The Growth Company has been awarded a £56.5m contract package as a result of bidding for ESF from the Education and Skills Funding Agency. This European Social Fund investment package will be delivered in partnership with Local Enterprise Partnerships in Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Sheffield City Region over the next two years.

Albemarle Street Partners (ASP), the specialist advice and investment management consultancy for advisers, has announced a merger which will allow it to benefit from greater investment research and portfolio management expertise, delivering an enhanced service to its clients.

The Riverside Company, a global private equity firm, has made a significant investment in E&A Scheer, the largest global blender and vendor of premium rum in bulk. With origins dating back to 1712, Scheer specializes in sourcing and custom-blending to create high-quality, tailor-made rum blends. Scheer’s blending operation is located in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and aging facilities reside in Liverpool, United Kingdom, where its subsidiary the Main Rum Company (MRC) is located.

Mobeus has announced that Matt Mead has joined the team in the newly created role of Venture Partner working across its VCT investments.

Senseon, the next generation AI platform for cyber defence, has announced the completion of a seed funding round of $6.4m. Leading the investment is research-led venture capital fund MMC Ventures, alongside Mark Weatherford, former Deputy Under Secretary for Cybersecurity, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Additional investors include Amadeus Capital Partners, Crane Venture Partners and CyLon.  The funding will allow Senseon to continue its rapid expansion in the UK and increase its presence in EMEA and the US.

UK-leading meal kit company, Gousto, has raised another £18m in equity funding, bringing the total raised since launch to £75m. Attracting new investment from global health influencer, Joe Wicks, along with all existing shareholders: MMC Ventures, Unilever Ventures; Hargreave Hale; BGF Ventures and Angel CoFund.

Gradtouch, a Manchester Based job matching business, has received a funding boost of £150K from GC Angels, the angel investment arm of the Growth Company.

A recruitment business specialising in the financial sector has experienced rapid growth after developing a solution to a classic problem for SMEs.

The Finance People help small and medium sized enterprises to scale up by providing them with senior financial expertise often on flexible working contracts.

It takes a headache away from small business owners who often struggle to cope with the financial requirements that come with growing a business.

ClearlySo, Europe’s leading impact investment bank, has announced that it has appointed Gillian Wilmot as chairman. 

Octopus Investments “Octopus”, part of Octopus Group and the largest provider of venture capital trusts (‘VCTs’) in the UK¹ has today announced it has passed the £1 billion milestone in VCT assets under management.

Octopus is the first and only investment manager to reach this milestone, which comes after recent fundraising. The assets are spread across Octopus’ four VCTs, which are currently supporting more than 200 portfolio companies.

FrontM, which provides business ICT applications for enterprises operating in areas with little or no standard telecommunication infrastructure, such as Airplanes, ships and remote areas that rely on satellite network infrastructure to meet their operational and communication needs, has raised money from Jenson Funding Partners.

The British Business Bank’s 2019 Small Business Finance Markets report finds that some businesses expect an impact from Brexit, but many remain optimistic about growth.