Dow Schofield Watts Angels has completed its second deal, with a £300,000 investment in Miribase Limited, the company behind the Shopblocks e-commerce platform.

Over 25 angel investors took part in the funding round, which will be used to accelerate Shopblocks’ revenues by investment in new sales and marketing resources.

The Shopblocks platform provides a hosted website and online shop solution for SMEs. Shopblocks makes it possible for businesses to launch a bespoke website in an easy and cost-effective way. It fills a gap in the market between inflexible, template-based platforms and custom-built websites which are typically developed by digital agencies at much greater cost.

Maven Capital Partners has exited from its investment in Cursor Controls Limited, a developer and manufacturer of human machine interface (HMI) devices for some of the world's most demanding environments. The sale to DiscoverIE Group plc has realised a return for Maven clients of 2.68x the initial investment in just over three years.

Cursor designs, manufacturers, and supplies a range of leading edge products, including trackballs, touchpads and ruggedised keyboards. The business, which is based in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, generates over 90% of its sales from international markets, exporting to over 30 countries. Its high precision products, benefitting from patented technology, are used by leading brands in the medical, defense and aerospace, marine and industrial sectors.

UK-based tech firm, Gorilla in the room, has appointed Martin Fincham, the former CEO of global enterprise software company LANSA Group, as its chairman ahead of the company’s next funding round.

Following a seed investment from Mercia Fund Managers in January 2018, the business has launched Discover, a market leading immersive research mobile product, and is now raising further capital to transition from a service-based business to a subscription model.

Shieldpay, the secure payments provider, has been awarded an Innovate UK grant.  

The funding will be used to scale up Shieldpay’s Third Party Managed Account (TPMA) solution in the UK and lay strong foundations for Shieldpay to expand into the global real estate market.

In May this year, Shieldpay successfully completed the UK’s first fully digital real estate transaction with MyHomeMove and Barclays, with the support of the Council for Licensed Conveyancers and other industry stakeholders. The solution also enables parties to complete on transactions at anytime from anywhere, that includes completing a house purchase on a weekend or bank holiday.

Seraphim Capital has revealed the startups that are participating in Mission 2 for Space Camp, the world’s first dedicated accelerator for global startups in the SpaceTech industry. The cohort includes 10 companies, expanding on the six that took part in the successful Mission 1 earlier this year. Featuring startups from the UK, the US, Norway, and Sweden, Space Camp is being run from the offices of global law firm Dentons at London’s St Pauls.

Launched by Seraphim Capital and backed by corporate sponsors such as Inmarsat, Rolls-Royce, and Cyient, as well as the UK and European space agencies, SA Catapult, and Capital Enterprise, alongside Seraphim Space Fund partners including Airbus, Surrey Satellite Technology, SES, and Telespazio, Space Camp is a nine-week programme, culminating in an investor day on 20 November.

HeleCloud, an IT consultancy and managed services provider specialising in highly sophisticated Cloud strategy, implementation, migration and operation services, has received a £2m minority investment from BGF to further accelerate its growth strategy. Thnding will support the company’s services portfolio expansion, the establishment of its presence into further European territories, and the development of new Cloud capabilities. HeleCloud was founded in 2016 and has grown rapidly and currently has more than 50 employees. It has an exceptional reputation and has already worked on projects with global corporations and household names, and references market disruptors such as Viber, the NEX Group, and Zopa.

The team behind Lara Croft’s smile in the newly launched bestselling Shadow of the Tomb Raider video game are turning their technology sights on the customer service sector following a significant funding boost.

Speech Graphics is an Edinburgh and California based technology business which provides market-leading, real-time audio based facial animation, featuring in productions from video games to music videos and now, with a £2m investment from Archangels, the prominent business angel syndicate, Par Equity and Scottish Investment Bank (SIB) the company is targeting the customer service sector’s Intelligent Virtual Assistant market from its base in the San Francisco Bay area of California.

A University of Oxford spin-out company which has developed a software platform for broadcasters has secured an £850,000 investment led by the MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund, which is managed by Mercia Fund Managers and part of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund.

The funding will allow Covatic to bring its software to market and create six new technical and management jobs. This latest investment, which also includes money from Oxford Sciences Innovation fund, Creative England, management and private investors, brings the total raised by the company to over £1.6million.

Foresight Group has announced a £500,000 equity investment into Mobile Pay Systems, trading as Swoopos, through the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF).

Swoopos provides a Mobile Point of Sale (“MPOS”) universal payments system that combines ePOS and cloud-based technology to deliver rich data analysis for businesses operating in the hospitality, and, soon the retail sector. The system includes a mobile wallet, booking system and mobile ordering, as well as a management reporting suite to help the retailer capture and monitor customer data.

Paragraf, the graphene technology development company, has rapidly followed its seed investment of £2.9m, announced in May 2018, with the opening of a groundbreaking, new facility north of Cambridge, UK. The site represents a turning point for graphene-based technologies, enabling Paragraf to drive large-scale development of mass-market, graphene-based electronic devices. 

Paragraf’s proprietary production technique overcomes the quality, contamination and reproducibility barriers faced by other graphene production methods. The customised equipment at the Cambridge facility will allow Paragraf to convert its cutting edge laboratory research into novel products, including next generation sensors, solid state electronics and energy storage cells.

Preservica today announced a £7.5 million ($10 million) Series B investment from Mobeus Equity Partners to meet accelerating demand for its Active Digital Preservation software technology. The investment provides an initial £4 million with a facility for a further £3.5 million to support Preservica’s continued global expansion plans.

Expandly, a Milton Keynes-based company whose e-commerce software allows retailers to sell across multiple channels worldwide, has closed a £580,000 funding round led by Mercia Fund Managers.

The investment, which will create five new jobs, includes £250,000 from the MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund which is managed by Mercia for the Midlands Engine Investment Fund, £250,000 from Mercia’s EIS Fund and the remainder from angel investors.