News
The chancellor will announce a science and tech venture capital (VC) investment growth scheme inspired by the US in his upcoming Autumn Statement speech.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who has often stated a desire to turn the UK into the “next Silicon Valley”, is expected to announce plans for a fellowship programme to increase the supply of tech-focused venture capitalists, as first reported by The Guardian.
The scheme, said to be worth £3m, will offer up to 20 fellowships to act as a small but meaningful boost to specialist investment into the sciences. The scheme is in part based on the Kauffman Foundation in the US.
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Hampshire-based virtual reality (VR) firm nDreams has been acquired by Swedish video game company Aonic in a £90.3m deal.
Headquartered in Farnborough, nDreams develops and publishes VR games, working with partners representing the major headsets such as the Meta Quest, Valve Index and PlayStation VR.
The company has developed games such as Phantom: Covert Ops, PowerWash Simulator VR and Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord.
The company has now be acquired by Stockholm-headquartered Aonic, which in 2022 invested $35m (£28m) into nDreams.
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Microsoft is hiring former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman.
Altman was fired from OpenAI on Friday after the board said it “no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.” After a weekend of negotiations to potentially bring Altman back to OpenAI, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that both Altman and Brockman will be joining to lead Microsoft’s new advanced AI research team. Altman will have the CEO title of this new group.
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Female Founders Fund on Tuesday filed with the SEC to start raising $75 million for its fourth fund.
That amount is the biggest yet from FFF: Fund I was just $6 million, and Fund II was $25 million. In 2021, it closed an oversubscribed $57 million for Fund III, which saw Goldman Sachs, Pivotal Ventures, and Plexo Capital come on as limited partners.
London-based AI coaching app Bloom is launching in the UK and US after raising a $10m (£8m) seed investment.
Founded last year, the Bloom app merges insights of “industry leaders”, behavioural science, AI, psychometrics and check-ins to provide a personalised coaching experience.
Bloom says it has achieved more than “10,000 coaching moments” and is used by businesses including Manchester-based ecommerce company THG.
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Fnality International, a London, UK-based provider of DLT-based wholesale payment systems, raised £77M in Series B funding.
The round was led by Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas, with participation from DTCC, Euroclear, Nomura and WisdomTree. There were also additional investments from Series A investors Banco Santander, BNY Mellon, Barclays, CIBC, Commerzbank, ING, Lloyds Banking Group, Nasdaq Ventures, State Street, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and UBS. It followed a follows Series A of £55M in June 2019.
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UK-founded crypto exchange Blockchain.com has closed a $110m (£88m) investment round that has halved the valuation of the unicorn.
The Series E round, which was led by Kingsway Capital, has valued the company at less than $7bn, a sharp drop compared to the $14bn valuation the company received following a funding round from March of 2022, first reported by Bloomberg.
Other participants in the round included Lakestar, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Coinbase Ventures.
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Imprint, a NYC-based provider of co-branded credit cards for brands, raised $75M in Series B funding.
The round was led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Thrive Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Moore Specialty Credit. The company intends to use the funds to further enhance its balance sheet and empower the scale of its existing and new programs.
Led by CEO Daragh Murphy, Imprint is a co-branded credit card issuer that provides brands with co-branded credit card programs that increase customer loyalty. Its digital cardholder experience and designed technology stack deliver bespoke programs and customized rewards for each brand. Imprint tailors the level of program integration to each brand’s needs, and can launch programs in as little as 3 months.
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Will Private Equity drive the M&A recovery?
A record $2.5tr in Private Equity (PE) cash reserves are waiting to be invested. This dry powder could spur a rebound in M&A with broader impacts across the economy. PE firms deploy this cash to acquire private companies ripe for growth, with the goal of driving higher valuations. Historically, a higher store of cash has been strongly linked to greater PE deal activity.
Since 2000, global PE cash reserves—also known as dry powder—have grown at a 12.7% compound annual growth rate. This capital has been a key source of growth and funding for companies, with PE making up roughly 40% of the global M&A market.
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Databricks, a San Francisco, CA-based data and AI company, raised an undisclosed amount in Series I funding.
Existing investors Amazon Web Services (AWS), CapitalG, and Microsoft, along with new investors AT&T Ventures, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), and Sanabil Investments, participated in the funding round, which put the company at a $43B post-money valuation. They joined previously announced investors participating in the Series I funding, including Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, Capital One Ventures, ClearBridge Investments, funds and accounts managed by Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), Fidelity Management & Research Company, Franklin Templeton, Gaingels, Ghisallo Capital Management, GIC, NVIDIA, Octahedron Capital, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and Tiger Global.
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