Catalyst’s INVENT 2023 competition for aspiring entrepreneurs and innovators has opened for entries, with a top prize of £25,000 for the overall winner.

SPAIN: Innitius, the Spanish startup focused on improving diagnostics for women's health, has closed a €1.8 million financing round led by Clave Capital and Nara Capital in which most of the investors who had previously backed the company have also joined.  Created in 2017 and headquartered in Bilbao, Innitius aims to improve the health and quality of life of millions of pregnant women and newborns by reducing the impact of pathologies such as preterm birth, induction of birth or cervical cancer in our society.

A clean investment opportunity to consider....Something Co produces sustainable, high performance hygiene and
cleaning products is raising EIS capital for expansion. Find out more here https://lnkd.in/e3uKWrY.

Clean Growth Fund has co-lead a £2.4m investment alongside Foresight WAE Technology (FWT) Funds into Vector Photonics, a Glasgow-based laser developer.

The funding round also included continued commitment from existing investors UKI2S and Equity Gap, and new investment from Scottish Enterprise. This is Clean Growth Fund’s first venture capital investment in Scotland and the growing clean technology cluster in the region.

A spin-out company based at The University of Manchester that is developing a breakthrough water  filtration technology, which promises to be both greener and cheaper, has secured SEED equity investment of £500,000 to help scale-up.  

Molymem, with its mission to enable cleaner water supplies for the world’s growing demand, has  developed an energy-efficient and highly versatile membrane coating based around a material called  modified molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) to create an innovative water filtration solution.  

Hut Six Security, the Newport-headquartered developer of software-based information security training products has completed a third fundraise taking total investment in excess of £1 million.

The latest round has been led by the Development Bank of Wales with their third equity investment of £200,000 being matched by a further £200,000 from Wesley Clover and the Waterloo Foundation. 

Evonetix, the synthetic biology company bringing semiconductor technology to DNA synthesis, has completed a USD $24 million financing round, extending its total series B funding to over USD $54 million (circa GB £44 million). This fundraise was led by existing investor Foresite Capital, with Molten Ventures, Morningside, DCVC, Cambridge Consultants, Civilization Ventures and Providence also participating in the round.

Proud Ventures, a UK collective of LGBTQ+ investors and investors, has released a new data report 

Green Angel Syndicate has invested in pioneering seaweed company, Kelpi as part of the £3 million seed round.

Sitehop, a Sheffield based company which has developed a new encryption solution for telecoms and data networks, has raised over £1 million from NPIF – Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia and part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF), Mercia’s EIS funds and private investors.

Optimise Health, an innovative new medtech company, has launched its latest SIES* / EIS qualifying funding round, raising up to £500,000 in equity to support the next phase of its growth and product development.  Click HERE to find out more about the opportunity and how you can invest.

ITALY: The close of a fundraising round of over EUR 10 million for UNGUESS, Italy's leading innovative crowdsourcing platform, has been announced. The lead investor is Fondo Italiano d'Investimento SGR, through the Fondo Italiano Tecnologia e Crescita – "FITEC". In addition to FITEC, investors who supported UNGUESS in previous rounds participated in the capital increase: P101 SGR with its two funds Programma 103 and ITA500, managed on behalf of Azimut, Italian Angels for Growth (IAG), Club degli Investitori and Club Italia Investimenti 2.