The Motor and Allied Trades Benevolent Fund (Ben) is offering bespoke support to the thousands of people affected by the ongoing cyber attack at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR).

Since 1st September, JLR has experienced a cyber attack that has shut down production at its three manufacturing sites in the UK.

The attack is hitting Merseyside hard, with production at the Halewood site disrupted and workers facing uncertainty over shifts and schedules.

Encyclis and the UK Government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) have reached a landmark agreement on the commercial framework to deliver the UK’s first full-scale carbon capture plant for Energy-from-Waste, in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire.

The confirmation of Government support for the Protos carbon capture and storage (CCS) project is described as a breakthrough for UK industrial carbon capture deployment and will advance the North West’s economic growth in pursuit of net zero.

The plant is on track to be operational by mid-2029 and will capture around 370,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from Encyclis’ adjoining Protos Energy Recovery Facility (ERF), which provides an essential public service by safely and sustainably converting non-recyclable waste into baseload electricity, heat and other reusable resources.

FinTech Pleo has launched a new embedded finance solution.

Its says Pleo Embedded allows businesses managing large networks of SME customers to offer their customers smart company cards, automated expenses, accounts payables and real-time cash management suite as a fully white-labelled or co-branded solution.

It marks Pleo’s first move into embedded finance.

Midlands-based HealthTech Rem3dy Health has secured a £500,000 SAFE investment from Future Planet Capital Regional, part of a larger £9 million raise including investors such as Suntory, ADM and UPSA.

The funding will be used to expand manufacturing capacity, build new production facilities and support market growth in key regions including the US and Asia.

Rem3dy Health produces personalised nutrient gummies through its Nourished brand, using patented 3D printing technology to create bespoke seven-layer ‘stacks’ from natural, food-derived ingredients. To date, the firm has raised £19m.

London-based MedTech DaltonTx has exited stealth with the completion of a £4 million seed funding round to develop its adaptive, AI-enabled drug discovery platforms.

The funding will be used to build and scale the technology, which integrates directly into pharma, MedTech and CRO workflows to accelerate the development of small molecules and biologics.

The platform combines predictive modelling with reasoning engines that continuously learn from experiments, giving scientists real-time AI-enabled insights.

The seed round was led by redalpine, IQ Capital Partners and Seedcamp, with support from Oxford University Innovation.

Driving training provider RED Driver Training has secured a £13 million loan from NatWest to expand its operations in the North East and enhance its retail and B2B offerings. 

The funding will support recruitment of driving instructors, optimise the use of technology and advance the development of the ‘Learn to Drive with RED’ app to improve blended learning for new drivers. 

The Billingham-based firm’s nationwide network includes over 2,000 instructors and a corporate training division offering fleet, health and safety, and compliance courses.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Learnd SE has agreed to sell a majority stake in its UK operating subsidiary, Learnd Ltd, in a management buyout (MBO), valuing the business at £42.4 million.

The Frankfurt-listed company will sell 50.5% of Learnd Ltd to Learnd Arrow Limited, a firm controlled by former management board members John Clifford and Simon Wood.

Its Manchester-based arm operates the company’s core business in smart building technologies, delivering energy management services to cut costs and lower carbon emissions in commercial buildings

The deal will see Learnd SE receive around £9.2m from the share purchase alongside an additional £9.5m through the settlement of intra-group loans.

The transaction is subject to UK National Security and Investment Act clearance, expected by early October 2025.

Author: Patrick Killeen

EMV Capital’s subsidiary Moirai Acquisitions has bought key assets from Destiny Pharma, the AIM-listed MedTech which went into liquidation this summer.

The acquisition, which is centred on Destiny’s antimicrobial XF platform, covers trading its name, website, intellectual property, stock and contracts linked to its lead compound XF-73 and related compounds.

XF-73 is designed to prevent post-surgical site infections by killing bacteria through a rapid mechanism that reduces the likelihood of resistance – an advantage over conventional antibiotics.

Moirai will pay £475,000 upfront in cash, plus up to £2 million in deferred payments tied to future milestones.

These include £600,000 on the start of a Phase 3 clinical trial in the US, £900,000 upon FDA approval for XF-73, and up to £500,000 linked to a potential milestone payment under an existing commercial agreement with a Hong Kong-based pharmaceutical investor.

Author: Chris Maguire

The campaign for Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to replace Keir Starmer as Prime Minister is gathering momentum.

In an interview with The Telegraph, he admitted that several Labour MPs had privately urged him to challenge under-fire PM Starmer.

Should he proceed with a third push for leadership of the Labour Party, the ex-MP for Leigh and former New Labour Cabinet Minister would have to resign as GM mayor then contest and win a parliamentary byelection for a Commons seat.

There’s been  growing speculation that he could replace Andrew Gwynne as MP for Gorton and Denton – should the seat become vacant.

Burnham told the  New Statesman that wholesale change was needed to see off an existential threat to the party.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a column suggesting Starmer needed Burnham’s help to transform Labour’s fortunes  – but now it looks like Burnham’s role would be more of a successor.

Author: Patrick Killeen

AI hyperscaler Nscale has raised $1.1 billion (£820 million) in Series B financing, marking the largest round of its kind in European history.

The round was led by Aker ASA, with existing backer Sandton Capital joined by Blue Owl Managed Funds, Dell, Fidelity, G Squared, Nokia, NVIDIA, Point72 and T.Capital.

Headquartered in London, the firm operates globally as an AI-native infrastructure platform. 

Its vertically integrated model spans compute, networking, storage, managed software and AI services, delivered through a mix of owned and colocated data centres.

The funding will be used to deploy large-scale AI infrastructure across Europe, North America and the Middle East, as well as accelerate the rollout of its ‘AI factory’ data centres in projects such as Stargate UK and Stargate Norway. 

It will also expand its vertically integrated AI cloud platform, grow its engineering and operations teams, and strengthen delivery for enterprise and government customers worldwide.

Rochdale-based Zen Internet has partnered with MS3 Networks to bring full fibre connectivity to 212,500 properties across Hull, North Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire.

The network will be available to residential and business customers, as well as through Zen’s channel platform, The Fibre Hub.

The partnership aims to introduce competition in areas that have historically been dominated by a single provider, offering speeds from 100 Mbps up to gigabit.

Growth capital investor BGF has appointed Tracy Bownes as head of value creation.

Bownes joins from private equity firm LDC, where she was a partner, and brings over 25 years’ experience in M&A and commercial leadership, including senior roles at Lumon, Moneycorp and the RBS Special Opportunities Fund.

She will lead the London-based company’s 10-strong value creation team, which supports portfolio companies with tailored growth strategies.

ClearVC has acquired VideoCentric, combining two UK players in audio-visual and unified communications.

ClearVC, based in Manchester, provides video conferencing, workplace technology and AV systems, while Reading-headquartered VideoCentric focuses on AV integration, equipment hire and support.

The deal expands the Manchester-based firm’s footprint in the South of England and adds a new showroom in Edinburgh, which will act as a Scottish base for demonstrations and training.

Galaxy Data Centers has partnered with London-headquartered energy tech firm Zendo to integrate renewable energy and improve efficiency across its growing UK data centre network.

The collaboration begins at the Redhill Data Centre in Greater London, where Zendo will supply 40GWh of renewable energy annually under a £20 million contract, cutting energy costs for existing clients by up to 30% from 2026.

Galaxy is investing £10m to modernise the site and support AI and high-performance computing workloads, while Zendo provides software for usage monitoring, forecasting and efficiency optimisation.

Clean energy will be sourced via Manchester-based UrbanChain, a blockchain-enabled platform ensuring full traceability to renewable generators.

The ICO has fined two energy firms a total of £550,000 for making millions of unlawful automated marketing calls using ‘avatar’ software that mimicked UK-based agents. 

Home Improvement Marketing, based in Pembrokeshire, was fined £300,000, while Durham-based Green Spark Energy was fined £250,000 for 9.5 million calls, some of which targeted elderly and vulnerable people with misleading health claims. 

The regulator warned that robo call technology is making it harder for the public to spot scams and urged people to report suspicious calls to help enforcement.

Light has raised £22.3 million in Series A funding to scale its AI-native finance platform, which it says can process 280m records in under a second.

The Copenhagen and London-based startup, founded in 2022 by serial entrepreneur Jonathan Sanders, replaces legacy enterprise resource planning systems with an AI-first system that automates accounting, payments and expense management across jurisdictions.

The round was led by Balderton Capital with Atomico, Cherry, Seedcamp, Entrée and angels including Hugging Face’s Thomas Wolf and Meta board member Charles Songhurst.

The firm has reported 30x growth over the past year, with customers cutting finance operations time by 84%.

Author: Patrick Killeen

The Co-op has reported resilient half-year results despite the impact of a major cyber attack, on the back of making significant leadership changes designed to accelerate growth.

Group revenue for the first half of 2025 was £5.48 billion, compared with £5.6bn a year earlier, a decline of 2.1%.

Excluding the estimated £206 million trading hit from the cyber incident, revenue grew 1.5%.

Food sales fell 1.6% to £3.62bn but were up 2.9% when adjusted for the disruption.

B2B revenues slipped 3.9% to £1.65bn, while life services posted a 2.4% increase to £210m, or 6.5% on an underlying basis.

The cyber attack, described as ‘sophisticated and malicious’, led the Co-op to shut down several systems temporarily, resulting in a total estimated first-half impact of £80m across profit and cashflow, including £20m of direct costs.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

GlobalData plc expects to move to the main market of the London Stock Exchange before the end of the year following the collapse of takeover talks with two private equity firms.

The UK data giant initially announced a plan to move from the junior AIM market in February. However it was individually targeted by PE firms KKR and ICG this summer.

Admission to the LSE main market is expected to occur before the end of this year, it notified the LSE this morning, but not earlier than 28th October 2025.

 

Author: Patrick Killeen

Process intelligence company Mimica has secured £19.5 million in Series B funding to accelerate its mission of bridging the gap between enterprise operations and the deployment of agentic AI.

The round was led by Paladin Capital Group, with continued backing from Khosla Ventures, LGVP and Entrepreneurs First.

The London-based company’s technology addresses the difference between what generative and agentic AI tools promise and the reality of how organisations work.

High-potential tech companies across Yorkshire are being invited to apply for Top Tech Yorkshire 2026, a six-month programme designed to accelerate growth and innovation in the region. 

Run by national law firm Mills & Reeve, the initiative is looking to connect businesses with expert mentors, investors, accelerators and service providers, offering profile-raising activities, strategic networking and tailored support. 

Previous participants, like Leeds-based EdTech Globally Linked, have used the programme to scale products internationally. 

Applications are open to Yorkshire-based tech businesses of all sizes, with selection based on potential to drive innovation and regional growth.