Guest blog by Briony Phillips, Investment Activator
Regular readers may remember that we celebrated £90 million+ raised in equity funding by businesses across the South West in June. Well, it seems that the celebration was perhaps a little premature because, in July, we nearly doubled that amount!
Yes, you heard me right, companies raised a little over £176 million in equity funding in the South West in July. That includes a $50 million Series D round by Ultraleap and $18 million from Moneyhub in their largest round yet. in addition, a little over £8 million is not disclosed publicly. So that leaves us with a little under £170 million to talk about – here’s the low-down:
South West investment raises
Bristol-based XCD HR secured a further £3m from investors BGF to facilitate acquisition of recruitment software company Hireserve: See more here
Ultraleap, in Bristol, received investment from Image Frame Investment, a Tencent subsidiary, to the tune of $50 million (nearly £35 million). However, the investment forms just the first phase of the company’s Series D round. See more here
Bath-based Somnus Scientific has raised £600,000 to improve patient survival and recovery rates following anaesthesia. The funding comes from a combination of private investors and a cornerstone institutional investor Utilico Emerging Markets Trust plc. See more here
Moneyhub Enterprise, the market-leading Open Finance data, intelligence and payments platform based in Bristol, announced its largest investment round to date, a total of $18m, to fuel its rapid expansion into new markets. See more here
Bournemouth-based Kortext, the UK’s market leading, university focussed, digital teaching and learning platform, raised £15m from dmg ventures. The investment will help accelerate delivery of its product roadmap, in partnership with its university customers. See more here
Comentis, based in Stroud, closed a pre-launch funding round at £200,000, against a pre-revenue valuation of £2m. Funding has been secured from senior figures from legal and financial services, with the support of Invest West. The Cognitive Assessment Engine (CAE) – utilises technology to deliver the clinical expertise of renowned mental health experts to legal firms during the risk assessment process. See more here
Bodmin based business, Caterbook, has secured £100,000 of equity investment from the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund (CIOSIF), as part of a larger £200,000 funding round. The round was led by The FSE Group, the appointed fund manager for CIOSIF. See more here
And August is already looking pretty exciting from an investment perspective with TravelLocal and GapSquare announcing significant deals. Look out for my August Investment Update for the full scoop.
Find out more
The Investment Activator Programme (IAP) in the West of England run by TechSPARK. Programme sponsors are TLT LLP, delaware, WECA, UWE, Sanderson, Engine Shed and Rocketmakers. Find out more about the IAP and South West Investment: https://invest-southwest.com/
If you are an investor and you would like to receive the regular newsletter and event invitations related to investment, please find more information and sign up.
And finally, if you are raising investment for your business and you would like to submit your one page proposition for the next QIB event on 23 September, find more information here