Ryft, the revolutionary PSD2 compliant payments system, has raised a large seed round, led by SFC Capital, the UK’s most active seed-stage investor. Additional investors include the ex-founder of Shutterstock and the founder of LoveFilm. Ryft enables automated next day payouts for marketplace businesses and their merchants, for a single flat fee per transaction.

Emotions have a strong influence on purchasing decisions. Because of the growing popularity of assets with a strong focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals, scholars decided to look at what role emotions can play in determining people’s preference for sustainable investments.

Republic, the U.S. based private investment firm which operates the Republic investment platform, has announced the successful completion of the acquisition of Seedrs, Europe’s leading online private investment platform.

Ahead of the Accelerating Investment & Innovation Summit, taking place on Tuesday 13th September, Jordan Dargue, Head of Access to Finance at Innovation SuperNetwork, argues that, although the North East is brimming with investment opportunities, innovative businesses continue to find it hard to raise finance, and considers what can be done to attract more investors to the region.

The North East is brimming with investment opportunities. So why do we still see less investment in our innovative businesses? asks Jordan Dargue, Head of Access to Finance at Innovation SuperNetwork.

MiAlgae, an Edinburgh-based biotechnology start-up, has secured further investment of £2.3m to help drive the next stage of its growth journey.

Home entertainment and hospitality platform, HOMETAINMENT, has announced it has raised nearly £400,000 (£390,000) in funding through a crowdfunding campaign and is set to scale in London and abroad.

Roleshare, creator of a unique job sharing marketplace and management platform, has announced a $1.2 million seed round from a notable slate of investors.

Since establishing in 2002 Invest NI has provided 66,000 offers of support to almost 15,000 businesses, and helped to create 125,000 jobs, with over two thirds of these outside Belfast.

Acknowledging the milestone, Mel Chittock, Invest NI Interim CEO, said: “Our core role has always been to grow the Northern Ireland economy. This has stayed at the forefront of all we have done in the past 20 years.

The British Business Bank thas announced new ENABLE Funding facility to Propel, one of the UK’s largest and fastest growing independent asset finance providers. The new facility will allow Propel to provide around £165m of finance to smaller businesses across the UK.

 Nick Lyth, Founder and President of Green Angel Syndicate comments...

A newly launched series of business support tailored to the needs of aspiring female entrepreneurs has been launched by MENTA Business Support across Norfolk and Suffolk

2021 was a record year for investment for businesses at every stage of funding, from those going for the first round of funding to those seeking much later stage investments. The year closed out with $643 billion having been invested by venture capitals (VCs) across the globe, marking a year-on-year growth rate of 92%. Whilst it’s true that in 2022, funding slowed slightly in comparison, funding for the second quarter of 2022 still exceeded funding for every quarter in 2020.