Kernel Capital and Suir Valley Ventures have invested €2.25 million in Dundalk based Nova Leah Ltd. The round was led by the Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital Growth Fund (RoI), with a €1.5M investment. Nova Leah has developed a pioneering cybersecurity compliance solution for medical device manufacturers and healthcare providers. It has been designed to improve the security of connected medical devices, improve patient safety and reduce associated regulatory costs. The platform has global deployments with a blue chip customer base.

BBC presenter Claudia Winkleman hosted the 2018 Growth Investor Awards ceremony. Over 450 movers and shakers from the UK’s vibrant SME investment community attended the fourth annual black-tie dinner to celebrate the stellar success of 16 award winners. Kevin Hollinrake, MP for Thirsk and Malton opened up the ceremony with a keynote speech.

FreeOx Biotech, a spin-out of Hospital Clinic Barcelona-IDIBAPS created in 2017 that is developing a new class of neuroprotective drugs, has closed its first round of funding with €500,000 from private investors Montserrat Esteve and Francisco Javier Alsina.

A week on from an Autumn Budget that failed to address the differences in opportunities for women in  compared to men,

Scottish startup Cyan Forensics, which develops digital forensic technology to help law enforcement catch criminals faster, has closed a £900,000 investment round led by Mercia Fund Managers, bringing its total funding to nearly £1.5million since it was founded in 2016.

AN INCUBATOR designed to help fledgling companies grow and thrive in County Durham has been launched at one of the region’s fastest growing business hubs.

Pioneering ethical P2P/crowdfunding platform Abundance equity raise on Seedrs is now fully funded with more than the £1.2m target raised.  It took just 13 days in the end and attracted more than 750 investors, the majority of whom were Abundance’s existing customers, achieving the companies aim to share its success and ownership with its remarkably loyal customer base.

Independent jewellery company Fenton & Co. has announced its launch into the UK market, challenging the lack of transparency and pricing in the industry. The launch was enabled by a £850,000 seed funding round, led by social impact investor Mustard Seed. Investment was also received via The London Co-Investment Fund, as well as a number of angel investors, including two early investors into Bloom & Wild: Camila Dolan, and Akshata Murty.

Northern Powerhouse focused company NorthInvest has announced a new partnership with Leeds based consultancy Driad.

Rejuicenate, a small business run by Liverpool-based sibling trio Adil, Leith and Dina Taha has won British Business Bank’s inaugural Good to Grow competition. The prize included a day’s business consultancy with investor and entrepreneuer, Piers Linney, who is also a Non-Executive Dircetor of the British Business Bank.

Foresight Group announces the £1.5m growth capital investment into Inovo Robotics Limited on behalf of the Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund.

Inovo is developing a low-cost collaborative robot (“cobot”) that can integrate into existing workforce processes. Inovo’s modular design means the cobot can be easily adapted to varying customer requirements.

Henry Wood and Jonathan Cheung, previously senior engineers at Northrop Grumman, founded Inovo in 2016. Both founders possess deep technical expertise and experience of delivering complex engineering development projects and, between them, they have more than 30 years of combined experience in robotics and engineering.

Mercia Technologies investment Medherant, a developer of innovative transdermal drug delivery treatments for pain and CNS diseases, has successfully completed two Phase I studies with its novel Ibuprofen TEPI® Patch.

The TEPI Patch was shown to be well tolerated by all subjects in a study of skin irritation and sensitisation. This marks the first clinical safety evaluation of Medherant’s novel adhesive, facilitating the development of the next generation of drug-in-adhesive patches.