Perceptic Raises £9m to Boost AI Drug Discovery
Perceptic announced a $12 million seed round, led by Accel, Air Street Capital and Elder Gull, to develop a unified AI platform for the entire drug lifecycle. The system aims to integrate asset scouting, scientific evaluation and clinical data into a single intelligence layer, reducing fragmentation across research, development and clinical decision‑making. The founding team, formerly behind Palantir’s AIP product for life sciences, says the platform will enable recursive, self‑improving insights. The capital will be used to accelerate product development and early pharma partnerships.
Longwall Ventures’ Fund 4 Receives New £50m Commitment
The British Business Bank has pledged a new £50 million (approximately $63 million) commitment to Longwall Ventures’ fourth Enterprise Capital Fund, aimed at early‑stage deep‑tech companies. The fund will invest £0.5‑2 million in up to 16 UK startups across advanced manufacturing, clean energy,...
UK Fintech Hiring Set to Rise Driven by Payments Infrastructure
UK fintech hiring is projected to increase up to 14% in 2026, driven by demand for payments‑infrastructure roles. A Morgan McKinley and Vacancysoft labour‑market report says hiring focus will shift from neobanks to payments providers, engineering and IT positions. The sector...
UK Startups Could Benefit From £3bn EU Fund
The United Kingdom is poised to re‑enter the EU’s Horizon Europe startup fund, a €4 billion (~$4.3 billion) programme that could be finalized later this year. Joining requires the UK to reverse a treaty decision that opted it out of the scheme....
Northern Irish Health Tech Expands in the US After FDA Win
Neurovalens, a Belfast‑based health‑tech startup, received FDA De Novo clearance for its Modius Spero wearable that treats PTSD with low‑level electrical stimulation. The company will begin prescribing the device to U.S. veterans through the Department of Veterans Affairs in July, marking...
CircuitHub Secures £21m to Reshape Electronics Manufacturing
CircuitHub announced a $28 million financing round, led by Plural, to scale its Grid platform of automated, software‑driven factories. The platform lets engineers order printed circuit boards ranging from one to 10,000 units with a three‑day turnaround and automated quoting. Using...
GEEIQ Raises £5m to Power Virtual Worlds Analytics
GEEIQ, a virtual‑worlds intelligence platform, secured £5 million ($6.8 million) in new funding led by YFM Equity Partners, with participation from GFR, Haymarket and existing angels. The capital will accelerate AI‑powered analytics, deepen data partnerships, and fund expansion into new verticals and...
The Fast-Moving Future of Digital Payments – Iana Dimitrova, OpenPayd
OpenPayd CEO Iana Dimitrova told the UKTN podcast that AI agents will soon conduct payments without human input. She noted the Bank of England governor’s warning that stablecoins may threaten the nature of money. Dimitrova also announced OpenPayd’s plan to...
Rightbrain Secures £3m to Help Service Businesses Become AI-Native
Newcastle‑based Rightbrain AI has closed a £3 million (~$3.8 million) funding round led by Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II to help SMEs and mid‑market B2B service firms adopt AI agents without a full digital overhaul. The platform plugs OpenAI, Anthropic and Google...
Switching Off Shouldn’t Feel Like a Risk for Startup Founders
Startup founders often equate constant availability with commitment, making it hard to disconnect. The pressure to handle cashflow, product development, and customer service personally fuels burnout, especially in today’s tight economic climate. Virgin StartUp’s founder Barometer found 38% of founders...
Cyber Attacks Cost UK Businesses £3.7bn in Litigation in 2025
Research by Gallagher and the Centre for Economics and Business Research shows UK large enterprises faced $14.6 billion in total cyber‑attack costs in 2025. Shareholder litigation alone accounted for $4.6 billion, making it the second‑largest expense after $6.8 billion in direct trading disruption....
Searchable Secures £10.3m to Boost Its AI Performance Marketing Platform
London‑based Searchable has raised £10.3 million (≈ $13.1 million) to scale its AI‑driven performance‑marketing platform. The tool monitors brand visibility across ten AI search engines, integrates Google Analytics and Search Console data, and converts insights into traffic‑boosting actions. Founded in January, the startup...
Prema Cognition Founder: Own Your Decisions
Julia Cooney, founder and CEO of Prema Cognition—a health‑tech startup developing early‑dementia detection—spoke to Founder‑in‑Five about leadership and fundraising. She argued that founders must own big decisions instead of over‑democratising, drawing on her shift from a clinical, consensus‑based mindset. Cooney...
Edtech Unicorn Multiverse Raises £50m
Multiverse, the UK‑based edtech unicorn founded by Euan Blair and Sophie Adelman, secured $70 million (£52 million) in new funding, lifting its valuation to $2.1 billion. The round, led by Schroders Capital, will fund the company’s European expansion and follows its January acquisition...
Kroo Bank Enters Funding Partnership with Bridging Lender Glenhawk
Kroo Bank has bought an existing portfolio of bridge loans from UK specialist lender Glenhawk and sealed a forward‑flow funding agreement to finance future bridge‑loan originations. The deal creates a long‑term partnership that gives Kroo exposure to the UK property...
Europe ‘Can’t Rely on the US’ for Its Space Sector, that Is Not a Bad Thing
Mark Boggett, chief executive of Seraphim Space, warns that Europe can no longer count on U.S. support to build a thriving space tech industry and must adopt a sovereign approach. Falling launch costs and advances like industrial 3D printing have...
Rethinking How We Use AI – Louise Ballard, Atheni-Ai
Louise Ballard, co‑founder of early‑stage AI firm Atheni‑ai, explains how businesses must move beyond chat‑based AI to building integrated systems that deliver measurable value. She critiques the UK government’s ambition to reskill ten million workers in AI as overly broad...
Nscale’s Rapid Growth Continues with £580m Boost
London‑based AI data centre operator Nscale secured a new £580 million ($790 million) financing round to fund its AI‑focused data centre in Narvik, Norway. The capital injection follows a £1.5 billion Series C that lifted the company’s valuation to $14 billion just two months earlier....
Kaizan Raises £2.5m to Boost Its AI Client Management Platform
Kaizan, a UK‑based AI startup, raised £2.5 million (≈$3.2 million) in a round led by Pembroke VCT, which contributed £1.5 million (≈$1.9 million). The funding will accelerate development of its client‑management platform that aggregates emails, calls, chat and internal systems to gauge relationship health,...
Esk Secures £2.6m to Accelerate Its Live Entertainment Business
Edinburgh‑based entertainment‑tech firm Esk has closed a £2.6 million (≈$3.3 million) funding round led by Maven Capital Partners and backed by the British Business Bank’s Investment Fund for Scotland. The capital will be used to scale its international business development, marketing, and...
New Arāya Sie Fund Closes at £7.5m to Back Female-Led Startups
Arāya Ventures and Sie Ventures have launched the Arāya Sie Fund, securing a £7.5 million first close (about $9.5 million) to invest in female‑founder startups across AI, deep‑tech, fintech, healthcare and sustainability. The fund plans to back up to 40 pre‑seed and...
UK Tech Funding Roundup: This Week’s Deals From Quantum Motion to Lunar
UK tech investment this week totaled £234 million (≈$293 million), an 86% drop from the prior week but still driven by a handful of large deals. Quantum Motion led the pack with a £117.5 million Series C to advance silicon‑based quantum computers, while Cytospire...
City of London Calls for Tech-Led Fraud Fight
The City of London Corporation is urging technology firms to create stronger digital identity‑verification services to curb financial‑sector fraud. It proposes a voluntary, secure network that lets users verify once with a trusted provider and reuse that proof across multiple...
The Speed of Cyber Risk Has Changed. Organisations Haven’t Caught Up
Artificial intelligence is accelerating cyber threats, enabling multi‑stage attacks in hours instead of days. Recent AI‑driven tools like CodeWall have breached high‑profile platforms such as Bain & Co’s Pyxis in under 20 minutes, highlighting the speed gap. Most organisations still...
Asterix Health Raises £2.1m to Boost NHS Primary Care Hiring
Asterix Health announced a £2.1 million (≈$2.7 million) pre‑seed round to scale its remote‑GP platform for NHS primary‑care practices. Founded in 2024 by Julian Titz and Max Thilo after personal health battles, the startup will use the capital to onboard new NHS...
Fintech Funding Tumbles in New Quarterly Figures
UK fintechs raised $741 million in Q1 2026, a 43% drop from Q4 2025 and 17% lower than the same period last year. Late‑stage financing collapsed 62%, while early‑stage capital surged 35% to $276 million. The quarter’s headline deals were 9fin Technologies’ $165 million Series C...
UK Government Funds Battery Recycling Consortium
The UK government, via Innovate UK’s Battery Innovation Programme, has awarded funding to ReCam, a consortium of Recyclus, the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre, Watercycle Technologies and Polaron. The group will develop advanced lithium‑ion battery recycling processes that turn end‑of‑life cells into...
British Business Bank Commits £1m to Tackling Gender Funding Gap
The British Business Bank has pledged an initial £1 million (about $1.27 million) to co‑invest with Angel Academe under the Investing in Women Code. The capital will be combined with Angel Academe’s private investors and an EIS fund to back seed‑stage to...
Cytospire Therapeutics Secures £61m to Advance Cancer Treatment
Cytospire Therapeutics, a UK biotech, closed a £61 million (≈$77 million) Series A round to accelerate its multispecific engager antibody platform. The capital will fund the development of its lead candidate, CYT X300, aimed at EGFR‑positive solid tumours such as colorectal, head‑and‑neck and non‑small‑cell...
Luna Pet Healthcare Secures £700k to Improve Pet Dental Care
Luna Pet Healthcare, operating as Luna the Dental Vets, announced a £700,000 (approximately $890,000) funding round to accelerate its pet dental care mission. The company runs dedicated dental‑only clinics in Bristol and Reading and has launched a line of preventive...
UK Semiconductor Centre Names Its First CEO
Andy McLean, a former senior executive at Analog Devices, Texas Instruments and National Semiconductor, has been appointed the first chief executive officer of the UK Semiconductor Centre (UKSC). McLean will lead the centre’s push to accelerate scale‑up, attract investment and...
In Conversation With: BGF’s Dennis Atkinson
The Business Growth Fund (BGF) has invested roughly £5bn (about $6.3bn) in more than 650 UK and Irish companies since its 2011 launch, aiming to close the funding gap between breakthrough research and scalable businesses. Co‑head of early‑stage investments Dennis...
This Sponsor Rule Is About to Catch Founders Off-Guard
A UK Home Office rule that took effect on 8 April 2026 now requires sponsor salaries to meet the £41,700 (≈ $53,000) threshold every pay period, not just annually. Any dip below the threshold triggers an immediate compliance breach, even if the annual...
UK Tech Funding Roundup: This Week’s Deals From Enviromena to HDS
UK tech investment surged to £1.73bn (approximately $2.2bn) between 27 April and 1 May, a 1,574% week‑on‑week jump across 11 funding rounds. The headline deals were Enviromena’s £825m senior financing package and Ineffable Intelligence’s £814m seed round, each topping $1 billion. Mid‑size rounds...
The Payments Association CEO to Step Down
The Payments Association announced that CEO Ben Agnew will step down after leading the trade body since 2020. During his tenure, membership and revenue grew markedly, and the organization launched a market‑leading platform. His departure follows a 2025 investment from...
UK Leads Europe in Clean Tech Funding, Report Finds
A new Cleantech for UK report shows the British clean‑tech sector raised £7.2 bn ($9.1 bn) in 2025, reclaiming the top spot in Europe. Venture‑backed equity alone reached £2.5 bn, surpassing China’s £1.9 bn, while Germany and France lagged far behind. However, the report...
Why Startups Don’t Make It to Series A
Antler’s Path to Series A report, based on over 40,000 UK funding rounds, finds that only about 12% of seed‑stage startups advance to a Series A. Companies that rely solely on SEIS or EIS tax‑incentive investors see a conversion rate...
New Law Cracks Down on Misogynistic Abuse Online
The UK Crime and Policing Act has become law, introducing sweeping measures to protect women and girls from online misogynistic abuse. It obliges AI chatbots, such as X’s Grok, to filter illegal content like non‑consensual deepfakes and child sexual abuse...
It’s Time to Move Quantum From Science to Industry
Britain has pledged up to £2bn (≈ $2.5 billion) to accelerate quantum computing from research to commercial scale. The government warns there is a 12‑18‑month window to lock in sovereign capability before global supply chains solidify. While the UK boasts world‑class universities...
Third Space Learning Raises £4.4m to Scale AI Tutoring
Third Space Learning, the Swindon‑based online education platform, has raised £4.4 million (about $5.6 million) to accelerate its AI‑driven maths tutoring service, Skye. The round was led by the British Business Bank’s South West Investment Fund with participation from Maven Capital Partners,...
LemFi to Invest £100m in UK as It Relocates to London
LemFi, a Nigerian‑born remittance fintech, will invest £100 million (≈$127 million) in the UK and move its global headquarters to London. The decision follows its 2023 acquisition of Pillar and a 60% increase in its UK staff. Over the next five years...
Smart Money App Plum Reaches Profitability
UK‑based fintech Plum announced its first operational profitability, reporting over 60% year‑on‑year growth and $42.5 million in annual recurring revenue. The app now serves more than five million users and manages roughly $3.75 billion in assets. Revenue comes from a mix of...
YFM Equity Partners Invests £7.6m in Agency Swanky
YFM Equity Partners has committed roughly $9.7 million (£7.6 million) to Swanky, a Shopify Platinum agency based in Exeter. The capital will be used to expand talent, enhance service capabilities, and fund selective merger‑and‑acquisition deals. As part of the deal, former Havas...
University of Southampton and UCB to Develop Digital Antibodies with AI
The University of Southampton and biopharma firm UCB have launched the Digital Antibody Research Collaboration (DARC), a three‑year AI‑driven platform for in‑silico therapeutic antibody design. DARC aims to compress the typical ten‑to‑twelve‑year development timeline by automating molecule modeling, testing and...
Seraphim Space Targets £350m Raise to Accelerate the Space Boom
Seraphin Space Investment Trust (SSIT) is launching a C‑share offering to raise up to £350 million (about $447 million). The proceeds will back companies emerging from its accelerator and venture fund while pursuing fresh growth opportunities. Recent stabilisation of private‑market valuations, a...
PlaqueTec Secures £3.7m to Develop Cardiovascular Disease Database
Cambridge‑based medtech firm PlaqueTec closed an oversubscribed financing round, raising $5 million (approximately £3.7 million) from existing investors. The capital will fund the expansion of its proprietary cardiovascular data lake, BioCarta, which aggregates intracoronary proteomic and clinical information. PlaqueTec’s platform aims to...
The UK Has ‘Significant Opportunity’ to Lead Next Wave of Robotics Innovation
TechUK’s new "Seizing the Robotics Opportunity" report argues the United Kingdom can become a global leader in the next wave of robotics, provided it acts now. The paper highlights converging advances in AI, sensing, computing power and materials that are...
UK Tech Funding Roundup: This Week’s Deals From Cloudsmith to Locai
UK tech investment jumped 35% week‑on‑week, reaching £103.3 million (≈$129 million) across eight rounds from 20‑24 April. Cloudsmith led the pack with a £53 million ($66 million) Series C to scale its AI‑focused artifact‑management platform. Energy‑focused startups Rivan and Exergy3 together secured £35 million ($44 million) to advance...
FCA Continues Illegal ‘Finfluencer’ Crackdown
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) led an international “week of action” targeting illegal financial influencers, or “finfluencers,” who promote high‑risk products such as crypto and forex without authorization. The crackdown secured a guilty plea from TV personality Aaron Chalmers...
Northern Gritstone Closes £20m to Back UK Life Sciences
Northern Gritstone announced a £20 million (≈$25.6 million) funding close to expand its life‑science and deep‑tech portfolio in northern England. The capital, led by a cornerstone investment from the British Business Bank and existing shareholders, reinforces the firm’s focus on university spinouts...