The 150 game-changing tech deals of 2024

Deal volumes in the UK tech market may still be a long way from their peak but there’s still been plenty of activity across the sector in the past 12 months.

Unsurprisingly AI businesses have attracted a significant amount of the investment.

BusinessCloud has identified 150 of the game-changing tech deals that we’ve reported on in 2024.

They’re not necessarily the biggest amounts, but they show the variety of the deals that were done in 2024.

The companies are listed in chronological order based on when the story was published in BusinessCloud.

One of the most significant developments was the British Business Bank’s launch of its new Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II, a £660m fund set to cover the entire North of England.

Part 1 covers the period January-June. Part 2 will be published tomorrow and covers July-December.

January 2024

• B2B payments FinTech Kriya secured a new £50m funding facility from long-standing debt and equity partner Viola Group to help power over £1bn of B2B payments over the next 24 months. Anil Stocker is the CEO of the London firm.
• University of Edinburgh spinout Carcinotech raised £4.2m of funding to build on its traction in the UK and Europe, with US expansion planned on the cards. Eos Advisory led the round for the firm which enables the manufacture of 3D-printed micro-tumours. Ishani Malhotra is the CEO and founder.
• Next-generation materials company Xampla raised £5.5m in funding in a round led by new and existing investors, including Amadeus Capital Partners and CIECH Ventures. Alexandra French is the CEO.
• London-based Transreport secured a £10m funding package to expand its passenger assistance technology. The funding was led by Puma Private Equity. Jay Shen is the founder and CEO.
• Manchester-based intelligence platform The Insights Family announced a £5.6m investment round led by BGF. The company was established in 2017 by Nick Richardson.
• MedTech IMU Biosciences raised £11.5m to revolutionise immune-powered precision medicine. Molten Ventures led the Series A funding round. Adam Laing is the CEO and co-founder of the London-based firm.
• Manchester-based ForthStar secured $10m (£8m) in funding from Griffin Gaming Partners to aid development for the free-to-play game studio. Playdemic founders Paul Gouge and Alex Rigby are at the helm of ForthStar.
  

  ForthStar Team with co-founders Paul Gouge and Alex Rigby

• Eatron Technologies, a battery pioneer based in Warwick, secured an eight-figure funding deal. Its Series A2 funding included lead investment from LG Technology Ventures. Dr Umut Genc is the founder and CEO.
• Vertice, the world’s only integrated SaaS and cloud spend management platform, announced a £19.7m ($25m) fundraise following a year of revenue growth. The London-headquartered firm was founded by entrepreneurial brothers Roy and Eldar Tuvey. 83North and Bessemer Venture Partners led the round.
• Recraft, a generative AI tool for graphic designers, raised around £9.5m in Series A funding, with backers including Khosla Ventures and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. The founder and CEO is Anna Veronika Dorogush.
• Crewe-headquartered Trak Global Security Solutions received a £9.75m investment from Foresight Group to back its management buyout. TGSS has been carved out of a larger group, with the new entity being led by Dave Turnock and Andy Christopher.
• FinTech 10x Banking raised £40m in a round led by BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase to make banking better for customers. Former Barclays CEO Anthony Jenkins founded the company in 2016.
• Wildstone completed a £350m infrastructure refinancing with Deutsche Bank to expand its out-of-home advertising footprint further around the UK and Europe. The London firm was founded in 2010 by CEO Damian Cox.
• CellVoyant, a MedTech spinout from the University of Bristol, raised a £7.6m seed round to pioneer the use of AI in the development of stem cell therapies. The round was led by Octopus Ventures and Rafael E. Carazo Salas is the CEO and founder.
• Carmoola raised £15.5m equity investment to expand its direct-to-consumer car finance platform. The investment came from US-based FinTech specialist QED Investors. Aidan Rushby is the CEO and co-founder of the London-based FinTech.
• Octopus Energy’s generation arm invested £200m in London-based Deep Green, which reuses the heat generated by data centres. Mark Bjornsgaard is the founder and CEO of Deep Green.
• hyperexponential raised £57m in Series B funding to target expansion into the US. The Series B fund was led by global technology-focused investment firm Battery Ventures. Amrit Santhirasenan is the CEO and co-founder of the London-based InsurTech.
• ZILO, a London FinTech specialising in global asset and wealth management software, raised £25m in a Series A funding round co-led by Fidelity International Strategic Ventures and Portage. Philip Goffin is the founder and CEO.
• Bumper, a FinTech enabling flexible payments for car repairs, secured £40m in Series B fundraise to accelerate its growth. The funding round was led by Autotech Ventures. James Jackson is CEO of the Sheffield-headquartered firm.
• Travelport completed a £450m tranche of equity financing, resulting in a change to its ownership structure. The tech firm has built a marketplace which connects travel retail buyers and sellers and is headquartered in Berkshire. Greg Webb is the CEO.
• LegalTech Robin AI raised almost £21m in new funding to eye further global expansion. The Series B round was led by Temasek and the firm was founded in 2019 by Richard Robinson.

February

• Sitehop, a leader in networking encryption solutions, raised £5m in seed funding. The financing was co-led by Amadeus Capital Partners and Manta Ray Ventures. The Sheffield cybersecurity startup was founded in 2022 by Ben Harper and Melissa Chambers.
• Lapse, a photo-sharing app which now captures 100 million memories a month, raised £24m in Series A funding. Inspired by the experience of using a point-and-shoot film camera whilst backpacking in Vietnam in 2019,and his brother Dan built the app to help people live in the moment when taking and sharing photos. The round was co-led by Greylock and DST Global Partners.
  

  Brothers Ben and Dan Silvertown, co-founders of Lapse (Credit Megan Jordan)

• Southampton-based Curve Therapeutics raised £40.5m in Series A financing to develop breakthrough cancer treatments in a round that included British Patient Capital and Pfizer Ventures. The CEO is Simon Kerry.
• YFM Equity Partners backed the £18.1m management buyout of Southampton firm Smart Numbers, a provider of connectivity and complementary marketing services. Led by incumbent Smart Numbers MD Tim Hutchings, the investment will help to accelerate growth. YFM Equity Partners was founded in 2005 by Scott Woolaway.
• London-based Napier AI, a financial crime compliance RegTech, received a £45m investment from US alternative asset manager Crestline Investors. Greg Watson is the firm’s CEO.
• MIP Discovery, an innovative developer of non-biological affinity reagents designed to accelerate the development and production of cell and gene therapies, closed a £7m Series A financing round led by Mercia Ventures. Stephane Argivier is the CEO.
• HealthTech company Lilli, a SaaS company using a proactive lifestyle monitoring technology to revolutionise care, raised £8.2m in Series A financing in a round led by West Hill Capital. Gren Paull left his role as CEO in July.
• Device Authority raised £5.5m and appointed a trio of cybersecurity veterans to its board. The Series A funding came from Ten Eleven Ventures, a global venture capital firm specialising in cyber. Device Authority’s CEO is Darron Antill.
• Colossyan, a developer of AI video for workplace learning, secured more than £17m in funding in a round led by Lakestar. Dominik Kovacs is the CEO of the startup.
• Artificial Labs, an algorithmic underwriting InsurTech, raised an £8m Series A+ round of funding led by publicly listed fund Augmentum Fintech. David King is the CEO and co-founder of the London-based firm.
• Banbridge-based EOS IT Holdings secured up to $100m (£78m) in credit from HSBC to meet demand from buyers in Silicon Valley. Daniel Strain is the CEO and founder.
• Amplifi Capital secured £22.5m in funding from M&G Investments to drive growth of Reevo Money. Tobias Gruber is the CEO of Amplifi Capital.

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March

• Oriole Networks, a new company that revolutionises the performance of AI systems and data centres, raised £10m in seed funding in a round co-led by UCL Technology Fund, Clean Growth Fund, XTX Ventures and Dorilton Ventures. The UCL spinout was created in 2023 by four founders – Professor George Zervas, James Regan, Alessandro Ottino and Joshua Benjamin.
• Bristol-based firm WASE secured £8.5m to scale its ‘waste-to-energy’ technology. Thomas Fudge is the founder and CEO. The round was led by Extantia Capital.
• Manchester-based FinTech AccessPay closed a funding round at £19m with a combination of equity and debt. The round was led by True Ventures with participation from Manchester-based investment firm Praetura Ventures. Anish Kapoor is the CEO.
  

  AccessPay and Praetura Ventures

• The British Business Bank launched its new Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II, a £660m fund set to cover the entire North of England and help drive economic growth.
• Climate technology firm Mission Zero announced a £21.8m Series A investment led by investor 2150. The funding round was led by investor 2150 alongside participation from World Fund, Fortescue, Siemens Financial Services and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which was founded in 2015 by Bill Gates. Dr Nicholas Chadwick is the CEO.
• Local payments platform PPRO completed a dual tranche funding round totalling £73m to pursue growth in key markets. The funding was provided by new and existing investors, including Eurazeo and Paypal Ventures. The London firm is led by Motie Bring.
• Wobble Genomics, a University of Edinburgh spin-out whose novel approach to RNA sequencing could revolutionise many fields in biotechnology, raised £8.5m to help commercialise its technology. The funding round was led by Mercia Ventures and BGF. CEO Dr Richard Kuo founded the business in 2021.
• Cash deposit platform Flagstone received a £108m equity investment. The deal sees Estancia Capital Partners, a US financial services specialist private equity firm, take a minority stake in the business. The FinTech firm was founded by Andrew Thatcher and Simon Merchant in 2015.
• Monzo raised £340m in a fresh round of funding which valued the neobank at almost £4bn. The round was led by Alphabet’s investment fund CapitalG and Chinese venture capital investor HongShan.  Monzo hired Conor Walsh as US CEO late last year as it prepares for a second crack at the US market.  TS Anil has been the CEO since 2020.
• Manchester-based Phagenesis raised £33m in a Series D funding round led by EQT Life Sciences. The medical device company specialises in the treatment of swallowing disorders.
• Haiper, a London-based generative AI video platform, raised £10.8m in a seed round led by Octopus Ventures. Haiper was founded in late 2021 by CEO Dr Yishu Miao and CTO Dr Ziyu Wang. Dr Miao said: “Our end goal is to build an AGI (artificial general intelligence) with full perceptual abilities.”
• Sustainable energy startup Heat Geek raised £3.7m in seed funding to power its mission to decarbonise homes via heat pump technology on a national scale. Aadil Qureshi is the CEO of the London-based firm.

April

• Online SME lender Capify secured a £100m credit facility from Pollen Street Capital. Capify was launched in the UK and Australia in 2008 by serial entrepreneur David Goldin against the backdrop of the global financial crisis.
• Locate Bio, a spinout from the University of Nottingham, raised £9.2m to fund a clinical study of LDGraft, a bone graft substitute for spinal fusion. The funding came from both new and existing investors, Mercia Ventures and BGF. John von Benecke is the CEO.
• Treefera, an AI-enabled data management platform focused on bringing transparency and accuracy to nature-based asset reporting, raised £9.6m in Series A funding from AlbionVC. The firm was co-founded by Jonathan Horn and Caroline Grey.
• ‘Organ-on-a-chip’ firm CN Bio raised almost £17m in the first close of its Series B fundraising round. The funding came from several new investors, including Bayland Capital and CN Innovations Holdings. Dr Paul Brooks is the CEO of the MedTech 50 company.
• Spaceflight company Orbex secured £16.7m from six backers in an update to its Series C funding round. The funding will help Orbex ramp up the development of Prime, its two-stage rocket designed to transport small satellites into Low Earth Orbit. Phillip Chambers is the CEO.
• Financial benefits platform Wagestream raised a further £17.5m in funding from new and existing investors, including British Patient Capital and Northzone. Peter Briffett is the co-founder and CEO.
• Phlo raised a further £9m in funding to power its evolution from a digital pharmacy innovator into a holistic digital healthcare leader. The round’s lead investor was Par Equity. Nadeem Sarwar is the founder and CEO.
• Cambridge-based Qureight raised almost £7m in Series A funding to accelerate drug development in lung and heart disease. Hargreave Hale AIM VCT led the round. Dr Muhunthan Thillai is the founder and CEO.
• Mimo, a platform simplifying global payments, cashflow and financial management for SMEs and accountants, raised £15.5m of new investment in a round led by Northzone. The company was founded in 2023 by Henrik Grim, Alexander Gernandt Segerby and Andreas Meisingseth, and has offices in London and Stockholm.
• London-based LegalTech Luminance raised £32m in a Series B funding round led by Santa Monica-based growth-stage venture firm, March Capital. Eleanor Lightbody is the CEO of Luminance.
  

  Eleanor Lightbody, CEO of Luminance

• Warwick Acoustics, the Midlands company whose patented loudspeaker technology is set to revolutionise in-car audio systems, has raised a further £7m in a funding round led by Mercia Ventures. Dr Mike Grant is the CEO.

May 

• Cambridge MedTech Bicycle Therapeutics raised $555m in equity financing via a private placement. The Nasdaq-listed firm is developing a novel class of medicines, referred to as Bicycles, for diseases that are underserved by existing therapeutics. The financing was led by a US-based healthcare-focused investor. Kevin Lee is the CEO.
• Orca AI, an operational platform for ships, raised £18m in new funding. The round was led by OCV Partners and Mizmaa Ventures. Yarden Gross is the CEO.
• Drug discovery company LabGenius closed a £35m Series B financing round to further develop its ML-driven drug discovery platform. The round was led by new investor M Ventures. James Field is the CEO of the London-based firm.
• Reactive Technologies, a UK and Finland-based leader in grid stability measurements, raised £25m in Series D funding in a round led by M&G’s Catalyst investment. Marc Borrett is the CEO.
• Vitesse, a treasury and payment solutions provider for the insurance industry, raised £73m in Series C funding. The round was led by global investment firm KKR. Phillip McGriskin and Paul Townsend founded the London-headquartered company in 2014.
• PolyAI, a global provider of enterprise voice assistants, raised almost £40m in a Series C round of funding. The round was backed by new investors Hedosophia, Nvidia’s NVentures and Zendesk. Nikola Mrkšić is the CEO and co-founder.
• Sona, a workforce management platform, raised £22m in a Series A round of funding. The London firm was founded by Steffen Wulff Petersen, Oli Johnson and Ben Dixon. Felicis led the financing.
• Independent studio Steel City Interactive (SCI), developer of ‘Undisputed’ – the first major boxing video game in over a decade – raised more than £15m in funding. Novator Ventures led SCI’s latest financing round. Ash Habib is the CEO and founder of SCI.
• London-based FinTech credit technology company Abound announced a new financing round which could extend up to £800m. The funding included a multi-year asset-backed debt financing arrangement from existing financier Citi, while the Series B equity round component was led by Silicon Valley-based GSR Ventures. Gerald Chappell is the CEO and co-founder.
• Insurance technology startup Urban Jungle raised £11.2m in its latest funding round, led by existing investors. The London-based company was founded in 2017 by Jimmy Williams and Greg Smyth.

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June

• Zeti, an innovator in FinTech for clean transport adoption, raised £5m from private equity firm HYCAP Group. Dan Saunders is the founder and CEO of Zeti.
• Supercede, a reinsurance technology platform, raised £12m in a Series A funding round. The investment was led by Alven. Jerad Leigh is the CEO and co-founder.
• Climate X raised £14m to accelerate its global expansion. Google Ventures led the Series A investment round. The firm was co-founded by CEO Lukky Ahmed and COO Kamil Kluza.
• Liverpool-based EnviroTech50 startup Heatio secured £2m in investment, which was led by Ascension. Heatio was founded in 2022 by Simon Roberts and Thomas Farquhar.
• Leisure and hospitality tech provider Tevalis secured an £11.5m investment from BGF. Founded in 2005 by CEO James Cook, Tevalis has scaled organically to more than £8m of annual sales.
• FinTech fund Augmentum Fintech made a £2.6m investment into London-based LoopFX. Tim Levene is CEO of Augmentum Fintech.
• Wave Photonics, a Cambridge-based DeepTech startup, received £4.5m to develop on-chip photonics designs. The UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund and Cambridge Enterprise Ventures led the round for the company founded in 2021 by James Lee, Matthew Anderson and Mateusz Kubica.
• PQShield, a cybersecurity company specialising in post-quantum cryptography, raised £29m in Series B funding. The round was led by Addition. Ali El Kaafarani is the CEO and founder.
• London-based FinTech Finbourne raised £55m in Series B funding to expand globally. The round was led by Highland Europe and AVP and Thomas McHugh is the CEO and co-founder of the company, which remains majority employee-owned.
• London FinTech Zilch raised £100m in securitised debt financing arranged by Deutsche Bank. In just under four years, Zilch has amassed over 4m customers and now processes more than 10m monthly payments. Philip Belamant is CEO and co-founder.
  

  Philip Belamant, CEO, Zilch

• Cambridge startup CuspAI secured £24m in seed funding from leading European and US venture funds. The round was led by Hoxton Ventures. CuspAI was founded by Professor Max Welling and Dr Chad Edwards.
• London MedTech Amber Therapeutics raised almost £80m in a Series A funding round to develop treatment for mixed urinary incontinence (MUI). The round was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Aidan Crawley is the CEO of Amber Therapeutics.
• Cambridge spinout ExpressionEdits raised £10.2m to revolutionise gene design. The seed funding round co-led by Octopus Ventures and redalpine. The company was founded in 2021 by Dr. Kärt Tomberg, ProfAllan Bradley, and Dr. Liliana Antunes.

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