A little-known investment firm now thought to be the frontrunner to buy Poundland has sought support from the discount chain’s founder.

Xyra Group Holdings has asked the retailer’s founder Steve Smith to back its bid, City AM reported.

London-based Xyra, founded by 23-year-old Manvedeep Singh, entered the fray last week.

 

IT provider Kainos Group reported revenue up 37% to £268.8 million for the six months ended 30th September 2026, against £196.1m a year earlier.

However its share price fell 12% in one day following the announcement.

Analysts pointed to a potential slowing in revenue growth in H2 after unchanged guidance from the firm, which stated: “Following the strong performance in FY26 and H1 27, we expect further growth in revenue and adjusted profit before tax in the second half of FY27, in line with current market expectations.”

 

Specialist lender Capital on Tap has secured up to £200m of funding from NatWest, supported by an ENABLE Guarantee transaction from the British Business Bank.

The funding will facilitate Capital on Tap’s lending to smaller businesses that need flexible working capital.

Capital on Tap provides flexible working capital via its business credit card, built specifically for small business owners.

 

Lovable has acquired the London-based team behind Radish AI, an agentic infrastructure startup, and is bringing them into its engineering team.

Radish AI’s platform is designed to make building, deploying and scaling complex AI agents fast and reliable, with privacy and security built in.

Lovable said Radish AI did for AI agents what Lovable does for software: made something hard feel simple.

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Ian McDonough, the CEO and co-founder of Blackbird plc, has stepped aside.

The company is behind cloud-native video editing platform Blackbird and collaborative video editing and content creation platform elevate.io.

Chief product officer Sumit Rai has taken the reins while McDonough remains an employee and director of the company.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Ultraleap, the ‘Minority Report’ tech firm once considered the darling of the South West scene, has crashed into administration.

The university spinout raised more than £120 million from high-profile investors to build its haptic mid-air technologies based on Ultrasound.

However it has encountered difficulties in recent years and late last year was taken over by London music tech firm Roli – behind touch-sensitive music devices like the Seaboard and Roli Blocks – with founder Tom Carter joining the latter as CTO as well as its board.

Roli founder Roland Lamb wrote at the time that the deal was a “dream come true” – he had known Carter for a decade – but this year was reportedly ousted from Roli and the firm has now entered administration. Lamb has not posted on LinkedIn for 11 months.

He is now listed as the founder of Instrumental Intelligence, which is thought to be attempting to buy the assets of Roli. Customers of the firm have taken to social media to say they haven’t received refunds for faulty products – or even the products themselves.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Tech stocks around the world are falling following the success of the Democratic Party in the US midterm elections – and the UK is not immune.

With many Democratic candidates opposing the data centres which underpin AI, there are fears of a slowdown in the development of the technology due to tougher regulation after the party took firm control of the Senate and House of Representatives.

The subsequent sell-off saw trillions of dollars wiped off the value of major tech stocks, with the Nasdaq – home to some of the world’s largest tech firms – sinking 5.5% on Thursday. 

The trend extended overnight to the Asian markets, while those in Europe opened lower on Friday.

The London Stock Exchange’s FTSE 100 index is 2% down today despite being relatively light on tech and AI companies compared with the Nasdaq, Japan and South Korea.

 

Isomorphic Labs, an AI-first drug design and development company founded by DeepMind founder Sir Demis Hassabis, is reportedly raising $5 billion (£3.75bn) in fresh funding.

Isomorphic raised £1.6bn in Series B funding just this summer, following a $600m round completed in March.

It could be valued at $50bn (£37bn) by the fundraise if it completes on currently expected terms, according to Bloomberg. 

Sir Demis expects the company’s first clinical trials to start before the end of the year.

The crisis at Poundland could trigger a domino effect across Britain’s high streets, an insolvency expert has warned.

The stricken discount retailer could enter administration within days after owner Gordon Brothers rejected a rescue bid from its management team, backed by Ireland-based Martin Property Group, which would have saved its nearly 12,000 staff and potentially also a wider supplier base of 18,000 people.

Some of those suppliers exist solely to support Poundland’s operations – meaning they would immediately go to the wall – while others depend on the retailer for the majority of their business.

Insolvency expert Molly Monks, of Parker Walsh, said: “Poundland’s crisis is a stark reminder that the consequences of a major retailer’s financial difficulties extend far beyond its own shop doors.”

Nasdaq-listed US giant NetApp has completed its acquisition of Manchester AI firm PEAK AIO.

PEAK AIO was founded in Manchester by Mark Klarzynski and was designed to address some of the industry’s most demanding data-intensive computing challenges. 

The company’s core innovation, a next-generation metadata architecture and high-performance parallel file system, was developed to solve one of the defining infrastructure challenges of the AI era: enabling shared storage to scale alongside the GPU clusters that power modern AI workloads.

 

The Government is backing local journalism with a £6m Local News Fund.

The Local News Fund aims to strengthen communities and social cohesion, rebuild social trust and support local growth.

The majority of funding has been awarded to local print and online news outlets and independent local TV and radio stations, who received grants of up to £125,000. The money will be used to invest in community outreach projects, digital tools, apps and new multimedia services that can help these organisations reach new and younger audiences while developing more sustainable sources of income.

These grants have been evenly distributed across England and Wales, the Government said.

The remainder of the Fund has been awarded to seven organisations, including software developers and major industry players, to develop infrastructure that can benefit the sector as a whole, with grants of up to £275,000 awarded.

Meanwhile the ‘Inspiring the Future’ campaign, which encourages children to consider careers in journalism, has reached more than 11,000 students and engaged with more than 100 schools.

Finseta plc, which offers multi-currency accounts to businesses and individuals through a technology platform, has established a new strategic affiliate partnership and has conditionally raised £1.6m.

£1.5m of the funding comes from new strategic partner Homa Holdings Ltd.

Homa, which is based in the UAE – a key growth region for Finseta – will introduce prospective customers to Finseta for its currency exchange and international payments products. It is wholly owned by Amir Mehrad, a financial services entrepreneur who built and sold Effective FX, a boutique international payments and foreign exchange business.

Centriforce, a Liverpool manufacturer that turns waste plastic into underground cable protection, expects sales to pass £30m in its 50th year, up from £28m in 2025.

The company, which reprocesses more than 20,000 tonnes of discarded plastic a year, is now expanding into eight European markets and recruiting distribution partners.

Centriforce says growth is being driven by rising infrastructure spending – including power networks serving data centres – growing demand for recycled products, and investment in emerging markets.

Moorhouse, a management and transformation consultancy, has secured investment from private equity investor LDC following its sale by Expleo, a global engineering, technology and consulting services provider.

Founded in 2004, Moorhouse is headquartered in London and employs 220 people. It specialises in delivering complex, integrated transformation projects spanning strategy, people and technology, and operates across the public and private sectors, with longstanding client relationships in life sciences, energy, utilities & infrastructure, and healthcare & government.

LDC is backing Moorhouse’s management team, led by Partners Anna Rissen, Hinesh Patel and Leo Koshutova, alongside executive chair Karen Thomas-Bland. LDC’s investment will support Moorhouse’s growth strategy as an independent consultancy, through the expansion of its existing IP and products and targeted acquisitions.

Maven Capital Partners has exited its investment in iAM Compliant following the company’s acquisition by The Key Group.

The exit has delivered a strong return for three Maven-managed funds following a period in which iAM’s annual recurring revenue grew from approximately £600,000 to £3.2 million.

Maven invested a total of £3.5 million in iAM through a combination of funding from the first Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, Maven’s VCTs and Maven Investor Partners.

Funding from NPIF and the VCTs provided growth capital to support the company’s expansion, while a subsequent investment from Maven Investor Partners facilitated a partial ‘cash out’ in 2024.

iAM has developed a market-leading cloud-based software platform used by more than 3,500 schools. The business enables schools and multi-academy trusts to manage estates, facilities, statutory compliance, sustainability initiatives and capital planning through a single digital platform.

Alongside its core software offering, the company also operates a complementary eLearning and training platform serving education and enterprise customers.

Industrial components business Assembly Techniques has undergone a management buyout (MBO).

Founded in 1987 and based in Dukinfield, Greater Manchester, Assembly Techniques employs 50 people and has a turnover of £12.7m.

Carla Giles, managing director of Assembly Techniques, led the MBO after first joining the business in 2004 in a customer service role.

She was promoted to general manager in 2009 before becoming managing director in 2024.

The Culture Secretary has formally intervened in Sky’s takeover of ITV and tasked two regulators with scrutinising the deal.

Lisa Nandy recently said she had a number of potential public interest concerns after Comcast, the American owner of Sky, agreed a £1.6 billion deal in July to acquire the broadcast arm of ITV.

The deal, which includes ITV’s free-to-air channels and on-demand streaming service ITVX, would create the UK’s biggest commercial broadcaster.

Nandy has now issued a Public Interest Intervention Notice after considering representations from both Sky and ITV. 

YFM Equity Partners has strengthened its investment team in the North with the appointment of two investment directors on either side of the Pennines.

Oliver McRae recently joined the firm’s Leeds office from Traditum Private Equity, while James Warburton joined its Manchester office from Gresham House in the summer.

Both bring more than 15 years of experience in private equity, corporate development and advisory roles.

They will work with advisers, founders and management teams to back ambitious businesses across Yorkshire, the North West and the wider North.

Neil Inskip, partner and head of new investments in the North at YFM Equity Partners, said: “The North continues to be one of the most exciting regions in the UK for investment. We are seeing a strong pipeline of ambitious, high-quality businesses.”

Author: Chris Maguire

Triple amputee, record-breaking adventurer and military veteran Andy Reid MBE has been appointed ambassador for Hilary Meredith Solicitors in Alderley Edge.

Reid’s life changed forever on 13 October 2009 while serving as a corporal with the 3rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

He stepped on a Taliban improvised explosive device and lost his right leg below the knee, his left leg above the knee and his right arm.

Reid has gone on to become one of Britain’s most inspirational veterans, undertaking gruelling endurance challenges, raising funds for military charities and sharing his experiences with audiences across the country.

His voluntary service to veterans and people with disabilities was recognised with an MBE in 2019.

In 2020, he co-founded the Standing Tall Foundation, a charity supporting veterans and vulnerable people facing some of life’s toughest challenges.

Hilary Meredith-Beckham, founder and CEO of Hilary Meredith Solicitors, said: “What happened to Andy in Afghanistan would have been enough to break the spirit of many people. But his story is not defined by what he lost that day. It is defined by everything he has achieved since.

“Andy embodies everything we stand for – courage, compassion and an absolute refusal to give up.”

Bruntwood has appointed Nuno Miller as its first chief technology officer.

The property giant says this marks a significant step forward in its ambition to make digital, data and technology a strategic differentiator for the business.

Miller will report directly to CEO Chris Oglesby, and work closely with the executive team to shape business strategy and lead the next stage of Bruntwood’s digital transformation.