Polling commissioned by British Business Bank, the UK government-owned economic development bank, has revealed one in three (33%) smaller business owners want to grow their businesses but are unsure on how best to achieve that growth.

Often, smaller businesses want to grow but just don’t consider, or know of, the alternative finance options available to them. The new polling reveals, for example, that only 5% of businesses have considered angel investment whilst only 7% have considered crowdfunding.

Older business owners are significantly less likely to be aware of or to have used alternative growth finance options than their younger counterparts. One in five (19%) millennials (under-35s), for example, have considered crowdfunding, compared to fewer than one in twenty (3%) over-35s.

Durham County Council and Blaenau Gwent Borough Council have launched a call for technology businesses to develop innovative solutions that can capture and analyse data to transform Local Authority service delivery. Development funding is provided under the GovTech Catalyst Fund scheme and the competition opens for applications on 24 September.

Full competition documentation will only be available to applicants who register via Innovate UK’s website once the competition opens on 24 September. Further information can be found https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/245/overview.

Scottish Equity Partners has been named as one of the world’s most consistent, top performing venture capital fund managers by Preqin, the data and intelligence specialists for the global alternative assets industry.  

See the full rankings here.

An Edinburgh-based startup enabling businesses to gain insight from customer support conversation data has secured £115,000 in seed funding.

Optoscribe, a leading supplier of glass-based integrated photonics components, has raised £2.8 million. This funding will facilitate an expansion of current manufacturing capacity, the hiring of key engineering resource and allow the business to meet the demands of a growing customer base.

Ethereum Classic and ZCash have been added to deVere Crypto, one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, due to strong client demand.

NPIF - Maven Equity Finance, managed by Maven Capital Partners and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, has invested £200,000 as part of a £700,000 funding round in Biorelate, a technology platform using artificial intelligence (AI) to efficiently curate data in biomedicine.

Existing investors, Catapult Ventures via the Greater Manchester and Cheshire Life Sciences Fund, provided £150,000 and the Manchester Tech Trust Angels provided £350,000. The funding will be used to expand the team, and to develop its product offering, including three new SaaS products.

Divido, the consumer finance platform for retailers, lenders and payment intermediaries, today announces a $15 million USD Series A raise led by Dawn Capital and DN Capital, with additional participation from Mastercard, American Express Ventures and previous investors. The Divido board has also appointed Renier Lemmens as chairman. Mr. Lemmens has previously served as Chief Executive Officer of PayPal EMEA and Chief Operating Officer of the International Retail & Commercial Banking Division of Barclays.

Talis Capital, a London-based venture capital firm focused on technology companies, has invested $2.5million into Learning People, the UK’s leading online training company, and SkillsFox, its B2B arm serving corporate training and development needs. 

aescuvest and EIT Health have launched the first pan-European equity crowdfunding platform for European healthcare companies today: aescuvest.eu will be the number one such platform dedicated to foster and fund innovations from European start-ups and SMEs in an end-to-end digital process, and allow companies to promote campaigns and EU citizens to invest across borders. The platform will give both, retail and institutional investors access to best-in-class companies in the core health sectors biotechnology, medical technology and digital health. As prospectus-based security offerings, investment opportunities went through a thorough approval process. The start of the first campaign is expected in Q4 2018.

Office workers are being urged to swap out sugary treats for these ten brain foods in order to stay alert and proactive throughout the day.

The Invested Investor speaks to angel investor and is a Senior Partner for Frog Capital, Shirin Dehghan

Shirin has a fascinating story about resilience, understanding when to make tough decisions and planning for her company’s sale. Shirin is a successful entrepreneur, having founded and sold Arieso. She is a seasoned angel investor and is a Senior Partner for Frog Capital. In Part 1 of her podcast you will hear how she learnt so much from the pitfall of a lost contract, and how much time and effort she spent to ensure the company was ready for a potential buy-out. This is a truly exciting entrepreneurial story, that includes a tough decision to ask her husband to step down as her CTO in order for the company to succeed in the States.