Cardiff University has become the sixth partner of SETsquared, the world’s top-ranked university-business incubator. Cardiff joins the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton, and Surrey and will further strengthen the group’s capability for providing enterprise and innovation programmes for researchers, entrepreneurs and high-growth companies in its ecosystem.

Vala Capital, the entrepreneur-led venture capital firm, has launched a new tranche for its EIS portfolio – targeting fast-growth British start-ups with strategies to scale quickly and become the next generation of British unicorns.

Bambino Mio, the UK’s most popular reusable nappy brand, has announced a £13m investment by BGF, the UK & Ireland’s most active investor. This is the largest investment ever in a reusable nappy firm in the UK, demonstrating the potential of the sector and the scale of Bambino Mio’s growth ambitions.

Independent advisory firm Dow Schofield Watts has expanded its debt fundraising arm with the launch of a new operation covering London and the South East. 

Techstars, the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed, has announced the launch of two new accelerator programs in Paris and Stockholm. The launch showcases Techstars’ commitment to investing in startup talent in Europe, where it plans to invest in more than 100 startups in 2022 through its various accelerator programs in seven countries. Both programs will be fully funded by Techstars, following the recent July close of a new $150 million fund, intended to support more local entrepreneurs looking for global exposure.  

The number of venture capital ‘megadeals’ in the UK has increased tenfold over the last decade, according to a report by leading UK law firm Shoosmiths in partnership with intuitive data platform, Beauhurst – UK Megadeals: Past, Present and Future.

Gresham House, the specialist alternative asset manager, has agreed to acquire the Venture Capital Trust (VCT) business (£369m AUM) of Mobeus Equity Partners. 

The independent Iberian alternative assets manager GED Capital has added three new technology startups to the portfolio of its Conexo Ventures fund: Vonzu, Pridactect and Feedzai. In this way, GED’s venture capital fund, which complements the multi-asset manager’s private equity and infrastructure strategies, now has nine startups in its portfolio and is 25% deployed.

Independent Growth Finance (IGF), a leading independent commercial finance provider, has appointed Jamie O’Neill as Asset Based Lending director. 

Plend, the UK’s first social lending marketplace, has secured £700,000 of investment from early-stage VC’s Tomahawk, Ascension, and Haatch, as well as backing from NBS Ventures, a part of Nationwide Building Society’s Incubator. The investment will be used to disrupt the £24 billion consumer lending market and bring affordable loans to 13 million people in the UK with unreliable, inaccurate or non-existent credit files who are virtually invisible to traditional financial credit scoring systems and therefore vulnerable to financial hardship and exclusion.  

Lower mid-market private equity firm NorthEdge has backed the primary management buyout of Meet, an international talent provider to the life sciences sector.

Maven Capital Partners, one of the UK’s most active private equity houses, has led a £4.4 million investment in Candle Shack, a rapidly growing eCommerce business supplying candle making components as well as providing contract candle manufacture for high profile, luxury brands. The transaction includes £3 million of funding from Maven’s high net worth investment syndicate, Maven Investor Partners, as well as a £1.4 million debt facility from HSBC UK.