Browne Jacobson’s corporate finance team has advised Impala on its successful $11 million investment round.

Deutsche Handelsbank has welcomed Jens Munk and Dr. Frank Schlaberg as Co-CEOs and plans to accelerate its growth. 

Livingbridge, one of the UK’s leading mid-market private equity investors, has made a £15 million investment in Nationwide Hire, an aggregator of equipment rental and hire services.

Law firm Ashfords LLP has bolstered its Financial Services team with the hire of Legal Director Cynthia Ma. 

Quantum machine learning company Rahko has raised a £1.3m (USD1.6) seed round led by Balderton Capital, Europe’s leading Series A tech investor. Balderton usually invests at Series A but makes rare seed investments when it discovers exceptional teams like that at Rahko. Balderton is joined in the funding round by venture firm AI Seed and angel investors Charles Songhurst (former Microsoft Head of Corporate Strategy), Tom McInerney (Founder, TGM Ventures), John Spindler (CEO, Capital Enterprise) and James Field (CEO, LabGenius). 

MJ Hudson has signed for a multi-year sponsorship of Harlequins. The firm is the first official partner of Harlequins Women, which currently competes in the Tyrrells Premier 15s.

Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA) and Landsker Business Solutions have been appointed by the Development Bank of Wales to deliver £2 million of ring-fenced funding for social enterprises in Wales. 

A report from the Female Founders Forum – with a foreword from Rt Hon Liz Truss MP – reveals that while the percentage of deals to female-led teams slightly dipped in 2018, female-led businesses represent a growing share of investment activity and receive similar rates of follow-on funding.

• Female-founded startups are receiving a growing share of investment. In 2011, 11% of startups that raised equity investment were female founded. By 2018, this figure had nearly doubled to 21%. 
• Of the 6,147 investment deals made in 2018, 17.9% went to companies with at least one female founder, down from 18.2% in 2017.
• Nonetheless the total amount invested in businesses with at least one female founder in 2018, as a percentage, was 11.4%, up from 9.9% in 2017.

Codacy, the Lisbon-based startup whose platform automates and standardizes software quality to increase the efficiency of developers and enterprise development teams, announces raising $7.7M in funding. This round is led by Join Capital, with participation from EQT Ventures, Armilar Venture Partners, Faber Ventures, and Caixa Capital.

IW Capital has launched their innovative new EIS Portfolio Service, allowing access to investment into the UK’s wealth of high-growth SMEs through the EIS. The service will cater to both advisers and private investors with a simple transparent fee structure providing investors the ability to claim tax relief on the full investment amount.

Launched after considerable demand from IFAs, the service will allow easier routes to investment in a fast-growing sector of the UK economy for clients looking to diversify their portfolios with high-growth private companies.

BGF, the UK and Ireland’s most active investor in growing businesses, has appointed Hannah Waters as an investor in its Cardiff office.

When George Jones' son developed terrible eczema as a child, she was unable to find any products that didn't aggravate his condition so she set out to create her own by launching Bathing Beauty from her kitchen table in 2010.  Now, thanks to a £45,000 loan from Development Bank of Wales, the ethical skincare company is expanding to meet the ever-increasing demand for its products.