Edinburgh’s Smart Data Foundry has secured £35,000 in funding to develop a new data-driven platform designed to ease the transport and accommodation pressures facing Scotland’s cultural events.

The data-for-good pioneer is one of just 12 Scottish companies selected by CivTech, the Scottish Government’s innovation programme, to fast-track high-impact tech solutions that improve lives and public services. The funding will support the development of a prototype ‘festival planner’ map-based dashboard, aimed at helping cities and event organisers better co-ordinate major events such as the Edinburgh Festival, blockbuster concerts by artists like Taylor Swift and Oasis, and sporting fixtures including the Six Nations.

Smart Data Foundry will now enter CivTech’s 15-week Accelerator programme, working closely with public sector partners to deliver a Minimum Viable Product. By the end of the programme, participants could compete for a share of up to £7.7 million in public sector contracts.

A Sheffield-based startup backed by Innovate UK and 3D printing inventor Scott Crump has launched a crowdfunding campaign.

Fyous, a pioneer of polymorphic manufacturing, has launched a £1.5m equity crowdfunding round to advance and expand its ‘shape-shifting’ tooling technologies.

The funding round, which is now open on Crowdcube, builds on a £1.3m raise from angel investors in 2025, and allows a wider range of investors to own a stake in Fyous at a £25m valuation.

Fyous says it has a waitlist of manufacturers for its machines in the footwear and dental sectors and has already received expressions of interest to join this round worth £724,000.

POWWR, an energy software provider, has received a significant multi-million-pound cash injection from Five Elms Capital.

The investment will be used to bolster POWWR’s product innovation and enable it to increase its headcount by up to 40% over the next 12 months.

Paul Hodnett, founder of the UK business formerly known as UD Group, has been appointed as CEO in place of Matt Tormollen. In 2019 POWWR merged with UD Group.

Polaron, a London-based AI startup transforming how advanced materials are characterised, designed and manufactured, has raised £5.8 million to build the ‘intelligence layer for materials science’.

This means addressing a bottleneck in materials manufacturing: understanding the connection between how materials are made and how they perform.

The round was led by Racine2, an impact focused fund led by Serena and Makesense, with co-investment from Speedinvest and Futurepresent, plus angel backing from senior figures across the industrial AI ecosystem.

‍Spun-out from Imperial College London after seven years of research at the intersection of AI and materials science, the company was co-founded by CEO Isaac Squires, CTO Steve Kench and Chief Scientist Sam Cooper.

Welsh EdTech Academii has raised £1m Series A investment.

The Caerphilly-based business, established in 2019 by former ALS People chief executive Steve Lanigan, supports workplace training with AI-powered tech tools.

The round was led by the Development Bank of Wales with £700,000.

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have announced the first cohort of banks and building societies to benefit from their joint Scale-up Unit.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Barnsley is making the headlines after the Government designated it the UK’s first ‘Tech Town’.

Serving as a blueprint for future nationwide adoption of AI across public services, healthcare, schools and jobs, the South Yorkshire town’s institutions will work closely with US tech giants to bring about a “transformation designed to make life easier, fairer and more prosperous in Barnsley”.

While some outside the county may be sceptical, it is the latest phase of a long-running council plan to reinvent Barnsley following the decimation of the mining industry in the 1980s and 90s.

So how did we get here? And what is at the core of the vision?

A listed MedTech which ousted its leadership last year and is conducting a strategic review has reported revenue ahead of expectations.

The CEO and chairman of Surrey-based Futura Medical plc agreed to step down following discussions between the board and the company’s largest shareholder. 

Futura, which floated over 20 years ago with a share price of 73.08p, has developed Eroxon, a gel for treating erectile dysfunction.

It currently has a share price of just 1.4p and market cap of just over £8m. When Jeff Needham and James Barder were forced out last year, these stood at around 8p and £25.3m.

The share price was 31.43p at the beginning of 2025. 

Now the company reports that it expects to deliver FY25 revenue of £1.7m, ahead of previously guided management expectations of £1.3-1.4m.

Net cash at year end was £3.4m following a £2.75m fundraise in November 2025.

Under an existing agreement with Haleon and subject to the granting of a US patent for Eroxon, the company expects to trigger a milestone payment from Haleon of $2.5m during H1 2026; in addition, the Company expects to receive a tax credit refund for FY2025 of approximately £300,000.

Author: Chris Maguire

Manchester-headquartered eCommerce retailer THG is danger of seeing its market cap drop below that of Applied Nutrition.

THG’s has continued to see its share price fall since January 13^th, when it told the London Stock Exchange that the company had ended 2025 with its strongest quarter of trading with group revenue growth up 7 per cent.

The company’s share price opened this morning at 36.20p – compared to 47.92p on January 12^th.

At 8.24am, THG’s share price stood at 36.86p – giving it a market cap of £600m.

At the same time Applied Nutrition, a Liverpool-based sports nutrition, health and wellness brand founded by Thomas Ryder, had a share price of 236.50p and a market cap of £591.25m.

Applied Nutrition floated in 2024.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Zurich Insurance Group has reached agreement in principle to buy Beazley plc.

Beazley ‘unanimously rejected’ a £7.7 billion takeover bid from fellow insurance giant Zurich – which is listed in Switzerland – last month following previous failed takeover attempts last year.

However Zurich has now been successful with an increased bid which values the FTSE 100 firm Beazley at £8bn.

Author: Chris Maguire

River Capital has announced a significant seven-figure investment into a leading provider of digital infrastructure services to the UK holiday park and leisure sector.

The investment into Preston-based Infinium Group will be used to support the scaling of the company’s next-generation EDGE platform and accelerate nationwide growth.

The investment comprises a combined package of equity funding from River Capital’s North West Equity Fund alongside mezzanine debt from the newly launched River Capital Mezzanine Fund.

Founded in 2002 by CEO Peter Miles and CTO Dan Massey, Infinium has established itself as a trusted specialist designer, installer, and operator of complex WiFi networks for holiday home and lodge parks across the UK.

As part of the investment, former Telefonica UK CEO Andrew Peters has joined the board as chair.

In addition, Mark Evans, group finance director at leisure operators Bourne Leisure and Warner Hotels, has joined to provide additional support to the finance function.

Mark Borzomato, CEO of River Capital, said: “Infinium is exactly the type of established, sector-specialist business we seek to support.”

Author: Chris Maguire

An app that was launched to be the ‘Uber for barbers’ has rebranded into an on-demand home services marketplace.

Manchester-based mobile barbering service Appacut was launched in 2024 but has been renamed as Doorly, offering everything from personal chefs and baby massage to beauty treatments, dog training, DIY and cleaning.

The expansion comes after founder Michael Lawes secured £600,000 of funding, including backing from musicMagpie CEO Steve Oliver, who has become Doorly’s non-executive chairman.

Doorly is operating in Birmingham, Brighton, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Sheffield, and plans to expand into Glasgow, Coventry, Bristol, Bath, Newcastle upon Tyne and Portsmouth.

It is seeking to capitalise on the growing popularity of Deliveroo and Uber-type services.

More than 1,000 service providers have so far signed up, with a further 250 applicants awaiting clearance.

They are offering services across eight categories – hair, beauty, pet, home, family, vehicle, lifestyle and learning.

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

A pair of sisters have launched their third startup since leaving investment bank Goldman Sachs.

India and Portia Healy O’Connor have raised £2.25 million pre-seed funding to scale Linda AI, an agentic technology which is already live in 50 sites in the UK and Ireland, across the dentistry industry.

The former Goldman Sachs sales and trading professionals grew up around their father’s medical practice, gaining early insight into the operational strain faced by healthcare clinics. 

Their first startup was Xelda, formerly a cashless payments platform and now a developer of pre-accounting automation payments, which is backed by Sequoia Capital and the founders of Irish unicorn Flipdish.

Their second business, Curie, is an AI transcription programme aimed at the medical sector which counts their father Dr Hugh O’ Connor as chief medical officer.

Curie founding engineer Lucio Tudisco, who previously built enterprise systems at Amazon, Patreon, and Circle, has also joined them at Linda AI.

A trio of former Facebook engineers have launched a new startup from stealth to reimagine workplace communication.

Former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg is among a series of high-profile investors backing Slashwork as part of a round of more than £2.5 million.

Founded by Jackson Gabbard (CEO), David Miller (CTO) and Josh Watzman (CEngO), engineers who all helped build and scale some of Facebook’s key products, Slashwork is now beta-testing with a small group of design partners. 

Julien Codorniou, who led Workplace before becoming an early-stage investor at 20VC, has overseen the incubation of the business and driven its investment and global go-to-market strategy to date. 

Knude Society, a female-founded disruptor in the UK’s high-growth sexual wellness sector, has confirmed its acquisition of edible wellness brand For Play. 

The transaction, structured as a value-aligned revenue-share agreement, marks a major expansion for Knude Society as it builds a multi-brand portfolio in a market traditionally dominated by male-led corporate structures.

Founded in 2020 by Emma Richardson-Gerrard, Knude Society was born from a glaring market disconnect. Despite women being the primary drivers of the sexual wellness boom, Richardson-Gerrard identified that the sector’s leadership remains overwhelmingly male. 

Following a lockdown-induced redundancy, she says she bypassed traditional R&D to build a brand rooted in anonymous consumer data and human-centred design. The brand’s flagship product, Gwen, launched in September 2020 and has maintained a consistent sell-out status, achieving 10%  year-on-year growth.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Artificial Labs, a provider of digital broking and underwriting technology for the specialty and commercial insurance markets, has completed a £33 million Series B funding round.

The raise marks a major milestone for Artificial as it continues to grow and expand its global market presence.

The round was led by CommerzVentures, a leading European Fintech investor, with support from Move Capital Fund I, a leading European B2B Tech investor, and existing investors.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Shares in CyanConnode have leapt 19% today after the Cambridge company confirmed a £35 million takeover approach.

The IoT communication and smart metering solutions provider said Dubai-based Esyasoft Holding Ltd was considering an all-cash offer.

Shares in the company are now up 22% in the year to date.

Chris Howarth has been appointed as CEO of Avanade.

Howarth succeeds Rodrigo Caserta, who will step down as CEO after more than 11 years with Avanade to join Microsoft as Corporate Vice President, Small, Medium Enterprises & Channel (SME&C), Americas. Caserta has served as Avanade’s CEO since 2024.

Howarth has been closely involved with Avanade for more than five years through his leadership within the Accenture=Microsoft ecosystem, helping drive joint innovation, client success, and growth across the partnership.

After more than 28 years with Accenture, he will join Avanade as CEO, to lead Avanade through its next phase of growth, building on the company’s strong foundation and strategic priorities. He will retain ownership of the overall Microsoft relationship, recognizing the critical role Avanade plays in driving growth for Accenture and Microsoft across all customer segments.

The Electronics Group Ltd has expanded into Scotland and launched a new Aberdeen IPC training centre at Davidson House.

The UK’s largest independent IPC and electronics training partner has secured 1,546 sq ft of space at Davidson House.

The new facility will become EGL’s third UK training centre and its first in Scotland, complementing the company’s established headquarters in Leeds and its second centre in Cirencester, opened in the summer of 2024.

Social media agency GH05T has announced a series of leadership changes.

Co-founders Adam Biddle and Joe Battimelli have formally moved into client partner roles, alongside their positions as CEO and COO respectively.

Both Biddle and Battimelli have spent their entire careers in client service and will now officially oversee all client delivery across the agency. Working closely with GH05T’s client delivery team, they will partner directly with clients on overarching strategy, innovation and creative output on a day-to-day basis.

Nicola O’Connor has been promoted to managing director, expanding on her current role as finance director. O’Connor has become indispensable to the running of the agency and will now take responsibility for the day-to-day management of the business, overseeing all internal operations while continuing to lead the finance team.