Lifted Ventures has announced the launch of its 2025–2027 5-Point Manifesto, a new roadmap for systemic change that will accelerate women’s wealth, confidence and opportunity across the UK regions.

The announcement was made by co-founders Jordan Dargue and Helen Oldham at the firm’s Athena Festival in Leeds, the largest female founder event outside of London, on Lifted’s two-year anniversary.

Author: Patrick Killeen

In a world where it seems that software developers build educational platforms, you rarely see that flipped on its head.

However, that is exactly what Helen and Steve Edwards did when they launched Tapestry in 2012.

The duo were looking for a way to make life a little easier for nursery staff and for parents desperate to see what their children got up to each day.

Back then, Helen was running a nursery attached to the couple’s home. “We used to make special books for every child – photos, cut-outs, notes – lovely, but time-consuming and expensive,” she recalled.

“One night, Steve said, ‘Surely we can do this online now with iPads and cameras.’ And that’s when Tapestry was born.”

Today, the platform – created under the umbrella of Steve’s company, The Foundation Stage Forum – is used in around 15,000 schools and nurseries across the world, with roughly 95% in the UK.

Unaric– the fast-growing UK tech firm helping Salesforce customers unlock AI opportunities with its suite of advanced applications and AI agents – has today announced its ninth acquisition in two years.

It is buying DESelect, a US-based Salesforce independent software vendor (ISV) for an eight-figure sum.

Founded in 2023 by Peter Lindhom, James Gasteen, Moritz Birke and Neil Crawford, Unaric’s mission is to help Salesforce customers scale smarter, move faster and deliver better experiences by converting fragmented apps to AI agents that bring the platform together.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Online learning provider Oxbridge has entered administration – yet its website remains live and continues to advertise courses, with some people claiming they are still being charged or waiting for responses.

The Birmingham-based business, founded in 2015 by Matt Jones, filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators in August before formally entering administration at the start of October.

Despite that, Oxbridge’s website is still taking enquiries and payments.

Recent posts on the company’s LinkedIn page show frustrated customers seeking refunds and responses.

Yapily – Europe’s leading open banking infrastructure provider – has announced a strategic collaboration with Google to support the rollout of Google’s bank account verification service as an option for business customers in Europe.

The company recently hit profitability, significantly increased its revenue in the last 9 months, and added a string of major partners to its platform, such as Adyen and Allica Bank, alongside long-standing partners like Intuit QuickBooks, Pleo, Zilch, and Ant Group. Yapily partners can connect to over 2,000 banks in 19 markets across the UK and Europe.

The platform supports a wide range of use cases, from instant account-to-account payments and Variable Recurring Payments (VRPs) to data insight and transaction categorisation, and real-time cash flow tools and personalised financial services for both retail and SMEs.

Ricardo, a global leader in strategic, environmental, and engineering consultancy, is pleased to announce the completion of its acquisition by WSP.

 The combination of Ricardo and WSP brings together advanced capabilities and complementary strengths, accelerating a shared ambition to be leaders in environmental consultancy and energy-transition services.

Through WSP’s extensive global footprint and diversified service portfolio, Ricardo is now even better positioned to deliver transformative, future-focused solutions to clients and communities worldwide.

UK edge infrastructure provider Pulsant has completed refinancing and an extension of its debt facilities.

The expansion of the debt facilities has added four new lenders and increased total debt facilities to £187m. There is also the ability to draw down an accordion in the future should further debt capacity be required.

The refreshed five-year facility will support Maidenhead-based Pulsant’s continued expansion across the UK.

Its platformEDGE infrastructure connects 14 strategically located data centres through a low-latency network fabric, providing access to cloud, connectivity and compute services across the UK and beyond.

Snapchat’s UK arm has reported a pre-tax loss of $757.7 million (£565.8m) for 2024, despite revenue surging past $2 billion, according to newly filed accounts.

The social media giant’s losses narrowed from the $1bn posted the previous year as advertising growth and optimisation efficiencies boosted performance.

Snapchat said the revenue rise was driven by higher advertiser demand and improvements in auction-based advertising.

The number of UK employees fell from 437 to 395 during the year, while parent company Snap Inc also reduced its global net loss to $698m on revenue of $5.3bn.

Venture capital firm Plural has appointed former Uber executive Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty as its newest partner.

The move coincides with the opening of the London-based firm’s first Paris office, expanding its footprint beyond England’s capital and Tallinn.

Gore-Coty, who spent 13 years at Uber leading divisions including Uber Eats and global mobility, said he was eager to help “Europe’s next wave of global champions” reach scale.

Centaur has completed the sale of The Lawyer to Lighthouse Bidco Limited, the parent company of Legal Benchmarking Limited, for an enterprise value of £43 million.

The deal, first announced in September, marks a milestone for the media and intelligence group as it looks to sharpen its strategic focus.

Following the transaction, Centaur reported that it had net cash of £69.8m, providing a solid foundation for future growth and investment.

Author: Patrick Killeen

FinTech Atom bank has officially opened its new headquarters in Newcastle, bringing its 600-strong team from Durham to the newly restored Pattern Shop – a Grade II listed building once home to Robert Stephenson & Co.

The multi-million-pound investment establishes the Pattern Shop as Atom’s new innovation hub, designed to foster collaboration, creativity and a modern working culture. 

It also supports the company’s pioneering four-day working week, introduced in 2021, which remains a key part of its employee offering.

As part of its expansion, the bank is currently hiring for nearly 30 new positions across multiple departments, including 14 customer support roles. 

New openings span engineering, data and operations as part of its plans to scale from its new headquarters. 

Plural has appointed Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, Uber’s former global head of delivery, as a partner.

Gore-Coty will open the €500m early-stage VC firm’s first office in Paris after leading one of the fastest international expansions in tech history from his base in France.

Plural backs Europe’s most ambitious founders.

Risers

IP Group – +4.55%

Quilter – +4.18%

Diversified Energy Company – +3.79%

Antofagasta – +3.69%

Energean +3.59%

Fallers

Unite Group – -8.42%

Empiric Student Property – -5.67%

ICG – -4.05%

Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holding – -3.48%

Coats Group – -2.33%

alongID, a reusable digital identity platform unveiled at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, is moving into an early validation phase ahead of commercial launch.

Developed by international software development company deverium, the platform is now inviting selected businesses and institutions to participate ahead of a planned global commercial release.

alongID uses a distributed architecture that allows users to verify their identity once and reuse those credentials across multiple services.

A new AI tool to automatically process invoices, simplifying international payments for businesses, has launched.

iBanFirst, described as a next-generation cross-border payment services provider, is launching iBanPay for customers operating in the UK.

iBanPay scans, extracts and validates the key payment details from invoices, such as beneficiary information, currency and amounts, and automatically creates draft payments within the user’s iBanFirst account.

Within seconds, users receive a notification prompting them to review and approve the transaction.

In recent weeks, The Net-Zero Banking Alliance has folded amid stalled funding and unclear standards; US President Donald Trump continues to label climate change a ‘con job’; the Tories have announced plans to scrap landmark climate legislation; and manufacturers are being deterred from investing in green tech as it can increase their tax bill.

Against this backdrop, a group of industry leaders has launched Insurgent – a new venture studio built to ‘close the gap between climate ambition and investable action’.

Veterans across technology, marketing and design, fashion, green energy, telecoms, business strategy and elsewhere have joined Insurgent to ready startups to receive the projected $86bn of dry powder investment intended for climate action.

The group will be led by CEO Cyrus Vantoch-Wood (ex-BBDO New York, Naked Communications, Chiel Worldwide), head of business strategy Florence Shaffer (CEO at Becoming, formerly at Estée Lauder Companies, Burberry, Lucasfilm) and fund manager Wladimir Miroschnikow (partner at SCNE Ventures, formerly of Vertum.Group and venture consultant to Deutsche Bank and Unilever).

Startups at Insurgent will also benefit from the hands-on guidance of an accomplished advisory board consisting of Jon Cropper (FutureLogic), Roland Rudolf (Chiel Germany), Arnaud Nichols (Bloqs London), Mark Lyra (TrueWind LLC US), Gill Linton (CEO and EiC at Byronesque) and Alasdair Scott (Digital innovation for Apple, Boeing, Barclays and BMW).

JPMorganChase has maintained its position as the world’s most AI-advanced bank in the Evident AI Index.

According to Evident, the leading banks for AI maturity have pulled away from their peers in 2025, consolidating earlier gains and – increasingly – realising return on investment when it comes to AI.

The annual Evident AI Index evaluates the ongoing AI performance of 50 major banks in North America, Europe, and APAC against 70+ indicators drawn from millions of public data points.

It reveals that although nearly every bank is advancing in the Evident AI Index, the top 10 banks are increasing their scores 2.3x faster year-on-year than the rest of the Index.

Author: Patrick Killeen

The billionaire co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown is stepping back from his role as a board director in the wake of the company’s £5.4 billion private equity takeover.

Peter Hargreaves’ departure comes after a short return to the board – a move he had made earlier this year to “provide continuity” through the transition.

Hargreaves, now 79, will pass his board seat to his son, Robert, who has served as a board observer since the takeover. 

Peter will, however, retain a stake in the Bristol-based FinTech which he has grown into a national giant and has pledged to remain available as a source of counsel. 

The firm says he “will maintain a close relationship” and “has offered to make his insight and experience available if needed.”

Author: Patrick Killeen

The second edition of GM Business Growth Hub’s ASCEND Scale Up Programme is underway – and it has started as it means to go on.

A total of 25 companies are set to benefit from the programme which proved a roaring success for Manchester’s tech ecosystem last year, with businesses such as Specscart, CODE Beautiful and Parker Neal reaping the rewards.

This year, monthly meetings are taking place at Brewin Dolphin’s offices in the heart of the city. I headed along to the first of these to hear how support is being ramped up even further for scaling Greater Manchester businesses.

RelyComply, a South African anti-financial crime platform, is expanding to the UK.

The firm specialises in Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know-Your-Customer (KYC), and Know-Your-Business (KYB) processes. It says it plans to vastly overhaul how financial crime is combated across the country.

Founded in 2020, it says the business is one of a new wave of RegTechs focused on global problems that may not be considered ‘flashy’ yet can quietly save financial institutions and FinTechs millions of pounds.