JD Wetherspoon saw its share price drop by 10 per cent after a sobering financial update for the six months to the end of January 25th, 2026.

Higher costs are being blamed for profits coming in below current market expectations, with shares closing at 557p.

Tim Martin, chairman of JD Wetherspoon plc, said: “As previously indicated, increases in national insurance and labour rates will result in cost increases of approximately £60m per annum, and non-commodity energy costs will add £7m.

“The ‘Extended Producer Responsibility’ tax, a levy on packaging, will cost £2.4m in the current year, an increase of £1.6m.

“These cost increases will undoubtedly add to underlying inflation in the UK economy, although Wetherspoon, as always, will endeavour to keep price increases to a minimum.

“There is clearly considerable pressure on consumer finances, combined with higher taxes, wages and energy costs for the hospitality industry.

“This may result in profits that are slightly below current market expectations.”

• Shawbrook Group was one of the other biggest losers  on Friday as its share price dropped more than 8 per cent.

Author: Chris Maguire

Harry Clough was the 11^th candidate to be fired by Lord Sugar in the latest series of The Apprentice.

Clough who launched his latest business – Harry Can’t Sit Still, described as a drink ‘made for the ADHD and anxious’ – after being diagnosed with ADHD.

In the latest episode candidates were tasked with buying a number of items during a visit to the Isle of Wight.

Clough ended up in the losing team led by estate agent Kieran McCartney and was fired due to his purchasing of the SUP (stand up paddle board) being at too high

There are now just nine candidates  left vying for Lord Sugar’s £250k investment and mentorship.

Karishma Vikay has been tipped to win.

Mark Simester is on a mission  to make healthy kids snacks by combining them with technology.

He previously worked at Warburtons and Nestle but is now the CEO and founder of Imaginakery, which combines products, games and technology.

The company’s Jungle Squad lower sugar cake-bar boxes are already being snapped up by families across the UK.

Each five pack also includes three collectible character trading cards and an augmented reality game, designed to spark imaginative play beyond the snack itself.

Simester said: “One year ago, Jungle Squad didn’t exist. Now we’re seeing real orders, real families choosing a lower sugar option and real momentum building

“We’re still at the stage where every Shopify sale ping notification gets cheered like a goal in a World Cup final.

“If you’ve been thinking about trying Jungle Squad, now’s a great time to jump in.”

Author: Jonathan Symcox

I first met Samson Opaleye at the Climb23 conference in Leeds three years ago.

Sam, who grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, had moved to the UK the previous year. He told me about his Instagram addiction and plans to tackle it with startup Applatch, which locked down certain apps on your phone when you needed to focus.

Fast-forward three years and Applatch, now Applatch Kids, is a very different business.

“It was a free app and we had 3,000 users,” he tells me over coffee in our Founder Friday interview in Sheffield. “I asked a couple of my friends if they would be willing to pay for it, and they said ‘no’ – because they felt they had enough self-control [to manage their social media activity themselves].

“But they said they would pay for something which controlled the apps their children use.”

A dad himself, he also saw the value in that proposition. “After speaking with many more parents as well as children – in order to further understand the problem – I saw the gap,” he says.

“I realised that there’s a bigger problem here with the children: they actually can’t control when to stop using entertainment apps and focus on study.”

VerbaFlo, a conversational AI platform transforming customer engagement for real estate businesses, has raised a £5.2 million seed round.

The round was led by Pi Labs, with participation from Haatch, Navigate Ventures, Old College Capital – the University of Edinburgh’s in-house venture investment fund – and a group of global family offices, alongside follow-on commitments from anchor investors.

Founded in October 2024 by Sayantan Biswas, Abhishek Garg, VP Singh and Dan Smith, VerbaFlo enables real estate owners and operators to automate leasing, operations, and resident engagement through conversational AI.

It powers communication and operations across 200,000+ units globally, adding approximately 30,000 units every month, and supports conversations in more than 180 languages.

The company serves leading operators across the UK and Europe and has recently expanded into the United States, with further growth underway across the Middle East, Australia, South Africa, and additional European markets. Its customers include operators such as Homes for Students (HFS), Moda Living, Fusion Students, Housing Hand, Downing and over 40 others.

Author: Chris Maguire

Hannah Mercer has been named as the new chief executive of Footasylum and will take up the role in May.

She joins from Gymshark, where she led global strategy and expansion of retail, franchise and wholesale business, with full P&L responsibility.

Mercer  previously held a series of senior global roles at adidas, alongside earlier leadership positions at Nike, Harrods and Value Retail.

Commenting on her appointment, Mercer said: “Footasylum is a brand with a powerful identity, a highly engaged customer base and a unique position in youth culture.

“I have long admired the business and the way it connects with its communities, and I’m excited to work with the team to build on these strong foundations.”

Established back in 2005, Rochdale-based Footasylum is now trading 65 high street stores and is one of the leading retailers of fashion streetwear and sportswear.

The University of Huddersfield has launched a new Institute focusing on the application of artificial intelligence, which brings together academic expertise from right across the University.

The Institute for Applied Artificial Intelligence (IAAI) is the first fully cross-disciplinary research centre or institute at the University, encompassing researchers in Computing, Engineering, Health, Business, Sciences, Education, and the Arts, as well as professional staff.

Led by Professor John Murray, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning), who has a particular interest in Robotics and the ethical dimensions of AI systems, it is driven by Huddersfield’s strong foundation in AI-related research and the growing national need for AI-literate graduates.

Numonic has secured £250,000 in pre-seed funding from Fuel Ventures – towards a £560k round – as mounting regulatory pressure from the EU AI Act creates a significant compliance challenge for the creative sector.

From August 2026, new transparency rules will require organisations using AI-generated content to implement watermarking, maintain detailed records, and disclose AI usage – with penalties of up to €35m or 7% of global revenue for non-compliance.

Numonic’s platform is designed to help creative teams meet these requirements, offering automated tracking, audit trails, and compliance-ready metadata. The need is already being recognised, with BAFTA-winning Territory Studio (Disney, Marvel, Netflix) onboard.

Flexzo AI has raised £9 million in Series A funding, led by Octopus Ventures with participation from Fuel Ventures.

The firm is aiming to transform healthcare workforce management through an agentic AI orchestration platform.

The funding will enable it to deepen adoption across NHS Trusts while accelerating expansion into the United States, where demand for intelligent workforce solutions in healthcare continues to grow.

Author: Terry Hancock, head of cyber resilience and service operations, Axiologik

For many years, cybersecurity sat firmly in the remit of IT teams. It was seen as technical, specialist and pretty much invisible to the wider organisation unless something went wrong. This, however, is changing quickly. 

In October 2025, ministers and national security leaders wrote directly to FTSE350 executives and chairs, urging that cyber risk be treated as a board-level priority and that formal governance frameworks be adopted.

That message is being reinforced by policy, including the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill which is currently progressing through Parliament, and through the Government’s own Cyber Action Plan which aims to minimise risks to public services. 

Government is sending clear signals that cyber resilience is no longer something to be ‘passed to IT’. Instead, it’s increasingly being moved to the board level agenda – viewed as a core part of corporate governance.

Author: Chris Maguire

THG’s former chief people officer has landed a new job at ‘Europe’s fastest-growing company’.

Ashley Ramrachia, who recently closed Manchester-based tech training provider Academy after five years, has joined tech-powered wellbeing marketplace Healf.

Ramrachia launched Academy in 2020 after helping grow THG from 50 to 5,000 people ahead of its IPO in 2020.

He joins ‘rocket ship’ Healf as chief performance officer, with the startup recently named the fastest-growing in Europe by the Financial Times and ranked number one on the Sifted 100 list for the UK and Ireland.

Gamma Communications plc has appointed a new CFO to succeed the departing Bill Castell.

The communications technology firm said Damien Maltarp will succeed Castell, who leaves at the end of March to take up an executive role at private equity-backed Arrive, a global mobility platform.

Maltarp is currently group financial controller for London Stock Exchange Group plc and spent over 10 years at BT Group plc, including roles as CFO of BT Enterprise, its UK B2B division, and as CFO of BT Wholesale & Ventures. He originally joined BT in 2010 as investor relations director, leading the function for four years.

Earlier in his career, he spent 10 years as an equity analyst in the telecoms sector, including roles at Credit Suisse, JPMorgan Cazenove and Bank of America.

He will join the group and the board at the latest in September 2026, with the exact date to be confirmed.

Tech Nation has unveiled the latest cohort of high-growth scaleups joining its Future Fifty programme. 

The startups were announced at an event hosted by Chancellor Rachel Reeves yesterday evening at 11 Downing Street.

The 25 companies span sectors including AI, HealthTech and cybersecurity. Among this year’s cohort are digital health platform Numan, fast-growing energy provider Fuse Energy and AI-powered email assistant Fyxer.

UK FinTech CAB Payments has rejected a proposed £241 million bid from American payments giant StoneX.

StoneX, a Fortune 500 firm listed on New York’s Nasdaq exchange, was considering a bid for CAB Payments, which has endured a torrid time as a listed company.

CAB had previously rejected two rival takeovers from shareholder Helios Consortium – the latter for £213m – and StoneX said it was hopeful of winning the support from the company’s shareholders, including Helios, before it tabled the bid officially.

However this morning CAB said its independent board members – excluding Nitin Kaul and Henry Obi CBE, who represent the interests of Helios – had unanimously decided the StoneX bid ‘significantly undervalues CAB Payments and its future prospects’.

The Minister for Aviation, Maritime and Decarbonisation, Keir Mather MP, has officially opened Liverpool John Lennon Airport’s (LJLA) new £3m solar farm during a visit to the airport.

The airport’s investment in the solar farm is a key part of its decarbonisation plan and a zero carbon future for the airport operation by 2040.

Solar panel experts Activ8 Energies in partnership with SSE Airtricity, designed and installed the new solar farm, which is located within the airport perimeter fence on land to the east of the runway.

It is capable of generating up to 3 MW (megawatts) of electricity, powering up to 25 per cent of the airport’s current overall electricity demand.

John Irving, CEO Liverpool John Lennon Airport, commented: “Our new solar farm is the next part of our journey towards a zero carbon future by 2040.”

Ciaran Marron, CEO of Activ8 Energies, added: “We’re proud to have partnered with SSE Airtricity and Liverpool John Lennon Airport to deliver a system that will generate clean electricity on site for decades to come.

“With an installed capacity of up to 3 MW, the solar farm will make a significant contribution to reducing the airport’s carbon footprint while strengthening its energy resilience.

Author: Chris Maguire

BGF has completed a £15m investment in Seda Pharma Development Services, an integrated contract research, development and manufacturing organisation (CRDMO) headquartered in Cheadle, Manchester.

Seda provides end-to-end pharmaceutical development services, supporting companies from early-stage drug development through the clinical phases to registration.

The company has delivered more than 1,000 projects for 185 customers since inception, serving a growing international client base.

BGF’s investment comes at a time of sustained expansion in the global pharmaceutical outsourcing market, as biotech and pharmaceutical companies increasingly seek integrated partners capable of streamlining development timelines, reducing regulatory risk and supporting the manufacture of complex medicines.

Demand for specialist development and manufacturing capabilities continues to rise, driven by expanding R&D pipelines and increased regulatory scrutiny.

Since its founding in 2015 by chief scientist Dr Paul Dickinson and chief business officer Dr Marcel de Matas MBE,  Seda has established a strong reputation for scientific depth and technical excellence.

Dr Paul Stott joined as chief executive four years later, strengthening the leadership team as the company scaled its capabilities.

In 2023, Seda invested £8m installing a manufacturing capability in a 50,000 sq. ft leasehold facility at Cheadle Royal Business Park.

Augmented Healthcare, a Bury-based HealthTech startup, is preparing to unveil a new clinical AI tool.

Founder Dr Jonti Hudson is a practising GP and computer engineer whose real-time AI model is designed to support clinicians during live consultations.

The company’s Consultation Dashboard (CoDa) platform passively listens to conversations between doctors and patients. It then identifies ‘red flags’ signaling possible serious illness and raises them instantly for clinical consideration.

To bring his vision to life, Dr Hudson worked with GM Business Growth Hub’s Innovation Service, receiving innovation grant funding and expert guidance to develop the platform.

 

Signals has raised £830,000 in seed funding.

The UK startup is aiming to set a new standard for how the world evaluates and trusts research. The company helps publishers reduce research integrity risks and protect their reputation by identifying potentially problematic manuscripts and publications.

By combining network analysis, expert knowledge, and AI, Signals delivers comprehensive and transparent evaluations. Signals’ core product, Signals Manuscript Checks, enables journal teams to spot and investigate potential issues accurately and efficiently within their existing workflows.

It has been backed by minority investments from strategic investors ACS Publications, a division of the American Chemical Society (ACS), and Enago, along with the Scholarly Angels and other angel investors.

VIOOH, a global digital out of home (DOOH) supply-side platform, has released its annual research into the programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) market.

The UK findings show that pDOOH is firmly established as a mainstream channel within the UK’s digital media landscape, with 34% of campaigns featuring pDOOH in the past 18 months, up from 31% in 2024 and in line with the global average.

Looking ahead, UK marketers expect this to rise to 47% of campaigns in the next 18 months, as the channel continues to win share of both budgets and planning attention.

UK marketers are forecasting an average 41% increase in pDOOH spending over the next 18 months, notably higher than the 32% growth projected in 2024, pointing to accelerating momentum as advertiser confidence matures.

The budget funding this growth is increasingly coming from within the wider digital ecosystem. Among those planning to increase pDOOH invest41ment, 96% expect to reallocate budget from other digital channels (including DOOH), up sharply from 82% in 2024.

Movement from traditional channels is also a factor but less pronounced, with 65% expecting to shift spend from these, including from traditional OOH. New budget plays a smaller role overall (22%) but is more common where dedicated pDOOH expertise is in place.

Among those buying via a dedicated pDOOH team, 39% expect growth to be supported by entirely new budget, underlining the link between channel familiarity and incremental investment.

First Concepts, an AI-native workspace for early stage creative work, has raised £750,000 in pre-seed funding.

The London-based platform, currently in beta, seeks to eliminate context fragmentation so teams move from brief to concept up to 70% faster.

The startup, founded just nine months ago, has been backed by Antler, Araya and leading industry angels. It is already working with over 40 independent creative agencies across London and New York.