Author: Jonathan Symcox

An AI healthcare firm with a deep presence in the NHS has revealed its UK expansion plans after raising a mammoth $340 million in funding.

Australian firm Heidi’s next phase of growth will see a deepening of adoption across the NHS, private healthcare settings and health systems globally, while expanding how it supports clinicians throughout their workflows. 

This includes helping with the administrative work that surrounds a patient visit, resulting in faster completion of follow-up tasks alongside improved clinical note-taking. The roadmap also includes building the regulatory and clinical safety foundations required to support these capabilities.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Shares in Mission Group PLC climbed 10% today despite this morning’s announcement of a change to its CEO and chair roles.

Non-executive chair David Morgan MBE intends to step down from the board at the end of the year. Current CEO John Carey will move to executive chair.

Morgan’s tenure has seen the group rebuild its balance sheet and also strengthen its board and senior leadership team, culminating in the appointment of group CEO Carey – although it issued a profit warning at the start of the year.

Mission has since undergone a strategic growth plan focused on the simplification of its agency portfolio and cost base, AI innovation and the expansion into select new growth markets. 

This morning the company also reported its results for the six months ended 30th June 2026.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Shares in Oxford Biomedica shares rose 6% today after it reported half-year results.

The listed cell and gene therapy pioneer, which is targeting profitability, reiterated previous full-year guidance as it reported a 9% increase in revenues to £79.8 million for the six months ended 30th June 2026.

With 17 new clients signed in H1 2026 – more than 30% above the total number signed during FY 2025 – it said adjusted operating EBITDA improved to a £2.5m loss from £3.9m in H1 2025, driven by stronger revenues and continued cost discipline.

 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

The Leeds Digital Festival is set to go region-wide in the coming years after a decade of major expansion in its home city.

The 11th edition of the annual festival, which now counts more than 200 events under its umbrella, is taking place this week and next.

This is the first edition under the directorship of Deb Hetherington after founder Stuart Clarke MBE moved to a chair role in its organising body Leeds Digital and handed the reins to Deb Hetherington.

Hetherington wears many hats, with specialisms in developing innovation ecosystems through real estate as well as advising growing companies. She has served as an executive director at Leeds Digital since 2019.

She was joined on stage at the launch of this year’s Leeds Digital Festival by West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin – and there was a special significance given her plans in the coming years.

A founder who nearly lost his company in 2019 before selling it two years later has launched an exit preparation platform.

Leigh Wells, based in Warwick, founded data consultancy Comma Group and sold it to Amplifi in March 2021.

Having watched others arrive at the table unprepared, he is building The Founders Exit – described as an AI-native platform that helps owner-led businesses become exit-ready before they enter a live sale process.

Sarah Porter has stepped down as CEO of InspiredMinds! and World Summit AI, the company and international summit series she founded a decade ago and grew into one of the world’s largest AI for good communities.

Porter built InspiredMinds! around a conviction that decisions about AI should be both inter-disciplinary and democratic. Through World Summit AI and Intelligent Health, she brought together big tech, researchers, startups, policymakers, government heads and industry leaders.

The company’s growth culminated in its acquisition by Growth Catalyst Partners, a New York-based private equity firm, in 2024, for an undisclosed sum.

Widely considered one of the best-connected figures in AI globally, Porter says the exit closes a chapter defined by building bridges across a fast-moving and often fractured industry.

Porter said stepping down from the CEO role would allow her to speak more publicly about the direction of AI and the decisions being made now about its development and use.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

SkinBioTherapeutics plc has appointed both its interim CEO and chair on a permanent basis as it recovers from a crisis earlier this year.

The Newcastle firm, developing gut-based products which promote skin health, is showing signs of recovery after also reporting its full-year results.

Rachel Parsonage has agreed to become permanent CEO while former acting chair Alyson Levett has also been appointed on a permanent basis.

Last month the Newcastle firm appointed a new interim CFO following the departure of Emily Bertram, who triggered a probe into the actions of ex-CEO Stuart Ashman.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

An entrepreneur who co-founded Lancaster EV charging software firm Fuuse has launched a new EV venture.

Will Maden served as CIO then COO of Fuuse before leaving the business – which earlier this year was ranked the fifth fastest-growing company by the Northern Tech Awards – in 2025.

Now he has raised £850,000 with help from Fhunded Angels for TOGL, which enables companies with fleets of electric-powered vehicles to intelligently manage when their EVs draw power from the grid.

Maven Capital Partners has led a £3 million investment in Applied AGI, a business specialising in advanced AI and machine learning technologies for real-world operational deployment in defence and security sectors.

The funding round includes investment from the Maven VCTs; Maven Cognition, Maven’s specialist EIS Fund; and a syndicate of angel investors.

AAGI develops AI-powered vision technology for defence and other specialist applications, helping machines detect and understand objects in complex environments, including situations with poor visibility or limited data. By improving how information is gathered and interpreted, AAGI supports better decision-making and operational performance for defence and security organisations.

It works with a range of UK defence organisations and leading defence contractors, including the Ministry of Defence, the Royal Air Force and Leonardo.

Manchester FinTech Raisin UK has appointed Jules di Mambro as CEO following regulatory approval from the Financial Conduct Authority.

The London-based executive succeeds Steven Amos, who leaves the firm after seven years including the last four as CEO. During his tenure, Amos played a key role in growing and scaling the UK business. 

Amos leaves Raisin UK to pursue new opportunities, writing on LinkedIn: “I want to extend my deepest thanks to the entire Raisin family (past and present), our board, our partners and of course our customers, for an unforgettable journey.

“I am thrilled to pass the leadership to Jules di Mambro. I have no doubt that under his guidance, Raisin UK will continue to break new ground.”

Sprive, an AI-driven consumer FinTech app, has closed a £7.7 million Series A funding round.

The company, which was founded in 2019 by former Goldman Sachs bankers Jinesh Vohra and Saad Hashim, allows customers to use cashback earned by paying for everyday shopping through the app to automatically overpay their mortgage – allowing them to cut interest charges and even shorten their mortgage terms. 

The app – which featured on our most recent PropTech 50 ranking – also scans the market allowing customers to easily switch to cheaper mortgage deals.

The company featured earlier this year on the BBC television programme Dragons’ Den. 

Newcastle-based performance intelligence company Leaf Signal has published UK State of Tracking 2026, an audit of conversion tracking accuracy across 500 of the UK’s leading Shopify websites. 

The audit checked whether those sites send Meta, Google Ads and GA4 the data they need to optimise and report accurately. Where they didn’t, they diagnosed why, using automated diagnostics and AI monitoring alongside manual verification of every result. 

The headline finding was that 98% of brands audited had at least one crucial tracking issue – meaning a significant portion of the UK’s fastest-growing eCommerce brands are making ad targeting, bidding and budget decisions on inaccurate signal data.

A Manchester-based AI-native company that streamlines operational workflows has passed five million cases processed for regulated firms in under three years – built entirely without a sales team, marketing function or paid acquisition. 

Saber was founded in January 2024 by Jakub Lenski and Mitchel Shephard after completing a one-off audit for a law firm. Tasked with auditing a 200,000-claim book by hand – a job estimated to take six weeks to complete 10% of – Saber produced a one-off automation workflow that processed the entire book in under three days. 

Saber has since evolved into a Manchester team of 32 – mostly engineers – and a product that saves 96.3% of time per case. Concerns over AI’s accuracy can be a barrier to adoption, making human oversight a key component of Saber’s design. 

Huddersfield-based Software as a Service firm Adventoris is celebrating 14 new client wins as it makes four internal promotions to bolster the team.

The client wins include beauty and personal care brands, food and drink firms, building and electrical companies, a lab equipment distributor, manufacturers and the US and Canadian entities of a household goods company.

Adventoris has promoted four team members to strengthen its departments across customer support, implementation, development, and finance and HR.

Joel Burnett, who has been with Adventoris for nine years, is now head of customer success and support; Michael Ghatt is stepping into the role of implementation team leader; Jordan Lewis becomes finance and HR manager; and Phil Copland has been promoted to solutions architect.

Adventoris currently supports 230 clients on its flagship platform, SwiftCloud, facilitating £64 million worth of orders from approximately 145k orders per month.

SwiftCloud helps businesses save time, reduce manual order processing and increase both monthly sales volumes and average basket values.

FintechOS has raised £21 million in combined equity and debt financing from its current shareholder base.

The London-based agentic platform serves banks, insurers and other financial services companies across the United States and Europe.

The investment will be used to further set up the company’s expansion base in the United States, deepen its European client portfolio, and scale the delivery practice behind its AI-native platform.

The round follows a strong first half of 2026 for FintechOS, during which the company confirmed it had reached profitability while growing recurring revenue 40% year-on-year for the first half of 2026, driven in large part by 130% growth in the US market. 

Ceryx Medical, the bioelectronic MedTech company developing a new class of heart failure therapy, has appointed Professor Zaheer Yousef OBE as Chief Medical Officer.

Heart failure affects more than 20 million people across Europe and the US and remains the leading cause of hospitalisation in people over 65, with around half of patients dying within five years.

Professor Yousef was principal investigator on RSA-Pace, Ceryx’s multi-centre study of its respiratory sinus arrhythmia pacing technology.

RSA-Pace confirmed that the biomimetic pacing effect seen in Ceryx’s preclinical work translates into patients. Professor Yousef will now lead the design and delivery of the next study, the one set up to show what the therapy does for patients over time.

GC Angels has announced the third cohort of its Venture Forward accelerator programme.

The Innovate UK-backed programme from GC Angels – the venture capital investment arm of The Growth Company, the largest social enterprise institution in Greater Manchester – supports underrepresented founders from across the North of England to prepare for their first institutional seed investment round. 

Delivered by the investment managers behind GC Angels, it equips early-stage founders with the first-hand knowledge, tools and investor connections needed to raise their first VC investment within the next 12 months.

 

Reward, a global leader in customer engagement and commerce media – part of Rezolve Ai – has appointed Enrique Del Rio as President, UK & Europe, strengthening its commercial leadership as the business accelerates growth across the region.

With more than three decades of global financial services experience, Del Rio brings extensive expertise across commercial banking, data and major client relationships. He spent 15 years at Lloyds Banking Group in senior leadership positions and has also held senior roles at Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank and Bankers Trust.

Project Ventures, an independent early-stage venture capital firm rooted in the Imperial College London ecosystem, has announced the launch of its debut £5 million fund.

The fund will back pre-seed and seed startups at the intersection of DeepTech and AI who are either emerging from or connected to the Imperial College London ecosystem, with three investments already completed to-date.

Founded and led by Shahryar Barati, the firm’s alumni-powered model mirrors more established alumni-backed venture networks in the US and aims to close its debut fund by summer 2027.

InTouchNow has secured £2.3 million in seed funding to develop its AI voice agent technology for general practices and ease pressure on overstretched primary care NHS services.

The round was led by Ada Ventures with participation from Exceptional Ventures and Kadmos Capital.

This latest funding boost marks one of Ada Ventures’ largest seed cheques to date and the first venture capital investment into a primary care AI voice agent operating in the NHS.