develops and manufactures cadmium-free quantum dots and other nanomaterials. These are used in monitors, TVs and infra-red sensors.

In 2024 it began cutting jobs in an attempt to preserve cash as it explored a sale via financial advisor CDX Advisors. However this year it said it had terminated that process and would seek shareholder approval to delist.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Neil Woodford, a former star of the City whose equity fund collapsed in 2019, is being sued by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Woodford is accused of operating without authorisation a year after the regulator said it would ban him from the City and issued a £46 million fine to him and his company. He is contesting that decision.

The Woodford Equity Income fund was once worth more than £10 billion but a string of poor investments – including tech-first estate agent Purplebricks – led to its suspension and eventual collapse. The FCA said it had high exposure to illiquid and unquoted shares.

After Woodford resigned and closed down his company, administrators wound down the fund. Many of its 30,000 investors were left hugely out of pocket.

Now the FCA has started civil proceedings against Woodford and W4.0, a subscription-based platform registered in the United Arab Emirates.

In 2024 Woodford started the W4.0 Podcast on his Woodford Views YouTube channel in which he “shares his perspective on markets, sectors and the forces shaping the investment landscape. Each episode cuts through media noise and headline hysteria to focus on the facts that really matter”.

Each episode of the podcast has several thousand views on YouTube.

W4.0 told BusinessCloud that it was “surprised the FCA chose to announce this publicly before any proceedings have been served on us, and before the dialogue we have been engaged in for the past nine months was concluded”.

It added: “Throughout our dialogue with the FCA, we have worked to understand precisely which features of the service it considers fall within the regulatory perimeter. At each stage, we made changes and adjustments in response to accommodate the FCA. We have continued to engage with it to seek a resolution. We would have continued the dialogue, and it is regrettable that the FCA has chosen to litigate instead.

“We were clear about W4.0’s purpose from the start: to inform and educate subscribers and to provide the research, analysis, and commentary they need to make their own decisions. We deliberately informed readers that we were not regulated and did not provide financial advice. Like other publishers and platforms offering this kind of information, it was built to sit outside the regulatory perimeter, and we remain confident that it does. Consequently, we do not accept the FCA’s characterisation of the service.

“Informed by subscriber feedback, we will continue to build the features, education, information, analysis and insight that W4.0 was created to provide, and we will have more to share with subscribers in due course.”

Author: Jonathan Symcox

OpenAI has filed for an $850bn IPO.

The ChatGPT maker – led by Sam Altman – wrote in a blog post that it plans to go public on the US stock market in due course.

It would be one of the largest flotations in history.

“We recently submitted a confidential S-1. We expect it to leak so we’re just announcing it,” it said. “We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. 

“But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.”

Rival AI company Anthropic, behind Claude, said last week that it plans to go public.

OpenAI, which stunned the world when it released its generative AI chatbot ChatGPT in 2022, became a for-profit company after starting life as a non-profit research lab in 2015.

It closed a funding round of $122bn in March which valued the company at around $852bn.

Growth Lending has provided a £10m SME Term Loan facility to support the management-led acquisition of flexible workspace software provider Essensys, helping the former AIM-listed business transition to private ownership.

Backed by former Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy and entrepreneur Bill Currie, the deal marks the latest chapter for the technology company as it embarks on a new phase of development.

Founded in 2006, Essensys provides software and technology solutions that help commercial real estate landlords and flexible workspace operators manage, control and optimise multi-tenant portfolios. The business serves customers across the UK, Europe and North America through its software-focused, asset-light SaaS platform.

Growth Lending’s facility funded the purchase of publicly listed shares and provides ongoing working capital support as the business executes its long-term growth plans.

Having listed on London’s AIM market in 2029, Essensys recently completed a strategic transformation into a pure SaaS business, decommissioning its legacy private network data centres and focusing investment on software innovation. In March 2025, it launched Elumo, a next-generation dynamic booking and access control platform designed for the flexible workspace market.

Back Market, the leading marketplace for professionally refurbished technology, has today announced the appointment of current CFO Clément Petit as CEO, effective 1 September 2026.

The move follows a landmark year for the company, which achieved break-even profitability in 2025 and grew GMV by 32% to $3.5 billion globally. Founder Thibaud Hug de Larauze will remain Executive Chairman, focusing on long-term strategy and accelerating the shift towards refurbished technology.

Clément has been with Back Market since 2020 and has played a key role in scaling the business internationally, making this a significant leadership milestone as the company enters its next phase of growth.