Nick Lyth, Founder and President of Green Angel Syndicate – the UK's largest specialist network of investors fighting climate change – takes an in-depth look at carbon markets.

This article was first published by Green Angel Syndicate in December 2021.

Par Equity has more than doubled its annual investment into innovative technology businesses, from £12m in 2020 to £25m last year. This was in addition to a landmark $400m exit on the sale of portfolio company Current Health in October, which continued Par Equity’s track record of successful exits, returning cash to investors every year since 2013.

1Password, the leader in human-centric security, has closed a $620 million (USD) Series C that raises the company’s valuation to $6.8 billion. Led by ICONIQ Growth, with participation including Tiger Global, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Backbone Angels, the round is the largest raised by a Canadian company, and reinforces 1Password’s security and privacy leadership. Accel, who led the company’s Series A and B, is also participating in the round. 

A ground-breaking female-led business network has defied the pandemic and helped more than 130 businesswomen launch disruptive tech companies in under a year.  

The Angels@Essex - Female Founders and Investors has expanded rapidly since launching last May and has been labelled “amazing” by members.  

Swedish technology and design startup STILRIDE has raised £2.5m to produce sustainable electric motorcycles and scooters using a groundbreaking process dubbed ‘industrial origami’. This £2.5m seed round was joined by angels and private investors that include Gustaf Hagman, Saeid Esmaeilizadeh, Sam Bonnier and Andreas Adler. 

BGF has led a £2.5 million investment round into sustainable female underwear brand, Stripe & Stare, alongside a consortium of high-profile investors. 

 BGF provided £1.5 million of growth capital with the remaining amount coming from private backers, including Richard Longhurst, co-founder of Lovehoney, and Sam Galsworthy of Sipsmith Gin.

Headquartered in Devon, Stripe & Stare was founded in 2017 by friends and business colleagues Katie Lopes and Nicola Piercy, with the aim of creating the most comfortable and eco-friendly knickers in the world.

University of Sheffield spinout company Aegiq has secured seed investment from an investor syndicate led by High-Tech Gründerfonds, with participation of Deepbridge Capital and business angel investors. Together, with existing funding from Innovate UK, the seed investment brings Aegiq’s total available funding to over £3.5m ($4.8m). Having completed the first closing Aegiq is considering funds to join the second closing.

Nick Lyth, Founder & President of Green Angel Syndicate asks if the news about the closure of impact investment firm puts other similar investment companies under the microscope.

HBAN will stream its annual All-Island Conference on Wednesday 2nd February 2022. The event will focus on impact investing, while also encouraging more first-time and experienced investors to consider business angel investing.

BDO LLP has advised on the acquisition of HPCi Media, a leading B2B publisher, specialising in cosmetics, beauty and health media.  

Cognism, the globally compliant international sales intelligence provider has secured $87.5 million in funding led by new investor Viking Global Investors.

Vienna-based GoStudent, which provides one-to-one video-based online tutoring, raised €300M in Series D funding led by new investor Prosus, with additional participation from Deutsche Telekom, SoftBank Vision Fund 2*, Tencent, Dragoneer, Left Lane Capital and Coatue.