The Finnish Business Angels Network (FiBAN) reports a significant decline in angel investments in Finnish startups during 2023, with funding dropping from €37 million to €26 million compared to the previous year. This 30% decrease reflects the cautious stance adopted by investors amidst uncertain financial markets.

The Czech startup landscape stands a significant chance of strengthening this year, as investments in technology companies are expected to increase markedly following a leaner last year, says a report from investment group DEPO Ventures, which is constructing an international syndicate of angel investors in addition to managing angel funds.

Rubedo Life Sciences Closes $40M Series A Financing Led by Khosla Ventures and Ahren Innovation Capital. Series A financing to advance clinical development of lead candidate RLS-1496 into Phase 1 studies this year in chronic atopic dermatitis and chronic psoriasis. Financing will also advance respiratory program, recipient of a substantial CIRM grant last year, to development candidate nomination for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Pollen Careers, a job platform on a mission to transform the entry-level job market into a more inclusive and equitable space, has raised £112,000 funding via SeedLegals, which reached 100% of the target amount in just one week and closed after being overfunded by 12%. Private investors also participated in the round.  The new funding will be used to scale operations to accommodate more employers, meet growing demand, automate processes and for product design, paving the way for future scalability.

Symbe, an AI-powered platform that helps sales teams win more deals by automating the creation of tailored business cases, has raised a £1.2m pre-seed round led by Concept Ventures and joined by Pact VC, Notion Capital, and a range of leading angels through Nodes Ventures. Angels include Resolv Labs Founder, Fedor Chmile, Founders Capital CEO, Richard Hadler, and a series of angels from Stripe.

South East Angels has invested in Blue Skies Space - a startup on a quest to enable the world’s research communities to solve the biggest questions in the universe.

ITALY: Club degli Investitori has invested in Glaut’s $1.4 million pre-seed round. Glaut, founded by Matteo Cera and Giovanni Del Gallo in late 2023, aims to help the Marketing areas of large B2C companies make better business decisions through a new market research methodology: conversational surveys, using artificial intelligence to conduct in-depth market research at scale.

Relevic, a web personalisation SaaS platform, has secured £150,000 in a pre-Seed round led by early-stage venture capital firm Jenson Funding Partners. Launched in 2023 by Ali Sohail, Saad Sohail and Fahd Sheikh, the funding will be used to enhance the product whilst increasing customer acquisition.

The British Design Fund (BDF) has opened its sixth fund, and first Evergreen Fund, to investors . It will seek to continue championing the very best of British innovation, invention and engineering, from the UK’s most promising product design and manufacturing start-ups.

Fundpath, the critical data and business intelligence service for the wealth and asset management industry, has copmpleted a £2 million funding round with its venture capital partner, Fuel Ventures. This second round of funding follows a £4m investment made in March 2023.

Dorset Business Angels will hold its next pitch event on 20th May. It has already confirmed four pitching companies who are seeking funding and will be presenting their businesses at the event.

Insurtech PeppercornAI has raised £3.25 million in its latest funding round. The funding, of which Wealth Club raised £1.9m, included high net worth investors, existing investors EHE Capital and Angels Invest Wales. The round was heavily oversubscribed despite reports showing investment into UK fintech and insurtech was down 34% last year.