Pollen Careers, a job platform on a mission to transform the entry-level job market into a more inclusive and equitable space, has raised £112,000 funding via SeedLegals, which reached 100% of the target amount in just one week and closed after being overfunded by 12%. Private investors also participated in the round.  The new funding will be used to scale operations to accommodate more employers, meet growing demand, automate processes and for product design, paving the way for future scalability.

Symbe, an AI-powered platform that helps sales teams win more deals by automating the creation of tailored business cases, has raised a £1.2m pre-seed round led by Concept Ventures and joined by Pact VC, Notion Capital, and a range of leading angels through Nodes Ventures. Angels include Resolv Labs Founder, Fedor Chmile, Founders Capital CEO, Richard Hadler, and a series of angels from Stripe.

South East Angels has invested in Blue Skies Space - a startup on a quest to enable the world’s research communities to solve the biggest questions in the universe.

ITALY: Club degli Investitori has invested in Glaut’s $1.4 million pre-seed round. Glaut, founded by Matteo Cera and Giovanni Del Gallo in late 2023, aims to help the Marketing areas of large B2C companies make better business decisions through a new market research methodology: conversational surveys, using artificial intelligence to conduct in-depth market research at scale.

Relevic, a web personalisation SaaS platform, has secured £150,000 in a pre-Seed round led by early-stage venture capital firm Jenson Funding Partners. Launched in 2023 by Ali Sohail, Saad Sohail and Fahd Sheikh, the funding will be used to enhance the product whilst increasing customer acquisition.

The British Design Fund (BDF) has opened its sixth fund, and first Evergreen Fund, to investors . It will seek to continue championing the very best of British innovation, invention and engineering, from the UK’s most promising product design and manufacturing start-ups.

Fundpath, the critical data and business intelligence service for the wealth and asset management industry, has copmpleted a £2 million funding round with its venture capital partner, Fuel Ventures. This second round of funding follows a £4m investment made in March 2023.

Dorset Business Angels will hold its next pitch event on 20th May. It has already confirmed four pitching companies who are seeking funding and will be presenting their businesses at the event.

Insurtech PeppercornAI has raised £3.25 million in its latest funding round. The funding, of which Wealth Club raised £1.9m, included high net worth investors, existing investors EHE Capital and Angels Invest Wales. The round was heavily oversubscribed despite reports showing investment into UK fintech and insurtech was down 34% last year. 

Startup companies are falling into insolvency at the fastest rate in a decade. What does this mean for founders and their angel backers? John Baker and Hemal Gor of PwC UK share their thoughts....

Startups are an important aspect of the UK corporate ecosystem, it is important for the health of the overall UK economy that we have an environment where startups are capable of succeeding. Analysis that we have undertaken suggests that many startups are failing and as a consequence founders and shareholders need to take a more proactive approach to securing the funding required to deliver a sustainable future.

Cornwall is set to develop its own angel investment network to foster the growth of local businesses.  The Cornwall Angel Network is a joint initiative from the Cornwall Chamber of Commerce and the British Business Bank, aiming to help establish a more diverse investment community in the Duchy. Those behind the network are also hoping it will stimulate higher levels of equity investment in the county.

According to the British Business Bank, the network will complement other angel networks, such as Tech South West’s Angel Investor Programme, and funding streams including the lender's own South West Investment Fund which launched last year.

A new University of Liverpool spin-out company, Atomik AM, brings together cutting-edge chemistry and solutions-focused engineering expertise to enable manufacturers to reduce cost, waste and adverse social impact.