News
Veremark, a London, UK-based provider of a background screening, whistleblowing, and credential verification system, raised $26M in Series B funding.
The round was led by Gresham House Ventures.
The company intends to use the funds to drive further investment in new products, AI, and further enhance its global expansion.
Led by CEO Daniel Callaghan, Veremark is a company connecting background screening, whistleblowing, and credential verification into one system. While performing background checks on new candidates for companies across the globe, it also helps businesses rescreen existing employees.
Launched in London in 2020, the company now employs 200 people, has seven offices worldwide, including the UAE, New Zealand and the Philippines and works with more than 6,000 clients globally.
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Sokin, a London, UK-based business payments company, raised $100M in debt facility from Oxford Finance.
The raise followed the $50M Series B in December 2025 led by Prysm Capital, which valued the business at $300M.
The company intends to expansion across North America, Asia, the Middle East, and South America, and accelerate the acquisition of further regional licenses, banking partnerships, and global infrastructure scaling. Additionally, investments will fund the development and launch of new products, including embedded payments capabilities.
To read more, click here.https://www.finsmes.com/2026/01/sokin-raises-100m-in-growth-financing-from-oxford-finance.html
Synthesia, a London, UK-based provider AI-generated video tools for enterprises, raised $200m in Series E funding round at a $4 billion post-money valuation.
A part of the raise will be channeled to employee secondary share sales.
The round was led by GV, with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Accel, New Enterprise Associates, NVentures, Air Street Capital, and PSP Growth.
The company intends to use the funds to extend operations, as well as its development efforts, expanding its focus to include interactive AI agents that can understand and respond in real time.
Synthesia was Founded in 2017 CEO & Co-founder Victor Riparbelli, COO and CFO Steffen Tjerrild, Professor Lourdes Agapito, and Professor Matthias Niessner, and also led by CTO Peter Hill, Synthesia is a generative AI media company that develops an all-in-one AI video communications platform for businesses. The platform allows users to generate professional-quality videos from plain text in minutes, eliminating the need for cameras, actors, or studios. Primary applications include corporate training, employee onboarding, internal communications, and personalized sales enablement.
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Evaro, a London, UK-based startup that allows consumer brands to embed regulated NHS-backed healthcare services into their apps, raised $25m in Series A funding.
The round was led by AlbionVC, with participation from Simplyhealth Ventures, Exceptional Ventures, Cornerstone VC, and BBI. Christoph Ruedig, Partner at AlbionVC, joined Evaro’s board.
The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its business reach.
Led by Dr. Thuria Wenbar, Evaro is a digital health startup that provides “embedded healthcare” infrastructure for consumer brands. Founded in 2018, the company offers an API-first platform that allows non-medical businesses—such as Clue (menstrual health) and Lovehoney (sexual wellness)—to integrate regulated clinical services and prescription medication directly into their own apps or websites.
The solution handles the entire healthcare chain, including AI-driven asynchronous consultations, remote diagnostics, e-prescribing, and next-day pharmacy fulfillment.
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Evaro, an NHS-licensed digital healthcare platform based in Norwich, has closed a $25m (£18m) Series A funding round.
Founded in 2018, Evaro provides embeddable digital pharmacy infrastructure and prescribing tools.
The company describes its model as “healthcare-as-a-service”, operating across three markets: Consumer brands looking to expand their revenue streams, healthcare providers looking to expand their digital capacity and employers, which can use the service as a form of staff health benefits.
AlbionVC led the Series A round with support also coming from Simplyhealth Ventures, Exceptional Ventures, Cornerstone VC, and BBI.
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Fintech is once again the UK’s best-funded startup sector after climate tech secured the most investment in 2023.
In the first quarter of 2024, UK fintech companies raised $1.4bn across 73 rounds, according to data from Dealroom and HSBC Innovation Banking.
Fintech funding rounds over the period include £340m raised by challenger bank Monzo and the £18.8m raised by Manchester-based AccessPay.
Fintech has historically been one of the UK’s leading technology sectors. However, last year climate tech startups accounted for nearly a third of all investment raised.
More broadly, startup funding levels stabilised in the first quarter, with total levels of investment standing at $3.9bn – the highest in Europe. However, it remains down on the $4bn raised in the first quarter of 2023 and significantly lower than the $12bn peak in the first quarter of 2022.
It follows declining levels of startup investment since the second half of 2022 as macroeconomic factors, such as rising interest rates, caused investors to take a more cautious approach.
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Traders piled into shares of Rent the Runway on Thursday, sending the shares up by more than 220% after the apparel rental firm said it was betting on artificial intelligence tools to power its growth in the current year.
More than 34 million shares had changed hands, far surpassing the usual calm trading in a stock that coming into Thursday only had a market value of $26.27 million.
But numerous companies have kicked off rallies in their stocks over the last year by talking up their plans to use artificial intelligence to boost their businesses - and Rent the Runway is now the latest to join that frenzy.
The company has forecast revenue to grow between 1% and 6% in the current fiscal year, compared with a 0.6% rise in 2023, and expects breakeven free cash flow.
"Rent the Runway has just become the poster girl for investors that believe AI can help small business and not just large behemoths," said Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point Capital Advisors.
Shares of the company were last up 138.7% at $17.82, giving it a market capitalization of about $63.3 million.
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Fashion company Shein has confidentially filed to go public in the United States, according to two sources familiar with the matter, in what is likely to be one of the most valuable China-founded companies to list in New York.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley have been hired as lead underwriters on the initial public offering (IPO), and Singapore-based Shein could launch its new share sale some time in 2024, the sources said.
Shein has not determined the size of the deal or the valuation at IPO, the sources said. Bloomberg reported earlier this month it targeted up to $90 billion in the float.
The luxury e-tailer saw modest growth as aspirational luxury consumers cut back on nonessential spending. In its first quarter of the year that ended in September, Mytheresa’s gross merchandise volume — a measure of goods sold on the platform — rose 3 percent year over year to €204 million ($224 million), against a 13 percent increase in the previous quarter.
The company’s profit margins also fell as price-conscious consumers flocked to competitors offering steeper discounts. Mytheresa’s gross profit margins slipped 7 percentage points in the first quarter, and its profits on the basis of adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation dropped more than 100 percent.
Mytheresa said it expects sales and profits for the full fiscal year ending in June to come in at the lower end of its previous guidance, with 8 percent year-over-year sales growth and 3 percent EBITDA profit margins. Investors appeared spooked about Mytheresa’s growth prospects. The company’s stock dropped more than 5 percent following its earnings release.
PlayGround, a Gilbert, AZ-based provider of a healthcare fintech payments platform, raised $19.7M in Series A funding.
The round was led by SixThirty with participation from Rally Ventures, IA Capital Group, FCA Venture Partners and Plug and Play Ventures.
The company intends to use the funds to bolster its expansion into hospitals and health systems, building on its entry in the ambulatory market, as well as grow its senior leadership team.
Led by CEO Drew Mercer, PayGround provides a healthcare payments platform that streamlines the payment experience for providers and patients. The mobile app enables patients to manage, track and pay all medical bills in one secure place. For medical providers, the modernized payment platform reduces costs, simplifies processes and boosts patient and employer satisfaction.