Seneca Partners have appointmented Siobhan Pycroft as Investment Executive in their expanding Growth Capital Team as they target new investment of £15 million during 2020. Seneca is seeking to support well-managed businesses with strong leadership that can demonstrate established, proven concepts and are seeking an injection of growth capital and expertise to support their continued development.

Edinburgh-based bioinformatics company, Fios Genomics, which helps pharmaceutical and biotech companies to analyse the large amounts of data generated during drug development, has announced a strategic partnership with one of the world’s largest contract research organisations, Charles River Laboratories.

Intertrust, a global leader in tech-enabled corporate and fund solutions, has signed a strategic agreement with Round Hill Capital, a leading global real estate investment, development and asset management firm. The deal sees Intertrust acquire the legal, corporate and accounting services team of a subsidiary of the global firm.

Oxford Investment Opportunity Network (OION) and Oxford Angel Network (OAN), part of Oxford University’s commercialisation arm Oxford University Innovation (OUI), are merging, with immediate effect, combining their operations to form a strong and cohesive Oxford-based angel network.

Access to finance for growth is critical to starting and scaling ground-breaking tech companies. This merger will contribute significantly to strengthening the appeal of the Oxford Cluster as a great place for companies to flourish. It is a vital step towards realising Oxfordshire’s potential, as expressed in the Local Industrial Strategy, of becoming one of the leading innovation ecosystems worldwide.

Antler, the global startup generator and early-stage venture capital firm, will today reveal the thirteen companies that were founded during its first London program. The companies have raised a total of £1.56m from Antler (£120k per company), and will be revealed on stage at Antler’s London ‘Demo Day’, which will be hosted at The Royal Institution.

Maven Capital Partners, one of the UK’s most active SME finance providers, has invested £8.5 million in nine dynamic growth businesses across the North East in 2019, driving economic prosperity, and creating over 80 jobs. Since opening offices in Newcastle and Durham in 2017, Maven has invested over £17 million in businesses across the region, providing funding packages tailored to the growth needs of local companies.  Maven has participated in investments ranging from £150,000 to £7 million in local businesses across the North East and has also successfully leveraged an additional £7 million in private sector finance last year.

In its 20th year, MMC appoints two new partners alongside another four promotions within the team.

QVentures, manager of 29PP Pre-Seed Fund, will be leading the funding round in Ocyan, a cloud operating system for enterprise blockchains and P2P networks. Joining QVentures in the round is Wayra UK, the open innovation arm of Spanish Telecom giant, Telefónica. 

Free Spirit Fund managed by Sanford DeLand Asset Management (SDL), home to the Buffettology Fund, has celebrated its third anniversary with strong performance; ranking 10^th out of the 243 funds in the IA UK All Companies Sector over the same three year period.

Philanthropic food and drink start-up accelerator, The Seed Fund will open for entry on Saturday 1 February, with 12 spots up for grabs on its game changing summer Academy. For the first time ever, marks will be set aside for socially responsible initiatives during the initial application stage and judging process, so the project’s organisers are particularly keen to hear from value-driven businesses across the UK.

Elder, a leading care home alternative, has raised another £8.2m funding round as its technology-enabled live-in care service gains nationwide popularity, bringing the total raised to £16.5m.

Elder is one of the UK's fastest-growing startups and has delivered more than 350,000 days of care in more than 300 towns and cities across the UK since 2016 – with the Outer Hebrides being the only remaining area where care is yet to be delivered.

FeedStock, an AI-driven SaaS business that leverages the latest natural language processing technologies to enable financial services companies to meet both their compliance requirements and commercial goals, has secured a £2.5m investment in a funding round led by Praetura Ventures.