Magical Mushroom Company, the sustainable packaging challenger harnessing the magic of mushrooms, has raised £3m in seed funding to scale its eco-friendly packaging solution. The round was led by Ecovative Design LLC with participation by Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity – the world’s first green energy company; Robert Del Naja, the renowned activist – artist and musician; and Marcus Watson – an co-founder of Adoreum Partners, who brought 30 investors in.

SFC Capital, the UK’s most active seed-stage investor, has received a further £5 million commitment from British Business Investments to invest into innovative early-stage businesses across the UK regions. This new commitment - part of its Regional Angels Programme, designed to reduce regional imbalances in access to early-stage equity finance for smaller businesses across the UK - follows an initial £10 million commitment from British Business Investments made in 2020, which is now fully deployed.

Beanstalk, the family app that invests for your kids, has exceeded its crowdfunding target with new investments taking the company into overfunding ahead of the funding round closing on 29 June 2022. Beanstalk has raised over £650,000 via the Seedrs equity crowdfunding platform, with new direct investors including the former CEO of one of the leading fintech investment platforms sitting behind a number of stock trading apps / advisers. The funds raised will help get Beanstalk to even more families so that they can start building a nest egg for their children.

Manchester based early-stage investor Praetura Ventures has announced an additional £5m funding commitment from British Business Investments to continue supporting start-ups across underserved parts of the UK.

Entrepreneurs, founders and adventurers are being given the chance to live pitch for investment and sponsorship available at the Blue Earth Summit in Bristol in October.

From hundreds of applications, 10 semi finalists will pitch online to become one of 4 finalists to pitch live to more than 20 of the world’s best impact investment firms and hundreds of Angel and Retail investors attending the Summit. All the investors have a passion for businesses, adventures and projects that can be a force for good in protecting our planet and its people. 

Data Access Governance software firm Torsion Information Security has closed a £1.1 million funding round co-led by Bayes Entrepreneurship Fund, Juno Capital and The FSE Group, alongside investors from several prestigious Cambridge angel networks.

Cytomos, an Edinburgh-based life science company that has developed a proprietary new approach to analysing cells, has secured £1.6m funding to progress the development and qualification of its novel cell analysis platform, Cytomos Dielectric Spectroscopy (CDS).

The fundraising round by Cytomos was led by existing investor Archangels with participation from Scottish Enterprise and Old College Capital.

More and more people are turning their hand to crowdfunding these days.  Some do it for fun, some see it as an important part of their overall investment portfolio and others see it as a good way to access earlier stage, potentially high growth investments, by investing through platforms who provide access to a range of diversified opportunities with high potential for scale.

These opportunities were once only available to Venture Capitalists and High Net Worth Investors, but now are open to all with minimum investments as low as £10.

We talked to 5 serial crowdfunding investors to find out more about their different investment strategies, their experiences in the world of crowdfunding, their successes (and disappointments!) and their views on what comes next for the sector.

Pembroke VCT plc, the venture capital trust focused on backing early-stage businesses led by exceptional founders and management teams, has invested into My Expert Midwife, the award-winning, midwife-founded brand for pregnancy, birth and beyond.  The £2 million fundraise was led by Pembroke, who invested £1.5 million alongside existing shareholders and angel investors. 

Par Equity has supported 12 high growth technology companies in the first quarter of 2022 and has made record investments in the past year of £31.4m, an 83% increase on £17.2m in the previous year. 

Insurtech startup BirdsEyeView has closed a seed funding round led by SFC Capital, with the funds matched by the European Space Agency (ESA). BirdsEyeView uses satellite data to structure insurance solutions for severe weather. The funding will be used to grow the team, further develop BirdsEyeView’s tech and match ESA funding. 

Startups across the UK are being invited to enter a competition to practice their pitching skills, get connected with investors, and win prizes worth more than £10k plus a money-can’t-buy mentoring package.